Overheard Productions

[MUFW* Video] Cooking At #36 with Billgella Lawsoote – Episode 01: Shredded Wheat/Blowing Mayo [MUFW], November 2015

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* Mildly unsafe for work

Cooking At #36 is a new series launched today from kitchens around Australia, eventually the world.

This innovative, jerky-handed phone camera series takes you, the poor, ignorant, unclassy, unclassified, joke of a wretched wastrel, awash in a sea of processed mediocre food, TV dinners, and fast food that’s slowly filling you up with salt and plastic — we take your sorry arse pics…

I’m sorry, I’ll read that again.

We take your sorry aspic, and sauce a better way to cook.

And live!

Episode One (Shredded Wheat/Blowing Mayo aka Resilience Is Useful).

The pilot was produced in a secret Holsworthy kitchen. Another pilot was picked up in a Moorebank Sports Club – she was either Randy or Chastity; such a fine line betwixt and between, I find.

Road-tested on six selected Overheard Productions friends and strangers who all were unanimous in their reviews:

Greek Fetta Chorus: “We’re calling the Critical Assessment Team. Put down the phone and step away from the maple syrup.”

Actually, they said lovely things, but I’ll add the reviews later.

There’s time for one. “Alison from Athenry” says, ‘Show us your chips, Billgella!”

And another: “Axminster Al from Barking in Essex” says, ‘What’s with the fruity 80s English accent?’

Well, Matt, I mean, “Al”, I left Herefordshire in 1979, so blow it out your East End!

Genog! Enough! Basta! Roll tape!

Thank you for watching, and I sincerely hope you all out there get a bit of Mayo Action tonight.

Goodnight!

Billgella Lawsoote
For Cooking At #36 with Billgella Lawsoote
A Division of Overheard Productions
A 36 Steps to ? Enterprise

11:00 AEDT Saturday 14 November 2015
Wattle Grove Shopping Village — see Michel’s Patisserie’s new drive-through (but only on Thursdays)

Billgella Lawsoote eating out -- one of my FAVOURITE things to do. I LOVE eating out!
Billgella Lawsoote eating out — one of my FAVOURITE things to do. I LOVE eating out!

[Video] Wattle Grove Shopping Village: Michel’s Patisserie Gets A Drive Through, November 2015

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“Welcome to Wattle Grove. May I take your order?”

On Thursday 12 November 2015 at 2.30am, the Wattle Grove branch of Michel’s Patisserie had the quickest reno it’s ever likely to get.

And probably without the requisite planning approvals from Liverpool Council.

You can read all about it elsewhere, and probably watch some news footage too, including the young Channel Nine reporter and her cameraman who looked like a hipster who’d escaped from Rozelle, and was wielding for network television news transmittal (I ship you not) a Go Pro.

Huzzah for technology.

Here are a few pictures of the devastation, plus some video courtesy of Overheard Productions WTAF and Overheard FM. Reporting for all channels, here’s Phillip Mahkawfee-Khup.

Your reporter, Phillip Mahkawfee-Khup, has more.

Pictures are being added but this is for the 11pm news, so cut it, print it.

23:16 AEDT Thor’s Day 12 November 2015 Continue reading →

The Woodford Files 2014-15: New Year’s Eve at The Duck with Black Market Tune, December 2014

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Image courtesy of Black Market Tune
Image courtesy of Black Market Tune

You’re spoilt for choice as to where to spend those last moments of the year at Woodford Folk Festival.

I had probably my most memorable NYE a few years ago in the then Duck and Shovel, at a Beatles Singalong of all things. This year, it was a case of same venue, completely different music on offer.

Enjoy these guys’ new year vicariously again!

Surely Goodness and Kindness: Talking With Brian on Manly Wharf

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Manly Wharf, New South Wales, Australia
Manly Wharf, New South Wales, Australia

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.)

Continue reading →

A Punter’s Perspective February 2014: Phone Drones

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A Punter’s Perspective

Random observations on the wide, weird world of folk from the side of the stage

Phone Drones

First published in Trad and Now magazine, February 2014

A funny thing happened on the way from the Illawarra Folk Festival.

It was Monday morning and I was walking to the Bulli train station in the light drizzle, a damp swag slung o’er the shoulder, a song in my heart and a tune in my pancreas. And as is my wont on a post-festival morn, I was ruminating on the music and song-filled days just passed when it suddenly struck me.

Something had been missing. Something had not been there. There had been a yawning chasm, a gaping void.

I couldn’t recall one single mobile phone sounding in a concert venue.

Not one loud blast of ‘Who Let The Dogs Out’ at an inopportune time.

No sudden fanfare of Morris Dancing’s greatest hit in inglorious polymorphic tones.

And while others may have suffered in the auditory department from SMS Alertsville, I could not recall one chirp, beep or apocryphal whistling tone* to announce an incoming text message.

(* I’m a liberal with a small ‘l’, but the creation and use of this whistling alert sound for text messages is, in my book, justification enough for the re-introduction of capital punishment. Especially on Sydney trains.) Continue reading →

Interview: Michael Johnathon of Woodsongs Old Time Radio Hour, 2014

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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.

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.
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 →

Kavisha Mazzella — Sydney Launch of Riturnella at Django Bar, Marrickville, 2014

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Image courtesy of Kavisha Mazzella
Image courtesy of Kavisha Mazzella

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.

KM1
Image courtesy of Kavisha Mazzella

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

Continue reading →

1993: One Year Into My Life On Stage(s), A Monster Is Born! (1993)

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1993: One Year Into My Life On Stage(s), A Monster Is Born!

1993: One Year Into My Life On Stage(s), A Monster Is Born!

In 1992 I was press-ganged, as organically-chosen head of the social club of my workplace, and the person most likely, to present a charity trivia quiz for a couple of hundred people.

That night in mid-September 1992 when I picked up a microphone for the first time properly — the Kraken awake’d.

Bill Quinn died that night and Billy Quinn awoke.

Some months later, needing a gag for our follow-up, I wrote to two likely lads who were then plying their trade on Triple J, formerly 2JJ or 2 Double J.

I wrote my letter, forgot about it and life continued. Six days before the 1993 quiz, I came rolling in, rolling in, rolling rolling, as I came rolling in [drunk] and my long-suffering then wife said a package had arrived and was in the hall.

Yeah, I did a few cartwheels and dive rolls that night. Therein was the tape with this on which I later edited to remove references to the selected charity (The Smith Family) so I could re-use it to get utility for many other charities, not for profits and 21 years later…. I think I need to book a certain venue for a date in September.

Enjoy. I know I did and have!

Billy Quinn
Overheard Productions
www.overheardproductions.com

2014 Sydney Mardis Gras: Hitching A Ride With RSPCA NSW

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2014 Sydney Mardis Gras: Hitching A Ride With RSPCA NSW
2014 Sydney Mardis Gras: Hitching A Ride With RSPCA NSW

And now for something completely different.

RSPCA NSW entered the 2014 Sydney Mardi Gras, and I gladly accepted an invite to come along for the ride (sometimes literally) and capture a little vision.

I'm not gay. Not that there's anything wrong with that!
I’m not gay. Not that there’s anything wrong with that!

In terms of my personal interest and orientation, I’ll turn to the words of another in a picture I pinched off someone’s Facebook wall this morning.

I’ve never understood why humans would choose to exclude others because of the colour of their skin, their sexual orientation, body shape, or a host of other criteria.

Among many other things that confuse the stuffing out of me, the concept of ‘exclusion’ grinds my gears probably the worst.

Top ten, anyway.

Having only ever attended one Mardi Gras before (in 2000, standing in very similar conditions to last night, craning my neck to get a glimpse of the Dykes on Bikes over a sea of heads on Liverpool Street), I jumped at the chance to go behind the scenes this year.

I was the archetypical Johnny Come Lately, having had no hand in the weeks and months of preparation that a cast of many from RSPCA NSW had put in.

Put in. Putin. Ha! No, that was Amnesty International. More on them and Vlad the Impaler later.

And while the press today talks about the rain, and the rain, and a little more about the rain, I can tell you there was none of the wet stuff falling from a good two hours before the first float headed out. If it came, it came late, as the bishop said to the actress.

Continue reading →

Adam Maidens: miner, cockie and artist from Cobar, 2013

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Adam Maidens at Sprout Café in Dubbo
Adam Maidens at Sprout Café in Dubbo

Interview: Adam Maidens, Artist

This is Adam Maidens.

Adam is based in Cobar and is getting his fledgling art business off the ground. He creates the most amazing art and as you’ll hear, he uses a fairly unconventional ‘palette’ and ‘brushes’.

His scenes range from rural to Paris street-scapes to portraiture to musicians.

On a Friday about three weeks ago, I was having breakfast with a friend at Sprout Café in Dubbo. (Do yourself a massive favour; your taste-buds and wallet/purse/money-belt will thank you. If the accoutrements continue to talk with you, I suggest seeking professional assistance and possibly lay off the cinnamon.)

My position right at the back of the venue was not smart: all the sound of a happily busy breakfast crowd was washing my way like an uppity surf swell. I just about had my earphones plugged in to let The Clash take over noise delivery services when I heard the young barista talk with a man whose back was to me, and I heard these individual words: ‘my’ ‘art’ ‘shear’ ‘comb’.

My interest was more than piqued.

I put the earphones down, asked Joe, Mick, Topper and the other one…….Paul — to take five, and cautiously approached the speaker.

One hour and one pot of very good chai later, and all I wanted to do was to kill about another five pots of chai and talk through the day with Adam Maidens. But we had by that stage recorded this interview.

What a classic, classic guy.

1. Art. Check him out here: https://www.facebook.com/adammaidensart – Facebook page has since been removed. Adam’s new project is the Dudley Dog book(s) about a sausage dog who loves to travel.

2. Mining. Also covered in the interview: the guy works in an office. 600m+ underground.

3. Farming background. Born on the land and you should hear the world and political perspective that has given him. Maybe not what you’re thinking. Or maybe so.

4. Critical communication. If ever there was a role model for how to critically assess mass media, Adam Maidens is your man. We covered all this after I switched off the recorder, but you could purchase one of his creations or have something commissioned by Adam, if only to discuss media ownership and media content production with him.

What a breath of fresh air.

Meeting Adam came at precisely the right time. Coming towards the end of a fairly wild 12 days on the road, and starting to think about my future directions (geographical, career-wise, metaphorical). This meeting was made in heaven.

Thank you, Adam.

Check out Adam’s art and eloquent speechificationing:

*** Audio file will be removed by the end of February 2020 ***

Continue reading →