Greetings and salutations good people (translation: G’day Y’all)
This is the 1st installment of a series of blogs about the goings on in Australian music with Country roots. Now let me clarify that by saying that while I know a lot of folk out there know all about Keith Urban and I just want to reassure you that this will be the last time that particular name is mentioned! This is not about the “Mainstream “POP” Country ilk, this is about good honest music with the dirt left on, uncut diamonds in the rough!
I figure the best place to start is with The Flood; There’s something prematurely mythic about The Flood. Their name swirls with the gravity of the Old Testament and the everyday calamity of life on the land: a force of nature, and a story thick with sediments of truth and fable.
Rock’n’roll has its own tributary from this source, of course. Dylan, the Band, Creedence, Neil Young, Gram Parsons and John Prine drank from the stream that fuelled the Dingoes, Don Walker, Paul Kelly and the scores of waterholes between Sydney and Tamworth that nourished the Flood these past ten years.
This band, in turn, has carved its own legend. Nashville troubadour Kevin Welch said his brief stint out front was “like getting behind the wheel of a Formula One race car”.
“People who like our band are pretty loyal and hardnosed about it,” says Kevin Bennett. It’s a typically understated way of saying that The Flood strikes a chord in everyone who takes the time to open their ears.
http://www.theflood.com.au
