LEWIS FLOYD HENRY – ONE MAN & HIS 30W PRAM!

For the past few years, one man band Lewis Floyd Henry has pitched up on street corners around London gradually spreading the word of the blues and the knowledge of his genius to passers by and the oddly curious. He arrives armed with a pram carrying a battery-operated amplifier and a custom-made drum kit beating out covers of Jimi Hendrix, T-Rex and The Stooges and has accrued 100,000 YouTube hits for a performance of the The Wu-Tang Clan’s ‘Protect Ya Neck’ performed outside Tottenham Court Road tube station.

In addition to his cover versions, Lewis also crafts his own tunes diversifying beyond his initial folky blues style, into high-velocity rock grooves worthy of the mighty Jimi Hendrix Experience. His debut album ‘One Man & His 30W Pram’ is to be released later this month and streamed for you right here.

His uniqueness has also lead to him to festival performances around the UK and this month, Lewis Floyd Henry lands in Australia  as special guest of the Perth International Arts Festival and for a series of east coast dates.

‘Others were convinced that the unbilled Lewis Floyd Henry was the ultimate highlight, a busking one-man band who played Stooges’ songs by the lake and a 20-minute version of Free’s “All Right Now” with a fuzzbox, tiny practice amp, toddler-sized drum kit and guitar solos played with his teeth’ – The Independent 12.8.09

The unlikely Hit of the Big Chill, Henry sets up in fields, armed with a guitar played with his teeth and tiny drum kit played with his feet. A one-man-band. Possibly quite mad, but brilliant.’ The Guardian Film & Music P.2 14/9/09

Don’t miss Lewis Floyd Henry’s Australian debut this March. Tickets for all shows available at the door unless otherwise noted.

Lloyd Cole returns to our shores next February, this time in the guise of the Lloyd Cole Small Ensemble, an acoustic three-piece featuring the talents of Lloyd Cole on vocals and acoustic guitar plus Mark Schwaber on acoustic guitar and mandolin and Matt Cullen on acoustic guitar and banjo. The tour comes off the back of his new studio album Broken Record

“…and, between mandolins and banjos, he signs-off again on an impeccable collection of songs in which mellow country-pop (“Like a Broken Record”), plethoric pop (“That’s Alright”, “Oh Genevieve” and “Writers Retreat”) and those folkier moments – some of which are also the most beautiful – are no more than excuses to pull one more ace up his sleeve, another classic album in the best possible sense of the term. A classic, that’s what it is.” – Rockdelux

“An unbroken record of essential albums continues” – Americana UK

Additionally Cole has released the mail order and show only release Small Ensemble, an acoustic romp through Lloyd’s back catalogue and features re-workings of the Cole classics: Perfect Skin, No More Love Songs, Are you ready to be heartbroken? and Undressed, amongst others. It’s these tracks and more that you can expect to hear from the Small Ensemble when they visit Australia in February.

“It is quite possibly the best Lloyd Cole-edition ever, with never-ending highpoints; from the old ‘Rattlesnakes’ (on mandolin) to the new fantastically beautiful ‘Why in the world’.” – DN (Swedish paper)

With his most recent Australian solo tour having been a complete sell out this first band outing of Cole’s for over twenty years is sure to follow suite.

Tickets for all shows * on sale Monday December 20th.

Thursday 10th: Brisbane, Old Museum
Tickets $50.00 + bf from www.feelpresents.com, phone 1300 762 545 or in person at all Oztix outlets

Friday 11th: Sydney, Enmore Theatre
Tickets $61.60 (includes GST and booking fee, some transaction fees may apply) from www.ticketek.com.au, www.enmoretheatre.com.au, phone (02) 9550 3666 or in person at all Ticketek outlets and the venue.

Saturday 12th & Sunday 13th: Melbourne, Thornbury Theatre
Tickets $53.00 + bf from www.thethornburytheatre.com only.

Wednesday 16th: Adelaide, The Gov
Tickets $49.60 + bf from www.moshtix.com.au, www.venuetix.com.au or phone: 1 300 GET TIX & all moshtix and Venuetix outlets.

Thursday 17th: Perth International Arts Festival, Becks Music Box * on sale December 14th
Tickets $50.50 (some transaction fees may apply) from www.perthfestival.com.au or phone (08) 9484 1133

CAT POWER

The inimitable Cat Power returns to our shores this January performing at the Sydney Opera House, Perth’s outdoor venue ‘The Quarry’ and for select headline dates.

It’s the second successive summer drop-in for Cat Power who is a firm lover of our isle dating all the way back to 1998. That visit saw Cat Power a/k/a Atlanta born songstress Chan Marshall, in solo mode, supporting the Tren Bros – the side project of the Dirty Three’s Mick Turner & Jim White – in venues as intimate as Sydney’s now defunct Hopetoun Hotel, Byron Bay’s tiny Railway Hotel and Melbourne’s also defunct Punters Club. Turner and White (along with STM bassist Andrew Entsch) also backed Chan up on that visit for the recording of her much loved Moon Pix album which featured the ground breaking Crossbones Style.

Over the years Cat Power has continued to visit Australia on a semi-permanent basis (usually in our summer) and has appeared in solo mode and trio mode, in pubs, dining rooms and theatres and most recently with the services of ‘Dirty Delta Blues’, a purpose-built five-piece combo featuring Dirty Three drummer Jim White and Jon Spencer Blues Explosion guitarist Judah Bauer. The size of the shows have also built since then and in recent times Cat Power has appeared on the main stage at the Pyramid and Days Like These Festivals as well as headlining sold-out performances at Sydney’s Enmore Theatre, Brisbane’s Powerhouse and Tivoli Theatres, Melbourne’s Forum Theatre and Perth’s Astor Theatre, amongst many others.

Cat Power returns this time showcasing material from her new album (currently in progress and largely recorded by Chan herself) as well as old favourites and will again feature the talents of Jim White and Judah Bauer.

Tickets for all shows are on sale Friday December 10th (except *) and are expected to sell fast!

TUMBLEWEED ALBUM & TOUR – ‘THE WATERFRONT YEARS’

Musical legends in Australia, the ‘stoner rock’ riffs of Wollongong’s Tumbleweed inspired a whole generation of music lovers when they emerged in 1990s from the seeds of the Proton Energy Pills and The Unheard. Tumbleweed burst onto the scene in a huge way by gaining infamy courtesy of a national support slot to the one and only Australian tour by the legendary Nirvana back in 1992.

Originally signed to the revolutionary Australian independent label, Waterfront Records, the band’s debut release was a 7” single, “Captain’s Log”, recorded by Mudhoney frontman Mark Arm and legendary Seattle producer Jack Endino. With their single “Stoned”, an EP titled Weedseed and the single “Acid Rain” making them bigger by the day, the ‘Weed’s self-titled debut album (out locally on Waterfront Records) was released to massive praise and chart sales, resulting in a rather quick signing to the American giant Atlantic Records’ subsidiary Seed – although that’s another story!

It didn’t take long for Australia’s major labels to realise that a national treasure existed in the five piece, after which Polydor Records became the recording home of Tumbleweed in ‘92. Tumbleweed released the (in)famous albums Galactaphonic and Return To Earth, all the while undertaking countless tours around the country as well as throughout the UK.

Despite their chequered history with its many ups and downs including several band line-up changes, Tumbleweed have let bygones be bygones and the original line up is once again on speaking terms and playing  and writing together for the first time in almost fifteen years. Add to this a double cd recently reissued – “The Waterfront Years” – out now on Aztec Music. It contains all of the bands recordings from the first single until just before they signed the deal moving from Waterfront to Polydor Records.

To celebrate this release, Tumbleweed will embark on some special NSW shows in late December 2010 and early January 2011. This will be Tumbleweed’s first Sydney headlining show with the original line up since 1994 and the fact that old mates The Meanies are on the Metro show  makes for an even bigger event not to be missed!

ED KUEPPER (WITH MARK DAWSON) PLAY THE CLASSICS

With a recent run of sold-out solo shows under his belt, Ed Kuepper is pleased to announce a March tour this time featuring his former sparring-partner Mark Dawson (on drums) as they re-imagine the Kuepper classics: Electrical Storm and Today Wonder.

Electrical Storm was Kuepper’s first solo album recorded in early 1985 shortly after the dissolution of Laughing Clowns. Musically a departure from his earlier bands (the original Saints and Laughing Clowns), Electrical Storm proved to be the most raw and stripped back recording of Kuepper’s long career and featured some of his most enduring songs including the title track, ‘Car Headlights’ and ‘Rainy Night’. Lyrically it was more straight forward, yet with the songs seemingly interconnected, its foreboding atmosphere is lightened up with glimpses of Kuepper’s trademark humour such as the musical quote from the Spiderman cartoon show in ‘When the sweet turns sour’.

Today Wonder was the album that began Kuepper’s wrecking ball-like prolific recording stretch in the 1990s. Recorded and mixed live in the studio over two days in early 1990, it features only Kuepper on effects-laden acoustic guitar and vocals, with Mark Dawson on drums and cardboard box. Kuepper described the sound at the time as “ambient rockabilly” and stated more recently that it was the album that enabled everything after it. Today Wonder draws on a host of Kuepper’s earliest influences and incorporates them into something new and adventurous. Several covers become originals and originals become covers in a seamless blend which still sounds unique to this day.

Tickets for the Kuepper/Dawson shows are on-sale now.

Before all that, though, Kuepper will appear in solo mode as special guest to Grinderman at their Sydney & Melbourne legs of their Australian Big Day Out tour. You can never have enough Kuepper.