Sinewy solo selection

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Having previously always given his music to other guitar players and musicians to put their spin on it, Davies found he had very clear ideas of how he wanted his own album to turn out. He relished the experience of being alone in his drum room, just “…working out what’s workin’ and what’s fittin’,” and of the solitary creative process, Davies says: “you start to get an idea of actually what you want, and you don’t need anyone else to bounce ideas off. I knew what I was after.”

Starting off with drums (grooves he loved but couldn’t find a home for in other bands), Davies then added guitars, percussion, some more drums; he sang and played harmonica -eventually he had played just about every instrument (except Hammond organ and piano), written every song bar one, and had enough material for an entire album. This became Muscle Drum Music - Volume One: Rhythm and Dance.
Well known for his inimitable playing as one half of ARIA award-winning duo Matt Walker and Ashley Davies, Ash has supplied the rhythms for some of Australia’s best recording artists, including Tex Perkins, Chris Wilson, Lisa Miller, and The Blackeyed Susans. His own band Mighty Servant collaborated with noted historian, Ian Jones, on the groundbreaking CD and live show Ned Kelly. Davies has also had his music featured on major Australian films Somersault and Australian Rules.

With Muscle Drum Music, Davies reveals himself as a multi-faceted musical artist; one of those rare musicians who writes his own songs, plays all his own instruments, and is talented enough to justify being called a ‘one-man band’. Don’t you just hate them?

On the first track Latino, Davies creates an airy introduction by gently finger-picking an acoustic guitar -the delicate melody setting the mood for a snare-led rhythm that owes as much to funky New Orleans jazz as it does to Latin America. With drums and guitar swirling away, Davies sets out on his first truly solo outing, which, like his duo work with Matt Walker, is often instrumentally sparse, yet full sounding and very musical.

The album’s only guest, Tim Neal, adds his signature Hammond organ to Latino, giving it a Booker T. & The MGs-type feel, and when Davies digs in on guitar and the second drum kit comes in with a big backbeat, the track really takes off.
On Get Thee Behind Me, Satan, the only cover on the album, Davies steps in to country blues terrain. In his own updated version of this old blues relic, Davies sings of the temptations of whiskey, women, and perhaps most significantly given the controversial new Industrial Relations laws, corrupt politicians promising workers a better life while encouraging them to abandon their unions. In two-part minor harmonies on lines like: “get thee behind me, Satan”, Davies emphatically resists temptation.

Conjuring up blue-collar passions and loyalties, he sings,“Travel on down the line”, and then well and truly takes off down the metaphorical highway to freedom in a big rig with: “I’m a union man, I’m gonna leave you behind”, as the drums beat out a driving four-on-the-floor groove. Get Thee Behind Me, Satan also sees Davies exorcising some serious harmonica demons.

The uncertainty of this particular track’s source is interesting to note while listening to it. After having discovered it reading How to Play Blues Guitar, Davies struggled to find its original author, despite using the necessary legal channels to register it as a cover song on his album.

“It was very unfortunate because I had to go to print and AMCOS Societies still didn’t have who wrote the song,” he recalls.

“They said: ‘we need to check it, because we’re getting a few titles here and a few people who had written the song [laughs].”

The song is believed to be written by folk legend Pete Seeger, along with two other people, despite conjecture. One thing is certain however, the good-versus-bad blues lyrics on Get Thee Behind Me, Satan are as pertinent today, if not more so, than ever before.

Grab Your Kittens and Dance sounds like ACDC meets dancehall jazz. The track is layered with rollicking drums played over two kits, conversing back-and-forth with a tap-dancing woodblock rhythm, and interspersed with Davies shouting the odd “hey!” Around a minute in to Grab Your Kittens comes a monstrous, funky, ACDC-esque guitar riff, thrown in with traditional Latin clave rhythms tapped out on cowbell. The track thunders along relentlessly, with manic percussion and colossal guitar bulldozing their way through three minutes, until a soaringly beautiful slide guitar melody comes in; one Matt Walker would be proud to call his own.

She Is In Your Dreams is a ballad that sees Davies taking up the brushes and playing a gentler role on drums. He extols the power within a simple drum groove and explains how he wanted something quieter on the record, hearing something “a bit Beatlesy” for this track. The track sees Davies showing relaxed restraint on vocals and is the only other track featuring Tim Neal (this time on piano).

Describing one aspect of a unique songwriting process, Davies excitedly explains seeking the perfect formula for the whole to equal the sum of its musical parts.
“It’s like mathematics a bit. It’s a bit weird but I love mathematics,” he says. “When you talk arrangement and, say, a guitar lick; when do you bring it in and how long do you bring it in for? When do you take it out? Do you go for four more or is that gonna be too long? I know it’s not mathematics but in some sense it is because you’re just talking in bars of four and stuff like that. But I love just sitting there trying to work it out -what actually is going to fit and what’s not.”

Davies seems to have gotten it right this time; working his way through varied musical styles, from Latin American to Blues, Rock, Country, he stretches the boundaries of his own music and that of the genres themselves, and not only using his signature drums but with guitars, harmonica and vocals. Now, with the first volume of Muscle Drum Music under his belt, Davies plans to put a band together to play the record live (and hopefully record his next two albums).
When asked how he wants Muscle Drum Music to affect people, he says: “I just want people to enjoy what I do, whether they’re gettin’ off on the drumming, whether they’re not listening to the lyrics and they’re dancin’ around the room, whether they’re listening to the lyrics and thinkin’: this is cool. This is nice. This makes me feel strong. It’s whatever. I want people to feel good. I just want people to dig it and to make them feel good in some way. Like I said, whether that’s musically, lyrically, or they love the drums or dig the harmonica, I don’t care.”

Muscle Drum Music – Volume One: Rhythm and Dance is out now on Ashley Davies’ own label, There’s Life Records.

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Brilliant Idea

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At this performance Australian vocal group The Idea of North comfortably reached this high water mark. An astonishing acheivement in itself; but the beauty of this group is that they not only conquer the heights of technical virtuosity but also plumb great emotional depths and… at the risk of over-stretching this spatial metaphor... easily encompass a repertoire of impressive breadth.

The concert was part of a tour to launch the group's new album The Gospel Project. Nowadays, the musical term "gospel" is often confusing. The original musical meaning (certain rhythms, chord progressions and vocal inflections typical of a type of spiritual vocal music created by African-Americans) still exists. "Gospel" is now often used, however, to describe any music (regardless of style) with a lyric content that refers to Christianity in any way. The Idea of North have embraced both meanings on their album, and further stretched the term by including songs whose lyric content is more generally "spiritual" than Christian.

Musically, the performance ranged from the traditional gospel of Down in the River to Pray through Curtis Mayfield's gospel rock classic People Get Ready to Van Morrison's Whenever God Shines His Light on Me. In every case the vocal arrangements were original, rich and flawlessly executed. All four members of the group compose and arrange, and all brilliantly. Tenor Nick Begbie's settings of a number of Michael Leunig's Prayers could perhaps best be described as contemporary classical compositions, and were an emotional highpoint of the evening. Selections from the album made up a major part of the evening but the group also delivered other pieces from their extensive repertoire. Their heavy jazz influence was made obvious on a number of occasions both by the rich jazz harmonies and by inventive, acrobatic and intensely musical vocal improvisations.

One of bass Andrew Piper's contributions was The Unfortunate Tale of a Country Chicken. This retelling of a familiar story was an entertainment feature not least for the banjo vocalisations. Another enjoyably light moment was a version of the Roy Orbison/Linda Ronstadt hit Blue Bayou with the words altered to tell the story of a lost hairpiece! It was a black toupee/with a hint of gray/that blew by you…

Best known as an a cappella group, The Idea of North were joined for some of this performance by piano, bass and drums. The fine instrumental trio complemented the vocal group well and their inclusion was a wise decision given the "punch" demanded by some of the material. Two spontaneous encores were demanded by an obviously impressed audience.

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