Garage rock strikes gold in goldfields.

New York’s John Spencer and Melbourne’s The Gnomes rock Aussie Goldfields.

It was a golden night when the Young Turks of garage rock – still in their teens or barely out of them – opened for a legendary garage rock master-blaster, in the heart of Australia’s goldfields. Both bands unleashed electrifying sets in mainland Australia’s oldest continuously operating theatre, warming the cockles of this old heart (of mine).

The Gnomes — a dynamic new 60s-style garage rock band making waves down under — joined forces with blues-rock powerhouse John Spencer, whose thunderous guitar playing and gritty voice have defined the sound of garage rock over four decades.

173 years after 10,000 Americans left gold rush San Francisco for the Aussie goldfields, New Hampshire’s John Spencer returned for his first Australian shows in ten years. It wasn’t quite the blistering John Spencer Blues Explosion of old because that iconic hard-rock trio, sadly, has been and gone.

A new John Spencer power trio has taken its place, with the innovative electric guitarist joined by drummer Macky ‘Spider’ Bowman and female bassist Kendall Wind, both from New York’s Woodstock-bred garage punks, the Bobby Lees. Spencer was obviously drawn to Bowman and Wind’s raw, unfiltered energy — a spirit mirroring his own feral take on rock and blues – after producing the Bobby Lees’ second album ‘Skin Suit’ in 2020.

John Spencer also produced 2023’s ‘Death Wish Blues’, for grammy nominated US blues guitarist Samantha Fish together with Texan country rock guitarist Jesse Dayton. “Part of my job as a producer was to put together a band for those ‘Death Wish’ sessions and Kendall was the bass player for that … Kendall is such an excellent musician, a great bass player. I love the way she played on that ‘Death Wish Blues’ album. And then it just kind of seemed obvious to get Macky, her drummer partner from the Bobby Lees, aboard. Since the Bobby Lees are on hiatus, Macky and Kendall were up for the challenge, and I’m very happy that they agreed to play with me.”

John Spencer, as many might know, made his name with U.S. garage-noise band Pussy Galore in 1984 and, of course, his renowned John Spencer Blues Explosion, which from 1991 mashed blues, garage and punk with old-school rhythm and blues, soul and hip hop for over 25 years.

Both Spencer’s trio and The Gnomes cranked up the volume in Castlemaine’s Theatre Royal, built in 1854 and 76 miles (123 km) northwest of Melbourne. This rare surviving goldfields theatre is now up for sale if anyone’s interested. Luckily, a sale condition means it must remain a rock venue. 

We drove to Castlemaine from Melbourne knowing we’d get a much better deal in a small town than a city of 5.5 million people. It’s been a proven strategy, both in Australia and the UK. We were amply rewarded not only by John Spencer’s high-voltage set and stage theatrics but also Melbourne four-piece The Gnomes, led by teenage rock prodigy, Jay Millar. The venue was sold out for weeks so it was standing-room only for the 900-odd patrons rocking on the dance floor. But being old and crafty, we lucked out, finding a staircase to the balcony and scoring comfortable front row seats in the empty dress circle with a top view of the bands below. The dress circle wasn’t empty for long. People followed and it soon filled up.

As an aside, some 170 years before John Spencer and The Gnomes rocked the Royal, the infamous nineteenth century exotic dancer and high-end courtesan, Lola Montez, danced her scandalous ‘Spider Dance’ in the very same theatre. It was April, 1856, and her dance involved lifting up her skirts to reveal she wasn’t wearing underwear. No wonder the gold miners gave Lola a rapturous reception when she appeared there, just as John Spencer and The Gnomes both enjoyed rapturous applause. Lola Montez, who was actually Eliza Gilbert from Ireland, had affairs with prominent figures like King Ludwig I of Bavaria (after he saw her Spider Dance), Franz Liszt, and Alexandre Dumas. After Australia, she left for San Francisco’s Barbary Coast where she did it all again.

We were amply rewarded in our privileged position, not only by John Spencer’s high-voltage set but also his terrific support act, young Melbourne four-piece, The Gnomes. We had plenty of John Spencer Blues Explosion songs in a set-list spanning his career with songs, too, from U.S. garage-rock pioneers Pussy Galore, with whom Spencer made his name from 1984 to 1990. 

What we heard from The Gnomes was totally new to me, but reminiscent of those hard rocking bands of 1960s I used to watch as a teenager in the 1960s. Check out The Gnomes’ latest single ‘Flippin Stomp’ below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdJJ6em-cj8

Led by 19-year-old Jay Millar on lead vocals and lead guitar, Jay originally recorded the band’s debut album ‘The Gnomes’ by himself, playing and singing everything on it. However, as his new group’s sound developed, he decided to re-record it with the band, who has hardly been together a year. The Gnomes’ self-titled album was released on November 7 with the album launch at the Brunswick Ballroom, Melbourne, today (November 14).

Mixing elements of punk with the garage beat of early 1960s bands, Millar told the Sydney Morning Herald that when he listened to the British bands of the early sixties, he “discovered a lot of it is really primal, the rawest rock and roll you can get.

“I’m always amazed with bands like the Kinks and the Stones and even recordings of the Beatles in their early days in Hamburg because they sound really punk. Even with such clean guitars with no distortion, they’re just playing loud and screaming their heads off and the drummers are playing jazz beats at a hundred miles a minute.”

That’s exactly how The Gnomes played in Castlemaine: a spirited indie-rock update of the pioneering blues and garage rock of Britain’s early sixties bands.

Until July this year, the group played under the name Gnome, but a popular Belgian stoner rock band of the same name got in touch to say that their fans were confused, thinking the Belgians were touring Australia whenever Melbourne’s Gnome announced a show.

This Castlemaine show was more than just your usual gig. It was rocking riffs,  blistering solos, an enjoyable collision of generations, styles, and pure musical passion: the kind of energy that only live music can deliver.