Music is so important to me, and has been a big part of my life for quite a few years now. With an affectionate love of live singer/songwriter storytelling type music in particular, I visit a lot of sites to do with music. I also have a great love of home-grown talent from Australia, Melbourne in particular. Melbourne has such a wealth of talented musicians, and many venues in which to see them...on any given night of the week, a HUGE range of different types of music are available for your listening pleasure in my beautiful city.
I do not just limit myself to one genre of music, nor music from one geographical location, however. I enjoy a diverse variety of music. Here are a few links of bands/artists I like, and there will be additions to this with time. Because I spend so much time on the computer doing other things these days, I do not just surf very much at all, but I will add others as I find them to the original bunch. So, click on a link and enjoy....great music is great music in anyone's language!
No other act
had a chance of being listed first on this page. Weddings Parties
Anything no longer exist, sad as it is to say, but the immense pleasure
they gave thousands of people around the world in the 14 years they were
active imparts memories on the minds of those people that will stay with
them forever. The WPA homepage is a good one for both long-term
fans and also for those poor unfortunates that never got to see this raucous
Melbourne band live. Go there.
Michael Thomas
was the lead singer and main songwriter of the aforementioned WPA.
One of this country's absolute finest songwriters ever, Mick is as much
of a treat to see live solo as he is at the centre spot in the foreground
of a group of talented musicians. His own personal homepage
hasn't been up and running long, but it is a really excellent job that
has been done with its putting together. Mick has been playing
around with a new group of his called "Mick Thomas and the Sure Thing"
of late, and all the news on them and more can be found at this site.
This is a site
where you can search for information on Australian artists.
You'll also find out if some you thought had pages don't! I
am not sure how regularly updated it is, but it is still a good resource....
This is a three-piece
band from Sydney, and they have some really awesome music.
They have not played Melbourne for some time now, but I just came across
their site recently when I was surfing music sites. It was
such a great surprise, and the site is absolutely awesome!!!
They even have clips of some of their songs so you can have a listen if
you've never heard of them before. Hot band!
This guy is,
in my eyes, ranked just behind Mick Thomas on the "Australian songwriters"
order of merit. Much more famous nationally than Mick, Paul
Kelly is a true legend of the Australian singer/songwriter genre.
Been playing for a long long time, and has toured internationally, Paul's
site is also an excellent one. Not much more I can really say
there....have a look.
Great Big Sea
are a truly awesome Canadian band. They have a huge following
in Canada and the US, and are spreading their fan-base to other parts of
the world all the time. From the maritimes, on the Canadian
east coast, their music is a very rich, up-beat Celtic style of music which
cannot help but make you wanna get up and dance! The GBS online
kitchen party site that this link goes to is their official home, and I
must say, is oh soooo professional. They also have numerous
fans that have created tribute sites, if you happen to feel like using
a search engine. This band really rocks!
The Waifs are
a beautiful trio of great folk/country songwriting musicians from the beautiful
state of Western Australia. Vikki and Donna are sisters who
both have fantastic voices that are quite different and yet still complement
each other. These two also write beautiful lyrics and can play
some fine guitar and harmonica. Josh excels with his guitar
in a way that makes you captivated, and some of his songs are so beautiful
that I've honestly nearly cried listening to them. Originally
not singing at all, Josh has recently started to lend his voice to songs
from his favourite style of music, good ol' country. A band
who are a must-see live act, I'm very impressed with their website.
Have a browse and listen to some music clips included...you won't be disappointed.
Not Enough
Rope also hail from the West of this country, and are a very popular band
over there with quite large numbers of regular fans. Their
style of music is very similar to the WPA style, with a very Australian-Celtic
feeling about it. Fine songs to sit back and listen to, and
also a few that you wanna start jumping to. A very nice site
with lots of info.
I do not really think I have to say much about Midnight Oil, as most Australians would have heard of them, and a lot of internationals as well. Most widely known for their outspoken and challenging activism for human issues from environmental to peace and justice issues, they are a band that really hit hard, and rock your butt off. Check this site out, it is a really cool "Flash" site...