Heidi Everett is an awesome performer so it was a great honor to get this review from her.  Enjoy.  Here it is:

“The gig – ‘Rock and Rebuild’ benefit concert for Victoria’s bushfire crisis, was organised and promoted by Kaine Marsh, head of Finbar Production.  The bands – A very eclectic yet thoroughly charismatic line up of artists who have some sort of connection with the towns affected by the fires. The location – Hurstbridge Oval, an iconic picture of pure Aussieness.

Tigger-dog and I had a visual introduction to Rock and Rebuild as the officially on-time Connex rolled into Hurstbridge station. A sun dried brick of a country oval transformed wonderfully into a fruitful orchard of stalls and country folk milling around a flat bed truck pumping out music with a whole lotta heart. As we lounged around in front of the stage, Donna and the Aspinauts sauntered into their first number and had the audience looking up from their snags to see what the hell had hit them front and centre between the eyes and ears.

A-ha! These were no ordinary folk songs to be kum-by-ya’d around the campfire, no way! As the guys in the Aspinauts band changed gear quicker than a red Ferrari, front-woman Donna kept apace brilliantly with her phonetically charged lyrics and mesmerizing hands shaping the melody like an artist at the easel. I watched, captivated like the crowd around me. Each song blurred deliciously into the next with Donna’s spoken word etching out the poetry of human condition, always so very eloquent and astutely connected to the song the band was about to launch into, such a poignant moment when Donna painted the scene of a blackened landscape, burnt by the very fires this benefit concert set to quell.

The set itself was just the right amount of time for Donna and the Aspinauts own musical genre to be smacked firmly into the hearts and minds of the audience. As a muso myself, I intuitively looked around to see the reaction of people who might not have had the chance to experience such a richly flavoured ensemble before, and as a muso, I can confidently say that The Aspinauts had the crowd in the rather elusive ‘palm of the hand’.

I’ve seen this band a few times now and I thoroughly recommend an audience with a Donna and the Aspinauts event if you are ever given the chance. I say event because they are so much more than just a band playing music, each of your five senses will be buzzing before the end of the first song, and by the end of the show, you’ll be definitely Aspi-fied.”

Heidi Everett

http://www.heidieverett.com.au/Home.html

   OK, so February got lost somewhere in the Victorian bushfires and their chaos and yes, my blog has been so quiet.  But, welcome to the March 2009 poetry challenge.  Who knows, any of you coming to see us at any of the upcoming gigs for Donna and The Aspinauts may actually see some of the poems performed, complete with gestural signing and characterisations.

But right now, you have 30 days to send in your poetry challenges for the March 09 poetry jam.  So off you go – feel free to send me a TITLE or THEME to write to in the comments section and in the next 30 days, you’ll find I’ve responded by posting a poem here addressing it.   Come on, give it a try. Read the rest of this entry »

  It’s a fact that whatever humans set about eating soon becomes depleted unless farmed.  So if your dandelions, thistles, onion weed, nettles, oxalis, fennel, lemon balm and burdock are driving you bonkers, why not go harvest them?  Read the rest of this entry »

THE BUTTERFLY CLUB
presents…Donna & The Aspinauts play at The Butterfly Club, Melbourne’s swanky home of camp kitsch, in an evening of irreverent avant-garde poetry and flamboyant musical surrealism with a satirical bent.

Dare to be there.

Wednesday 4th March 2009
8pm-9pm
Cost: $22

The Butterfly Club
204 Bank St, South Melbourne

For bookings, email: info@thebutterflyclub.com
other enquiries: phone (03)9690 2000

http://www.thebutterflyclub.com/

  Hi friends, colleagues and enthusiasts!

It’s Christmas and what a year! Read the rest of this entry »

  Writing a book, making cards, artworks, crafts, CDs, DVDs are all wonderful creative things to do if you can’t take work outside of the house and you can always start a free quality blog which you can use to showcase your work, even link it to an online payment facility to take payments.  But it’s hard to sell anything right now as people don’t have money and for many the future of their jobs is uncertain so they are understandably holding onto their money very tightly.

So what else can a stay at home parent, housebound or transport-limited person do?  Read the rest of this entry »

  We all get them, year after year….those PR ‘Christmas cards’ which remind us that a company is thinking of us (and their potential future capacity to profit from us).  Read the rest of this entry »

  In my 30s a good friend gave me a precious piece of paper with a sentence on it.  It was about the opportunity of change and that when we fight change the most likely gift is pain.  She died shortly after that and I remembered that sentence as I mourned that loss and celebrated her spiritual presence in the beliefs, philosophies and sisterhood she had shared with me. Read the rest of this entry »

  Having worked a lot with children with autism who display visual agnosias including object blindness and context blindness Read the rest of this entry »

  In a crumbling world economy, it won’t matter if you have 2000 online friends if you can’t leave your room, Read the rest of this entry »