News

Britons using coronavirus lockdown to become guitar heroes 0

MUSIC RETAIL IS OPEN! 0

Music Retail is still open for the time being as of March 25, 2020,

There is much uncertainty for music retailers about how long they will be able to service the needs of its customers, who, we understand might have their focus on other needs at the moment.  But for the musicians who have needs in order they can continue their practice, learning and recording our industry wants to be there for you.

While your local music store may be open & desperately appreciates your support, now is not the time to be casually browsing in any shop for half an hour because you’re bored. Go to the store. We advise in the interest of all our safety, that you make your purchase and leave as soon as possible.

We feel learning an instrument & playing music is going to play an important part in sustaining your mental health & the mental health of the community. NOW is the perfect time to take up that instrument you’ve always thought you would like to but haven’t had time.  

Logistics is still an essential service so stock can still be shipped from suppliers to retail, and retailers can arrange deliveries. By online or by phone.

Some retailers may be shutting their doors and serving customers via Online only. But for those that keep a shop front open, there is a lot of effort going into keeping the store environment safe for staff and customers.

General Info

Music retailers have been advised to follow World Health Organisation procedures on personal hygiene and proximity to customers. Retailers encourage customers to phone or email enquiries to save trips to the stores.

For the time being, most stores are maintaining their regular opening hours and they are offering the same friendly service but are cutting down on contact (sorry, no handshakes or hugs for now). Stores should regularly disinfect their demo gear. Hand sanitiser is being made available and most stores encourage payment via card rather than cash.

Should customers feel unwell (fever, cough, sore throat, runny nose, headache or shortness of breath) or have recently returned from overseas, our stores ask that you refrain from visiting in store in order to ensure the safety of all customers and our team. In many cases, stores can look after you just as well if you browse our website, give them a call or email instead.

Q: Are retailers taking cash?

If they are, we have advised that The W.H.O. is advising everyone to wash their hands after using cash money, especially if handling or eating food.

To be safe, we encourage use of card machines and ideally contactless and to have a sanitiser close for team members who may handle cash. We have suggested retailers restrict cash handling to a single till in the store.

Please don’t take offence if a staff member reminds you about the protocols surrounding sneezing or coughing, especially into your hands.

Our stores would make hand sanitiser available and staff have been advised to keep a reasonable distance from customers; 1-2 metres where possible in line with government advice.

Q: What about wanting to try an instrument instore?

Many stores have implemented a No Blow policy for all brass, woodwind, harmonicas etc. You may see signs like this in store – please respect them.

You might see signs on ‘condition of entry’ that if you plan on trying an instrument you need to use the hand sanitiser provided at the entrance.

If you wish to try a guitar for example, customers should be asked to use the hand sanitiser that the store is making available.  Our advice to retailers is that all customers must use hand sanitiser BEFORE they touch an instrument.

Note, when practicing your own measures, Hand sanitizer is 60+% percent alcohol which can cause clouding in lacquer finishes.

Don’t use sanitizer or wipes with alcohol directly on the guitar.  But a person should use it on their hands.

Q: What actions have retailers been taking in their stores?
A: Retailers would be thoroughly cleaning doors, counters, computers, and areas where customers may touch. Instruments, especially wind, are being thoroughly cleaned and disinfected.

Observing social distancing.

Retailers are printing advice to customers and posting it around the store.

Sanitising their POS equipment. EFT keypad pads etc after use.

Providing hand sanitiser on counters in clear view and encourage customers to use it, as well as staff after they have dealt with a customer.

Keeping the customer informed of the policies in their store at this time.

Q: What about Online?
Retailers are noticing an increase in phone and email enquiries and while restrictions are in place. Online is the best and safest way to purchase during these times.

Contact the stores for product advice by phone and email.

We know as musicians that Customers who are concerned about being at home for a prolonged period maybe looking to making music to relieve stress and anxiety in these times, start that recording project or online learning course or just get some practice in.

We want to be here to help with your needs. While our stores are allowed to open, so is their Online store.

Stores are aware of best practice in packing and dispatching.
At present, most stores’ online ordering services are running as usual with their team working in their online orders department, ready for your enquiries. Some are waiving their dollar minimum purchase for free delivery and are encouraging their customers to use online so as to limit, as much as possible, the spread of the virus.

Logistics is still regarded as an essential service. Therefore, for the time being deliveries will continue. We cannot control what deliverers do, but we are confident that at the store end the goods will leave after being wiped down and sanitised before it is packed and leaves the store.

REVIEW: PAT METHENY – PALAIS THEATRE, MELBOURNE 0

Friday March 6, Palais Theatre
Review: Greg Phillips. Photos: Stuart McKay

Pat Metheny has enjoyed such a long and eclectic career, authenticated by the fact that he’s the only person in music history to win Grammys in 10 different categories. From his acclaimed solo albums and recordings with the Pat Metheny Group and Unity to his stunning work with Joni Mitchell and Jaco Pastorius on the Shadows and Light album, his compositions with the late great Lyle Mays including the fabulous soundtrack to The Falcon and The Snowman movie, Pat Metheny has never failed to deliver high quality, interesting material.

In concert, Metheny demands the focus be totally on the music. Upon entrance we’re warned that there would be a lockout for latecomers. No photographers were given access, phones turned off and the two and a half hour concert would have no break. If you’ve come to the concert, you’ve come to pay attention. However by definition, a Metheny audience is a discerning one and with such superior musicianship on offer tonight, the mesmerised crowd have his complete attention.

After strolling to the stage alone, Metheny sits centrestage with a single spotlight beaming down upon him and his 42 string Pikasso guitar as he delights us with a gorgeous instrumental piece, merging into So It Might Secretly Begin from 87’s Still Life (Talking) album.

Accompanying Metheny tonight are: 5 time Grammy winning musician and composer Antonio Sanchez on drums (he wrote the score to the 2014 movie Birdman), Perth-raised multi-instrumentalist Linda May Han Oh on bass and Gwilum Simcock (Professor of Jazz Piano at the Royal Academy of Music, London) on piano. Individually they are clearly virtuosos, together what they create is quite magical. They listen intently, taking chances and placing notes in the pockets as they appear, adding their unique voices to the collective, musical tapestry being woven on stage.

You can almost see the cogs turning in Metheny’s brain. Note ideas run through his head, a few almost but don’t quite make it to the fretboard or they do but aren’t plucked, as sometimes he decides that what the band is contributing far outweighs his own contemplations at the time. Above all else, it’s about what the music needs.

For most of the first hour, Pat favours his vintage Daniel Slaman ‘traveling sister’ hollow body guitar, an instrument inspired by the Charlie Christian guitar sound he’s always loved. The value of every note picked is considered, the final note of a song is as carefully chosen as the first and everything else in between. His guitar playing decisions are made in milliseconds, yet the consequences of his actions provide long-lasting memories for those in attendance. Lead lines suddenly end and strum patterns begin, adding drama and colour to the music.

Metheny only speaks once throughout the night and it’s brief … happy to be here, thanks for coming, we’re here for the music, let’s play some more. The set list stretches far and wide. Have You Heard from the Pat Metheny Group’s 1989 album Letter From Home is whimsical, Always and Forever from 1992’s Secret Story is lush and beautiful. Everything Explained gives us a taste of the new album From This Place.

Showcasing his band, Pat duets with each musician. Bass player Linda May Han Oh is a revelation. She’s totally at one with her instrument, flowing with it, finding notes with ease, adding incredible dynamics to the music. Pianist Gwilum Simcock oozes clarity and grace, with a sense of effortlessness in his impeccable playing. Metheny’s Roland GR300 guitar synth makes it’s mark on the show, conjuring distorted and supernatural orchestral sounds. His duet with drummer Antonio Sanchez is otherwordly.

A standing ovation, an encore and after almost two and a half hours Pat Metheny and band show that jazz can still be as vibrant and exciting an artform as ever.

HOCKEY DAD ANNOUNCE BRAIN CANDY ALBUM TOUR JUNE 2020 0

Off the back of releasing their brand new single ‘Itch’ and album news for ‘Brain Candy’, Hockey Dad today announce their own headline tour, supported by triple j. Joining them will be Last Dinosaurs, Vundabar (USA) and Teen Jesus And The Jean Teasers. They’ll be kicking off the tour in Adelaide, then heading over to Fremantle, Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney. This tour will follow a mammoth run across the globe from the UK, Europe and the USA officially making this Hockey Dad’s biggest touring year ever!

Hockey Dad’s new single ‘Itch’, is out now, an epic fuzzed ballad, which started off as a delicate, droned out kind of feel. It grew in the studio as the band added more layers and has become a giant of a song that slowly builds to a massive finish with one of Zach Stephenson’s biggest vocals to date.

“It’s definitely the most non-Hockey Dad song we have ever recorded” shares Zach. “Itching is the worst feeling you could have sometimes. The idea comes from a person having someone under their skin and constantly invading their thoughts. But for some reason, can’t get enough of it. Can’t get enough of being controlled and held down. It’s kind of saying ‘come on in and keep me captive. I’m all yours’”

The music video is unlike any other Hockey Dad video you’ve seen before. Filmed in LA with their friend and director Laban Pheidias (Justin Bieber, Warpaint), it was an intense shoot with costume design, production and many actors which was all a first for the band. “The make-up and wardrobe was probably the funnest but also the most uncomfortable part of the day. We were coated in thick body paint and face masks during the steamy LA day whilst skating. But it was worth it to creep people out who were walking by us.” Zach shares.

Hockey Dad’s highly anticipated third studio album, Brain Candy will be released on May 29 featuring both ‘Itch’ and ‘I Missed Out’. The thirteen track album was produced, engineered and mixed by John Goodmanson at Robert Lang Studios (Bikini Kill, Blonde Redhead, Death Cab for Cutie, Los Campesinos) and was mastered by Troy Glessner (Alice in Chains, The Blood Brothers, Foo Fighters).
PRE-ORDER ALBUM HERE

Hockey Dad have had a huge start to 2020 and have just finished up Laneway Festival across the country and in New Zealand. Their recent single ‘I Missed Out’ scored a casual #60 in this year’s triple j’s Hottest 100 only weeks after being released.
In their few moments of downtime, the bushfire tragedy hit home for Hockey Dad. The duo put their heads together and decided to throw a massive show in their hometown bowlo in Windang which later had to be moved to the larger North Wollongong Hotel to cater for demand. The show, also featuring Tumbleweed, Odette and Pist Idiots, went on to raise a whopping $150,000 with the proceeds going to South Coast Bushfire Relief.

Australian Tour Dates
Supported by triple j
Thursday 4th June – Thebarton Theatre – Adelaide (All Ages)
Friday 5th June – Metropolis – Fremantle
Saturday 6th June – The Forum – Melbourne
Friday 12th June – Fortitude Music Hal – Brisbane (All Ages)
Saturday 13th June, Big Top Luna Park – Sydney (All Ages)
Mon 2nd March – Tour announce
Tue 3rd March – Fan presale
Wed 4th March – Fan presale
Thurs 5th March – General onsale
GET TICKETS HERE

#zildjian #pearldrums #fender

JOE CAMILLERI: THE BLACK SORROWS BLUES ON BROADBEACH INTERVIEW 0

Australian Musician’s Greg Phillips chats to local music legend Joe Camilleri about The Black Sorrows appearance at Blues on Broadbeach in May.

“At night you’ve got all the lights, people out in apartments and it is quite exciting,” Australian rock legend Joe Camilleri tells me. His iconic band The Black Sorrows has just been revealed as a featured act in the second huge lineup announcement for Blues on Broadbeach, Australia’s largest free music festival, which happens May 14-17, 2020 on the Gold Coast. In fact over 25 more unmissable acts have been added to an already impressive bill which will perform across 20 dedicated areas offering more than 200 hours of live entertainment. “Everyone is having a good time,” Joe adds. “Everyone wants to have a good time and there are all these other side shows, it’s not just the main acts and it’s more of a community thing which makes it interesting.”

Joe is quick to point out that many cities around the world present free music festivals but it’s the street vibe about Blues on Broadbeach that he appreciates most. “That’s what I love about it. You play a lot of festivals with a lot of good bands and they do that everywhere, they do it at St Kilda too but there is something about a good block party … People just want a knees up and block out whatever else they’ve been doing and if I happen to be that geezer (performing for them) … then I want to deliver.”

Clearly performing at music festivals provides much joy for Joe but it wasn’t always like that. His first festival experience at the Sunbury music festival back in early 70s was a nightmare. “I was playing in the Double Decker Brothers and I should have just remembered that straight away because we played after Billy Thorpe! We were a 15 piece art band. They loved Billy Thorpe and they loved us in a different way (laughs). It was an incredible experience for me to see … not so much hatred necessarily … well, it was close to it actually! We had to dance or die and with that one we died. I think the first festival that I went to though, was the Myponga music festival in Adelaide. That was incredible just being a punter in that environment and seeing all these bands. I think Black Sabbath played that one. With Sunbury, it was certainly exciting to be in front of so many people, even though we were hated by this crowd. Of course I have had the opposite of that. I’ve had the joy and love but you only carry the scars (laughs).”

These days the love for Joe Camilleri and The Black Sorrows reaches far and wide. In the last few years the band has been able to successfully tour Europe, a market they hadn’t tackled for some time due to Joe’s aversion to flying. Like so many other Australian bands, Europe and Germany in particular have been appreciative of acts from downunder heading over to tour and The Sorrows will head back again later in 2020. “They love their blues and they love Americana,” Joe says of the German audiences. “I think after being there, they really appreciate the musicianship of our ban … If they like something they go nuts. They do it in Norway too, maybe it’s the cold parts of the world, they keep clapping and you have to tell them to shut up! They have this wonderful thing and we have it here too … we have it at this festival, Broadbeach, this community thing. But a lot of Australian bands go to Europe now and you don’t know about it. There was a time when that would have been big news but those days are gone, you’re working invisibly now”

Around the same time The Black Sorrows head back to Europe, they’ll also be releasing their 22nd album, which happens to be the 50th album of Joe’s celebrated career. For the new album, Joe reconnected with International record producer Peter Solley, who has produced many of Joe’s biggest selling albums.
“I gave this guy the gig, Peter Solley who did all my albums for Jo Jo Zep and the Falcons, “Joe explains. “We reunited in a weird way. He was going to Vietnam and thought he might want to pop down to Australia again. So he stayed with me and out of that we decided to make a record and he had stopped making records, he’s just been playing organ … he plays with everyone. I said you’re 71 and I’m 72, this could be the last tango, why don’t we make this record together? I had all these songs, I’m going to make it anyway, why don’t you come down, I’ll pay ya and we’ll make an album and that’s exactly what we did. There were a lot of things I didn’t particularly like but I said he’s doing the job and you can’t interfere with someone’s soup otherwise it’s not going to be his soup … but he likes what I do. He likes the integrity of what I try to achieve and likes that the songs are a bit dark and come to you in a certain kind of way. Every song is in a different style, he likes that, it’s not set and forget. It’s not like AC/DC where you know what you’re going to get. I’m trying to find myself in a place I have never been before and he likes that.”

For Joe’s Blues on Broadbeach performance he’ll be playing his trusty ’64 Gretsch Country Gentleman.
“I have been playing that for years,” he tells me. “It’s one of those guitars that keeps on giving and providing the airlines don’t break it, it stays in tune. Mind you, I use barbed wire for strings. I just play rhythm. With strings, I’m up to 54s down to 13s, pretty heavy strings. When I am away I play through an (Vox) AC30 amp and that does the job for me with my minimal technique. I’d rather not play the guitar at all and just concentrate on sax and singing but because of the way we structure everything, the band doesn’t know what song I am going to play next. So there are plenty of songs that I start on guitar and that’s how I get things moving for them. Otherwise you’ve got to tell them what to play, you’ve got to have a song list and to me a songlist would be the most restrictive component that you can have. I don’t like the idea of walking in there and saying we’ll be doing this. I like it when I walk in and they ask what’s our first song Joe? I’ll say, don’t know yet I will tell you as soon as I get up there.”
If you’d like to find out what songs The Black Sorrows will play, be at The 19th Blues on Broadbeach Music Festival will be held from Thursday 14th May to Sunday 17th May 2020.

About Blues on Broadbeach
One of the largest free music events in Australia, Blues on Broadbeach sees over 200,000 people attend the four-day festival each year. The festival allows patrons to enjoy over 200 hours of entertainment in stunning locations throughout Broadbeach’s streets, parks, bars and restaurants.

Fly or drive and stay in the heart of Broadbeach with the festival right on your doorstep! There are many sophisticated accommodation options in the precinct from five-star hotels to self-contained apartments, satisfying all needs and budgets. Check out Broadbeach accommodation here.

Blues on Broadbeach 2020 second line up announcement

THE BLACK SORROWS
G. LOVE (USA) – DON BRYANT AND THE BO-KEYS (USA)
BOOTLEG RASCAL – TAMI NEILSON (NZ)
KAREN LEE ANDREWS – HAT FITZ AND CARA (AUS/IRE)
RAY BEADLE & THE HI-TONES – THE SOUL MOVERS
LI’L CHUCK THE ONE MAN SKIFFLE MACHINE (NZ)
DEVILS KIOSK DUO – DEAN HAITANI – MOJO WEBB & WIL SARGISSON
TIM STOKES – EAMON DILWORTH’S CRAWFISH PO’BOYS – BB FACTORY
DEZZIE D AND THE STINGRAYZ – BENNY D WILLIAMS – MIKE BEALE
MIKE ELRINGTON – TROMBONE KELLIE GANG – B-DADDY AND THE DOUBLE D’S
SIMON KINNEY-LEWIS BAND WITH SPECIAL GUEST ANDY JUST
ADAM HOLE BAND – SLIPS AND THE FW’S – JULIAN JAMES
NIKOLAINE MARTIN – MATTHEW ARMITAGE – PATRIK WILLIAMS

To join the already announced….
TOMMY EMMANUEL
GABY MORENO – KARISE EDEN
KIM CHURCHILL  –  BONDI CIGARS
THE TURNER BROWN BAND USA   –  OSAKA MONAURAIL JAPAN
JEFF LANG – FIONA BOYES & THE FORTUNE TELLERS
THE MASON RACK BAND – ALLENSWORTH USA
SHAUN KIRK – DAN DINNEN & SHORTY
JULES BOULT & THE REDEEMERS
PETE CORNELIUS BAND – MINNIE MARKS
THIS WAY NORTH – GRACE & HUGH – SWEET THUNDER JAZZ ORCHESTRA

All Blues on Broadbeach info HERE

KIM CHURCHILL BLUES ON BROADBEACH 2020 INTERVIEW 0

Blues on Broadbeach, one of the largest FREE music events in Australia will be held May 14-17, 2020. Almost 70 acts will perform at the 2020 Festival including Tommy Emmanuel, Gaby Moreno, Karise Eden, Bondi Cigars and more, with a new announcement of acts due on March 5. One of the high profile acts already confirmed is singer songwriter and journeyman Kim Churchill. The internationally acclaimed folk rock artist has not only been busy traveling the globe and recording a 4 part EP series, but he’s also been living a gypsy life at home too, courtesy of his new van fitted out with a stage and a solar powered PA system he’s been working on with Yamaha Music. Australian Musician’s Greg Phillips spoke to Kim about Blues on Broadbeach and caught up on all his other fabulous news.

Was there a defining moment as a kid when you decided you wanted to play music for rest of your life?
Wow that’s a phenomenal way to begin! As I think back there was a moment where I was laying on the floor at home in Merimbula where I grew up. I was about 8 years old and I was absolutely lost in the solo to Stairway to Heaven. I had Led Zeppelin IV on CD and I just obsessed with it and learned the whole of Stairway to Heaven and the solo and would play along with Jimmy Page. That for me is a really defining moment. In hindsight I think at that point it planted the seed for this is what I want to do with my life. It’s not that it wasn’t about music before then because I started when I was really young but back then it was thrown in with soccer practice and nippers. It was an activity I enjoyed and I also liked the identity of being the kid with the guitar. I liked walking to school with the guitar. When I was 8 or 9 was when I first started getting the feelings of creative flow that indicated a fire in me for music that would drive me on to prioritise it above everything else.

Did you have a local music store growing up that you’d visit and check out the guitars?
I did it was in Bega so that was about half an hour away but I would catch the bus to Bega once or twice a week just to go to that music store. Also above the music store they little studio rooms where they would have music lessons so it was also where I learned to play, it was definitely a little mecca for me.

Where do you find inspiration these days?
I am incredibly inspired by … especially in the last year … I have taken a huge step in the direction of making my life the body of work, fitting out a camper van that I can live in that has a stage that slides out of the side of it. I have recording equipment in there and I sort of drift from beach to beach, town to town and play music venues and I guess living this gypsy life. I find that within this way of life there are opportunities once a day or every couple of days just to sit down at some wonderful location by a river or under some trees to pull out my guitar and play for hours if I want. A lot of my songs are coming from those extended times of performing, just performing for my own enjoyment and it fits in so well with this life I have created. If anything, now my creativity comes from the lifestyle, traveling and playing shows and being in new places.

Your latest 4 part recording project is all about traveling too …
It’s a song collection which I am releasing across 4 EPs which goes under the collective title I Am Forgetting The End Again. The first EP is called I Am and that was recorded in Berlin with a hip hop producer named Vincent Kottkamp. Then I traveled to Canada and recorded Forgetting, which was done in a shack out in the British Columbian rain forest out on Vancouver Island with a psychedelic rock producer named Colin Stewart. The next EP that comes out is called The End and for that one I went to the Blue Mountains here in Australia and recorded with Ian Pritchett, who I worked with on an album called Weight Falls a few years ago and he is a dear friend. I’d say he is one of the most prolific Australian producers and has no interest in notoriety, so not many people have heard of him but he’s done Angus and Julia Stone and The Beautiful Girls, COG and more recently Boo Seeker and other electronic stuff. The final EP was recorded in Devon in the UK with the guys who grew up playing with Ben Howard. They went out on their own and Chris Bond then started working with artists and I loved a lot of what he was doing. He helps acoustic singer songwriters take a leap out of the two dimensional world into a beautiful, larger 3 dimensional sonic landscape.

You are playing Blues on Broadbeach this year. Tell us about your history with that festival.
I played there way back in 2012, 2013. I played there two years in a row and I had a phenomenal experience. They are great supporters of up and coming blues and roots artists and you just know that if you play there you are going to see all of your friends and the opportunity to spend time with each other and play music with each other. So yes, I had a couple of really beautiful years going to that festival and it will be lovely to be back.

Will your set list be concentrating on material from the new EPs?
Yeah I am getting to the point now where I have so many songs and it’s hard to fit everything that I want to play into a set these days. It will be a fair bit of material from I Am and Forgetting, then that will be fleshed out with some of the songs that have been solid rocks in my set list, so it will be a nice little mix. Also I have been playing these gigs called one One Mic, One Light. I have been playing really small venues and just doing 5 or 6 evenings. They are so intimate and the silence is so thorough that I can hear the ice cubes melting in people’s drinks. Wonderfully, the inverse of that is a festival like Blues On Broadbeach and getting on a larger stage with my kick drum and guitar amplifier and having a good bash, it’s like an enormous release for me now. It will be phenomenal to play the main stage at Blues on Broadbeach and just have a really good whack.

Tell me about your current stage rig.
It’s funny, it builds and it scales back and builds and scales back again. I feel like every time I build it up, I scale back ninety percent of it and the ten percent that’s left I get very experimental. Now I have a kick drum which has a snare trigger. I sometimes sit with a tambourine as well but I have moved toward standing more now because it seems a bit more present and I can create more of a vibe. The guitar itself runs through 5 or 6 different lines, which run to a guitar amplifier, a bass amplifier, some sort of sub harmonic lines which create some really fat low end sounds. Then there’s the acoustic sound of the guitar and the body percussion sounds, the tapping on the body. The guitar is this immense wall of layers and sounds. I sing and play harmonica and the harmonica runs through effects as well. The psychedelic element of what I do is in the harmonica

Is the Churchill (no relation) guitar still your main guitar?
Yes although a bloody delivery company lost one of my Churchills recently which has been a nightmare. I had twins, two guitars made from the same tree and they would fly everywhere with me, so it has been sad to lose the back up. I still have two Churchills on the road with me at all times.

How did you come across David Churchill’s guitars in the first place?
For me, finding an Australian guitarist that I really idolised … that was Jeff Lang. I became obsessed with him after I had seen him at Byron Bay Blues Festival when I was about 14. I listened to all his music and devoured anything he had to offer. When I was 17 he came and played a show in Merimbula and I got to talk to him after the show and asked him about the guitars he had been playing and he said they are Churchills. I said that’s amazing my second name is Churchill. From that moment I thought they are the guitars for me, Langy plays them, it’s my second name .. how cool would it be to have a guitar with my name on the headstock! It was a few years later that I met David at Port Fairy Folk Festival and fortuitously my parents were there and they’ don’t get to a lot of my concerts around the world. They were at that one and saw how important it was to me that I was meeting David and he had a guitar for sale there and they actually helped me buy the guitar and allowed me to pay it off over a few years. So all of a sudden I had my first Churchill and I have ordered 3 more since then.

Apart from Blues on Broadbeach, what’s on for the rest of 2020?
I have just started a tour called the Bright Night sessions which is a really extensive regional tour. I have built this new camper van rig that has a stage that slides out of the side door. I have worked with Yamaha on a solar powered PA system which runs off a solar panel on the roof. The Bright Night sessions is partly an opportunity to start playing shows on my camper van stage but also a chance to reconnect with a whole bunch of music communities that I have got to know over the years. For the last 4 or 5 years though, there has been such a push toward radio and I have been working with record companies and playing all over the world, across North America and Europe and I haven’t had the opportunity to visit these beautiful grass roots music communities that I know and love in Australia. I began to notice that I wasn’t as happy as I used to be. It seemed to me that I used to get a lot of joy out of visiting those communities and keeping the relationship healthy so the Bright Night sessions is an opportunity to really reconnect with a lot of those music communities and rock up in my van and throw on a gig for a 150 people.

Blues on Broadbeach, one of the largest FREE music events in Australia will be held May 14-17, 2020. Almost 70 acts will perform at the 2020 Festival including Tommy Emmanuel; Gaby Moreno; Karise Eden; Kim Churchill; Bondi Cigars and more. The event will feature 20 performance areas including the headline stages in Surf Parade, the Broadbeach Mall and Victoria Park. Blues on Broadbeach starts early in the morning and runs late into the night within Broadbeach venues. Next artist announcement is March 5th

BLUES ON BROADBEACH SITE

KIM CHURCHILL SITE