Thank you

Hey, a big thanks for your continued support of Off The Hip Records thru 2012.

this year was another big one for us; we turned 10 at the beginning of
the year, and it's been our pleasure to bring you many great new
releases thru the year from the likes of: KING SALAMI, TOMBSTONE
RAMBLERS, MIDNIGHT WOOLF, THE SINGLES, ZOOBOMBS, JOHNNY CASINO, MESA
COSA, BRAT FARRAR, CRYSTAL THOMAS, THE NO REAL NEED and RUSSIAN
ROULETTES. plus many great gigs in the record store, and some great
live sets along the east coast by touring bands: ZOOBOMBS (japan)
KING SALAMI (uk), LOS CHICOS (spain), and JOHHNY CASINO Y LOS SECRETOS
(spain). plus we got a couple of local bands over to europe: MIDNIGHT
WOOLF (sept) and BRAT FARRAR (for what felt like most of 2012, please
send them home so they can record a new album).

our plans for 2013; we got releases at the (vinyl) pressing plant for
LA BASTARD, TEA, CARRIE PHILLIS AND THE DOWNTOWN 3, then into the year
records for JOHNNY CASINO (it wouldn't be a year at off the hip
without something new from our man johnny), LOS CHICOS (with a tour
sometime the second half of the year), and many many more.

this year's christmas instore party is friday 14th dec, live we got
LEECHES (perth punk), plus local acts IOWA and CHRIS RUSSELS CHICKEN
WALK. rock up from 6:30pm, BYO.

and saturday 15th dec we're throwing a benefit for our flooded
brothers over in Brooklyn, NY - NORTON RECORDS - who lost their entire
warehouse to the recent Sandy hurricane floods. OLD BAR w/ MIDNIGHT
WOOLF, MESA COSA, THE REPROBETTES and WRONG TURN ( as a friggin 3
piece, yes they went 'soft' and added a bassman in the form of the Rum
God- ask to see his plaque, as he still hasn't shown me?); all
proceeds will be donated to NORTON RECORDS.

important: off the hip's last day of trade for 2012 will be friday
december 21st, we'll re-open wednesday 9th january.

happy festive season, and we look forward to bringing you more great
music thru 2013,
mick, jack and chris - off the hip records

THE SINGLES "Use it for yourself" 2xCD - OTH 7114

THE SINGLES "Use it for yourself" 2xCD - OTH 7114 

The Singles are a band I have always rated as highly likely to make it big. I find them one of the most charming pop groups around. The songs are inhabited by characters from broken homes, children whose fathers have died, boyfriends whose girlfriends have left them lonely and despairing. They tread the same general trail forged so admirably by the Buzzcocks and the Undertones, and though they have not scaled those dizzy heights of popdom there is every suggestion their best moments are still ahead of them. - Roadrunner, 1981.

So wrote the ex-Riptides guitarist and music journalist Scott Matheson in the music magazine Roadrunnerin early 1981. But like with The Saints, The Triffids, The Go-betweens and The Boys Next Door, the wider Australian music scene was not receptive, even hostile, to bands whose music didn’t fit the commercial music industry mould that existed at the time. Many lesser bands went on to enjoy commercial success in Australia with vastly inferior songs. Many bands decamped and went to Europe. The Singles battled it out in Sydney striving for recognition and success.

The Singles started playing the Sydney inner city scene in the early 1980s in venues such as the Civic, Rock Garden, Chequers, Frenchs, the Paddington Green and the Heritage Hotel. Their sound was post punk art pop reminiscent of the Buzzcocks. The songs are simple, melodic, catchy and straight to the point pop. Songs such as ‘Love of Loves’, ‘Stay’, ‘Perfect Girl’, ‘Sad Clown’ made instant connections to the young inner city Sydney audience who just missed mid 1970’s punk scene.

In early 1980 the Singles release their first ep Love of Loves on Double Think Records. This ep immediately sold out. Later in 1980 the Singles released Someone that I knew on Basilisk Records and this further cemented their sound and their audience. Someone that I knew started getting solid airplay on the ABC’s Sydney music station DoubleJay (2JJ). The Singles started to fill inner-city venues and booking agencies tried them in the large suburban beer barns where their post punk pop sound didn’t go down with suburban audiences who wanted the Radiators, ‘Chisel’ and the Angels and definitely not charming pop.

Undeterred The Singles continued to play the inner city while venturing out into the suburbs supporting the likes of Sunnyboys and InXS. They released the limited edition cassette singlesSomething’s’ Not Right in 1981 and The Party in 1982. Their final single The Day was featured on the compilation Shake and Shout released by Survival Records in 1984

This was a time when Sydney’s rundown inner-city saw an explosion of creativity from a new generation of youth who inhabited the squats and cheap rent terraces of Darlinghurst, Chippendale and Newtown, This generation referenced a blend of mid 1970’s nihilist British punk and the blistering attitude on 1960’s American and Australian garage pop. It was a time when in both Sydney and Melbourne young musicians and artists were breaking the shackles held over the Australian music scene by commercial radio and record companies that controlled Australian music through the 1970s.

While the Singles received critical acclaim in the music press, enjoyed solid air play on 2JJ and a held a loyal and enthusiastic inner city following, wider commercial success eluded them. In mid 1983 they played their last show at the Sydney Graphic Arts Club in Chippendale just a few blocks away from the terrace where they formed four years earlier. Use it for yourself is an anthology of The Singles songs from their EP, single, cassette and compilation releases from 1980 – 1984.

Disc 1

Vinyl & demos

1 Someone That I Knew

2 The Day

3 Love Of Loves

4 Sad Clown

5 Stay

6 If You’ll Only

7 The Perfect Girl

8 Billy

9 It Wasn’t Really There

10 What Was Wrong

11 I’m Tired

12 Run On A String

13 How Does It Feel

14 Maybe No One Knows

15 Virgin

16 Use It For Yourself

17 Visit

18 Since I Met You

Disc 2

Live at Caringbah Inn, April 1982

1 What I Want To Do

2 Every Other

3 Playground Of Love

4 What Was Wrong

5 Since I Met You

6 Opening Doors

7 Stay

8 Just My Imagination

9 Can We Play

10 But Til Then

11 Sleepless Nights

12 Say Hello

13 The Party

14 Something’s Not Right

15 Uninvited Guests

16 What Am I

17 Sad Clown

June news from Off The Hip!

g'day,

winter is here and you may be thinking of spring cleaning that vinyl
collection in the garage, or up in the attic. off the hip records are
looking to buy vinyl collections from people with good taste in music
like yourself. get in touch with mickster 03 9621 2044 and he'll sort
a good price for the whole collection.

coming next for the off the hip record label:
KING SALAMI AND THE CUMBERLAND 3 (UK) compilation CD, melb/perth tour in august
JOHNNY CASINO AND THE SECRETS 2x7", sydney/melb tour mid august
ZOOBOMBS (JAPAN) compilation CD, melb/sydney/wollongong/newcastle tour august
THE SINGLES (sydney 1980) retrospective compilation 2xCD
TEA (adelaide) debut album LP/CD

Off The Hip bands in the recording studio:
*Little Murders are currently recording a new album provisionally
titled "Rocket To The Moon" ..hopefully to be released before the end
of the year. Recording at Audrey studios with Craig Pilkington
producing

*Green Circles are in the middle of recording 11 new tracks for an
album due for release later in the year

*Midnight Woolf have finished recording a new album. LP release coming
Sept in time for their tour of Spain.

*La Bastard have just finished mixing a new 3 track single, "Take Me
Away' which will be available in digital format from next week and
will be launched on Friday 22nd July at the John Curtin Bandroom.

gigs for June:
sat 16th june - the tombstone ramblers @ the lansdowne hotel w/ spg
and thundabox.

Sat 16th June -Little Murders @ Victoria Hotel w/ Thee Wylde Oscars

Friday 22 June - La Bastard single launch and bon voyage show @ the
John Curtin Bandroom with the Peep Tempel and the Velocettes (Jimi's
last show with the band and last gig for 5 months!)

Fri 22nd june - The Dunhill Blues @ the green room enmore w/ the
intercontinental playboys.

Sat 23rd June -Little Murders @ Lyrebird Lounge w/ Danny McDonald & guests

Sat 23rd June – The No Real Need @ Victoria Hotel, Brunswick. w/ Mad
Nanna and Brashs

Sat 23rd June- Midnight Woolf @ The Grace Darling Hotel, w/ Mesa Cosa
and The Loveless

Fri 29th June - ROCKET TO MEMPHIS @ The LuWow, Fitzroy w/ support
HILLBILLY JACK

Fri 29 June - Thee Wylde Oscars @ The Retreat Hotel, w/Matt Sonic &
The High Times

Sat 30th June - ROCKET TO MEMPHIS @ The LuWow, Fitzroy

Sat 30th June-Midnight Woolf @ The Square (Sydney), w La Mancha Negra,
Glitter Canyon and Blackbear

May news

G'day,

Thanks to everyone that got out to one (or more) of the LOS CHICOS
shows; what a fabulous party!! LOS CHICOS plan to return late 2013!!
and right now i'm booking shows for not one, but two touring bands due
here mid august: KING SALAMI AND THE CUMBERLAND 3 (UK) and JOHNNY
CASINO Y LOS SECRETOS- our man in sydney plus his spanish backing
band.

recent releases:
**THE HARD-ONS "SMELL MY FINGER" 2xCD - Citadel Records is proud to
announce a five part reissue series The Hard-Ons - A Decade Of Rock.
This definitive body of work will present the entire official recorded
output of The Hard-Ons' first ten years of existence with a new
reissue every three to four months.
Smell My Finger debuts the series. Spanning the years 1984 - 1987, it
contains all of the band's early 7 inch releases and the two 12 inch
album releases Smell My Finger and Hot For Your Love, Baby. Every
officially released Hard-Ons' tune from the period, down to the most
obscure compilation track, has been included. Adding interest to the
mix is some bizarre and fascinating live documentation from salvaged
party tapes and desk recordings.

**CRYSTAL THOMAS AND THE FLOWERS OF EVIL "A CHANCE IN HELL" CD -
Through unhinged guitar lines and intense brooding vocals, Crystal
Thomas is set to release 'A Chance n Hell' - Crystal's sophomore
album; written, recorded, and co-produced with Spencer P Jones and
Matt Walker, captures Crystal’s 'Australian-gothic', confessional
lyrics over a dark disco pulse and rock n roll swagger, raw against
the lush production of the previous offering – 2008 Stovepipe records
release.

**THE NO REAL NEED "NONLOCAL MOTIVES" CD - Nonlocal Motives is The No
Real Need’s second album, and is the first
document of the band as a four-piece. Recorded by Robert Pollard’s
right-hand man Todd Tobias at Waterloo Sound in the USA, and by Brent
Punshon at Melbourne’s Head Gap, it has more of a live feel than
2009’s Thistles Where We Slept; yet the addition of new voices has
only broadened the canvas for Steve’s idiosyncratic pop, which reaches
a little further out into space this time. The songs project richly
imagined, echo-laden nth dimensions, littered with metaphysical
musings and Jungian freak-outs. There are more layers, more
echo-tinged tangents than before, all coated in a sticky shared DNA
damaged as much by grunge as by tape delay. But the essential sound of
Steve’s operation remains: an odd blend of stiff-armed Colin
Newman-style experimentalism and buttery, harmonised pop. Probably
closer to the latter, much to the drummer’s chagrin. Cassette version
available in April on Do Your Block.

coming later this month for the off the hip record label:
**JOHNNY CASINO - SAMPLER CD featuring new recordings from Johnny's
many current projects; secrets album, johnny solo album, johnny y los
secretos, carrie philis and the downtown three 7", plus tracks from
his entire career. Who can stop this man??

**THE SINGLES CD - compilation from this early '80s sydney powerpop
band. contemporaries of LITTLE MURDERS and YOUNG MODERN.

GIGS:
Sat 12th May The Chords (UK) @HiFi w/ Little Murders & the Messengers

Saturday May 12th Midnight Woolf @ The Gasometer w/ Mass Cult and Bad Vision

Friday 18th May - Brothers Grim and the Blue Murders @ the Tote w/ La
Bastard and the Murlocs

Saturday May 19th Brothers Grim @ The Tote w/ Midnight Woolf and the Merlocs

Sun 20th May - JOHNNY CASINO & friends @ The Sando from 4-7 for FREE !

Fri 25th May – The No Real Need @ Town Hall Hotel (Album Launch) (2 sets)

Friday 25th May - La Bastard @ the National Hotel, Geelong w/ The
Living Eyes and the Kremlings

Sat 26th May. Cold Harbour @ Great Britain w/ Little Murders

Thursday 31st May - La Bastard @ the Luwow, w/ Murder Rats and Sin and
Tonics (Tasmania)


get in touch for your next mailorder, or simply drop into the record
store when you're next in Melbourne town.

have a tops weekend, and thanks for your continued support of a true indie,
mickster