Jimmy “It’s A Wonderful Life!” Stewart upped the ante and played 51 gigs in 2 months for March and April… 65 in total for March-May. Is he Melbourne’s most pro-active musician/ex-country footy star? Check out the brand-new blogsite for this international ratbag vagabong vagrant… WWW.JIMMYSTEWARTSWONDERFULLIFE.WORDPRESS.CUM …he’s currently in New York City, writing and recording in the Catskill Mountains for a new project, and propping up the bar at The Anyway Cafe every Sunday evening. Read all about it!

Boogie Festival was 150% amaaaaazing… Life-affirming, wondrous stuff. http://www.boogie.net.au

The Miserable Little Bastards new record “Misery Loves Company” – in the production line for the past 14 months – finally nears completion… and won’t be released until… September 2011…! But, album launch tour dates are currently being booked for October and November. So… start holding your breath.

The 7th Annual “Wash Winter’s Willies Away With Whiskey” Festival IS back at the Tote Hotel once more on Sunday 31 July, and promises to be the best one ever! Public Bookings, together with Waste Management, will bring you 13 bands, plus DJ’s and random sideshows, across FOUR stages across TWO pubs!!! And that’s not to mention the massive pots of SOUP! Stay tuned for more details…

Our fearless fraternising footloose fuckwit frontman, The Jimmy Stewart, has departed for his annual pilgrimage to New York, reconvening for almost two months of Sundays (June-July) at NYC’s best Russian gypsy vodka bar, the Anyway Cafe, and also to make some new solo recordings, collaborating with NYC based musicians and producers, in a cottage in the Catskill Mountains. How delightful!

That’s all for now, folks. And remember: sometimes it’s good to be a little bit bad, but it is never bad to be good.

The Miserable Little Bastards debut album “Misery Loves Company” is almost done, and a 5-song sampler of the 10-song album will be available for listening by the beginning of June. The Clinkerfield album “A Heart Full Of Ice & A Gut Full Of Rubble” is destined to be released in about 30 years time, when an extra-terrestrial being discovers and wipes the dust off some long-forgotten hard-drive they find after the nuclear holocaust/asteroid-incident, and decides to release it on their own label Intergalactic Long-Lost Sounds.

Meanwhile, The President of the United States of Intoxication, Mr. Jimmy “It’s A Wonderful Life” Stewart, continues to sing his way around the world without fail until thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. After more than 3 years he wrapped up his never-ending Tuesday night residency at the Gem at the end of March, signalling the end of an era for Jimmy & the Gem. Without wasting a second though, Jim promptly relocated the “dynasty” to a new part of town. Tuesday nights in North Melbourne just got a whole lot warmer with Jimmy making his way through Tuesday nights in April and May, with 2 sets in the front bar of Errol St’s Town Hall Hotel from 8:00 pm… And then, at the start of June, thee most little bastard is off on his annual pilgrimage to the USA for two months, this time to reconvene on Sunday evenings at NYC’s best little crazy Russian vodka bar, the Anyway Cafe. Adjacent to this residency, Jimmy will spend time in Upstate NY, working on new recordings and collaborating with Ryan Lamm, a Brooklyn based musician. This is for a new project that Jimmy’s been invited to be a part of at the behest of Invisible Circus, who are an international artist exchange company who only offer three of these opportunities per year. Jimmy will spend a few weeks at their cottage in the Catskill Mountains, conceiving and executing the project, working with Invisible Circus and exploiting the resources and contacts that they have.

Then, upon Jimmy’s return, it’s time for the seventh annual “Wash Winter’s Willies Away With Whiskey” festival, booked in for Sunday 31 July at the Tote Hotel. Expect three stages, 12 + bands, shitloads of winter soup, and a kickin good time!

All you need is love love love is all you need!

Since 2005, the tireless crew at the helm of Clinkerfield’s navigational franchise, Waste Management, have plucked a delectable selection of musical treats from Melbourne and beyond to join them in celebration of music in Melbourne in Summer.

The meticulous selection process involves multifarious procedural variations, but essentially it’s the ancient art of street corner stake-outs and stacks-on, sudden exclamations of “Oh! Look who’s under the table with us!” upon waking, and other more mysterious methods of divination like spinning in a circle for 30 seconds, eyes closed, and then pointing at IT, whatever IT may be.

And that’s what’s so magical about Melbourne! You can point in any direction you like and be sure to hit some amazing music.

Every Sunday in January, commencing on Sunday 9th January until the 30th, it’s a creamy selection of different acts each week, plus the B-Grade Celebrity staffed world-famous BBQ with Special Salads, underground legend DJ’s and dirty dancing, and the frantic antics of Melbourne’s only all-you-can-eat drunken pirate convict rockenroll spaz debacle Clinkerfield. Now with the Spazmotron! Batteries not included. Made on pressing plants that also produce golden day-times and twilight night-terrors. Small parts not suitable for children under 4 years. May contain traces of nuts. Complete nuts.

Old Bar. Sundays in January. Doors $7 each week. Gold coin BBQ. The fun starts sometime after 7 pm each week.

This year you can check out Benn Bennett, Pete Ewing, Stray Thread, Lone Tyger, Skippy’s Brain, The Sinking Tins, Skyscraper Stan, Conway Savage, Ryan Sterling, The Once Overs, and The Steins. And Clinkerfield, of course.

— — — —

You can still catch Jimmy Stewart ploughing through each and every Tuesday evening at the Gem Bar & Dining Room, continuing his never-ending Tuesday night residency that begain way back in 2006.

And the new albums for Clinkerfield and The Miserable Little Bastards are still… being… mixed….

The sixth annual “Wash Winter’s Willies Away With Whiskey” festival was a screaming success down at the Tote on the last Sunday of July. Full house, magical vibes… a growing local legend…

And now Clinkerfield and Miserable Little Bastards shows resume sporadically, with both bands new albums in the mixing stages and due for release soon. Looks like the MLB’s new record will be out on vinyl before the end of the year, with the Clinkerfield mess taking a little longer to unravel.

Check the Gigs page for details of Clinkerfield gigs in Melbourne that are being booked for November and December.

Meanwhile, Jimmy’s back every Tuesday night at the Gem Bar, where he’s been plugging away every Tuesday he’s been in town since December 2007, plus other sporadical random appearances all over town. In a modest homefront milestone, Jimmy plays his 100th show at the Gem on Tuesday 14th September. Big silly party.

Look out for Jimmy solo shows around town everywhere over Spring and Summer.

Check gigs page for updates.

Whirled Peace.

When Jimmy returns, it’s all hands on deck preparing for the last Sunday of July and the Sixth Annual “Wash Winter’s Willies Away With Whiskey” festival at the Tote Hotel, back on the calendar after the Tote looked lost to us forever recently. Stay tuned for details. And it looks like Jimmy will reconvene at the Gem Bar & Dining Room, picking up his never ending solo Tuesday night residency.

And recording of new albums is well underway…

The drunken pirate convict rockenroll warhorse machine Clinkerfield returned to the farmhouse of Carrigmore in central Victoria in February to record a new album, tentatively titled “A Heart Full Of Ice & A Gut Full Of Rubble“. But maybe we’ll just call it “Clinkerfucked“. With song titles like “K.A.O.S. Is Everywhere”, “Stumblin’ Into The Pit”, “Nowhere & Nothin’ At All”, “That Sweet Ol’ Sour Taste Of Defeat”, and ”The Doomed Pirate” – amongst others - it promises to be a real cheery affair. Recorded by Fergus McAlpin and Adam Afiff – our brothers from Silver City Highway – over a hot and stormy week in mid-February, initial rough mixes of the completely live sessions have been providing much pleasure, and indeed, entertainment! Look forward to further news as post-production and mixing unfolds…

The Miserable Little Bastards (”depression era show-tunes for the new global recession, and a salvation procession from emotional oppression“) – that hangover healing group of desperadoes from Clinkerfield, Redfish Bluegrass and beyond – have also completed a marathon recording session in at Fitzroy’s Adelphi Studios in April, just before Jimmy left town, where they worked up an album of old depression era tunes mixed with new original compositions from the current global recession era, proving that not much has changed, that nothing ever really changes, and it’d be real nice if we all had a little bit more spare change. Over two days in the beautiful surrounds of Adelphi, they completed a full album of around a dozen songs. Again, this should be out some time later in the year.

And thee primo MLB hisself, riotous ringleader and footloose frontman, Jimmy Stewart – who, previous to his current adventure in the USA, was on tour through Western Australia for five weeks playing a rash of shows across Perth, Fremantle and anywhere else he could wrangle – is working up a minimalist recording of some of his songs that are too gay for his two bands. But, being the slack shit that he is, works have completely stalled. Indefinitely.

Stay tuned for announcements of Clinkerfield and Miserable Little Bastards shows that may pop up between Jimmy’s escapades out of town and country.

Aside from that, it’s business as usual at Waste Management™, with Clinkerfield™, Miserable Little Bastards™, and Jimmy Stewart™ projects all bubbling away. Jimmy has finally removed his eye-liner after a successful theatre season for “My Friend Schadenfreude“, the show he performed with Nicola Gunn at La Mama in September, and for now at least he’s beaten off the temptation to return to the bosom of his new Russian gypsy family in New York City. Next year.

Pre-production and pro-crastination continues apace in the Carrigmore farmhouse on new albums for all the various Transmutations of Waste, and a re-pressing of Clinkerfield’s “A Head Full Of Rain & A Heart Full Of Puddles” album is underway, with plans to include a Previously Unreleased™ song from the magical 2007 sessions that didn’t make it onto the original cut. Special.

Squizz the gigs page for details, for Clinkerfield and Jimmy pop for shows over the coming months, though with Greg “Miserable Fiddler Bastard” Field still in the USA, there are no MLB shows until November when they will take their misery to happy QLD for a show or three. In the meantime, placate yourself HERE with the YouTube video of them performing “What Shall We Do With The Drunken Sailor?” on ABC TV’s show “Spicks & Specks”.

And after much dilly-dallying, Jimmy is finally returning to his homes away from home in Western Australia, with a solo tour booked for the last weekend of November. This is his first trip out West after touring there seven times last year! Upon returning he takes up at his other home away from home, the Gem Bar & Dining Room, to re-convene at the scene of his 18 month long Tuesday night residency, for a summery month of Tuesday evenings in December.

Busy.

(Click HERE and HERE for reviews/pictures of the WWWAWW event.)

Ringleader of W.M. incorporated, Jimmy Stewart, is back home and straight back into a busy schedule after a dozen or more shows across NYC and Nashville. Two months of adventure, a whole lotta luck, and a raucous chilli-vodka-fuelled residency at The Anyway Café (a magical little Russian gypsy hole in Manhattan), means plans are already underway for a return to the States before too long.

But presently, Jimmy has been invited to perform as part of a two-week musical theatre season at La Mama running from 26 August to 6 September, collaborating with internationally acclaimed performer Nicola Gunn. The show is “My Friend Schadenfreude”, and it is the story of The Inconsolable Woman and her Mute Bellhop. Jimmy relishes in the role of the bellhop, and breaks into calamitous song occasionally… Visit www.nicolagunn.com and www.lamama.com.au for more info, or phone 03 9347 6142 for bookings. Tickets are $25/$12 concession. It will be a most interesting collaboration and show between two dynamic performers…

Jimmy also performs a few solo shows of his own, including two special appearances in August at the Gem Bar & Dining Room, returning to the scene of the 18 month long Tuesday night residency he completed there before he left shore for the USA in May.  In mid-October he returns to Western Australia for a short jaunt – after six trips West last year this will be his first for 2009. Slack-o.

The Clinkerfield/Redfish Bluegrass collaboration The Miserable Little Bastards continues to garner more exposure than Clinkerfield ever did…! Fresh from their appearance on ABC TV’s program Spicks & Specks where they performed “What Shall We Do With The Drunken Sailor?” with mischievous glee (watch the YouTube video HERE), they pop up for a show or two before taking a break whilst their internationally jetsetting fiddler Greg Field embarks on his own USA adventure. The Bastards will be cranking up again in October.

And the drunken pirate convict rock’n’roll machine Clinkerfield takes the mighty bathtub out onto the high seas once again with a slurry of shows, taking in some good old favourite local holes, including closing out the High Vibes festival on Sunday 20 September at the Northcote Social Club, and a looming October show with the Kill Devil Hills (WA).

Betwixt all this hullaballoo, long overdue pre-production has commenced on three (or more) new albums, with Jimmy currently holed up in the farmhouse Carrigmore where Clinkerfield recorded their 2008 hit album “A Head Full Of Rain & A Heart Full Of Puddles”. He’s currently finding it very difficult to concentrate, and even harder to figure out which album to make first…

So lucky there’s some shows to let all hell loose upon! Check that gigs page and sign up for that mailing list for regular updates and other hot tips…

In the US, Jimmy will be playing shows in NYC and Nashville, with more shows to follow.

This means that Jimmy’s solo Tuesday night residency at the Gem Bar, now a year-and-a-half long, is finishing up.

Upon Jim’s return Clinkerfield will host the sixth annual Wash Winter’s Willies Away With Whiskey festival at the Tote on Saturday 25th July.

Check back to this news page for more updates on USA adventures and other bizzo.

A couple more Clinkerfield shows are planned, and a few Miserable Little Bastards (Clinkerfield/Redfish Bluegrass collaboration) shows too.

Jimmy continues at the Gem every Tuesday, heads to Tassie for three solo shows 2-4 April, and is off to the USA for a few shows in June.

And a little bit of pre-production is underway for new recordings.