Month: April 2012

Greg Quinn: Time to Me or ‘He’ Is Calling You But You’re Probably Not Listening

Overheard Productions Miscellaneous , ,
Ainslea's Secret found in Beyond Q bookstore, 2011
Ainslea’s Secret found in Beyond Q bookstore, 2011

Time to Me by Greg Quinn

He* is calling you, but you’re probably not listening…

* Yes, that’s a reference to the Christian version of a deity – one of countless tens of thousands, but this is not a story about religion per se. Promise.

A colleague and I were mucking around and bantering on Facebook today, and the subject of our old alma mater came up. We share a similar sense of humour, and the mention of ‘bona fides’ led to ‘Fortes in Fide’ (from our old school motto: Strong in Faith).

In the course of our online conversation, my colleague mentioned the school anthem, which I confused with the popular hit of a hymn, ‘Eagle’s Wings’.

And it prompted a bitter-sweet memory.

I spent the first 18+ years of my life in the Canberra suburb of Downer. My mum referred to where we lived as ‘Upper Downer’, which was beautifully ironic, as I’m fairly sure that our property was at the exact lowest point in the rather large suburb. Mum always said she was going to start up a movement called, “Downer Is A Beautiful Suburb”.

Our family started its time in Canberra at #20 Wheelbarrow Street, Downer. Elder sister M. was born in 1965 in Camperdown Hospital just as mum and dad were relocating from Harris Park, Sydney to Canberra, allegedly for one year for dad to move from the NSW TAFE system to the then new Commonwealth Teaching Service.

In 1970, when I was three years old and just about to start pre-school, we moved a whole seven doors down the road to #34 Wheelbarrow Street. We may have all carried some of our goods and chattels, and I have a dodgy memory of dad loading up his old box trailer with stuff and getting some neighbourhood friends to help push it the 130 metres (I’m reliably informed by Google Maps).

The next year, in November 1971, my little brother Greg burst forth into the world to complete the fivesome of we Quinn siblings. Yes. Five Quinns. NO, STOP. We have heard all the jokes about five quins, I mean, Quinns.

Greg was a Daramalan College, Dickson Class of 1989 graduate. He then returned to the school to be a teacher’s aide in computing. Greg was also heavily involved with the legendary annual Daramalan school musical/play productions. Any time I hear the strains of any part of the seminal recording of Evita with Julie Covington urging Peronistas to not cry for her, Argentina, I’m back in Downer, with Greg doing lighting, mentoring performers, and even sewing some costumes.

Greg died of brain cancer at 4am, Saturday 22 August 1998 in Clare Holland House hospice which was situated in the grounds of the then Royal Canberra Hospital. It’s now been supplanted by the admin building for the National Museum of Australia, after a Commonwealth/ACT land swap moved the hospice east along the shores of Lake Burley Griffin to 5 Menindee Drive Barton.  Continue reading →

The Beez are buzzing their last in Australia for 2012

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The Beez are buzzing their last in Australia for 2012

Last chance to see this weekend at Mount Beauty Music Festival, Victoria

Regular visitors to Australia, The Beez, will be having one last hurrah at the Mount Beauty Music Festival this weekend in Victoria then wending their way back for a fly out to home later this week.

So take one last chance in Victoria or join them in cyberspace and buy up all their albums:

* ‘Look What They’ve Done To My Song’ is a fresh take on other people’s stuff, and

* ‘Freishcwhimmer’ is all there own — that spelling may be dodgy — can’t find a reference right now and my battery’s about to go kaput!

www.thebeez.de

Listen to the music of The Beez

My article in 2009 on The Beez tour:

https://overheardproductions.com/2012/03/15/a-punters-perspective-16-the-beez-portrait-of-a-band-at-the-end-of-a-very-long-road/

Georg taping for Commusication im Berlin, Kangaroo Valley Folk Festival
Georg taping for Commusication im Berlin, Kangaroo Valley Folk Festival

 

The Go Set interview with Justin Keenan for Artsound FM and Overheard Productions

Overheard Productions Interviews, Music general , , , ,
The Go Set
The Go Set

The Go Set interview with Justin Keenan

for Artsound FM and Overheard Productions

Oh lordy, lordy, lordy.

Some days the universe gives you lemons, and you can either make lemonade or a whisky sour — then tip out the sour and chug down the whisky.

Tonight, necessity was the mother of invention, and later on tonight, I’ll post a picture that will explain why this otherwise lovely interview sounds like poor old Justin is at the end of a very long string, talking into a rather large tin can.

Resonance we don’t got; noise modulation we do; and a modicum of normalisation and balancing. But you can’t overdo these things.

Who cares? The Go Set are coming to Canberra on Friday 20 April:

The Merry Muse (Turner Bowlo, Canberra Southern Cross Club)
54 McCaughey Street
Turner ACT
Doors 7.15pm

Support: Chloe Hall and Silas Palmer
$17 full/$14 concessions/$12 Monaro Folk Society members
16yo and less are free if accompanied

And here be the interview:

*** THE AUDIO OF THIS INTERVIEW HAS BEEN DELETED FROM SOUNDCLOUD DUE TO SPACE LIMITATIONS ***

*** THE AUDIO OF THIS INTERVIEW HAS BEEN DELETED FROM SOUNDCLOUD DUE TO SPACE LIMITATIONS ***

The Go Set interview with Justin Keenan for Artsound FM and Overheard Productions

And if you listen to the interview here, or you heard it on Friday morning on Artsound FM, you may have detected two things:

1. Some pretty average sound quality, and

2. A camera click.

Due to some technical challenges and the fact that I really had to get the interview done there and then, I took the shortest distance between two points: a straight line.

Neccesity is the mother of invention -- recording the interview with Justin in Studio Two at Artsound FM with a bog standard speaker phone and my iRiver
Neccesity is the mother of invention — recording the interview with Justin in Studio Two at Artsound FM with a bog standard speaker phone and my iRiver

 

Guerilla interview: Pete Akhurst (Canberra)

Overheard Productions Interviews, Music general , , ,

Pete Akhurst

Guerilla interview:

Pete Akhurst (Canberra)

Waiting in a cold studio in Canberra, unable to make contact with my planned interviewee, feeling pretty low and de-energised, but still noodling on Facebook (mostly trying to find contact details for aforementioned interviewee), a concept was born: guerilla interviews.

In front of me were 450+ Facebook ‘friends’. Most of these are musicians or in some way related to the industry.

Surely someone out there must have something to plug and be yearning for some exposure.

I put the call out to two, and one put their hand up.

Pete Akhurst of Canberra.

He’s on at The Front on Thursday 18 April 2012 with Marshall Okell.

Click here and enjoy. Note: all the usual cutting, pasting and snipping and trimming and balancing and equalising are not to be had. This is interviewing in the raw:

 *** THE AUDIO OF THIS INTERVIEW HAS BEEN DELETED FROM SOUNDCLOUD DUE TO SPACE LIMITATIONS ***

http://soundcloud.com/overheard-productions/pete-akhurst

 *** THE AUDIO OF THIS INTERVIEW HAS BEEN DELETED FROM SOUNDCLOUD DUE TO SPACE LIMITATIONS ***

Let me know what you think.

More importantly, get in to Pete’s music and let him know what you think.

See you at The Front tomorrow night.

Bill Quinn
Overheard Productions

The Go Set plus Chloe Hall and Silas Palmer, The Merry Muse (Canberra), Friday 20 April

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Chloe Hall and Silas Palmer
Chloe Hall and Silas Palmer

Canberra, it’s your chance to see the unusual pairing of The Go Set headlining with Chloe Hall and Silas Palmer as support.

Hear the ‘Tax Office Love Song’ love and other tales of love, stuff, and love and then we’ll kick the chairs to one side and The Go Set will turn the dance floor into sawdust. For more details:

http://merrymuse.org.au/wb/pages/posts/friday-20-april-the-go-set-chloe-and-silas153.php

The Go Set
The Go Set

If this doesn’t get your feet tapping, check for a pulse…

 

Overheard at the 2012 National Folk Festival #2, Easter Saturday, 2pm

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Bohemia Bar Office
Bohemia Bar Office

Overheard at the 2012 National Folk Festival

Blog the Second, Easter Saturday, 12pm

I suspect that ‘National Folk Festival’ may indeed be Old Norse for ‘’.

I started that sentence over two hours ago and got no further. Maybe it was the late-ish/actually not very late night the night before, or the fact the laptop battery was running down, or trying to construct barely intelligible English while half-listening to a bush poet’s doggerel, but the snappy gag I’d thought of early that morning would not leap back to mind.

Take II.

I suspect that ‘National Folk Festival’ may indeed be Old Norse for ‘permanent, insane grin’.

That’s not the original version, but it will do for now. Blogs, unlike magazine articles, are beautifully editable at a later, more inspired date.

Friday, Friday, Friday – what a wonderful day in the land of the National.

I did mean to mention the unseasonal weather. I’ve been at Nationals where the days have been baking, but as Queensland singer Lonnie Martin observed today, she’d be stood outside the Session Bar at 2am today, listening to a wonderful Irish session and having to remind herself, as she stood there in short sleeves that this was the National and yes, this was Canberra in mid-Autumn.

I never let adverse weather dampen my spirits (boom boom) at festivals, but fine, sunny weather does levitate the general mood and for the organisers, it does bring those half-inclined punters out of their warm Canberra homes at a time where they be more inclined to snuggle up to their Turbo 10s, and crack open the hot cross buns and truckloads of chocolate.

Screw that: kranskys and mulled wine all the way.

And bucket-loads of good music. Continue reading →

Overheard at the 2012 National Folk Festival 01 — Good Friday, 7am

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Festival entrance is that way, not this way
Festival entrance is that way, not this way

Overheard at the 2012 National Folk Festival #01

Good Friday, 7am

Being something of an early waker (if not always an early riser), I’m taking the opportunity to put these golden* hours to good use and get a head start on recording my observations of the 2012 National Folk Festival.

* Actually, at roughly 6.30am on Good Friday, golden is something of a misnomer. It’s brilliant pinks and reds as the sun bursts into life. My only regret is that the floor to ceiling glass panoramic view of the old Volunteer’s Kitchen is all looked up – this year it’s a workshop and singing space again, which is lovely for the work-shoppers and singers, but sad to not have it available at dawn. It felt to be a volunteer in the past couple of years when you could start your day like that.

Yesterday was yet another new experience on settling into a festival. The plan had been to set up on site on Wednesday night then contaminate the start of the festival with a day’s work for the country off-site, but plans changed and I ended up racing in at 7am on Holy Thursday, bussing into town and bussing back in the mid-afternoon.

The change to the site in just those seven or so hours was palpable. Un-built or half-built structures were up. Scant green spaces were now a mess of tents and campers. And of course, the social media feeds were a-buzz with more and more arrivals from far-flung places like Brisbane, Melbourne and West Belconnen. Continue reading →