While that’s bad news for anyone on site who missed his gigs, or for anyone who got along and just wants to see more, the good news for John is that he can now find a shady tree and try to keep cool for the rest of the festival.
“This weather is too hot for my blood!” he observed to the lunchtime crowd of Duck Eggs, as he referred to them, in a friendly way.
While pumping up the nachos at The Chef’s Table and their other gastronomical delights.
Bill Quinn was phonetically challenged….
I’m sorry, I’ll read that again.
Bill Quinn was challenged in terms of phone access which left John with some extra time to enjoy the shade of the Coopers Bar, but they eventually caught up for a chat:
*** Audio file will be deleted by end of March 2020 ***
*** Audio file will be deleted by end of March 2020 ***
In eight days’ time (Sunday 30 October 2016), Overheard Productions is closing its doors OR it might be transitioning into something similar only different.
Yeah, I’d put money on the latter!
Hold on. 30/10/2016 = 13 = 4 = death. Strangely appropriate in one way, but a bit final given my plans! Meh, that numbers game is like a horoscope to me. Interesting for shizs and giggles, but not to be taken overly serious.
[Just look over there while I throw some salt over my left shoulder and turn around three times.]
Over the next eight days, I’m going to (as time permits) resurrect some old interviews and sound files. I’m paying these days for unlimited Soundcloud space, so I might as well make use of it.
This is one that I strangely never attached to a WordPress document, which is very weird since it’s one of my favourites with one of my all-time favourite on air/screen people.
When the Spicks and Specks offered me a choice of Alan Brough or Myf to interview, I did think that Alan would be a fascinating man to speak with given his encyclopaedic knowledge of music and his brilliantly dry and funny wit.
I was like a cat on a hot tin roof, though not as alley cat-like as my daughter figured (as mentioned in the interview).
Enjoy.
Myf is currently presenting the lunch show (11am to 2pm ADST) on Double J radio (digital radio, online and Channel 200 on Free To Air television). Though at the time of writing (Saturday 22 October 2016), I believe she may still be overseas and the chair is being skillfully warmed by the aforementioned Alan Brough.
No, that must have been a pack of lies, as my late mother would say. Looks like she’s back!
Karen Green first came to our attention via her art on display at the Tuggeranong Arts Centre.
Karen came into the studio with fellow artist Gosia Orzechowska one morning for a chat, and Overheard Productions has been interested in her works ever since.
*** Audio file will be removed by the end of March 2020 ***
*** Audio file will be removed by the end of March 2020 ***
In more recent times, Karen Green has been very active on Twitter, sharing thoughts, links and events about social justice. It was this interest that led to a chain of events that saw her enter a portrait of Kon Karapanagiotidis of the Melbourne-based Asylum Seekers Resource Centre in the 2016 Archibald Prize.
Kon Karapanagiotidis by Karen Green.
Entry in 2016 Archibald Prize. Image courtesy of Karen Green. Continue reading →
To tell the story of Harry Manx would take several lifetimes, and hopefully a progression of life-form hierarchies over those lives to tell the story, because the story is so mesmerising and complex that we would not be very present and in the moment of most of those lives, and that could put the telling of the tale at risk as we would not be making gradual and continuous improvement as…
Moving on…
Harry Manx performs at the 2012 National Folk Festival
Harry Manx has already begun his 2016 Australian tour which will take him from Sydney down to Victoria (where he is on stage tonight, Friday 23 September in Frankston) then around to Queensland, South Australia, Perth and up to Broome and Darwin, ending in the beautiful, lovely, gorgeous, I-may-be-a-little-hereditarily-biased New South Wales locales of Katoomba.
Ah, Katoomba. If there’s a more intimate, special venue than Clarendon Guest House, I want it stuffed, mounted, and hung above my fireplace – or I at least want an invite to your venue if it can go close to kicking the Clarendon into a cocked hat. Or any poultry millinery for that matter.
So it’s a very eclectic path Harry treads, and look, I’d draw you a picture if I had a free hand, but imagine a much-twisted paper clip that’s been sitting on your desk all day on a slow Friday when you’ve been watching the clock since 9:36am – now you’re in the ballpark.
OR picture a moose that somehow wandered into your yard, found your sippin’ liquor in the shed, and is now making a bedraggled, loquacious, and somewhat winding stagger back to the forest by a circuitous route, two-thirds of it sideways.
Matt Barker hails from Southend in Essex UK, which is a shame since most of the taxis won’t go further than Basildon.
(That gag was an entry in the Morris Men-tal Institute Joke Competition of August 1936 and told repeatedly until a cease and desist order from the Greater London Department of Public Transport and Sun Beds in February 1937.)
Where were we? Talking about Matt Barker and his two fabulous radio shows.
The Matt Barker Radio Show is two hours of finely-organised chaos, going out to the world on Fridays at 6pm UK time, available on podcast from Mixcloud.
While the Deuce Radio Show is a tight little package (careful!) of the best new independent music to tumble onto Matt’s desk.
In this interview, Matt talks with Bill Quinn of Overheard Productions about the mechanics and motivations behind these shows, plus his future plans for well-funded world domination.
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.
On one of those nights earlier this year where I could have pulled up stumps in Blackheath, Balmain or Bollongong, I opted for the middle option on a warm evening at a programmed open mic night (for want of a cleaner turn of phrase), one of many put on each week under the label ‘Songs On Stage‘.
It was an eclectic mix of local performers at The Cat and Fiddle that night but the gig was also host to a visiting performer: Owen Van Larkins (who puts his music out as Van Larkins).
Owen and I took a few minutes to catch up talk about music, touring and venues, and I apologise now for the charming backdrop of traffic on Darling Street, Balmain:
This is the second of three interviews I did one steamy summer evening in Sydney earlier this year when I found myself strangely at a loose end at The Star Casino in Sydney. This is not a regular haunt for me and so to discover the Rock Lily venue down one end of the gaming floor was trés welcome.
While the crowd was modest to start with, a healthy dance-floor-full of swing dancers materialised as Pia Andersen and Her Lonesome Playboys took the stage and the music started.
It was a visually and musically arresting performance and I took the opportunity to interview Pia and sax player Frank Bennett afterwards:
Pia Andersen has a gig on Thursday 26 June at Palmer and Co in Sydney and you can find more information on other upcoming gigs and news at her Reverbnation page.
For 20 to 30 years, I’ve been aware of the UK TV series ‘7 Up’ and its sequels without ever having watched them. I’ve wanted to, but as they’ve come along in seven-yearly updates, I’ve had this chronologically pedantic need to see them in order.
I mean, you wouldn’t start watching Star Wars at Episode IV now, would you?
Oh wait…
(I should mention at this point that the ‘7 Up’ mentioned here is not a carbonated beverage, and the ’56 Up’ that will soon be mentioned is not the middle-aged version with added cranberry juice, added fibre and iron supplements for the senior on the go. Click on the above link for a catch-up on this TV series that chronicles the changing lives of a group of Britons at seven-yearly intervals, starting at age seven.)
Fearing I might not live long enough to see them in order, my initiation to the series was the redux of ‘42 Up’ at the end of October on SBS TV in Australia, and then two days later, the debut of the latest offering: ’56 Up’.
My interest was slightly piqued in ’42 Up’ when the show’s host mentioned that a couple of participants had pulled out along the way. I idly wondered whether they would rejoin at a later point.
Sure enough, one of the first vignettes in ’56 Up’ included one R. Peter Davies, and when he quite clearly stated his reason for rejoining the program, I literally clapped and applauded:
Peter wanted to get some publicity for his independent band.
There may be more worthy causes but they’re not springing to mind right now.
Before the segment was over, I was looking up ‘The Good Intentions’ on social media, and through the wonders of technology, mutually agreeable diaries, and time zone differences, just under four days later, I had phone and recording device perched precariously on the compost bin under the carport, and was having a chat with Peter Davies and Gabi Monk, two-thirds of the band that also includes Francesco Roskell. Continue reading →
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 →
Overheard Productions 