LULU'S NOVEMBER 2023 NEWSLETTER

Here is the NOVEMBER 2023 Newsletter and Calendar, emailed at the start of the month to our mailing list and physically available free in store.

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To our dear friend

It has been a wild month for Lulu's and the Lulu's Sonic Disc Club, thanks for being along for the ride!

Listen to the splendour of the new Lewers LP we announced a couple weeks back. You will have it in your hands next week. Keep on chasing that feeling - a beautiful record full of beautiful songs - don't give up, you will find what you are searching for.

There is an announcement below concerning the second phase of our subscription club that includes this fantastic Lewers record.

Alongside the writeups in this newsletter, which include a heap of local Melbourne stuff, we strongly encourage you to check out the new tape of demented Melbourne underground hits from Cloud Ice 9 and the new Leatherman 7" on Legless. Back in stock after long time is the RYUICHI SAKAMOTO'S B2 UNITS and the David Lynch script for Ronnie Rocket, a couple blasts from the past back to haunt you.

Love, Lulu's xxx

THIS MONTH:
MOM GALLERY NEWS
R.M.F.C. "CLUB HITS" LP
550BC - "BRICK COLLECTORS" BOOK 
PHANTASM - "CONFLICT REALITY" 7"
CIVIC - "NEW VIETNAM & SINGLES" LP
MVEY MANTA - "DAWN OF MANTA" CS
STEPMOTHER - "PLANET BRUTALICON" LP
PLEASERS A.D. - "DEMO" CS
ALIEN NOSEJOB - "THE DERIVATIVE SOUNDS OF..." LP
ANGEL DU$T - "BRAND NEW SOUL" LP
LULU’S SUBSCRIPTION DISC CLUB #2
THE LEWERS - "518A" LP

MOM GALLERY NEWS

It's been a big month in the gallery! We were lucky enough to have Aidan Link-Freeman step in at the last minute to present his debut show 'I think i'm missing the point'. He brought in such a great body of work and I want to thank everyone that managed to come see the show throughout the month.

Following that we had the opening for our biggest show yet, 'Dopamine Suppository' by Melbourne's favourite eccentric; Cosmo Feltham. From hanging Harajuku girls from the ceiling to nailing up a fox ear, Cosy has managed to bring us our most aberrant and colourful show yet, showcasing his originality and artistic talent in spades. Cosmo will be in the gallery most days catering to the public, he has encouraged anyone to bring by shirts, hats or more life size cutouts for him to paint and alter for you. Or if you don't have such objects, come pick something off the wall, I'm sure something will make you feel weird enough that you simply must have it.

We have Robyn Daly exhibiting throughout December so free up some wall space at home and stay tuned for an opening announcement.

See you in the gallery!

Love MOM.

R.M.F.C. "CLUB HITS" LP
(Anti-Fade)
ROCK MUSIC FIGHT CRINGE
What is modern music writing without the opening descriptor “long awaited”? To describe most records as being awaited is ridiculous. Nobody today has the patience to wait for a text or a tram or a traffic light… and yet… there is something here, I have a point to make…
Please resist cringe – I will not cringe, cringe is the mindkiller – I assure you, I never use words like “long awaited debut” in polite conversation and avoid those who do by general rule.
But.
ROCK MUSIC FINESSE CLASS
The imminent arrival of the R.M.F.C. long awaited debut means rules must be broken, tablets must be shattered, sacred pigs must be slaughtered…
In our age of media saturation and attention deficit, where every band has side project with a triple LP catalogue before they’ve played a show or had opportunity to tease or tantalise, there’s a lot of easy music being created… and forgotten… look back over the past decade and see how many hype bands you’ve forgotten, how many redundant “long awaited debut” ended up ashen within a month. Nobody is waiting for more easy music. We are waiting for the R.M.F.C. Club Hits LP.
Anyone paying attention to underground Australian guitar overdose would relate: the R.M.F.C. Club Hits LP has been the culmination of five years of work, patience and discipline. If you’ve heard these songs live at any of their shows over the past couple of years you’ll understand – the wait is over and the result is exhilarating.
ROCK MUSIC FANATIC CONVULSIONS
To your average German the sound of Bach made them reverent with Lutheran frenzy, and for the average rock music fan the sound of R.M.F.C. makes them catatonic with guitar overdose.
To your exceptional German composer that came after Bach, the sounds of Bach inspired genius invention, and for the generation of exceptional rock music creators that come to Club Hits, a great deal of easy listening rock music has become redundant and this is a new standard: the craft of these songs is precise, the flow of this record is masterful.
Club Hits is one of those rare records that sounds absolutely of its time without evoking depression, despair and disgust – for we live in times of desperation that most rock music bands are adorning with insipid, tedious tunes that couldn’t make most people put their phone down let alone believe in R.M. – but with the benefit of 80 years of ROCK MUSIC to draw on, there’s a lot of mistakes that Buz learned from and hasn’t replicated here.
ROCK MUSIC FOOTBALL CLUB
I like music and I like football. I like physicality, sweat, blood, I like music with guitar and drum… I like to experience being in the presence of violent movement that is graceful and produces goals or songs…
Great live band this R.M.F.C. Kicking goals, making songs.
If not for the experience of watching them play these club hits live, I don’t think we would be “awaiting” this record. Which is to say, on record FC President Buz takes on all duties: songs written, songs recorded and songs mixed by the Commander In Chief Clatworthy.
If this was the extent of it, if we couldn’t SEE and FEEL the rock music in R.M.F.C., if it was RECORDED MUSIC FAN CLUB - I’m sure you understand me – Buz has managed to make a solo bedroom project into a rock music band of great quality, and hearing these songs develop and stick in your head for days and weeks and months after the show, festering and waiting to be unleashed on the world this coming November 3rd.
ROCK MUSIC FAN CLUB
For those who read these things without listening first, you might ask: what does this R.M.F.C. sound like?
Let’s stay with the overused descriptors – I think R.M.F.C. is rock music band, more specifically a post-punk band.
Indulge me.
If you could say anything about post punk it means post-Wire, who were past punk before punk had an opportunity to codify and become everything brilliant and stupid that we’ve spent 40 years unpacking.
Wire unpacked punk immediately and spent three perfect albums mapping what comes next – their “long awaited debut” came after a pub rock punk phase… and entered into the world of angular guitars and arctic ice feel.
Wire’s opening Pink Flag jab – Chairs Missing straight – and 154 hook knockout has haunted the mixing desks of ambitious post-punk bands since, and every major city in the western world has at least one Pink Flag band, one Chairs Missing band, one 154 band.
Few bands manage to sound like all 3 records, but R.M.F.C. are rock music fan club…
ROCK MUSIC FREAK CLUB
One day when I listened to the Velvet Underground ‘What Goes On’, I thought: this is a perfect song. I could listen to this song for hours on end. I did this – I listened to live versions, multiple ten minute plus jams, alternate mixes, and then back to the album. Over and over again. The song continually delivered new revelations, I saw a golden path leading through a dark cloud of misery, surrounded by spite and resentment, a golden path leading toward something better… and in Club Hits, I hear that same obsessive nature, I could imagine you understand this too, I know I am not alone in listening to rock music like I am encountering the sacred sound of a new religion… you must be obsessed to make music like this, and you must also respond with true passion and devotion… our times need the Club Hits…
ROCK MUSIC FINAL COMMENT
R.M.F.C. Club Hits LP on Anti Fade (AUS) / Urge Records (USA) released on November 3rd.
Written, recorded and mixed by Buz in Burrill Lake and Sydney between January 2022 & April 2023. Mastered by Mikey Young. 

550BC - "BRICK COLLECTORS" BOOK
(550BC)
THE COCAINE COLLECTOR GUIDE FOR BREAKING INTO PORT CONTAINERS
Brick Collectors is a detailed guide with 40 products used by ‘‘cocaine collectors’’ who break into the container terminals of Dutch and Belgian ports.
The multi-ethnic mercenaries from the Netherlands infiltrate port terminals to locate their target container and collect the assigned cocaine bricks on the instructions of drug lords or cocaine distributors.
In 2023, more than 200 cocaine collectors were apprehended in the ports of Rotterdam and Vlissingen, with the youngest being 14 years old.

PHANTASM - "CONFLICT REALITY" 7"
(Hardcore Victim Records)
PHANTASM (ft members of HACKER, TÖL and one of the heads behind HARDCORE VICTIM) crashed onto the map in 2023 and since crushing their first live show in February they've been rocking and mocking the system and finally ready to drop a seven-inch warhead right on your skull. Their sonic spectre resides in the grimmer corners of crusted hardcore x 2Kanarcho - it bounces, trounces, smashes, thrashes the fashes and ain't gonna tell you that everything is fine. Three initial bursts wreak some sort of amphibian havoc all over turgid wetlands - a friendly fire bombsplash here, a doomed gasp bubble of air there, here a crash, there a crash, everywhere a crash! It’s the type of direct drive hardcore that knows how to use its three gears wisely. The combination was delivered in preparation to make you their dessert; on their closing track PHANTASM are ready to eat you alive. Now that they got you weak... the lips are licked... tears begin to flow... the final marsh begins... death roll... horror... you end.

CIVIC - "NEW VIETNAM & SINGLES" LP
(Anti Fade Records)
Civic brought the ruckus with their early EPs and here it is all in one place! Though espousing some scrappy energy these are fully formed barnburners for fans of The Saints, Radio Birdman, Dead Boys, The Hives and maybe even Turbonegro. New Vietnam became a near-instant classic but these EPs are where CIVIC start to cook with a new gas. See; Selling, Sucking, Blackmail, Bribes - totally it's off its head.

MVEY MANTA - "DAWN OF MANTA" CS
(Self Released)
MVEY MANTA is fairly out there and outside. Heavily obscure rote alternative music made by a solitary young musician who is obsessed with Black Metal but refuses to play it, so instead it skirts around the tenuously linked sounds happening around the same time. This isn't streaming anywhere online and with eighteen tracks it's hard to summarise but if you dig Cold Wave, No Wave Industrial, Post Punk, Black Metal and maybe some early/gnarly Grunge you might need to hear this for yourself. Or if you just want to hear what a young person creates by themselves with no attachment to any sort of scene or popularity contests, check it out.

STEPMOTHER - "PLANET BRUTALICON" LP
Legitimate rock and roll in the vein of most of ya heroes. Neil Young and Stiv Bators fans (along with the rest of you guitar guzzlin' longhairs, short-hairs and no-hairs out there) can rejoice at the 12" incarnation of STEPMOTHER! 

PLEASERS A.D. - "DEMO" CS
(Self Released)
Madly refreshing to hear a new Oi! group who realise the genre isn't only about acting like the hardest baldy in the room. Plum off the bat PLEASERS A.D. hit you with a streeted and punked balladed number (which I've long thought is where much of Oi! music's value makes itself most readily apparent) and them king hits keep coming - three of the songs are rambunctious stompers and the other half are more bleary affairs, but sometimes the twain meet and you can just see the sparks flying in an old tavern somewhere. Dedicated to Milwall FC.

ALIEN NOSEJOB - "THE DERIVATIVE SOUNDS OF..." LP
(Anti Fade Records)
Guess who's back? ANJ's back, in 60's form! This style of rave-up nonsensicals is a sweet change of pace from the usual ALIEN NOSEJOB stylings while sitting well against the back catalogue; it feels less give-a-toss-about-anyone-else and more give-a-toss-about-me and that makes for healthy solo compositions. "THE DERIVATIVE SOUNDS OF..." gets downright pretty and that's pretty cool if you ask this Indigo Child. If you're worried about whether it's a punk record or not we'll impart a timely reminder that after a few drinks your favourite musicians would let slip that they reckon The Kinks were a punk band and we'll leave it at that. 60's rules ok.

ANGEL DU$T - "BRAND NEW SOUL" LPANGEL DUST bringin' that Brand New Soul space jam shit. Hypermelodic pop punk with some college rock tinge and 2K hardcore knowledge. I don’t know if it’s feral music for nice kids or nice music for feral kids. Either way Angel Dust are providing phat wherever they go. Pop ya wig.