Details of Thursday's Show
Thursday 09 June
*****FREE ENTRY!*****
The Promethean is proud to present our monthly writers nights. These nights are designed as an opportunity for local singer songwriters to perform their songs.
Supported by industry personnel, these nights will feature a broad cross section from the songwriting community.
Doors open at 7.30pm with the first artist on stage just after 8pm.
Featured this month....
Matt Saunders
Matt Saunders is a mild-mannered IT support person by day, but at night he transforms into A Clearing, a one-man band singing songs about life, love, and hope.
He'll be previewing songs from his fourth self-released recording, coming early next year. More details at http://mattclearing.net, or follow @mattclearing.
Terry Bradford
Terry Bradford Terry has been described as a “lyricist with a knack for cutting deep into the heart of personal politics, of love and life, in a deliciously wry whimsical way”.
He began his musical career at around 30 years of age. Although a late starter, Terry has been a member of various bands, July 14th, Those Kodiaks, The Every Brothers and The Barkers. A self taught guitarist with a passion for song writing, Terry has won SAMIA song writing, production and performance awards, and was a finalist of the Australian Aria awards for producer of Best World Music Album.
Since forming The Texettes Band in 2000, he has received many singer/songwriter awards both personally and for performances with The Texettes in the country music scene e.g. in 2010 his composition “By a Living Thing” was a semi finalist in the Contemporary section of the Tamworth Songwriters Competition; and “Black Angel “ was 3rd in the APRA’s SA Country Music Comp; “The Land That We Love” ( Bradford/Wayman composition) so impressed Ian McNamara’s (ABC Radio’s Australia All Over) that he included it on his 2004 compilation disc.
Terry also runs an Adelaide based independent label, Round Records.
Website link/Artist Homepage – http://www.texettes.com
Aggie Harris
Aggie Harris is a self taught guitarist, pianist and songwriter. She also plays the Bassoon, and studied music at Woodville High Schhol Special Music Centre for 5 years. her biggest influences are Jeff Buckley, PJ Harvey and Soul music.
Trading Wheels for Shoes
In 1993, I was a suburban teenager. I’d barely heard of the Internet.
A cell/mobile phone was something business people used, and they often were tethered to cars with extra antennae.
There was a single phone line in our house and it was perpetually used by my stepmom in the evening.
There was only one way to escape, and that was with the family car.
Back then, gas was relatively inexpensive, global warming was still an abstract concept, and access to a car was a one-way ticket to freedom.
In a car you’d have a stereo, likely with a cassette deck, and you could cruise around with friends, without a care in the world.
It was a good time. I remember it fondly.
However, I’m not writing to paint a nostalgic picture of my youth, but rather to contrast my view of the automobile then with my view of the automobile now.
Since that time, I moved to upstate New York to play in a band, where a car was absolutely necessary, because you couldn’t walk anywhere. The local gas station was an hour walk away.
How Sufjan Stevens Won Music
A week ago, I had a dilemma.
My girl had work to do on a freelance project, but I’d belatedly realised that Sufjan Stevens was playing at the Festival Centre. I was’t a huge fan, but I liked most of Seven Swans and had enjoyed Illinoise, and knew of Stevens’ reputation for putting on a mean live show.
At the time, I knew he’d put out a lengthy EP and a new album of somewhat electronically-tinged material. It had been out for a few months, but I hadn’t gotten around to much more than a quick preview of a track that I quickly abandoned for some pressing matters at hand.
My girl insisted that she didn’t mind if I went to the show, and I rationalised that she’d be able to get more done with me out of her hair. It wasn’t easy though, because we do everything together, especially going to shows. It would be odd having this experience without her.
So somewhat reluctantly I opted to purchase a single ticket to see Sufjan from the far upper deck of the Adelaide Festival Theatre on the day before the show. One bonus of going alone was that I was able to get a seat in the second row of the upper deck; when I was still entertaining the notion that Emily could somehow postpone her work, we’d have been relegated to the second to last row.
On The Value of Music
On The Value of Music
When you think about the value of music, what springs to mind?
Maybe you think, “Well, you can dance to it, it communicates a mood, sentiment, or a feeling.”
Perhaps, like me, you think of a favourite song, or a memory that you associate with a particular piece of music.
Or maybe, more generally, you think about that moment when you reach a perfect state of oneness between artist, song, and yourself, when everything that you feel is reflected in everything you hear.
One thing I don’t think of is money. How much a record costs to purchase. How much a record label gave a band to make the record. How much the label spent on the band’s behalf to promote the record. How much the band actually spent on the record, as opposed to the amount of the advance spent on alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, bling, personal expenses, instruments, equipment, etc.
What percentage of the record’s sales the artist is entitled to (industry standard is 15% of everything after the record company breaks even)? How much of that percentage is owed to a manager, an artist’s lawyer, etc.?
New Blog: Finally Getting Started!
Re-Introduction
Greetings.
My name is Matt Saunders.
Soon I will be 35 years old.
If you've looked at my homepage or followed any of my previous goings-on, you probably know that I am obsessed with music, mostly, but not limited to, the loud rock variety.
A little over six years ago I concluded that I could no longer live in the United States. I didn't feel safe there, and felt that the media, government, and much of the population, including many people I cared about, had been driven into a sort of mass hysteria.
At the time I was living in downtown Washington, D.C., a few blocks from the White House. I opposed the Iraq War, marched against it on the Mall before and after it started, and split my time between working, making music with friends, and getting to know my partner Emily better.
It wasn't easy leaving America. Much of the story can be found at a blog we wrote together at SunburnedCountry.com.
Now we live in Adelaide, which any local will tell you is, "just a big country town."