22 October 2008

Chilli Padi is continuing with its Midnight Jazz Yum Cha event and this Saturday night, 25 October, we will be introducing the Lyn Gillett Trio featuring Lyn Gillett (vocals), Yuta Hirose (guitar) and Felix Thiang (bass).

Lyn runs the Lyn Gillett Voice Studio (www.lyngillett.com) and is a specialist in vocal pedagogy, having conducted extensive research in the vocal sciences. Lyn also has a natural gift for teaching having assisted many performers bring out their natural voices over the many years of her teaching career.

With Lyn’s new studio being just down the road from Chilli Padi, I managed to coax her to get on stage with us for Chilli Padi’s Midnight Jazz Yum Cha on 11 October (no time to tell you guys about it... Robert, the owner, only gave me a few days notice... has a habit of doing that, and turning off the lights mid-song for ambience... #&*$#*&).

Despite mine and Yuta’s questionable performance in the dark, but romantic candle-lit setting (#@$%), Lyn enjoyed herself enough to agree to do another date with us this coming Saturday (Note to self, bring some booklights this Saturday...).

Incidentally, despite giving us short notices for gigs and turning off the lights on us mid-song (#@*&), Robert Teoh of Chilli Padi is a wonderful host. You’re bound to catch him flitting between tables with a glass of wine in his hands, feel free to catch him and have a chat... just ask him about his wine collection and you’ll have an extra companion at your table for the rest of the night.

Alternatively, his wife, Li, is much prettier looking and is an equally great host.. just ask her about how she designs her menus.

BOOKINGS ARE ESSENTIAL. You can NOT sit with the band, not enough food scraps to go around as it is

Saturday 25 Oct 2008, 10pm to 1am

Chilli Padi Prahran (corner Chapel and Chatham Streets) 267 Chapel Street, Prharan (03) 9894 0611 www.chillipadi.com.au

>>gig guide

5 September 2008

FurDjango, featuring Jocelyn Jensen on vocals, will be performing at Chilli Padi’s Yum Cha events for the Melbourne Asian Food Festival.

Yum Cha is essentially the Chinese version of Spanish Tapas served as brunch/lunch, except with lots of dumplings… and it’s Chinese, not Spanish. Otherwise the bit about eating lots of little tidbits is essentially the same.

On Sunday 21 September, Yum Cha will be served from 11.30 am to 3.00pm at Chilli Padi and you’ll find us there gorging ourselves in between breaks.

I complained that 11.30am was too early a start for me given my late night internet surfing (research on the breeding habits and rituals of mammals) so Chilli Padi have kindly offered to do something that would make my ancestors roll in their graves….

On Saturday 27 September, Chilli Padi will be SERVING YUM CHA AT MIDNIGHT.

How irreverent, totally untraditional… I would boycott it on principles,… if I had any…

For the rest of you who, like me, have breakfast at 9pm, rock on up and say Hi. We can really stick it to the establishment and have a selection of Chilli Padi’s Mexican Magaritas with our Chinese Yum Cha as well…

BOOKINGS ARE REQUIRED. Otherwise you are welcome to sit with the band and fight us for the scraps the waiters drop at our feet as they rush past.

Sunday 21 Sep 2008, 11.30am - 3pm Saturday 27 Sep 2008, 10.30pm to 1.30am

Chilli Padi Prahran (corner Chapel and Chatham Streets) 267 Chapel Street, Prharan (03) 9894 0611 www.chillipadi.com.au

>>gig guide

24 April 2008

I am happy to announce that the process of slowly grafting the double bass to my side is progressing very well and I am very excited to be taking over the double bass chair for the Out of Nowhere Trio, playing at Enrik’s Restaurant in Blackburn this Sunday 27 April from 5.30 to 8.30pm.

The Out of Nowhere Trio has a great classic jazz sound featuring Janet Vague (vocals) and Frank Vandenboom (guitar) and I have enjoyed listening to as well as performing on guitar with them over the years.

Frank has a great old school jazz guitar sound which highlights Janet’s vocals, while leaving plenty of room for the bass to provide the drive. They are notorious for making their bassist work really hard so I’ll be packing a lot of band aids for my fingers

Come on down and catch us, stay for dinner, come up and say Hi.

Enrik's Restaurant 25 Railway Road, Blackburn (03) 9533 7022

>>gig guide

26 December 2007

Following a well received performance at the opening of Chilli Padi restaurant on Chapel Street a few weeks back, FurDjango is being asked back to help bring Chilli Padi into the New Year.

Chilli Padi Prahran is a follow up to the successful Chilli Padi restaurant in Melbourne Central. Specialising in a unique style of Malaysian fusion food as well as adding a fresh twist to standard Malaysian hawker classics (with a fantastic wine list), it’s one of my favourite restaurants. Playing there means I get to have as much of the wagyu platter, duck salad or lobster otak (curry paste) as I like… so I’m happy.

FurDjango will be there this New Years Eve from 9pm to help usher in the New Year. We’ll be featuring Jocelyn Jensen on vocals with Jeff Dowdle (trumpet/drums), Jon Teo (guitar) and Felix Thiang (double bass).

It’s a family friendly place, great food, great drinks and we plan to provide great music. If you’re looking for a place to celebrate the New Year in, give them a call, make a reservation, check the menu out on the website (there’ll be a special menu for New Years Eve)… then come on down and say Hi to us.

Chilli Padi Prahran (corner Chapel and Chatham Streets) 267 Chapel Street, Prharan (03) 9894 0611 www.chillipadi.com.au

On a lighter note, I have made it through the year without the sky falling on my head. In recognition of this undeserved achievement, I hereby dub this coming event the “NOT - THE END OF THE WORLD PARTY” as the appropriate sequel to my last anti-climatic “END OF THE WORLD PARTY” (on Grand Final weekend when we were relegated to a Friday night show instead of Saturday afternoon at Big Mouth (still sulking that football took precedence over jazz)).

10 December 2007

The Christmas and wedding season is upon us and it’s been an extremely hectic few months. FurDjango and Ain’t Misbehavin’ have been busy playing which is why you haven’t heard from me for a while now. It’s not that I’ve forgotten you, I’ve just been too lazy to write and update the website after getting back from gigs.

I’m so lazy that I can’t be bothered trying to make up a plausible excuse for being lazy. I’m that lazy. OK, ok, I’ll try to come up with some semblance of an excuse, here goes…

The extra effort of playing the double bass (which I have recently picked up for those of you not in the know) has been wearing me out… (lame, but stay with me on this one, I’m not making another one up). While Jon and Yuta get to sit on nice comfortable chairs for our 4 hour gigs, I have to stand the whole gig and bludgeon my fingers on the fence wire that are the strings and think of witty things to say to the audience while the lazy guitarists fumble for the next song. All this while still looking cool.

And don’t get me started with the logistics of transporting the double bass, had to buy a new car. Glad I don’t play the piano.

Anyway, writing to let you know that this Saturday 15 December 2pm, is FurDjango’s last gig at Big Mouth St Kilda before we take a much needed break for a few months. But there are no Pina Coladas and sun hats for the FurDjango boys, we’ll be busy with private functions for most of the next few months as it is…. And that recording session I keep talking about. I’ll just keep talking about it till something actually happens.

We’ve had a blast this year at Big Mouth. Special thanks to the Maree, Mel and their team at Big Mouth for their hospitality and Big Chips (yummy). Thanks to all our special guests at Big Mouth Bridget Allen, Jocelyn Jensen and co, Linda Beatty, The Out of Nowhere Trio, String Theory and everyone else for swinging with us.

Apart from Big Mouth we’ve had a few other offers for public venues next year and we’ll be looking to try and do as many of them as we can manage. I’ll keep you posted. Thanks for all your support this year, have a Merry Christmas and we’ll look forward to seeing you in the New Year.

6 October 2007

WOW! What a fantastic Saturday afternoon of music at Big Mouth!

Special thanks to Australia's Lady of Swing, the Duchess of Jazz, Mistress of Groove, the one and only...(tatadaaaa...) Bridgette Allen for gracing us with her beautiful voice for the afternoon.

Special thanks also to Jocelyn Jensen, a protege of Bridgette's, and her friends Tom Sly and Jeff Dowdle (trumpets) for making their Big Mouth debut. These kids were hot! They're still in high school... makes you want to hang up your instrument and go home to sulk.

For audio clips of this Saturday's performance, visit our new audio page (click here). Check it out. Go on, click on it now, I'll wait right here for you. Promise.

Bridgette and friends have promised to come back soon. If you missed Bridgette's last concert at the Kingston Arts Centre last month, and need to get a Bridgette fix (go on, you know you need another habit), you can catch her at the Paris Cat Jazz Club on 16 November with Linda Cable, Nilusha Bader and the Bob Sedergreen trio. Bookings are essential so get in early.

INVASION OF THE GYPSIES

Another pleasant surprise this last Saturday were Gypsy Jazz guitarists Caley Grove and Jules Reindhart (that's not his real surname but from now on if I don't know one of these gypsy's names, I'll call him Reindhart). They've given us a small taste of what's to come when the gypsies invade Big Mouth. They were HOT... gypsiness confirmed!

Caley and Jules were part of a small scouting party for the main invading force. I hear plans for the invasion are being finalised and they expect to establish a beach head in the next few weeks. Waiting for bad weather (they play outdoors on the other side of the city every Saturday... a very gypsy thing to do). I'll try and have our spies give us ample warning so I can get a message out. Watch out for my message, for the title I will use the secret code words "INVASION OF THE GYPSIES". Subtle, no?

Man... look at how long this post is. I really need to take something for this verbal diarrhoea.

22 September 2007

Saturday afternoon at Big Mouth, St Kilda. Just me and Yuta Hirose. Special thanks to Yoshi Hirose for joining us on a few numbers on the violin. We've been experimenting with the gypsy jazz sound over the last few weeks. With Jon away, we declared Big Mouth a "Jon free" zone and decided to roadtest the new sound for whole gig. We played 5 solid hours of manouche gypsy jazz and had a blast.

Funny how there seemed to be a lack of cute girls in the "Jon free" zone.... hopefully they come back when he does.

There was considerable preparation for the "Jon free" event. First I had my techie set my manouche guitar to play faster. To keep up with me, Yuta then had to go down to my techie to have his set up tweaked. The techie did such a good job I found myself back at the shop trying to squeeze every last bit out of my instrument. It's kinda like tuning a car for a race:

"You know, it feels good but as we get to the turnaround to the bridge, he’s just passing me like I’m standing still"
"We could adjust the truss rod which will lower the strings a bit. Should give you good speed through that diminished arpeggio at the 7th fret"
"Man I don’t want to sacrifice tone in my open position though, need a good launch at the start."
"Should be fine if I adjust the bridge to compensate, you should still get lots of grunt down below"
"OK, oil the strings for me as well while you’re at it and tune her up. I’ve got to keep up with him on those straight runs."

Thankfully we were both still playing in time with each other by the end of each number.

Now, a sad note... Gary Rizzolo (luthier) is NOT COMING to the END OF THE WORLD PARTY this Friday night. He had to cancel his trip at the last minute. Watch this space for an update on his coming visit.

To quote Iron Chef, "Bang the gong, we are on!" this Friday 28 September 5pm (not Saturday). Come and cheer for your favourite guitarist.