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.
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Andrew and Ian will be performing with the new collective badged SANS:
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.
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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!”
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.
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’.
Image by Knight Photography
BQ: I’m at O’Connor Shops, it’s Canberra’s Birthday – 100 years of Canberra. I’m standing here with someone who’s just performed. Now, in the world of folk, we love it when young people take traditional instruments, and write songs in traditional formats that are hundreds of years old…
And then we’ve got Fun Machine – who take a rather different approach. Bec Taylor, hello.
Bec Taylor: Hello! How are you going?
BQ: Very good. Now, I grew up in the era of glam rock. Did that period influence Fun Machine and how you arrived at your presence?
BT: I actually think that glam rock hasn’t influenced us.
Our philosophies for our performances come from how we think about pop and rock music, and trying to do something unique in that sphere that’s not really self-conscious of itself. So people have described us as ‘anti-cool’, that we’re trying really hard not to be cool.
BQ: That’s interesting.
BT: Which is an interesting way to think of us, because we dress up and are really flamboyant and sparkly, and it’s kind of the opposite of what a lot of bands are doing.
BQ: I saw you guys perform at the ANU Bar, and [given the tightness of the outfits], Chris and Ramsey I could not only work out their gender but also have a guess at your religion. It’s a look, isn’t it?
Chris Endrey (joining us mid-sentence): Yes, it’s definitely sexually threatening. That’s what you’re asking?
Bands when they play, and put on their flannies and tight jeans as though they’re not wearing a uniform. It’s a conscious decision, and we’re being a bit more active in ours. We’re there to abandon all the bullshit pressures to be something else. To say no to fear and just enjoy ourselves.
Image courtesy of Fun Machine
BQ: Moving from the style to the substance, there is a lot of substance in the music, like ‘Alchemist’ – the single that came out before the album – that’s just an amazing song.
BT: Aw, thanks. The song was penned by Chris here. It has quite an uplifting message.
We worked a lot with our new producer Sam King on that song, and he’s producing our album which we’re finishing tomorrow.
And we just had a lot of fun writing all the stuff for it. And I feel it’s a positive message, and we try to have positive role models in our band, and try to be a positive group of people. We’re not yelling negative things or anything; we try to be a positive band for people, and I think that song embodies that. It’s about being glittery and gold, having no reservations and having fun.
BQ: Speaking of the band, last time I saw you perform it was a trio. Last night, did you have room on the stage for everybody?
CE: Yeah, well we hope that by growing in size, we’re growing in quality. We’ve doubled in size to six. We have two drummers, which is just the best thing in the world to have in a band. It gives us the versatility to do more stupid things on stage; we can dance around and not having to worry about nailing all of the lines all of the time because we’re free.
Initially with the band all bands, I’m hesitant to have more people in a band, more than you need, because normally you see bands have like five people, and you see three people on guitar just looking at their guitars and not performing or anything. We had an apprenticeship by fire of three of us having more instruments than we could physically play at once, so now we’re definitely ready to put on a show with more people.
BQ: With extra instrumentation comes an extra bit of diversity, you’ve got Emma [Kelly] up there with the fiddle, so it gives it an extra dimension, doesn’t it?
BT: Yeah, it’s great having a violinist who plays an amazing diversity of styles. So she’s not playing folk violin, she’s not playing rock, she’s playing what suits us. And we’ve got Sam [King] playing guitar and singing – he’s a really great character to have in the band, not only for performance, but for adding different textures because he’s such a creative guy.
Then we’ve got Nick [Peddle], who not only plays the drum immaculately but is also an incredible performer on stage. So I feel like we couldn’t have gotten three better musicians. It pushes us to really be better musicians, and to try harder in our performance. It’s really fun.
Image courtesy of Fun Machine
BQ: For a bit of contrast this afternoon, we’ve seen you as ‘Yes/No’ which is more of a stripped-back, rootsy arrangement.
CE: This started when our original third member moved to Germany for a while. We got bored and wanted to play a lot of gigs. We started experimenting with just the two of us, not thinking too much about shows before going into them.
So today out in the beautiful sunshine in the park, we play nice folky, acoustic songs, but when we play the Phoenix at 10pm, we’re a very loud punk band! So the variety keeps it fun for us as well.
BQ: Do we expect to see both at the National Folk Festival?
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.
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.
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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.
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:
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And this is a little clearer: the crowd gives Rory a timely send-off on Sunday afternoon:
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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.
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:
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…
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.
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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.
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And here’s the very fine TV ad for this year’s festival:
Overheard Productions 