John Shand | Music & Other Spheres Posts

July 16, 2013 / Concert Reviews - Archive

Blue Beat, July 12 Where George Harrison’s guitar gently wept, Reg Mombassa’s gnashes its teeth. The one he uses for playing slide is bright red: the colour of habanero chillies, war wounds and prostitutes’ lipstick. It howls and shrieks, protests and laments, and yet all the time is slyly celebrating,…

July 12, 2013 / Features - Archive

You can tell they don’t take themselves too seriously just from the name: The Pinks. It’s a cute sidestep around the dodgy old argument about whether white boys could play the blues. It is also what seven of Australia’s top rock, jazz, blues and country musicians do when they just…

July 11, 2013 / Concert Reviews - Archive

Slide, July 4 Bernadette Robinson’s star turn in the one-woman musical play, Songs For Nobodies (penned by Joanna Murray-Smith) was a hard act to follow. What to do next when you have inhabited the lives and conjured the voices of Judi Garland, Patsy Cline, Edith Piaf, Billie Holiday and Maria…