Brian Ritchie digs into his American music roots to play on a pig farm at Penguin
Posted
Brian Ritchie has made surprising musical collaborations and situations a special subject since becoming a Tasmanian. This weekend he plays live at a pig farm.
The Violent Femmes bassist and Mona Foma curator will revisit the roots of American music when he plays with twice Grammy Award winner Lucky Oceans and others at Mount Gnomon Farm on Sunday.
The premium pork producing farm nestled right under the Dial Range in northern Tasmania launched an on-farm butchery and restaurant in October.
Live at the Sty is the venue's first musical event.
Ritchie met farmers, Guy Robertson and Eliza Wood, when they were selling their produce at the Mona market.
"They said 'Brian we want to have a day of southern-style American barbecue, pork ribs, brisket, pulled pork - what sort of music should we have with that?'" Ritchie said.
"I said 'well this, that, jazz, blues, country, bluegrass, rock and roll, punk'... they said 'do you know anyone who likes to play all that stuff?' and I said 'Yeah! Me'."
Ritchie set about forming a band with his first port of call being Louisiana-born Hobart pianist, Steve Young. Japanese bluegrass banjo player Montz Mantsumoto was next along with former Penguin boy Nick Haywood on bass.
I'm not even slightly worried about it because the level of musicians who've come into this is, well, it's stellar.
Brian Ritchie
Then it got really interesting.
Ritchie asked drummer Konrad Park to come on board.
He happened to be working with Grammy-winning pedal steel player Lucky Oceans on another project in Tasmania and both joined the group.
And so it was that Ritchie's Tasmericana Roadshow band - really, a local supergroup - was formed for a one-off show on a pig farm.
"Everybody has played with somebody else in the band before, at least once," Ritchie said with a laugh.
"But yeah, it will be the first time this group of people have played as a band. We'll break it down a bit though into subgroups, a bit of solo stuff even, it won't all be us as a group.
"I'm not even slightly worried about it because the level of musicians who've come into this is, well, it's stellar."
The Philadelphia-born Lucky Oceans, now based in Western Australia, has been working on the Big hArt project Acoustic Life of Sheds with Park.
Hobart-based Park also dabbles in the playing of a rather esoteric instrument called "the stick", a bass-like string and percussion instrument that might also get an airing on the farm.
Farmer Guy Robertson said he could not believe his good fortune in sourcing "a band to play at our barbecue".
For this inaugural event he is not taking bookings.
"We're just testing the water I guess. We've been working on and loving these slow-cooked and barbecued pork and beef dishes for a while and really just wanted to show them off," he said.
"To have a band like that playing is quite the unexpected bonus, yes."
It is said that the drinks rider is the most important thing for any promoter to get right when booking a band, but Ritchie has hinted that with Live at the Sty, it may well be the menu.
"You know I bought my own Texas smoker recently, I do this sort of thing at home," he said.
"Travelling around on a tour bus with the Violent Femmes, we had information about where all the little barbecue shacks were across the States and we'd sometimes make a little trip out of the way to get some of that.
"I think you'll see that we're spending half the time on stage this weekend and half the time eating."
Topics: music, arts-and-entertainment, event, food-and-beverage, penguin-7316
