I’ve decided to add a blog to this news feed as somewhere to share and keep some (mostly music related) thoughts, away from Social Media. As many of you are no doubt aware, Facebook is not a healthy place for me. Many of the friendships are great, but I get super depressed when I go on there. The constant news cycle sends me batty, and often quickly results in me being angry and frustrated. And it kills my creativity and throttles my productivity.
So, in an environment free of the incessant scroll feed where every second picture is of some old white soulless ugly definitely-not-a-dude who makes my blood boil, here’s the good news about upcoming gigs in 2020. YAY 🙂
The quartet which recorded This World (Mike Nock, Jonathan Zwartz, Hamish Stuart and myself) will be touring Australia in the first half of the year. The first leg is in early February and includes Wollongong, Sydney, Canberra & Braidwood. The 2nd leg in late February includes Brisbane, Byron Bay, Uralla, Bellingen and Hobart. I’ll keep all the events updated here as best I can.
Last January was Big Band Month for some bizarre reason. (Really looking forward to hearing Vanessa Perica’s album ,which from memory was really spectacular, despite the preponderance of West Coasters on it. Hopefully the reality will be even better than my recollection!)
This year January is quartet season
I’ve just booked three Tuesdays at The Jazzlab in January which I’m super excited about. Last minute opportunities are so rare these days and Jazzlab is a great space to play in.
Jan14th is with SO, a project I started last year informed by my first sax hero, Dexter Gordon. (Carl Lewis was my first non-sax hero). I’ve written some originals for this group inspired by Dexter’s compositions. This quartet swings its arse off.
Mark Fitzgibbon – piano / Philip Rex – bass / Danny Fischer – drums
The 21st and 28th are with STOCK. It’s been a long time since we played at Bennetts Lane. I mean… These will be our first gigs at The Jazzlab and we can’t wait to give the room (and our tunes) a good stretching. There will be no repeated tunes (it’s only four sets. We’ve done whole months where we didn’t repeat a song)
Craig Fermanis – guitar / Chris Hale – bass / Hugh Harvey – drums
On Saturday the 17th I’m playing at Uptown with a brand new group initiated by Melbourne’s newest baddass guitarist Sorcha Albuquerque
Sorcha – guitar / Jake Mason – organ / Felix Bloxsom – Drums WooHoo. Make it FUNKY. I love playing at Uptown. On a really hot night I can easily lose 5 kilos up there. It’s like going to the gym, only FUNKIER
Monday the 20th. Celebrating Voice. This will be a wild one at Jazzlab. (Yet another) New initiative by the indefatigable Andrea Keller. (Sort of a quartet, but with three singers) Jacqueline Gawler, Natalie Carolan, Hannah McKittrick – voices Andrea Keller – piano / Ben Hanlon – double bass
Assuming that our family holiday to the South Coast of NSW that we planned and paid for last January is not going to be possible due to all the roads being closed (which seems like the most likely case scenario right now), I hope to be playing with John Scurry’s Reverse Swing at the Lido on Jan 11th and back at the North Fitzroy Pinnacle on the 12th with Fermanis (guitar), Sam Anning (bass) and Raj Jayaweera (drums). Not bad. Thanks. Here comes the teapot.
I’ve got some very exciting news about a potential Survival Day Eve event that I can’t quite share yet. It should be an annual event for these kind of occasions.
On January 31st, to mark the official release of STOCK on Lionsharecords via MGM we’ll be playing a private show at a secret location on Brunswick St (between Kerr St and the Rum Diary) which may be from from 5-6pm and may be open to the public and may be at Natural Selection Record Store. THIS IS NOT AN ALBUM LAUNCH> JUST A RELEASE PARTY> This is despite the fact that Natural Selection only sell LPs, and MGM are only distributing the CDs. It all makes perfect sense to me. I mean, hey, we’re finally releasing an album after 8 years, so we changed the name of the band and ditched nearly all our “hits” so nobody will even recognise us. HEY> Marketing GENII over here. That is the plural of Genius, right?
And, spilling over in to February THIS promises to be, something, rather
3 Is One
Barney McAll – Keys: PERCUSSION: ELECTRONICS
Julien Wilson – SAXES: ELECTRONICS
Leigh Fisher – DRUMS: PERCUSSION: ELECTRONICS
Three people delve into EFX overload, modular synthesis, Amazonian
percussion, three hundred keys on a string, bird wings ‘a flapping,
five gold rings of compositional coding and underwater treacle
ambience.
I also just posted a rant about Community Spirit VS Corporate Greed. You can read it below if you have nothing better to do. (I promise I didn’t swear – much – I think)
Peace & Respect. And MUSIC – lots and lots of really good music. X