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Gun Barrel Straights are a Melbourne song-and-dance band. The sextet play a version of the old, weird Australia that crosses The Rolling Stones, The Grateful Dead and Paul Kelly. There are ballads and rockers, sing alongs and duets, ungainly fuzz guitars and cut-throat rhythms. Gun Barrel Straights love the footy, a pint and talking all kinds of absolute shite. You can usually find the band propping up the bar of one of two hotels.

Making a racket in Melbourne's north for the past year, this six‐piece wants you to feel the music in your stomping foot, drinking hand and brimming heart. It's a good time sorta live show, as they flail away on guitars and a banjomandolin above a foundation of bass and drums, swinging along towards closing time. Yeah, it’s acoustic, but it’s a bruising affair as they hip and shoulder their way up the folk ladder with tunes short on manners and decorum. It doesn't hurt that it's all fronted by one of the biggest voices in town, who screams sweat and murder down your ear holes then rocks you like a baby on three‐way harmonies. Yearning in A minor. Elation in D major. They've got you covered. There's stories here to make you think and feel, to transport you to the old, weird Australia. And in‐between songs it’s pull up the stool and let’s shoot the breeze. Swaggering/shambling up a street near you, with early Rod Stewart on a transistor radio, are The Gun Barrel Straights. Come hang