Dubarray
Byron Brewery | Fri 29 June | 7pm | FREE
Dubarray will be returning to the Byron Shire after a stellar gig at the Bruns a few weeks back, for one more huge show as part of their Inner Sanctum album launch tour.
Dubarray’s latest album release is an uplifting compilation of songs that has seen the band spring to new heights in their songwriting and production. Inner Sanctum is a journey through the band’s eclectic style of music ‘with a powerful message interwoven to the awakening of self-healing and taking the power back from the imposing external forces of our current world and spreading the conscious message through a interwoven high-vibe musical alchemy.’
The album has already received a massive response from community radio all around Australia. Triple J Roots all added the title track to their highly recommended Spotify playlist. Dubarray have been smashing out shows all around the nation and will be finishing it all off with a free-entry show at the Byron Bay Brewery at the end of June.
For more info visit the band’s website www.dubarray.com
Bellingen Festival
Thursday 12 July –Sunday 15 July
With just four weeks to go until Bello Winter Music, the event is shaping up to host a diverse crowd of all ages. Festival organisers are gearing up for yet another action-packed event for young, old and in between.
‘One of my favourite things about Bello Winter Music is that it appeals to people of all ages and from all walks of life,’ says festival GM Maggie Quirk. ‘It makes for a really diverse and interesting event.’
The 2018 edition will see the return of the New Orleans Style Street Parade on Sunday morning, which was initiated last year. There will be street performance and workshops aplenty for those who want to step out of the music for a moment and enjoy a different side of the festival. The festival marketplace will be host to another incredible mix of street food and interesting local wares as well as street performance including the ever-popular Cassettes, quirky Roundabout Theatre, and the Amazing Drumming Monkeys. And of course, it wouldn’t be Bello Winter Music without the Magic Bus, a guaranteed festival favourite each year.
This year will see the addition of a special Growers Market concert from 9am till midday on Saturday featuring special guest Rebecca Ireland and more. There will be a new festival venue at the Bellingen Showground on Saturday and Sunday and the renowned 2bbbFM broadcast will be happening from Amelia Franklin’s cafe.
Bello Winter Music is held throughout the town of Bellingen.
The Church
Kingscliff Beach Hotel | Friday 21 September | 8pm | $48.85
Another century, another dream, another album from a band that’s in too deep to go anywhere but ever closer to the other side. Man Woman Life Death Infinity is the 26th album by The Church, and their second with the rejuvenated lineup Steve Kilbey, Peter Koppes, Tim Powles and Ian Haug.
The epic return of 2014’s critically lauded Further / Deeper blossomed into a road-hardened beast over four tours of the USA, two back home in Australia, and a new career high in front of 20,000 Spanish fans on a lap of Europe.
Man Woman Life Death Infinity is where the revitalised quartet’s freshly tuned chemistry reaches a new potency and precision: ten songs, 45 minutes, and a quantum leap into unexplored territory as strange as it is irresistible.
‘Music is like inner space and we’re astronauts,’ says Koppes, who co-founded The Church in Sydney in 1980. ‘It’s a spellbinding thing. It’s hypnotising. That’s why people like it. It takes them into another world and we’re here to open those doors.’
It was the unknown, as is customary with this extraordinary band, that gave first breath to Man Woman Life Death Infinity in April, 2017. Some 30 songs materialised over two five-day jams at Haug’s Airlock Studios in Brisbane, and Powles’ Space Junk II in Sydney.
A month of contemplation determined the recording agenda for the month of May at Sydney’s Rancom Studios, where long-term audio accomplice Ted Howard co-produced and ultimately mixed the final album in August.
Then, as always, the road beckons for the inner space astronauts with the almost 50-year psychedelic wake that can only boggle and confound any rational attempt at writing the nightly set list. Suffice it to say that when the lights go up and the all-time classics are balanced against the imperative of perpetual progress, Man Woman Life Death Infinity will hold its many heads high.
Currently in the UK, the band is working their way around the planet to land in Kingscliff in spring.
Tickets: www.oztix.com.au
Uke Night
Club Mullum | Thursday 28 June | 6.30pm | $12.50 per adult and $2.50 for kids under 16
This month Miss Amber and Stukulele will presenting a Uke Night for beginners at Club Mullum. All the songs will be easy-play classics so if you haven’t been to Uke Night because you didn’t think you could keep up… this night is for you.
Come and be a part of a friendly community of music lovers. You are guaranteed to leave with a smile on your dial. Songbooks available through www.ukemullum.com
Narla
Hotel Great Northern | Friday 22 June | Free
Working their way up from north western Sydney, the band Narla has a wide-ranging sound that stems from rock roots with elements of prog, metal and heavy blues and a strong set of material that changes in style and atmosphere while maintaining a unique and unfamiliar sound. The differing musical influences within the band make for songs with depth, drawing from a contrasting pool of artists such as Tool, Nirvana, Down, Red Fang, Led Zeppelin, Queens of the Stone Age and Alice in Chains. Narla are a blend of abrasiveness and subtlety.
The Velvet Trip
Hotel Great Northern | Friday 22 June | Free
Byron lad Zeppelin Hamilton is a supernova of creative energy, having played and toured in bands since he was 15 years old, namely, Marrionettes (Triple J Unearthed finalists) and popular rock metal band Prowler. Zeppelin, who is a multi-instrumentalist, recently formed a band The Velvet Trip with Nick Savvas on bass and Clayton Allen on drums to perform his original songs. Trip have performed to sold-out audiences and have their debut EP set for release in 2018.
With their soaring guitar, powerful rhythms and soulful melodies, this 70s-inspired psychedelic blues group is the kind of group Jimi Hendrix and Johnny Winter would have gone to see together.
Bart Stenhouse and Surojato Roy
The Empire Cafe, Mullumbimby | Wed 27 June | 7pm | $20
A Tibetan Childrens Village Fundraiser will be held at The Empire Cafe and Bar in Mullumbimby on Wed 27th June (show starts at 7pm Doors at 6pm, Tickets $20 available at the door on the night and online via www.bartstenhouse.com/events). The concert will feature the musical space where Spanish flamenco and jazz meets North Indian Classical music.
All funds raised will go towards the wonderful charity the Tibetan Children’s Village in Dharamsala in Northern India. I had a desire to start raising funds for kids in India and have a few charities I raise funds for in Nepal and India through concerts around the country.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
