We warmed up we had lots of fun and we harmonized such that even we were amazed. It could have been scary, very scary! Don was there and one of the most scared, however by the time the workshop was done he and all of us had sang ourselves almost to exhaustion..

It was all great fun and we really need to thank the McCabes for their hospitality.  While we were being told about how hearing your own voice aids your singing, there was a suggestion to head off to the shower to experience the acoustical excellence of reflective reverberation on ones ability to tune the voice to fine harmony. Don quickly informed us that the shower was only room enough for TWO! Hmmmm.

If you have a chance to join a Cloudstreet workshop anywhere in the future, don’t be afraid (or terrified) it is a huge amount of fun with great tuition. Thanks John and Nicole.

Cloudstreet delivered as promised and had us thrilled to their unique style of singing. A non stop lineup of acts packed one of the best programmes we have had. Cloudstreet of course was the major attraction but they were strongly supported by local acts who all delivered a strong show.

Mark Tyson delivered an outstanding performance to an enthusiastic audience and was followed by a newcomer to the club. Sophie sang three of her own songs in a style that reminded me of the now very famous “Jewel”. I think we just might have had a small glimpse of a young lady who will go far in her singing and songwriting. Thank you Sophie, we hope to see you again soon.

Cloudstreet were a very polished and easy act to listen to. With a mix of styles the rich harmonies were a unique sound that left us hungry for more. They are well worth checking out if you see them in your area.
Click here for the Cloudstreet Website

San Tosha followed Cloudstreet and gave us more great music. I am continually amazed at the rich diversity of mucis we have in our local area. If not for my association with the Coowonga folk club, much of this great experience of hearing great local musicians who come here to entertain us would be missed. They are here performing the music they enjoy that we also enjoy.  Every performer I spoke to say they have the best time when they come to play at our events.

Regular club faces of Andy and Damo only had time for a very short bracket before we were entertained with the music of Red Street Reflex. This regae group had a heap of people up dancing until quite late.

Denis Harris was recognised for all the hard work he has put into the club as well as his regular participation in playing for us. Sadly he has had to resign as president, however he has assured us his interest in the club will be no less than ever. Than you Denis on all your hard work in the club.

The club has now one of the best PA systems around. This is due to the huge amount of hard work by a few members who have guided us in selection of gear for our system. If anyone has an interest in helping to setup and run this equipment, they are welcome to become involved.

A huge thankyou to all our volunteers who did all the hard work from making sure the loos were in order to packing up at the end. (This job takes well over an hour). Edwina, the mulled wine was reported to be one of the finest. Sadly I did not manage to have a sample. The catering was impressive and a wide selection was available. The cakes were delicious. ( I did try these) Of course everything else just added up to a fantastic night where everyone who attended will make all they tell who did not get here sad thay missed out.

Here are a bunch of photos in no particular order. If you want a larger copy just email us.

by Denis Harris

The RECORDING WEEKEND held at Yeppoon Little Theatre on the weekend of 26-27th June went very well, with a total of 13 local artists laying down original & traditional tracks for inclusion in CFC’s first CD. A big thanks to Recording Engineer Mike Connor, and to “Grant Man” Don McCabe, as well as to Conny and Damian for their efforts in making it happen.

Now for the Big Jobs of mixing & mastering, artwork & production which all have to be done before we can release CFC’s Showcase of the local Folk Scene! Big thanks too to all the artists who contributed, viz; Andy Redfearn, Biorhythms, Damian Clark, Jenny Brown, Maxine McCabe, Nick Harris, Noel Landry, Paddy Delalande, Paul Bambrick, Steve Butler, Tim McGrath, Conny Groen and even yours truly!

The video here is a tiny taste of what is in store when the CD is ready for members.

Photos by Rob Tait

The evening surpassed all our expectations. Starting around 5pm the dedicated folk club musos and supporters kept the old Walter Reid complex reverberating (Denis thought a little too much) until around 11:15 when the bad apple played out the las few numbers.

While it was our intention to perform 69 Dylan songs, one for each year of his life so far, somebody was so engrossed in the great vibes, they forgot to keep count. If anyone did keep count, we would be interested to know if we made the number.

All night there was the common statement, “I never knew that was a Bob song!” Certainly there were quite a few I was not aware were writtin by the Bob. Hardly surprising though when you consider that many of his songs were written for other famous stars.

If you missed the night, kick yourself now. All I can offer is to rub it in a little more with some photos from the night. There will be some videos soon.

Jammin with members from Aristocrat

Well Damo, what a fantastic weekend, immensly enjoyed by all who attended. An amazing melding of some of the best musicians we could ever hope to listen to. The sound via two wide field microphones was clear and natural, even at quite a distance. It sounded so good I reckon there is no reason not to seriously adopt this setup for future events like this one.

It was informal, come as you are, bring your own everything.  Around 30 club members and friends turned out for the Saturday night with some arriving early Friday to setup and make sure nobody claim jumped the booked sites.

The real fun started Saturday night when there was a non stop parade of excellent music. Around 10:00pm the solar green charged battery bank was disconnected from the PA and we all sat around the campfire and listened to pure acoustiic. It was good fun and everyone is looking forward to another similar event. I did hear a whisper that a couple of our members have an idea for a weekend not too far away, once again in Byfield.

Congratulations to Noel and Damo for organizing a memorable weekend. Also thanks to all the members who played for us for the night. Thanks to everyone who turned up to enjoy the night.

A special mention to Josh for the Chai. (He actually drowned his car and where a lesser man would have headed home, he was towed in with his trusty trailer). Josh, when they say you need to turn on your headlights to drive out of the potholes up there, they mean it. If they are filled with water, you need to check the depth before you drive through.

Very inexperienced guitarist (me) Rob decided to do daily practice at the breakfast. Not really sure how it all went but not getting told to shove of was pleasing. Maybe there is some hope for me yet. Who knows, another year I might be ready fora  “Come all Ye”.

As I get a little time there will be a few happy snaps from the event. There will also be a little bit of video. If its not here when you read this, drop back real soon. The first video from the weekend is ready for you viewing pleasure.

Wild World performed by the Club.

Sunday Morning Coming Down.

More Videos

Mama Don’t Allow

A little Jam Music.

Our version of the kookaburra song.

El Presidente' being a little "Laid Back"

Sundays SHOULD be lazy, laid back and above all else, enjoyed. The Coowonga Folk Club also reckon this should be so and for at least one hot Sunday afternoon in February we were all there to enjoy the day.

There was no shortage of excellent musicians willing to help out as there were plenty of visitors who hunkered down to the serious task of thirst quenching. It was definitely thirsty weather as anyone of the hundred or so visitors would readily agree.

Plenty of drinks and good music! What more could you possibly wish for, aside perhaps for an excellent gourmet hamburger. I found out recently this description  can be applied if you serve the burger “open” style. Thanks to the tireless efforts of the Boat club kitchen staff, everyone was well fed. By the way guys, I have a couple of suggestions for your hot dogs next time. I know

"Gourmet" Burger

tomato and mustard is the go, but you really need some chilli beans to make it more memorable. Nothing too hot (of course)

Anyone who did not manage to get to the event should be absolutely kicking themselves for missing out. One should race over to the calendar device right now and scratch on a hasty note for Bobfest.

Congratulations to the performers and everyone who turned up to make this a great day out in Rockhampton.

We are looking forward to the next event like this.

By the way, all youse’ who have admitted to me that they headed up to the club above the barrage, this is not where we had the party. Give yourselves a slap and remind your self where the Fitzroy Motor Boat clubhouse is. It is across the road from Quay Street and South Street intersection. For those of you who have GPS devices AND know how to use them, try the following co-ordinates. 23°23’3.25″S – 150°31’8.95″E

If you notice the picture gallery below, you can click on a photo to get a larger view. If youthen click again you should get an even larger picture. We have spared no expense and provide some bandwitdh frenzied 1024 x 768 images that you can use for all sorts of things. Just remember it’s only for personal use and any commercial use must be approved in writing. The club will accept donations for the use of.

I will never have the advantage of having started learning a musical instrument at an early age. It was always something I sort of felt was just too hard. Like almost everyone I had over the years picked up various instruments and had that feeling of being completely out of my depth.

Around 18 months ago a good mate loaned me a guitar so I could have a go. It sat on the top of a cupboard for quite a while gathering the very best dust on offer in Emu Park. I took it down a few times and promptly returned it to its perch to gather more dust. It was going nowhere.

Then one day I had another friend who played guitar over and we talked for quite a while about learning to play. Something sort of clicked and I decided to give it a serious go. Over the next couple of months my fingers hurt every day. Two of them were so numb I could hardly type on the computer. Various friends assured me it would pass quickly. They lied! At least as far as I was concerned anyway. It has been eight months and I am just getting over the sore fingers.

Dexterity had never been a problem to me with anything else I had done. I could do just about anything with my hands that I needed to do. Except hold down 3 puny strings at the same time on a guitar. It was very challenging and difficult. Not only did it hurt quite a bit but I could not get my fingers to spread where they needed to be.

Then a revelation, one should NOT grip the neck of the guitar with the thumb curled tightly around the back. The thumb should only brace the grip and mostly sit against the back. A lot of relearning and getting the grip right and I could at last reach across a couple of frets. Soon I had “D”, “A”, “G”, “A7″ working in a kind of fashion and was getting guitar like sounds. I practised every day and had not dared to attempt to work with a song. The guitar like sounds sounded a little more like guitar like sounds as time passed. I felt the as I practised each day the need to be able to get some chords right.

Eventually I typed a search with sore fingers into google. “Kristofferson guitar chords”, was greeted with dozens of sites that promised all sorts of his songs and the chords to play. It was all a bit strange to me and took a while before I realised what I was looking at.  One curious detail was that many songs seemed to need different chords to the ones I had been learning. Something called an F sharp minor (or something like that) written F#m (I think) was completely foreign.  The next stage of my learning was so steep, you could look up and get a strained neck. With a little help from my friends I eventually was armed with a few songs to start the next phase of my acoustic adventure.

One of the handiest things that was given to me was a sheet with a bunch of common open chords This was extremely useful for the first six months. I eventually gave it away to another learner and so far have not reprinted it.

Someone had told me the afore mentioned chords were possible to play many songs. This was probably correct if you played from the two main musical genres of “Country” and “Western”, but had not as much joy as I had hoped for the songs I wanted to play. I then learned an E minor and an A minor and a few doors opened. Eventually though, I had to bite the unpleasant “F” and “C” bullet so I could play a few more songs. There have been quite a few more chords along the way and I am told Barre chords open new doors. I discovered later that guitar players refer to the F chord as the effen F chord because it is hard for so many people to master.

No matter how hard I try I find it near impossible to hold down all the strings to make a barre. Maybe sometime soon that door will open.

The adventure continues every day. I practice at least 30 minutes unless a family emergency stands in the way. I may never be an exceptional guitarist or singer but I do enjoy the time I practice. When you pick up the guitar, open the practice book and start playing and singing, there is little else to occupy your thoughts for that time. It is probably as effective as many other stress relieving techniques such as yoga and tai chi.

A real surprise after a few months was the realisation that my memory was improving. I had heard of such an effect where people worked their mind with new tasks. I was not expecting this and it is a pleasant bonus. For now I will continue and see if I ever hit the “plateau” that I was once told I would eventually hit where there would seem to be no progress. It has not happened in the past eight months. There was this one day I really did not feel like practising, but that was just the one day and every other one I look forward to doing some practise.

If there is anyone out there reading this who feels they would like to learn an instrument, I would encourage you to have a go. You might even surprise yourself.

A little about myself. I am a computer technician who enjoys using and working with technology. I enjoy music and singing. I have an embarrassingly large collection of LED flash-lights, although many have been given away.  I have an interest in photography and own several digital cameras. Sustainable energy is an interest and my wife and I are working towards making our own home as sustainable as possible. Our grid connect solar system provides around 80% of the power we use at this time of the year. We have solar heated water and gas powered cooking. We use highly efficient cooking techniques that use up to 80% less energy. Our car is a Hyundai i39 diesel model that uses rather modest amounts of fuel. Around (6.3l/100K) I would like to get the vege garden up and running soon and wish I could invent self mowing lawn.

Copy from the front page… this content will be archived here after the event and subsequent article.

Bobfest 2010 A musical celebration of the songs of Bob Dylan 15 May at the Walter Reid Centre Rockhampton. 6pm to late.The Coowonga Folk Club will present a tribute to the music of Bob Dylan featuring 69 songs- one for every year of his Bob’s still rollin’ life. Come and celebrate Bob’s birthday and incredible songs with some of Central Queensland’s best musos on Saturday 15 May 6pm to late at the Walter Reid Centre Rockhampton. Yes  the greatest Rockhampton district music event, “Bobfest” will be held again this year.Don’t be like Lance, James, Kerry, Brad, Robbie and many more who are still hurting from kicking themselves because they missed out when the last event sold out. Watch out for the ticket sales notice soon. Bobfest 2010, celebrating songwriting and musican wonder Bob Dylan’s birthday featuring 69 of songs performed by 15 different local artists. The concert will be held Saturday 15th May at the Walter Reid Cultural Centre. Rockhamptom Region, Yeppoon, Cawarral, Coowonga, Emu Park, Central Queensland, Australia, au Participating bands and artists include (But not limited to) The Formations Band, Aristokatz, Damage with Care, Shaun Sinclair, Tangelwood, Rory and Patrick Kehoe, Paul Bambrick, Nebraska Red, Denis Harris and son, Bad Apple Band A bar and kitchen will be operating.

No experience necessary. Plenty of perks unlikely other than the eternal promise of Karma and the prospect of an Order of Australia at some point in the very distant future if you don’t defraud the club. Also current President Denis Harris is pretty-well past it, so if no one is willing to take over, we need at the very least someone to take on the role of Vice President and to act as understudy so they can take over when he loses interest completely; (as well of course to look after the club Vice…Bom! Bom!).

Contact El Presidente himself for further details and the psych testing kit.