STATE LIBRARY of WESTERN AUSTRALIA Tos Mahoney

STATE LIBRARY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Timed summary of an interview with

Tos Mahoney

STATE LIBRARY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA - ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION DATE OF INTERVIEW: 2017 - 2018 INTERVIEWER: John Bannister DURATION: 2 hours and 24 minutes REFERENCE NUMBER: OH4280 COPYRIGHT: Tos Mahoney Introduction

This is an interview with Thomas William 'Tos' Mahoney. Best known as the program organiser of Tura New Music events in Perth Western Australia. Born in the 1957 in Subiaco, he discusses his family background, his growing interest in music, how he came to study the flute and his interests in free jazz and improvised music. The interview deals with his extensive involvement with experimental forms of new music in Perth in the 1970s and 80s. He talks of his work with John Rose, Ross Bolleter, Mark Cain among others, that would lead him to organise the Festival of Improvised Music, held in Fremantle in 1985. He also talks of the development of EVOS in 1987.

The interview was conducted by WJE Bannister – there are 4 wav audio files

2 Interview with Tos Mahoney conducted by John Bannister.

Session 1 (21.7. 2017)

00:00:00 Introduction. Thomas William Mahoney was born on the 21 September 1957. Subiaco St John of God. Subiaco Theatre Arts Centre. Home of Tura. Music wasn't a huge part of the family experience. Mother played a bit of piano. Piano lessons through school. Family trip through parts of North Africa and Europe. A very influential experience. Cultural tour of Europe. Daily visits to galleries and classical concerts. Early 70s. Whole music world was exploding.

Tura, Piano, Cultural Tour, Lessons, Music

00:03:00 Had a really good stereo system. Listening to the double Woodstock album. Into a big blues influence. Old ABC radio. Peter Holland had a blues show on Friday nights. Fatty Lumpkin. Lindsay Wells. The Bakery. St George's Cathedral. Canned Heat. Going up the Country - song. Mother and father were big classical music lovers. Getting a flute. Learning the flute solo out of Going up the Country. Got a band going together playing at lunchtime.

Woodstock album, blues influence, ABC radio, Peter Holland, Fatty Lumpkin, Lindsay Wells, The Bakery, St George's Cathedral, Canned Heat, Flute

00:05:46 Very strong business family. Father comes from Queensland. Father was a literary man. He went to the war. Father is a career counsellor to veterans at UWA Post WWII. Met mother before the war. Ahern Family business. The furniture factory was fantastic. Full of Italian and Yugoslavs. Superb craftsmen. They built fabulous furniture. A love of aesthetics. Looking through the factory in Wittenoom Street East Perth. They would be good art spaces today. Love of gardening. Working in nurseries and farms growing up

Family, Business, Ahern, Factory

00:10:06 Spending time in the bush. Developing affinity and love for the bush which still lingers strongly. Regional connections which would happen. A rich childhood experience develops entrepreneurial and adventurous spirit. Lingering through cultural practice. Going to see The Bakery [band] in the early 70s. The church was trying to contemporize. A hell of a lot of music. Live music. The Shenton Park Hotel and the industry. Making a living from playing gigs. Pop culture, hippie culture, blues. Falling between the cracks. David Bowie and performance and the whole theatre of it that was captivating.

Regional connections, Entrepreneurial, The Bakery, Live music, The Shenton Park 3 Hotel, Making a living, Pop culture, David Bowie

00:13:19 Glam. Brian Eno. Experience of going to Africa and Europe finishing school. Studying marine biology. Meeting Elan Figorelli, Moroccan musician. Michael Franks. Getting fully into playing flute and AMEB. Doing experimental instrumental music and going over East and studying at the Melbourne Conservatorium. Doing the jazz course in Sydney. Finding courses incredibly boring. The avant-garde. Reading and talking to people and going to exhibitions. Naive about contemporary music. Seeing interesting world music and art in Africa and Europe. Couldn't relate to going into boring lectures. Memories of the scene over East. Historically there was a scene.

Glam, Brian Eno, Africa and Europe, Michael Franks, Playing flute, AMEB, Melbourne Conservatorium, The avant-garde,

00:17:35 Early in development of new music interests. Styles of music. Influences of jazz music. Exploring post bop. Free improv music. Links between trad jazz and other styles of jazz that come later. Reading about notions of unexpected deconstruction, creates problems for the mind. Unexpected elements. The Western music world that is pretty centred to the masses. Classical music. Good free improvisational music. New conceptual ways of being and explaining improvisation. The Necks - band

Interests. Styles of music. Influences of jazz, Free improv music, Deconstruction, Western music world, free improvisational music, New conceptual ways, The Necks

00:21:07 What the Necks bring to music. Painters bring language to the work and ways of shaping sound. Not notating. A good improviser is a composer performer rather than separating the processes. Boring and interesting forms. Technically right in an artistic theoretical notion, doesn't mean it is interesting. New and old things that are constantly held as great. Popularity. Lots of people like The Beatles. Politics. Studying jazz. Free improvisational music. Wayne Shorter.

Painters, Improviser, Composer, Popularity, Beatles, Politics, Studying jazz, Free Improvisational Music, Wayne Shorter

00:23:55 Coming back to Perth and linking up with Ross Bolleter. Memories of Mark Cain. The Von Schlippenbach Trio comes to Perth. Pre Internet you have to listen to things on something. Roger Smalley at UWA. Connecting with students from university. Influences from the visual arts and non-musical things. Free improv. Influences flow across. The full series of the Bartok String Quartet. Sir Frank Callaway. Percy Grainger and free music. The Indian Ocean Festival 1979 and 1984. Memories of Indian Ocean Festival

Ross Bolleter, Mark Cain, The Von Schlippenbach Trio, Pre Internet, Roger Smalley, UWA, Bartok String Quartet, Sir Frank Callaway, Percy Grainger, The Indian Ocean

4 Festival

00:28:00 Discussions with Peggy Holroyd - aboriginal connections. Try to sell something. Mark Cain. Ross Bolleter. A loose collective of musicians. Slices of Albert. Albert Ayler. And The Magic Pudding. Performing at the Perth Jazz Society. Memories of John Rose. In residence at the Praxis Gallery in Fremantle. Violin installation on Pakenham Street in the early 80s. Descriptions of violin with a sail on it. Performing at the Hyde Park hotel. Farting into a vacuum cleaner.

Peggy Holroyd, Mark Cain, Ross Bolleter, Slices of Albert, Albert Ayler, Perth Jazz Society, John Rose, Praxis Gallery, Fremantle, Hyde Park Hotel

00:31:20 Performing with a vacuum cleaner. John was incredibly active on the east coast. Improvises from around the world. Memories of the scene in Perth. There was no Club Zho. Putting on concerts at university. The Festival of Perth. The Relative Band Festival in Sydney. The inaugural Perth Festival of Improvised Music. International artists. Ross, Mark and Tos perform. Organising with help from the Arts Council. $500 to put on a festival. Love of juxtaposition and eclectic approach creates unexpected juxtapositions of curating and performance meeting more people. Contact with Roger Smalley. 1985 and 1986. Meeting Robert Muir who was a great advocate and sound recordist.

Performing, Improvises, Perth Scene, Club Zho, Concerts, University, The Festival of Perth, The Relative Band Festival, Sydney, Perth Festival of Improvised Music, Robert Muir, Roger Smalley, Juxtaposition

00: 35:10 Robert Muir records all the festivals and concerts. LP exists of the PFIM. Simone De Haan. Working at the Con WAAPA. Authenticity and pursuing the genuinely new with rigour. John Cage. The sound of a piano not been played. Avant-garde. Roger Smalley gives a private tutorial. Thinking of bringing all sorts of elements into one Institute. Wild stuff in the orchestral world. You didn't hear it on the radio. The music that we don't like. The problem seeking style of music. Pop music is the problem solving style

Robert Muir, PFIM, Simone De Haan, WAAPA, John Cage, Avant-garde, Roger Smalley

00:39:20 The fashion designer knows the clothes that people are going to want to wear before the people know. De Bono summarising the notion of the brain as a sponge. The same input into the brain influences what the brain knows. Repetition and capitalism. Deconstructing things. Commercial songs are basically the same songs. Discovering this incredible world. The notion of sculpturing sound. It can be called music or other things.

De Bono, Repetition, Capitalism, Commercial, Sculpturing sound

5 00:41:50 The physical properties of sound. Sculpturing the Sound of music in an orchestra. The motivation of opening the mind to possibilities. Creating the environment where people's minds can be expanded. Surrounded by the same sounds. The same sound world that is being force fed into our minds. Performing, how the artist survives. And increasingly challenging thing. Performing regularly and running a restaurant to provide money. Ross Bolleter.

Physical properties of sound, Sculpturing the Sound, Motivation, Ross Bolleter, Performing

00:45:35 Alone Together - a band with Ross Bolleter. Crawley Bay restaurant – Matilda Bay restaurant. Memories of performance. Rat dancing on the dance floor. Performing originals and covers. Composed and improvisation. Ross was writing fantastic works. Mute and Mule records. Pre-ruined piano. Teaching at day, playing by night.

Alone Together, Performance, improvisation

00:49:40 Fremantle and New Music Series. Serious discussions. David Pye's Nova Ensemble. Mark Cain was doing instrument building. Little pockets of things. Discussion with funding bodies. The Australia Council. The Arts Council the Department of the arts. Possibilities. Institutional support and the University. Getting a decent grant. Incorporating the company. Alan Lamb and EVOS. The evolution of sound the ethos. Concert series - The Pipeline. Simone De Haan, Daryl Pratt and Martin Wesley-Smith. The Princess May theatre in Fremantle

Fremantle New Music Series, David Pye, Nova Ensemble, Mark Cain, Funding Bodies, The Australia Council, The Arts Council the Department of the Arts, Alan Lamb, EVOS, Simone Darryl Pratt, Martin Wesley Smith

00:52:40 The Conservatorium, 1980 WAAPA. A source of talent. WAAPA UWA do not combine. UWA and Roger Smalley

The Conservatorium, WAAPA, Talent, UWA, Roger Smalley

Interview with Tos Mahoney conducted by John Bannister.

Session 2

00:00:00 6 The beginnings of EVOS. John Rose. Memories of naked violinists taped in polystyrene. Playing polystyrene on each other. Fremantle is a hive of activity. Praxis. Phil Kakulus. Ross Bolleter. The Triffids. Memories of performing in a paper room. Performance piece. Filming of.

EVOS, John Rose, Fremantle, Praxis. Phil Kakulus. Ross Bolleter, The Triffids

00:04:30 Lucky Ocean’s wife Christine films. PFIM. The Roundhouse. Arts Council sends musicians around the state to work in schools. Memories of performing in schools. Andre Comfort and Mark McAndrew. Electronics active in the broader arts world. Pop bands of the time. New order. Kraftwerk. Making new music popular. Bringing up a young family. Not so exposed as before

PFIM. The Roundhouse, Arts Council, Andre Comfort, Mark McAndrew, Electronics Pop bands, New Order. Kraftwerk

00:08:20 Free improv. John Rose and Richard Ratajczak the classical world and the bread and butter stuff. The scene of the 1980s in Perth the red power, the Wizbar, Shenton Park, Errol Tout, German Humour, Day One, Mark McAndrew. Arty electronic pop music. Dogmatic cultural groupings could be. Matt Taylor, Rick Steele, Richard Ratajczak. Ross Bolleter and send practice and free improv and a level of whimsy. A lack of intelligent whim in experimental work. Cage - Walk Water. Technology was changing

Free improve, John Rose, Richard Ratajczak, The Red Parrot, The Wizbar, Shenton Park, Errol Tout, German Humour, Day One, Mark McAndrew, electronic pop music, Matt Taylor, Rick Steele, Ross Bolleter, experimental work, Cage, Technology

00:12:30 Technology available to John Cage. Technology and new music. Memories of Alan Lamb and the notions of evolution. Ross Bolleter and the ruined pianos. Transforming things into something that is quintessentially Australian. Alan Lamb and the history coming down the phone lines. Chaotic and rich and organic sound world.

Technology, John Cage, Alan Lamb, Ross Bolleter

00:16:10 A very moving world. Featuring the works and advocating. Performing in a performance space. Delivering concepts to an audience that wouldn’t go to a concert. The EVOS New Music festival. EVOS created in 1987. The concert series for the first two years. Artist in residence. Getting people into Perth making connections. Getting a lot of approaches. Promoting and resources. Sound Australia awards.

Performance space, Concepts, The EVOS New Music Festival, Promoting, Sound Australia awards

7 00:20:25 On the music board of the Australia Council for three years. Universities. Roger Smalley was active. Things are evolving. Learning the craft of negotiating. Funding bodies. Considerable struggle. Memories of Gillian McGregor and Steve Moore. The visiting artists in 1984. John Rose. Highlights of the festival on the last night performance. the level of rigour. No preplanning. High level of risk

Australia Council, Roger Smalley, Gillian McGregor, Steve Moore, John Rose

Interview with Tos Mahoney conducted by John Bannister.

Session 3

(11.9.2018)

8 00:00:00

2018 full year for Tura. Linking Kimberley artists and musicians with Indonesian musicians. Apra Art Music Award for Excellence (2018). Award from regional development (2017). Kimberley Echoes. Collaborations with artists from the Kimberley. Aboriginal artists and non-aboriginal artists. Presenting, creating and developing new work. Stephen Pigram, Mark Atkins. Compositions by Eki Belton. Waringarri Aboriginal Art Centre in Kununurra.