Gaslight Radio / The Sway / Starstream

Andy J Ryan Mar 26, 2023

Gaslight Radio – Spectrum, May 5 2007

So apparently The Sway on first weren’t the denim-clad crotch fuelled rock gang of a few years back, I wasn’t about to take that chance though. If Starstream could be the answer to a musical cryptic crossword clue it would be something like - third spaceman leaves loveless vapour trail on ride to 500th Galaxie. They peddled and pedal-ed their droning guitar wares quite nicely.

Gaslight Radio were pretty much beaten up and roughly ridden out of their home town of Burleigh Heads. The Gold Coast was no place for delicate layers of guitars and poignant purposeful lyrics, the band were pretty much anti everything the brash and superficial land of Surfers Paradise stood for. In fact Gaslight Radio are almost anti everything a normal band should be.

The singer is gruff at best and overly curt in his banter and demeanour, then there’s the guitarist who’s performance is directed almost exclusively to his own speaker cabinet. They disappeared from the face of the earth for long spells with nary a peep then turned up with a new album after living on floors, line-ups and labels by the wayside. Their albums are almost impossible to find yet are possibly some of the most definitive Australian albums ever released. Taramac & Lime is merely a narrower, slightly less travelled Wide Open Road.

While other bands have made their fame and fortune wistfully capturing the essence of the romanticised idealised version Australian life, Gaslight Radio writes and knows of the grittier, more realistic one. A life involving bus travel, public transport, layabouts, house painting, broken stuff, lost leases, graffiti, radio and t.v. It is music borne from and created within an inglorious and unglamorous life more touched by struggle than success. They play it with an honesty that has a whiff of desperation attached, as if the songs are all they have and they play them with the due respect and need of a life dependant on them. The greatest accolade to the influence and importance of the band is the fact that the crowd largely comprises members of this cities most successful and interesting bands of recent times, all gathered in hushed awkward awe. Gaslight Radio would feature in the Australian telling of that old Velvet Underground myth – only 20 people bought their album, but each of those 20 went on to form a band themselves.
(www.yourgigs.com.au review)