Stone alone

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Amongst the instruments he plays on the album are various guitars, bass, keyboards, saxes, lead and backing vocals and percussion. For the technically-minded: Damon used a Mac laptop running ProTools using the Digidesign M-Box as a front-end, as well as the Aussie-made Rode NT1 mic, and an Octava pencil condenser mic.

But there are plenty of good musicians and producers about, and Damon with his years in the industry has no shortage of contacts or experience - the Body Motors have quite a few albums under their belt. So why do the album alone?

Damon explains: "The album is like an animal evolving in an isolated desert island. It is solely what it is, with no outside input. It doesn't have to conform to anything."

Stone writes as a way of expressing and recording his feelings and perceptions. "These songs are descriptions of emotions I've gone through. They have nothing to do with radio airplay formats or anything like that - just what I was going through." Stone doesn't always like everything he writes. "You have to write stacks of stuff to get to the gems. Some songs take five minutes, others take months of hard work. The cream rises to the top. My solo album is the best 11 tracks of about 30 that I have written."

Like many creative artists, Damon has had to develop strategies to capture the inspiration of the moment - and that moment is not always convenient. "I have a little dictaphone so I can record my ideas as soon as I get them, anywhere. Sometimes I'm half-asleep and I come up with an idea - I have to get up and record it right away. It has happened while I've been having sex!"

Stone believes that songs are a gift. "I'm there with a blank piece of paper then out of the sky it comes - splat! On to the piece of paper. My last solo album was called Theory of That - every song was about my theory of living and dying."

Damon's songs have changed as he has gotten older "You write about what you are thinking about. It is an age thing also. I first started writing about cars, girls and guitars. Now I'm writing about death, love and spirits!"

Stone feels that technology has completely transformed the possibilities for the recording musician. He was first really confronted with this when touring the Whitsundays in a party band. "I was on the beach, and I wanted to develop some beats for a gig. I put my laptop on bonnet of a car, connected it to the Internet via mobile, downloaded some drum loops, put them in my keyboard player's sampler, and we used them at that night's gig."

The cost of recording is also dramatically changed. "Studios used to be $1000 per day. Albums used to cost $20,000 - $30,000 for studio time alone. Now for an outlay of $2000 you can do everything with no time pressure," claims Stone.

Damon also loves the immediacy of digital recording gear. "I used to own tape multitracks. By the time you have everything together, you've lost your inspiration. My laptop setup is more user-friendly, good for capturing the moment. I'm much more interested in capturing the moment than recording quality per se."

Damon Stone has been playing professionally for 21 years. Apart from stage gear getting lighter, and gigs getting quieter, he's noticed that venues are getting smaller. "With a big barn you need it to be three quarters full to look busy. It's easier to get a vibe going in smaller rooms," he says. "In Melbourne in the early to mid-90s, there were 20 other bands getting gigs and hanging out together. Now we are a bit straighter than some of these underground indie bands. The people who used to come and see us are at home with their kids. At least we're getting paid more than we used to!"

Go to Damon Stone's solo album release on Wednesday 26th October at the Palace (Front Room) St Kilda. It should be a great gig: Damon's backing band reads like a who's who of top Australian sidemen, including: drummer Eric Chess (Body Motors, Bjorn Again), keyboardist Michael Caruana (Truth, Nicky Bomba), bassist Damian Boyd (Body Motors and Jimmy Hocking), and guitarist Danny Spencer (Barnesy and Richard Clapton).

An exclusive preview excerpt from Damon Stone's new album All This And More

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Merimbula welcomes all players

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Who of the initiators of this festival, however, would have forecast that the 25th Festival would attract over 150 bands?
The beauty of the liberal policy of attracting all genres and jazz has been that there are now seven venues in the town to serve up the whole feast of this broadly defined form of music. And a noticeable, and admirable, tendency of the committee has been to segregate the venues, so that particular genres were confined to one or two venues. This year modernists, such as those of us who prefer Keith Jarrett to Jelly Roll Morton, could bunker down at the lower end of the town, enjoying the lovely lakeside vista provided by the eponymous hotel and the new Sandbar.
Much good modern jazz was heard, aided by two superb pianos. The Sandbar in particular had a Yamaha grand that, frankly, would not have disgraced any concert hall.
Astonishingly some pianists chose to perform on their own electronic instruments, much to the chagrin of the organizers (and my annoyance). The group Band for life wasted the lovely pianist/singer Kay Carter by making her play an abominable electric piano. Fortunately in her own trio, with Arthur Oikler on bass and Ken Carter on drums, she played a real instrument beautifully while simultaneously enchanting us with lovely versions of lesser known songs.
The most striking feature of the modern jazz program was the outstanding performances of the younger players. Singer Colleen Spillane, who made her debut at the Festival, has recently come to live in the district and is a pupil of the great Tura Beach pianist Margie Fullerton.
With her own band, the Hawkesbury Jazz Club Ensemble, she was accompanied by pianist Peter Macdonald, for an up-tempo rendition of the Rogers and Hammerstein's Have you met Miss Jones. Even more impressive was Spillane's mastery of Portuguese on Jobim's masterly evocation of Brazil's largest city Rio De Janiro, Corsovado (Quiet Night). The program notes where somewhat confusing at this point - were there really two bassists called Clark? - anyway, the Clark I heard "walked" intelligently even if, like the rest of the band, he "cheated" in the brutal middle eight of Miss Jones by reading it!
Another favorite of mine was pianist Nicole Thorne. She drove the accomplished Sydneyside saxophonist Ken James (a founder member of Ten Part Invention) on the underplayed little masterpiece Three Little Words, with intelligent comping. On the other hand, she played with singer Andreas Amitis, one of the few male vocalists of the festival, in an extraordinary free colla voce version of the rarely-played All My Tomorrows. Andreas reminded me strongly of Kurt Elling, whose style requires the most complete rapport with a pianist.
Resplendent in her own territory, Margie Fullerton's versatility continued to astonish fellow pianists. To begin with, she demonstrated the art of introducing a number. This can perhaps only be fully appreciated by pianists who must to provide the tonality, tempo and mood of a piece in just a few introductory bars. Margie displayed in this the art that conceals art.
Fullerton also played while singing - a notoriously difficult challenge in the jazz genre. Finally, is there any other modern-day pianist in Australia who can handle ragtime as Margie does? On this occasion, she paid tribute to the recently-deceased Adelaide musician Dave Dallevicz with a masterly performance of his Russell Street Rag.
Fullerton's band, the Sapphire Allstars, was in stellar form. Trombonist Paul Bonnefin gave a melodious rendition of Cole Porter's haunting Every Time We Say Goodbye, with Graeme Steel (trumpet) and Gordon Benjamin (reeds) providing a perfectly textured backing.
Inasmuch as it is possible to christen a style in modern jazz, the black-chord hallmark of George Shearing could be said to be the most readily imitable pianistic technique. In effect, it breaks out of the hallowed tradition of "legitimate" harmonization by feeding on consecutive octaves - the lower and upper notes being paralleled by the left and right hands. Kelly's Vibrant Heroes kept this technique alive on their block-chord imitation of vibraphone and piano on two Hoagy Carmichael numbers The Nearness of You and One Morning in May. The band comprised the ubiquitous Margie Fullerton on piano, bassist Tony Fullerton, Betty Kelly on shaker, Bryan Kelly on drums, and Chris Ellis.
The Canberran performers were so well received that one suspects that a claque had been formed for the purpose. Singer Annalisa Kirwood and pianist Sally Greenway challenged the audience with the insoluble conundrum "what is jazz" with an original song that pushed the boundaries of the genre. Amongst its clever lyrics was the line "You hear more black notes on the piano after dark." Tall statuesque Kirwood made a suitably poignant lament out of that most angry demonstration of revenge Cry Me A River. Perhaps it would have sounded more vengeful with bass and drums for muscle.
Loose Juice, another small group, might have sounded better on Oliver Nelson's Stolen Moments had they used the real piano instead of their ersatz keyboard. And they may have done better to keep Rodgers and Hart's Falling in Love With Love in its original 3/4 metre. But When I Fall In Love received a sympathetic interpretation.
Tact prevents me from praising the perfect articulation of Arthur Pikler on bass, or the puckish drumming of Alan Richards, as they played in my own Neville Turner Trio, along with the mischievous Cheryl Kelly on vocals.
Our traditional finale for the concert, a nocturnal duet with Graeme Steel, because a trio as we were joined by the consummate Anita Harris on vocals. Inevitably, she sang In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning (apt not only for the timing but because it is the title track of her new CD) to bring the festival to a close.

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