i just started listening to radio birdman

[coldforge]

they are pretty groovy. For their reputation as an old-school punk band, their songs really are rather coherent and rather melodic.

[Maaik]

I remember one of the college stations doing a freeform on them for a couple hours and it being really raucous and enjoyable.  And I think they got back together like last year and put out a new album--or am I imagining that?

This is a band I should invest more time in--but they've gotta get in line.

[Nick]

They definitely reformed and released a new album, yes.

[Andrew_TSKS]

they're really more like a proto-punk band than a first wave punk rock band. deniz tek, the guitarist, was actually from detroit and grew up going to mc5 shows, then moved to australia and started radio birdman. i think he later moved back to detroit and played in bands with the asheton brothers, from the stooges. i might have that slightly wrong, but i find they make more sense when considered in that context.

regardless, they rule.

[Killdozersnakeboy]

Yeah, I was about to post the exact same thing andrew. The Stooges were def onto something, but it says something that some kid from Detroit moved to Oz and ended up doing something in the same vein. There was something in the detroit water around that time.
For a long time Radio Birdman albums were like proto-punk holy grails of the south seas. They hadn't been reissued and people (who often hadn't even heard them) would talk about them in hushed tones. There were just these rumours about this band from Oz that fucking destroyed. Amazing band at their best.

[Salkin Red]

I work at an outdoor store and a couple of years ago there was this guy I was working with, Christoph. He knew a LOT about stuff and I loved discussing various qualities of down, the merits of Pertex Quantum material, tha advantages of seemless consructions and all that with him. Apart from the outdoor-nerddom he was ay into music, I think he was the first one in that store to actually buy my band's record. And then, for some time, he kept telling me I should listen to Radio Birdman an he kept promising he'd lend me one of their albums so I could check them out.
Then he went down to Peru with another guy from our store, they wanted, amongst other things, to try and climb the Salcantay (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salkantay). Two days before reaching the mountain top the other guy got sick and Christoph decided to move on alone. He was well trained and experienced so it was a risky but not a downright stupid decision. After a couple of days he still wasn't back and the sicck guy, Christian, went back to the nearest village alone and started a search. They didn't find anything apart from his last camp from which he appeard to have moved on without complications. Apart from that - nothing.

So I never got that Radio Birdman CD and I never went and bought one, thinking that sadness about his death and the music of Radio Birdman might not mix that well. So, mh, should I check them out?

[Andrew_TSKS]

that is a sad story, salkin, but it just means that you should obtain a copy of "radios appear" and blast it in memory of your friend. he was right, you really should hear them. an incredible band.

[Salkin Red]

"Radios Appear" it will be then. Going by this thread - if I like Rocket From The Tombs I should quite like them.

(It's just that part of my mind is probably still waiting to get a torn up letter from somewhere in Patagonia where Christoph explains how he just needed to get away from something aweful in Germany and that all this was just a great big getaway plan. And, in my thoughts, that letter would always nclude a Radio Birdman record. But having something more substantial to remember him by is probably a good thing to have.)

[Andrew_TSKS]

Going by this thread - if I like Rocket From The Tombs I should quite like them.

that is 100% correct.

[sqr]

I'm always alone in my dislike for "Radios Appear."

[Almanzo]

Killer stuff.