Owen’ ’em Nothin’ – The Owen Guns Violating Community Standards

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Punk’s Not Dead – Some Bastard Keeps Giving It CPR

Okay, we have to do the thing and warn y’all that this album contains NSFW stuff and all that. So if you are easily offended, the Wiggles are thata-way. Also, Foldback Media NT is an equal-opportunity publication and this genre is just as legitimate as any other. We do however apologise to cyclists. We are also apolitical, so the views expressed in these songs are those of the artists.

Sean the Bastard (Sean St Leone, aka lots of unprintable things) is not backwards in coming forward. Nor is he not forward in moving sideways either, having fronted Darwin’s Plonker back in the day, and Sydney’s MILAT, a harsh noise ‘experiment’ that always reminds me of my first marriage. Now based in the ‘Gong south of Sydney, STB and The Owen Guns have a bit more in the way of resources and gig spaces to spread their wonderful poison and they do it so well.

I have the distinct advantage of having had my formative years in the UK in the very early 1980s, tubing it to punk gigs in central London and legging it from non-like-minded thugs trying to slice my boat race wiv broken bottles and Stanley knives along the train platforms, jumping barriers and prizing open the doors of moving carriages to escape certain scarring, if not a right kicking from a pair of 16 hole Docs – all to the soundtrack of The Damned (before they went mainstream), Stiff Little Fingers, Sham 69, Anti-Nowhere League, and their ilk (I arrived a little late for the Sex Pistols, more’s the pity). Well fuck me ragged, this album brought me right back to that time, albeit on meth and with a ketamine chaser.

‘Violating Community Standards‘ does what the name says and no large error. But it is done well. Surprisingly well. Production makes the difference between having to be polite and saying ‘This really rocks Sean, when’s the next gig?’ and nodding appropriately, or just smiling an inane and knowing smile and not having to say anything because they know it’s good. It’s good. Deal with it.

Cyclists. Landlords. A Certain Republican Leader. Taking responsibility. People who bludge shit offa you but never help when you need something. These songs are short, fast and obnoxious – just the way Hell intended. Shitty music for shitty people indeed. If being shitty means letting your neurons out for a run along the tube station platform every now and then, being chased by Psychobillies with broken bottles of Newcastle Brown and a gut-full of dextroamphetamine and with murder on their mind, then call me Shitty McShitfeatures. This takes me back to a simpler time and I like it – a time when up was up and down was three days later. The legs might not move so fast anymore but the spark never leaves you.

‘The Ballad of Cheeto Hitler‘ is topical and had it’s fair share of YouTube censorship which in my book automatically gives it legend-status – kinda like that time I let off fireworks on that school history trip to a World War I battle field in France and the Gendarmes sent in the bomb squad looking for a kid without legs from old ordnance they thought had exploded. But I never complained of bone spurs. I swear for realz that this video was actually banned from Pornhub for violating THEIR community standards. If that doesn’t make it the most legendary Australian punk vid ever, then my name isn’t Susan (?) Check it out here:

Oh did I mention the theremin in this track? Yes, there is one. Really.

If you have read this far you are probably the sort that would buy or stream this album – get it on the usual streaming suspects: https://smarturl.it/TheOwenGuns-VCS?fbclid=IwAR0EwmLDfkfIdsGGeDeK8jOwSMcIW-VtPS9j-36Xa5Vc9L62KGrAFqeXm2I

Don’t be shit – make it a hit.

The end.