Erstwhile Radio Birdman guitar slinger Chris Masuak, these days based in Spain, is embarking on a run of East Coast shows through the months of May and June, his first live forays in these parts for over six years.
Masuak’s rock and roll pedigree across his many decades in the biz can never be called into question. In addition to blazing stages as part of the sonic blitzkrieg that constituted the legendary Radio Birdman, he’s also heeded the amped up call with similarly revered garage rock illuminati such as The Hitmen, The New Christs and The Screaming Tribesmen.
This tour sees the man known as ‘Klondike’ step up to the stage with a hand-picked support cast of musicians, under the moniker of Dog Soldier, to help him deliver his killer take on Detroit inspired, high octane rawk, with this run of shows promising to fall into the ’not to be missed’ category.
To find out what he’s been up to and what we can expect from the Dog Soldier experience, we recently had a chat with the man himself. Take it away Klondike...
It's been six years since your last Aussie tour, you must be looking forward to treading the boards again down the East Coast! Obviously, a fair chunk of this past few years has been consumed with the fall-out from covid. How did you occupy yourself during this enforced period of downtime?
As you are no doubt aware, Spain was hit particularly hard by The Pox, with almost 14 million cases and over 120 thousand deaths. No one here has the slightest patience for the conspiracy fucktards that rolled out like pill-bugs from under their various rocks.
Galicia, the area where I live, jumped on protocols right from the start so we weren’t badly affected. But we had strict lockdowns on and off for over three years, which is hard on Mediterranean/Latino types because they’re particularly touchy-feely social people.
I’m generally sociopathic so I was fine sitting at home, playing guitar and putting the finishing touches on my book 'Faith and Practice in Bedlam', which has just been published.
Can you give us a rundown on the Dog Soldier line-up and how you came to pull this musical crew together?
Dog Soldier is my Aussie trio featuring the talents of Tony “The Chief” Bambach (of the Lime Spiders and more) on bass and Stu Wilson (of The Crisps, New Christs, and many an active Aussie band) on drums.
We got together on my last run of shows in Oz and have stayed in touch. Having them on board for this run was a no brainer. Not only that, through the miracles of the interweb we managed to record a couple of new songs to whip out on tour.
What material will the Dog Soldier shows be encompassing - will it largely be new material or will there also be a smattering of tracks from the rest of your musical oeuvre?
As well as a ton of recent material, I have a rather large back catalogue. I know we can’t please everyone, but I think we’ll come close.
I see that your old band sparring partner Mick Medew (together with Ursula) is also on the bill at the Vinnies Dive show on the Gold Coast! Any chance of a sneaky Tribesmen number worming its way into the set?
One never knows one’s luck in the big city!
Great to hear that you'll also be bringing copies of your book along for the tour. Did you find the writing process strenuous/challenging or did the tales and memories flow relatively easily?
Writing a book is like writing songs. The ideas come when they come. When they do, they’re more or less complete. But I did need my editor Robert Brokenmouth to provoke me along.
The last time I saw you in concert was back in 2010 (at the Surfers Paradise Beer Garden) when The Hitmen did a run of shows with Detroit icon Niagara (sad to hear of the recent passing of her partner The Colonel). I seem to recall you guys backing up after your set and performing as Niagara's backing band! I can definitely recall both sets being magic. What are your memories of that tour?
Niagara is first and foremost an artist, and had come to Australia for an exhibition. We had become friends on her previous Dark Carnival tour, so of course a friend and I turned up to the trendy inner city gallery in our board shorts and Hawaiian shirts.
She told me that she had been informed by a prominent guitarist that finding musicians for a tour was out of the question and that no one would be interested. I called bullshit.
The result was a fantastic couple of tours and a rather wonderful live album. I was very saddened to hear that her partner The Colonel had passed away recently. Those two were inseparable.
How did you end up residing in Spain? They seem to have a strong underground lineage to the garage rock scene, with labels like Bang! Records.
The arcane mysteries of the Australian Immigration Department were too much for my wife and I to handle. It was much easier to move to Spain and try to sort things out from there. Then, life took over.
How is the rest of 2023 shaping up for you?
I’m a pretty happy man! I’m lucky enough to have a lot of free time for family and doing the things that I love. I continue to record and tour with The Viveiro Wave Riders. We played Resurrectionfest last year and have a single coming out soon on a label in the USA.
I’m also playing with a 60’s influenced garage band, Los Revelators. The rhythm section is a couple of luminaries from prominent Spanish band Los Contentos, together with a monster keyboard player from Ecuador. We’ve just finished recording an EP, which will be out soon.
Dog Soldier looks like becoming a regular event and we’ll be looking at new material when I hit these shores in a few days.Plus, I’ve got my mates from The Outside up in France hanging out to record and tour this year. Not to mention a few secret projects with some goofballs from Melbourne. Things are ok for this dirty old Boomer!
Chris Masuak And Dog Soldier kick off their six date East Coast tour on 19 May in Sydney. The tour concludes at Vinnies Dive Bar in Southport on The Gold Coast on Sunday, 4 June (with The Square Tugs and Mick And Ursula also onboard.) Grab your tickets for the Vinnies show here.