Andrew Galan with Okinawa Girls jam session, 19 February 2017

I’ve been jamming with Okinawa Girls for our shows at the National Folk Festival coming up in April this year. In preparation I’ve been going to their gigs as well as those of the Blade Winner (who is one half of Okinawa Girls). I’ve taken notes on the performances, on the song lyrics, as well as the vibe of what is going on. I’ve also been listening to one outtake that was sent to me by Laura Milkovits (the other half of Okinawa Girls) and discussing the songs with the band. The result is a poem called Tuesday: the Definitive Cherry Blossom, which I am still writing. Here is a small section of it recorded during our first jam session.

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BAD!SLAM!NO!BISCUIT!

The Salt Room

Amanda Stewart

Brought to you by BAD!SLAM!NO!BISCUIT! in partnership with the Ainslie and Gorman ArtsCentres, the Salt Room is the poetry and performance night the Australian Capital Territory deserves.

Bringing together local, national and international writers and performers it showcases some of the best that poetry can be.

For this event we have brought together Amanda Stewart (Sydney), Paul Magee (Canberra), Happy Axe (Canberra) and Zoe Anderson (Canberra).

All MCed by Joel Barcham and Andrew Galan

Read below for more information about each of our performers and follow this link for information about the event.

Amanda Stewart

Amanda Stewart is a poet, author and vocal artist. She has created a diversity of publications, performances, film and radio works in Australia, Europe, Japan and the US working in literature, music, broadcasting, theatre and new media environments. She also worked full time as a producer/presenter at ABC Radio in Sydney for many years. Her book and CD set of selected poems, I/T was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards and won the Anne Elder Poetry Prize. She is currently working on a solo album for the experimental music label, splitrec and on a new collection of poetry.

Paul Magee

Paul studied in Melbourne, Moscow, San Salvador and Sydney. He publishes poetry. He has also published extensive scholarship on poetic composition and critical judgement. Paul is a past President of the Cultural Studies Association of Australasia, and active across a number of scholarly fields (his broader CV includes research articles on Marxian thought, psychoanalysis, stagnation, boredom and revolution). His work in poetics is currently most focussed on his role as Chief Investigator on the ARC-funded project Understanding Creative Excellence: A Case Study in Poetry (2013-5), which sees him specialising on the compositional practices and broader sociological millieu of major contemporary North American poets. Paul teaches poetry at the University of Canberra, where he is an Associate Professor.

Happy Axe

Happy Axe, solo project of Emma Kelly (Mr Fibby, The Ellis Collective, One Night Jam) uses violin, musical saw and vocals to create layers of sound that are beautiful, unsettling and cinematic. Organic instrumental sounds are melded with digital manipulation, looping and effecting, and all sounds are generated live.

Zoe Anderson

Zoe Anderson is a sky watcher, bird lover and performance poet. She has featured at the Canberra poetry Slam and at BAD!SLAM!NO!BISCUIT!, created a poetry-play with Raphael Kabo for You Are Here Festival, and kept her very own journal since the age of nine. Her poems can be found in The Stars Like Sand anthology, and in Meniscus journal.

One-hundred word reviews

A 100 word review: Ladies Sing! Sunday 8 March, The Front Café and Gallery, Lyneham

One-hundred word reviews – Rising, from Melbourne’s The Go Set

The Go Set’s fourth full-length recording, Rising, is everything you would want in a Celtic inspired union anthem album – but with subtly more. Bagpipes, sea-swept chorus, rail-roads, men chained and exported, here we go, here we go. The album takes colonial history and places it firmly within the modern context. The Roaring Forties evokes the stigma of Australia’s painful response to boat-people. Armentieres re-works the bawdy World War I "Mademoiselle from Armentières" into a love song, as the girl with jet black hair swallows streets that once ran liquid with mustard gas. As they say, all hell has been unleashed.

One-hundred word reviews – The Barons of Tang, the Phoenix, 17/1/2008 – Melbourne Gypsy Hardcore

The Barons of Tang - Plague on Wheels Tour. Tuba on the floor, shirts off, death metal punk Gypsy – why not Romani? – Hardcore; the Phoenix. Dance, dance, dance, the crowd was up for the Barons of Tang from the outset and in a set too short for everyone they frolicked us through their sweaty musical array before passing the top hat around the crowd - University holidays equal no pay at the Phoenix. The Double-Bass player was declared: “good enough to do me for a week.” Then it ended. Unfortunately I missed the Super Best Friends, I was chasing Vampires.

One-hundred word reviews – The Wiskeydicks, Woodford - where were you?

Canadian visitors to Woodford, The Whiskeydicks played a storm over three nights, turning on acoustic folk Irish-Canadian punk for the small devoted following turning out for them. Playing two short set-lists on 30 and 31 December, they had a grand finale of 45 minutes to close the festival at Bazaar. Highlights included a rendition of "And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda" along with their song “The Godfather”, the Cello-player leaped through NoFX inspired hoops – fun – fancy hats held prominence, and the Middle of the Year Girls danced the crowd into a frenzy of jigs and jumping – very hot, hot, hot...

The Ellis Collective, The Understudy and, A Disappointing Fireworks Display

My write-up of the Saturday night phoenix gig for Culturazi.

New old review

Better late than never, the review of the Andi and George Band and Alice Cottee at the Front.

the Mess Hall

The Mess Hall, reviewed a little while ago. Here are some pictures to go with it. Have a look, then go see them play live.

Horsell Common Review

Horsell Common, what a great band. Maybe I should start listening to Triple J again after all these years, do they get played there? probably. Here is the review, if you listen to Triple J you probably already know all about them.