Posting this one up just a little bit late in the piece, so hopefully late is better than never.
I had the pleasure of talking with a number of interesting locals and visitors to Australia at the 2013 Illawarra Folk Festival back in January, and Rick Nestler was one of those.
It was a classic piece of going in cold as I knew little more about Rick than his name and how to pick him out of a line-up. However, as is often the case, the interviewee was interesting, obliging, funny and articulate.
Hear Rick talk about skiffle, jug bands, and yes, we talked about ukuleles.
Random observations on the wide, weird world of folk from the side of the stage
#43 Overheard at the 2013 National Folk Festival
First published in Trad and Now magazine, April 2013
I usually stop short of epithets like ‘the best’, ‘the greatest’ or such like. But in a relatively short experience of the National Folk Festival (my ninth of a possible 47), this year’s was definitely the most anticipated Nash I’ve personally known of.
A number of variables made the lead up to this one a little tantalising.
The organisers made no bones about the fact that it’s been testing times for the National. Some may shudder at words they’ve used like ‘consolidation’, ‘challenge’ and ‘sustainable’, but I’m actually a bit of a fan.
If there are threats to a festival’s viability, you can either fix a smile and adopt a ‘Move on, nothing to see here, all is well’ approach. Or squat on your heels, furrow brows, chew bits of bark and declare we’ll all be rooned.
Or you can call a spade a spade (not a manual earth-moving device) and accept there are indeed challenges and forge ahead.
Disclaimer: I’m observing all of this from some distance, and am NOT privy to any of the National’s internal machinations. Continue reading →
It’s been an irregular destination for six years, but what a place to end up at?
Whether you’re coming from the north or the south, the approaches through gently rolling green hills and valleys are captivating. Despite having familial ties in the Eurobodalla Shire slightly to the north, it was only on way to my first Cobargo that I drove past Lake Corunna, and nearly ran off the road as I sucked all the oxygen from the surrounding atmosphere.
It’s a stunning part of the world.
And the festival site looks like it was placed there by an inspired land surveyor/geo-spatial technician/landscape art historian. I will never tire of simply drifting around the site from top to bottom, over the ridge and back again, finding some new perspective, some new aspect, some new way the light has hit the trees or crept through a cloud outside the venue, at just the right time and just the right angle.
Belting out drivel on a smartphone at the Carrington Hotel, Katoomba.
A Punter’s Perspective
Random observations on the wide, weird world of folk from the side of the stage
#41 Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own II
First published in Trad and Now magazine, February 2013
This is where the text goes. Normally.
This article was written in the bar of the Carrington Hotel one Tuesday morning as I stretched the monthly friendship with Trad and Now’s very personable editor to get something vaguely printable in by the sometimes usually rubbery marker some people refer to as a deadline.
I had several challenges that day, not the least of which was a dead laptop.
So over the course of about two and a half hours, I wrote and submitted my article in text on a Samsung Galaxy I.
It was a bit silly. Nay, it was a lot silly.
I didn’t think I still had it, but it’s there in my sent emails on Gmail. I’ll probably save a copy into Dropbox for posterity’s sake.
But I don’t see any need to regurgitate it here now. It’s more for continuity than anything else.
I had a timely and amusing reminder of my publisher’s good humour and brevity of phrase when I told him some weeks later that normal service would be resumed in the March edition. His response was simply:
Berlin folk pop band The Beez have been frequent visitors to Australia in recent years with their latest tour taking place at the start of 2012. The band is now taking a short break at the start of 2013, however, band members Rob and Deta Rayner will be coming to Australia very shortly with a new show: Don’t Mention The Wall! – songs and stories from the fall of the Berlin Wall and beyond.
On a variously muggy mid-summer’s Australian morning or frosty Berlin midnight hour, depending on your hemispherical perspective, I spoke with Rob Rayner on the line from Berlin about the show.
Bill Quinn: The Beez left our shores back in April, was it?
Rob Rayner: It was May. It was the epic tour of four months. We never thought we’d get through four months but we did. AND the amazing thing is that we’re still talking to each other! Continue reading →
Arch Bishop (centre) at 2012 Illawarra Folk Festival with Peter ‘Pearl’ McLeod, Rick Saur, Rosie McDonald and Billy Arnett. Photo by Bill Quinn.
A Punter’s Perspective
Random observations on the wide, weird world of folk from the side of the stage
#39 Warren “Arch” Bishop: Bush folklore for the kids
First published inTrad and Nowmagazine, December 2012
When I was introduced to “Arch Bishop” at Cobargo Folk Festival in 2007, it took a while to confirm there wasn’t some sort of wind-up going on. (After I’d genuflected, crossed myself, mumbled ‘Your Excellency’, and kissed his ring – just in case).
Warren Bishop (universally known as Arch or Archie) is a master of the straight-face. He even got me hook, line and sinker when I rang for this interview, though I can’t repeat the story here until ‘Trad and Now’ magazine develops a sealed section.
“Arch” is a larger than life part of the New South Wales folk festival scene as a poet, story-teller and raconteur. He’s a man who loves to laugh – especially if he’s sharing the joke with others.
And stories. He’s got more stories than….. a very tall building that has lots of floors. Lately he’s been finding new horizons for this mastery of the spoken word, and it was these developments and potential new pursuits I was keen to talk with him about. Continue reading →
The BordererS are always very welcome visitors up north, presenting as they do a heady mix of emotional ballads and high energy/highly danceable original music (and one or two covers and the odd singalong).
Late last year I spoke with Jim Paterson ahead of a couple of Borderers gigs and you can read that interview here:
See you at the Wollongong City Diggers on Saturday 15 June. More details on Illawarra Folk Club goings on are available in their latest June newsletter.
Jeff Lang on Moors. Photo by Alison Ferrier. Image courtesy of Jeff Lang.
Bill Quinn walked into a tent where Jeff Lang was playing at the Candelo Village Fair in 2011 and was promptly blown back out by a wall of sound that might have had Phil Spector raising an eye-brow.
Or possibly his whole head.
Ever since, he’s been intrigued (that’s Bill, not Phil — as far as most pundits are aware, Spector’s views on Candelo are yet to be canvassed) by the sound level created by Lang and band, and was reminded of this at the 2013 Illawarra Folk Festival when one of Lang’s sets had the songs seemingly bouncing off the escarpment.
Finding an opportunity to bail Jeff up in the green room (ie the grass behind the tent), Bill whipped out the all-terrain microphone and quizzed Jeff on the sound matter, among others.
(Please excuse the seven second déja vu moment at the start of the audio; the post-producer still has his ‘L’ plates on for the use of Microsoft Movie Maker…)
Chris ‘Griff’ Griffiths is one third of the membership of Sydney band Grimick and one half of its name.
Confused? Never fear. (Small band member joke there; we move on.) Yes, never fear because Griff has a black belt in algebra, and is not afraid to use it.
Grimick are Griff, Mick (join the naming dots there) and Dr Fear.
I first encountered Grimick at Kangaroo Valley Folk Festival several years ago and was quite mesmerised by their songs and music. Later, listening to their wonderful album ‘Dazzle’, I was even more enchanted. Firstly, for the stunning production values and warm, rich sound, and secondly for the fact that Grimick have this tendency to give their music away.
Griff explains more about this giving-away ethos in the interview, both giving away CDs at gigs and giving you the ability to download the whole shooting match at their website.
I interviewed Griff at Punchbowl Boys’ High School in Sydney’s south-west earlier this week and we spent a bit of time talking about the benefits to be had from inter-meshing music and education.
And by and by, we did discuss music, and Grimick’s first foray to the National Folk Festival this weekend.
Highly recommended. See them if you can.
*** Audio file will be removed at end of February 2020 ***
Image courtesy of Grimick
Bill Quinn: 2013 is a year for doing interviews in new and interesting places. Already I’ve done one in a harness racing kitchenette, and now we’re at the Punchbowl Boys High School. I’m talking to Griff from the wonderful band Grimick. Hello, Griff.
Chris Griffiths: How’re you going? Thanks for making your way out to sunny Punchbowl on this Monday morning.
Wheeze and Suck Band have since wound up, and a cut-down version of the band perform as Traditional Graffiti. Tony Pyrzakowski performs with Butch Hooper as Hooper and O’Toole.
As I’ve said many a time on stage and in print, I don’t even try to have a veneer of objectivity when it comes to some bands.
They’re just my favourites, and I adore their music and I’ll hunt them down at every festival and sing along, and sometimes dance along, and that’s just the way it is and ever shall be, Wheezer World without end, amen.
If you think age shall weary them, just click on the video link below and suspend disbelief. It says so much with music and dance in this shaky clip I took at St Albans Folk Festival from a couple of years ago (usually held on an Anzac Day weekend — put it in your calendar now; thank me later) is the range of ages the Wheezers appeal to.
What child could resist jumping around to a bunch of men in funny hats and cloaks? And that’s for the young at heart and the young in the head.
And the young in age.
It’s enough to even make you groan with empathy (and maybe a little sympathy) to John ‘Red Tips’ Milce’s jokes, trotted out at irregular intervals in pure Lancashire-ish.
Fiddler-player Tony Pyzarkowski is one third of a regular trio along with Butch Hooper and Kevin ‘Bodhranworld dot com‘ Kelly who form “Kelly’s Heroes” and bash out three hours of stuff you probably know, stuff you may know and stuff you may not have heard of in PJ O’Brien’s pub in Sydney every Sunday night from 6-9pm. (No chance on Easter Sunday — that’s National Folk Festival central.)
After last Sunday’s session, Tony had a bit of a chat about what’s going on with the Wheezers and looked forward to the National Folk Festival starting this Thursday 28 March 2013 in Canberra.
Overheard Productions 