Jesse’s World
Byron Bay’s soul roots and reggae crew the Jesse Morris Band will be launching a massive new single and celebrating its release at the Byron Bay Brewery as part of the next instalment of the Bay Collective Presents. The track is an epic dub-remix of their latest song Wake up remixed by dub-reggae legend Marky Power and features TK Bass Dread, Hugh Jones on drums, Elena Marcigot on sax and Stafford Smith on keys. The party kicks off from around 7.30pm and features the epic 5-piece lineup with songsmith Jesse Morris out front and Marky Power pumping the live dubs all night.
Free entry. Friday 12 January at the Byron Bay Brewery. For more info check out
www.facebook.com/jessemorrisband or www.byronbaybrewery.com.au
The Zorba – Gypsy Party
Zorba Productions have worked hard since 2012 to bring a unique mix of world and Gypsy music and dance to one big party. The vision and delivery of world travel through sound and dance has attracted thousands of people over a few years to experience, express, share and enjoy one space with so much diversity.
The Byron Shire has been a meeting place for thousands of years and is still a meeting place today. This brings together so many people into a big melting pot of creativity. Many of these people are artists, musicians and dancers who perform nationwide as well as internationally for many years. The Zorba Productions bring those ‘international locals’ to play and share their gifts with the local community and surrounding areas at what is sure to be the biggest gypsy and world music party in the Byron Shire.
Featuring: Shakshuka (Byron Shire) – Local Gypsy sensation! Contagiously danceable 6-piece band of pure joy singing and playing Gypsy music, Middle Eastern, Hebrew, Greek and more… all in a soulful and high-energy dancing music. The Imprints of Melbourne – contagiously danceable duo! They’ve toured extensively performing at festivals including Glastonbury (UK), Boomtown (UK) and Fusion Festival (Germany), ArtsWells (Canada), Katuaq (Greenland), Falls Festival (Aus) and Luminate (NZ). Presenting dreamy and danceable modern fusion of Gypsy violin melodies with fx, drum kit and groovy basslines.
Also on the bill is Si Mullumby (Wild Marmalade), a world-renowned didgeridoo player of Wild Marmalade, Cirque du Soleil and many other musical projects. Si is touring extensively all over the world. Now playing a solo show of didge, Spanish guitar and drums. Will be accompanied by Shai Shriki. And what of Shai? Well, oud player, Gypsy guitarist and singer. Shai brings to the stage the essence emotional and joyful music. Composer of world music and collecting music from around the world, Shai brings a wide variety of fusion to the stage. At the Zorba he plays the music from the Bedouin tribes of the Sinai Deserts in Egypt. Accompanied by Avishai Bar Natan (Ney) and Yoav Mashiah (Dumbek). Shai has performed internationally with his project and many different artists. Byron’s Murray Kyle is a local songmaster who has woven the sound track of the Byron Shire for more than a decade. Touring Australia and the world constantly and sharing the positive messages with beautiful sound and voice. And Rachel Myra (USA) and Yael Mahler (Israel) share their belly dance with beauty and grace. With years of individual experience and performances all over the world they joined forces two years ago and developed a unique connection and stage presence as a duo. They have a beautiful, skilful and humble show that is very inviting, captivating and joyful.
Saturday at Durrumbul Hall | 6pm–midnight | $25
Channel One!
London 1979: Mikey Dread and his brother Jah T began to play at blues parties and local dances, having spent many years under the watchful eye of their father, owner operator of the famous Admiral Bailey Sound. They chose the name Channel One in homage to the legendary Jamaican record label of the same name whose tunes featured heavily in those early selections. Inspired by Bob Marley’s belief in uniting people through reggae music, Mikey was keen to introduce new people to dub reggae music and started touring around universities, where he secured a solid fanbase.
Channel One’s mission is to break down cultural barriers via reggae music – they have achieved this by touring extensively through Europe, South America, NZ and Australia. In 2017, Channel One celebrated 35 consecutive years at Notting Hill Carnival. They are the must-see sound system at Europe’s biggest street festival. Their crowd is often 20,000 plus!
Mikey Dread and MC Ras Kayleb will be playing at Durrumbul Hall, on the full Heartical Hi Powa system. This is a unique opportunity to see, hear and feel the finest selection of roots reggae music in the world.
Durrumbul Hall on Saturday 3 February, from 6pm. $35 pre-sale.
Miss Brown’s Caribbean Kitchen will be cooking up the good stuff.
Daft Parcels
It’s not every Aussie band who gets Daft Punk working on their musical threads, but that’s what happened for Parcels. The disco-pop group, who decamped from Byron Bay to Berlin after signing with uber-hip French label Maison Kitsune, first made contact with Daft Punk a year ago when they played their first gig in Paris.
‘This tiny, sweaty little club; at some stage we heard murmurs of it before the show, The robots are coming but we blew it off. Then after the show we met them; turns out they came, and they basically said “We like what you’re doing. We’d like you to come to our studio and hang out…”’
Six months later, they took up the invitation, meeting the duo at their ‘very cozy, homely’ LA studio. ‘Not once was it said “Let’s make a song together, we want to produce you – this, that”. We just came in and we all sat down and, of course, we were a little bit starstruck and nervous.’ They eventually shared some demos, at the Robots’ request, and played Overnight. ‘That was the one that inspired them the most – they said, “Ah, we can really imagine working on this one with you guys”. We started jamming with that track in their studio.
‘They’re insane. The way they think about music is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. It’s funny; they don’t overthink everything… It’s not calculated or technically overthought but it’s definitely thought about.’
Despite their robotic personas, ironically, Daft Punk turned out to be ‘more human than any other human we’ve worked with’.
Hear what went down when they play music from Overnight, when Parcels play the Hotel Great Northern on Saturday.
Mr James
Leigh James sings and plays guitar effortlessly, as if music were as natural to him as breathing…
‘I just love to make beautiful music, whether writing or interpreting: jazz, latin, funk, R&B, pop from James Taylor to Stevie Wonder, Sting to John Mayer, Tony Bennett to Michael Buble and everything in between.’
Four Dolphin Awards to his credit, for funk, pop, gospel, and country, and was recently highly commended in the prestigious International Songwriting Competition for his song Make Peace, Leigh has supported/backed Shane Howard, Graeme Connors, Kate Ceberano, The Black Sorrows, James Morrison, Renee Geyer, Marcia Hines and Brian Cadd to name a few!
He plays the Rails on Tuesday.
Summersong Music Camp
Alison Pearl Presents the 16th annual Summersong Music Camp over 17–23 January, at Lake Ainsworth Sport & Rec Centre in Lennox Head. This intensive music-making holiday is the rare chance to spend a week focused solely on playing music and celebrating, while living oceanside and lakeside at the height of summer. Designed for all levels of experience and ages 16 on up, the focus is on living music-making as a celebration of life and creating an ongoing musical community.
This year’s faculty includes: Tony Backouse, Shelly Hughes, Greg Sheehan, Wayne Jury, Karl Farren, Luciano Mesiti, Jane Cornes, Kathryn Riding and Talya Rabinovitz. They’ll be teaching daily classes in a capella choral singing, vocal techniques and vocal jamming, songwriting, lyric writing, percussion and body percussion, movement impro and relaxation, band lab, guitar, piano. The evenings are filled with faculty and student concerts, jam circles, celebrations and more.
Partial youth scholarships available for those aged 16–24. Residential and non-residential places available.
www.summersongmusiccamp.com
Eagles Experience
The Eagle’s Band is a stunningly accurate tribute to Southern California’s most famous musical group, The Eagles.
One of the most successful bands of the seventies, The Eagles enjoyed massive worldwide success and conquered the world and even today, the concert DVD Hell Freezes Over is still the bestselling DVD ever!
Composed of six talented musicians, each bringing their own style and flair to the group, The Eagle’s Band is intent on delivering a near-replica of a live EAGLES performance that is so precise, so intense, so unbelievable that it comes frighteningly close to the originals themselves.
The Eagle’s Band takes in all of the Eagles’ greatest hits Take it Easy, Desperado, Hotel California, New Kid in Town, to deep album tracks Wasted Time, and even Don Henley and Joe Walsh solo material Heart of the Matter, Rocky Mountain Way.
Saturday at the Ballina RSL. Doors: 8pm, Show: 8.30pm | Adults: $25
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