rock n roll

Perry grew up in the inner city working class area of Sydney known as Redfern. He grew up in a home populated by various uncles, aunts, cousins and grandparents. Every Saturday morning his grandmother would do the house work whilst playing the likes of Ray Charles and Roy Orbison at a volume loud enough to spill out onto the neighbouring streets, lined with tightly-packed terraced houses, warehouses and textile factories.

When he was 12, he got his first guitar from the local pawn shop and within six months he’d written his first song. It was during his first year at high school that his family moved to the neighbouring area of Waterloo, with its high-rise Department of Housing blocks. It was within this environment that Perry formed the band The Stolen Holdens in 1989. Musically inspired by the likes of The Clash and Elvis Costello and lyrically taking his cue from artists like Lou Reed and Bruce Springsteen, Keyes and The Stolen Holdens developed a small but loyal following in the local Sydney music scene.

The band faded by the early 90’s and Perry re-emerged in 2003, playing solo sets featuring songs that would make up the bulk of his debut double album Meter – released in 2005 to critical acclaim and numerous years end best-of lists.

His next album The Last Ghost Train Home was received with even greater acclaim upon its release in 2007. It went on to be short-listed for the Australian Music Prize and was named the ABC Radio National Album of the Year.

Johnny Ray’s Downtown contains 16 tracks that once again draw on Perry’s local environment – the marginalised, often neglected and rapidly decaying inner city areas of Sydney – for their inspiration. These are songs about growing up, or trying to grow up, in the face of an environment that often suggests that the mere thought of getting past your late adolescence is hoping for more than what’s actually on offer.

With Sunnyholt the focus shifts west to the outer Sydney suburbs where Perry's family travelled in the late 1960s and 1970s only to find an environment devoid of infrastructure and struggling to birth a community.

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Jim Salmon's Lament was released October 5, 2018. “I started thinking about the families I grew up with and a particular family that lived in the James Cook [Housing Commission] flats, a brother and sister. I thought I would write about the dad, because I was pissed off with narcissistic blokes where everything they do is fuelled by self-interest but every time it got to mentioning the kids I would start writing a song about them, so I realised that the centre of the album was the brother and sister. That is the grace in the record.”

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In 2020 Perry released a series of singles including "Railway Square" and "Wentworth Park".

"I think putting the songs out at regular intervals is a good way of keeping up contact with the people that like what I do and at the same time, hopefully, have some new people hear it as well," he says. "There's a nice immediacy to it as opposed to going away for two years to record albums whilst nobody hears from you for all that time.

"Having said that, there are three albums in the can that I hope to get out in a relatively short amount of time. And, there's also a live album ready to go."

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That album was Live in B-Town, and was released at the end of 2021.

The Pink Stones deliver a full serving of Peach State picked country-rock from Athens, Georgia with the release of their debut album, Introducing… The Pink Stones, via the New West Records imprint Normaltown Records. Mixing elements of classic cosmic country, raucous rock’n’roll and fresh humor and heartaches, The Pink Stones are authoring a new chapter in the annals of Cosmic American Music.

The journey to the Pink Stones debut album began in 2015, when freshman college-student and then punk rocker Hunter Pinkston bought a special single by one of his favorite bands. “It was the song ‘Brass Buttons,’ Pinkston says. “One side was The Lemonheads and the other was Gram Parsons’ original version. I bought it because I was a Lemonheads fan, but I flipped it over and that was the one of the first times I’d heard Gram Parsons. I was like, ‘Oh shit! I didn't know I liked country until right now.’”

Inspired by his discovery, Pinkston not only began tracking down and listening to Parsons’ catalog, but took the well-travel music fan path of seeking out similar artists and influences. It was actually a landscape he’d seen before but paid little attention to.

“When I was a kid my mom liked country music but my dad was totally a rocker,” Pinkston says. “They would constantly be switching the radio. I was definitely with my dad and had discounted country forever. Then it caught up with me and I became pretty much obsessed with it.”

The Vibrajets are made up of past and present members of The Stems, The Shimmys, The Futuras and more. With their scorchin’ repertoire of wigged-out surf, frat and rock'n'roll, this string-bustin’ Melbourne four-piece harks back to a time when music was fun rather than phoney, instros were wild, and cats like Link, Chuck, Bo & Ike reigned supreme.

Children of Finland Fighting in Norway (C.O.F.F.I.N) are a four piece hard rock & roll band hailing from the ocean shores of Sydney, Australia featuring a lead vocalist on drums. Forming in 2005 as schoolmates influenced by a huge love for music, skateboarding and a good-times-all-the-time attitude. Since playing their first show at the age of 12 opening for The Hard-Ons at Manly Youth Centre the band have meticulously carved out their own corner of hard biting Australian Rock n Roll.

C.O.F.F.I.N have gained a passionate following for their unique take on punk and rock music, gathering widespread acclaim for their energetic and addictive live shows combined with their lyrical activism and howling guitars. It has delivered them hundreds of gigs over the years, headline tours, and numerous festival appearances. They’ve toured and shared the stage with many world renown bands such as Rose Tattoo, TSOL, Celibate Rifles, Dead Kennedys, Cosmic Psychos, Parkway Drive, Frenzal Rhomb, Misfits, Amyl and the Sniffers and the Hard Ons.

C.O.F.F.I.N have recorded and released four studio albums, one live album, and three EPs, all of which have sold out globally.

Their most recent LP – the self-titled ‘Children Of Finland Fighting In Norway’ – released through Legless Records and Erste Theke Tontraege Records in October 2020 is now in its 6th re-issue and continues to be distributed globally. 2022 saw C.O.F.F.I.N tour the world in support of friends and Australian punk heroes Amyl and The Sniffers. Playing shows to crowds in the thousands across the globe, C.O.F.F.I.N’s reputation for wild live performances became known by fans and industry alike everywhere. Following their lap of the globe, with not a minute has been wasted, a new album has been tracked and three new record labels signed (EU, AU and US regions), including a deal with the highly esteemed, historical Goner Records (US).

C.O.F.F.I.N are set to travel far and wide this year with various scheduled tours around key festivals such as The Great Escape (Brighton, UK) and Goner Fest (Memphis, US).