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“Inspired,†is how legendary guitarist Tim Gaze summed up the music he helped create for the Searching For Michael Peterson soundtrack. Tim understands inspiration more than your average musician. He began playing with Tamam Shud at only 16 years old and went on to help architect some of the country’s most inspired psych-rock, probably most famously as part of the soundtrack to legendary surf film Morning Of The Earth.
As for the Brown Birds From Windy Hill, the band of five Byron Bay area musicians may not have Tim’s chops, but they don’t do anything unless it’s inspired. They’re experienced enough to know better. Singer-songwriter Andrew Kidman has been exploring the underground of surfing and the music it inspires since the early ‘90s, when his revolutionary surf film Litmus foreshadowed what has become the soul surfing revival – a worldwide movement. Brown Birds From Windy Hill, also featuring renowned surfer Neal Purchase Jr, is the latest embodiment of Kidman’s evolving musical expression.
Inspired by each other, Gaze and the Brown Birds were further moved to pay homage to one of the greatest and most enigmatic surfers ever, Michael Peterson. With a brief from filmmaker Jolyon Hoff and with Mick Wordley manning the microphones and mixer, the team gathered to soundtrack the drama of Peterson’s extraordinary life, all reverential of the music and surfing of Peterson’s heyday of the mid-‘70s, but also hoping to deliver a current perspective on that golden era.
Recorded in one weekend, all live, the music somehow said more than the team could have hoped. Furious Sunnyboys/Saints-inspired punk rock, ebullient sunflared country trips, and sparse sombre sighs were summoned to one purpose. Respect and inspiration conspired to tell a story more eloquently than any words or pictures.
"Instead of re-using something that was made twenty years ago and making it look retro,†Tim Gaze concludes, “you're making it now, so you're actually making something modern. It's interesting, because you're also trying to reflect what happened then.
“That's what makes it a legitimate piece of work, because it was inspired. The moods are reflected in the music and inspired by that man's life, by his art, and that's what goes back into the music.â€
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