Drongo and the Crow (The) – Live at the Taproom

The Drongo and the Crow delivers lively songs and ripping yarns from Australia’s slums and cities, goldfields and pastoral country. We revive the lost songs of inner city Sydney and Melbourne and showcase them alongside the better known outback standards. The band formed in 2016 and has released two CDs, with a third due for release in October 2023 (we can also be found on Spotify). The foundation of the band is accordion, drums and double bass. We’re the resident band at the Eynesbury and Beckley Park Community Markets, regularly appeared at the City of Melton Djerriwarrh and Lakeside Festivals and have played on TV and radio, and at pubs, clubs, markets and festivals across Victoria’s west. We’ve been booked for the past three Newport Folk Festivals, the last two Ballarat Heritage festivals and Sandford Bush Music festivals (and again for 2024). At our market and festival performances we bring a large roll of artificial turf and case of musical instruments, giving children in the audience a chance to join in. In addition to giving a little of the history of each song, we also provide useful life tips for the children on topics such as… – Successful Bushranging the Frank Gardiner Way – Women in Industry – What can we learn from Big Poll the Grogseller? and – Cooking on a budget with Wallaby Stew It’s fun, it’s musical, it’s edumacational!

 

The Drongo and the Crow – Live at the Taproom (aka On Tap)

CD review by Tony Smith

TN161 Feb 24

 

This MMXXIII album consists of a couple of dozen lively tracks occupying over 70 minutes.

All the songs are covers.

The trio acknowledges ‘Waltzing Matilda’ (A.B. Patterson and C. McPherson), ‘When the Rain Tumbles Down in July’ (Slim Dusty), ‘Pub With No Beer’ (Gordon Parsons), ‘Along the Road to Gundagai’ (Jack O’Hagan) and ‘A Tale They Won’t Believe’ (Mick Thomas), so the remaining tracks are arrangements of anonymous traditional tunes.

It would be interesting to have the trio explain how it is that their name appears more suitable for a duo.

The Drongo and Crow all sing.

Their frontline instruments consist of accordion (Leon Conway), percussion (Matthew Myers) and bass (Mark Russell), but they also sneak in some autoharp, mandolin and spoons.

Guest artists are Chris Lambert on slide guitar and Ms Alera with lagerphone and vocals.

The Taproom mentioned is at Bacchus Marsh, Vic.

The traditional songs are ‘The Cockies of Bungaree’, ‘Big Poll the Grogseller’, ‘Across the Western Plains’, ‘The Raspberry Pickers’, ‘A Nautical Yarn’, ‘Euabalong Ball’, ‘Eugowra Rocks’, ‘The Woolloomooloo Lair’, ‘What Shall We Do With A Drunken Sailor’, ‘The Drover’s Dream’, ‘The Road to Omeo’, ‘The Catalpa rescue’, ‘Lazy Harry’s’, ‘Mary from Dandenong’, ‘The Push on the Corner’, ‘Little Lon Nancy’ and ‘Click Go the Shears’.

It is best left to others to argue whether some of these songs have either a writer for the lyrics or a composer for the tunes.

Hopefully, we can sit back and enjoy this music and suspend such debates for the moment.

The combination of instruments works well enough.

The bass is often prominent and it is easy to imagine it as a bush bass or a tuba.

The piano accordion is ever present and well played.

The percussion is subdued.

Lambert’s slide guitar, probably Dobro, lifts ‘The Drover’s Dream’ nicely.

Sometimes the lyrics seem a little rushed.

‘Big Poll’ for example could be sung slower.

It would be good to be able to distinguish the vocalists.

The main singer has a good earthy voice suited to these songs, drawn from so many aspects of Australian history.

He would probably not claim to have the sweetest or truest voice, but this is a live recording after all, not a studio album with unlimited takes.

At times, while the accordion carries melodies accurately enough, the voice gets a little hazy on the tunes.

It is always a brave undertaking to give your version of any classic song because critics will have their own preconceived ideas about how the tune should run.

In any case, the singer always makes it back to the correct finishing note, even if he sometimes takes unusual routes.

Nevertheless, the songs on this CD are generally listenable, and in a few cases, really very good.

‘The Raspberry Pickers’ is one of the best on the album and the city based songs about the lair and the push have a suitable swagger to them.

These Australian birds should keep singing in their own style.