Category: Journalism

Northern Star Column

Northern Star Column, 26/10/2009

mickdaleyo

A bluegrass festival is a different animal to the commercially driven rock blockbusters and this is particularly true in say, Dorrigo. This hamlet up in the Range is now more of a grey nomad stopover than the roaring timber town of yore, but you can still see a good old-fashioned brawl outside the pub at peak hour on a Friday afternoon.

The festival itself is blissfully tranquil. A ban on booze means no excitable chest-beaters or mega systems erupting with the latest pop sensations. All you can hear is the pleasant trickle of mandolins, banjos and violins extolling thousand year old folksongs.

This was the scene for the launch of the Lonely Horse Band’s latest album, written, recorded and released in the town last weekend. We previewed our latest tunes about the contemporary histories of one-horse towns alongside the likes of Scarlett Affection and country music history incarnate in the forms of Anne Kirkpatrick, daughter of Slim Dusty, and Ami Williamson, daughter of John.

After our show on Saturday night we were just in time to miss a 40-person brawl outside the pub, and next morning I motored off to play the Coaching Station in Nymboida, a much less sedate affair – fire-fighting choppers coming and going made us feel like the Doors playing live at an Apocalypse Now re-enactment. Now that’s ancient history.

Northern Star Column

Northern Star Column, 20/5/2010

mickdaleyo

New album finally to hand and on the weekend The Re-mains decamp to The Junkyard in Maitland and The Botany View in Newtown to flog it. It’s only taken three years and more line-up changes than the Melbourne Hit Men’s Association to finish this one. We’re going head to head with Jackie Marshall in Newtown, where just up the road she’s launching her new record as well. It’s going to be interesting to see how we go in the new all-digital environment where everybody downloads and an analogue product is allegedly a thing of the past.

I know you North coast Luddites are all desperate to hear it, so I’ll be bringing it along to Nimbin Pub tonight where Grandson, the new duo with myself and Uncle Burnin’ Love is making its debut. You may have to make an appointment however.

Meanwhile it appears that someone with either an agenda or a morbid fetish for Mazstock is systematically tearing down posters for this esteemed event as fast as promoter Sideshow Bridge can get ‘em up. Perhaps they’re selling well on the black market.

Northern Star Column

Northern Star column, 3/5/2010

mickdaleyo

After his performance at Bluesfest I’ve been listening to nothing but Justin Townes Earle. Apart from Christian Pyle, Wilco and Lucie Thorne, of course. Son of Steve Earle, Justin is named for Townes Van Zandt, who was equally, a trader in traditional blues, folk and country-based narrative, flipped on its back and twisted into a strange and compelling beast.

A tall, skinny, oddly bobbing and quietly hilarious showman Townes Earle may be, but what he does with these revered genres was as startling at Bluesfest, in cahoots with ex-Drive By Truckers cohort Jason Isbell, as it is on record, Midnight at the Movies.

Another great record on high rotation is the aforementioned Pyle’s Nothing Left to Burn, on Mullumbimby label Vitamin. Pyle played every note himself on this astonishing landmark of laconic, avant garde, post-electro rural pop (gulp), produced with as much painstaking verve as his other new release with his band Ghost Mountain.

Meanwhile, breaking news from Lismore is that the Celibate Rifles, Australia’s punk prototypes, have just been confirmed for Mazstock on May 22, at the Italo Club. Promoter, Sideshow Bridge, is missing, presumed delirious.

Publicity jobs, Writing

Chris Bailey interview, published in Reverb Magazine 11/1/2011

mickdaleyo

The Saints came blazing out of Brisbane in 1974  and are largely credited as pioneers of the punk movement in  Australia. As frontman and angry young rock poet, Chris Bailey’s notoriety was centred around the frenetic echoes of such punk classics as ‘Stranded’. But as he prepares for an Australian theatre tour with acclaimed folksinger Judy Collins, whose work has been covered by the likes of Leonard Cohen and Rufus Wainwright, Bailey observes that such tags are meaningless in the greater context of music.

“If you go to the extreme view of things we’re probably the most two unlikely artists to be on the same stage on the same night, but show-business puts you into a box, so you’re either a rock artist, a folk artist, a punk artist, or an R&B artist, but it’s all just music.

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Publicity jobs, Writing

Tumbleweed story, published in Reverb Magazine, 11/1/2011

mickdaleyo

Tumbleweed is one of those leviathans of Australian rock that only occasionally lurch out from self-imposed obscurity – when they do it’s to massive acclaim and obsessive fan reaction. With a run of shows along the East Coast over this damp summer, the Weed are responding to constant demand for them to reform. Lenny Curley, one of the three brothers who founded the Wollongong outfit and whose distinctive guitar created the Tumbleweed sound, is adamant that this is a rare outing.

“You’ll only get a chance to see us once or twice at the most a year, it’s only a summer thing.”

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