Frenzal Rhomb guitarist Lindsay McDougall has opened bids for a test pressing of the seminal punk band’s forthcoming 10th album, ‘The Cup Of Pestilence’ – as well as some handwritten chord charts and additional memorabilia – in an effort to raise funds for charities helping trans and gender-diverse people in need.
Bidding on the package started this morning (April 3) at $100, and in the five hours it’s been live on eBay, the listing has since risen to a top bid of $560. The auction will end at 8am AEST next Thursday (April 13) – you can throw your hat in the ring here.
The full package consists of a vinyl test pressing of ‘The Cup Of Pestilence’ (cut at Zenith Records in Melbourne), a series of handwritten chord charts that McDougall wrote out to use as “cheat sheets” in the album’s recording (notably, this includes songs that didn’t make it onto the final tracklisting), all of the guitar picks he used in the studio, and a torn guitar strap (which wasn’t actually used to record ‘The Cup Of Pestilence’).
In the listing’s description, McDougall that he’d only spun the test pressing once “once, at work, to make sure it sounds right”, and declared that “it sounds RIGHT!” He also explained that his chord sheets were “written out in my weird chords and notes format, that I was sneakily peeking at constantly at the Blasting Room [where ‘The Cup Of Pestilence’ was recorded]”.
As for the strap, McDougall “broke it playing a Steely Dan song, not any Frenzal”, but assured bidders that “it’ll make you look cool”.
100 per cent of the winning bidder’s money will be donated to charity, split evenly between Minus18 and the Illawarra Shoalhaven Gender Alliance. “Trans and gender-diverse people have been having a crap time lately, and these two organisations are doing excellent work to help good people who just wanna live their lives,” McDougall wrote in his listing.
The auction comes off the back of this year’s International Transgender Day Of Visibility, which was celebrated last Friday (March 31).
I’m auctioning of a @Frenzalofficial The Cup Of Pestilence VINYL TEST PRESSING, along with my dodgy handwritten chord charts, a bunch of picks I used recording the album and a broken guitar strap I didn’t. All $$$ goes to trans charities. BID NOW!https://t.co/6luG0MiHxI pic.twitter.com/mjq6i6WkwY
— Lindsay McDowens (@doctormcdougall) April 2, 2023
Meanwhile, ‘The Cup Of Pestilence’ is primed for release on April 7 via Virgin Music Australia. It’ll mark Frenzal Rhomb’s first longform effort since 2017’s ‘Hi-Vis High Tea’ album (which itself came six years after 2011’s ‘Smoko At The Pet Food Factory’), and the first to feature bassist Michael “Dal Failure” Dallinger, who joined the band in 2019.
In January, the band revived their classic ‘Pell Awaits’ shirt design, raising money for victims of child sexual abuse following the death of disgraced Catholic cardinal George Pell. A portion of sales from the release were donated to Bravehearts, an Australian child protection organisation dedicated to the prevention and treatment of child sexual abuse.