Saturday Walk of Shame

Hello! My name is Will and I play drums in a Brisbane band called Charlie Mayfair. This week, our band was invited to make a guest blog appearance on Walk of Shame. So we’ve included three inspiring and exciting tracks from upcoming Australian artists Kyu and Dan Parsons and an old-school super group Crosby, Stills & Nash.

Kyu

Alyx Dennison and Freya Aberkhout are the two passionate halves that make up the experimental pop group from Sydney known as Kyu. A few of us saw them perform at Ric’s in Brisbane last month during the Big Sound conference and they completely blew us away. I believe that vocals and drums are two of the most powerful methods of music making, so you can imagine my reaction when I saw this band. When you consider how long humans were making music before any electronic sounds were invented, there’s something fundamentally inspiring about singing and drumming. Their track ‘Pixiphony’ is one of the simplest but strongest arrangements on their debut record. Focusing on several prominent vocal motives, it is sonically rich and captivating, but never too indulgent.  The vocal lines are sung with the purest emotion and conviction.  I also take my hat off to the girls in Kyu for their ambidextrous talent of being able to play a bass drum, keyboard, floor tom and glock simultaneously while also singing. Go see them live. Take a hat. Then take it off to them. (Check their Facebook site for dates)

Charlie Mayfair were lucky enough to support Dan Parsons and his band on the Brisbane and Toowoomba shows of his ‘Firestarter’ album launch tour earlier this year and I can easily say it was the most fun we’ve ever had over the space of one weekend.  In saying that, Dan is not just a great guy, but an amazing musician and an even better songwriter. It’s always inspiring to play alongside musicians that genuinely enjoy what they do. So sure enough, in Toowoomba, Dan had us all up and dancing like wild heathens for inexplicable reasons in a city we had never visited before.  By the end of the set, one of our singers, Dave Di Marco, was on stage with a beer in one hand playing percussion on his chest with the other whilst the venue owner was breaking home-made tambourines over his head. The title track off his debut album, Firestarter should be held firmly responsible for such antics. This song was actually awarded ‘Best Pop Song’ at the Q Song songwriting awards this year which was completely well-deserved. Firestarter = killer pop song.

The most appealing thing about Crosby, Stills & Nash has always simply been their music.  They’ve never staged flashy, overproduced shows or relied on anything else but their talents to captivate an audience.  They basically write incredible songs and then sing them phenomenally. One song in particular is so awe-inspiring and honest that in 2 minutes and 40 seconds, it basically reminds me of why I play music. Helplessly Hoping was written by Stephen Stills and is a flawless example of a group achieving a unified vocal sound. There isn’t anything overly technical or unique about the structure of the song, but the melody is completely captivating and the lyrical content is marvelous. Check the chorus – “They are one person. They are two alone. They are three together. They are for each other.” This song inspires red wine drinking and star gazing.

Happy listening friends, hope you enjoy!
Charlie Mayfair

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