Jackson Firebird

JACKSON FIREBIRD – Bottle Bin EP

(Control / MGM)

Get Bob Log III. Clone him. Cryogenically freeze the original Bob Log III until the new Bob Log III has aged enough to similarly master the guitar and/or drums. Defrost the older Log, put both them both together on the back of the vintage ute from Spiderbait’s Black Betty, and get them to play Mess Hall songs. That’s the way a millionaire scientist would go about creating some cracker wildeyed bluesy rock. There’s nothing wrong with that method, sure, but given that reasonably few of Rave’s readership are either millionaires or scientists, we might have to look at finding another way to get our guitar lickin’, skin thumpin’, barefoot tappin’ fix. So here’s one we prepared earlier. Jackson Firebird the band’s called, and not a more appropriate name could Chooka, the God of Things With Flames Up The Side, envisage. The band’s story is a long, interesting and rural one, with the happy ending (spoiler alert) involving Kram discovering the Mildura locals in a band competition, the duo winning $50K and bringing the beardo on board to produce their debut EP. Bottle Bin starts with the sort of rock you have to concentrate hard not to slap your thigh to, and four tracks later ends the same way, while your hand and upper leg need some ice on. - Rave Magazine (http://www.ravemagazine.com.au)

The inaugural Wotnext Music Awards were unveiled at Wil and Toby’s this evening – and the surprise winner of the evening was Mildura band Jackson Firebird...

The band was crowned 2007’s Industry Choice winner and scooped up a prize pack worth $50,000 which will help them on the road to fame. The career launching prize includes studio recording of their winning track, production of a broadcast quality music video clip, services of music industry promoter Todd Wagstaff, as well as A&R, industry introductions and PR support.

Jackson Firebird’s winning track Bottle Bin was selected from a pool of finalists, determined by those artists who
1) received the most industry reviews from recognised music industry individuals;
2) were the most downloaded original music clip to mobile in a days in any 7 day period during the competition; and
3) received the most SMS votes and downloads in any 7 day period during the competition on the WOTNEXT MUSIC website.

According to Todd Wagstaff who headed up the judging panel of music industry players, Jackson Firebird received the highest accolade in the competition.
“The improvisation in the video clip and their whole package is so awesome, original and tight. They are going to go very, very far,” he said.

Spiderbait’s lead singer Kram, who hosted the WOTNEXT MUSIC Tour, and was also one of the judges couldn’t disguise his delight at all the band’s fresh, new sounds.
“I have travelled from Townsville to Mildura, from Melbourne to the Gold Coast trawling for talented Australian musicians. I’ve seen some amazing artists and some who should go back to their day jobs but every artist in the final pool has introduced something fresh, giving us a real hope that something wonderful and very exciting will be happening at a grass roots level in Australia for years to come,” he said.

Close to 200 bands have entered and uploaded their new music clips to WOTNEXT MUSIC . During the WOTNEXT MUSIC competition, the site has received over 17,500 SMS votes, close to 12,000 downloads and 265,000 pages have been viewed by 70,000 visitors.
WOTNEXT MUSIC is a video sharing site – so you can access clips from the freshest original musical acts; anything from a video of the artist performing in their garage, to an abstract arthouse music clip. Every time a clip gets downloaded to a mobile the artist earns 50% (50c) of the clip’s $1 purchase price. - Faster Louder (www.fasterlouder.com.au)

Mildura is best known for its beautiful surrounds, iconic rivers, vineyards and other various touristy delights. According to Brendan Harvey of Jackson Firebird it’s a real cover-band town, “If you play Barnsie, you’ll get along just fine.”

But, amongst the paddle steamers and the wineries, two friends are making a hell of a lot of noise. Original noise, at that. Harvey, and bandmate Dale Hudak have just bagged themselves $50,000 worth of prizes in the WOTNEXT 2007 Industry Choice Award, after blowing the judges away with their song ‘ Bottle Bin ’.

“We thought we’d enter a song that was a little different,” Harvey said. And different it is. The roaring beat is kept by none other than a Jackson Firebird invention – a Bottle Bin. “It’s basically a black recycle bin that you put your stubbies in, with a hole cut in it for a microphone,” Harvey explained, “we jam in a bakery so we stole a few cake tins and sort of got a bit industrial. Dale bashes them out and it comes out booming.”

The $50,000 prize money is a nice sum for any band to have at their disposal and the JF boys know exactly where it will go. There’s a studio recording of their winning track ‘Bottle Bin’, a $28,000 film clip, A & R, industry introductions and PR support. “$50,000 is definitely something we didn’t have before,” he said. “So we’re hoping we can get a ton of exposure from this.”

“We’d played in different bands over the years and both started doing it as a bit of a muck around to keep ourselves amused more than anything,” Harvey said. “We got around to some loud jamming, then we ended up in the pubs. Well, we usually end up in the pubs…” he joked.

Jackson Firebird made their maiden voyage to Sydney for the announcement of the award. The panel of judges included industry representatives, headed up by music industry promoter Todd Wagstaff.

But the real icing on the cake for Harvey and Hudak was the possibility of meeting one of their idols – Kram from Spiderbait to be precise – who would also be taking a seat on the judging panel. “Growing up I listened to a lot of Spiderbait and Tumbleweed,” said Harvey. “Half the reason Dale and I entered this comp was to meet him, and it turned out he dug our stuff too which was a total trip out.”

Kram was responsible for hosting the WOTNEXT Music tour – the roadshow that travelled across the country allowing artists like Jackson Firebird the chance to get along to the award ceremony. “I just wanted to meet the guy,” Harvey said “and now Kram’s keen to get us down to ‘Melbs’ to play some gigs, as well as the fact he’ll be producing our track and film clip.”

As for their day jobs – Harvey actually drives one of those Murray River paddle steamers – it looks as though the lads are going to be putting them on hold for awhile to get the band off the ground and out of Victoria. “We’ll be playing a gig with Airborne in January. After that we’re just going to be booking shows, hopefully we can jump on tour with bigger bands and just work really hard in 2008.”

So what to expect from a live show? “Get your dancing pants on for some Aussie-yob rock.” Harvey said. “I think Dale has said that we sound like The Wiggles meets *Metallica*”.

Try and picture that… - Faster Louder (www.fasterlouder.com.au)