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By Rhys Lett

Current Musical Projects

As well as being excellent instructors, our teachers are all involved in various musical projects and performances. Click the band name links, watch the YouTube clips and see the amazing talents of teachers from the Eastern Suburbs School of Music.

Jason Fados – Guitar/Rock Band Workshop – Boronia

My band Stevie & The Sleepers are ready to record our debut album. We have spent the last couple of months sending our music out to producers. Hopefully we can find someone who likes our music and thinks they can make it 100 times better. It’s been a long time coming so I am pretty pumped to begin recording.

See Jason performing an acoustic version of the band song To The Sea below:

Alex Gooding – Drums – Boronia

I have several musical projects on the go. At the moment I’m doing most of my playing with Phoebe and the Night Creatures, a super fun cover band. I’m also doing original material with electro soul band Passerine, Dixieland-inspired pop band The Royal Jellies, and my very own hip hop outfit Kilamari. If you see those bands playing around town, come say hi to the drummer!

Watch the clip for the Passerine single Free Again below:

Heather Chapman – Piano/Singing – Carrum Downs

My current musical project is preparing arrangements for a contemporary Piano/vocal album. It’s music written from a healing season in my own life and I believe others will receive healing and peace from the music too. Another  album I record will be more full band arrangements with a pop/rock sound. I will be putting a web site together for my music later on.

Noel Tenny – Drums – Carrum Downs

The musical projects I have at the moment are quite varied. I am playing with country rock band Deep Creek Road. We have some big shows coming up including Broadbeach Festival & the famous Deni Ute Muster.  Also melodic rock band White Widdow who are about to start recording a new album and tour Europe in November. I also have upcoming shows with “The Oils “, a Midnight Oil tribute band and hard rock band Serpentine Sky.

See Noel playing with White Widdow in their video clip for the song Angel:

David Hartney – Guitar/Ukulele/Piano/Singing – Boronia

This year has been busy for me with my band Robot Child, my accapella group Voicebox, and my own writing and recording musical projects.

Robot Child has been working on a David Bowie based musical. 37 songs in total, to be performed from July 25th-August 6th at Nuworks theatre in St Kilda. We are excited to be playing a set at Fed Square on June 19th for the Refugee Council of Australia, also playing a set there will be fellow Melbourne born rockers ‘The Smith Street Band’. We’ve also been writing material for a new album that we hope to record and release by April next year. We also have a support slot with the band ‘Taste’ for their new album launch at The Corner Hotel in Richmond on July 16th. We will also be playing at the guitar show on August 7th. Find us on Facebook for more info.

My accapella vocal group Voicebox has entered the Waverly Music Eistedfod for August 22nd and will be competing in the open choir division. We have won in previous years and came second last year. We have more gigs coming up later in the year and we usually do a lot of Christmas gigs in December. We are also competing the AUSACA Accapella competition at Fed Square. Last year we competed and won ‘best comedy song’. Hopefully we win something this year. Find us on Facebook for more info.

I’ve been steadily writing songs for my own solo recording projects some of which I have planned to use in a book about a character who, among other things, writes songs. The songs will be written in the book and the book will have the songs in an accompanying album. Both of which are planned to be available in electronic format. I have about three other books in the pipe works that are philosophical sci-fi projects.

Here is David performing with his band Robot Child at the 2015 Walkley Awards. They are doing a cover of the Pink Floyd song Comfortably Numb:

Hayden Blaby – Guitar – Boronia

My current musical project that I’m focussing on is my trio called ‘Hayden Blaby Trio‘. So far we have made a promo, done two photo shoots and done our first official gig last week at Micawbers Tavern in Belgrave. Our aim is to get regular covers work at venues across Melbourne as well as write our own music and establish ourselves as an original act. We endeavour to play Tamworth Country Music festival in January next year and have enough original material to play a few sets of original songs. We are going for a country/Rock sound with a bit of a blues edge. Think Keith Urban meets Bryan Adams with some awesome blues based solos.

See Hayden’s trio performing in the clip below:

Daniel Lijnders – Bass/Guitar – Boronia

I have several current musical projects. I am the the bass player in Robot Child alongside ESSM tutors Dave Hartney and Dan Slater. We have two upcoming shows. See us at The Corner Hotel on Sat 16th July. Also performing a free show for Refugee Week at Federation Square on June 19th at 6pm. I play regularly Friday/Saturday around Melbourne at Young and Jacksons (Fri) and The Deck Bar (Frankston) with coverband Mamma Jam and every Sunday at the Temperance Hotel, Sth Yarra with the groovalicious “South Side Soul” from 7pm. I will also be a solo featured artists at the 2016 Melbourne Guitar Show at the Markbass Stand.

See Daniel performing at this event last year below.

Dan Slater – Drums – Boronia

I’m currently writing a bunch of music with Robot Child, alongside fellow ESSM teachers Dan Lijnders and Dave Hartney. I also work in tribute band called The Beatlez.  We look ridiculous but the songs are amazing to play.  In fact, learning 80+ songs for this band has probably been one of the most educational musical experiences I’ve had.

Sylvie Tang – Singing/Piano – Boronia

I’ll be playing a few sponsorship events for the Melbourne International Jazz Festival that is opening up this weekend, there are some amazing international musician like Snarky Puppy, the Wanye Shorter Quartet, Robert Glasper lined up for this year’s program which I highly recommend to check it out.

I’ll also be on exchange for two weeks to study at New York University participating in their Summer Intensive Jazz Improvisation Workshop learning from Gretchen Parlato which I am very excited about.