Archive for year: 2014

I was driving along in my car today. With music blaring, I found myself away from everywhere I didn’t wish to be. Moments went by and before I could really appreciate where the song had taken me, I found myself in the middle of an intersection with cars tooting their horns in an effort to remind me of my careless driving. I had run a red light. Was it my fault? Yes. Did I care? No.?My main concern was that I’d been swept from my thoughts, which are almost exclusively inhabited by music. The startling realisation of not knowing who you are or where you are anymore is something most people might encounter upon the demise of a marriage or when they lose a loved one, but I encounter this every time I’m not consumed by music. It is the only thing that really makes me happy and content. In saying this, given music’s capacity to make me quite cavalier about day to day things, it may seemingly be what kills me, but what a heavenly way to die.

Music has always been who I am, right from when my dad played me his Neil Young and Roy Orbison records. I’ll never forget the first album he bought me. It was Silverchair’s ‘Frogstomp’. I think even as a five year old, hearing these songs and learning that music could exhume such grit and disdain, yet with such purity and heart, made me want to be able to recreate and generate the same passion. My thoughts are that few other things in this world can warm your heart and fill your life with such contentment.

I listen to mostly death metal and gangster rap, which is rather dissimilar to the music I create. The reason I think I’m drawn to metal and gangster rap is because, despite the questionable legitimacy of the content, both genres are fuelled by intensity, aggression and a ‘live every day like it’s your last’ mentality, which make my mind and soul feel the crunch of something powerful and truthful in that I really feel alive when I’m listening to it.?As well as listening to some of the amazing, soul shaping artists like Johnny Cash, Neil Young and Jeff Buckley in amidst the singer/songwriter greats, I find myself absolutely falling in love with Dallas Green, also known as City & Colour, every time I listen to him. His voice is angelic and I feel like his songs were written for my own reassurance that everything’s going to be okay.

Just as I can’t imagine a world without Dallas Green, I cannot even begin to imagine the possibility of a world without music. I hope it never comes to this, and to be honest, I don’t think it ever will. The reason is simple. It’s universal. It’s a bonding mechanism. It exists on an exclusively personal level as well as on a completely superficial, expansive level which helps bring people together. For the most part, I dislike people. However, knowing that musical influence and the love, support and ever growing creative birth of music is and has been derived from human inspiration, I tend to forgive man’s shortcomings just a little bit.

I don’t think the implications of not valuing music concern me as much as they should, because I know that deep down it’s something that I personally will always value more than my own well being. However, if nonchalance of others towards music does ultimately extinguish the musical flame, then of course, I would be devastated. I think though, as long as everybody can appreciate the music they like on a personal level and support the artists they love as much as they can, music will live beyond me, my family, and anyone else who is reading this. So, even if you like just one artist, I would encourage you to support them as much as you possibly can.

I once saw a sign saying ‘Music is who I am, everything else is what I do’. I feel that it’s important people value music, because as far as I’m aware, music is the world, everything else is just what happens. Help make sure music IS the world and not just what happens.

Music is important because like all the arts, it evokes emotion within us. Whether it’s the power of Rage Against the Machine making adrenaline surge through you, or the theme to the Exorcist making you feel on edge. It becomes the soundtrack to people’s lives and the theme playing under their memories.

It facilitates communication and expression. It helps develop empathy through other peoples stories and thoughts, and in turn it inspires thought, which produces growth within the individual and humanity as a whole. And of course it’s a source of entertainment and enjoyment.

The first memory I have of liking music would be as an infant and it was Tim Finns “There’s A Fraction Too Much Friction”. I got my mum to keep rewinding the cassette so I could keep listening to it… I didn’t know what Tim was talking about – ”Friction” wasn’t a word I was gonna be using anytime soon.. I just liked the tune.

As a child whatever music my parents were playing and whatever was on the Radio at the time. So a fairly steady diet of the Eagles, Tom Petty, Police, Fleetwood Mac, Led Zep, Pink Floyd, Queen, David Bowie, Dire Straits etc as I got older and starting choosing my own music it was the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Guns & Roses, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Rage Against the Machine, Soundgarden, Metallica etc? ?What made you first realize you wanted to pursue a career in music?

Of course I had no idea in the slightest about what a career in Music would entail in reality, but I guess at the time it was a combination of the buzz of playing live in front of a crowd, and writing music with my mates that I dug and was proud of. I thought “This is the best thing ever!”

We started I Am Giant about 3 years ago but we’d all been in previous bands. We had common tastes and I’d worked with Shelton previously so we thought we’d try writing some stuff for our own band and see how it went… and it turned out to be a great fit.

Who are your major musical and non musical influences?

I just couldn’t narrow them down! Musically anything that gives me goosebumps.. you could start with all the bands I listed previously as music I listened to growing up. I like Ernest Hemingway and John LeCarres writing. Stephen King is a great author.. Love the Shawshank Redemption although I’ve only actually seen the movie. I generally like Michael Mann’s films ie Heat and The Last of The Mohicans. Love all Quentin Tarantino’s work.? ? ?How has your music evolved since you first started?

I guess its matured with time and experience.. Firstly, every single project I collaborate on is heavily influenced by the people I’m working with at that point in time. I’m still inspired by the artists I listened to when I first started writing as a teenager, but of course my horizons have broadened and I’ve listened to so much more since then and been fortunate to work with a lot of other musicians and artists that I’ve learnt from and been inspired by. But essentially it’s still Rock music and fundamentally I think it comes from the same place the very first songs I was part of writing came from.

What have been your biggest challenges and opportunities?

The biggest challenge has just been staying afloat and surviving while still putting in the time, effort and imagination required to create an album that myself, and the rest of the band are happy with and that can potentially make an impression and not be swallowed up in a vast landscape of other aspiring band and artists. The biggest opportunity has been being able to work with the people who have had the skills and knowledge we lack to enable us to record and release our album in the manner it has been.

What is your favourite song?

Couldn’t possibly pick one! It changes periodically…  but between the four of us in the band some favourites are; One Of These Nights by the Eagles, Breakdown by Tom Petty, Daytona White by Glass Jaw, Lullaby by the Cure, Comfortably Numb by Pink Floyd, Day Of Suffering by Morbid Angel, You Don’t Pull No Punches But You Don’t Push The River by Van Morrison, Lover You Should Have Come Over by Jeff Buckley, Everything’s Ruined by Faith No More,  Blood Sugar Sex Magic by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Visions by Stevie Wonder, Like Suicide by Soundgarden, Black by Pearl Jam, Long Forgotten by Oceansize, Blueberry Pancakes by Fink, My Very Best by Elbow.

What is the hardest part about creating music?

Creating something that you really love and are convicted about, that everybody elseloves too… and technically it would be getting across exactly what you want to say lyrically in the song while making it fit rhythmically and flow musically.

People have a misconception of Musicians driving around in Limo’s once their song is on the Radio but it’s largely a myth.I’ve experienced this first hand.. when you’re not making a living from your art, you have to do other work to pay rent and feed your family, medical bills etc etc… And you can’t live with your parents your whole life. You spend the best, most productive part of the week focused on just making money to survive and the leftovers are just not enough to create anything worthwhile. Without nurturing and working on it, your music starts to die.? ?On the value of music…

It hasn’t lost its value any more than the Mona Lisa.. It’s just become easier to steal. In the old days you had to put the CD up your shirt or down the front of your jeans. Nowadays it’s easier than pinching oranges from your next door neighbour’s tree.?Music is as powerful as it’s ever been.

In the digital age, and with internet data transfer it has just become so quick and easy to get music without paying for it, its reached the point where some people are actually unaware that their actions are not only illegal, but that they directly affect the Artists livelihood.

In terms of making music matter, most of us as artists have already done our part. Strived for years in bands, working our asses off, learning the hard way, not making a cent from it, to hopefully get to the point where the quality of our Music becomes something, not just worth listening to, but something that has a positive influence on people’s lives. Now it’s over to the listener to support the artist and make music matter..

Why is music important?

Life defines challenges and that’s the beauty of it when you have a rhythm, a melody, a sound in your ear – you feel unstoppable.

Music could best describe itself as a drug of healing, a drug of freedom, and better tasting than a beer on a sunny day or night. A freedom to be what you want to be and the urge to strive for success in everything; music just gives you that power and control to define what life means to you.

My biggest challenge and opportunity so far is seeing my craft enter a world of incredible things which can be challenging, beautiful, sometimes useful, tactile, extraordinary, and to understand, enjoy and care about that which has gone into the making. At the end of the day I grow not only as a musician but as a person. The beauty of it all is music!

This is why music matters to me.

By Iva Lamkum

If someone were to ask me why I chose to have a career in music, I would have to say, I didn’t.

I never chose music. Music chose me. I wrote my first song when I was 8 years old, and my family thought it was delightful – and I guess I didn’t think it was half bad either! I wrote the song for my Grandma, who I affectionately called “Nama” and who was my best friend. We always used to listen to “Tears in Heaven” by Eric Clapton whenever we drove in her car. The tape would never go to the next track. I would constantly rewind it back to the start of the song.

Then, when I was 10, my Grandma’s car was hit by a speeding vehicle, an accident which took my Grandma’s life. The car was a wreck, it was a wonder anyone survived, I believed that everything inside would have been lost.

I was injured badly, and for a while I had a sort of amnesia. I knew who I was and who my family was, what I liked and disliked, but I didn’t feel any kind of a connection to my Grandma, who had been such a huge and beautiful part of my life.

I felt like this for a few months, until one day I went to my Grandma’s house, before it was due to be sold. I went to the spare bedroom where her piano was that she had helped me learn to play. I began to play a little song, staring up at her photograph on top of the piano. Suddenly, I caught a glimpse of something, beside my Grandma’s photo. It was our “Tears in Heaven” tape. I couldn’t believe it! I reached up and took it in my hands, just staring at it. I started to cry. As the tears came flooding in, so did the memories of my wonderful Nama.

Since then, I have written over 170 songs. It has always been easier to express myself through music, than through plain speech. I usually don’t think about anything I write, it just happens, as though the pen is being moved by someone else’s hand, maybe my Grandma is still guiding me through all of my writing and all of my performances.

One thing I know for sure is that she is still in every note, and every word.

By Renee Maurice

My good mate, Dan, had his first child, Frankie, last week. I was fortunate enough to be there for her first bath the next day. They used Frankie as the Demo Baby, to show everyone how the bathing situation works. In all the noise in a room full of people: crying babies, dazed mothers, confused fathers, visitors chatting and idiots like me taking photos; Frankie always knew where Dan was, and knew his voice amongst the noise. Seeing the deep connection between Dan and Frankie was really moving. And was kind of surprising, seeing that they had only really met each other the day before.

It made me start to wonder what it would sound like on those first few days out of the womb?  After hearing everything in a sort of surround underwater sound. It would be nice to go back to this place, before I had an identity or a ‘taste’ in music, or an attachment to a certain genre or artist.

There are a whole list of ‘first time’ moments, that I think stay with us for the entirety of our lives. First kiss, first day at a new school, first time learning that a pet has died. The first time you drove off by yourself after getting your P plates. The first time you were pulled over by the cops. But there is no way I can remember the first time I became aware of music as something that could be constructed or contained in some way.

Everything is new for kids, and so there is no framework in which to judge the creative merit of music. It’s probably just all sound with differing decibel levels. Whether it’s the sound of a bird at the window or of the chippies next door telling tall stories while listening to Triple M. Our ‘taste’ in music is being formed by the chance encounters that we have from the very beginning. So what onslaught of sound it must be for a child born in ‘87, 4 days after the release of Joshua Tree, at the height of glam rock, the end of punk, and the beginning of grunge.

I have a vague memory that may be mine, or may be a combination of photos, and my mother’s stories. There was an ad for an instant coffee company, for a brand of coffee beans that were grown in Uganda. They had featured African music, djembes and joyful voices, and Ugandan women dancing. I don’t remember the song, but I remember the colours and the movement, and the pattern of the coffee packaging. My mum says that no matter where I was in the house, if I heard the ad come on the TV, I would come running in. As fast as a toddler can run in a nappy, just to stare at the screen. Maybe this is part of the reason I have some sort of an emotional connection to African music.

My grandmother worked in an orphanage in Uganda and both my parents are preachers, so gospel music was an important part of my upbringing. There is a lot of pain, and love, joy, anger, desire and other extremes in this music. So, this is how I grew to understand what music, as an expression, was designed to be. My dad started showing me some chords on his acoustic, when I was about 7, and I started piano lessons when I was 8. I met the drummer of the band I am in now, when I was 9. I made him a drum kit out of paint cans when I was 10, and told him he would play drums and I would play guitar. And 14 years later, that is what we are doing.

There is something so pure about kids playing music- before they realize what else is at stake. Before people start telling you that you can make money, or a career, or have the attention of popular girls as a result. In my short existence as a ‘touring musician’, I’ve found being in a band, and dealing with the business side, the creative egos, the back packer motels, can be really exhausting. But all of that is completely separate from the feeling of picking up your guitar in your living room, with your oldest mate on the drums, and making any sort of sound you want. And when those moments happen on stage, when you forget where you are, and you are just making sounds, you are reminded why you jump through all the other hoops to get to this place.

Up until last year, I had let the idea of becoming a full-time musician disappear completely. For about 5 years, I put my focus elsewhere, and tried to ignore that conflicting feeling I had every time I saw live music or bought a new CD. I was doing covert song writing, secretly, never showing anyone. And I always had my guitar in Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney, Hobart, LA and every other city I lived in during this time. But I was convinced that there was no way that I could fit into this world of music, or more importantly, bring anything new to the table.

It was such a specific set of circumstances that led me back to playing music. And something that I will always be grateful for. It started, when I arrived back in Hobart, broke, after 6 months in LA. Alister was in a local band that was making a name for themselves, and they had a band van, which is a real and definite sign of success. We got a few friends together, and went up to the east coast of Tasmania, to a place called Douglas River. The land that we camped on belongs to a sheep famer, and the river runs down from the gorge, to the sea. We had a few acoustic guitars, a couple of Djembes, a campfire and a lot of voices. We had a few jams that went late into the night, and there is no one around, just the mountains, the lagoon, the clear night, sitting in the middle of a paddock of sunburnt grass. We did a lot of naked swimming in the canyons, and naked rock running down the river bed. It may sound like a 69 free love revival, and that’s exactly what it was.

When we came back to civilization, it felt a bit strange, wearing clothes, and walking around the concrete mess of Hobart. But I was convinced that I had to do something with music. We started busking down at Salamanca, on some of the open string tuning songs we had been improvising up at Douglas- and we started getting little crowds, which reminded me of that rush of live performance. So, I moved back to Sydney, joined a band, playing keyboards, still writing secretly. Eventually I met Pepa, (keyboardist/producer of Jinja Safari)- and the rest is the reason I am here writing a blog for you.

I don’t know if music really matters in the bigger scheme, other than how it affects the individual. At the end of the day music is just personal expression, and how people receive it is up to them. I don’t know if you can really change the world, or social structures with the ‘power of music’. Sure there have been some great political bands, that united an audience in their anger against oppression, but it’s not like any world leader heard a Rage Against the Machine lyric, and had an intense epiphany, that sparked an immigration reform.

Similarly, I wonder what would actually happen if the lead singer of band once famous for instance on nuclear energy, became a national minister for the environment. I wonder if he would change all the things he wanted to change? Or maybe it was just the sound of an impassioned young lawyer, expressing his emotional reaction to situations louder than everyone else, simple because he had a microphone and was at the front of a brilliant band.

And I certainly wouldn’t blame any young artist for doing that. Because, for me, I know music/lyric writing is sometimes just a way of saying those things that constantly run around in your thoughts, turning your head into a blender. Sometimes you get to a point when finally you just have to yell it out- You just hope that it’s in the right key.

I went to see Frankie again yesterday, just after feed time. She was doing a little yelling of her own. This was a treat, because she hasn’t formed the muscles of the oesophagus to keep food down just yet, so she threw up on my shoulder. I’m sure she didn’t really want to do it to me, it was just an automatic reaction. After that she was fine, and went back to looking around the room. She was taking note of everything- observing and learning by osmosis. We were watching her becoming ‘smarter’, forming a personality, ideals, emotional ties, and it was all happening right in my arms.

I want to keep my relationship to music as simple as possible.

Everything moves so fast in life, and it is just so easy to become self focused. No one can relate to a musician who is only thinking about their life and their problems. I am just one of 6.8 billion people. Just the sound of one drop in pouring rain. I don’t want music to be anything more than what it was when we played with a paint can drum kit and my dad’s acoustic nylon string guitar.