John Kennedy Releases Album ‘John Kennedy and The New Originals’

March 9, 2023

John Kennedy’s new album project started in late 2020. Kennedy and his band were going to record two albums – one of new originals and a second volume of the Raining Treasure Australian indie covers series. The project started with a bang with Murray Cook having open heart surgery. That was followed by the second round of COVID lockdowns, so the band focussed on the simpler of the two – the Raining Treasure album.

By mid 2022, the band got the ball rolling again on the new originals album. With four songs in the can from the earlier sessions, “all” Kennedy needed to do was write eight new songs and record them before the deadline of Christmas 2022. No pressure.

Eight new originals were needed in six months. It was going to go down to the wire and as they were approaching the deadline, recording engineer Geoff Lee at Zen Studios had a heart attack. This put him out of action for four weeks before he came back to the studio part time.

The band persevered and with the help of Geoff and mix engineer Rusty, working remotely in Tasmania, they managed to get the project over the line.

Kennedy leaves Australia in June 2023 to live for an extended period in Spain. The album is probably the best collection of his original songs he has ever worked on. With band mates Peter Timmerman on drums, guitarist Murray Cook and bassist Phil Hall who has come into his own with arrangement ideas, additional instrumentation and co-production, Kennedy is working with the best band he’s ever played with. He is also singing better than he’s ever done. His talent has shone through, the perseverance has paid off and with this album Kennedy leaves the Australian indie music scene on a high.

About John Kennedy

An enthusiastic young music journalist once described Sydney musician John Kennedy as a humble genius. Kennedy is neither a genius not particularly humble. He is the singer / songwriter of many classic Australian Indie songs that have found a place in the hearts of music lovers of a certain generation.

Kennedy started his music career in Brisbane with his first band JFK and the Cuban Crisis. A move to Sydney brought immediate independent success with his first release on Waterfront Records, the Careless Talk Costs Lives ep. It’s featured song ‘The Texan Thing’ became a JJJ radio hit. The band broke up in the mid-’80’s after the release of the prophetically titled ‘The End Of The Affair’ album and Kennedy went on to pursue a solo career with his band vehicle John Kennedy’s Love Gone Wrong. Numerous indie hits including ‘Miracle (in Marrickville)’, ‘King Street’ and ‘Big Country’ followed but commercial success remained elusive. In 1989, Kennedy chose to travel the world with his guitar living by the mantra: Have Songs, Will Travel.

After ten years of living, performing and recording in LA, Berlin, Hong Kong, Holland and London, Kennedy returned to Sydney in the 2000’s and formed John Kennedy’s 68 Comeback Special. With an ever-changing line up of musicians, he continued to release numerous albums before settling with a stable group of bandmates: original Love Gone Wrong drummer Peter Timmerman, ex-Red Wiggle Murray Cook on guitar and Phil Hall formerly of Sardine v, The Dropbears and The Lime Spiders on bass. With this new release, this line up has now morphed into John Kennedy And The New Originals.

The last five years have seen Kennedy busier than has he ever been with six album releases in six years. The release will be his last for the foreseeable future with Kennedy planning to leave Australia in June 2023 to live in Spain for an extended period.

Song Descriptions

Discover Me
This swinging and rocking single ‘Discover Me’ is full of life, fire and passion. An up-tempo tune that would give you no idea these guys have been recording since the 1990’s. Catchy backing vocals and guitar hooks and riffs – a power pop classic.

Girl Of My Dreams
An acoustic/electric start with some great backing vocals a la Roy Orbison, a very chilled out rhythm section and baking band slowly groove into this ballad. Some really tasteful guitar and vocal work on this one.

It’s Good To Be Here
A more up-tempo radio friendly power pop song that harkens back to his early work; hooks and riffs abound, think Hoodoo Gurus, The Church and Died Pretty. Classic indie rock from those days with a modern edge and production.

John Kennedy and The New Originals is out now 10th March 2023,
on Foghorn Records through MGM.

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Kalen Hogan Releases Single ‘Stoned and Cold’

February 17, 2023

A news report about a young missing person gave Kalen the inspiration for this track. The missing person was someone his own age and the weather that day was miserable. Kalen felt a connection to how the teen’s family’s thoughts would go to the worst-case scenario. Were they worrying and imagining their daughters fear? Was she lost and cold in some unknown location?

The track’s sound is filled with pensive sadness and regret. Unusually the song ends with a final verse, rather than a chorus, leaving the listener hanging just like the imagined family. ‘Stoned and Cold’ is Kalen’s third single release. His album is due for release in March.

An acoustic guitar and vocal starts this Jeff Buckley-esque tune, once the drums come in its a very easy smooth listen until the song builds to a fine falsetto bridge and verse outro.

Kalen Hogan is a 17 year old solo guitarist singer songwriter, living a very chilled out life an hour north of Sydney, near Wamberal Beach.

Influenced by his musical uncle, Kalen started out jamming on a ukulele as a toddler, before advancing to his first acoustic guitar in primary school. Now in high school, Kalen is composing songs and recently began recording tracks at Damien Gerard Studios, in Gosford.

Kalen’s has been performing regularly at local venues, showcasing the tracks he has been recording. He released two single late in 2022 and is working on an album scheduled for March 2023.

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Jessie-May K with Miguel Cullen-Green Releases Single ‘My Type’

February 17, 2023

Jessie-May K has never been one to follow the crowd, so it’s no surprise that conventional beauty standards hadn’t been implanted into their psyche, the same way they have affected the masses through media consumption and cliquish social paradigms.

My Type was inspired by the beauty Jessie sees in the unconventional and in support of the underdogs and nerdish types. They find themselves often discarded by society and labelled as unattractive and inadequate, when it comes to mankind’s idealisation of relationship partners and cultural paradigms.

The song was written in collaboration with Miguel Cullen-Green who is an excellent artist himself and a friend of Jessie’s. Although My Type is their first musical project together, Miguel is an actor as well as musician and has been featured in some of Jessie’s music videos.

Jessie-May K is a young Singer, Songwriter, Director, Actor & Artist. Most successful as an internet personality, Jessie has released 4 Singles (2018-2021) & a collection of episodic works that accompany a 5 track EP titled ‘Zone Out’ in 2020.

Originally trained in Musical Theatre, Jessie transferred to music when they were 16. As they had been writing songs with lyrics and melody since they were 5 years old they taught themselves guitar off YouTube to elevate their musical ambitions.

Jessie is passionate about social justice and activism, often releasing music about movements that are important to them, raising awareness and sharing donation links in the hopes it will make a difference. Jessie is Neurodivergent & was born with ASD, ADHD, OCD and developed PTSD as a result of their early hardships and extreme childhood trauma. Jessie believes that the world thrives on diversity and that benign individuality is something to be celebrated and not feared.

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Burger Legs Joe Releases Single ‘Just Like Heaven’

February 10, 2023

The Bizarre World of Burger Legs Joe

In a world where people strive for a deep, meaningful, multidimensional existence, Burger Legs Joe stands for none of that. As shallow as his 2D appearance, staggering through life on legs of burger, too witless to realise how witless he is.

The only child of Beefy Thighs Bill, and Betty Baguettes, they abandon their burger legged offspring at an early age outside a ‘specialist facility’, because “He just would not shut up!” Alas, thickness is a family trait, and after several weeks living in his pram in a McDonald’s car park, he became the poster boy of low res’ graphics, that for some reason, just won’t delete from your trash.

Adopted by the rich and famous, he studied music at a prestigious university, financed by his fancy benefactors. There he discovered his aptitude for breaking musical instruments, accidentally causing personal injury, and the spontaneous destruction of property. The University, low on playable instruments and high on medical pay outs, insisted Joe only use virtual instruments and graduated him early.

The avatar of an unidentified Music Producer, Burger Legs Joe is on a mission to restomod (restore and modernise) outstanding retro songs for your grooving pleasure. Treasuring the essence of what makes each track so fabulous, they are re-energized to a modern perspective; weaving rhythms and melodies in BLJ’s distinctive ear grabbing style, that lingers in your head, and puts beats in your feet.

Mesmerised by the voice of friend and vocalist Andi Bracken; together they have set out on a journey to blow the dust off some of the great songs of the past.

From bangers to ballads, and anything in between, Burger Legs Joe featuring Andi’s first restomod collection is The Love and Happiness Set Part 1, a quantum leap into reimagined retro joy. “We want to uplift our audience, so we naturally gravitate towards songs we love, that do that for us.”

And so from The Love and Happiness Set Part 1, we present our first release, Just Like Heaven, adapted from The Cure. We hope you enjoy.

About the Song

Just Like Heaven is one of our favourite retro classics, written by Robert Smith (The Cure) and originally released 1987. We love this song!

Actually, Andi snuck this song in. When he suggested it I said “Yea! I love that song”. It wasn’t until we were in production that I realised it’s actually the most upbeat song about screwing up your relationship that was ever written.

Rusty Pilling has created an absolute banger of a mix, and our arty, Lo-fi music video that brings Burger Legs Joe and Andi to life sets the whole thing off a treat.

We hope you enjoy listening, watching, and bopping around, as much as we have enjoyed producing Just Like Heaven.

This snappy up-tempo version of the classic Cure cover ticks all the boxes, including big keyboards and a compelling vocal track from ex-pat British singer now here in Oz. True to the original but with its own flavour, not to mention a stunning video to go with it.

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John Kennedy Releases Single ‘Discover Me’

February 9, 2023

This song was one of the first written and recorded for the John Kennedy And The New Originals album. Even with the fractured process of recording between Covid lockdowns, it established a strong theme that many of the songs on the album explore: Identity.

“Take a look at this facade, you pass it everyday.

The doors are locked, the windows blind,

It’s got nothing left to say.

It’s got a lot of stories if you look inside.

They could be dreams or nightmares,

Shameless love and pride.”

Most people present a façade to the world. And the world can also project a façade onto people. And once a façade has been established, it seems to be accepted and nobody needs to look or investigate further. We think we know a person based on this façade. But there is, of course, in many cases, an untold story behind it. The song says, Discover Me. But it is in fact a song for anybody that has ever been overlooked.

The band delivers a powerful performance on this recording giving it a driving, swinging rhythm with a punchy arrangement. Space had been left towards the end of the song for a two part solo, one was to be guitar and the other bass. Peter Timmerman put in a quirky drum fill between the two parts. As Phil Hall developed his bass solo, he was inspired and told guitarist Murray Cook that he needed both parts to fit the bass solo he’d developed. Yes, A BASS SOLO. The result takes Kennedy’s Urban and Western sound into new territory. With this song they are now moving close to the edge of Prog and Western.