australia

Interview: Tolka (Victoria)

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Image courtesy of Tolka
Image courtesy of Tolka

Interview with Tolka (Victoria)

I was initially attracted to the sound of Tolka as they reminded me strongly of one of my favourite Australian folk bands. I won’t say which one, though it was mentioned in dispatches and a subject of some discussion when we spoke — press ‘Play’ below to find out more.

When we spoke earlier in the year, on a sultry Saturday evening when the Illawarra Folk Festival was fairly humming, strumming, beating and dancing, Tolka hadn’t at that point put one foot inside the recording studio for their debut album.

However, last weekend, ‘Tunes From The External Hard Drive’ was launched with appropriate fanfare in their hometown of Melbourne.

There are more chances for you to see Tolka for yourself via their gig listing. The album will be available soon at Bandcamp, or contact Tolka directly about where to snaffle a copy.

Upcoming festival gigs for Tolka:

3 to 4 June – Robert Burns Scottish Festival, Camperdown (VIC)
20 to 22 September – Turning Wave Festival, Yass (NSW)

There’s also an exhibition of the album’s artwork at the Brunswick Arts Space from 13 to 28 July.

Dr Gilbert’s Set from the National Celtic Festival, Victoria, 2013:

A Punter’s Perspective #39: Warren “Arch” Bishop: Bush folklore for the kids

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Arch Bishop (centre) at 2012 Illawarra Folk Festival with Peter 'Pearl' McLeod, Rick Saur, Rosie McDonald and Billy Arnett
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 in Trad and Now magazine, 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 →

George Mann Talks About The Almanac Singers CD and Tour, July 2013

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Image courtesy of George Mann
Image courtesy of George Mann

George Mann proved to be a great hit with Australian audiences when he toured in 2012, and so he was a very welcome returnee in 2013.

Around the time of the Illawarra Folk Festival in January, George played a series of shows, predominantly with Rik Palieri, but also teaming up at the festival and later in the month at Wongawilli with compatriots Rick Nestler, Dom Flemons and Reanna Flemons née Muskovitz.

George Mann and Rik Palieri have recorded a CD of the songs of the Almanac Singers and in July 2013 plan to retrace the steps of the legendary 1941 tour.

On a stinking hot day (that’s an Australian term for ‘mighty hot day’ for our North American friends) at the Illawarra Folk Festival in Bulli, George and I found a cool spot and George told me more about the planned tour.

*** 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 ***

Kim Churchill — off to tour USA and Canada, 2013

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Image courtesy of Kim Churchill
Image courtesy of Kim Churchill

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!

KC1
Image courtesy of Kim Churchill

Continue reading →

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

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Claymore (Vic.)
Image by Andre Elhay Photography

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.

Claymore
Image by Wicked Rock Photography

Continue reading →

The Underscore Orkestra — interview on tour in Australia

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Image courtesy of The 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 ***

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

2013 Illawarra Folk Festival — interview with David de Santi

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

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

And here’s the very fine TV ad for this year’s festival:

The Acca Daiquiris: with a twist of jazz

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The Acca Daiquris
The Acca Daiquris. Image courtesy of The Acca Daiquiris.

When you break down the name of some bands, they really do tell you exactly what you need to know. In this case, it’s taking hard driving rock numbers and serving them up in the cocktail bar (at Lounge Lizard O’Clock) with a smooth finish.

I had heard the name The Acca Daiquiris before through friends in high and low places associated with Thursday nights at the National Press Club and other jazz-related venues, but gun to my head, I’d struggle to pick them out of a line-up.

So when bass player Geoff Rosenberg contacted me via social networking last week, I had little to go on. But true to my congenital affliction (chronic interviewitis), come 7pm on Friday night we were conversing o’er the telecom lines, and I started by pointing out to Geoff that I was breaking some very new ground with this interview.

Bill Quinn: Now Geoff, this is the first time I’ve done an interview with a covers band so please be gentle with me.

Geoff Rosenberg: Yeah, I suppose we are a covers band, but we don’t always see ourselves as such. We do do covers, but we do original arrangements.

BQ: Just on that point, do you find there’s any snobbery on that? “We do originals and you do covers?” Continue reading →

Billy Bragg interview: the sound file

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Billy Bragg -- on tour in Australia from 19 October 2012. Photo credit and copyright: Anthony Saint James.
Billy Bragg — on tour in Australia from 19 October 2012. Photo credit and copyright: Anthony Saint James.

Billy Bragg interview: the audio

On a mild Canberra evening, I interviewed Billy Bragg down the line from the UK. While I hammered the text out fairly quickly and it appeared in Timber and Steel a week or so later, and in Trad and Now not long after that, I dragged my heels a little to get the audio edited down.

Luckily, my new multi-channel recording device comes with a handy bit of sound-editing software, and while I’m hardly a master of it, it’s done. Even if Soundcloud is taking forever to load the audio file.

But that’s my problem not yours…… 36% uploaded……

Enjoy.

Full details of where Billy’s playing are in the Timber and Steel article — see above for link.

The Holy Grail (or maybe just a re-calibrated Grail): Billy Quinn the Big-Arsed Billy Bragg singer interviews Billy Bragg

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Billy Bragg's web-site is www.billybragg.com which then takes you to www.billybragg.co.uk
Billy Bragg’s web-site is www.billybragg.com which then takes you to www.billybragg.co.uk — which reminds me of a song of his I still need to learn by Thursday 20 September, not that this bears any relevance to the task at hand. Meanwhile, this will explain the relevance of the blog title: https://overheardproductions.com/2012/04/30/greg-quinn-time-to-me-he-is-calling-you-but-youre-probably-not-listening/

Coming soon to a Timber and Steel blog near you

The Billy Bragg interview — the text

So, as the bishop said to the actress, I’ll be brief.

No, seriously. I know we’ve met and all, and I know that you know that I know that I don’t do brief.

Or briefs. But hey I just got up from a nap.

Unclench and un-eeewwwww! I’m wearing trackie pants but only because me trewsers are drying and when they are, I get to go out the door and down the club to watch Norwich at home to West Ham United who are the new black because (tada) that’s Billy Bragg’s team.

See? Douglas Adams was on to something with Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency: the interconnectedness of all things. (Shows how much TV I watch; apparently it’s a TV series. Go go Google iView or whatever or I’ll have to go to Britain if it’s geo-blocked here. Mind you, I’m writing this from Australia, so we might get to see it here in 2014. This is the part where you dive in and say, ‘Oi, cloth ears; it was on in May!’)

Now, by curious coincidence, I mentioned ‘the interconnectedness’ of all things to Sir William Bloke in the interview, and just as I expected, he leapt on to the concept like a seagull onto a chip.

I once blew seven layers of merde through a group of teenagers throwing chips to seagulls on the south coast of New South Wales.

Why? Continue reading →