Winter Shows:
June 1st: Republic Bar Serenades
June 4th: Bream Creek Farmer’s Market
June 8th-11th: Townsville Folk Festival
June 15th: Dark Mofo Winter Feast
June 18th: Tiff and Tash at MONA
June 30th: Supporting SHANE HOWARD – GOANNA at Republic Bar
July 2nd: Songs at Brewlab
July 8th: Supporting Ben Lawless at Wandering Trout – Mole Creek Brewery
July 9th: Penguin Beer Co. Serenades
July 14th: Turrakana – Tasman Arts LIGHTWAVE Festival
July 22nd: New Transmissions at Altar
June 8th-11th:
Townsville Folk Festival
Townsville Folk Festival is presented by the Townville Folk and Acoustic Music Club Inc. Featured artists at this year’s festival include: Karl S. Williams, Darren Hanlon, Those Folk, All Strings Attached, Fat Picnic and many more.
Karl S. Williams – singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, visual artist and poet – an artist that you never saw coming. A genre defying and multifaceted musician for whom music is an urgent calling and the solution is, to love more.
All Strings Attached (ASA) combine soaring violin melodies over fast and furious modern rhythms with a deep underlying Eastern European flavour. Their song-writing draws together numerous unlikely folk music traditions and successfully blends them together with a spicy melange of punk, polka and progressive rock. The result is a sound that is uniquely ASA.
Those Folk explore sounds from the 1960’s folk revival and contemporary Americana music. Breathtaking vocal harmonies are featured alongside rich instrumental work performed on guitars, accordion, mandolin and banjo. Lawrence & Clare are storytellers who make audience members feel like fast friends. As songwriters they delve into love, hope, belonging, and the human condition. As performers they enthral, enchant, and leave a lasting impression.
June 15th-18th:
Dark Mofo Winter Feast
Gather by fire and feast on a banquet of intoxicating proportions. Indulge and imbibe from 85+ stallholders, and revel in an abundant nightly program of music and roaming performers.
Performance Times:
Thursday June 15th: 4:25pm-5:05pm, 5:50pm-6:35pm
Saturday June 17th: 4:45pm-5:30pm
Sunday June 18th (with Tiff Norchick): 6:15pm-7:00pm, 7:30pm-8:15pm
June 30th:
Shane Howard
Shane Howard is a consistent and prolific songwriter, who has refined his art with 15 solo albums. Howard has played for Prime Ministers, Aboriginal Elders and Environmental campaigners, from concert halls to protest sites and remote campfires. He’s been a guest artist for Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Jackson Browne, James Taylor and Carole King, among others.
His iconic song, ‘Solid Rock, Sacred Ground’, lit a fire for the rights of Aboriginal people in Australia nearly 40 years ago that hasn’t gone out. It’s been recorded and performed, over and over again in the ensuing years and translated into several Aboriginal Languages.
He was the founding member of the legendary Australian band Goanna. ‘Solid Rock’ was the first commercial song to use a didjeridu and its powerful lyrics and music denounced the injustice that Aboriginal Australia had endured since colonisation.
Similarly, his anthemic Let The Franklin Flow drew mainstream attention to the proposed damming of Tasmania’s wild Franklin River. The dam was never built. Howard was invited by his friend, Senator Bob Brown, to sing at the 30th Anniversary of the saving of the Franklin River.
He was also a founding member and a driving force behind the Black Arm Band, a national Australian ensemble that brought together some of the most influential Aboriginal artists to tour Australia and the World.
He has produced albums for many other artists: Archie Roach, The Pigram Brothers, Joe Geia, Jimmy Chi, Mossie Scanlon, Mary Black. His songs have been recorded and performed by Joan Baez, Mary Black, Troy Cassar Daley, John Farnham and Lene Siel (Denmark), Jessica Mauboy, Missy Higgins and more.
In 2016 he was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for significant service to the performing arts as a singer, songwriter and guitarist to the recording industry, and to Indigenous musicians
Where he was born and raised in South West Victoria, is where he now lives. It’s an area that is home to the highest concentration of Irish migration in Australia, outside the cities. His ancestors were among those Irish migrants from the Great Hunger of the 1850’s. In 2012 he featured in the Irish language documentary, An Dubh Ina Gheal, with Irish poet Louis de Paor, that explored the relationship between Irish migrants and Australian Aboriginal peoples.
In 2019 he released the song ‘Palya Wiru Uluru’ written with Senior Anangu Songwriter Trevor Adamson to commemorate the climb closure at Uluru.
He is currently writing a book and has recorded & produced his 14th solo album ‘Dark Matter’ released in March 2020 through his own record label, Goanna Arts .
Howard is a respected senior statesman of Folk music in Australia who continues to work as a writer, singer, producer and mentor, traveling nationally & internationally.
July 14th:
Lightwave Festival
JEQA: dream quintet based in nipaluna/Hobart.
Baby Dave: 2 Piece Rock Outfit hailing from the south- nipaluna/Hobart, lutruwita/Tasmania.
July 22nd:
New Transmissions
New Transmissions supporting Shoeb Ahmad and Troth
New Transmissions is a series of experimental music events in nipaluna/Hobart.
Sia Ahmad has been creating idiosyncratic sounds over the last decade and more. Using guitar, keyboard, voice and electronics, she works both as singer/composer and improviser, and this performance will see her performing with a full band as Shoeb Ahmad.
Combining both acoustic and electronic approaches to music-making, Sia has released a diverse range of original solo music – including the critically acclaimed Watch/Illuminate and “quiver” – while also collaborating with numerous directors and choreographers to provide sound design and soundtrack material for live theatre and dance works. Parallel to this work, she continues to explore installation pieces and composition for chamber settings, taking inspiration from 20th Century avant-classical works, Indian raga form and minimalist electronic music.
Troth are a duo comprising Amelia Besseny and Cooper Bowman. Their music blurs lines between minimal synth-pop, immersive ambient soundscapes and field recording based sound art. Formerly from Mulubinba / Newcastle this will be their first gig in Tasmania after relocating to Nipaluna/Hobart.
Tiff and Tash create soundscapes and ambient musical works live with harp, guitar, looping and field recordings captured across Lutruwita/Tasmania. The textured sound of their alt-folk is layered with looping vocal harmonies, guitar and percussion – as well as the birds and bugs of Lutruwita.
Tickets