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buried country roadshow  LIFts off

22/8/2016

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With the dust barely starting to settle, it feels almost surreal to contemplate that on Saturday night, Buried Country: Live in Concert  didn’t just survive its world premiere up in Newcastle, it grew wings and took flight as I think it was Roger Knox who put it so after the show. It was headshaking for me, just sort of awe-inspiring I mean: to sit passively and watch unfold on stage what we’d all worked on intensively for the previous few days plus more than six months in the long lead-up (and for me more than twenty years!); to see the audience around me thrill at song after song, to laugh and cry and really roar at the end. I was just so kind of gobsmacked I just floated through it. Nothing went wrong. Everything was good; it was beautiful.
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​The tears were both tears of joy and tears of sorrow. It was occasionally boisterous but also introspective to a whole other world: tapped into a deep soul. Voices casting out, the band on their elbow, drawing in the audience, the songs and stories seeming more alive than ever…
           
​The singers, the songs and the band were always the least of my worries in the lead-up to the show. That is to say, I had so much confidence in them all that, with virtual impunity, I could expect they would do the absolute utmost with any given material. A few songs had to be re-shuffled around due to the unavoidable absence of Warren H. Williams, and for Auriel Andrew, who couldn’t make it to the Tamworth sessions earlier in the year, the rehearsals in Newcastle were her first workout with the band. And so there were four all-new songs to work up – two by Auriel and one each by Luke and Buddy filling in for Warren – plus refine the remaining ten in the set. But once again the whole cast made good my every confidence.

No, what I was worried about, what I was mostly hanging out to see, was how that performance aspect of the show would integrate with the other elements being introduced, like the animated backdrops based on artwork by the Blak Douglas, and the video interludes drawn from the original BCdocumentary.

But there was a sense of real calm and obvious purpose about the pre-production; no-one got too stressed, certainly there were no bullshit star turns or anything like that, no tantrums – the psychochemistry as I call it was supremely harmonious; there was flexibility as well as total commitment – and while there were the occasional choppy waters that’s just part of the process anyway, to push through to get to the best result.

The show was extra-special to Auriel, not just because it was in her hometown. “It’s quite exciting for me to be part of this,” she told Newcastle Weekly, “because my grandson Teangi Knox will be playing bass in the backing band the Backtrackers, so it’s very much like coming full circle.
           
​“It’s great we’ve got the young people in the show as well, mixed in with us oldies because that’s how you ensure that these stories and songs continue to be told.
           
“I’m 70 next year and I have to use a stool because my back’s gone, but the voice is still there and as long as that’s there I’ll keep doing it.”
           
Auriel’s funnybone’s still there too! And her chickendance, and her true spirit - the whole bit.
           
And again, everything including the multi-media components just seemed to come together smoothly on the night – “a cavalcade of culture,” L.J. called it. Naturally there are many tweaks we will make to improve the next shows at the Melbourne Festival in October, but our confidence remains unshaken that the guts of it, its shape, is basically sound-as.

A special commendation goes out, at two poles, to our oldest and youngest: to the elders like Roger, Auriel and L.J. for finding all the endurance required, and to the youngest, bassist T.J., for really stepping up generally and especially for being there for his nan; and to his nan Auriel for toughing it out and just doing it brilliantly. To the Backtrackers for their absolute aplomb, and Brendan leading it all with the patience and gracious magnanimity that everybody else showed too. To Luke and Buddy for stepping up on new vocal turns (so much so that those numbers seem to have already entrenched themselves in the set) and to Franny for just totally playing outside herself as they say in footy terms, just rising up to meet the moment. And to L.J. for cutting through as ever and to Roger, like Leah, for making it hard to give praise because they both just so consistently hit the bar they set so high for themselves. Everybody lifted everybody else and out in the audience I was myself moved, both by the show itself and by the efforts of a team I take enormous pride in being part of.
           
This was the set-list:
​1 Ticket to Nowhere (Joan Fairbridge) Sung by Luke
2 Run, Dingo, Run (Black Allan Barker) Sung by Buddy
3 Ghost Gums (Higginbotham/Andrew/Hudson) Sung by Auriel
4 Arnhem Land Lullaby (Ted Egan) Sung by Auriel
5 Brown Skin Baby (Bob Randall) Sung by Leah
6 September Song (Leah Flanagan) Sung by Leah
7 Pretty Bird Tree (L.J. Hill) Sung by L.J.
8 18th Day of May (L.J. Hill) Sung by L.J.
9 Yorta Yorta Man (Jimmy Little) Sung by Franny
10 Blacktracker (Jimmy Little) Sung by Franny
11 Wayward Dreams (Bobby McLeod) Sung by Roger
12 Streets of Tamworth (Harry Williams) Sung by Roger
13 Stranger in My Country (Vic Simms) Sung by Luke
14 Blue Gums Calling Me Back Home (Harry Williams) Led by Roger
​
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Pic: Juno Gemes
I received a number of cards and letters as they used to be – in other words, emails now – and among those here’s one from Jim Kable:

My wife and I attended the Playhouse Civic Theatre Newcastle Buried Country concert last night. It was fantastic - there we were (thanks to you) in the presence (live and screen) of Indigenous singer-song-writer royalty. We're in our latter 60s, "whitefellas" (though links on various levels to Indigenous Aussies) aware of past injustices (and continuing - the Intervention/Don Dale/Cleveland/etc) so were - of course - appreciative of the themes (messages) from the songs and singers in front of us. I grew up in Tamworth - when one of the songs reflected that place - it was lovely - but another which stood out for me was "Pretty Bird Tree" - beautiful and moody! Reminding me of Jimmy Little's Messenger which I had with me in Japan and played on many a night - my wife far away back in Australia caring for her ageing mother in Swansea. We both recall seeing Jimmy sing "Royal Telephone" when we were kids a half-century ago - for me it was in Ashfield Town Hall in 1966. And magical to have his daughter Franny sing some of his songs hearkening further back to her black-tracker grand-father...and in another song - references to Cummeragunga (I taught a year in 1973 in Deniliquin). During my time in Japan (nearly two decades), Archie Roach's "Took the Children Away" was a song I taught to successive middle school classes - alerting them to darker aspects of the otherwise shiny Australian image - but at the same time then space was opened up for discussion re equivalent injustices against Japanese Indigenous Ainu people. Please pass along our appreciation to the band - to the singers - and take some yourself - brilliant concert!
        
​Roll on Melbourne!
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no spruik so sincere

22/8/2016

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When my great friend Peter Milton Walsh asked me if I'd pen him a spruik for the belated local Australian release of his latest Apartments' album No Song, No Spell, No Madrigal, I told him that nothing would give me more pleasure. And so I did, and so, further, since the grab you can see on the sheet below had to shear off my opening line for space reasons, I'll copy it here because I mean every word and you need to know: The roll-call of great Australian songwriters is long and illustrious, but Peter Milton Walsh, outrageously usually absent from this list, makes all of them - and I mean all of them, no exceptions - seem a bit glib, a bit pat. I exhort everyone to check out not only NSNSNM but the entire amazing Apartments' catalogue if you're not already familiar with it. Peter may be a cult legend in France, but he needs to be acknowledged in his homeland too. For more, go to the Apartments website HERE 
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PAINTED LADIES MAKE GOOD IMPRESSION

15/8/2016

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THE PAINTED LADIES reconvened in Melbourne last week for the first time in while, to play a show at the NGV (National Gallery of Victoria) as part of its current Friday Nights season, which puts the Ladies in some nice company alongside the likes, as the above flyer shows, of fellow Brisbane bands, among others, the Goon Sax, the Apartments and Luke Peacock's Other Band, Halfway. As an adjunct to the gallery's current blockbuster exhibition of Impressionist master Degas, it was a great show. The room is one of the nicest in the country, and everything about the gig was super-convivial. The redoubtable Vic Simms, who partly as a consequence of the success of the Ladies is now working on a new album of his own for ABC Music, was in fine form, as was Luke himself and all the rest of the crew. But with Luke certainly now also adding the Buried Country roadshow to his already crowded schedule along with Halfway plus his solo endeavours - he played a killer show with his own band on the Saturday night at the Labour in Vain - it's hard to tell how much more the Ladies can squeeze in. All photos here by Carl Dziunka. Read a great review by Dave Laing at the i-94 Bar HERE.
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NEWCASTLE STREET SEEN & HEARD

8/8/2016

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In addition to the image below, shot at the Civic Theatre in Newcastle - which is really giving me pause to think, Wow, this is the real deal now; I mean, Othello WHO?! - go here for a Radio National interview Auriel Andrew and I did with Michael Mackenzie.
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Buried country melbourne festival shows announced

2/8/2016

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It was announced last night that Buried Country: Live in Concert  will play two nights over October 12/13 at the Elisabeth Murdoch Hall/Melbourne Recital Centre as part of the Melbourne International Arts Festival. This is now really getting out of the blocks in high style; we are super-excited!! You can obtain tix from the Recital Centre here. Remember to check also the brand new standalone buriedcountry.com.au
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    CLINTON WALKER

    clintonwalker.com.au

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