The Channon Craft Market

Jimmy Willing & The Real Gone Hick-Ups have a brand new album out called Horse Operas. Jimmy and his band will be performing it at The Channon Markets 43rd Birthday Party starting 10am Sunday 13th of October. Special guest act is The Von Tramp Family Puppet Show who are no newcomers to The Channon having been regular performers all through the 90's.

A little bit about the new album:

Horse Operas

Our friends and fans have been calling out for this one for years now and finally it's here, the long awaited 2nd album from Jimmy Willing & The Real Gone Hick-Ups, Horse Operas.

Horse Operas was a term coined by silent movie star William S Hart to describe his acting career in Westerns. I freely admit to being seduced by old Hollywood on this album; the iconography, the costumes, the sets, the songs and the narratives we have plundered them all and brought them back to life creating not Spaghetti, but Kangaroo Westerns.

Hollywood however is not the only thing we have ransacked. Napoleon's love letters to Josephine, Delacroix's great canvas Liberty Leads The People, my own love life, folk music, and history itself have all been boiled down and distilled to create what I hope is an intoxicating recording, one that you will return to again and again.
This is a recording rich with narrative, it tells tales and stories. At times it's confronting and irreverent, at others sexy and violent; but I started out in show business playing punk rock, so what do you expect.

We have done our very best to reach perfection but perfection often comes at the expense of expression so we have put expression first.The recording itself was done almost entirely in live takes, that is we all played together in one room like Elvis in the 50s. We have made a few concessions here and there but at it's heart this is an old school recording.

The band is Blues archivist Davey Bob Ramsey on guitars: tattooed man Clancy Robinson on drums; Kyogle mill worker Nirvana Glassey on double bass; the lass from Nyngan Gleny Rae Virus on piano accordion and fiddle; circus acrobat Gareth Bjlaand on banjo; grease monkey Captain Freedom on harmonica (Autry and Rogers); and Bertie Page and Lotus Jones on vocals (Ginger's Can Can).

There was a huge amount of musical knowledge in the room so we decided to self produce with everyone involved providing input. As such the ideas were diverse and lots of different styles went into the mix including Cabaret, Circus, Country, Folk, Blues and of course Rock & Roll.
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Horse Operas was recorded by Patti Bom at The Music Farm Mullumbimby and mixed by her at Marley Studios, Byron Bay. Additional Mixing and mastering by Michael Worthington at Soundworthy Ballina.