The Sunset Strip

More evidence has emerged, as if more was needed, that I'm ridiculously disorganised when it comes to Sunset stuff. Mea Culpa! Warwick noticed, while playing the Stone Lazy album on one of the streaming services, that the the track 'I Dont Believe You' was missing; a track that's on the vinyl! Seems, when uploading it, I used an older version of the album where we experimented with omitting that track. It's a sprawling, dirt-laden epic that opens side 2 and I completely left it off!!! I've fixed the Bancamp version but, rather than delete the whole album from the streaming services (and have to go through the convoluted process of getting it back into the streamers), I'll include it both here on this post, and as a bonus streaming single that you can splice into your digital version of the album if you want to. It's telling that I didn't twig to the problem for 10 years. Thank goodness the Big W is more on the ball!

PS it also features Tim Hemmensely (GOD, Bored! and The Powder Monkeys) on bass and Mike Glen from HOSS on drums). Miss ya' Timmy.

The Sunset Strip - I Don't Believe You DistroKid

Released three years ago. My God, that's gone fast. If you never got round to buying it and want to support a local band, feel free to grab a copy from Bandcamp, streaming or physical copies from Greville Records We've still got the original vinyl or it's included in a variety of Sunsets 'Fun Packs' (well, fun for us cos we're "shipping more units" as they say in The Biz) exclusively from Greville.

Open City by The Sunset Strip Stream and Save Open City - Distributed by DistroKid

I've never been able to get my head around how streaming services get updated about our info. To get into a streaming service you don't access the actual service. You go through 3rd party services like Distrokid and pay a regular fee for them to 'administer' your presence on things like Apple Music. In our case, we have to use Distrokid's annoyingly clunky interface to add our band, to add new music or to edit info Distrokid has already put on the services.

My initial error was to add our band under Sunset Strip instead of The Sunset Strip. Mea Culpa. There were already bands and albums under the first version and they simply rolled our music into these other bands profiles.

But we're not the first to make a mistake and, according to Distrokid, there are ways to fix this. Firstly, I wanted to change our band name to include the definite article and, secondly, I wanted to separate our music from other people's stuff. What a nightmare it is.

You have to tell Distrokid where the errors lay and get them to make the change in a process so opaque I really had no idea if I succeeded until I saw a couple of services start to use our correct name. But some continue to use the old incorrect name and I've tried multiple times to get Distrokid to fix it without success.

Same with unravelling our 'The Sunset Strip' tracks from other musicians with the name Sunset Strip. Some services seemed to manage it, some not. So there's an ongoing confusion if you search for us.

You can't, of course, speak to a human being or even the trendy and 'ever accurate' AI substitute for a human. You have to hammer away at Distrokid's web page. With fingers crossed and hope in our eyes and faith in our heart and FAQs read and adhered to and a whole lot of "how the f**k is this simple thing so complex" we've hardly managed a thing.

So do other bands and musicians face this s**t? Am I just too stupid to understand the process? Why do streaming services even need another level of bureaucracy between them and creators? Fear? Liability? Laziness? I dunno. It's complex and frustrating and counter to everything tech is supposed to do for us. Rant completed, I feel moderately better.

How cool is it that fantastic Aussie musician Claire Burchall chose a Sunset Strip tee for the Aussie band tee day (or whatever is was called - I'm so out of touch). I had this tee made up especially for her. If you want one (with any pic or album art),let me know and I'll work out the price. Thanks Claire Cassette

God I'm disorganised. Way back in 2019 I put up on Bandcamp our Crystal Ships album as a simple ad for the physical media, meaning to change it shortly thereafter to a streaming option. Yesterday I was looking at our sales wondered why there wasn't a single order for that album (one of our best). I completely forgot to creatre a download link for it! Anyway, for the few who still might be interested, here's the link -

Crystal Ships Infinite Arrivals, by The Sunset Strip 2 track album

On December 1st a memorial concert for the late Dean F Bateup (wyld vocalist for Behind The Magnolia Curtain) was held at The Barwon Club. We were damned fortunate to have both Maree Robertson and Geoff Zypell organising different parts of the event and it went off magnificently.

3 bands played (The Gas Babies were scheduled but had to drop out). The Geetroit Zoo threw down some cramps-like rockabilly rebelliousness. It was great to see Tommy back on stage and in great voice after such a long time away. They weren't planning to continue but they should.

Next up Clifford Parade laid down some of the Stoogiest of Stooges rifferama I've heard in a long while and I love that sorta' stuff. They were so loud they cleared out the front row fans like Old Man Death wielding a scythe.

Next up was the, cough, Supergroup which was me (Andy) on guitar, Russell Baracevic on vocals, Geoff Z on bass, Geetroit Zoo's Rory on guitar, Clifford Parade's Mark Wiffo Wiffen on guitar and Dean's son Harry on drums. For your money (at this free show) you got Neil Young's Down By The River, Ledbelly's Bourgeois Blues and Alex Chilton's Bangkok. Most of the band had barely or never heard the songs, there was no soundcheck and Russ and I played the Nomad's version of Bangkok while the rest seemed to be doing a straight 12 bar. Chaotic? Hell yes, and gloriously so. Very much in the spirit of shambolic entropic madness that the early Magnolia gigs were notorious for. If only we'd had Dean to really bring it on home!

I probably looked all casual beforehand and on stage, but I was sweating buckets and my hands were shaking! 35 years to the month since I last took to the stage in a band (Wazza and I did a duo thing in 2011 but no band stuff).

The Supergroup was also supposed to have Warwick Brown, ex-Magnolia Curtain member, on guitar but he had to drop out. Buzz was also meant to have been in it but illness ruled him out. Get well Buzz. I missed you not being there. With old Magnolia member Geoff in the Supergroup, we would've channelled Magnolia even more. Ah well.

Here are my pics. Maree and Geoff's pages have lots more.

We're proud to be included on the new compilation of Aussie music from 1985-94 called Time Capsule. Our track is a cover of The Velvet Underground's I'm Gonna Move Right In (shortened by us to just Move Right In). Available from all good record stores.

Various - Time Capsule. Australian Sounds. 1985-1994. Volume One. View credits, reviews, tracks and shop for the 2024 Vinyl release of "Time Capsule. Australian Sounds. 1985-1994. Volume One." on Discogs.

Nice to be played on this U.S. radio show.

Prior to The Sunset Strip, Wazza and I were in a band called Behind The Magnolia Curtain. John Nolan (Bored/Powder Monkeys) was also in it. The band did some demo recordings and released a self-funded cassette but never really had a chance to be heard in Melbourne beyond 3RRR and the odd club gig.
In a great piece of news for Sunset-Bored/PM fans, Scotti from the very excellent Fantastic Mess Records (http://www.fantasticmessrecords.com/) is soon to release a 7 inch (and a cassette EP with a bonus track!) taken from that cassette.
One side will be ‘In My Hell’, a Dean Bateup/Warwick original from the Dean-era of the band in the vein of The Scientists (and never before released in any form). This will be backed by a Warwick, John and Simon Kerger original called ‘Julie’s Not Home’ which shows how much the band loved Alex Chilton’s early pure- pop stylings.
A cassette with one extra bonus track will also come out. Who’da thought cassingles would make a comeback?! We’ll be releasing on 8-track and DCC next!
So, keep a lookout on this page and on the Fantastic Mess Records site for the release date.

Obsessive, completionist fans like Elise here can't get enough of our limited-edition Sunsets exclusive, boutique, top of the Chinese sweat shop range of tee shirts. Any record cover is available - or imagine a tee with a whopping-great pic of Wazza proudly emblazoned across yer' chest!!

Sunset Strip Check this out! Listen now on .