Stormcellar Band Home Page

WOW! Happy MJEB's!

Thanks to the wonderful Elsa for suggesting I go along to a free course being put on by the City Of Sydney and the Sydney Harmony Choir. That was AWESOME! 

Musical Director Vicky Dwyer is a Kick Ass teacher - I have been to  a few over the course of time and she's the most inspiring Teacher I've seen since the recently departed great Freddy Wilson (jazz legend, hip cat, sadly missed). At the end of the lessons, the Sydney Harmony gets you to come and join in with their rehearsal. Hearing them sing is one thing, participating is entirely another. What a downright joy.

I am a fan of harmony stuff and mad crazy for Harmony Choirs, ever since I saw ZULU (over and over, love that version of men of Harlech!

(BTW by a Czech choir :-), don't you know boyo, the Welsh have some competition!)

Speaking of the Welsh I 've been fortunate enough to see the Morriston Orpheus Choir  perform live at the Sydney Opera House and there is something gorgeous about the harmonics from a massed male choir.

Love'em :-)

yes I know, Dear Reader, once again you;re scratching your head and saying '??' and in my defence I have previously stated that I dig all sorts of different musical styles, so yes, to allay the alarmed emails I sometimes get when I post this stuff, we've not gone mad and suddenly included Barbershop in our expanding definition of roots music...but then again.....LOL

Ahem - For any Sydneysiders, if you have always wanted to sing but were never game, come and join the Real Men Sing course, it's only on for another 5 weeks! It's free, its on Monday Nights at the Souths Leagues on 265 Chalmers St in Redfern, it's FREE and it's awesome.

I'm going to make Mr Wizard and Rosie come down so we can pick up our game on Tall Timbers and other songs we do with harmonies.

:-)

Greetz Peeples

This past few weeks without gigs has been a very strange time for us. It's one of the first sustained non gigging periods of the last 5 years... How it came about is a long story involving a cruise liner and some other random stuff, but enough of that, it's important to note that we have not been inactive, we've been doing stuff.

Aha! You Say, what stuff?

Well, we've been working on videos for the album for one thing, plus organising the recording of a new song. yep, we've decided to do a single, for the sheer heck of it. I'll fill you in on the details in due course.

This morning we filmed a proof-of-concept mockup for a clip for Black Crow, it went swimmingly, huge thanks to NR for her work, I'd say more but I'd have to do a spoiler alert. It'll take a while but it ought to be worth it.

Thanks to Sambo for the location suggestion and a thanks to the two blokes who didn't mind us using their Paddock for some filming.

For the shoot, we had to find a Dry bit  for the boys to stand and I spent some time working out where to position the camera only to realise that the best spot was...moderately underwater. it's times like these that you wish you were wearing gumboots.

As your be-sneakered foot sinks into the water, you might be inclined to curse somewhat. ok, perhaps you wouldn't. I did. I cursed. I made faces, I squelched and kept the camera rolling. Fortunately every now and again I could take a break and my feet began to dry out...only to find that we needed one more shot and I'd have to go back and step in the...yep, you guessed it. Long story short; I have two very wrinkly feet but some great footage.

Whilst I was filming the video stuff, Rosie snapped some awesome pictures of the remnants of the thunderstorm on the plains.

Stormcellar weather indeed..

Nice shots Rosie.

New videos soon.

MJEB

WE"RE BACK! And we're moist. Well, wet. Why are we wet? Because I've been slogging through swamp fields filming bloody guitarists for our videoclip.

Yes my feet are wet and I might have leeches in my...moving on.

We're back after a month of relaxing and unwinding with 2 big shows this coming weekend, they're both free, we'll be there and so, dear reader should you be!

FRIDAY NIGHT - the Lakes Hotel, the Entrance, 8:30pm - FREE

SATURDAY NIGHT - Royal Hotel Bondi - 8:30- late - FREE!

More soon! i wanna go look at this footage and see if the bloodloss was worth it..

I've been doing some research on touring and had a terrific conversation today that I thought was only ever had in pre-scripted comedy segments.

ME: Hi, we're interested in touring and wanted to get some info on backline hire.

THEM; Yeah? Rally? Grate! Wheer err u frum?

ME: Sydney, Australia

THEM: Fer sure! that's grate! I've always wanted to visit Austria. 

ME: err...no...not Austria, Australia.

THEM: I have a buddy who lives in Switzerland!

ME: Err, no, you're thinking Europe, we're down on the other side of the planet, you know, kangaroos, crocodile hunter etc?

THEM: Sure, Austria.

ME: (sigh)

For the record, we're from AUSTRALIA... AUS-TRA-LIA (or as we pronounce it badly, OSTRAYA)

Just to help you out, this is your typical google-able Austrian scene. Note the mountains and chalets and somewhere near are some guys in lederhosen slapping each other.

And here, down under, is your typical google image result for Australia. Note: No lederhosen.

Ok, so is everbody clear now?

Oh No! We've gone from #1 to #5 after 3 months! Oh Noes!

As I look at the latest list I notice that there are some pretty decent dang musicians on it. We're grateful to be included :-)