One for the road...

Super BIG thanks to everyone who has come along to our shows over the last couple of weeks.
We have one more show for this year at the Brunswick Hotel, Sydney Road, VIC.
We're playing super early at 8PM - and I cannot stress this enough - we are playing at 8PM
So why not come after work and share a bevy or two with us!?
In the meantime here are a couple of tracks we've recorded with the whole band (featuring  Mark Curtis - who has sadly returned to little Adelaide - but you can check out his band 'The Warring Sighs')
We also have these tracks up on unearthed so please add a review or a vote - that would be grande!

  Wiley Red Fox (Band) by Wiley Red Fox

Super Mega Xmas Gig-a-thon

Photo music

Introducing Wiley Red Fox the band (L-R): Casey Norman, Jon Wignall, Clemmie Wetherall and Mark Curtis.
Thanks everybody who came along to our show at the Old Bar on the 2nd November. I have a couple more solo shows coming up in December, but hopefully we will be able to get the whole band together for another gig before consumermess. Big thanks to Vanessa Cox for taking these awesome photos at the show.

Wiley Red Fox - coming to you now in band format!

My bands debut gig! - Super big props to: Casey Norman on Rhythm Sticks, Jon Wignall  our Bassketeer, and Mark Curtis - SuperGuitar VocalMuff.
WE HOPE YOU CAN MAKE IT - the Bon Scotts are one of my favourite Melbourne bands and I am honored to be performing alongside ex-Adelaide Chanteuse Cookie Baker.

Andrew P Street - Short and Sweet

Just discovered this great blog by Andrew P Street.
http://www.andrew-p-street.com/
Having already spent the last hour immersing myself in it I'm imaging many, many more hours of immersing to follow. It's got music, it's got videos, it's got opinion, it's got music....
The basic premise is 'Songs you should discover today because they are awesome', so far I agree.

Thanks Andrew!

Upcoming show at the Retreat Hotel - Brunswick

New Songs! - (Finally it's happened to me...)

So the lovely sound engineer Patrick Lockwood   (also of Box Elder), mixed and recorded my show at the Exeter in July. And here is the result, see I even put it into a nifty little player for your convenience.
I hope you enjoy the tunes, I'm sort of getting a band together at the moment so we will  aim to get into a studio in the near future, but in the meantime voila.....



Live-at-the-Exeter by Wiley Red Fox

Nothing Like It - Live at the Producers Bar 16 July 2011

Thanks Spoz

The Kindness of Strangers

Less than two weeks to go until I'm back in little old Radelaide to play this show with The Dunes!
Big Thanks to 'The Dunes' for asking me to play :D
I'm also playing a show with 'The Scarlet Ives' at the Exeter on Monday 18 July. There will be a Dinosaur Jr cover in one of the setlists (I think). But obviously it won't be as ear-bleedingly awesome as this.

Producer's Bar - Adelaide 12 May 2011

Anthony Ant wondering how and why he is at La Sing

Thank you to everyone who made it to my show in Adelaide last week, it was a fun night out and I am only sad that you didn't all think it was a good idea to go to La Sing afterwards on a school night.
If you would like to see pics and see the handsome boys from Anthony Ant and the Honey Pies you can check out Spoz's Rant for a sweet picture/video blog

I've posted a couple of videos from the night in previous posts if you are interested, one song is called 'I don't remember' which I wrote late last year and the other one is 'Cold' which i think is a couple of years old.

Here is a set list from the night - one day when I record something it might mean something to you:
Memo, Cynicism's, BFF, Stockholm Syndrome (by Yo La Tengo), Angels Wept, I Don't Remember,  Nothing Like It, Cold, You, Dammit (by Blink 182), Blood from Stone, The River.
At least I think it went something like that! - I'm back at the Producers Bar on July 16th and the Exeter on July 18th so hope to see more of you love fools there.

Wiley Red Fox "Cold" - Live @ Producers Bar, May 12th 2011

Wiley Red Fox "I Don't Remember" - Live @ Producers Bar, May 12th 2011

Adelaide Gig!

Only two more sleeps until we bring the wrath of God down upon the Producers bar with our acoustic/electric blizzard of atheist sentimentality and songs of destruction and woe.... do any metal bands need a press release writer? I think it might be easier than trying to write preppy indie rubbish.

Anyway hope to see all at the Producers on Thursday night!

The Brunswick Hotel Open Mic

Once upon a time my friend Mark Curtis asked me to play open mic with him at the Brunswick Hotel, unfortunately we had to play at midnight because there were some serial open mic hogs, but for the first time in a reaallly long time I wasn't nervous at all!

Thanks to Michael Reynolds (resident photographer and poet from what i can gather) for the photos.

"Power Animal" music clip - 'empty parking lot, scary dog, snowing'

I have to admit that I don't know much about the band 'Power Animal' and their tumblr site doesn't give a whole lot away - but big ups to the Adelaide film crew that put this clip together for their song 'Empty parking lot, Scary Dog, Snowing' from the 2010 release People Songs. It looks fantastic! It also features my friend Tom (not the guy from myspace) who you might find playing an assortment of bands around Adelaide.

The Honey Pies - 'Don't Mention the War'

Dear friends,

It's been a long time since I last posted and many things have happened. But I'm not going to tell you about those things right now, instead I'd like to introduce you to my friends 'The Honey Pies' with this song demonstrated through the medium of video. I'm not sure how they've done it or if they meant to do it but through my computer speakers there is this awesome early beatles production sound.  Anyway - I hope you enjoy it as much as I have - Auf Weidersehen

Ringing in the New Year

I've been very caught up lately in getting back into the swing of things after the (all too brief) holidays, but part of the struggle is that I don't necessarily want to get back into the swing of things. My only real new years resolution is to play, record and write more music and to play more music in front of an audience. But I've always tied myself up in knots over the part of me that thinks that wanting to do that is selfish, indulgent and unnecessary in a bloated and over-represented field of the arts (particularly noticeable in Melbourne) - and the other part of me that believes that music should be for sharing and that it is one of the key mediums of communicating the human condition across all languages, cultures and backgrounds. If my favorite musicians had decided to stay in their bedrooms moping about how self-indulgent they are surely my life would be less  rich for it?

Another part of the emotional paradox is that in order to be brave and sally forth with my musical ambition I actually need to believe that other people are interested in hearing my music and believe that it is good enough to share. This requires me to embrace my ego and seeing as I've been trying my hardest to keep it in a small, secure, little box,  for as long as I can remember - the prospect of coaxing it out to do my bidding terrifies me. Which is a little silly because I don't actually believe that my myriad of muso friends are godzilla like egomaniacs (although working in radio I have met my fare share)...


Anyway it could be that I am over thinking the whole thing.......but coming to the rescue of my troubled mind on the second evening of the New Year was the magnificent Devonte Hynes of Lightspeed Champion at the East Brunswick Club.

All photos taken on an awful iphone, I'd rather watch the show than document it for later enjoyment.

If you aren't familiar with Lightspeed Champion you should visit his myspace or start with 'Falling off the Lavender Bridge' and listen to how well composed, heartfelt and thoughtfully crafted his songs are,  it is also an incredibly rare treat to see a proficient musician play indie pop/rock music.  At a moment in music history where I feel like I am walking around covered in cobwebs of nostalgia which are slowly smothering my interest in music to death, Dev's music is like a cold shower on a hot sweaty night. Suddenly you are wide awake, all of your senses are keen and alert and you feel refreshed. All overused analogies aside, Dev is an amazing guitarist and pianist with a pitch perfect voice and an endearing stage presence - a mixture of shyness and sureness, with just a pinch of indie irony (He also worked on the soundtrack to MacGruber). Musicians such as Dev inspire a steadfast and loyal fan base and the tight knit audience that appeared out of the woodwork for this evening were spellbound from the first note, only opening their mouths to sing quietly along to every song.  I was also really impressed that he was able to convincingly play along to backing tracks for a number of songs, which is no easy feat. Dev was also friendly and welcoming to his fans after the show, with the line of people wanting to meet him and take photos snaking the length of the East Brunswick club.... a true gentleman of indie rock.

If it sounds like I'm gushing there is a good reason for it - the most important thing about this show was that it was inspiring and it inspired me to try and become a better musician and to stop being afraid of the horse.
I don't have to aspire to be a musician in a grandiose grotesque cult of the celebrity sort of way, it's okay to be the shy, self-effacing performer and still believe in what I'm doing.

Here is a demo of one of Dev's new songs 'Flush Out' - he played this at the show:

Find more artists like Lightspeed Champion at Myspace Music