Jenkins, Jeff, 1999, 'Can't fight this feeling', Inpress Magazine
Of course, MMM and Gold play 'classic rock". Sydney's The Hunchbacks - who were in town last week for a couple of shows - also play classic rock, but it's a different brand. If you dig the Rifles, Birdman and early Saints, you'll dig this, too. The Hunchbacks' debut album is called Can't Help Feeling. Should be a busy year for The Hunchbacks, who have been together for more than five years. They have demoed 16 songs for a second album, they have done a video for The Dog from Can't Help Feeling, and they are involved in a couple of tribute albums. They recorded Virginia (a track originally done by Perth band The Bamboos) for Storming The Citadel, a tribute to Citadel Records, being put together by French label Divine Rites. And Perth label Spinning Top Records is doing a Real Kids tribute. The Hunchbacks have recorded Bad To Worse.

Tauschke, Steve, 1999, 'The Hunchbacks', Beat Magazine
Sydney garage-dwellers The Hunchbacks play 3 rare round of dates in town this week. Vocalist and occasional harpist Carl speaks with Steve Tauschke.
Beat: I seem to recall an album of you're a few years back that struck a chord.
Carl: "We released an album about four years ago called "Play To Lose".
Beat: I think that was the one.
Carl: "That was about'95. We recorded "Can't help Feeling" the next year but the record deal we had fell through, went belly up sort of thing."
Beat: What was the label?
Carl: 'Dragstrip Records, a label set up by a guy called George... I think he used to control the Stems in the 80s and stuff. He had a label called Zero Hour. He was just going to release garage punk on the Dragstrip label but unfortunately he wasn't paying his bills or something ... and I've heard quite a few stories about him since. So we had an album's worth of material but no-one to release it so we saved up to release it ourselves but it's taken us a couple of years to get the money together. We got it done late last year. Jules Normington's selling some stuff for us up here through Phantom.
Beat: But the album isn't on Phantom?
Carl: "It's on our own label. We call it Magic Island. We own a rehearsal studio, the band sort of bought the business and that's where we get our money to release our records now. There's not much money in the live scene that's for sure, especially for a small band like us.
Beat: I notice "Can't Help Feeling" was produced by John Spittles.
Carl: "Yeah, out of Asteroids (B-612). We've been playing with them since the early 90s. There were a few bands that drew together, like the Asteroids, Crusaders, us, Mother Jones and Challenger 7 - we're all sort of similar and we know all those guys just, through doing gigs together and stuff .... John actually had interest in doing the first album 'Play To Lose' and said he'd come along and help us out. Then when we told him we were doing another one we asked him to come down and we paid him a bit of money to come in and produce it for us."
Beat: He's a great guitarist and songwriter. What's he like as a producer?
Carl:"Oh, he's good. He tells you what to do which stops all the arguments amongst the band members. We were virtually leaving it up to him and takin' off down the pub (laughs) when it came to mixing. I mean, I don't know how he does it. That guy can sit in the studio drinking soda water for fourteen hours straight. I wouldn't have the energy to do it."
Beat: Quite aside from production, I can hear psych-acid influences on the record. Late 60s sort of stuff. Am I close?
Carl: "We like a lot of garage stuff that was around, and the psychedelic stuff. But if you're pointing to the late 60s, I much prefer the Byrds and bands like that. As a whole, I think the Byrds are as good, if not better than the Beatles ... and they were always compared as the American version of the Beatles but I think they're a lot different in a way. Less pop, I dunno. Also I like a lot of the old blues stuff like early John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters. I actually listen to a lot of old blues guys. The rawer the sound, the more I like it!"
Beat: Did tuning into those old blues legends get you into playing the harp?
Carl: "Yeah, there wasn't that much harp playing on that album but I think on the next one there'll be a lot more. I seem to tend to now write songs more towards the harp. I don't know if we're getting more basic or what but it's sounding good. We're quite keen on releasing another album this year actually. We've done a demo and we're thinking about recording at the end of March and getting something out by mid year."
Beat: You covered the song "Flashback" by a band called Steve Ames and the Moving Sidewalks. Who are they?
Carl: "That was actually Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top's first band. We used to do another song of theirs as well. I can't think of the song at the moment but we've always had ('Flashback') in our live set and people always liked it so we thought we'd try to do a pretty produced version of it on record. And we didn't have keyboards on it before so we actually had a friend of ours from another band, she came in and did it on the spot."
The Hunchbacks launch their new CD Can't Help Feeling.... in Melbourne this weekend. See the rock action on Thursday Feb 11 at the Espy with guests " Hellenic Zeal and on Saturday 13 at the Public Bar with the Exotics and the Stuntcar Drivers.