Monkey Marc

Words just can’t express the devastating feeling that came across me this morning. My long-term COMBAT WOMBAT partner and sound system warrior, record scratching extroninair Dj Wasabi passed away. I met this man when he was just 15 years old. He blew our Labrats sound system apart when he turned up to our illegal party in Newcastle and played the most insane all original drum and bass set off his old school PC. Not long after he joined the band and came on many a crazy political musical journey across Australia. He was an integral part of our sound. Nobody could scratch like him. Nobody could raise the energy levels so high at our shows that at times he would leave me just shaking my head in disbelief on stage. He was a true weapon. So many shows, so many adventures. Hard times and tough times, good times and revolutionary attitudes. Theres is only one Wasabi and he has left us way too soon. Wasabi wherever you are we are sending you full power to take on your next big adventure. My cosmic warrior I will miss you dearly. Huge love to the family and his lovely kids Danger and Tea and his mum Catherine xxx

Melbourne get ready for one of the biggest and most inspiring events of my career ❤️‍🔥 I rarely talk about the challenges involved in my work, but this has been a mental and physical ultra marathon. I went straight from working for 2 years on Groote Eylandt running a music studio in a pressure cooker environment where spear fights, tribal conflict, “manganese madness” aggression disease and crocs chomping on people were a regular occurrence. I went straight from Groote to Lajamanu where I have been living for the past year, without so much as a stopover in Melbourne. Lajamanu is one of the most remote places I have lived in - just a casual 600km trip to the local Woolies. It’s a tiny community in an amazing desert environment, which has a charm that has grown on me as time goes on. It has been a very slow and convoluted process to bring Crown and Country to life. It feels like I have been working on this project for years and years …..oh wait, I have 😅 I can’t tell you how crazy this final phase has been … Our Darwin Festival event was absolutely incredible with 8 sold out screenings across 2 days, but I ended up so exhausted with a flu or Covid that I had a migraine that lasted a week. And as always with these remote projects, it was still touch and go whether or not we would be able to bring the elder and his family to Melbourne, right up until just now. The extraordinary Freedom Day Festival descended on nearby community Kalkarinji on this past weekend, with over 20 indigenous bands and thousands of people coming from communities far and wide to celebrate the Wave Hill walk off and the historic hand back of land to Gurinji people. However Kim and I decided to forfeit our chance to go to this amazing festival so we could conserve our strength and not catch anything from the festival. I had terrible fatigue and a migraine that I couldn’t shake, so I ended up fasting for 80 hours to try to starve it out (during which time Kim made a whipped coconut mango mousse, beef rendang and a huge chicken stew 😭

Far out Melbourne! I am blown away by the response to “Crown and Country”. Our launch at the 600 cap Capitol Theatre for Now or Never is officially sold out. For everyone who managed to buy tickets, thank you! The launch in Darwin was such an incredible experience last weekend with a bunch more sold out shows at Browns Mart, and an amazing community response. Here’s a quick vid from Darwin of our host and panelist for the artist talks, the brilliant Richard Fejo Snr a Larrakia and Warumungu Nation elder. I am honoured that Uncle Richie is joining our NT delegation on the big trip down to Melbourne next week. See you soon Melbourne town. We are truly humbled. https://nowornever.melbourne.vic.gov.au/event/crown-and-country ps. Check our ABC Radio National interview if you missed out: .au/listen/programs/musicshow/crown-and-country-album-film-warlpiri-composer-gordon-kerry/105546860

Crown and Country has landed 4 Feature Album of the Week spots!! There’s nothing like the feeling of coming in from the remote desert to discover that our album “Crown and Country” that has just been released is not only a featured album once but five times from PBS to AMRAP to AIR to 8CCC. Crazy. I can’t believe it. So if you haven’t grabbed your tickets yet for the full visual experience, grab them now. First up is the world premiere of the film at Darwin Festival on 10 August, and then in a few weeks time on 29 August at Now or Never festival at The Capitol Theatre. Can’t wait to get the album and film out there for you all to check out. In the meantime enjoy a few snap shots of one of the key elders in the project, first contact elder Jerry Jangala getting a super funky haircut at the ripe old age of 90 (ish). Feeling fresh and ready to roll. Don’t sleep on this. DARWIN THIS WEEKEND: .au/events/crown-and-country/ MELBOURNE: https://nowornever.melbourne.vic.gov.au/event/crown-and-country

Our ABC Radio National interview is out today!! Andy Ford & the RN team do a wonderful job of bringing to life the story behind our new project “Crown and Country, interviewing Wanta, Jerry Jangala and myself. I’m so happy First Contact elder Jerry Jangala at over 90+ years old gets to get his message out across the Australian airwaves. Wanta does a great job at live translating too. Check the ABC podcast out to hear more. .au/listen/programs/musicshow/crown-and-country-album-film-warlpiri-composer-gordon-kerry/105546860

I’m so excited to share something that has been growing quietly behind the scenes for almost 15 years. My musical life has taken me on some interesting and often unpredictable journeys. Going where inspiration for new ideas takes me, I’ve followed sound into some unexpected places. For the past year, Kim and I have been living way out in Lajamanu community in the remote Tanami Desert of Australia, finishing off a big project that I hold very close to my heart. ‘Crown and Country’ is an album and a film that weaves together music, storytelling and Warlpiri metaphysics. At the heart of it are two progressive and forward-thinking Indigenous Warlpiri elders, Wanta Jampijinpa and his father, First Contact elder Jerry Jangala Patrick. We have worked together creatively for over a decade. Since my first meeting with Wanta in 2010, I kept returning to Lajamanu, forming a deeper friendship with Wanta and his dad Jangala, through working on the soundtrack for the award-winning Milpirri Festival with Tracks Dance. Then for around the last decade or so, Wanta kept asking me to start on a new project he had been thinking of. Every year we talked more about it and each year the concepts evolved and were refined. 5 years ago, prompted by the looming spectre of Covid, Kim and I made the decision to start working on this new project. We took many trips back out to the desert, recording stories, synthesising concepts, and filming and recording on location. The result is something we are all very proud of. A full length album and an accompanying film called “Crown and Country”.

It’s not often that you can claim to be on the list of favourite songs from such a legendary musician. Check this out! Turns out that the one and only “Paul Simonon” (bassplayer for The Clash) added my song Post Traumatic Dub (Jahtari) to his list of favourite songs on the BBC Radio show with Nick Grimshaw. I can’t think of a bigger compliment to be honest. 🔥 What a nice little surprise. Maybe I can get him to play bass on my next tune? /sounds/play/m002844y

This is it Melbourne. The final show of the tour and the final finale of an amazing 25 years of this legendary label. The main show is sold out but there’s still tix left for the Sat matinee show so get them while they’re hot. I’ll be on the 1s and 2s. See you there

What an amazing Wide Open Space Festival 2024! This year was my second year as the Music Manager and what a year it was once again (if I do say so myself;)). I have so many incredible collaborators to thank and so many talented musicians to high-five for some interstellar performances. Firstly thanks so much to Mary Ellis and all the T.O’s involved. Thanks for letting us make lots of noise on your magical Ross River valley. Thanks to the crew LJ Devlin (super human number one) Jimmy Cocking Rodney Angelo Rosie at Artist services, Tamsin Young, Mel, Harris etc etc and many more. Mega thanks to the super human number 2 Kirsten Monique for helping me program the music for WOS for the second year now plus all the extra work you do. Thanks to all the build crew with the master Erron Spyda Monky Boswell. Thanks to the sound crew and sound engineers Robbie Wookey, Duane Preston and the rest. Your hard work made the valley sing. Big shout outs to the lighting posse too. Thanks to everyone on the ground plus 8CCC Radio. And so many more. And thanks to all the volunteers too. Huge thanks to all the wonderful artists and performers who graced our stages Christopher Coe, KODIAK KID, ASHEZ, Scotty Redamon, Tasone, AMARU TRIBE, Whiskey Dram, KATANGA JUNIOR , Jim Westlake, Malcolm McDonald, SO.Crates, KnD - Karnage N Darknis, South East Desert Metal, James Range Band, Klint Buzzacott, Double Dingy, Dan McAleer the Underdog, @Stella Sea, Rona, Pookie, Ungus Ungus Ungus, Juman Juman Juman, King Marong and the Tamala Express, NO News, The Wanted Gems, Scheibe Minelle, Darcy Davis, Peachy Party Crew, Garden Party Crew… and more…. This year was a tough one with Earth Freq festival changing their dates to the same weekend as ours. It didn’t make things easy to be honest and we didn’t really get much say in how it all panned out. (As if it wasn’t hard enough putting on a festival in this climate). But we pushed through and made it happen and I feel this year truely was special and a proper FOMO Fest for all who couldn’t make it🙏 So much love to all of you punters and supporters. You’re the ones who bring the vibes! Over and out Monkey Marc

I’ve been holding onto this news for a few weeks but now’s the time sound the alarm. I’ll be hitting DJ duties alongside some highly influential and proper scene makers aka Elefant Traks 🐘 Many eons ago these guys were one of the only labels in Australia that had faith in a local bunch of black listed mad-maxian activists called COMBAT WOMBAT They went into release our album Unsound System. That opportunity paved the way for us Labrats aka Izzy Brown Wasabi Jones Marlon Porter to take our politicised message to a much wider audience. I still remember Dale Harrison telling me that they wanted to release the album when we were walking the streets of Newcastle for the Electrofinge Festival. At the time I couldn’t believe it. We felt like such outsiders. Later I remember Urthboy telling me the vinyl had landed in Oz from overseas. I’m pretty sure we both went down and had to clear them all through customs. It was proper DIY style and very grass roots style in those earlier years. I have nothing but respect for these guys and so many of the artists that have been released on ET. What an era. What a legacy! I mean come on!! People like… Joelistics Mista Savona The Herd Hermitude Ozi Batla Pasobionic Urthboy Jane Tyrrell L-FRESH The LION The Last Kinection Horrorshow Dale Harrison Luke Snarl Dearnley Kenny Sabir Kaho Cheung and more… Come celebrate the end of an amazing era people. See you there 🔊🔊🔊