Music:
Member Since: 3/31/2006
Band Website: cloudstreet.org
Band Members: Nicole Murray
Nicole is a full time musician and visual artist. Her long musical
and performing career has seen her in many different bands and ensembles
in Townsville, Melbourne and Brisbane, ranging from the exacting
combination of vocal and instrumental music which is Cloudstreet,
to pantomime and celtic concerts with Baldrick and the Cunning
Plans, anything from celtic to country with The Pirate Brides,
acapella harmonies with the award-winning Gritty Pearls,
and Drunk on the Moon; and irish pub rock with Rockin'
Molly and Hot Toddy. A multi-instrumentalist and vocalist,
she has concentrated on trad music, harmony work and songwriting.
She has run a festival choir in Townsville, taught a group of over-50s
to play tin whistle (for which they gave her rave reviews), and
participated in a Bulgarian choir for the Brisbane Festival.
Nicole plays flute, tin whistle and guitar and violin, and is an
accomplished writer of songs and flute tunes.
Nicole's musical journey started in Melbourne. As a child, she
remembers being alarmed by the highland piper playing in the New
Year with Scotland the Brave in her grandparents' house.
At four, she moved with her family to Townsville, where her early
days at school brought a more structured introduction to music.
She performed in amateur theatre productions and was introduced
to Irish whistle and tunes.
Encountering the music of the seminal Bushwackers at school,
she soon discovered the influences of Steeleye Span and Fairport
Convention. With friends in Townsville she performed with the
popular local band, Rock Wallaby.
Moving back to Melbourne to study art led her to the famous Normandy
Hotel sessions in Clifton Hill. Flung into the world of the all-night
kitchen session, she was inspired by the marvellous players of the
Melbourne folk scene.
Nicole returned to Townsville in 1994. There she was a founding
member of the Yabby Pump Quintet, the a-capella disco trio
(yes, really!) Echolalia and what was to become one of the
North's longest surviving bands, Rocking Molly. It was in
Townsville that she met John Thompson, through the long-running
folk club at the Sovereign Hotel.
In 1996, Nicole was invited to Brisbane to join Hot Toddy,
a folk-rock six-piece in residence at Dooley's. With characteristic
enthusiasm she also threw herself into the Brisbane music world
and several groups evolved, including Drunk on the Moon,
with a growing emphasis on vocal work..
Baldrick and the Cunning Plans (a band so cunning you could
pin a tail on it and call it a weasel) became one of her enduring
projects. Ranging from a three-piece to an eight-piece, and working
as a concert band, pantomime troupe, and irish session crowd, Baldrick
has featured at both the National and Woodford festivals in recent
years.
In 1997, John Thompson moved to Brisbane and Nicole and John began
to share their music in the duo which became Cloudstreet.
As well as regular festival appearances with Cloudstreet,
Nicole has sung at the Brisbane Festival 2000 in Legs on the
Wall's production of Homeland, as part of the Bulgarian
choir, with Mara! World Music Ensemble. More recently, she
has developed a schools music program with a female acapella trio
called The Gritty Pearls, exploring world music styles, and
performed with country/swing/folk fusion trio, The Pirate Brides.
John Thompson
John's earliest musical memories are of sing-alongs around the
family piano in the Brisbane suburb of Moorooka. As a result, a
disturbing number of music-hall favourites formed his early repertoire.
In 1975, John joined the St. Stephen's Cathedral Boys' Choir in
Brisbane. Singing with them for over six years, he developed a love
of harmony singing and unaccompanied vocals. After leaving both
the choir and school in 1981, John's life was relatively music-free
until he walked into the New Exchange Hotel one Saturday afternoon
in 1983 to find a traditional folk session in full swing. He stayed
on and has maintained his involvement in Brisbane sessions ever
since.
John's next musical move was into busking, with the madness of
Contraband in the Queen Street Mall. Away from the street,
John joined a second group, which quickly evolved into No Right
Turn. Their tight harmonies and political punch made them a
mainstays of the Brisbane folk scene. After No Right Turn,
John was a founding member of One Step Forward, developing
his trademark harmonies with Maree Robertson and Ann Bermingham.
In 1992, John's work as a barrister took him to Townsville where
he launched himself into the local folk scene. One Step Forward
continued to perform at festivals around Australia and in 1994 played
at the National Folk Festival in Canberra. John's unique
vocal style and strength earned him the inaugural Lis Johnson
Award for vocal excellence.
As well as singing with cloudstreet, John performs as a debater,
master of ceremonies, singer, songwriter, parodist, and all-round
nice guy. He was one of the judges at the inaugural cludge-mollying
competition at the Brisbane Medieval Fayre in 2005. He plays guitar,
English concertina and whistle. His remarkable vocal range provides
some enthralling listening in cloudstreet's arrangements.
His musical influences to date include the Tallis Singers, the
Dead Kennedys and hearing the drunk guy sing, "Show Me the
Way to Go Home" as he staggered up the street outside John's
boyhood home.
Since 2003, John has pursued music as his full-time occupation.
Influences: Steeleye Span, Fairport Convention, James Fagan and Nancy Kerr, The Young Tradition, The MacCalmans, ABBA, The Bushwhackers, Redgum, Rory McLeod, Alistair Hulett, The Vienna Boys Choir, Enda Kenny, Reynardine, Mary Black, Eric Bogle, Tom Waits, Bessie Smith, Kevin Crawford, Lunasa, Mike McGoldrick, Danny Spooner, Judy Small, Fred Small, Alan Scott, The Fagans, Kristina Olsen, Loreena Mckennitt, Afro-Celt Sound System, Tommy Peoples, Niamh Parsons, Riley Lee, The Flirtations, Red Pepper
Sounds Like:
Type of Label: None
