For the next eight days and then some, I’ll be filing stories about the Woodford Folk Festival in south east Queensland.
Follow the stories and adventures here.
Bill Quinn, December 2014
Either Kingsgrove NSW or Woodford Qld
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OK, some sort of spanner flew into the works here, because on checking back to this article on Thursday 6 February 2020, the above three lines are all that’s showing and there are no pictures. Some sort of poltergeist is in play.
So, to re-create from memory. Prior to attending the 2014-2015 Woodford Folk Festival, I got in touch with a stack of bands and did short interviews over the phone. I followed that up with a few face-to-face chats at the event, plus a few more general posts about goings on and proceedings over the nine days that I was on site at Woodfordia.
The first cab off the rank with the pre-fest chats was with Rafe Morris, at the time resident in Canberra and one of the driving forces behind Moochers, Inc.
For the next few weeks, you can hear the audio here:
But after the end of February 2020 it, along with dozens of other audio interview files, is being archived to my Dropbox.
It shall live on in text format. Ah… Wait…
The penny hath dropped. This was originally a Timber and Steel article. Right. That’s why this article on my website was previously devoid of my usual drivel.
Image courtesy of Moochers Inc
Here’s what I said at the time of the December 2014 post:
The wonderful Woodford Folk Festival kicks off on the Sunshine Coast hinterland in a magical kingdom called Woodfordia on Saturday 27 December 2014, and ends in a fiery extravaganza on the evening of Thursday 1 January 2015.
If you’ve not experienced Woodford before, then don’t delay. There’s still time to kennel the cat, grab your significant other, and point the wagon train north to Caboolture* and peel off left. Or south to Palmview and peel off to the right past Beerwah.
Ok, I could keep going but you’ve probably got Google Maps too, so you can keep playing at home if you like.
This is the first in a series of interviews, vignettes**, features and story-ettes that will seek to entice you off the couch and away from the Boxing Day Test to a sport far more interactive (and you can get in on the cricket action with the Woodford XI).
OR if geographically, monetarily, fiscally-responsibly***, or familyscomeoverfromSweden-ly you’re not able to, you can pull up a bean bag, grab a bag of Smith’s Chips and a Passiona and tune in for a Christmas and New Year of music, song, dance, spoken word, art, community, and probably a shipload of rain and mud OR stinking heat and 40+ degree external saunas.
Me, I personally take Woodfordia in all its many-splendoured glories. If life sends you a baking sidewalk, cook eggs and bacon. (I was never into lemons or lemonade.)
First cab off the rank is a wonderfully fun, fast and very toight outfit from Canberra called Moochers Inc. As Rafe Morris says in the interview, they’re a band for dancing, singing and drinking with — during the show, and before and after if the mood takes you and them.
Warning: jazz students sitting in the first row trying to follow the complex chord progressions, you may have your view impeded by writhing, sweaty, beautiful young dancing bodies. Which can’t be a bad thing. I’d jump right in, if I were you.
I probably will.
I do carry on with some bollocks at times. I have no idea what the * or ** was supposed to signify. [Rolls eyes several times.]
Image courtesy of Moochers Inc
Here’s the text of the interview:
Bill Quinn: Coming up very shortly, the Woodford Folk Festival kicks off on the 27th of December in south-eastern Queensland at a magical place called Woodfordia. I’m speaking this afternoon on the line with Rafe Morris from Moochers Inc. Good afternoon.
Rafe Morris: Good afternoon, Bill. How’re you doing?
BQ: I’m doing fine. And your good self?
RM: Nice one. It’s pretty sunny and lovely and close to Christmas and close to Woodford, so really nothing to complain about.
BQ: Now, Rafe, when I spoke to you earlier this morning, I made a fatal error: I called your band ‘Moochers’, and you were quick to correct me and call it ‘Moochers Inc’. Tell me about the ‘Inc’; I’m fascinated.
RM: Well, I think that really the main reason for the ‘Inc’ was that ‘Moochers’ was already taken. But then, if we were to make things up, we could say that we’re a very formal group, we’re incorporated, we have a very established business structure and model, and organisational charts.
And although there are only six band members and we’re all horrible at admin, we just like to formally recognise…
BQ: Your ‘Inc’-ness!
RM: That’s right!
BQ: Because you do the jazz stuff, you could go with a bit of homonym stuff and say, “If you like the Ink Spots, you’ll love Moochers, Inc!”
RM: We could do that. We’ve never done that and we probably never will, but we could.
Image courtesy of Moochers Inc
BQ: Let’s go back a step, Rafe. Tell us a bit more about the band.
RM: There are six of us. We play fun, fast, sloppy trad jazz but people say we play it well. So that’s nice when they say that. It’s a mix of old jazz standards, maybe some that people might not be too familiar with. And a mix of originals written by myself and the trumpet player, Cameron Smith.
And we have a lot of fun. Six of us: we have the trad jazz line up with the sousaphone at the back there with the drums, the guitar, trumpet and clarinet and the trombone making a bunch of noise. And we call kinda yell and sing and jump around.
BQ: When people say that a track needs more cowbell, I always say no, no; it needs more sousaphone.
RM: Yeah, everything needs more sousaphone. I’m standing on the street right now and I can’t see a sousaphone anywhere. So that’s one thing that needs more sousaphone: this street.
BQ: Now you say you have fun, and I pick up on that because when I was on Artsound FM 92.7 FM and we’d play a lot of jazz, people would ask what I think of it. And I’d reply it’s not really my thing and I especially don’t really like trad jazz, but I’m guessing you’d make it more accessible than what I think of as trad jazz.
RM: Yeah, you know what? I think that what we’ve found is people are surprised when they see that they like us. Because it would be very easy to pigeonhole us as being a very cheesy trad jazz band that appeals to a dying population. But if you approach anything with a bit of fun, a bit of humour, and you don’t take it too seriously, then that shines through and then people enjoy it because you’re enjoying it.
We move around a lot, we joke around a lot, we drink maybe more than we should sometimes.
And people like that. We approach it with fun and irreverence, and it’s not boring.
BQ: That’s interesting because my resonance of trad jazz is going to, say, the yacht club on a Sunday afternoon and you’d get a string of standards or originals, and it starts with one verse and then 87 solos.
RM: Yeah, and those same people, they don’t look at the audience, they’re staring at the ground and they’re looking like they’d rather be asleep.
That’s not us. Our songs, we try not to drag them on for too long. We’re quick and fun, we get people up dancing and we get good reactions wherever we go, I think generally because we enjoy what we do and that’s a bit contagious.
Image courtesy of Moochers Inc
BQ: That’s excellent because I’ve only ever been to one jazz festival in my life, which we won’t mention which one it was MoruyaJazzFestival and what I did notice was a lot of students sitting in the front row intently watching every chord, every move, every muscle – I’m guessing those people in the front row will be dancing at your gigs.
RM: Yeah, they do that, they do that. And generally, they’re those same jazz students as well, I think. No, those festivals are interesting, and we do play a couple of jazz festivals around the south coast quite regularly. It’s a funny mix of people sitting and staring, and the audience kind of knowing that music is for dancing but for every other band they’ve been sitting and watching. So, there’s some confusion at first until they realise that dancing is ok.
BQ: Excellent. So from the south east, you’re going to be heading the wagons up to the north. You’ve been to Woodford before?
RM: Yeah, I used to play in a fun reggae/rock/ska band called Dahahoo and we went up a couple of times, and did lots of gigs on the way up and back. But I haven’t been in about six years, I think, so I’m sure it’s changed tremendously. This is the first time Moochers Inc has been up as a band, so we’re pretty excited, pretty excited.
Image courtesy of Moochers Inc
BQ: You’d have a few little Woodford virgins there [in the band]; have you given them a briefing of what to expect, or are you just going to let them experience the wonderment when they get there?
RM: Can you believe that one of our band members had never heard of Woodford? And he’s like, “Oh guys, I don’t know…”
And we’re like: “Just shut up. Stop talking. Just say yes. Stop talking.”
BQ: Just use the Corinbank approach. Just immerse.
RM: That’s right. There’s not much you can do to explain the enormity of it, is there? It’s something you’ve got to experience. You can only say: “It’s gi-normous and awesome!” so many times before those words kind of lose their meaning.
We’ll let them figure it out for themselves.
BQ: Yeah, just three words you need to let them know: hydrate, hydrate, and… what’s the other one? Hydrate.
RM: Ah, I thought the other one was ‘Clown Poo’. Wasn’t that the alcoholic slushies with all the funny colours?
BQ: I’ve not experienced that one!
RM: Aw, it’s good. I hope they’ve still got that.
BQ: Sounds like far too much fun, Rafe.
Looking forward to seeing you up there myself and have a happy Woodford.
RM: Thank you. I should probably say that we’re coming with our newly-launched EP. Maybe six tracks on it; they’re all originals. We’ll be selling them for about ten or twelve dollars. It’s called Standing In Front Of A House.
And you can tell it’s our CD because it’s got a picture of us standing in front of a house.
And we would encourage people to buy that because we’ve got so many CDs and it’s a dying technology, so we need to sell them before CD players become non-existent.
BQ: There’s that, and as I always say, it’s an ecologically responsible thing they’re doing by buying your CDs because it means that your carbon footprint is reduced on your return journey – and that’s very important now that we don’t have a carbon tax anymore.
RM: That’s right. What is it? Positive action or direct action.
BQ: Rafe, thanks so much for talking with us this afternoon for Timber and Steel and various other publications, and we’ll see you at Woodford.
The wonderful Woodford Folk Festival kicks off on the Sunshine Coast hinterland in a magical kingdom called Woodfordia on Saturday 27 December 2014, and ends in a fiery extravaganza on the evening of Thursday 1 January 2015.
If you’ve not experienced Woodford before, then don’t delay. There’s still time to kennel the cat, grab your significant other, and point the wagon train north to Caboolture* and peel off left. Or south to Palmview and peel off to the right past Beerwah.
Ok, I could keep going but you’ve probably got Google Maps too, so you can keep playing at home if you like.
This is the first in a series of interviews, vignettes**, features and story-ettes that will seek to entice you off the couch and away from the Boxing Day Test to a sport far more interactive (and you can get in on the cricket action with…
I overheard a man on Manly Wharf beach one afternoon and his story became one of the most compelling interviews.
Let’s get there, unlike the Manly Ferry which darts out of Circular Quay and pretty much makes a beeline for Cabbage Tree Bay.
Let’s take a slightly circuitous root.
I grew up in the mid sixties and seventies with something of a hefty disdain for Manly.
It was a disdain maintained from a distance of about 366kms away in Canberra, and it was all based on the eternal battle between the mauve of the Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles (‘Silvertails’) and the Black and White of my beloved Western Suburbs Magpies (‘Fibros’). Rugby League, for the uninitiated.
My family hailed from the west: Parramatta, Harris Park, Guildford and Baulkham Hills. My anti-Manly bias was born of those silly tribal rivalries that sound so pointless in smaller towns like Canberra where I have never been able to take the north vs south thing seriously.
“We’re not that [farnarkeling] big!”
Cliff Notes: I’d never spent much time there, and while visiting friends in Fairlight and on other trips, I was looking for reasons to like the area.
Yes, we’ve fast-forwarded to 2013, and for some reason one day, I’d gone across the briney foam from Circular Quay to Manly Wharf and drifted up and down the Corso and around the back lanes and alleys.
And fell completely and totally and hopelessly in love with the place.
When you get just a little bit out of the centre of Manly, things get a little beige, bland and neo-conservative. But right in the middle of town, it’s like a little melting pot, albeit a flashier more glamorous pot than some other localities that host meetings of many cultures within the scope of what is loosely termed ‘Greater Sydney’.
Me, I love them all.
Walk from Punchbowl train station to the Boys High School (which I did when I first moved to Sydney in March 2013, to interview the assistant principal) and you see pretty much no white faces, hear no Australian spoken, and smell smells that don’t feature in, say, the main street of Miranda.
Take a walk along Forest Road in Hurstville CBD and to have a conversation or transact some business, a working knowledge of Mandarin, Cantonese or Korean would serve you well.
Hang out around various parts of Liverpool and a little Italian will get you a long way.
I know a little Italian. His name’s Marco and he’s a retired jockey.
(Dips the hat towards the film ‘Top Secret’ for that gag. I’m here all week, tip your wait staff, try the risotto.)
Yeshe Reiners makes Byron Bay his home, but he tours extensively from NSW to Europe, the North Americas, and back again.
Yeshe is immersed in the rhythms, culture and instruments of Africa, and in a raw interview using a couple of cans and a piece of hemp string stretched from Liverpool to the far north coast of NSW, Yeshe explained a bit about what’s going in his musical world, and what Sydney audiences can expect on Wednesday 17 December at 505 in Surry Hills.
Steve Tyson is doing what good indy musicians do: hitting the road to tour a new album.
‘Green Side Up’ is the new record, and from Byron Bay to Port Phillip Bay returning via Wagga Wagga, Canberra and Wongawilli Wongawilli Wongawilli (because he’s been everywhere, man) and Marrickville.
A lot of miles and a lot of different beds! And lots of new faces, new fans and the CD stocks starting to deplete as Steve Tyson and the band wend their back up past Taree, Forster, Tuncurry, and a thousand blanky roadworks.
The album has already had great reviews and you can see what all the fuss is about at Steve’s upcoming gigs.
On Remembrance Day 2014, a very tired Bill Quinn rang from the Kingsgrove RSL to speak with a slightly more chipper Steve Tyson, who was lounging around the Curly Flat Winery at Lancefield.
The sound quality is a little rough and red-dy. Which is appropriate, really.
*** Audio file will be deleted at the end of February 2020 ***
Victorian Celtic quartet Co-cheòl are launching their debut EP (‘Co-cheòl’) at the Boite World Music Café in North Fitzroy on Saturday 11 October 2014.
Boasting a wealth of instrumental skill and experience, a real strength of the group is in their vocal harmonising which comes to the fore in their EP. The group was also recognised with a runner-up award in the recent AUS-ACA A Capella Championships, plus awards for ‘Best Band’ and ‘Best Comedy Song’.
Co-cheòl made their festival debut in January 2014 at the ever-popular Cygnet Folk Festival in Tasmania to rapturous responses from audiences.
Co-cheòl EP cover
The group started singing together in October 2013 and this self-titled EP is their first recording.
Co-cheòl comprises Claire Patti (vocals/harp), Georgina Walton (vocals/ukulele), and twins Merrily Hansen (vocals/flute) and Ginger Hansen (vocals/accordion).
Ginger Hansen provided a little more background on where the band originated and what makes them hum (no pun intended):
‘Claire, Merrily and I have all sung together in the past at one point or another in a community choir. Claire has her own solo career as well as singing with Taliska. She was doing a solo album and obviously can’t do harmonies with herself while performing!
So she asked Merrily and I if we could give her a hand with concerts.
We did the backing tracks on her album and thought this is a good thing; we’ll keep doing this.
Claire works at a school where Georgina works, and one day Claire was singing to herself at work and then this other voice, Georgina, joined in with a great harmony line – and that was it!
We want to do more original material. We have one or two original numbers, as well as some lyrics that are ready to be put to music. Aside from this, we do all our own arrangements of a mix of traditional and more modern stuff.’
Co-cheòl is pronounced ‘Co-shaal ‘ and appropriately means ‘harmony’ in Scots Gaelic. Ginger spoke briefly about the origins of the band’s chosen music.
Co-cheòl
‘We have a family connection with Celtic music to varying degrees. We’ve all just had different amounts of exposure to it.
The National A Capella Championships were great. The event was incredibly well-organised, really well-attended, and it was just amazing to get in contact and make friends with a lot of other musicians and groups.
Quite of lot of groups from New South Wales and South Australia as well. When we go to Adelaide we’ll be meeting up with those people.
It was great to be in the company of a lot of other music nerds who enjoy singing as much as we do!
A capella is definitely a buzzword at the moment, so people are focussing on that aspect which is fine. They don’t necessarily have a picture of our music when they think of our singing, so that’s a nice surprise for them when they come to see and hear us.’
Victorians and South Australians have several chances to see Co-cheòl perform starting with the EP launch:
Saturday 11 October — Boite World Music Café, North Fitzroy (Vic)
Saturday 18 October — Darebin Music Feast, Wesley Anne, Northcote (Vic) 21 to 22 November — Carnival of Music, Clare Valley (SA) Sunday 23 November — Creatively Celtic, Church of Christ, Aldgate (SA) EP Launch
Lucie Thorne is doing one of the things she does best — touring around Australia, making her way into major centres, but also visiting a few places off the beaten track.
After two successful runs in Australia in recent times with Pieta Brown, showcasing the ‘Love Over Gold‘ album, Lucie is back on the road solo, albeit with long time collaborator percussionist Hamish Stuart, and teaming up for a double bill in Bacchus Marsh with Liz Stringer.
I should stop mentioning that the locations for doing these interviews are a little weird.
I can’t remember the last time I did a straight face-to-face interview in a studio. For this brief chat, I was in the salubrious surrounds of a Brisbane City Youth Hostels Association dormitory room, finishing the interview just a moment before house-keeping arrived with the bins, hose, and industrial leaf blower. Lucie, meanwhile, was in South Australia relaxing on a friend’s property complete with 3D cattle.
If you’re reading this on the day of publication (Tuesday 3 June 2014) you can tune in and hear Lucie live on air on ABC 774 Melbourne with Lindy Burns from around about 9pm AEST. You can listen online.
*** Audio file will be deleted at the end of February 2020 ***
Image courtesy of Woodsongs dot com and Michael Johnathon. Photo by Larry Neuzel.
Image courtesy of Woodsongs dot com and Michael Johnathon. Photo by Larry Neuzel.
From humble beginnings in 1998, from a small venue that sat just 20 people in the audience, Michael Johnathon has built the Woodsongs Old Time Radio Hour into a public broadcasting colossus. Woodsongs is heard and seen around the globe each week from its current home in the Lyric Theatre, Lexington KY.
The program showcases bands, performers and troupes from across the broad spectrum of bluegrass, Americana, roots, acoustic and alt-country, and a few others around the blurred edges of folk.
It’s a 100% community and volunteeer-run operation, making its longevity and sustainability all the more remarkable. And laudable.
It gets even better than that – but you’ll have to listen to the interview for the part that rocked me back on my heels.
And upturned kayak.
The show has reached an eye-watering 750+ episodes as of April 2014, many of which are freely available from the Woodsongs website in audio and video formats. Apart from its legion of individual listeners, Woodsongs has spawned a string of coffeehouse groups which meet to experience the show as a community.
The log cabin. Image courtesy of Michael Johnathon.
And it’s not like Michael has anything else to do with his spare time.
Like being a singer-songwriter of many years standing. Or touring. Or arranging other concerts. Or building a log cabin and surrounding structures plus landscaping and bridges etc. bare-handed. Or being a father of two adult children (and two more on the way in one hit).
No, I lied. He’s all of that and more.
An just get a load of where he got his folk beginnings from. I can only interpret my silence at hearing who his neighbour was in upstate New York as a little mild shock and awe.
On a chilly autumnal morning in Sydney, I stepped off the Manly* Ferry and found a suitable-ish place to record an interview over the shaky airwaves from Australia to Lexington, Kentucky. A picture of my luxurious chair in the ‘recording studio’ appears below.
* For international audiences, ‘Manly’ refers to a suburb and location on the north side of Sydney Harbour named ‘Manly’. We don’t believe in forcing gender stereotypes onto our aquatic transport vessels. Actually, if anything, we refer to them as ‘her‘ for the most part. Continue reading →
Taliska On Tour To Eurobodalla, Jenolan Caves, ACT and Victoria, 2014
Taliska is bringing a taste of Scotland to a parts of New South Wales and the ACT this month. They’re then plying their Celtic trade closer to home in Ringwood and Portarlington (Victoria) and many places beyond.
Hopefully they’ll be near you, and if they’re not, that’s just all the more reason to start loving their music and get them to your town next time they’re back this way.
OR get yourself on a Greyhound or Murray’s bus to one of the three venues, stat.
Definitely like them on Facebook and follow the trails, talents and travails of Taliska.
Who are Taliska?
Claire Patti has a voice that has to be heard to be believed, and she plays the harp (the stringed one), french horn and piano accordion. Claire sings harmonies with the guitar-playing band leader Marcus de Rijk (note the strong Scottish influence in that name — mmm, maybe not so much), while Geoff Jones plays pipes, whistles and bodhran. Angus Downing makes the whole thing fly with his wonderful fiddle playing. Taliska’s traditional Ceilidh will have your feet pounding the tiles.
Owen Campbell to play The Abbey, Canberra on Friday 2 May 2014
Australian blues man Owen Campbell has been busy promoting his latest album ‘The Pilgrim’ and will be taking the show back to his old stomping ground of Canberra atThe Abbey on Friday 2 May 2014 to kick off his ‘Remember to Breathe’ Tour.
Show only tickets are available for just $20 or dinner and show is $65. Booking fees apply to both and the details are available at The Abbey.
Owen took some time out to talk with Bill Quinn who was cooling his heels at Central Railway Station – the foyer of the Sydney Gaelic Club proved to provide the best acoustics.
*** Audio file will be removed at the end of February 2020 ***
Bill Quinn: I’m stood above Central Station where the tunnel is a hive of activity for buskers, and that’s very appropriate as we’re talking with Owen Campbell. Owen, how’re you going?
Owen Campbell: Good thanks, mate.
BQ: Owen, tell us what’s up in the world of Owen Campbell at the moment.
Kavisha Mazzella is an accomplished singer-songwriter from Melbourne with a substantial body of work behind her and a long career of touring solo and with bands of various composition (no pun intended).
Were that the end of the story, it would be laudable enough, but it literally crests just the tip of the iceberg of this remarkable woman. Leader of community choirs in Australia and Italy, flexible and adaptive musician who lends her talents to a litany of projects including providing backing to a silent film from the 1920s — live.
It’s any wonder that when Bill Quinn caught up with Kavisha earlier this week he kept the chat time down to under 20 minutes. There are just too many things to talk about.
Kavisha Mazzella launches her Riturnella album of centuries-old Italian songs on Sunday 4 May at the Django Bar, Marrickville.
Image courtesy of Kavisha Mazzella
*** Audio file will be removed at the end of February 2020 ***
Overheard Productions 