Revered Melbourne Blues Institution CHECKERBOARD LOUNGE Are Back With ‘Roller Coaster’
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REVERED MELBOURNE BLUES INSTITUTION CHECKERBOARD LOUNGE, WHOSE SUN SESSIONS ALBUM TOPPED THE AUSTRALIAN BLUES CHARTS IN 2022, ARE BACK WITH THE NEW JEFF LANG-CO-PRODUCED SET ROLLER COASTER
NEW ALBUM OUT TODAY!
ROLLER COASTER ALBUM LAUNCH SET FOR FEB 3 AT THE BUNSWICK BALLROOM – TICKETS ON SALE NOW
ROLLER COASTER IS 3PBS FEATURE ALBUM WEEK COMMENCING DECEMBER 11! 3PBS STUDIO 5 LIVE SESSION TO AIR WEDNESDAY JAN 17!
“The most intensely electrifying experience in Australian blues today…” – The Age
“Carl Pannuzzo is the best soul singer in the country!” – the late, great Broderick Smith
Revered Melbourne blues institution Checkerboard Lounge have today released their new album Roller Coaster.
Co-produced by the band and Jeff Lang at his studio The Enclave, Roller Coaster follows their multi-award winning and blues-chart topping 2022 album Sun Sessions which was one of Rhythms magazine’s Top 10 Albums of the Year, and which spent more than a year on the Australian Blues & Roots Airplay chart, including multiple months at #1.
Sun Sessions also won three of six available awards at the Melbourne Blues Awards, and Best Blues Album at the Music Victoria Awards in 2022.
The new album is the first record to feature the band’s current line-up, which features monster muso Zoë Frater on bass alongside group founder Carl Pannuzzo on vocals and drums, Shannon Bourne on guitars and Tim Neal on Hammond Organ.
Roller Coaster is 3PBS-FM’s Feature Album for the week commencing December 11, and the group’s upcoming PBS Studio 5 Live session will air Wednesday January 17.Checkerboard Lounge will launch Roller Coaster Saturday February 3 2024 at the Brunswick Ballroom. Remaining tickets are available here.
While Carl Pannuzzo is revered as a vocalist (the late Broderick Smith once said Carl was the best soul singer in the country), Checkerboard Lounge continues to highlight its instrumental prowess on the new album. And while the whole band is front and centre, operating as it does, like one organism pumping its rootsy goodness for feet and hearts to thump by, Zoe‘s presence means that Roller Coaster may well be the first non-jazz album with four (incredible) bass solos on it!
Roller Coaster also highlights a more collective approach to composition from the group, and some tasty production touches from Jeff Lang. Jeff of course knows how to get the best guitar sounds; his capture and framing of vocals and the good hum of a collectively moving band are notable as well.
Roller Coaster also highlights a new direction for Checkerboard Lounge, in so far as the album sees them expand in a few different directions outward from the blues, with several tracks taking in soul, jazz, gospel, rock, rockabilly and funk (kind of). Even among the bluesier stuff, there is some lighter side peppered in around the classic heartbreak biz.
Apart from a couple of songs which utilise overdubs (extra guitar, percussion, some alto sax courtesy of our multi-talented Hammond organ player Tim Neal, as well as Sound Healing percussion courtesy of guitarist Shannon Bourne‘s sister Sheridan Bourne!), Roller Coaster was all, once again, recorded live in the studio. Indeed, most songs were actually arranged on the spot too, as is the Checkerboard way. When Checkerboard Lounge play live, no two versions of anything are played the same twice. This is a group bunch of musicians who are able to play anything, and their collective interplay, co-creativity and cohesion is absolutely electric.
Checkerboard Lounge Roller Coaster is out now on Cheersquad Records & Tapes
https://cheersquadrecordstapes.bandcamp.com/album/roller-coaster
https://www.cheersquad.com.au/releases/checkerboard-lounge-roller-coaster/
The Songs… commentary by Carl Pannuzzo
- Roller Coaster (Pannuzzo/Bourne) 3:25 – a crafty lyric about an extremist personality creating a roller coaster relationship, set to a reckless highwire soundtrack boogie.
- Double Standard (Pannuzzo/Bourne) 4:23 – a character portrait of a duplicitous dude who’ll take you for a ride.
- King of Nothin’ (Neal/Pannuzzo) 6:11 – a down drop into a jazzier music with a blues expression.
- Killing Time (Pannuzzo) 4:00 – a dream of downtime with a sexy upbeat, a union imagined from a point of isolation.
- Came to Get My Heart Back (Pannuzzo) 6.17 – a sneaky underhanded feel coming to reclaim a stolen heart – features a slight return edited from an outro guitar solo that in studio went for longer than the song.
- I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free (Taylor/Dallas) 6:00 – dedicated to the plight of First Nations people, an emancipated feel of a song of racial incarceration, borrowed from the great Nina Simone. This track features a beautiful Hammond Organ intro which sounds as though you’re walking from the back of a church to right in front of the keys.
- Uncivil Compliance (Bourne/Neal/Frater/Pannuzzo) 3:05 – an instrumental depiction of the rudeness of commercially agenda-driven law and attitudes of power and control.
- Cry No More (Pannuzzo) 7:24 – a soul ballad in the vein of a super slow Donny Hathaway classic.
- Same Old Fool (Bourne/Pannuzzo/Frater) 4:12 – a fat groove portrait of a character’s folly of trying to reinvent themselves without looking at the unacknowledged stuff that will just bite them on the bum.
- Prodigal Man (Bourne/Pannuzzo/Frater/Neal) 6.30 – an almost psychedelic rock ballad about man working to free himself from his own undoing. Featuring some shamanic percussion from Sheridan Bourne and Tim Neal featuring on alto sax as well as Hammond organ.
Album credits…
All songs arranged live in studio by Checkerboard Lounge.
Shannon Bourne – Guitar
Zoe Frater – Bass
Tim Neal – Hammond Organ, Alto Sax
Carl Pannuzzo – Vocals, DrumsRecorded and mixed by Jeff Lang at the Enclave Melbourne
Mastered by Joe Carra at Crystal Mastering. Photography by David Wayman.
Produced by Jeff Lang and Checkerboard Lounge. Art layout and logo by Ruby Neal.
Sheridan Bourne – Crystal singing bowl, Synodic Moon Gong, Shamanic Medicine Rattle (83) courtesy of sound healing at goodvibes.com.au
Dedicated to the great Broderick Smith
“All the gods will raise their glasses when the minstrel passes” Broderick Smith 2018
We dedicate ‘I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free’ to Indigenous solidarity.
Sovereignty was never ceded.
Checkerboard Lounge bio…
World-class musicianship, unbridled passion inspired by the moment and an almost telepathic ability to create; led by singing drummer Carl Pannuzzo, Checkerboard Lounge are a powerhouse to be reckoned with.
Playful and unyielding, Pannuzzo, revered as one of the greatest voices in Australia, is joined on stage by the cream of Australia’s talent: guitar master Shannon Bourne, Hammond virtuoso Tim Neal, and inimitable bassist Zoë Frater.
From standing ovations at festivals to crammed inner Melbourne pubs, no two shows are the same. Vibrant and unforgettable, a Checkerboard show is a tour-de-force of honesty, integrity and truthful musicianship; the very essence of a live music experience.
2022 saw the launch of the critically acclaimed ‘SUN Sessions’, which shot to the #1 spot on the Australian Blues and Roots National Radio Charts and remains in the top 20.
The album also won the Music Victoria Industry Award for Best Blues Work as well as 3 awards from the Vic/Tas Blues Music Awards including Best Band. It also made it into the Top 10 of Rhythms Albums of the Year alongside the likes of Midnight Oil and Hoodoo Gurus. Having spent the year playing shows and festivals with the likes of Joe Camilleri’s Black Sorrows and US guitarist Robben Ford, the band were at the top of their game, garnering rapturous response from audiences everywhere.
Here is the first filmclip from the album with footage from inside Sun Studio and live at the International Blues Competition in Memphis:
https://youtu.be/DURgHJauvGI
History:
Ever since their famed seven-year residency at the Great Britain Hotel in the early 90s, Checkerboard has inspired the development of some of Australia’s finest musicians and bands (Powderfinger, Dirty Three, Clare Bowditch, Jet, Spoonful/Rocket Science, Kylie Auldist to name a few). Checkerboard’s point of difference has always been playing with different musicians and throwing them into an improvisational hot-seat.
Over the years, band members have included Australia’s best blues exponents, such as Rev. Mick O’Connor, Ian Collard, Jeff Lang, Broderick Smith, Steve Teakle, Richard Tankard, Andrew Ogburn, Garrett Costigan, Nigel MacLean and Dave Boyle (USA).
The Future:
The band, having just finished recording their next album at Jeff Lang’s Enclave Studio, have also been invited to record at Churchhouse Studios in Texas with a label that has U.S. and European distribution. With invitations to play festivals in Lithuania, Austria and Germany, The Sun is shining happily on the path ahead.
Personnel:
Carl Pannuzzo on drums and vocals (Kylie Auldist, Mia Dyson, Paul Grabowsky, Shane Howard, Patti Labelle, Fred Smith, Deb Morrow, Bob Sedergreen).
Tim Neal on keys (Mavis Staples, Ricky Lee Jones, Joss Stone, Archie Roach, Paul Kelly, Ernest Ranglin, Randy Crawford, Fiona Boyes).
Shannon Bourne on guitar (Chris Wilson, Vika Bull, The Black Sorrows, Russell Morris, Tex Perkins, Broderick Smith).
Zoë Frater on bass (Zoë Frater Quintet).
Testimonials:
“You got it boy, it’s in you” ~ Jimmy Smith
“You could run a small city off these guys” ~ Fiona Boyes
“Some real happening blues” ~ Bob Sedergreen
“Thanks for bringing Memphis back to Memphis” – Memphis local
“It’s not a place you’d expect to find yourselves in within the normally understood confines of the Blues form. The collective rapport you have within the band is a wonder to behold, a total trust in each other that allows for an open ended approach to everything you play.” ~ Robert Calvert
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