BIrdland

Gone To Gowings !Birdland 0.3 opening Saturday 4th July at 9am"Space is the place"The new address for Birdland is 909 / 45 Market Street, Sydney. We have a nice space upstairs in the fantastic old Gowings building on the corner on Market and George. The building is heritage listed and full of weird business' so we'll fit right in ! ! The entrance is about 50 mtrs from the corner on Market Street - next door, to the left if you are facing the building is the State Theatre. To your right is Supre. Go in the door, take one of the two lifts to the 9th floor and turn left.AN INTERVIEW WITH FOUNDER AND OWNER OF BIRDLAND RECORDS, KIERAN STAFFORDQ: Kieran, what was your original vision when you opened the Barrack st store way back in 1991?A: Well basically I wanted to stock the records I wanted to hear and most record stores were crap, and still are...Q: What sort of records did you want to hear?A: Anything that was interesting, Jazz, blues, soul, brazilian. People like John Scofield, Miles Davis, Allman Brothers, Bill Frisell, Joe Henderson, John Zorn - anything you couldn't buy here! And still can't in most shops !Q: Are you still stocking the records you want to hear?A: Yep. We're also making them! One of my favourites recently is the James Muller album "Kaboom". Muller is an incredible force in the Australian music scene - everyone from Ian Moss to James Morrison think highly of him. And John Scofield rates him !. I've played the album in the shop twice a day for months now and I'm still digging it. Must have played it over 500 times - he's that great a player that I hear new things every time I see him or hear the cd. If he lived in the Northern Hemisphere he'd be known by all and sundry. Our other cds include the Theak-Tet "Old School" (with Muller ), the Oynsemble Melbourne doing Coltranes' "Ascension" and a great new duo cd from Mike Nock and Dave Liebman called "Duologue".Q: So you're a record label as well as a walk in store?A: I've been working in the retail side of music for over 20 years, 15 of them at my own shop. We've survived the coming of the digital age, and the mass brainwashing of the public into buying "fashion based" music, and we've kept the shop door open. I got involved in the production side of things back in 1994. Our record label won an ARIA (Australian Record Industry Award - like a Grammy ) for best jazz album for our second release , "Fire" by Mark Simmonds Freeboppers. After some time lying dormant, The label has seen a ressurection recently, with albums from Theak-Tet, James Muller, Mike Nock, Blow, Judy Bailey, Jazzgroove Mothership Orchestra, Steve Hunter, Guy Strazz & Matt McMahon and the soundtrack to the movie "Solo". We got our second ARIA for "Best Jazz Album" for the recentt Mike Nock and Dave Liebman "Duologue"....So yeah we're a record label, and a web store as well as the store in Pitt st, where we have staff that know about music and can help you get what you want - That old fashioned thing called service. Plus you can come in and listen to live music for FREE at our in-store concerts. The revamped web site is attracting hits from all over the world and we are sending Australian music to Japan, Norway. the US etc.Q: So speaking of Genres what exactly are they?A: Well the shop name "Birdland" is taken from the famous jazz club in New York honouring the late Charlie Parker. So I guess that should give you some idea.. Basically any music that's played well by people with ideas and a bit of skill.We sell everything from early Robert Johnson, Jelly Roll Morton thru the evolution of jazz and its related musics (blues, soul, funk, rock) to bop, post bop, fusion and contemporary jazz (whatever that is) artists like Brad Mehldau, John Scofield, Keith Jarrett, Cassandra Wilson. I'm a big fan of the "jam bands" like Medeski, Allmans, Derek Trucks, and blues guys like John Mayall etc so all thats covered too. Growing up in the UK soul music was a big part of my life so we stock things like those fantastic Motown singles boxes that Hip-O release and all those great Rhino sets.We represent John Zorn's label "Tzadik" so that takes care of the experimental side of things and our world section has all sorts of stuff - lots of Brazilian, Cuban, African etc etc.Of course our most important section is the AUSTRALIAN section, we try and make sure we stock every single Australian jazz and blues record (as well as some other crossover stuff).Q: What's the future of Birdland Records?A: Keep on keeping on ! Doing what we do and trying to do it better each day. Adding content to the web site, opening the doors, making more records and hopefully selling them. Because music matters more than ever- it's not some disposable thing to us and never has been. It's one of the major food groups. Like wine !