Members
The Band: "The Feeding Set"
Clare Bowditch - vocals, guitar
(The Guild League, Red Raku)
Marty Brown - drums
(Art of Fighting, Sodastream)
Warren Bloomer - bass
(The Gas Cooker, Red Raku)
Libby Chow - french horn, vocals, keyboards
(The infamous French-horn tooter)
J. Walker - guitar, keyboards
(Machine Translations)
Search newherenowlive.com for Clare Bowditch Biography
Like most kids, Clare Bowditch liked singing and writing songs. Her first recording dates back to the late seventies with an in-living-room hit called "Vacuum-Cleaner" (an ode to the vacuum-cleaner, one of the only word sshe knew at the time). Unlike most other kids, however, Clare kept right on writing songs, moving through each and everyone of the household objects until one-day, she stumbled upon the outside world.
Clare started taking music "a little more seriously" whilst at high-school, where she began her singing career as an underage back-up girl with her brother-in-law Tim's band (Matt O'donell's) "Quarter Acre Dream". They played a lot at the Punters Club, the Evelyn (pre-gentrification) and the Rochester Castle. After a little while, however, the late nights and early school-starts started threatening to undo-her, so, she gave up the gig for a while and decided to have a sad and beautiful love-affair instead.
When that love-affair ended, Clare found she had a lot of songs to write. These songs would surely have been doomed to live only on tape in a box under Clare's bed had she not been lucky enough to chance upon good-friends (double trouble) John Hedigan and Marty Brown, who kind've fancied themselves as the Lennon and Mcartney of Ray st, Fitzroy. Together, the three started band Red Raku, releasing two CD's worth of songs, "Sweetly Sedated" (1999) and "Roda Leisis May (2000) in two years. Things were just beginning to hot up for the band when, curiously, Clare was invited to study ethnomusicology/writing in Canada for a year. She accepted, and Red Raku went on momentary hiatus whilst Marty picked up ARIA awards for his work with Art of Fighting and John "married" Red Raku's virtuosic flautist Defah and together they produced a magical child called Ella Rose.
Obviously, arriving in Canada alone left Clare feeling a little "bandless", not to mention brrrrroke. Although she couldn't really play any chords, she was fond of plucking strings (this is how she wrote songs, you see) and desperate for money, so she began busking on Saturdays at Granville Island Market in Vancouver. It was only through being a stanger in a semi-strange town that Clare was able to allow her guitar-skills to "develop" (a loose loose term...). Whilst in Canada she volunteered at the American Folk Alliance Conference at the Hyatt in Vancouver and finally decided to ditch her fears and become a musician.
Clare arrived back in Melbourne in 2001 with a case full of songs and a feeling of urgency ("Must record songs, must record songs..."). Clare applied for and recieved one of Arts Victoria's lucrative "Music for the Future" grants, and once again, in stepped Martin W Brown to the rescue. This is how the recording of Autumn Bone (Clare's TBR in Feb album) began.
Things are pretty busy for Clare at the moment, but when she gets a chance, she'll tell you a little more of her story... Clare Bowditch Website:
http://www.clarebowditch.com |
