Releases > King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard > 12 Bar Bruise

Well I ain’t dumb
But I ain’t that smart
And I can’t spell
But I can sound it out

The debut album. Surfy, lo-fi, and slightly trippy Garage Rock. This album was partially recorded on iPhones and serves as a means to an end, delineating all looser prior material and establishing KGLW as a fully functioning band.

Distribution necessitated the founding of Flightless Records, the independent label that published all the work of the group for nearly a decade.

The album cover was the first by Jason Galea, now considered a member of the group, who as well as creating most of the other visual work of the band, has designed every cover since.

What to listen to next:

• If you want a step up from the (literal) tin shed garage style production quality
• If you liked the narrated track, Sam Cherry’s Last Shot

Album Credits

12 Bar Bruise - ℗ & © 2022 KGLW - Used by permission.

Firstly, thank you so much for buying this record or slipping it on your turntable or listening to my ramblings. It would have been hilarious and unfathomable to my 21 year old self that anyone beyond our immediate group of friends and a few garage rock nerds would care in the slightest! In fact I don’t really remember much of making this record. I think we just wanted to make it weird. And loud. And kinda dumb. Between 19 and 23 years old, nervous and confused, wide eyed, living off goon bags, ciggies, doritos and the dole. Paul Maybury engineered and really guided us through this one. He let me take control of the faders and experiment with his seemingly endless array of recording equipment. I pretended I knew what I was doing. Anyway, he pulled it all together - I shudder to think what it would have sounded like without his road hardened wisdom. Many firsts here- first collaborations and early narrative based music with Brod Smith which would lead to making eyes like the sky with him a few months later. More firsts-like working with Jason Galea. Ambrose knew Jase from skateboarding circles and we found his drawing of a royal looking lizard beast-thing stabbing some teddy bear-ish monster. Seemed perfect. He’s become part of the furniture and we’ve worked with him on everything since. Formative years? I think it was that time of your life where you start using your brain for the first time in general. Lizard brain. Who am I? Who was me?
Enjoy! Love Stu

• Produced by Stu Mackenzie
• Mastered by Joseph Carra
• Mixed by Paul Maybury and Stu Mackenzie
• Recorded in 2012 by Paul Maybury and King Gizzard in Melbourne.
• Except 12 Bar Bruise, Recorded late at night in Anglesea with 4 iPhones around the room and Stu singing straight into one.

• Artwork by Jason Galea
• Photo by Lauren Bamford

• Spoken word in Sam Cherry’s Last Shot by Broderick Smith and taken from the 1883 novel 33 Years Among Wild Indians

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