The music of Australia has an extensive history made of music societies. Indigenous Australian music forms a significant part of the unique heritage of a 40,000- to 60,000-year history which produced the iconic didgeridoo. Contemporary fusions of indigenous and Western styles are exemplified in the works of Yothu Yindi, No Fixed Address, Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu and Christine Anu, and mark distinctly Australian contributions to world music.
William Parker is an American free jazz double bassist. Beginning in the 1980s, Parker played with Cecil Taylor for over a decade, and he has led the Little Huey Creative Music Orchestra since 1981. The Village Voice named him "the most consistently brilliant free jazz bassist of all time" and DownBeat has called him "one of the most adventurous and prolific bandleaders in jazz".
Thirsty Merc are an Australian pop rock band formed in 2002 by Rai Thistlethwayte, Phil Stack, Karl Robertson (drums), and Matthew Baker (guitar). In 2004, Baker was replaced by Sean Carey, who was, in turn, replaced by Matt Smith in 2010. Thirsty Merc have released one extended play, First Work, and five studio albums: Thirsty Merc, Slideshows, Mousetrap Heart, Shifting Gears, and Celebration. The band have sold over 200,000 albums, toured extensively around Australia, and received national radio airplay for their tracks.
Jazz music has a long history in Australia. Over the years jazz has held a high-profile at local clubs, festivals and other music venues and a vast number of recordings have been produced by Australian jazz musicians, many of whom have gone on to gain a high profile in the international jazz arena.
Bob Bertles is an Australian jazz alto, tenor and baritone saxophonist and bandleader.
Rai Thistlethwayte is an Australian rock, pop and jazz musician and songwriter. Thistlethwayte is an accomplished pianist, guitarist, and vocalist. He is the lead singer and primary songwriter in the Australian pop rock band Thirsty Merc. From 2004, Thirsty Merc released a string of hits in the Australian charts including "In the Summertime", "Someday, Someday", "20 Good Reasons", "Emancipate Myself", "My Completeness", "When the Weather Is Fine" and "Mousetrap Heart". He is currently based in Los Angeles. As a solo artist, Thistlethwayte performs under the name 'Sun Rai'.
The 19th Annual Australian Recording Industry Association Music Awards were held on 23 October 2005 at the Sydney SuperDome at the Sydney Olympic Park complex, thus continuing the previous year's innovation of televising the awards on Sunday evening. A varied cast of presenters included Merrick and Rosso, stand-up comic Dave Hughes, Gretel Killeen and David Hasselhoff.
James Conway is an Australian harmonica player and with his brother, Mic Conway, was a co-founder of the 1970s humour, theatre and rock group, The Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band.
Geoff "Jeff" Stephen Duff, or Duffo, is an Australian singer/cabaret performer in the tenor range, who in his career has used various personae, wardrobe, and satire as features of his performance. Duff's shows Ziggy and Bowie Unzipped are portrayals of the music of David Bowie, whom he met while Bowie was a Sydney resident.
Jaime Robbie Reyne is an Australian singer-songwriter and actor.
First Work is the debut EP release by Australia rock band Thirsty Merc released in 2003, which appeared on the ARIA Charts top 100. It features early versions of songs that the band re-recorded for their studio album Thirsty Merc.
Thirsty Merc is the debut studio album release by Australian rock band Thirsty Merc released in 2004.
Slideshows is the second studio album release by Australian rock band Thirsty Merc. It was released on 21 April 2007, through Warner Music Australia. Six singles were released from the album. The first single "20 Good Reasons", became Thirsty Merc's first single to peak in the Top 10 on the Australian Singles Chart. The second single from the album was "The Hard Way", followed by "Those Eyes", which was released as a digital download in December 2007, only later to be released on CD in April 2008. "Homesick" was released as the fourth single digitally, making available for the first time a single mix of the track. This was followed by a double radio release of singles five and six, "The Whole World Reminds Me of You" and "Crying in Denial", both of which garnered highly successful airplay runs in a radio edit form.
Karl Robertson is the drummer for Australian rock group Thirsty Merc. As a founding member from 2002, he has performed on all their releases from First Work in September 2003 to the single "The Whole World Reminds Me of You" in December 2008.
True Live is an Australian band formed in Melbourne, Australia. The group had mild chart success with "TV" reaching #76 on the ARIA Single Chart and The Shape of It reaching #85 on the ARIA Albums Chart. The band received regular play on radio and television and were chosen to perform at the 2006 Commonwealth Games. The group's early recordings contained strong ties to hip hop but since 2011 have made a significant turn toward rock and classical leanings.
Mousetrap Heart is the third studio album by Australian rock band Thirsty Merc. It was released on 18 June 2010, through Warner Music Australia. The title track was released as the first single on 21 May 2010. The album marks the band's first release with guitarist Matt Smith, since joining the band just after the departure of Sean Carey earlier in the year.
Matt Smith is an Australian jazz guitarist. He is most widely known as the guitarist in the Australian rock pop band Thirsty Merc but also plays guitar for Sydney afrobeat/reggae band The Strides. He joined Thirsty Merc in January 2010 after helping record the band's third album, Mousetrap Heart, in Los Angeles in late 2009.
John McAll is a pianist, composer, arranger and producer with experience ranging from jazz, pop, blues, rock contemporary classical, afrobeat and theatre.
Microwave Jenny is an Australian pop/folk/jazz duet that consists of Tessa Nuku on vocals and Brendon Boney on guitar and vocals. They both have Indigenous backgrounds with Brendon having been born and raised in Wagga Wagga, and Tessa having been born in Ulladulla, New South Wales before moving to and growing up in Umina Beach, New South Wales Brendon was the singing voice for the character Willie in film Bran Nue Dae. The phrase 'Microwave Jenny' comes from the 1997 film The Castle. The duo are married and have a daughter. Brendon has a solo alternative, hip/hop project called The Magpie Swoop.
James Vivian Alfred Doyle was an Australian musician, radio presenter and songwriter. He was the founding mainstay guitarist in Ayers Rock (1973–81), a jazz fusion, progressive rock band. As a member of Ayers Rock, Doyle appeared on all three of their studio albums, Big Red Rock (1974), Beyond (1976) and Hotspell (1980). They toured both nationally and internationally including through the United States, where they supported Bachman–Turner Overdrive at a stadium concert with an audience of 35,000 people in Seattle. For the group's third album, Hotspell, Doyle wrote or co-wrote four tracks.
