Tag Archives: alternative

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Jessie-May K Releases Album ‘Rising Sun’

Jessie explains below how this first full length album is a triumph over childhood hardship – 

Since escaping, recovering and healing from some childhood traumas, I’m finally experiencing a life where I’m free to live & not just survive. My whole world has opened up! The sun has finally shone through, I can explore people and places freely and breathe life in! Something I never had the chance to do as a child.

The first 18 years of my life were focused on surviving constant anxiety. It bubbled in my chest and body, it was like I hadn’t a second to take a breath. After escaping this situation, my brain and body shut down for a year like never before. My mental health had never been worse. The physicality of my depression & trauma hit me like a tonne of bricks. My mind and body were completely and rightfully exhausted.

I’ve grown the most, tried the most and felt the most free than ever in my life. I’ve met friends who have shown me levels of kindness and support I’d never experienced before and who help me remember life is worth living. I’m at a stage in my life where I’m younger now, a phoenix, regenerated, a Rising Sun. I’m still eclectic as a creator, but with this album I feel like I’ve really found my sound and one that expresses who I am inside.

There are so many people I couldn’t have made this album without! Artists I’ve collaborated with such as Brandon Macmillan, Jordan Ellery and the extraordinarily talented Dave Hunt. My wonderful sound engineers who do a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to these projects: Andrew Beck, Olivia RA, Murray Dilger & Russell Pilling and my Vocal Coach Joanne McMahon.

Jessie-May K is a young Singer, Songwriter, Director, Actor & Artist. Most successful as an internet personality, Jessie has released four singles and a collection of episodic works that accompanied their 5 track EP Zone Out (2020).

Originally trained in Musical Theatre, Jessie transferred to music when they were 16, teaching themselves guitar from YouTube to elevate their musical career, as they had been writing songs with lyrics and melody since they were 5 years old.

Jessie is passionate about social justice and activism, often releasing music about movements that are important to them, raising awareness and sharing donation links in the hopes it will make a difference. Jessie is Neurodivergent and was born with ASD, ADHD, OCD and developed PTSD as a result of their early hardships and extreme childhood trauma. Jessie believes that the world thrives on diversity and that benign individuality is something to be celebrated and not feared.

Download or stream: 
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John Kennedy – New Review and Tour Dates

Heres the most recent review of John Kennedy’s Raining Treasure Volume 2 (More Australian Indie Gold Covers) by none other than Michael Smith – a bit of an Aussie Icon himself

Before the creative juices are once again unleashed in order to explore the next musical chapter, John Kennedy found there was still a little unfinished business from his past few years of activity, taking stock of various aspects of his back catalogue either as selections from across several releases with 2018’s compilationSecond Best, or remastering his most successful album,Always the Bridegroom, recorded with his band Love Gone Wrong, which topped the Australian Independent Music charts in 1987. Then there was his bit of fun, a collection titled Raining Treasure, loving reinterpretations of his favourite post-punk indie Australian pop singles.

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Well, before he and the band kick into recording an album of new material, Kennedy felt that there was still some fun to be had from those classic singles – and some you would never have imagined crossed the defiantly defended “frontier of cool” that ruled in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. Though, “I don’t think you can beat ’66, ’67 quite frankly,” he admits, “but ’72 gives it a good run.” Enter Raining Treasure Vol. 2. “In terms of engagement with music, it was really the punk, New Wave and then the DIY explosion that followed that which led me to get involved in my first garage bands after school, and then, after an old school friend (singer and guitarist) James Paterson returned from an overseas trip, we formed JFK and the Cuban Crisis and got involved in the Brisbane indie scene. We were the wave behind the Go-Betweens and the Riptides. So all of that was in the background, that early ‘80s golden period of Australian indie and of course there was a lot of great stuff that happened in the late ‘70s and all through the ‘80s on independent record labels, so that’s what was really the inspiration behind these two Raining Treasure albums.

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“The first time around it was pretty much going through my own seven-inch vinyl collection, just picking my favourites or absolute ‘stone-cold’ classics of the genre, and then trying to find our own interpretation, or super-charging them. This time round I did look further to some acts that I would never have been into in that period. I also looked at those two compilations Do The Pop and Tales from the Australian Undergroundand then I was asking other people what they thought would make coolselections. One of the key examples of throwing a wider net for Volume Two came from the band’s bass player Phil Hall. He had noted my aversion to Radio Birdman the first time round and said, ‘Well, here’s one that we might be able to do something with,’ and pitched Radio Birdman’s ‘Hand of Law’. Apart from two or three songs I don’t know much of Radio Birdman’s catalogue, but he played it to me and I liked it but it’s pretty simple and doesn’t go anywhere. It just gets in a groove, which is a good groove, and he suggested that perhaps I could amend the melody and push it a little further – which is what I did – added a few chords to the chorus, and then rather than putting in the ‘Theme from Hawaii Five-O’, we put in ‘Pipeline’, so a little homage to Birdman’s surf-punk genre.”

The least likely song Kennedy could have chosen has to be The Angels’ ‘Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again’. “We have done it as a waltz live, in the past; not very often but in the wake of Doc Neeson’s death as a little bit of a tribute. It’s a great pop song in the original version but it was nice to actually to bring a completely different vibe to it – that’s Phil Hall playing vibes in the background! He’d provided the horns on a couple of songs on Raining Treasure Volume One. The Cruel Sea’s ‘The Drift’ was an interesting choice, and ‘My Pal’ by GOD was a left-of-field selection, but then Phil just worked them and worked them and turned those two into epics.”

And if you’re going to cover The Sports’ ‘Who Listens to the Radio’, why wouldn’t you kick it off with the riff behind Mental as Anything’s ‘Nips Are Getting Bigger’. “It just occurred to me that they’re not too far apart in the groove,” he chuckles. “In our band me and (guitarist) Murray Cook especially are both huge Sports and Mentals fans. And why the reggae groove? If you listen to the rhythm guitar in the Sports original, that’s the rhythm that’s being played. So I just sort of latched onto that with the proviso that we were not making ‘mock’ reggae. We just wanted to touch that flavour.”

Then there’s the upbeat country take on ‘Shivers’. “It’s odd, because I’d call this a classic, but for the Young Charlatans it might have sold in the hundreds, so it’s not a best-seller” – Kennedy perhaps tastefully ignores the fact that The Screaming Jets scored themselves a #19 hit single with it in 1993 – “but it’s still somehow iconic, so how do you take it and offend as many of its original fans as possible?! So we thought we’d go with a country song with banjo to the fore.”

 Checkout Shivers Video

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Raining Treasures Vol. 2sees Kennedy performing his first duet, on a tune titled ‘Face with No Name’. “Phil played in the last reformation of Flaming Hands about two years ago – he was actually playing sax. I obviously knew of them from back in the day but it was also obvious that Julie Mostyn still has a fantastic voice, so when we were thinking about how we would approach the song I asked Phil if Julie would be up for a duet, and happily she was.” And Kennedy unleashed his inner Jim Morrison as the song breaks out into The Doors’ ‘Do You Love Her Madly’.    MICHAEL SMITH

Sydney Upcoming dates

Egg Records Instore, Sat 4 June

Golden Barley Hotel, Sun 5 June

Melbourne Tour Dates

Lomond Hotel, Brunswick East Thurs 16 June (Melbourne album launch)

Dogs Bar, St Kilda on Fri 17

Post Office Hotel, Coburg on Sat 18

 

Stream or Download the album here

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Drawing Arrows Release – This Space Between

The new single and video for Drawing Arrows is Out Now on Foghorn/MGM

Have you felt like you in the same space as someone, but somehow a thousand miles apart?  ‘This Space Between’ focuses on the feeling of how we are more connected and yet more isolated than ever.

The song itself feels like a rock anthem hiding inside a more radio-friendly track.  Building to an amped up reprise at the end.

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Drawing Arrows is a love letter to rock music.  Not one band, not one decade, but the whole effect. With multiple influences – from Australian rock’n’roll, US grunge and flamenco guitar to Britpop rock and amped-up punk.

With band members from Spain, the UK and right here in Australia, each member brings their own unique influences.  Sidney (vocals) and David (bass/guitar) have previously worked on an experimental dubstep project (Milo Firewater).  Drawing Arrows is a creative outlet – a way to channel all their experiences – not just musically influences.  The aim – to create music that feels good to play and to listen too.

Powderfinger, Radiohead, Arctic Monkeys, Nothing But Thieves and Queens of the Stoneage all inspired an authentic live sound that sits as well on stage as it does in your headphones.

This Space Between OUT NOW(Fog/MGM)

Checkout the Video

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Stream/Download

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