Band Photos 11 Jan. Unanderra Hotel Show – Illawarra Jazz Club

The band and I were hugely thrilled to be invited back to play the songs of the 1920s and 1930s for the Illawarra Jazz Club.

The Illawarra Jazz Club has jazz bands playing every Saturday 3-6pm at the Unanderra Hotel and always to a friendly and enthusiastic audience.

Even fluro-vested drinkers in the main bar got into the music, drifting into the bistro where the band was playing to have a little bop around, especially when the band played The Charleston.

Greg Poppleton, Australia’s only authentic 1920s-30s singer at the Unanderra Hotel, with some of the wonderful audience.

In the Greg Poppleton band for the Saturday 11 January show were, from left-to-right in the photo below,
Damon Poppleton – alto sax
Adam Barnard – washboard
Richelle Booth – baritone sax & clarinet
Paul Baker – banjo

Greg Poppleton plays
– Penrith RSL, Sat 18 Jan, 2-5pm, free.
In the band: Greg Poppleton 1920s-30s vocals, Grahame Conlon g,bj, Dave Clayton double bass, Damon Poppleton alto sax.

– Sydney Festival ‘The Rivoli’, Wed 22 Jan – Sat 25 Jan 8pm. TICKETS
In the band: Greg Poppleton 1920s-30s vocals, Grahame Conlon g,bj, Cazzbo Johns sousaphone.

– Great Art Deco Ball, Blue Mountains 1920s Festival, Sat 1 Feb 7:30pm TICKETS

Greg Poppleton band at Unanderra Hotel: Damon Poppleton alto sax, Adam Barnard washboard, Richelle Booth bari sax and clarinet, Paul Baker banjo.

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With A Name Like Poppleton I Must Pop

As Australia’s only authentic 1920s – 30s singer, I put on a show, interact with the audience, constantly improvise, spontaneously take risks.

How can I have a name like Poppleton if I don’t Pop!

Look at the band’s 12 January 2019 Unanderra Hotel show (full house) for the Illawarra Jazz Club.

What’s going on in this photo?

I’d just sung the first chorus of Singing in the Bathtub in the 2nd set of my Greg Poppleton 1920s-30s show on stage at the Unanderra Hotel.

Then I jumped off stage and told the audience, “Everyone sounds good when they sing in the the bathroom. I will now demonstrate.”

So I walked through the audience as the band played on and went to the Gents.

Shelley Rae King, former Illawarra Jazz Club president, raced in to take snaps as I sang the second chorus from the public toilet using the full tiled amplifying bathroom reverb only a 1920s megaphone in a throne room can give.

Meanwhile, the band’s still playing on stage.

And the audience is having a great time – being surprised and entertained.

They’re being entertained by a singer whose voice can fill a 150 people room, off stage from a toilet, with only a megaphone, while a sousaphone, alto sax, banjo and washboard swing on stage without missing a beat.

It’s all sounding so good a swing dance couple join me in the toilet – dancing to the music…

One-by-one the band spontaneously walk off stage, still playing as I sing, to join me in the big porcelain echo chamber.

First Adam Barnard taps in on the washboard. Grahame Conlon strums along on the banjo (which weighs a ton). Damon Poppleton wails in playing alto sax. It gets a bit crowded when Geoff Power on sousaphone joins in…

Who’d would expect that would happen from a 1920s – 30s singer and band. Here’s a photo taken on stage by one of the audience of Damon, Geoff on cornet and myself a couple of minutes before the first set.

Below, Damon takes his last solo as a 15 year old, with Geoff Power on sousaphone and Grahame Conlon, banjo…

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As I sang off the top of my head at Unanderra:-

“It don’t mean a thing if you ain’t got that Pop CD, 20 bucks, 20 bucks, 20 bucks, 20 bucks.” (Only $12 CD / $7 download on Bandcamp)

Band Website

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Singing 1920s Songs on Vintage Trains

After entertaining passengers on vintage train trips in February, Greg Poppleton was invited back to entertain on the ‘The Hydro Express’ and ‘The Highlander’.

Greg sang the songs of the 1920s and joked with passengers on the vintage trains with Paul Baker, banjo, on the Hydro Express, and then the next day with Grahame Conlon, guitar, on The Highlander.

Greg Poppleton 1920s singer and Paul Baker banjo in the Guards Van of The Hydro Express

The Observation car of the Hydro Express waiting at Sydney’s Country Train Terminal

The Hydro Express heritage train ran from Sydney to Medlow Bath for High Tea at the historic Hydro Majestic Hotel. Guests traveled in their choice of three classes – Standard, Premier or Lounge.

The Highland climbing the Illawarra Escarpment

Greg Poppleton and Grahame Conlon on The Highlander

The view of Stanwell Park beach from the train

The Highlander ran from Sydney via Unanderra (where Greg will be singing, 12 January) to Robertson and then Moss Vale. It traveled up the Illawarra Escarpment through temperate rainforest and with views over lake Illawarra and the Tasman Sea. Many guests alighted at Robertson for High Tea at Ranelagh House.

Enquire now to have Greg Poppleton at your event

Yes We Have No Bananas – Country Version

Why is the focus on cows in this clip about bananas?

 

That’s a good question. Particularly since cows aren’t mentioned in the song.

THE STORY IS THIS

I took the film you see in the clip while walking between the towns of Kiama and Gerringong in New South Wales.

I saw this small herd sheltering from the hot sun under some small trees in the green, green grass.

I perched my pocket camera on the thickest branch of a bush and filmed them. It was a little bit breezy, so the branch swayed, hence the unsteady clip.

These cows look so contented!

ALBUM

Six months later, when I released this song in the album Back In Your Own Backyard, I chose the film to accompany this upbeat version of ‘Yes, I Have No Bananas’ because of the tension between the fast tempo of the song and the laid-back ‘tempo’ of the cows.

I also like that, to my not pitch-prefect ears, that where I placed the moos the cows make in the beginning of the mix, the note seems to be close to the same note as the banjo makes, just a bit flat and an octave down.

The song is in Bb. The cow is mooing in B very b

BAND

Greg Poppleton – 1920s vocals
Geoff Power – sousaphone, trumpet and trombone
Paul Furniss – alto sax and clarinet
Grahame Conlon – Spanish guitar
Lawrie Thompson – drums and washboard

Ever Heard A Metamodern Band? Now’s Your Chance

Greg Poppleton, 1920s singer, at the Illawarra Jazz Club

 

Derrida said,

“If this work seems so threatening, this is because it isn’t simply eccentric or strange, but competent, rigorously argued, and carrying conviction.”

The Illawarra Jazz Club presents Australia’s only authentic 1920s – 1930s singer, Greg Poppleton, with his metamodern jazz band, for an afternoon of Liederhosen.

Let me explain…

Greg Poppleton’s music is a metamodern mediation between aspects of modernism and postmodernism.

As a modernist he is Australia’s only authentic 1920s – 1930s singer.

As a postmodernist he is both cognizant that he can never be truly ‘authentic’ yet pursues his single-minded mission with Virilian speed to create fascinatingly ephemeral ‘1920s Urzeiten’ unique to his time and place on stage.

“To pretend, I actually do the thing: I have therefore only pretended to pretend,” Jacques Derrida.

Deftly avoiding jazz cliches and gimmicky contemporary music incorporations, Greg becomes ‘1920s’ on-stage utilising a thorough ethical framework of sound music practice, stagecraft and an authentic passion for the genre since earliest childhood.

“All human knowledge takes the form of interpretation,” Weimar Jazz Age writer, broadcaster and essayist, Walter Benjamin.

Greg is truly a metamodern singer in English and German, and the Corrimal Hotel is the one place in the Illawarra where this musical intersection can engage, challenge and charm.

Totally untouched by contemporary music, producing sounds that intrigue and catch listeners off-guard, Greg has over 1 MILLION YouTube plays for just one mix of his 1920s-30s music from three albums.

Gloriously rejected by the more traditional elements of the jazz community in which he is supposed to belong and embraced by Bob Rogers on commercial radio and 18-35 year olds in Europe, the US and Mexico, there is no middle ground with Greg Poppleton.

Greg entertains, bringing an operatically trained voice, a lifelong single-minded approach to the music of the 1920s and 1930s, and an acting background which has seen him in movie scenes opposite such Hollywood stars as Nicole Kidman, Adrien Brody and John Goodman.

Now I ask you, writing in the first person, is there a place for my metamodern Greg Poppleton band in your hearts so that you’ll be at the Corrimal Hotel, Saturday 7 October, 3:30-6:30pm?

There’s a bistro. A bar. And no PA!

To find out more, do visit Greg’s website at http://www.gregpoppletonmusic.com for photos, music and contact.

Greg Poppleton, Corrimal Hotel, Sat 7 Oct