The Footbeat Festival

Blue Mountains Art and Environment Festival
15th - 26th October 2008

About
Program
Tourist Info
Volunteer
Contact Us

News
Sponsors
MusicBeat
ArtBeat
EnviroBeat

Footbeat Festival Music

The Music of the Footbeat Festival brings together diverse acts from around the world and around the corner! The following artists are confirmed:

Friday 24th October @ Hotel Gearins (from 9pm)

RockBeat #1 ($10)
One Bollock Peep Show (Punk)
City Lights Fade (Sydney)
Unknown Quantity (Katoomba)

Saturday 25th October @ Triselies (from 9pm)

WorldBeat ($10)
Mesisto (South America)
Mitchell Catfield (Koori)
Chris Gudu (Zimbabwe)

Saturday 25th October @ Hotel Gearins (from 9pm)

RockBeat #2 ($10)
The Emergency - Winners Battle of the Bands
Limbo Land (Newcastle)
Red Bee (Katoomba)
One Bollock Peep Show (Punk)

Sunday 26th October @ Wentworth Falls Lake (from noon)

EnviroBeat (Free)
All Phunked Up! (Soul)
Tongue & Groove (Roots)
Skankerchiefs (Ska)
The Bakery (Funk/Ska/Afro-beat)

Sunday 26th October @ Triselies (from 8pm)

PartyBeat : The After Party! (Free)
All Phunked Up! (Katoomba)

Sunday 26th October @ St Canices Hall (from 6 pm)

Avant Garde Music Performances
This Ness, The Splinter Orchestra, Naked on the Vague, Stasis Duo, The Spiders, Sun of the Seventh Sister, Draft Bandits

About the Artists

City Lights Fade was a concept thought up by Singer Aaron Bywater and Guitarist Tobias McCallum. Their idea? To fuse everyone's favorite bands into one unique sound. Drawing influences from local friends Town Hall Steps, The Mission In Motion, Envy Parade and International Acts Funeral For a Friend, Saosin, Story Of The Year and many others, City Lights Fade is looking to make an impact in 2008 with their Debut Self Titled EP available now!

Unknown Quantity sounds like Melodic Hard Rock, with a bit of a twist! Another hard rockin' local band who, like Red Bee, are starting to make a huge impression in the music jungle of Sydney. Matt Shaw Guitar & Vocals; James Heath Drums; Muz Egan Bass; Tim Ayers Guitar. EP 'Extended Play' out now!

Mesisto: a five piece latin combo that will have you dancing and tapping your feet uncontrollably! Embracing all the modern musical styles of South America such as Salsa, Cumbia, Merengue and Samba. These guys are one of the best Latin acts around!

Chris Gudu: Chris Kayana Gudu hails from Bulawayo, Zimababwe where he grew up not only playing musical instruments and singing with his brothers, but actually making the instruments, namely guitars and drums. As well as singing and dancing Chris has always switched between drums and bass guitar. Chris the bass playing lead singer is also an accomplished composer and arranger. The up tempo and exuberant music of Jive Kayana is what is often referred to as township jive music. Check out the new CD from Chris "Bavimbeni" soon to be released on Hardrush Music

Limbo Land: The sound of this four piece rock band from Newcastle is centred in Heavy Rock with traces of Blues, Funk and old school Pop-Rock combined with complex structures, strong vocals and all around dynamite playing. The band consists of David (Dave) Seddon (age 18) on Bass Guitar, Joe (Joseph) Dennerley (age 19) on Drums, Tim (Tim) Kellaway (age 19) on Vocals and Sean (chili) Mcguire (age 19) on Guitar.

Red Bee is a three piece hard rockin' local lads who are starting to make waves in the big smoke! Vocals & Guitar - Daniel Silk; Bass - Jim Silk; Drums - Ian Dunn. EP 'Do or Die' out now!

One Bollock Peep Show are the new breed of old school punk with a combination of reggae stylings, local mountains hip hop and old school thrash punk. Playing regular acts on hometown turf in Katoomba draws attention to many of the locals sharing their taste for fast loud anarchy.

All Phunked Up! Another local band, but this one is all about dancing. Ten piece funk, soul and R&B band influenced by the likes of Stevie Wonder, Tower of Power and James Brown. Playing a mixture of great covers and originals All Phunked Up have dragged their audiences onto the dance floor and kept them there. This is a band that knows how to party!

The Bakery have been variously described as:
'A rampaging gaggle of funkified love-children, triumphantly smearing their unique blend of neo-orgasmic-sould-funk-jungle- party-core across the mental genitals of all those who hop aboard their party train'
'An orgy of hedonistic cretins who wrangle like bavarian game hunters the sounds of booty-shaking-funk-lust, crafting them into burning soul-swords of badassity, and swinging them uproariously across the lands of killer fatness and sweet ear love'. Don't miss this act!

This - Ness: Experimental improvisation quintet combining both acoustic and digital instruments played by some of Sydney's leading experimental musicians. Rory Brown - quadruple bass - master explorer of warm, bottom end ambiguities. Jo Derrick - trumpet?angel?- sounds that don't exist. Monika Brooks - emergent piano accordian - squeezes her box of ephemeral tricks, hangs strange tones from nowhere. Jim Denley - submerged wind instruments and computer - filters most of his sounds through his bodily fluids, corporeal signal processing. Robbie Avenaim - franchised automatic percussion - he's replacing himself with machines as his career as a hair ad star takes over.

The Splinter Orchestra are one of the few large-scale improvisational ensembles working in Australia. Formed in 2003, the group is made up of individuals from the improvised music scene, electronic musicians and sound artists. They create a stark minimalism despite their large number – without any leaders or conductors. The group aims for graceful tension, restraint and simplicity. "Listening to it is like looking down on a jungle from above, with infinite layers of foilage making for an image without surface. Behind every sound lurks another sound, and then another. The result is eerie and weirdly beautiful." John Shand, SMH.

Naked on the Vague: Co-ed duo Naked On the Vague hail from the sewers of Sydney, bringing to the outside world their own brand of apocalyptic pop and psychedelic weirdness. The Naked On The Vague approach (con)fuses punk, industrial, noise, psychedelic sounds all tinkered with a heavy dose of distortion and delay.

Stasis Duo is Adam Süssmann and Matt Earle, a cult Australian sine-core act. They formed in the year 2000 in order to explore the imminent potentials of their empty samplers. Since then the duo has received critical acclaim internationally for their exploration of acoustic phenomena. Stasis Duo has released over a dozen albums and have proved to be seminal in the development of a new and elusive musical language.

The Spiders are the vehicle for James Heighway`s pioneering work with electronics, multiple electric guitars and ampifiers, all feeding into each other and effecting each other in unique, surprising and bewitching ways. Current application is using 3 electric guitars, homemade effects and amplifiers made from vintage reel players/radiograms.

The Sun of the Seventh Sister is an ecstatic improvisation collective based in the Blue Mountains and includES many of the experimental electronic and acoustic musicians living in the area. You never really know what is going to emerge when this ensemble takes the floor. They aim to bring to life the music of the impossible – music that coud never be scripted or even thought of in advance, but which only the present moment and those attuned to it can deliver.

Craft Bandits formed in May 2008 as a trio and quickly established a reputation in the Blue Mountains Rural Industrial scene. Craft Bandits have since 'partied like trollops at Harrington Park' with their scissors and sticky tape releasing three full-length albums on the internationally acclaimed Blue Mountains based tape label 'breakdance the dawn'. Due to increased fuel prices and water shortages, craft bandits have downsized to a Duo with a stripped back dance floor orientated style. Influenced by The Sex Pistols, The Presets and Acid Mothers Temple, Craft Bandits are sure to surprise you.