INTRODUCTION A stage musician & One-man band street performer
Andrew Williamson is a full time musician based in Melbourne. His main instrument is the saxophone and
he has been playing and performing in bands for over 20 years. The one-man band is quite a recent development and is very different from the other music that he has been playing.
When he first left school, he studied law but he never really took to it - music had taken over his life by the time
he was nineteen or twenty. He spent most of his twenties studying music and practicing jazz saxophone (5-6 hours per day on average). He has been involved in heaps of different bands and has probably played around 2500-3000 gigs. His main project at the moment is a group called The Bombay Royale, which plays music inspired by 1960-70’s Indian cinema (Bollywood).
The Bombay Royale
CHAPTER 1
Andy actually plays saxophone in lots of different
groups but his main project is The Bombay Royale. Originally he put the band together 3-4 years ago to play old tunes from Bollywood movies that he transcribed and arranged. As the band has evolved they have become focused on performing and recording their own material. Their debut record ‘You Me Bullets Love’ has been quite successful both in Australia and overseas. At the moment they are preparing to tour Europe in July 2013 where they will be performing a large number of gigs including Glastonbury and Womad.
THE
BOMBAY ROYALE
The music teacher CHAPTER 2
Andy is a music teacher specialising in teaching music to young
teenagers.
“I’ve been working as a saxophonist for many years and this is how I
make my living. I do teach saxophone two days per week but other than that all my income is from live performance,” said Andy.
“I do not know that I wanted to
‘become’
“
”
although
I guess as my creation he must in some way be a reflection of me. Mostly he is a vehicle for playing music of the 192030’s. I think the character grew out of the machine actually. Once I had built the actual instrument, it was pretty obvious that it needed an outfit/character to go with it,” said Andy
When asked to describe himself in 3 words
Andy said : Do I have to answer this honestly?
Well okay…. 1) A bit of a dreamer. Andy with his girlfriend Rachel Thompson
2) An eccentric.
and dog Nik Nak !
3) Driven.
CHAPTER 3
Andy was inspired to build a One-Man Band from listening to old recordings and film footage. At one
stage (in his twenties) he had a job restoring antique furniture so he has got some basic carpentry skills. He supposed initially, he was just curious to see if he could build a working one-man band. There are not any books or websites telling you how it is done so you really have to figure it out for yourself. That is one of the great things actually about one-man bands - they all end up being quite personal and idiosyncratic.
He thought he would like to further his passion by becoming a solo artist with the name ‘Uptown’
Brown!
Well, he is Andy.
“
”
is really just a character, a fiction and a vehicle for playing
music. “I supposed part of me might have liked to have been alive in the 1920’s - it was an amazing time culturally and musically.”
However, there are many different famous one-man bands. “I think basically I loved the challenge of
building one and overcoming the various problems faced in getting it working properly. I do not think you ever really ‘finish’ a one-man band. I am still finding ways of improving it and adding new sounds.”
“[I do] mostly street type performance but I get asked to play
in all sorts of weird and wonderful locations. I started off busking at the Camberwell and Victoria Markets but from there it is gone on to parties, weddings and venues such as the Spiegeltent,” said Andy.
(above) Fixing the ‘Goodtimes Gyratorscope’ at Camberwell
Sunday Market.
“I get lots of different responses from the audience. One
great thing about street performance is that if people aren’t enjoying what you do they won’t stay (or tip you!). As a performer you have to be very responsive with your audience, more so than if you were playing in a bar or on a stage etc. Almost every time I perform I will come home having had a nice interaction of some kind,” said Andy.
“The sound and look of the One-Man Band really suits
the music of the 1920’s and ‘30’s. The songs tend to have really strong melody lines so you don’t need much more than a voice and ukulele for them to sound good. I love too many songs but I really love composers like Cole Porter and Irving Berlin,” said Andy
“A child will see one thing, an adult another. For example,
a child might think I’m like Dick Van Dyke’s character ‘Bert’ in ‘Mary Poppins’. Guys in their twenties might think I’m a steampunk and an older person might even be reminded of Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton. I like that about the character - it carries a lot of different connotations for people,” said Andy
The ‘Goodtimes Gyratorscope’ !
There are probably around 9-10 sounds it can make altogether. It is a little bit different from most other One-Man Bands in that it
has an amplifier built in. This makes it great for street performance as Andy can amplify the vocals and ukulele.
Andy tried to use traditional materials wherever possible so that it looked like something out of the 1930’s. So wood (old
champagne cases actually), brass and leather. Some of the parts like the piano hammers and the microphone are genuinely antiques maybe 80-100 years old.
About the Author Pichet Wilaipich is a photographer from Thailand. He is now studying Diploma of Photo Imaging
at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia in 2013. And this photo essay book is one of his projects at the university.
At the age of 20, Pichet was offered a training course as a studio assistant in the Fifty one
Bangkok advertising studio in Bangkok. After he graduated in Bachelor degree of Communication Arts from Bangkok University, Thailand, he became a freelance photographer. After two years, Pichet was offered a job as a photographer at Esquire Magazine, Thailand, and has been working in the photography profession for almost 6 years before he came to Australia. Pichet loves to study the world through his lens, so he decided to broaden his aspect by coming to Australia. He believes that world is changing everyday, so people need to have a change. And he, himself, should not stop creating photographic art.
Acknowledgment Many thanks to all my family for giving me a wonderful childhood, which leads me to be who I
am today. As a photographer, you are my life inspiration.
Many thanks to Andrew Williamson for giving me an opportunity to interview him, and allow me
to broaden my mind to the music world.
And thanks to all my friends in Thailand, friends at RMIT University, and friends living in Australia
for giving me support and care.