DJ Robot Citizen: Alternative Music Clubs Events & Radio Canberra Australia

29/08/2025

Gothabilly surf rock time :) My Best of Messer Chups playlist on YT is close to 30K plays!

28/08/2025

00:00-00:31 Intro00:32-05:06 The Origins of Gothic Rock05:07-12:49 Post-Punk/Goth/Death Rock12:50-19:00 Second Wave and Commercial Success

25/08/2025

Also this Saturday is METAL FIESTA at The Baso Canberra "8 Bands over 2 Stages" I've witnessed 4 of them and they're awesome!

Send a message to learn more

25/08/2025

this coming Saturday at Shadows - Canberra: "Get a second dose of '90s rave, house and techno at BACK2RAVE ... DJs Chris 'Fresh' Fraser, Jon Wicks, Raydar, Emagica and a special live performance by inkbits singing live" presented by STUN Magazine

Send a message to learn more

24/08/2025

😁 Found last night a Theatre Soundtrack I did in early 1995 is on YT at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5HTAnwTukI ... It's a video recording of the whole play. It was ah, quite a weird/odd/perverted noir play called "The Second Scream". It was performed at The Street Theatre in Canberra; near the ANU university; around 4 nights I recall.

For "The 2nd Scream" I just did the soundtrack. I certainly had no role in the ah, the strange topics of the narrative! ... About a third of the music were my own compositions that I mixed/performed live from the sound booth with a 4-track tape machine, a synth workstation, a drum machine and some CDs. The intro piece includes snippet-mutations of Stravinsky's "Rites of Spring" and Beethoven's "5th". Other music pieces are by other artists like Laibach, Godflesh, Kronos Quarter that I mixed together or performed with. I also did the sound FX eg. screams, phones, baby sounds mostly from CD. I thoroughly enjoyed that month or so with everyone involved.
I love at the end the actors during the applause point up to us in the sound and lighting room.

24/08/2025

wrote this in reply to a question in Industrial Music - My spontaneous guide to SPK: "an industrial rock and noise rock group formed in Sydney, Australia in 1978." ... My fave SPK album is the compilation of early singles and EPs 1978-83: "Auto Da Fe" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaBPJU9yfLQ&list=RDqaBPJU9yfLQ ...
You'll hear 3 or 4 distinct phases on there. Starting with the original lineup making industrial punk noise; then several tracks dabbling with early EBM; then several of a more tribal gothic kind of industrial ...

Related visuals from 1978
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJIbSejU9xM

The best album album is the 2nd one "Leichenschrei" [1982] widely considered to be a masterpiece of [authentic] industrial music.
For me it's side 2 that really cranks though side 1 builds up to it ... the whole album build n builds to a climax of sorts ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXcs_hgIHH8

The first album "Information Overload Unit" [1981] is more of a drone noise album.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1DEHbZQT8k

SPK live in 1981 at a Sydney Brickworks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbpDEE51H3s

There are numerous recordings of live performances from around that time.

"From Science To Ritual" 1983
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEtkpfhOOJU

"The Last Attempt at Paradise" 1982
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59jIcZHhsuM

"Live At The Crypt" 1981
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdXJIIuLlSA&

Several others from 81-82 I just found, that I've yet to hear:
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNkCXTb7IAo
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5RMvnOtE3A

In 1983 they released the VHS video compilation "Despair".

It's not for the faint-hearted, contains disturbing autopsy/morgue footage and similar shock-horrors.
Playlist
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftZ4xxPp0uQ
and
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9VVIjatiSNYRl-9XSMzwSl2b6XUxf5m5
Info
https://www.discogs.com/release/1256556-SPK-Despair

In early 84 one of the OGs Stephen Neil Hill died by su***de.
I gather other members came and went for different albums and EPs.

From 83-84 I gather the project was just one of the OGs, Graeme Revell, with his partner Sinan and others coming and going to do it live. The sound shifted to be more pop formulaic with MIDI sequences more dominant; replacing much of the prior live-played percussion and synths. Hence imho it lost the organic "industrial" wildness of earlier albums. Though it's still quirky/angsty, compared to mainstream pop
- "Machine Age Voodoo" 1984 album
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9NJm4b_NZ8

And done live it was quite raw and industrial, though not as wild as the earlier lineups/incarnations eg. the track "Metal Dance" in 84
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dc4XsuKRCC8

Live on Spanish TV in 1983 with Sinan on vocals
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xk-wja1fwz8
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gNjpUQHH-Q
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtoZYWJG2l0
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80FHJp_ODL8

The project then became a mix of dark ambient soundscapes and some electro-dance-pop.

The 1986 album: "Zamia Lehmanni Songs Of Byzantine Flowers"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmdNFc31w0Q&list=RDMmdNFc31w0Q&start_radio=1

The 1987 album "Gold And Poison Digitalis Ambigua"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9P0o3lVW40&list=RDR9P0o3lVW40
It starts with an electro-pop fem-vocal track "Breathless". Has 4 songs then some of the soundscapes from the 86 album.

Then there was a live album titled "Oceania". I can't find it on YT though here is some of it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JP0CLHzxz0Y

Graeme Revell then went on to become the soundtrack composer/producer for tons of Hollywood movies! You've likely seen at least several. Huge list of them here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graeme_Revell

Those soundtracks are a follow on from his mid-late 80s SPK soundscapes.
Through those soundtracks, movies seen by hundreds of millions maybe billions of people, he is probably [by far] the most widely heard musician that came out of the industrial genre.

Example: "The Chronicles Of Riddick" soundtrack
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTM_5suY9wg&list=OLAK5uy_kuH53zl8Z3fusdFUdW58kY5PAMdkmgEwQ&index=2

Info Refs:

SPK Wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPK_(band)

SPK Discogs page:
https://www.discogs.com/artist/22501-SPK

FB page: "SPK industrial music and noise group"
https://www.facebook.com/groups/420460264648068

My Best of SPK playlist on YT
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_c-kMnb-AgfP3sZL0ExjcifYwDVE67QP
though quite a few tracks are missing since I made that.

2007 interview with early member Tone Generator [Dominic Guerin]
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlOz-UmxJN4

My page for them at:
https://www.australiangothicindustrialmusic.com/bands/SPK-band-music-songs-videos.html

23/08/2025

And tonight at The Pot Belly 4 bands of heaviness. Notes from the page: "After blowing away crowds in Wollongong and Sydney with their debut run in June, Hence Confetti are set to bring their dark, immersive brand of progressive metal to the nation's capital for the very first time. Catch them live at The Pot Belly on Saturday, August 23rd, as they deliver hypnotic riffs, towering dynamics, and an atmosphere soaked in dread.
They'll be joined by Canberra's heavy rock wildmen, Slowbeard, bringing a fuzzed-out wall of riff-laden chaos to the stage. Rounding out the lineup is a local heavy metal battalion, Shockwave, along with Fleetwood M**h, Sydney's d-beat hardcore disruptors known for their raw energy and so whiplash."

Send a message to learn more

23/08/2025

tonight at The Baso: 5 bands of "Symphonic and metal mania"

TONIGHT 👉 Hell's Symphony Tour w/ Where the Devil, Carbon Black, Project: Ultmate Satan, Shatterface & Desolate Symphony
TIX IN BIO

Where the Devil
CARBON BLACK
Project: Ultimate Satan
Shatterface
Desolate Symphony
Northern Horizon Music
Rogue Ascent Music

23/08/2025

Post with lots of comments about Canberra's nightlife in early-mid 80s which was before my time of being a night owl ... One of the comments is like my prior rambles, of how in the 80-90s, with half the current population size, there was like several times more the nightlife venues around Canberra, as compared to the past 10-15 years; especially so compared with recent times ... From one of the other comments: "I think there were so many night clubs because the Alcohol Licence was only $500 a year, now it's over a $100,000 a year." Edit: In comments below Rob Bee added: "A liquor licence is still cheap in Canberra under 5 grand." From that I'm thinking the chap who said it was $100K may have mixed in the booming costs of insurance.

Send a message to learn more

23/08/2025

I've postponed the September 6 VAMP due to an ankle injury which needs more recovery time. I notified Shadows several weeks ago. We're all looking forward to doing VAMP events there again ... The tram-railway work in the city, near the venue, means it's quite a hike to'n'fro the carparks on the other side of town; with cases of heavy gear; then the stairs; plus most of all there's the risk I'll dance/jump about too much too soon = retrigger the injury and not be able to get back to my car on the other side of town, with a ton of equipment ...
As for the Sep 26 "Scream" event at The Pot Belly, there are lots of carpark spaces 20 meters across the street and no stairs for me to contend with.

23/08/2025

Ouch! I wrote: "that's almost a tie but I'll vote for Bauhaus "Flat Field" because that was first and was one of the first gothic rock albums I heard and was an iconic "game-changing" album for me in my teens" ... Below: the albums on youtube ...

Bauhaus - "in the flat field" 1979
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxT5tjDXNuE&list=OLAK5uy_mwucSISqHOX1HXsYyKZp_WUQjR9h1Paw0&index=2

Virgin Prunes - "If I Die I Die" 1982
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIpqUersiXw&list=PL_C7zpUC_vudnJY-SXJfNtgsu37OFdU0D