Joe Bludge (EP launch) with supports: Aretinos + Siera Wiski + DJ Bonnie Rock

It’s been a good few years since Joe Bludge has popped up as a solo artist, apart from the odd support slot here and there. Mostly, Bludge has had his hands full for many a year with his role out front of Perth’s long-running garage legends The Painkillers, but is now back to reprise his act as the loudest troubadour going. “I had these songs, they were not really Painkiller songs, but I really want to give them some air and hound people with them if I get a chance,” says Bludge, not altogether joking, “I have five songs on this EP, and they are all about the plague year and what happened for people I love, and some of them we lost and how I have sort of dealt with it so far, which is with a lot of thinking about mortality and all that sort of stuff.” It’s more fun than he makes it sound. From the rollicking, macabre satire of The Good Wife of Abbottshire, to the delicious lurches of acoustic punk in Melody, this EP captures Bludge at his most whimsical and lyrical. The material is almost completely captured live in the studio, with Bludge accompanied only by his oft-thrashed acoustic guitar. The exception is what may also be the stand-out track for many. With is a collaboration with Josh Fontaine (The Stickfigures, 6’s & 7’s), who provides some brilliantly tender touches to a track that also features Dee Kerimofski (Burgers of Beef, Community Chest) on drums. Here We Come is an EP shot straight from the hip, unfiltered and straight to disk, comprising of songs from the heart of plague darkness, shabby, glorious, and perfectly in character.