THERE'S at least one rock'n'roll fan travelling from Melbourne to hear JOHNNY GREEN'S BLUES COWBOYS play New Year's Eve at the Grand Junction Hotel, Maitland.
In the past four years the Cowboys have been fixtures at blues, folk and jazz festivals from Queensland to Victoria, converting fans along the way.
This week the retro rockers will perform at the three-day WOODFORD FESTIVAL, north of Brisbane, before heading back to 'the Junkyard' for the big one with THE RESONATORS. Next month the Cowboys will perform a string of shows during the Tamworth Country Music Festival at Maguires Hotel, the pub where bass player ED MATZENIK first met JOHNNY GREEN and FLASH SHEEDY. He joined Green and Sheedy in 1996, who had played together with drummer DEMO DEMPSEY in the ROCKET PILOTS. They changed their names to The Blues Cowboys and recruited guitarist 'GRUNTER' SEEGAR in 1997.
Matzenik described the sound of the Cowboys as 'definitely not Y2K compliant'.
'The thing is a lot of the Australian rock'n'roll bands of the 1950s, with the record companies, you'd never really hear them as they really were,' Matzenik said.
'A lot of the bands were a lot wilder and dirtier than they really sounded on record.'
If the Blues Cowboys represent the 1950s then support band, The Resonators, represent the 1960s, playing covers such as SUZI Q and songs by JIMI HENDRIX. 'They're pretty notable for their guitarist MICK LIBER who came out from England in the 1960s to play with PYTHON LEE JACKSON,' he said.
Liber played guitar in the 1960s and 1970s with MAX MERRITT and BILLY THORPE, and in the house band for Thorpe's television show IT'S ALL HAPPENING. TE
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