adam's blog

HOUSE CONCERT – 24th April 2010 Ragas2BlueRiches&Beyond Tour 2010 & CD Launch for Bennett "Echoes of You"

Annie McGlade's 30 Craddock Street, North Geelong $25 $15 concession

First 30 people will be booked. We may be able to fit in extras but aiming for 30 people.

Finally free from their bands (briefly), they've come to tell it all..... A twisted taunt of Celtic Blues Swing Bluegrass Jazz Indian adventure. The roads and flights between Kenya and Calcutta, London, Vancouver, LA & Oz weave a soaring night of music, song and story between Josh Bennett & Andrew Clermont - Both in Dya Singh World Music Group (twice World Music Group of Australia), The Supper Club & The Lawnmowers (at the cutting 'hedge' of Bluegrass!) Read more »»

Melbourne Guitar Makers festival is an opportunity to see and play some beautiful handmade guitars, and meet the people who make them, in an intimate setting.

These instruments are seldom seen in shops, and the workshops of the makers often off the beaten track. Its great to see photos online, or occasionally find a gem in a shop somewhere. But nothing compares to sitting with the instruments, playing them and hearing them played.

To have a range of guitars and makers together, and available for a whole weekend is a rare thing!

It took a concerted effort to get it all together in 2009, and was well worth it.

For the 2010 festival we are sticking to the original simple idea. To showcase the handmade guitar by exhibiting work of the highest quality from established makers. www.melbourneguitarmakersfestival.com

Get along to the Geelong Folk Music Club's Last Sunday concert this month at Irish Murphy's Geelong and catch central Victoria's favorite son entertaining the crowds with a few friends and even the odd special guest?!?!

The Allnitelongers were formed in July 2009 by three musician friends who are long time fans of the late Johnny Cash. Melbourne muso Don Gula (double bass player) is one of the organizers of the Newport Folk Festival, and it was suggested that they should do a Johnny Cash “Sun Recordings” tribute for the Festival. They were all well aware that most of the Cash tributes were not up to a standard of presenting the great man’s songs as they should be, just “cashing” in on “Walk the Line”.

With Mick Coates (vocals, acoustic guitar) and Oliver Dear (Electric guitar and Fender Tweed amp) they had a very authentic replica of Johnny Cash & The Tennessee Two, and got down to practising for the Festival. The 3 guys had been playing some of the stuff in their own bands for many years, so the sound and the feel was happening virtually from the start. The act at the Festival, held at the Newport RSL, was so popular, that they are still playing that venue once or twice a month’ as well as numerous hotel and bar gigs around Victoria.

In the relatively short space of time since, The Allnitelongers have widened their repertoire to include more material from the rest of the Cash catalogue, encompassing the Sun days to the prison concerts and Rick Rubin’s American albums. This has necessitated the band adding the services of a drummer, thus replicating the Tennessee Three. They are flexible in being able to operate as a 3 or 4 piece.

Mick and the boys will play The Last Sunday Folk Club Irish Murphy's Geelong Sunday 28th March 2010! BE THERE Read more »»

Review of the Eleventh Lake School Koroit Victoria January 2010

If its possible to say the weather was perfect - one might be inclined to say it was for Lake School Number Eleven in Koroit earlier this month. Cool and cloudy days, with patches of bright blue in the sky as you looked over Tower Hill to the Southern Ocean, or across the dairy and spud farms to Killarney and Port Fairy. And when the sun did come out in the late afternoon, raising the temperature to a mild mid twenties, the a blessed breeze from the south west blew just gently enough to lift the froth off the pints of Guinness that were beginning to flow outside Micky Bourke's Hotel.

In the evening the stars came out, but perhaps they didn't quite shine as brightly as the dancers and the players and at the Illowa Hall which was the featured venue for the Tuesday night Ceildhe. Marie Brouder, the dance tutor at her first Lake School, had fifty or sixty strong dancing the Seige of Ennis and The Walls of Limerick, to a band of thirty or forty lead by the legendary Paddy Fitzgerald on the accordion (impromptu Illowa Ceildhe Band below). It was the Lake School's first foray out to Illowa, and the locals voted with their feet and came out in force.

The Koroit Tower Hill Caravan park was the place to be during the week. A myriad of sessions, rehearsals and impromptu performances, while musicians in between classes strummed and relaxed in the shade of the exotic trees of the Koroit Botanical Gardens. For the seventeen strong Belfrage family, dinner was a show in itself. A line of tent shades, a collection of camp chairs, children sitting in a circle humming the tunes of the day and an impressive buffet of pastas, curries and salads...A brief respite and coming together before joining the throng to rush off to the next session, ceildhe or concert. Read more »»

Stolen from Ballarat on Sunday night 10th January or Monday morning 11th January 2010

BANJO: "White Swallow" tenor banjo, made of maple and mahogany. Serial number: MHT 1139612. In hard case.

GUITAR: "Ibanez" steel-string guitar. In flight case (black with silver trimming, with yellow velvet interior)

BUTTON ACCORDION: "Erica" 2-row, G-C button accordion. Black/grey in colour.

Contact: Steve and Ruth McKenna on 03 5336 4570. Ruth mobile: 0409 535 205. Email: stevemck58@hotmail.com

The eleventh Lake School of Celtic Music Song and Dance begins this Sunday January 3 2010 from 1.30pm. About 500 people are expected to flock to the Western District village of Koroit for the week long activities of learning and performing the many and varied celtic arts. Read more »»