Tag Archive: Recording Artist

Dawn Barrington > Recording Artist

NEW RELEASE “He’s My Brother”

December 13, 2021 4 Comments

It’s here my new release “He’s My Brother” recorded at Soundbaker studio by Rob Agostini. I am absolutely delighted with the results and you can download it from Bandcamp or stream it on spotify. Also please subscribe to my Youtube page.

It’s my first release since moving up to the big smoke last year. I have been a bit reticent about going through the recording process since moving to Perth because I wanted to find the right person for the job. I was spoilt in Denmark for 9 years where I had the privilege of working with Tony King and other amazing local musicians in my home studio. Al Smith from Bergerk studio would come down to Denmark WA for the weekend and we would spend the whole time recording, it was fluid, spontaneous and so much fun. When you step into the studio you need to be with people that you can trust with your creation. However, us creatives who fall into the category of musician and songwriters all have our own ideas about what we want to achieve and of course there is the ego to deal with too. I always found my time in the studio, supportive, inspiring and extremely productive so of course I wanted to find the same for my new work. I was fortunate to find Rob Agostini who is an incredible musician, technician and producer and all round nice guy who really does know how to listen.

We worked in the studio for  2 half days and here are the results:

“He’s My Brother” was written quite spontaneously, while spending time observing the daily suffering of one of the refugees who stayed with me for a short time. He was detained on Manus Island Papua New Guinea for 6 years and then medivaced here to Australia where he was locked up for a further 2 years in a hotel in Brisbane with 120 others. He came to stay with me to gain his feet and get some support to live in the world again. I was shocked at the suffering that he had personally experienced and at that he had witnessed, all in the hands of the Australian Government. The Government that I put faith in each day to live a “free” and “democratic life” and to do the right by us and others.  The grace and gratitude that he showed me was humbling and I felt compelled to document that experience hence the creation of “He’s My Brother” (Thank you Ahmad).

What’s Next?

What is next? Well I do have another single to release early next year and I am currently writing a grant to record an EP next year. Grants are a long process and it takes a huge amount of energy to find the right information to put forward. It’s kind of a creative process because you have to think outside the box and come up with creative ideas but it’s also very left brain, logical, sequential jumping through hoops kind of pull your hair out stuff to. It doesn’t seem fair that we have to go through such a process and I always think about those who maybe have an incredible amount of creativity and enthusiasm but just don’t have the grant writing acumen. Anyway I will do my best and let’s see what happens. I want to go back to Soundbaker studio and I have a couple of amazing musicians friends lined up to join me and some great ideas brewing so I will keep you posted on that.

Next Year!

Next year I am hoping to start touring again but I am not sure when but I will definitely keep you all posted. It might be later in the year but I might do a quick visit in the first quarter. It’s all dependent on whether or not I get the grant. If I don’t get it I will organise a tour earlier but if I do it will probably be later. I am so keen to get back over East to play music again but it’s all a bit difficult at the moment and almost impossible to plan anything so a little more patience is required.

I am keeping this update short and sweet this time so wishing you all an amazing seasonal break and lots of beautiful moments with family and friends and keep safe. See you in the NEW YEAR!

 

Activism, Airplay, Recording, Refugees, Song writing, Streaming, Videos

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Spring into September

September 7, 2021 0 Comments

My last update was at the beginning of July and I can’t believe two months have passed. It’s been a very busy few months but I couldn’t for the life of me tell you what I have actually done.

RECORDING

However, I did get some more recording booked in which was very exciting. The song I am recording is called “Pledge my soul” and I wrote it last year during lockdown. “Pledge my Soul” is a reflection of my experience with the refugees that I met on Manus Island and the ongoing fight for their freedom. David Hymans is an established singer songwriter in his own right and a dab-hand at recording too. He has a studio in his home very close to where I live and so far we have put down all the tracks except percussion which I still need to make a decision on. As soon as it is finished I will be keen to release it into the ether.

PERTH LIFE AS A MUSO

I have been living up in the big smoke for the past 12 months now and apart from doing my “Music Talks” events to raise awareness about  refugees and  few other gigs, I haven’t really established myself in the Perth music scene yet so that is my next mission. Although working with Jason and getting a duo started took up a significant chunk of my time last year and we were just starting to book gigs when Jason found work getting too demanding to continue.

I am keen to getting booking gigs now though and I am actively seeking other keen musos to work with. A duo or trio would be great so let’s see how that goes. I have to admit I have been having a few struggles with with taking the next step to out there again into the scene. It was relatively easy down in the Great Southern and touring over east made a big difference to. It’s always easier when you are on road travelling to different places with your music and going blindly. However, trying to establish yourself on your home ground is more of a challenge, or maybe it’s not and that’s just my experience. I do believe being a woman in a male dominated industry also has it’s holdbacks but I am not going to let that get the better of me and I have decided it’s time to pick myself up and get on with it.

JALAL AND “CROSS TO BEAR”

You may remember me talking about Jalal Mahamede in my last update. Jalal (refugee from Ahwaz, Iran) is still stuck in detention.  I have regular contact with him and we often discus different ways to raise awareness about the situation of the 71 men still detained by the Australian Government. A song that I played at every gig from 2016 and always dedicated to the refugees stuck on Manus and in Nauru is called “Cross to Bear”.  I spoke to Jalal and asked him permission to feature his artwork (story) in the video with that song. He agreed so below is the end result. Please check out the words in the middle during the solo, they are profound and written by Jalal.

WOMEN IN MUSIC 

I do have some other very exciting news but I have to wait a few weeks before I can reveal that. Once I get the OK from the industry body involved I will be able to share all the juicy info. However, I will give you a few clues. Australian Indepenent Recording Label (AIR) put out a call for applications of interest to women across the music industry sector to apply for an opportunity to be mentored. The mentor will be someone who is already established in their career in the music industry sector. I of course put an application and I have just found out who my mentor is going to be……so I promise I will do my next update very soon and let you all know who that is and what it means for me in my music career.

Activism, Gigs, Photos, Recording, Refugees, Song writing, Videos

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Keeping it cosy this winter

May 13, 2019 0 Comments

So it’s almost winter and I can’t believe that 2 months have just passed me! However, I certainly have enjoyed the break and I’ve actually had time to relax and do nothing somedays….which is always something or course.

I have still done a few of my usual gigs and my next performance is at the Denmark Festival then I will be playing at the Albany Boatshed Markets on Sunday July 7th and then it’s Townsville Festival again but I will talk more about that in my next update.

Denmark Festival is coming soon 31st May – 3 June 2019. This is when the whole of Denmark comes alive with music from all it’s venues.

It’s a great honour to be selected for the Denmark Festival of Voice and I always look forward to this weekend because I can throw my guitar over my shoulder and walk down the road to the venue.

There will be people from all across the world and Australia and the past few years have cemented this festival on the map of Australia. I will be playing on Saturday at 2pm and Sunday at 12 noon at Freehand Natural Wine. I will be facilitating a skype talk with refugee and award winning journalist and writer Behrouz Boochani at 12 noon too. Behrouz is still being detained on Manus Island with approx 500 other men in the most in humane conditions under the Australian government. It’s disgusting and I can’t believe they have been there almost 6 years.

It’s been quite a gruelling couple of months after my trip to Manus Island and getting deported didn’t help. I am still embroiled in this story as it continues to unfold and it will be a big part of my life until all of the refugees are free. You may ask me why get so involved and why put this pressure on yourself? For that I have no answer except for, ‘it is just something I have to do’ just like when I was extremely concerned about the environment and destruction of our planet for so many years in my teenage years and on through my 20s, 30s and 40s.

Although back then my work in activism was separate and on it’s own whereas now my music overlaps with my concerns for human rights, social justice and the planet we are all destroying at a rapid pace. So in effect the work is never done but I get a huge amount of satisfaction knowing that my art can participate in the solution to all these problems.

I do have a few other things happening behind the scenes and one of those is a small documentary in collaboration with 3 other artists; a poet (Renee Schipp), a textile artist (Ruth Halbert) and a film maker. Rob Castiglioni is the film maker and he has asked the three of us if he could make a short documentary about each of us and show how our lives and our art practice have been impacted by our work in the area of offshore detention.

Of course I jumped at the chance, any opportunity to be in front of a camera or microphone …… lol …..We have done a lot of filming and in the process we also made a music video for one of the songs that I wrote on Manus. I collaborated with one of the refugees there Kazem Kazemi who is a heavy metal fan and an amazing guitarist and musician for that matter. He wrote the melody and I wrote the words so we put the two together and came up with the song below. It’s called “We live and we die”. I wrote these words at 3am in the morning while on Manus. I had been visiting some very sick men at the local hospital in Lorengau which barely has the facilities to take care of the local population let alone an extra 600 refugees. The two men I saw were very sick and were both on hunger strike and had lost the will to live. I sang a few songs to them and one of the guys actually spoke on the 2nd and 3rd visit (he was probably sick of the singing lol) but he did sit up and we had lovely chat. His name is Qassim and he is still there now in the camp languishing and has no idea how much longer it will go on for.

Gigs, Recording, Song writing, Videos

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New Year ….. New Releases

January 14, 2019 0 Comments

We’re already half way through January of 2019 and what a great beginning to the year. I hope you all had a fantastic break and festive season and that it wasn’t too hard to get back into things again. I am having a bit of trouble getting going but I figured it was time to start the year with a blog post.

It was very quiet over the December/January break in my neck of the woods but I really enjoyed it. It gave me a chance to spend some time with friends and generally relax. My son is almost 17 and he’s quite indifferent to the whole fiasco but likes to have a few presents and some nice food which we did.

So what has been happening Musically?

Well I played at the Denmark Arts Markets on January 5th which is one of my favourite gigs because it’s just down the road and I reckon it must be one of the biggest market stages in the southern hemisphere. The sound is awesome and it carries all across the town. Sorry no photos to prove I was there though this time.

I also spent a lot of time listening to my new tracks which I will be releasing this year. We had to go through the process of listening to the tracks and checking to see if there were any final changes that needed to be done. I am very grateful to Tony King and Al Smith from Bergerk Studios for all their time and work into this project and also Luke Tulloch for his beautiful violin work. Three very professional and wonderful human beings who are always a delight to work with and so generous with their time.

New YouTube video uploaded

Back in September of last year I spent a day standing in for Ruth Halbert Textile Artist at her Exhibitions “Castaway” and “Witness” which was part of the Great Southern Art Trail. Rob Castiglione (Film maker) turned up to do some filming with Ruth but there was a mix up over dates and Rob suggested that he record me playing my song “Fly Free Little Bird”
instead.
It was a special moment because I wasn’t feeling my usual bubbly cheerful self and Rob was able to capture the essence of my mood and I was very excited about the results.

Fly Free Little Bird – Performed at the Sanctuary Denmark WA
Filmed by Rob Castiglione

So what’s happening over the next few months?

Well I have a few gigs lined up and the next one is at Gallery 152 in York WA and it is an evening of stories through song. Chris Gibbs is the person organising and he is a professional artist too so I am looking forward to meeting him and maybe even getting him to play some of my songs with me. I love these types of gigs because the audience are usually very attentive and I get to play in a line up with other great artists. I then have Albany Boatshed Markets gig before of take off on my 3 week trip overseas. I am also planning to go to Papua New Guinea to play music and even do a bit of teaching which I am really looking forwards to.

I’m almost ready to release my EP which will consist of 5 tracks. After much deliberation I have chosen a track to release first and it will be the title track of my EP and that track is “Can’t Let Go” . I am very excited about this one because we tried a different format in the studio. We worked on the vocals first and the music was created around the vocals and the vocal melody and I am sooooo happy with the results.

I think I have covered everything to date and I hope you all have an enjoyable next few months and see you all soon.

Gigs, Photos, Recording, Videos

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Townsville & NSW Tour of “Music from Manus” Documentary Screenings

September 27, 2018 0 Comments

Townsville was a Blast!

I had the best time in Townsville! It was warm, actually compared to Denmark it was really hot!! Townsville was much dryer than I expected and I’m not sure why I was expecting the tropics because it’s not that far north really.  Even though it was the middle of winter it was very dry and quite flat too to my surprise but quite a vibrant multicultural community which was fantastic to see and be a part of.  It was wonderful to meet Farvardin Daliri organiser of the Townsville Cultural Fest at long last and his son Erfin Daliri…they are both doing fantastic work in the areas of social cohesion and raising awareness of the important things in life…equality, justice and peace on earth.

I met some amazing people there including the lovely Anisa Nanduala who is activist/poet studying politics, she is only 19 years old but incredibly astute and aware.  She speaks really well and her poetry is very powerful.  Interestingly she had her performance just before mine and the man who was in charge of the engineering company heckled her….I was disgusted…he was an older guy and obviously did not approve of a young strong Ugandan woman speaking up for what she believed in….but she kept going regardless which in itself was powerful.  However, it was very disappointing to witness and I hope that he is in the minority.  All in all I met an incredible diverse group of people who come from all corners of this very round planet and they were smiling, dancing and generally having a great time. My favourite band Kallidad were there and it was wonderful to catch up with the Jace, Julz and Tom because I have missed them twice when they have been in Denmark WA (my home town).  I haven’t seen them play for at least a year so it was great to dance my socks off again.  Another highlight was to see Baker Boy, what an awesome band they are….they really do bring energy and fun to the stage.  Danzal Baker is fantastic with the audience, he really does know how to interact with them well. It just so turned out that they were staying in the same accommodation as me, so it doesn’t get much more exciting than that!!  I even got almost all of 2 seconds of time in this promo video….Folk n Roll!!!

NSW Documentary Screenings

After the Townsville Festival I hopped on a plane to Sydney and grabbed a car and drove up to Gosford for my first “Music from Manus” documentary screening that was being held at The Avoca Picture Theatre in Gosford.  It was a fantastic evening and Danni Habib did a great job of organising the event and I had the most amazing response to the documentary which really set me up for the rest of the tour. The format I used was that I first

introduced myself and talked a bit about how I got engaged in the whole issue and then I sang 2 songs and then we did the screening and then we had Q and A afterwards.  There were many great questions asked and the overwhelming response was that people were inspired to do more after the event.  It’s much more than I could have ever asked for. My whole purpose for going to Manus was to try to engage people in the issue and hope that they would be encouraged to do more.

The next day I drove up to Newcastle where I stayed with Amanda Perram, another great advocate for the refugees on Manus and Emma Comely joined us from Sydney.  It was our first meeting with Amanda who is a wealth of information when it comes to the recent years of lies and deceit coming from the Australian government. It really is great to at last meet with all these amazing women who are doing incredible work across Australia in supporting the refugees.

In Newcastle I met with Nikola Leka who organised the screening with Hunter Asylum Seeker Avocacy group and it was another great night with lots of new connections made and a fantastic response to the documentary itself.  I then drove down to Sydney the very next day where I stayed with Emma Comely for a couple of days.  That night was the Teachers for Refugees and Refugee Action Collective screening in Surry Hills which was a great location. That is where I met with Mark Goudkamp and also film director Ian Stevenson and a number of other advocates that I have been in contact with on facebook throughout this whole journey. Ian was very impressed with the documentary and he was very keen to talk about submitting it to SBS which we talked further about and he has now submitted it. So we are waiting for a reply and fingers crossed that something can come from that because that would be a much wider audience and a real chance to see more change in attitudes.

I had Thursday off then I drove down to Thirroul on Friday to meet with Patrick Harrison who was organising the screening there where we had a full house and very keen bunch of people.  I met a lovely lady Naomi Lai there too who is also an advocate and she sent her mum to the screening for the following in the Eurobodalla region. I stayed with Mairi Peterson in Shell Harbour which is  a lovely spot and it was wonderful to see Russell Hannah at the screening too. I have stayed with Mairi a few times now and I have talked about her before….she is this incredible woman who has been fighting for refugees for 20 years and I have a huge amount of admiration for her.  Once again in Thirroul we had a very attentive audience and I am just amazed each time at how everyone gets something different from the screening but the end result is everyone wants to do more which is brilliant.  I know I keep using the words amazing, brilliant, fantastic over and over but there is no other way to describe how much I love this work and the fact that it overlaps with my work as an artist (singer songwriter) is even more incredible because I can use the very essence that drives me to create social change in my own small way.

It was a three and a half hour drive down to the Eurobodalla region where I was staying with Marn and Peter Cole.  I think I got the presidential suite and I was totally spoilt and it was wonderful to meet and spend time with Marn and Peter too. We did the screening in Moyura and this was the last one so I was feeling a sense of relief that I had gotten through the 10 days.  I met more wonderful people from the Refugee Action Collective Eurobodalla who organised the event.

It was a five and a half hour drive back to Sydney the next day….it was beautiful drive and I was buzzing with adrenaline from the previous days and I was really happy to get back to Emma’s where we hung out for a few days and  I enjoyed a rest.  I flew back to Perth on the Tuesday and drove back down Denmark which is another 5 hours the same day so I was buggered once I got home.  It really has been an incredible journey and from here I am going to be spending some time recording and playing music and writing new songs and engaging more in my music.  So I will close for now but I’m going to write update in just a few days to report on the recording weekend that I had a few weeks ago and festivals and gigs that are coming my way. YEW FOLK N ROLE!!! LOVING IT!!!!

 

 

 

 

 

Gigs, Photos, Recording, Song writing, Videos

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