The weather has been fairly chaotic of late here in Sydney and one victim of it’s wrath was the Petersham Bowling Club, one of the finest supporters of roots music with live shows, craft beer and a family friendly environment. They suffered water damage and had to reschedule some shows while they cleaned up the mess and made repairs. Last week’s pick of the weekend gigs – Ramblin’ Man Sessions III featuring Dan Waters, Jason Walker and Nick Barker – was forced to madly scramble to find a new venue and the good folk at The Newsagency came to the rescue which was great to see. The good news is the PBC is back up and running with a big gig tonight (our pick of the weekend) – Once Were Sinners featuring offshoots of Roland K Smith & The Sinners including The Crow Janes, JD Burgess Band and The Saloon Daddies. Elsewhere tonight Oh Willy Dear and Katie Brianna are at The Gasoline Pony while Bek-Jean Stewart and James Thomson are over at Django Bar.

This week we reviewed new releases from Houndmouth (8.5/10), Sam Outlaw (6/10) and Brad Butcher (6.5/10) and you can read our review of the outstanding new Marlon Williams album (9/10) over at Undertheradar.

There were plenty of new music in the form of videos and streams over the last week including the first taste of the new Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell album, Kris Kristofferson covering Tom Petty (video), Jason Isbell & Amanda Shires covering Warren Zevon on Letterman (video) and Marlon Williams covering Peggy Seeger’s ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’ (video).

As we hit the start of May we’ve updated our Sydney Gig Guide so please cast an eye over the list and let us know if we’ve missed anything that should be on there.

We’re also a contributor to the esteemed No Depression website which is currently celebrating its 20th anniversary. You can find our ND profile HERE.

Some interesting news this week was the announcement that Townes Van Zandt’s ‘The Nashville Sessions’ LP, first released in 1993, is being reissued. In 1974 Van Zandt returned to the studio to begin work on his seventh album to be entitled ‘Seven Come Eleven’ but it ended up being lost as collateral damage in a dispute between Van Zandt’s manager Kevin Eggers, and producer Cowboy Jack Clement. It includes a lavish sleeve featuring Milton Glaser’s original artwork, an illustrated twelve-page booklet, and liner notes by Rob Hughes. The lo-fi quality of the recordings led UNCUT magazine to compare it to Springsteen’s ‘Nebraska’. It will presumably feature this song: