Se press Release hd steve Kilbey (The Church) New Zealand tour July 07



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THE CHURCH have reshuffled again for The Reformation, a studio project by Steve Kilbey, Peter Koppes and Tim Powles. "We just started making a record for no apparent reason," Kilbey told WIRED last week, "a very improvised record, out of which has come these sort of weird structures. It's songs and tunes and words, but it's very spontaneous." The Church reunion concludes in Perth (at Planet) on September 29.HEADER singer Ian Freeman was expanding his empire last weekend, singing Ammonia's Ken Carter (with Dave Johnstone) on stage at 78s on Saturday and taking lead vocals on two Even songs at the Newport on Sunday. The band are getting similarly itchy feet, with a permanent move to Melbourne rumoured. Best catch their supports for The Church and/or Ash just in case.THE BREEDERS' Last Splash album was certified gold in Australia last week, having sold 35,000 units since September 1993. As the world waits for the overdue follow-up, Kelley Deal appears as ill-informed as the rest of us: "That's kinda Kim's band and I have no clue what she's got on tap for us," she told WIRED last week. "Maybe I've been replaced! I'm sure it would hurt my feelings 'cause I love my sister and I really like her music. But I'd get over it." Deal is aiming to bring her 6000 to next year's Big Day Out.


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Document twau000020011015ds9j004x9

SE News; Arts

HD The Church Keeps Its Faith Despite The Non-believers

BY John Mangan

WC 708 words

PD 14 August 1995

SN The Age

SC AGEE


PG 13

LA English

CY Copyright of John Fairfax Group Pty Ltd

LP


The Church is still adored by fans but shunned by the record industry. John Mangan gives band stalwart Marty Willson-Piper a fresh hearing.
NO SOONER HAD Abba, Adidas and John Travolta made the mid- '70s seem strangely sexy again than suddenly early-'80s icons such as Jimmy Barnes found they couldn't sell records to save themselves. The Church, that moody, often magnificent and occasionally pompous product of Australia's new wave, incredibly can't muster a record deal in today's dance and grunge-crazy music industry.

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Out of style they may be, but that hasn't stopped the band in its current slimmed-down acoustic format packing out gigs around the country so much so that they have hurried back to Melbourne as quickly as possible for an extra show tonight at the Continental in Prahran.
There was a time when the band's songs, such as Almost With You and When You Were Mine, and albums, such as The Blurred Crusade and Of Skins and Heart, were all the rage.
Now Marty Willson-Piper, who with Steve Kilbey makes up the current band roster, has had it up to here with fashion.
Even at 9.30 in the morning he's able to work up quite a lather about longevity. ``A band like the Church have been told they're irrelevant through about five or six fashions of music,'' he says intently. ``Time goes by and you realise it was the Spandau Ballets of the world that are irrelevant.
There's always been a what's-happening-now that just disappears.
'' Let's get one thing clear: Willson-Piper is not bitter. Peeved maybe, but not bitter. Why should he be? He has his own recording studio in Stockholm; Kilbey has his own studio here. Whenever they feel so inclined they can record whatever they like (without any pressure to include a hit single in the collection), and when they feel like getting out on the road the twosome is highly mobile.
Still, one mention of the vileness of the whole rock'n'roll industry is enough to get him going. ``Where are the rebellious bands today?'' he asks. ``Rock'n'roll isn't about going on TV and having a nice car.
``Then when something slips through the net like Nirvana did everyone goes crazy. All it took was one little silly group to completely freak out the whole music business. It just goes to show it's built on sand.
``Art is supposedly owned by youth,'' he continues. As soon as you get a bit of experience, so the theory goes, you become irrelevant, a victim of your own history. ``At least that's what they'd have us think.'' The ``they'' in this case is composed of the usual suspects the media and record companies.
``You have to understand that what you're dealing with is the contemporary, youth-orientated music business.'' But it doesn't explain why a former big earner like the Church can't strike a deal now. Could the industry bosses be scared off by the band's enigmatic, headstrong reputation? Willson-Piper concedes this has probably played its part.
``They know they can't make us do anything,'' he says. ``In the past we've acted like a law unto ourselves. But record companies have got to understand that there's a point where you've got to let your child go into the city by themselves.
If you don't do that, you end up with bands that are mumbling, drooling mothers' boys.'' There are plenty of bands out there that fit the mumbling, drooling description, Willson-Piper says, although he is far too discreet to name them. ``You know who you are,'' he says accusingly.
But don't get the idea Willson-Piper has an attitude problem.
``I'm not dissing the whole world. A lot of people like us.
There are record company people who would sign us up if they could. The most important thing for us is that we're able to continue doing it our own way.''
The Church is playing tonight at the Continental in Prahran.

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GCAT : Political/General News | GENT : Arts/Entertainment
AN

Document agee000020011024dr8e00iko


SE SHOW


HD The Church offers uneven program at Coach House // REVIEW: By the time its members hit the stage, the group was lucky it already had converts in the house.

BY MARK BROWN: The Orange County Register

WC 346 words

PD 6 February 1995

SN The Orange County Register

SC OCR


ED MORNING

PG F05


LA English

CY (c) 1995 Orange County Register. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights reserved.

LP

The Church has been left to live and die on the strength of its two biggest U.S. hits _ "Under the Milky Way" and "Reptile."


And so, delivered they were Saturday night, albeit "Milky Way" seemed dour and grudging, while the encore of "Reptile" at times burned.

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Toss in the band's more obscure material and you had a 90-minute set with as many highs as lows, as many artistic indulgences as shimmering moments.
Only singer/guitarist Steve Kilbey and guitarist Marty Willson-Piper are left of the quartet, and the two are in the midst of a low-rent acoustic U.S. tour.
The decision to hit the stage with just two 12-strings also contributed to the set's unevenness. The guitars sounded great in the songs that have simple finger-picking lines. But on the strum-along songs, the duo ripped their picks across all 24 strings, making for a shrill sound.
Only on "Ten Thousand Miles Away" did the full-on effect work well. And the use of guitar effects made Willson-Piper's howling guitar solo at the end of "Hotel Womb" truly rock.
Those moments of connection seemed too rare. With a bare stage save for microphones at each end, the duo rarely made eye contact with each other.
The Church's music is best _ and Kilbey most emotive _ when it is most direct, as in "My Little Problem."
In the encore, "Reptile" was rapturously greeted, but its hard-edged guitar and lush vocal treatments don't translate well to the acoustic setting.
"See Mr. Reviewer? A standing ovation!" Kilbey yelled at the end of the encore as fans hit their feet. It's a double-edged sword; there was nothing to get them on their feet for the previous 90 minutes.
The Church
Where: The Coach House, San Juan Capistrano
When: Saturday night

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GCAT : Political/General News | GENT : Arts/Entertainment
IPD

MUSIC Pop music


PUB

Freedom Communications, Inc


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Document ocr0000020011026dr26004pc


SE The Arts

HD Success still comes as a surprise IN PERSON / The story of Mae Moore and her album Bohemia, which became a hit almost two years after it was recorded, reveals much about the quirks of the Canadian music industry

BY CHRIS DAFOE

WC 947 words

PD 15 March 1994

SN The Globe and Mail

SC GLOB


PG C1; (ILLUS)

LA English

CY All material copyright Thomson Canada Limited or its licensors. All rights reserved.

LP


Vancouver
IF everything had gone according to plan, Mae Moore would be in a recording studio right now. After all, Bohemia, her second album for Sony Music, was recorded almost two years ago, an age in the product-hungry world of pop music.

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Fortunately for the Victoria-based singer/songwriter, things didn't go according to plan. As a result, instead of being ensconced in a stuffy recording studio, she is making a brief stop in Vancouver - she played the Starfish Room on the weekend - before heading out on the road again. After all, she's got a hit record to promote.
The story of Moore and the belated success of Bohemia reveals much about the quirks of the Canadian music industry. The album, produced by Steve Kilbey of the Australian band The Church, was released in Canada in the fall of 1992 to a warm critical reception. However, Canadian radio stations, expecting something similar to the conventional folk-pop of Moore's debut, Oceanview Motel, were befuddled by the swirling guitars and cool, talking-blues approach of Bohemia; some dismissed it as a rap record.
Last fall, the record was released in the United States. Without massive Canadian sales to back it up, nobody involved expected much to happen south of the border. But Bohemia arrived just as a new American radio format known as Triple A - Adult Album Alternative - was gaining favour. Triple A picked up Bohemia and turned it into a hit, landing Moore on the cover of Billboard magazine and sending her back out on the road.
"Nobody really knew what to expect when the record came out there," says Moore over breakfast at her Vancouver hotel. "It's been great because Bohemia really hadn't had much of a life - it sort of died a premature death in Canada."
As much as she's surprised by the success of her record, Moore is surprised that she can make a living from her music. While her father is a professional jazz musician, Moore didn't start playing until after the death of her mother when she was 16.
"I was painfully shy and couldn't express my feelings verbally, so I bought myself this crappy little guitar for $15 and went to my room," she says in a voice that barely rises above a whisper. "And I found it was this great friend. It's what saved me from turning to hard drugs or alcohol or running away. But even when I was playing with bands in Vancouver, I never thought I could do it for a living."
Moore discovered otherwise when she was asked by songwriter John Dexter to write lyrics for him. One of their songs, Heaven in Your Eyes, ended up on the Top Gun soundtrack and landed Moore her first royalty cheque.
She landed a record deal with Sony in 1989 and released her first album a year later. It wasn't until Bohemia, however, that Moore really came into her own.
"With the first record and feeling quite incompetent in the studio, I sat back and let the producers take control. The whole project was a bit of a struggle but it was a learning process," Moore says. "I don't feel as much a part of that record as I do Bohemia. There's a real vibe to Bohemia that takes you to a different space - it's like a cheap vacation."
That vibe, says Moore, comes largely from the circumstances under which the record was made. After her debut, Sony Publishing pushed Moore to try collaborating with other writers. After balking at working with hit songwriters such as Dan Hill and Eddie Schwartz, Kilbey was suggested as a last resort. On the surface, at least, it was an unlikely pairing. Moore's roots were in folk while Kilbey specialized in a swirling neo-psychedelia. She was used to the laid-back style of the West Coast; he, in her words, "danced with danger" on the streets and clubs of Sydney.
The two hit it off, however. Moore attributes the success of their collaboration to Kilbey's open-mindedness and her own sense of dislocation while writing and recording in Australia. "Being alone in a strange place, I was forced to rely on my instincts," she says. "There's something about the feeling of being slightly off-guard that comes from being in a strange place that makes you see everything in a different light. And Kilbey is the kind of producer who really gives you free range. It's important to me to explore new things with each record. With this next record I'm not interested in recreating Bohemia."
She won't have that opportunity for a while yet. While Moore says she has written the songs, she has yet to choose a producer; Gavin McKillop, who mixed Bohemia, is one possible candidate - and she's still got work to do to promote Bohemia, including tour dates in England and Australia.
Moore doesn't mind the delay in returning to the studio, but she says her record company is eager for a new album. "Sony Canada is getting a little antsy right about now," she says. "I don't know if this success has boosted my confidence, but it's bought me some time and it's bought me a bigger audience. It hasn't bought me a car yet, but who knows?"

NS


GCAT : Political/General News | GENT : Arts/Entertainment | NCAT : Content Types | NPAG : Page-One Story
IPD

pop music biography profiles Mae Moore


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Document glob000020011029dq3f009ji


SE News and Features

HD INSIDE THE CHURCH

BY BRETT THOMAS

WC 890 words

PD 29 May 1994

SN Sun Herald

SC SHD


PG 145

LA English

CY Copyright of John Fairfax Group Pty Ltd

LP


THEY'VE been preparing the funeral wreaths for The Church for a while now. Every time the band further scales down its operations or loses another member the obituaries on one of Australia's most intriguing rock bands are ready to roll off the presses.
Trouble is, nobody ever bothers to tell Steve Kilbey and Marty Wilson-Piper.

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Always the backbone of the quirky and at times irresistible sounds made by the band since 1981, the pair now is The Church. Together they have written, performed and produced the new Church album Sometime Anywhere and Kilbey insists that the band is a long way short of finished.
"They've been trying to write us off since Starfish came out," he said. "I don't think we should lie down and die when there is so much good music left in us. To me, 1994 is as much my era as 1981."
However, despite Kilbey's reassurances about the continued longevity of his band, it's unlikely there will be any major live performances of the new songs. In fact, you'll be lucky to see The Church play live again.
"I think it's impossible to reproduce these songs on stage," he said. "If I have my way there won't be a band and we won't try and play them live. These are studio creations and they have no other life."
The new album was recorded at Kilbey's home studio in Sydney a year ago, with Wilson-Piper flying in from his Stockholm home for a leisurely period of songwriting and recording.
The pair eschewed the usual system of getting in a big-name producer to oversee the recording in favour of doing it themselves. Kilbey said it proved so successful he'll never go back to the old ways.
"Because it was so long ago, I don't remember much of what happened but it was free, very loose, very undisciplined," he said. "We did everything ourselves - we broke all the rules.
"There was just me, Marty and a friend of ours - we took it really easy and there was no pressure on us at all. I don't think it's a system for everyone, some groups are undisciplined clowns that couldn't get anything done.
"Producers ruin us, they don't understand. Why do it again? I've been standing in the studio, singing a song, thinking, 'I don't ever want to sing this song again' and this guy is going to make me sing it over and over and over."
The songs on the album flow over the same sort of dreamy soundscapes that have defined the last few Church releases with Kilbey's lyrical concerns "just the usual - death, sex, drugs, children, spirits, the occult".
Kilbey admitted to an interest in the occult but over the last few years he has become more and more intrigued by Buddhism to the point now where "I am really involved in it".
"I just think a lot of people don't know how to cope with the world," he said.
"Christianity doesn't give you any choice, it just says: 'Here's Jesus, here's God, go forth and do it'.
"Buddhism is a natural science. If you see a beautiful woman going past, you can remind yourself of the 24 different bodily fluids she's made of so you don't feel tempted by lust."
In the same way that his lifestyle avoids the mainstream, Kilbey's music has always followed a similar course. Even though The Church have sold a lot of records over the years, Kilbey is quite content to stay out of the "music industry".
"I don't think we have ever been accepted by the mainstream and I don't want to be," he said. "I think it's the kiss of death. Imagine being the Cruel Sea and being suddenly embraced by the whole thing, getting those slaps of approval?"
Naturally, he despises award shows. "Rock and roll is the complete antithesis of stepping on a stage and accepting an award from some idiot.
"I did win an award but I didn't accept it; it's on a shelf gathering dust, although they're good to pull out and show gullible people."
In addition to his work with The Church, Kilbey has made a number of highly-acclaimed solo albums as well as a collaboration with ex-Go Between Grant McLennnan under the moniker of Jack Frost, a band described by the New York Times as "an Australian super group".
He also hires out his home studio to other artists and is involved in production work, most recently for that most underrated Australian talent, Stephen Cummings.
"I don't differentiate between musical projects," Kilbey said. "If you're doing something musical, you're doing something musical. I liked working on Cummings's album just as much as anything else."
However, Kilbey said it was unlikely that he would make any more solo albums.
"I don't know about that," he said. "I've got another Jack Frost record coming out but I don't know how much my solo albums would be different from The Church now. I think I'll just stick with The Church and doing collaborations."

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Document shd0000020011030dq5t002sp

SE News and Features

HD HENDRIX THE SUPERHERO

BY By BRETT THOMAS

WC 516 words

PD 5 June 1994

SN Sun Herald

SC SHD


PG 123

LA English

CY Copyright of John Fairfax Group Pty Ltd

LP


THEY'VE been a low-profile family for the past 25 years, but James Allen Hendrix and Janie Hendrix-Wright, father and sister of Jimi Hendrix, the late rock guitarist and composer, intend to make up for lost time. Next Sunday they are scheduled to appear at a New York tribute to Hendrix, who died in London in 1970 at age 27. Richie Havens, Buddy Miles and members of Pink Floyd are among those scheduled to perform. "Jimi would have loved it, I think," Ms Hendrix-Wright said. "We always felt the media wasn't fair to him. I wish they could have seen him as my brother. I'll always remember him dressed up like Batman, laughing and screaming and chasing me around our apartment."
PLAN SCRAPPED

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IN an act of almost unbelievable restraint, Nirvana's American record company has decided to scrap two planned band projects rather than go for quick profits following Kurt Cobain's suicide. The canned product included a new single off the In Utero album, Pennyroyal Tea, and a five-track EP that was due to be issued in conjunction with Nirvana's now aborted spot on the US Lollapalooza tour. An album and video documenting the band's appearance on MTV's Unplugged program was still under discussion but a record company exec said it was "too sensitive a time" to consider release. However, a home video chronicling Nirvana's history is still going ahead.
ON THE ROCKS
DESPITE his love of music and his consistent involvement in nurturing new talent, Church singer/bassist Steve Kilbey is nevertheless a reluctant subscriber to the popular theory that rock is dead. "It's really depressing,"he said. "It's like there's nowhere for anyone to play. There's no scene, no inter-reaction. I guess the venues are closing down because no-one wants to see live music." Kilbey, whose band is just about to release a new album, Sometime Anywhere, couldn't come up with a reason for why it was happening. "Why doesn't anyone go to square dances any more? That used to be popular too," he said. "I'd like to think (rock) can be revived but I don't think so.
CAMERA CAPERS
AUSTRALIA-bound outfit Morphine have been causing quite a stir with their rather bizarre mixture of blues/rock/jazz, a successful sound that has led to them touring extensively in the past year. Singer Mark Sandman told Glitterati the band had played some amazing shows - including an 11am slot on a Dutch festival featuring The Breeders, Soul Asylum and Bjork. "It was a surreal experience," he said. "It was cool, though - it was memorable. The whole thing was being filmed for Dutch TV and there were all these camera people scampering about the stage, dressed in black clothes and hoods. A couple of them were in big booms; you'd be singing and all of a sudden this ninja would drop out of the sky and be sitting right in front of you."

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Document shd0000020011030dq6500365

SE The Guide; Reviews

HD CUMMINGS HITS THE RIGHT CHORDS

BY JON CASIMIR

WC 918 words

PD 19 September 1994

SN Sydney Morning Herald

SC SMHH


PG 9

LA English

CY Copyright of John Fairfax Group Pty Ltd

LP


STEPHEN CUMMINGS Falling Swinger (Polydor 523355 2).
Excuse me while I go a bit overboard. Cutting to the chase, this is the best album Stephen Cummings has ever made. It's also the best local album of 1994. Falling Swinger is a drifting, dreamy travelogue, a collection of carefully realised, intoxicating visions.

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Produced by the Church's Steve Kilbey, it displays a revitalised, refocused and realigned Cummings, bursting with creativity (it may also be the best album Kilbey has ever made).
Cummings sounds more relaxed and confident than ever, his breathy, slightly husky tones caressing the work of a group of musicians which includes long-time collaborator Shane O'Mara, Grant McLennan, Chris Abrahams, Kilbey, Bill McDonald and Tim Powell.
The 13 tracks range from the crystalline simplicity of What Was There to Worry About, God Knows and 100 Different Ways to full production numbers such as The Big Room and Sliding Across a Blue Highway.
Very much an album of understatement and gradual revelation, it keeps everything pretty much at mid-tempo, which allows a consistency of tone that, thanks to the imaginative instrumentation and atmospheric effects, never becomes dull.
Almost every song functions on more than one level, with sonic subtexts and undercurrents waiting to be discovered on repeated listenings. And isn't it nice these days to find an album that isn't exhausted of interest within a week?
The real success of the venture is that, in presenting the songwriting and singing of Cummings in a new light, it has expanded his strengths rather than abandoned them.


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