bentenlaughing

Janice:  Nicole, can you share with us the inspiration behind your soon to be released solo album? Nicole: It is about the slow down. To be aware of the moment. Wherever you are, depth and inner peace. I wanted to share this moments on the album with lots of human beings. It can help you to feel yourself again. To feel time more slowly. It doesn't matter where you come from, who you are, whether you like classical, jazz, rock or pop. I believe that this music helps you to help yourself. Janice:  I know you are very much engaged with encouraging young women musicians through your workshops with SOFIA.  Can you share with us when and how you became involved.   Nicole: I  was in 2003 part of the Sisters in Jazz IAJE meeting for more than one week in Toronto. I played with five  more American female jazz musicians.  We played at the Mary Lou Williams Festival and much more. We met Oscar Peterson and he listened to our concert. Usually it is the other ...

Responsibilities poets rise early (don’t laugh) aware of their responsibilities to save some people from themselves to save language itself from the same people to remind you we live in a land too old for petty thoughts John Ellison Davies https://sites.google.com/site/johnellisondavies/home

  Janice: What is fascinating is your family's allegiance to drawing on Medieval music...what are the connections Gary? Gary:  I was indeed fortunate to have an older brother who was very adventurous in the kind of music he listened to and used to go out to see live bands play when he was still only 15. Once I became old enough, he'd take me along with him and we saw bands like The Who, The Moody Blues, The Creation & The Yardbirds which made a deep impression on me. It was he that also persuaded me to join the band he was in when I was still at school. They needed a lead singer and it all seemed a bit of a lark so I joined, little realising I was setting off on a voyage that would last my entire life. Ours was a household in which music was constantly being played and everyone was encouraged to sing along. My grandmother lived with us and she'd sing a lot of music hall songs, all of which we learned and sang. We were exposed to a wide variety of musical styles. Fast fo...

Janice:  Y ou were a student of mine for singing and acting and showed enormous potential. Since then you've grown a family and gone off into areas where you are equally passionate!  Can you tell us a little about your new direction? Siobhan:  My new direction is one that I felt pulled to, and once I stopped resisting and went with the flow, it felt really right for me.  I've always loved comic books, and started working in comic book stores straight out of high school. I never thought of it as my career, but I loved it!  I went to uni and a few different drama schools but the whole time I was working in comics as well - it became the most consistent and dependable part of my life.  After over a decade of working in someone else's store, I saw a gap in the market, and decided to leap in head first and open my own store! Cockatoo Comics is the end result, and one I'm very proud of.  We stock the best alternative, locally produced, second hand ...

  My love of art began as a small child; where I would copy favourite characters and enter into Sunday Paper competitions. My dream was to be a painter but life took me in another direction into the music industry.   Over the years I've dabbled away with drawings and photography and slowly gained more confidence.  I love taking photos on my walks in the Blue Mountains.  Here is one from a few years back but reminiscent of now as we head into Winter in the Southern Hemisphere.  When you can have a look at my work on Saatchi....and thank you for doing so! https://www.saatchiart.com/janicepslater

Janice:  John: I first became aware of your work as an artist through your sharing of your visual diaries.What outlets do they provide for you.  John: I have been keeping my journals since 1981 and their function has gone though changes as I have. Initially they were notebooks to keep ideas I had from disappearing into the ether. These included visual ideas, musical ideas, recipes, quotes and even short stories. As i moved on in my life they became a fun place to go to draw and write lyrics and artistically experiment with a view that the works were now just for the journals. After I had children they became much more reflective and a space where I could work through ideas about life in all its new challenges. Re-reading those pages now is partly embarrassing (what a serious young insect I was!), partly quite touching (I really sweated the small stuff!) and also unintentionally funny. Prior to the pandemic I found I was using them mainly in visual and literary experiments with...

  https://music.apple.com/gb/album/a-i/1460423736 https://vimeo.com/388703047 https://vimeo.com/244443380