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The Bearded Gypsy Band

Woodside, South Australia, Australia | SELF

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"RIP IT UP’S HOT SIX 2012"

Welcome to Rip It Up’s fifth annual Hot Six, where the Rip It Up Publishing team devote a cover story to highlighting the Adelaide acts set to make a play for national attention in 2012. Get out and check these kids out at a local venue soon before Pitchfork and SXSW steal them away from us!

The Bearded Gypsy Band
by Robert Dunstan
The Bearded Gypsy Band, who play a high energy mixture of Gypsy jazz and folk, have enjoyed much success since forming while at high school in the Adelaide hills a couple of years ago. The launch of their self-titled debut CD drew a capacity crowd and they have since played Adelaide Fringe and also toured interstate.
In fact, when we speak to bass player Kiah Gossner (who plays in the band alongside violinist and mandolin player Tom Boehm, guitarist Tom Kneebone and drummer Max Tulysewski), they were just about to board a train from Sydney to Wollongong to play the 27th Illawarra Folk Festival.
“Illawarra came about partly due to someone seeing us playing at Snowy Mountains Of Music Festival last year and then our hard-working manager, Jill Halliday, organised it all,” Gossner elaborates. “There was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing but we eventually got chosen.”
Playing Illawarra Folk Festival, alongside such acts as Pete Seeger’s half-sister Peggy, Heath Cullen & The 45, Quarry Mountain Dead Rats and Woohoo Revue, has also afforded the instrumental quartet the opportunity to play along the east coast.
“We got up to Newcastle and Maitland and a few other places,” Gossner says. “So it’s all been pretty good apart from one venue accidentally double booking us with another band. That was irritating but what can you do?”
The band are now looking forward to an exciting 2012 as they will be playing WOMADelaide, the world music festival which kicked off in this city the year Gossner was born, in March.
“We all go to WOMADelaide religiously – it’s one of the festivals we all go to each year – so it’s going to be great to play there.”
The band also hope to have a new EP available in time for WOMADelaide.
“Looking back, we’re not that happy with our debut,” Gossner admits. “It sounds really dated now because we now play so much better. So we are hopeful of putting out another full-length album by the end of the year but we’ve already written some songs for an EP. So we need to get into a studio and churn it out. It would be great to have it available for sale at WOMAD.”
Gossner goes on to say that the band, who will be taking part in the opening night of Adelaide Fringe Club in Rymill Pk on Sat Feb 25, plan to tour a lot this year.
“We want to play interstate as much as we can. We’ve already got a fair bit happening because I think we go interstate about five times before the end of April. Straight after WOMADelaide we head off to Melbourne to play Brunswick Music Festival and then we’ll be playing the National Folk Festival in Canberra at the beginning of April. That’s got an amazing line-up. And then at the end of April, we head interstate again to play Apollo Bay Music Festival.
“And Apollo Bay has a great slogan that says, ‘Stuff the headliners, it’s all about the music’,” Gossner says of the boutique seaside festival, which will be celebrating its 20th anniversary this year.
WHO: The Bearded Gypsy Band
WHERE: WOMADelaide
WHEN: Fri Mar 9 until Mon Mar 12 - RIP IT UP

"Respect and activism – music’s power unleashed at WOMADelaide"

Posted on March 12, 2012 by Brian
....
WOMADelaide organizers bravely selected youthful sensations The Bearded Gypsy Band. They repaid that trust handsomely with an astonishingly vituoso set for an ecstatic crowd. Their prodigious skills produced a finessed performance that musicians with fifty years experience could well envy. Best of all they’re enthusing a new switched-on audience with their next-generation take on Reinhardt and the joys of gypsy jazz. - New Internationalist Blog - Fair Trade and social justice news

"A Date with the Bearded Gypsies"

Posted on October 10, 2011 by unpaved
Bearded Gypsy Band
The Espy Front Bar, Monday 3 October
Reviewed by Madeleine O’Gorman

There is absolutely nothing better than being blown away by a band that, until that night, you had heard virtually nothing about. Indeed, I’m still reeling from Adelaide group Bearded Gypsy Band’s performance at the Espy Front Bar, and have been singing their praises ever since (ironically, as they’re an instrumental act). Don’t let the absence of vocals deter you though. The synergy of co-instrumentalists exudes enough finesse to convince even the most skeptical.

The group comprises of a bassist, guitarist, drummer and a violinist, who stands in the place of the lead singer on stage. All four fellas look like they have barely hit puberty, yet ooze musical brilliance way beyond their years. What’s even better is the fact that each musician is remarkable (and highly trained) in his own right. The guitarist (the maestro of the group) fingerpicks his way to glory through Hungarian Holiday, an upbeat country tune, while the Spanish influenced Alaskan Whaler allows the melodic violin to carry the song. The bass player gave a masterly performance which looked effortless, while the drummer experiments with beats beyond the conventional, performing the wonders of jazz, classical and rock all in the one set.

Their ability to modernise classical music makes their sound distinctive and fresh in the current music market. Jazzing-up the traditional music genre (literally) definitely makes up for the lack of lyrics and chants to sing along to during the set. I was so enthralled by this performance that I paid no attention to how long the set had gone for. Instead, I alternated between dancing and nudging my partner beside me, repeating the word ‘phenomenal’ (as I was later reminded). The rhythmic display provided a new glimpse into instrumental music and was a visionary and inspiring spectacle, to say the least. You’ll find me front row and centre at their next Melbourne show.
- Unpaved.com.au

"The Bearded Gypsy Band - you heard them here first!"

There’s only one beard among them but the young musicians in “The Bearded Gypsy Band’ belie a maturity beyond their years.
Playing a fusion of gypsy, Celtic, jazz and roots, it is clear that these young men are musical and talented.

Kiah, Tom, Max and Tom met at Heathfield High, a school they credit as having a great music program.
While two are now studying music at the Elder Conservatorium and the third is doing a degree in Geo Science, the fourth one is still at the school.
The band is making waves with their performances around town.

“We never expected it go further than playing local cafes but now we’re playing at festivals”, says one.
To hear a sample of their brilliance, listen to “Hungarian Holiday” – a song the band themselves composed.

Download the audio file
It is music to make you weep with feeling.

See them now while you still can – this band is destined for big things
They are playing the Wheatsheaf Hotel, Thebarton, 4pm this Sunday. - 891 ABC Adelaide

"6 ON THE ST: THE BEARDED GYPSY BAND"

06.08.10
It's been a busy year for The Bearded Gypsy Band. They've played a special showcase as part of the Adelaide Fringe, tagged along to the Human Rights Arts & Music Festival and more recently supported the likes of Vardos, The Snowdroppers and The Woohoo Revue. They're a bit quirky, a bit left-of-centre, but we like that in a band. Here they are, on a boat, chatting to 6 On The St.

Comments left online:
From Facey McStubblington 7.30pm 06.08.10
Great music!

From pigsy 3.23pm 06.08.10
great talent these kids are awesome

From Calvin Broadus 1.24pm 06.08.10
Where have these guys been hiding? I've not heard of them but they sound interesting. I like the treatment and lovely pastoral vibe of this vid too!

From Lucy 1.14pm 06.08.10
These guys are flipping amazing. See them a few times live....awesome stuff! Great combination of instruments, creating epic tunes. - Rip It Up

"Hungarian Holiday"

rating: 5/5
you guys are awesome, great music, i organised the make poverty history gig last year, excellent performance. - Griffco

"World Beard Day @ The Governor"

"On a day when even the manliest men might have turned for shelter from the fierce weather without seeming faint-hearted, The Bearded Gypsy Band brought the Gov alive and banished the cold, welcoming the steady trickle of bedraggled punters into an atmospheric gypsy-jazz blend of sunlit emotion. Intricately played guitar complemented the moody violin, which before long brought several up-front fans into a feverish dance and set even the more inhibited crowd nodding along. Purely instrumental (save the occasional rolled ‘rumba’ from the crowd), the bashful talent of these young musicians is a delight to witness.
From the talented and danceable Bearded Gypsy Band to the bizarre and mesmerising Adam Page, I was with the majority of the crowd in having a wonderfully hairy night in the company of diverse but consistently cheerful music." - FasterLouder - 'Australia's leading independent live music hub'

"Bearded Gypsy Band"

(The Bearded Gypsy Band)..."If you have seen them before then you know what a significant talent they are .. If you haven't seen them before then be prepared to weep at how relatively little you have achieved in your own life." Stanley Bridge Hotel manager. - Stanley Bridge Tavern