SANS performing at the 2013 National Folk Festival (Australia) – interview

March 24, 2013September 22, 2014 Overheard Productions Interviews, Music general andrew cronshaw, Canberra, folk, ian blake, music, music of the world, National Folk Festival, zither

*SANS at ethno ambient. Image courtesy of SANS.*

Interviewing Andrew Cronshaw is a bit like watching Waragamba Dam in flood.

There’s a mighty capacity, but the volume contained therein and the urge for it to surge out means there’s a fair old splashing and cascading over the spillway.

(This is a musical knowledge thing, not early-onset incontinence — just did want to clarify that one.)

Andrew Cronshaw (and the relatively more calm, still waters of Ian Blake) have been comrades in music of the world for many a year, and delighted audiences at the National Folk Festival in 2010.

A very salient memory is a packed performance in the Coorong on the Saturday evening when the MC (me) had been directed erroneously to the Budawang and ended up sprinting twixt venues, doing a slide into home base staying upright to collect a microphone and bounce on to stage to give a slightly breathy but knowledgeable intro courtesy of having seen them both at the National Library of Australia mid-week.

Andrew Cronshaw and Ian Blake were performing at a fantastic afternoon on Aspen Island, literally in the shadows of Canberra’s Carillon, on a balmy Monday afternoon in mid-March as Canberra celebrated a day before turning 100 years young. I grabbed a few minutes with Andrew and Ian as the zephyrs zephyred and the dragon boats came in and the sound guys eventually started to test the drums on stage.

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

Andrew and Ian will be performing with the new collective badged SANS:

Andrew Cronshaw – electric zither, fujara, marovantele, kantele, ba-wu etc.
Sanna Kurki-Suonio – voice
Tigran Aleksanyan – Armenian duduk
Ian Blake – bass clarinet, soprano sax etc.

Performance times at the National Folk Festival:

Friday 29th March – Trocadero, 9pm
Saturday 30th March – Budawang, 12.30pm
Sunday 31st March – Marquee, 4pm

Ann Vriend (Canada) 2013 Australian Tour – Interview at The Basement, Sydney, 2013

March 22, 2013January 29, 2020 Overheard Productions Interviews, Music general Ann Vriend, Australian tour, Canada, keyboards, piano, Sydney, the basement

Ann Vriend (Canada) is a very regular and very welcome visitor to Australia and this week she’s touched down in Sydney to kick off a month of shows that will take her south to Tasmania and north to Queensland — with appropriate stops along the way.

Ann’s first shows are in Sydney at The Basement where she’s received some great support from David Hand and Newport Consulting; the tour opener was fairly bursting with staff thereof.

In between set-list writing, sound-checking and dress-up* for the show, Ann took some time out to talk with me about weather, Aus-stray-lee-an pronunciation, more weather and suburb names. And music.

* When Ann came back in for the show, I dead-set wondered who was this elegant woman who looked like she was off to the races. And why was she waving at me from across the room?

I’m blaming it on jet lag.

*** Audio file will be removed at end February 2020 ***

Bill Quinn: When we have people who tour here from overseas, we have some who come here once and then we never see them again. And then we have others who tour here and they keep coming back, and back, and back again.

As a pundit and a punter, I’m totally OK with that. I’m sitting here with one who keeps doing that, and we’re very happy for that: Ann Vriend from Canada, hello and welcome?

Ann Vriend: Helloooo, and thanks for having me.

BQ: So, this would be something like trip number six, or something like that?

AV: No, it’s… well, I have to do math… but it would be eight, because my first was 2005 and I’ve come every year.

BQ: Every single year?

AV: Yeah. In your summer – that’s not by accident!

BQ: I tend to talk about weather, but what have you left behind you in Edmonton?

AV: Just before I left, we got about a foot of snow in one night. By the time it’s March, I’m a little bit over snow. So, if you go to my Facebook page, you can see the ‘before I left’ snow pictures, and the ‘after I left’ view of Sydney Harbour with palm trees.

BQ: So for the next few weeks, there’s going to be lots of pictures you’re sending back home in strapless numbers…

AV: Oh, I already posted a picture at the beach, like “Ha ha! I might not be rich, but there’s some perks to my job!”

Continue reading →

Fun Machine: Tipping Folk On Its Glittery Head, 2013

March 14, 2013January 30, 2020 Overheard Productions Festivals, Interviews, Music general Acoustic, Canberra, epic, folk, fun machine, National Folk Festival, punk, roots, yes/no

*Fun Machine at Canberra Centenary Celebrations. Photo courtesy of Martin Ollman.*

You don’t have to go back too far ago to a time when Fun Machine were an energetic three-piece band making underground waves in Canberra’s lively, teeming independent music scene.

But in a couple of short years (as opposed to the long ones which sadly died out in the late 1800s), Fun Machine’s star has been rising, thanks in no small part to some solid support from the Canberra Musicians Club.

And the amazing advocacy provided by 666ABC (AM Radio) Canberra for all things Canberra indie, but specifically Fun Machine. I may be wrong, but I believe that breakfast announcer Ross Solly may want to adopt them all, which is no mean feat as over this time, the band has doubled in size.

At Canberra’s ‘One Very Big Day’ this week to celebrate the city’s centenary, Fun Machine played to a heaving, sweaty mess of young and old beautiful people, as the last of the fireworks fell away (some into the crowd, allegedly!) as they put a fairly massive stamp on their cross-genre and cross-market universal appeal.

See a full photo set by photographer Bron King (aka guitarist Sam’s mum) here on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151350025671378.1073741828.521931377&type=3

Gigging around Canberra in various formats and bands, the members will rejoin as Fun Machine at this year’s National Folk Festival at EPIC in Canberra over the Easter Long Weekend.

If I were you, I’d… wonder whether those red pumps go with that skirt.

No, if I were giving you a serving suggestion for your Nash experience, I’d be taking a very brightly-coloured Spandex highlighter and putting a golden ring around Fun Machine in your programs.

On Tuesday last, as Canberra celebrated 100 years young with a mass of parties at the shops, I caught up with Bec Taylor and Chris Endrey from the band. Bec starts us off and that would be Chris you can hear crunching his way through the first of Canberra’s autumn leaves as we stood in salubrious surroundings outside the gents at O’Connor Shops. Bec and Chris had just done a stripped-back, rootsy, acoustic set under their duo moniker ‘Yes/No’.

*** Audio file will be removed by end February 2020. ***

Continue reading →

Kim Churchill — off to tour USA and Canada, 2013

March 10, 2013January 30, 2020 Overheard Productions Interviews, Music general Acoustic, australia, billy bragg, billy quinn, Canada, folk, Kim Churchill, Overheard Productions, roots, tour, USA

Kim Churchill has a few more shows to go in Australia before he heads off to USA to join the tour of one Stephen William Bragg (aka Billy Bragg).

At the Cobargo Folk Festival in February 2013, Kim Churchill was the recipient of my vicarious joy at this news, and we spontaneously had a chat, leaning on someone’s trailer, outside a venue, out in the open — which was a bit of a mistake because as I now know: don’t try to do these things in a flukey, swirling breeze.

I’m sure you’ll cope. Muggins here did the best he could with the sound balance. [Audio file will be removed by end February 2020.] Interview text:

Bill Quinn: I’m standing here with Kim Churchill. Hello, Kim.

Kim Churchill: Hello, Bill.

BQ: Kim, You’re about to go to America and tour with someone and I’m just a little bit excited about that. Tell me what you’re going to do in America.

KC: I’m going to do the opening slots for a guy named Billy Bragg.

BQ: OH MY GOD!

KC: Yes!

BQ: How the hell did you jag that one?

KC: Ah, bottle of scotch.

BQ: Elaborate!

Continue reading →

Claymore (Vic.) Flying Saucer Club, Friday 8 March 2013

February 28, 2013January 30, 2020 Overheard Productions Interviews, Music general artists shed, australia, billy quinn, Celtic, claymore, didgeridoo, elsternwick, flying saucer club, folk, glasgow, Melbourne, Overheard Productions, pipes, scotland, snare, Victoria

Claymore Live

The Flying Saucer Club

Claymore are playing at:

The Flying Saucer Club
4 St Georges Road. Elsternwick, Victoria

Friday 8 March 2013

From the presser:

“Claymore’s reputation as outstanding entertainers has led them to perform at many local and international festivals, they have performed in New York, Scotland, France at the “Festival Interceltique“, the largest Celtic festival in the world many times, New Zealand, Sydney, Melbourne, Launceston (Tasmania), National Celtic Festival, Port Fairy Folk Festival, Queenscliff Music Festival, Big Blues Day Out, Perth International Arts Festival, Brunswick Music Festival and many more.

The band has played many live radio and television performances in Australia and overseas.

With a mixture of traditional Scottish and Irish music and modern self penned Celtic rock the band represents the best of new age Folk Music.

Through a diverse and unique mix of sound’s featuring guitar, mandolin, fiddle, military snare, the highland bagpipes and even a didgeridoo, it is little wonder Claymore are one of Australia’s most popular festival acts. A not to be missed extravaganza.

“

Claymore are one of the first bands to spark my interest in folk music. Unless you count that village fair in Surrey in 1979 where I first experienced Morris Dancing (and have been in therapy ever since).

But in the modern era, it was the Beechworth Celtic Festival in 2001 and I had been taken there by my squeeze of the time and we had a mighty fine weekend. It was where I first saw Jigzag, The Beenies and Bahn Tré.

And Claymore.

Nothing was ever quite the same after that, even if it did take another three and a half years to distil the experience and step over the threshold of the National Folk Festival in Canberry for the very first time. My ninth is coming up this month.

It was wonderful to see Claymore perform in Queanberra last Saturday as I prepared to leave the city of my birth for good.

I’ve been lobbying William Hutton and co. to come here for about four and a half years since I had the great pleasure of being the band’s MC at the Guinness Tent at Maldon Folk Festival to a heaving, throbbing and bobbing crowd. That they were here near the nation’s capital just before I’m folking off for the rest of my naturals was a dream come true.

Continue reading →

Interview: Rory McLeod (audio)

January 22, 2013September 22, 2014 Overheard Productions Interviews britain, folk music, Merry Muse, rory mcleod, uk

No time to make this one pretty this morning! I’ll tidy up later today.

For Canberrians, I would absolutely, literally, monstrously love to see you at the Merry Muse this Thursday:

http://www.facebook.com/events/154810818000213/ for FarceBookers, and

http://merrymuse.org.au/wb/pages/posts/thursday-january-24-rory-mcleod-plus-night-potion-admission-20-mfs-members-22-conc-25-other184.php for the more secular yet still e-conscious of you.

The text is coming soon to Timber and Steel,

Rory McLeod is coming very soon to you (Sydney on Tuesday night, Katoomba on Wednesday, Canberra on Thursday) and all points south and west thereafter.

Unfortunately I underestimated how much sound spill we ha to contend with a 1am or whatever time it was under the grandstand at Illawarra Folk Festival, but you get the general idea:

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

And this is a little clearer: the crowd gives Rory a timely send-off on Sunday afternoon:

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

See you at the Merry Muse on Thursday night: http://www.facebook.com/events/154810818000213/?fref=ts

Dom Flemons — my personal hit of the 2013 Illawarra Folk Festival

January 21, 2013November 8, 2015 Overheard Productions Festivals, Interviews, Music general Acoustic, banjo, bones, dom flemons, folk, Illawarra Folk Festival, roots, USA

Dom Flemons — the real deal

I’m one who normally shies away from imported phrases and clichés — until that phrase or word or even that cliché is the most appropriate and resonant to unpack whatever notion or feeling or thing (a technical term, beg pardon) you want to get out there.

Case in point: I arrived at the Illawarra Folk Festival roughly 20 hours before I’d planned, on Thursday night. And when I surfaced on Friday morning, with one eye open, one eye closed, and a third eye tied behind my back for safe-keeping, about half a dozen people then independently proceeded to tell me, and of their own volition bailed me up, tied me down, roped me off, and press-ganged me on board the good ship Dom Flemons.

“Maaaaaate, you gots to see him!”

When I did indeed see him, I kid you not: I was spell-bound.

I was not alone by a long chalk.

The Miners Camp venue was full to over-flowing x 2, and everyone was spell-bound for the duration. When even many young children around the age of four or five even stopped their fidgeting and drawing with crayons for a song or two — well, that’s a fairly good barometer of the appeal of a performer.

Before that performance, and the packed out stage at Slacky Flat Bar the next day, I took just a few minutes of Dom’s time, high above the dog track in the grandstand on Friday morning, to have a chat.

I present that interview: live, uncut and un-fiddled with. No editing or anything.

The typed out wordification will be along later this week.

If you are only roughly within a quarter turn of the earth’s orbit away from anywhere Dom is playing on this tour, just get there.

Like I said: the real deal.

The Miss Chiefs — interview, 2013

January 14, 2013January 29, 2020 Overheard Productions Interviews, Music general Amelia Gibson, Blue Mountains, Canberra, Cooma, folk, folk music, Laura Zarb, singer-songwriter, The Miss Chiefs, Vendulka Wichta

At the National Folk Festival, 2012. Image courtesy of The Miss Chiefs. Image by Ian Fisk.

The Miss Chiefs talk about upcoming festival performances

The Miss Chiefs are Laura Zarb, Amelia Gibson and Vendulka Wichta from New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory.

Coming together at the National Folk Festival in 2012, they’re back together to perform at three folk festivals including a return to the National in 2013.

I spoke with the three girls after an informal performance at The Artists’ Shed in Queanbeyan on Sunday 13 January 2013.

The audio file is below and the text that appeared on the Timber and Steel nu-folk blog is duplicated here:

From https://timberandsteel.wordpress.com/2013/01/16/interview-the-miss-chiefs/ posted on 16 January 2013:

The Miss Chiefs is the serendipitous musical union of three young women whose massed ages don’t stretch too much past the half-century. Laura Zarb (Blue Mountains), Amelia Gibson (Canberra) and Vendulka Wichta (Cooma) have not been performing for long, however, they grabbed the attention of many immediately and they’re about to play three east coast festivals.

After a week locked away together, creating and rehearsing, The Miss Chiefs played a set in front of an appreciative crowd in Queanbeyan last Sunday, and Bill Quinn (Overheard Productions) caught up with them afterwards.

Bill Quinn: We’re here at The Artists’ Shed in Queanbeyan and have just seen a – was it a performance or a rehearsal…?

Laura Zarb: Awwwww, a bit of both!

BQ: … of The Miss Chiefs – Amelia, Vendulka and Laura. Laura, you’re the mother of the troupe; you’re the eldest.

LZ: It would seem so, yes!

[Laura is an elderly 25.]

BQ: So, I’m going to ask you about the genesis of the group.

LZ: The genesis. Well, it was at the National Folk Festival…

Laura and Vendulka: 2012.

MissChiefs3 — Image courtesy of The Miss Chiefs

Continue reading →

The Underscore Orkestra — interview on tour in Australia

January 13, 2013September 22, 2014 Overheard Productions Interviews, Music general australia, Balkan, folk, gypsy, moustache wax, New Zealand, Oregon, Portland, swing, tour, Underscore Orkestra

Image courtesy of The Underscore Orkestra

The Underscore Orkestra are from Portland, Oregon. They belt out an eclectic and energetic brand of gypsy, Balkan and swing — actually, has there ever been a brand of all that which is not eclectic and energetic?

Maybe not. But The Underscore Orkestra does all that with moustache wax.

The band is on tour in Australia and New Zealand from 31 December 2012 to mid-March 2013, and I caught up with Jorge Kachmari as the band was about to take the micro-stage at The Phoenix Bar in Canberra City.

The audio file of that chat is here, and in the shake of a lamb’s whatsit, the text will be at Timber and Steel.

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

2013 Illawarra Folk Festival — interview with David de Santi

January 9, 2013September 22, 2014 Overheard Productions Interviews, Music general 2013, australia, Bulli, dance, David de Santi, festival, folk music, Illawarra Folk Festival, Irish pub, New South Wales, piano accordion, Slacky Flat, spoken word, wollongong

Sarah from the WooHoo Revue, appearing at the 2013 Illawarra Folk Festival

On Sunday 6 January 2012, I mooched into the Illawarra and managed to pinch 2’56” of artistic director David de Santi’s valuable time as the countdown to the Illawarra Folk Festival ticks inexorably down.

Note: after a two-hour session at Dicey Riley’s Hotel in Wollongong, the constabulary were testing patrons’ ability to say or spell ‘inexorably’ in order to test levels of sobriety.

The session was one of a series held at Dicey Riley’s Irish pub in Crown Street to get punters in the mood for the merriment to come at Slacky Flat, Bulli from Thursday 17 to Sunday 20 January 2013.

So here’s that brief interview, and the text is available at the Timber and Steel blog.

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