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Justin Ossher	|Others
	Our Location: 3000 Melbourne VIC Australia Email: justin@justinossher.com Website  Contact person Justin Phone: 0415 962 920 Fax: Get Directions Now

Description
On a freezing winter morn at home in Connecticut, when I first heard Janis Joplin sing I asked my dad, who is this guy? He said, this is Janis Joplin and her band Big Brother and the Holding Company. I think my mistake in identifying her gender was my first indulgence into the world of voice. I was eleven years old.

I wrote my first song in High School and after writing about a hundred more, decided to form my first band - The Third i, based around a dozen songs I wrote for that purpose. For the first couple of years The Third i must have played every small venue in Sydney, but we had our favourites; The Green Square, Hopetoun, Bar Broadway, Gaelic Club and the Excelsior. Growing to a 4-piece in the band's second year, we played almost 40 gigs and developed quite a good following. The band's second ep 'Sheepskin' was launched at the Hopetoun - the video of the title track broadcast on Rage.

As my reading habits changed I became more interested in the classics and non-fiction then ever before. Reading beat poets and Hunter S and listening to more and more music infused my music with subversion and I tried to develop my early rock style into something more relevant to our time. Crawdaddy and the Native Swordfish was my first solo project. Crawdaddy showcased a lot of programming, modern forms of percussion instruments, gospel keys and slide guitar blends of 50's and 60's blues sounds with crooning and folksy vocal harmonies and jazzy melodies. I explored diverse musical themes from hardcore fusion and techno to folk/blues, hip hop, dub, classical, metal, country, punk and Latino, woven into an original style.

With my next band project I bridged the gap between my rock and roll and all out experimental 80's electronica, I found this a happy medium with the electronic sounds and the band's rocking atmosphere we created as Machine of the Gods. We played a lot of gigs, including 8 months at Candy's Apartment. The band included myself on vocals, guitar, keys and synths, Mick Petrou on Bass and wiz-drummer Steven Allison (Great Apes). The music was minimalist and dark with pop references and a punk attitude. Our live set had a raw, uncensored emotion and a driving intensity to the music.

I traditionally wrote as a poet but found my sense of rhyme and rhythm always fit well in song. My natural instinct for improvising melodies suited my love of the blues where I could jam out whatever words came to me in a song like way. I looked up to John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, Miles Davis, Marylin Manson, Maynard Keenan and the debauched, reckless loving excesses of the rock lifestyle.

Now I write to express myself and share my desire for uninhibited expression with the world. I write about everything I take in and I haven't yet found a theme I can stick to as everything I experience; humanity, emotion, oppression, existentialism, inspires me in some way.

Being deeply in touch with what I'm singing is the most important part of performance for me. My new album Stereo Gold draws parallels between life, love and being. The music encompasses the orchestral, with band production bridging the gap between a sparse acoustic style and roots-rock expression. The performances are soulful and intimate. Being deeply in touch with what I'm singing, I try to imagine all my lyrics like a story in my head and my voice just follows the sentiment. Music has a lot of integrity and as musicians we are responsible for the message we put out there, so it's important to me to encapsulate my feelings about the world and life in these songs.

Catch you at our gigs in Melbourne and Brisbane later in the year.

Date added: 4.3.2010 Hits: 30

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