As I said at the time, I was very impressed when I first saw Timothy Carroll, when he supported Texas Tea at their album launch last year; a set of really nice songs, with excellent melodies sung beautifully, especially the vocal contributions of The Troubadour’s Corinna Scanlon who I didn’t realise sang up until that point.

Tonight is a launch for Timothy Carroll’s debut album, ‘For Bread & Circuses‘.  There is a strangeness about attending an album launch gig on Sunday, even though there is a very good turnout at The Troubadour, with most people appearing to be on their best behaviour in advance of a return to work the following morning, a change from the more raucous Friday and Saturday night album launches. 

Texas Tea’ Kate Jacobson, playing in solo mode, opens the night and plays a couple of superb new songs which hopefully means that it won’t be too long until their next album.  McKisko also supports and as before her best songs are those where she loops her voice and instruments.

From memory all of ‘For Bread & Circuses‘ gets played over the course of the evening, with Cori Scanlon’s enchanting ‘Forest‘ also played and the night ending with a new song ‘Deepest Dive’.  If there is a weak point during the set, it is the cover of Bonnie Tyler’s ‘It’s A Heartache‘ that opens the encore, a song that was terrible the 1970s and is way past any sort of musical redemption, even with Kate Jacobson singing on it.  But other than that one small point it’s another night of great Brisbane music at The Troubadour.

A few more photos from the night are on Flickr.

Kate Jacobson

McKisko

 Timothy Carroll

All the way back in August 2007 I had the great privilege to spend an evening with Brisbane’s very own Johnny and June, Texas Tea, during the recording of their second album, ’The Junkship Recordings‘, up at Jamie Trevaskis‘ home studio up at The Gap.  It was an amazing experience to sit and watch them rehearse and record and to listen back to the early playbacks of the album.  A bit strangely I don’t seemed to have written a blog about it, which is a bit of a surprise as I was photographing for Mess+Noise.  The photos are on flickr though.

With the album sounding so good back in August 2007, the long 14 month wait for them to finish it off and get it released so that everyone could listen to it has been painful.  They say that good things come to those that wait but Ben and Kate have taken it to a bit of an extreme…

It was another awesome performance from the band, with them playing in full-band mode for some songs.  Although the rarity of a full band adds something to the occasion and allowed them to replicate the more layered songs that they had written and recorded for the second album, I still think that there’s something so much more captivating and mesmerising when it’s just the two of them on stage.

Support for the night was from Timothy Carroll, James McCann and Jacob S Harris (whose set, in true street press style, I managed to miss apart from the last song).  I was very impressed with Timothy Carroll, a singer that had never seen before and who reminded me of someone, but I couldn’t put my finger on exactly who.  Maybe a bit Damien Rice, but I don’t think that was who I was thinking of on the night.  I’m sure it’ll come to be randomly at some point when I least expect it…

Some more photos on flickr.

Texas Tea

James McCann

Timothy Carroll

Having seen Sixfthick and Rollerball the night before, the weekend of Brisbane-In-Melbourne continues back at The Ding Dong Lounge with Gentle Ben And His Sensitive Side. And in a role reversal from last weekend in Brisbane, Kim Salmon (albeit playing solo and without The Surrealists) is supporting.

Gentle Ben was showing no signs of the Sixfthick gig the night before; I often wonder how he does it, especially when Sixfthick do things like their upcoming European tour and play 16 gigs in 16 days. That’s gotta hurt after a few days without a break.  One of these days I’m going to have to crash a Sixfthick tour and do some more tour photography, even of it’s just a few days down in Melbourne or Sydney.  It’s been just over a year since I was away in Melbourne with Butcher Birds, so about time I did it again.   

Tonight’s gig was for a 7 inch launch, which I didn’t realise they were releasing. Good to hear they’ve been recording again and can’t wait until the next album. In retrospect I probably should have bought a copy of the single, but not having a record player in Australia would mean a long wait until I could get to listen to it.  I miss my record player.  And my approximately 2,000 record collection…