Mamapalooza 2007

Songwriting Society of AustraliaOn Saturday night 5 May Sydney hosted its second annual Mamapalooza event, the first being staged in May 2006. Mamapalooza is a worldwide event featured during the month of May and is the only cultural event of its kind featuring mom musicians, artists, authors, comics, dancers and filmmakers. The Mamapalooza Festival declares ‘May as Mothers Month’ creating positive, family friendly programming on stages throughout the world during the month of May annually. With an open door policy for mom performers and their families, these festivals celebrate creativity and diversity. The Sydney Mamapalooza concert event for 2007 was organised by Society member Vee Malnar and Rebecca Moore, and featured excellent artists; this year’s event was held at the Bailey Bar at the Clarence Hotel in Petersham. The diversity of talent at this event was incredible, the unifying factor was that most artists were mums who are out there doing what they love to do. There were solos, duos, and bands, including bands where the kids were on stage playing alongside their mums….now that was AWESOME!!!
Rebecca Moore is a past Society member and is an excellent singer-songwriter in her own right. A mother of an 8-year old boy, she often plays with a lead guitarist but tonight she was on solo. She has a distinctive style that blends a Celtic flavour within lyrically driven songs that combine drive, vulnerability, and pleasing melodies and turns of phrase. Rebecca is out there gigging a lot and doing well with her music, great work!
Karen Ann Waters was introduced by MC Edwina Blush as coming from Canberra, and with two young children she decided to go where her heart led her and that was Tamworth. Armed with a lovely small-bodied Blackwood Maton acoustic she performed a scintillating set of songs that that were of a lilting country style and delicate and sonorous in flavour. She was a fine guitarist and had great flat-picking skills. Some of her material was most reminiscent of early Joni Mitchell. All up a very satisfying set.
Tracey Trompf hosts the “Life Matters” program on Radio National. She was onstage with a band sans drums – her and the boys performed excellent rock’n’blues. Tracey’s voice was naturally suited to bluesy tones with that element of huskiness and soul – a bit of Renee Geyer influence there. Theirs was another great set that the audience really enjoyed.
The long-standing duo of My Hearts Dezire took the stage featuring Bruno Koenig on guitar supporting Pennie Lennon’s songs (piano). The duo are performing better than ever, with a awesome liquid ambience and fluidity surrounding the guitar interplay with the piano – this music is sensual, evocative, outstanding, sort of like a mixture of Kate Bush and the Church. A wonderful set from a wonderful duo!
Next up was Hiske who, on bass, got up on stage with a band, and what a great combo they were… the guitarist and drummer were both her teenage sons!!! And they were awesome, tight, and the boys were great musicians and really got into the spirit and musicality of their mum’s music. It was good strong underground Euro rock – now that’s one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen (what a great family!). Hiske finished her set with a couple of songs on acoustic guitar.

Ana Key & the Minority Group were next on stage – it was a large ensemble featuring Vee Malnar (songwriter) on lead vocals, Ann Brita Nilsson on keyboards, along with 2 accompanying guitarists Justin Brandis and Bernard Kelly, Ron Josephs on bass & Pavel Ovchinnikov on drums. They were awesome and rocked out heavily, it was loud and theatrical with terrific songs from Vee’s album F. ‘Rock Chikz’ was written for her short film of the same name – (see www.rockchikz.com), an impactful and strong start. Songs such as ‘Fucking my way to the top’ and ‘Pubic hair on the toilet seat’ were excellent post-punk style songs with great humour and well-written lyrics, and all well-crafted and memorable songs. Vee, without her acoustic guitar, was able to really rock out and act the songs as she sang them. The band were tight and loud and enjoyed every minute of it, brilliant!! Vee is off to New York to take part in the Mamapalooza festival there, good luck Vee!
Next up came a four-piece rock/indie/garage band from Newcastle, four girls, called Bitchcraft. Now, these girls appeared quite young, but they were good, really good…they had that spark that good bands have, synergy and vibrancy – and they were tight and performed well. I really enjoyed them and find them quite promising; the last song they did was hilarious, a diatribe against Paris Hilton. Keep at it Bitchcraft, there is something very good going on there.
Mayday were a three piece that played a darker, more metal style of rock than say Bitchcraft. Again, here was a band with mum on bass and her daughter on guitar and lead vocals. (I LOVE that sort of thing, it’s so cool!!!) They were excellent and tight and got a lot of people on the dance floor.
All up it was a terrific concert. The concept of Mamapalooza is brilliant – mums do rock, more than anyone else perhaps; this was a concert full of excellent performances, writing and musicianship – everyone had a great night. Check out the Mamapalooza website (www.mamapalooza.com) for more details about worldwide events, and stay tuned for 2008’s event!