Canberra Cosmo Capital?

CJ's Belgian correspondent reporting.  Seeing we cannot experience the music scene in Belgium this year the next best thing was to check out what is happening locally.  Smiths Alternative has kicked off with an outdoor Spring series starting last weekend to help us all get out of the COVID lockdown blues.  The series is held under the new marquee on the pavement and can cater for 90 people under the current rules, no mask wearing, except when going inside.  Drinks and food however can be ordered from the window. Each session only costs $10 so inexpensive entertainment.  The series started on Saturday with The Burley Griffin. We only caught the last song as we were wandering around Civic from elsewhere, a great local band.  Decided to come again on Sunday to see the Brass Knuckle Band.  Now I must admit I can never keep up with who are the members of this group.  At least I did recognise Tom Fell on sax, what bands doesn’t he play in?  A great afternoon of music in the balmy weather.  A few tunes recognised but I blame the ales for not remembering them now.  Thanks Smiths and the musicians for helping us to open up again.

Pic and text by Neal Gowan

PPS / Ed.  It seems that the Smith's Spring series is now cancelled due to noise complaints ... for a quiet, early Saturday afternoon gig (2-4pm) of an unamplified New Orleans-style brass band.  Well, brass is noisy, but it's fun.  So much for Canberra Cosmopolitan Capital.  See the Facebook comments below.  Oh well, oh well, oh well.  Thanks Neal, even if it's a sad story to tell.  Not the first of those in CJ over the years.

• Pics and comments on FB

PPS2 / Ed.  Rethink!  Well the series seems to be still on.  Probably inside.  Canberra reigns supreme ... sort of.  Good on ya, Smiths, Nigel, Beth.  Check out the Smiths Alt. Calendar online for the Spring Series.

• Smiths Alt. Calendar

Farewell Cam

It was Australia Day and maybe we shouldn't have been at a band having a good time, on a hot day, being Indigenous aware as we are. There's politics here, just ask cantankerous, reactionary ole Barnaby J, but Cam Smith was having his last gig with Brass Knuckle Brass Band before he returned to his place of origin, Qld, and I wanted to say goodbye. It was at Smiths, outside, hot, shaded for some, decently loud, delightfully cosmopolitan, tats or business shirts, all manner, and beers, coffees and a general jovial good will. It's a pleasantly diverse collection that gathers at Smiths (thanks to Nigel and Beth for such a nice venue) and a joyous and welcoming atmosphere and the band was nothing less than chugging and noisily inviting. Good and tight; perfect for dancing; drums and percussion; charts for harmonies of horns; that lovely lumbering and enveloping sousaphone bass and all so nicely played. Some march tunes with New Orleans references, some two feels and pop tunes arranged for the band. I recognised the pop as Careless whisper (with help), Sweet dreams, Sexual healing. That was just the first set. How much fun is this, rollicking and joyous, musically capable and an irresistible invitation to dance. Was Trump right about art being just for entertainment? He was wrong about that (there's lots he's not right about) but sometimes it can be for fun and this was and it was a great outing. I guess the BNBB will continue, but farewell Cam, thanks for so much local music and, thinking back, for your help with a few festivals. Congrats also to Xavier Kim for the piano interlude before the gig.

Brass Knuckle Brass Band played a farewell gig for Cameron Smith (trumpet). If I have all the names, right, the rest of the band is Tim Bowyer (trumpet), Michael Bailey and Josh Hart (trombones), David Abkiewicz (sousaphone), Nathan Sciberras (baritone sax), Josh Buckler (tenor sax), Steve Fitzgerald (drums) and Damon Counahan (percussion). Xavier Kim (piano) preceded.

Wet enlightenment

The Enlighten Festival was wet and so quieter than previous years. We'd gone in to hear Charles Bradley and his Extraordinaires. He's a mature soul singer from Brooklyn and one-time James Brown cover. Sounds good. The rain was very light as we arrived to find lighted candles fronting the High Court as the Fire Garden. Lovely and also warm. Then on to the outside stage beside the Portrait Gallery. It was closed and then an announcement that the band was moving to Uncle Ben's Electric Garden, a space behind Questacon and the social centre of Enlighten. It was a sensible move to concentrate the limited audience. Shame about the weather. But the rain held off well enough and there was a string of bands to entertain. Lolo Lovita were a Romani quartet playing music of the Balkans. Crystal Barreca and her band are well known locals, many out of the Jazz School. Sunshine Brothers are a reggae flavoured band out of Perth. Their line on the night was "We give you the lust, Charles Bradley gives you the love". Then a walk to the National Library to get some respite from the rain. Dirk and co were playing there, presumably as As Famous as the Moon, so some standards for a change. A quick visit to Questacon for some cutesy science. Interesting to see audio frequencies visible over a tube exuding small fires along its length. And a plasma ball that was both intriguing an beautiful. Then return to the stage and Cam and mates, Brass Knuckle Blues Band, were playing. They are well established and playing really well these days. Then Charles the man. The was a real stage show, nicely structured into two parts, a gee-up from the pianist at the mic, a V-shaped stage presentation with bass-guitar-guitar to the right and trumpet-tenor-keys to the lift, drums riser at center back and Charles himself front and centre. All soulful love for Australia and everyone with instrumental show-opener, songs neatly merging and a show-ending instrumental segment. This was an hour of richly toned music from the two guitars and keys in rhythm section and the two horns for hits and really neat drums and bass. Very sharp and well played, even if the music itself is just a few chords with fairly obvious themes. My ears twitched to a song towards the end that suggested politics, about it being so hard to get on in America, but I'm not sure his answer escaped American dream mythology. And another theme on tolerance that was also presented from an American God-aware worldview. But, then, we are all the products of our upbringing. I'm sure many Americans find us strangely secular. So, despite the light flittering of rain, this was a night of considerable pleasure and plenty of music. Nice.

What? Not hot?

Who says Canberra is not hot? The weather’s been record-breaking and there’s a smoke haze outside in the morning as I write this. I caught Cam and Courtney’s Brass Knuckle Brass Band last night and they were steaming from the first notes of the first tune.
I was surprised at just how comfy and ready they were for those first notes. It’s a good sign and I could feel the eagerness around the dance floor. These are all experienced and trained players and they’ve been playing around, including a recent little tour to Melbourne. It shows. This is lively, easy, solid music that’s funky and insinuating and danceable. It was infectious because the band was having a genuinely good time. And it was refreshing in tone, with its horns and pillowy sousa bass and sharp drums and vocals from Courtney and even Cam at times. I stayed for most, but retreated at the end of the set to rest my ears. But it’s a meat-market in Civic on the weekend with the women-who-can’t-walk and the daggie blokes and the accidental disco mix on the street. I prefer the relaxed cauldron of exotic and sober at the Phoenix despite the crush and noise. I expected to hear two other bands, Americans and Brisbanites, doing something related, but I was called back to our street with its own excitement and heat. I arrived to find police and fire brigades and a house lost to fire. This has been a week of heat. Friends out of Yass fearing bushfires; a lost house in our street; the carnal heat of a Canberra summer night. It all feels like an end-of-time experience, but of course it isn’t. Even climate change isn’t threatening an end-of-time; just of civilisation as we know it.

Brass Knuckle Brass Band were Courtney Stark (vocals), Cameron Smith (trumpet, vocals),Tim Bowyer (trumpet), Michael Bailey (trombone), Sophie Chapman (trombone), David Abkiewicz (sousaphone), Nick Combe (baritone sax) and Robert Nesci (drums).