Salut. The Re-Mains return to the fray at Tamworth Country Music Festival in 2011 with four shows at the Courthouse Hotel, Peel Street, from Jan 19-22nd – all shows late – 11pm till stumps. The big news is the line-up – the return of Leigh ‘Keepin’ It Steel’ Ivin on pedal steel and electric guitars in cahoots with Uncle Burnin’ Love on banjo and electrics. While Leigh has been back on the road with the band, playing Darwin and Melbourne shows, this is the first time he’s reunited with UBL since 2006. Expect lots of Ronny and Keef-style lick trading, and I ain’t talking about the after-party (ies).
On bass, Tom Jones, returning for a one-off reprise as his role as the drunkest-man-standing-and-still-playing-bass from his pop-star status as Leah Flanagan’s double-bassist in Darwin. On drums, ‘Frisky’ Fisk of Marrickville, demonstrating why Mohawks are still punk, despite their tawdry immersion in the pages of Vogue. And, inevitably, yours truly, Dick Maley as Folksinger, despite rumours to the contrary that the job had been contracted out to Gibbo.
This does need some explaining, as different line-ups of the Re-Mains franchise have been circulating around Australia and Canada, with Dick Maley being the only common denominator, furiously trying to keep track of who remembers which songs so as not to launch into, say, ‘Same Road’, only to meet with confused silence from the uncomprehending mob on stage. Hence Buckets Drinkwater, CP Pyledriver and Sideshow Bridge, who also feature in contemporary line-ups will not be at Tamworth but will, however, be playing at the Lennox Point Hotel on Saturday January 29th.
The band will also be recording a new album during the Tamworth sojourn, the long-awaited ‘Country Rock And (that’s how we) Roll’. This will feature many of the live staples as yet unreleased, the likes of ‘Country Rock and Roll is Number One’, ‘Country Rock and Roll is My Hollywood’ and ‘Country Rock and Soul, the Hank Denfield Waltz’.
In further news, the band may well return to Canada in 2011, and will be looking forward to seeing old mates the Red Hot Poker Dots, back from the US, at the festival, as well as Den Hanrahan, Gibbo, Swaino, Virus, Mick Seigers, the Blues Cowboys and the Dirt Radio Band.
Sallyanne Ryan, who made the fabulous doco about the Nymagee Outback Music Festival, ‘A Day in the Dirt’, which has been showing and winning film prizes across the globe (Google it), will also be on hand, filming footage for her epic biopic about The Re-Mains. So get on down to Tamworth, people, for the latest instalment in the continuing saga of Country Rock And Roll. New album Inland Sea will be on sale, as well as a box set of all CDs, subscriptions to our website-only downloads of unreleased live track recordings and exclusive Meat Tray stubby holders.
Incidentally, the band has now been going for nine years, despite more line-up changes than the Melbourne Hit Men’s Association, near-death experiences, the Curse, and too much beer. And the CMF show on the 19th will be the band’s 806th show, since auspicious beginnings at the Winsome Hotel, Lismore on the 28th of February, 2002.
Mick Daley - Travelling musician and author 