Category Archives: News and Touring

Que catchy guitar riff, add harmonica, then a swinging beat, leads us to CB Ghost’s signature and original vocal style and we are away with Beautiful Middle Finger.

From the first line, images and themes are subconsciously drip fed into your mind and the folk-rock rhythm and country-like sway moves your hips. While the chorus is simply an elevated version of the same guitar riff it certainly lifts you and adds that needed meat to the musical bones.

Beautiful Middle Finger is a good time song, with a silly title from a serious song writer who obviously loves to have fun and not take things too seriously while putting his heart and soul out there.

CB Ghost, a songwriter with an honest simple folk-rock style that captures the essence of a complicated existence with singalong tunes and poetic lyrics and sometimes a banger beat. He has emerged from a close-nit coastal surfing village in Australia. His background provides him with a deep connection to toe tapping Celtic, country and straight-ahead heartfelt rock music mixed with salt water from the ocean.

A former pro surfer, CB Ghost is driven, bold and dedicated to his evolving sound and a deep love of blue-collar folk stories and sensibility – and most importantly playing live to crowds who love to drink, dance, sing and have fun.

Having recently toured Northern NSW and Queensland with Sydney band Pinky Ring, The Ghost is finding his feet live and now incorporating a full band at most shows (his solo shows are still a must see for that intimate intensity). His first single ‘Hollywood Hills’ was followed by ‘Hold Down Hymn’ and gives a strong idea of what is to come later this year.

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Gareth Koch Releases Single ‘Satie’

September 20, 2024 Marshall Cullen

The Gnossienne No. 1 by Satie (originally for piano) has a ghostly and ethereal quality, with the melody floating above a hypnotic chordal texture. The rhythm is almost dance-like, yet there are no bar lines in the score. The resultant swaying effect almost feels like an exotic waltz. The overall effect of the music is surreal & mysterious.

Satie is often credited as the pioneer of ambient music, a genre which allows the listener space for contemplation & reflection. Gareth’s transcription for classical guitar lends an intimate quality to the piece while adding a unique and plaintive soulfulness.

About Gareth

Gareth Koch is an ARIA Award winning multi-instrumentalist, recording artist, guitar soloist, composer & songwriter. He has recorded a sizeable repertory across multiple genres spanning works for classical guitar, flamenco, original compositions, arrangements, medieval projects, rock & songwriting. He has appeared at major festivals within Australia, Europe, Asia and North America.

Gareth is involved with many cross genre projects & has released a succession of collaborative albums with Martin Kennedy & with ARIA Hall of Fame inductee Steve Kilbey (The Church). His recent release ‘The Guitar Player’ received a coveted 5 star review from The Sydney Morning Herald. Gareth’s current output has a strong rock bias with classical overtones & his writing is increasingly focussed on the ethereal nature of music.

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Extra Time Releases ‘The Boy Who Dreamed Of The Stars’

September 16, 2024 Marshall Cullen

NEW REVIEWS

JamSphere

https://jamsphere.com/newreleases/extra-times-single-the-boy-who-dreamed-of-the-stars-captivates-with-emotional-depth-and-cinematic-elegance

This Is Hip Hop HQ

https://www-thisishiphophq-com-ng.translate.goog/2024/09/the-boy-who-dreamed-of-stars-extra.html?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp

The third single, with accompanying video, from Extra Time’s critically acclaimed album Songs With Long Titles is the thought provoking track The Boy Who Dreamed of the Stars. Extra Time strives to produce cinematic, harmonically complex pop music.

The song deals with the difficult subject of child abuse and reveals how predators target and lure young children. In this case with a telescope and an offer to see the stars. The sensitivity needed to address such a traumatic topic is skilfully handled by Brendan who draws on firsthand experience from his own childhood.

The accompanying film clip from renowned Animation Director Nikita Kibirev (based in Portland Oregon), tells the story beautifully with a digital collage that combines stunning 2D backgrounds with a stylized and expressionistic approach to 3D and inspired by German Expressionism. The visual interpretation speaks of turning a traumatic experience into something positive and healing through finding a group of people that can truly understand your experience.

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News and Touring

Paul Scott Releases Single ‘It Shouldn’t Sound Like That’

September 12, 2024 Marshall Cullen

Insufferable Paul Scott: ‘It’s a love song through and through. A pean to the unreliable angels. The sirens of suburbia. Glowing golden and more than a little worse for wear. I saw a fox in the countryside, and it made me think of that kind of love, glimpsed, then gone, but unforgettable. Hence the memories. You can dance to this one. My handsome brother Kieran plays the lead guitar and the dashing Steve Melville made it sing.’

Paul Scott began his career in music, writing and playing bass in angular NZ group Pop Mechanix. Despite court cases, a revolving cast of singers and multiple record labels, their single ‘Jumping Out A Window’ became a staple of New Zealand pop culture.

Relocating to Australia, Paul formed Montana with Ken Stewart (Mr Blonde), Michelle Margherita and Steve Melville. Their first release featured ‘Koolest Band’ which received national airplay and high rotation on JJJ. A brief tour of the USA and a performance at SXSW, led to ‘Koolest Band’ being included in the Hollywood movie ‘You Drive Me Crazy’. The subsequent album ‘Bubblegum Love’ was released in Australia, Spain, France and the USA.

Scott has since plied bass for various Australian acts, playing everywhere from community halls and malls in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane to the Sydney Opera House. Teaming up with Steve Melville (ex Mr Blonde and Montana) Paul and Steve have established a studio production relationship, playing on each other’s tracks (Stewart and Melville, The Likes of You) and coproducing The Insufferable Paul Scott’s well received 2021 album ‘Tea and Medals’ (which Melville also mixed).

Their most recent project is a closer collaboration with Melville adding drums, percussion and keyboards to Scott’s voice, guitar and bass, a line up very close in sound and feel to their youthful unit ‘Montana’. “I was looking for the kind of pop thrill I used to get from great Aussie indie bands such as The Falling Joys, Smudge, The Hummingbirds, pop thrills… you know?” says Scott. An album has been completed and tracks will be released over the next few months on Foghorn, home to most of their releases to date.

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BLJ Feat. LOZ C Releases Single ‘If You Don’t Know Me By Now’

September 6, 2024 Marshall Cullen

If You Don’t Know Me by Now exudes romance, love, and connection. First released by Philadelphia Soul band Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes in 1972, and then covered by Simply Red in 1989, who brought a more romantic softness to the track. LOZ C brings a whole new feminine perspective to the song. Her dynamic emotionally charged performance fashions overtones of gospel at times.

The BLJ restomod pays homage to the soul roots of the original and leans into the romance with a big strings section, and his signature grande finale. We hope it plucks your heart strings.

The avatar of an unidentified Music Producer, Burger Legs Joe is on a mission to restomod (restore and modernise) outstanding retro songs for your grooving pleasure.

Treasuring the essence of what makes each track so fabulous, they’re re-energized to a modern perspective; weaving rhythms and melodies in BLJ’s distinctive ear grabbing style, that lingers in your head and puts beats in your feet. Burger Legs Joe is with Foghorn Records, and when he’s not arranging restomods, he focuses on original and collaborative music projects.

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Gareth Koch Releases New Single ‘Song For Stevie Nicks’

August 30, 2024 Marshall Cullen

Song for Stevie Nicks draws inspiration from the Rumours album by Fleetwood Mac, a band in which Stevie is a member and songwriter. Gareth’s guitar work on the track is reminiscent of Fleetwood Mac guitarist Lindsay Buckingham’s style, while the song itself is cast in the gentle yet intense mood of the ballad Landslide.

Gareth’s signature style pervades the song, with subtly nuanced playing & classical influences on display. Song for Stevie Nicks is imagined & created as a song which Stevie herself might have written.

About Gareth

Born in Milan, Gareth began his musical studies on piano and clarinet, and at age 12 was accepted into the Mozarteum in Salzburg. He received his Bachelor of Music degree at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music before winning scholarships for advanced guitar study at The Royal Madrid Conservatorium & the Vienna Academy of Music. He holds a PhD in Music & has lectured in music across Australian & European universities.

In 2002 Gareth formed the first guitar supergroup with Karin Schaupp & The Grigoryan Brothers, Slava & Leonard. Saffire – The Australian Guitar Quartet soared to #1 on the Classical Music Charts and even featured on ARIA pop charts. The quartet released a total of 3 best-selling albums & was Australia’s biggest selling classical act for several years.

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Tim Walker Releases ‘Love Is For The Young (At Heart)’

August 16, 2024 Marshall Cullen

Love is For the Young (at Heart) is not a lovesong – it’s a song about love. It pictures the joy especially of young love, when it’s all blue sky. But cupid’s arrow is delightfully indifferent to many things – appearance, age, even intellect!

Tim: ‘The song was inspired by a couple of teenagers I saw skipping past me down a busy footpath on a crowded Saturday night, holding hands and singing: the guy was short, wearing ill-fitting jeans; the girl looked like someone from the bridal party out of the film Muriel’s Wedding. They were an odd couple, it’s true, but they had the world at their feet. King and Queen. Later seen eating pizza together down the street.’

Pilot is about the post-pandemic urge to travel and get away from all the traumas of 2020-22, its covid-19 confinements, and the resulting overseas travel boom we have now. The song’s bridge reveals the other side of the coin – what we hope to escape to: freedom and “good times”.

Get On, Saturday Night is an upbeat tribute to all the great Saturday nights, and is perhaps therefore the cousin to track 1. Streets Of Rome is a re-release from the 2019 album Bridge of Angels. The album and that track specifically, was inspired by a trip to Rome (the location of the bridge) in 2018.

Tim Walker is a singer-songwriter now based in Adelaide (ex-Sydney). His indie electric-folk/pop style reflects a city perspective, but with country, rock and jazz influences and universal themes. He began as a folkie at school, and continues its idea of personal stories, using electric rock guitars thrown in. As a tertiary student in Adelaide he was in a small country rock act doing mainly covers. Now as a soloist he is at his most prolific.

He moved to Sydney for work and continued playing after hours in many venues across town before releasing his first album, Fellow Traveller, with Foghorn Records in 2008. He followed this with a series of singles, then returned to Adelaide in 2018. He released the album Bridge of Angels in 2019, again through Foghorn Records.

He has played at several major music festivals including Peat’s Ridge and the Sydney Blues and Roots Festival Windsor (NSW), and the Port Noarlunga Blues Festival (SA).

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Big Merino Releases Single ‘Ain’t No Shame’

August 13, 2024 Marshall Cullen

Alex: ‘I’ve always been fascinated by people who are able to move through life and experience unguarded joy, it’s something that I’ve learned but it doesn’t come naturally to me and I like that idea of learning to let go of something that you love’.

During the recording process the band tried to recapture the spirit of the legendary Sun Studio recordings. Working with Phil Punch provided the perfect opportunity to try that approach especially as he had built equipment for the iconic recording space.

Formed in 2017, Big Merino play original music that blurs the lines between country, blues, roots, rock and pop. Despite an obvious passion for what’s often called ‘Americana’, their songs somehow manage to be very personal and quintessentially Australian – the words and sound shaped by the landscape and their own stories.

Their live sound is a classic combination of acoustic and electric guitars, vocals, bass and drums. Their recordings are fleshed out with multiple guitar layers, gospel style harmonies, Hammond organ, piano, horns and percussion.

In 2018 the band released their debut album ‘Suburban Wildlife’, made two cinematic film clips with director Alan Harca, and performed all around Sydney. The band has done numerous Interviews & live-to-air performances including ABC 702 & RN, 2SER Dirt Music, Radio Skid Row, Eastside Radio, Aussie Music Weekly and 2BBB. The single ‘Black Cockatoos’ was top 10 on AMRAP Metro and Regional playlists.

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Gareth Koch & All India Radio Release Single ‘A Song For Brian Eno’

August 2, 2024 Marshall Cullen

A Song for Brian Eno began life with Gareth recording a series of wine glasses (glass harmonica) tuned to differing pitches. The notes of each glass are tuned by adding specific amounts of liquid to each glass, and played in a circular motion with a moistened finger. In total seven glasses were recorded and these form the basis of the work.

Inspired by Brian Eno’s famous 1978 recording Music for Airports, this recording sits squarely in the ambient genre, a type of music intended to induce calm and a space for contemplation.

The track is expanded on synthesisers by ambient masters All India Radio. The final touches are added by Gareth on his signature classical guitar for Martin (All India Radio) to mix and master.

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About Gareth

About All India Radio

A monument to the creativity and vision of songwriter Martin Kennedy, All India Radio is a fusion of psychedelia, prog rock, ambience, and pure dreamy pop creates something greater than the sum of its parts.

All India Radio have created shimmering aural edifices that cross genres and defy easy definition across a staggering 30+ releases since the late 1990s. All India Radio albums have featured cameos from Kennedy’s favourite artists over the years – Steve Kilbey from The Church, prog metal legend Devin Townsend, Ed Kuepper (The Saints) Graham Lee (The Triffids) and David Bridie (Not Drowning Waving). Martin’s music has featured in CSI, One Tree Hill, The Lying Game, Emmerdale, Bondi Rescue and many more.

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Silphie Releases New Single ‘Mea Lux’

July 26, 2024 Marshall Cullen

After separation and misunderstandings Sulpicia and her secret lover reunite. As she reflects on the reunion Sulpicia regrets that she was on her guard. “My love, my light” if she could go back in time she would stay the night. Mea lux is the penultimate poem in the Garland series written by Sulpicia and sets up the story of the final poem “Tandem venit amor” (At last love has come) where Sulpicia and her lover Cerinthius finally come together.

Michaele Archer is an Australian classically trained singer and composer and has performed nationally and internationally in Opera, Oratorio and concert. Michaele loves collaboration and unusual projects and highlights have included performances of “Brackish Songs” by indigenous composer Christopher Sainsbury and the first live performances of Schubert’s “Erlking” with a sand animation by Californian creator Benny Zelkowicz. Her original recording project “Galatea” was released in 2019.

Silphie is a collaboration with Michaele Archer (composer/vocal and harmonium), Rachel Whealy (cello), Giuseppe Zangari (guitar) and Gab Steele (viola). The name Silphie comes from the ancient world’s herb Silphium which was used for everything from perfume and cooking to medicine. The latest recording project by Silphie, “Garland, the love poems of Sulpicia” is inspired by rich, raw sounds of analogue, alto instruments and ancient Latin poetry.

Sulpicia is a female voice that was lost for many years and her 6 love poems form the text for this project. Sulpicia lived around the time of Augustus in the first century BCE and her work is one of very few written by a Roman woman to survive. Her poems were published in a collection by the Roman male poet Tibullus and were originally attributed to him. Sulpicia’s Garland of poems tells the story of a secret love affair.