News Releases

NEWSLETTER: New Nick Batterham single out today!

January 28, 2021
Post Image

Nick Batterham‘s beautiful single ‘No Perfect Man‘ is out today! It is the first single of Nick’s forthcoming album ‘Lovebirds’, coming out this May on Cheersquad Records & Tapes. Available digitally on your preferred platforms and for sale through Cheersquad. Have a listen, watch the video and buy No Perfect Man here.

Nick’s undeniable fervour for composing immersive, visceral atmospherics is again paramount on ‘No Perfect Man’. Performed and recorded by Batterham with Ben Wiesner on drums, and featuring strings by David Berlin, Zoe Black and Christopher Moore, with Cor Anglais by Michael Pisani, ‘No Perfect Man’ blends residual classical elements of recent works with poignant lyricism and intimate storytelling. Always managing to extract the immense from the minimal, Nick’s delicate arrangements of rich orchestration and vivid colour paints bright lights and deep shadows like a Caravaggio. Ripeness turns to decay. ‘The centre could not hold,’ Batterham sings, echoing the words of Irish poet W. B. Yeats from a century ago. Nick’s double tracked octave vocal describes the co-existence of our inner and outer voice. Joined in chorus by long-time collaborators Kelly Day, Nick Murray and Jethro Woodward, ‘No Perfect Man’ is a compelling and exciting first taste of Batterham’s forthcoming sixth studio album.

Check out our latest newsletter

Read older newsletters here

Releases

Nick Craft – New Limited Edition Splatter Vinyl

August 19, 2020

Nearly two years after the release of Nick Craft‘s solo album Minerva, Nick has pressed the album on a sensational looking, limited edition, splatter vinyl. Minerva is also available on black 180gr vinyl and on CD. The vinyl comes with a download card for a free digital download.

Nick Craft – Minerva – splatter vinyl

1 Dance In The Fire
2 No Silver Lining
3 Leaves
4 Among The Ruins
5 What Did I Know About Love
6 There Is A Light
7 Shade Turning
8 The Ones Who Leave
9 Circle Of The Sun

Perhaps best known as songwriter, musician and front man for the psychedelic rock band Sidewinder, Nick recorded ‘Minerva’ with his brother and former band mate, Martin. The brothers formed Sidewinder as teenagers in the 90s, before releasing several acclaimed albums, and constantly touring the Hume Highway live circuit and as a fixture on festival line-ups including The Big Day Out and Homebake.

This record marks the first time they have worked together since Sidewinder, this time in very different capacities. Martin took on the roles of producer and arranger, taking Nick’s lyrically-driven songs performed on an estate sale nylon strong guitar into a new realm with his understated and sophisticated string arrangements. These arrangements were recorded with a crack squad of musicians in Los Angeles, using players who are more used to working on film soundtracks or with high profile artists such as Father John Misty, Quincy Jones or Brian Wilson.

News Releases

Meanies – 25 Live!

October 23, 2019

It wouldn’t be a Meanies anniversary without some new vinyl hitting the shelves, so to commemorate their 30 years, the band has unearthed a special live recording from their last birthday bash.

The result is 25 Live – a recording of their cracking 2014 set at The Hi-Fi Bar in Melbourne. Featuring an exhaustive setlist of bona fide Meanies classics, 25 Live features numbers from their earliest singles through to their most recent output.

25 Live is released on LP and all digital platforms via Cheersquad on Friday November 1 and will be available at all shows and all good record stores.
Pre-orders available via Cheersquad.

The Meanies, 25 Live
Cheersquad
Friday November 1

1. Lyin’
2. You’re Pathetic
3. Inside
4. Our New Planet
5. Round in Circles
6. Scum
7. Sorry ’bout the Violence
8. There’s a Gap
9. Kill
10. Ton of Bricks
11. Keep a Balance
12. Feed The Dog

News Releases

Snout’s Circle High and Wide first time on vinyl – Limited Blue Edition

June 7, 2019

For the first time ever, SNOUT on vinyl, who’d a thunk it! Nineties pop maestros SNOUT return from the blue to reissue their classic album ‘Circle High and Wide’ on vinyl and digitally on all the usual platforms on Cheersquad Records & Tapes. Pre-order the album now! The first 100 copies are on blue vinyl and set aside for pre-order people only. Get ‘em while they’re hot! Releases date is June 28, 2019.

Snout – Circle High and Wide
Snout – Circle High and Wide. Limited Edition Blue Vinyl, 100 copies only!
News Releases

Money For Rope launch ‘Actually’ single and video

February 15, 2019

Album #2 from Melbourne surf, soul, garage punk rock band MONEY FOR ROPE is called “Picture Us” and was recorded, produced, mixed and mastered by the band themselves in a house by the sea in Victoria, Australia over summer ’15/’16.

This track, “Actually”, was the first track written for this record. We started it staying in a small Air BnB flat in Berlin owned by someone who worked for a music products company; there was an upright piano in a beautiful first floor apartment in an old building. We could spend our evenings in the middle of a hot summer heat wave playing battery amps and piano with the windows wide open listening to the sounds of Kruezberg below. We would wander around the city late at night, wondering how we became fortunate enough to be here, when the secret to ourselves was, just that we had always wanted to.”

“Picture Us” is set to be released March 2019 on German label Haldern Pop Recordings and Australian label Cheersquad Records & Tapes, with distribution in the UK by Forte & in the US by Cobraside.

Buy here
Money for Rope website
Money for Rope on Facebook

News Releases

Rinehearts launch ‘Can’t Do Nothing’ single and video

December 6, 2018
Post Image

Perth power pop trio Rinehearts have announced the release of their forthcoming single ‘Can’t Do Nothing’ and the companion video, set to be released through Cheersquad Records & Tapes on Friday December 7.

With an overall sound best described as a cross between The Replacements and Reigning Sound, Rinehearts have been delivering catchy tunes since forming in 2016.   Long-time friends Guitarist and Vocalist Ben Ward, bass player Mitch Long and drummer Ross Di Blasio’s raw sound and memorable melodies quickly gained the attention of U.K label No Front Teeth Records who put out the band’s first 7” EP ‘Try Your Luck’ in December that same year.

Perth power pop trio the Rinehearts

This undeniably captivating latest single ‘Can’t Do Nothing’ is the band’s first new material since the EP release and is the title track from their forthcoming debut album, set to be released early 2019.  The companion video was shot and edited by the band in November 2018 at Musgrove Studios Western Australia.  ‘We shot the video on an old school Sony Hi8 camera that was fished out of a skip bin that was brand new in the box. It’s been a fun camera to use and has some cheesy in-camera effects that we messed around with.’

Buy track here
Rinehearts on Facebook

News Releases

Immigrant Union launch ‘New Win’ single and video

December 4, 2018
Post Image

IMMIGRANT UNION launch ‘New Win’ single and video

Australian alt/country/psych collective Immigrant Union have announced the release of their forthcoming single ‘New Win’ and companion Video, set to be released through Cheersquad Records & Tapes on Friday December 7.

Not a band to sit on one particular sound for more than an album, Immigrant Union’s self-titled first record was very much cemented in Americana music, while their second album Anyway’ continued to contain similar elements but featured a large shift in song-writing style and instrumentation.

Australian alt/country/psych collective Immigrant Union

The band’s yet to be released third album ‘Judas’ is arguably their most ‘different’ album to date.  It still has slight tinges of Americana but generally the band describe it as ‘some weird ass rock album’.  It’s also the first record that includes Ben Street and Paddy McGrath-Lester who joined founding members Brent DeBoer from The Dandy Warhols, Melbourne musician Bob Harrow and vocalist Peter Lubulwa after Courtney Barnett and co had to split due to Courtney blowing up in a huge globally massive way!

‘New Win’ is the first taste from the forthcoming ‘Judas’ album due for release in early 2019, and ‘is a song about the best times in life being squandered by not realising at the time how great they were and regrettably letting them slip away. Looking back, you feel you must have been insane to have not recognised how good you had it and vow to never make those same mistakes again.’

With that in mind, the band decided to make a video about Bob converting to Mormonism. Makes sense right?


Part one of the video shows the monotony of preparing for a good time. Grab some friends, grab some beers, order some pizza and settle in for an evening of weapons grade gum flapping.

Part two features some unexpected guests, and later, Bob’s reckoning. With a bit of a buzz on, Bob’s not only looking for some light-hearted philosophical nonsense, he’s looking for an epiphany. Just when he thinks he’s got it all figured out, he’s reminded that his new direction in life requires a few sacrifices. Is Bob willing and able to make those sacrifices? Will he turn his back on his hard-partying ways and take on a life of meditation, sobriety, and self-reflection? Or are there some sacrifices too near and dear to his very identity that he is unwilling to give up? Only Bob knows the answers to these hard questions.

Watch the clip for Immigrant Union’s brand new, smash hit single, ‘New Win’, and you too will know what Bob becomes. And what may become of Bob….

Buy track here
Immigrant Union on Facebook
Immigrant Union website

News Releases

Nick Craft – ‘No Silver Lining’

November 2, 2018
Post Image

Cheersquad is excited to announce the release of Australian singer songwriter Nick Craft’s debut solo album ‘Minerva’ on Friday 23 November.

Perhaps best known as songwriter, musician and front man for the psychedelic rock band Sidewinder, Nick recorded ‘Minerva’ with his brother and former band mate, Martin. The brothers formed Sidewinder as teenagers in the 90s, before releasing several acclaimed albums, and constantly touring the Hume Highway live circuit and as a fixture on festival line-ups including The Big Day Out and Homebake.

Nick Craft

This record marks the first time they have worked together since Sidewinder, this time in very different capacities. Martin took on the roles of producer and arranger, taking Nick’s lyrically-driven songs performed on an estate sale nylon strong guitar into a new realm with his understated and sophisticated string arrangements. These arrangements were recorded with a crack squad of musicians in Los Angeles, using players who are more used to working on film soundtracks or with high profile artists such as Father John Misty, Quincy Jones or Brian Wilson.

The first single from the release is ‘No Silver Lining’, which Nick suggests is: ‘a song that does its best to argue that we should maintain our optimism, even in the face of a world that suggests optimism never pays off. It’s somewhere between a love song from an optimist to a pessimist, and a work of self-help, depending on what time of day I listen to it…’

For this song and the remainder of the album Nick has drawn on a diverse and disparate array of influences.  Of his musical influences, he says: ‘While I don’t think I’ve been a slave to any one example, I’ve certainly drawn on the canonic examples of Leonard Cohen or Nick Drake, trying to drive a deep and reflective channel with my lyrics, and move them as close to poetry as I’m able to do… which is perhaps odd, given that I started off in music wanting to work in the My Bloody Valentine tradition of wanting to obliterate the lyric…’

‘I’ve also been inspired by the quiet examples of singers who’ve laboured in obscurity and quiet domesticity–like Sibylle Baier singing into a tape recorder after work just for herself, or Anne Briggs who chose to live a life away from the microphone…’

Tracks from ‘Minerva’ will be accompanied by videos edited from old films that have lapsed out of copyright: ‘In the case of No Silver Lining, it’s shows a woman waking up, removing a skull from a cupboard and throwing it out of the window, only to find it’s returned to the same place. Which is pretty much a good analogy of the circuit this song is trying to break…’ 

‘Minerva’, the 9-track debut album from Nick Craft will be released on Friday 23 November, and is available for pre-order from 2 November from Bandcamp and online retailers.

Nick’s website
Nick on Instagram

Gigs News Releases

Minibikes New Single!

October 17, 2018
Post Image

Minibikes return with the bumper sticker inspired single ‘Magic Happens’ due for release on Cheersquad Records & Tapes on Friday 26 October.

Listen and buy ‘Magic Happens’ here.

Who are they? Minibikes are a one-man band with 8 arms and 8 legs. Marcel Borrack calls the shots and his band pulls out the stops. What? Who cares! Marcel went on a mystical pilgrimage communing with wizards and learning the art of the silken song. Mixing up a cocktail of dolphin disco, the new single is a journey of love and redemption that’s ‘magical, physical AND spiritual’. With co-producer Tim Harvey (Jade Imagine), Minibikes serve up tidal synth textures layered with yearning guitars and a pinch of the Steely Dan’s.

Minibikes – Marcel Borrack

At this time of year, it’s not unusual to read about songs that “ooze summer vibes” but this single comes with a serious warning…Slip Slop Slap! And watch out for falling coconuts.

Minibikes will be launching ‘Magic Happens’ on Saturday 3 November at The Merri Creek Tavern in Northcote. Free entry.

Facebook event