Goodgod Tin Pan Alley – Full Lineup Announced

Sydney’s favourite underground institution Goodgod Small Club will surface this Vivid LIVE, as part of Vivid Sydney (23 May-9 June), for an “intercontinental gold class concert spectacular” featuring the debut solo performance from Shogun (Royal Headache), Bart Willoughby (No Fixed Address), Montero and the one-and-only Donny Benét, joining already announced cult South African wailer Penny Penny.

Following two highly successful, sold out Vivid LIVE studio parties in 2012 and 2013, the Chinatown-basement-based club has this year graduated to the Joan Sutherland Theatre. Taking the limitless realm of big budget theatre to hedonistic new heights, Goodgod Tin Pan Alley is an all-star revue like no other putting the spotlight on their long-running underground legends, performing favourite hits alongside never-before-seen wonders.

Shogun is the frontman of garage rock legends Royal Headache (R.I.P Society), leading the band with his signature croon that has been critically acclaimed by Pitchfork and credited with placing a foreign spotlight on Australia’s thriving garage rock scene since their self-titled debut album broke three years ago (“This Shogun character’s got soul, no doubt about it” – 8.0 Pitchfork). Gaining international coverage, a U.S tour and selected for the coveted support slot on The Black Keys‘ El Camino this Vivid LIVE with a soulful side project created especially for Goodgod Tin Pan Alley.

In a comeback feted by Rolling Stone to rival the story of Rodriguez, former janitor Penny Penny makes his Australian debut following last year’s rediscovery of his one and only album Shaka Bundu, first released in 1994. Despite selling 250,000 copies and becoming a local Tsonga disco star, Penny Penny remained a national secret until last year, when LA-based crate diggers Awesome Tapes of Africa reissued his vintage sides of Afro-disco and synth-pop – a visionary take on American club music of the day, coupled with the innovative stylings of traditional African music.

Born into a poverty-stricken family of 68 children and first recognized while working as a janitor in a local recording studio, 52-year-old Penny Penny is known for his distinctive dancing and top knot, boasting simple yet deep synth pop anthems sung in his native Xitsgona language. Now the first African musician to become a National Congress councillor, Penny Penny will return from official business to essential business in full Goodgod galore.

The first Aboriginal artist to score a feature film and sign a record deal in Australia, Bart Willoughby is known for his pioneering mix of reggae and Indigenous Australian influences. Willoughby formed the first Indigenous Australian rock band No Fixed Address in 1978 and toured with Yothu Yindi, opening the door for contemporary Aboriginal music and the artists that have followed. Starring in the film Wrong Side of the Road and performing at Edinburgh Festival with the band Coloured Stone, Willoughby has also worked with artists Don Walker and Goanna and received the Inaugural Indigenous ARIA Australian Music Lifetime Achievement Award for his Outstanding Contribution to Indigenous Music in Australia in 1993.

Bringing their soft-rock inspired psychedelic jams to Goodgod’s eclectic Vivid LIVE revue lineup, Melbourne’s Montero is the brainchild of Mistletone artist-in-residence Bjenny Montero alongside a super group of the state’s indie musicians: Guy Blackman (Chapter Music), Geoffrey O’Connor (Crayon Fields), Cameron Potts (Ninety Nine, Baseball, Cuba Is Japan), Robert Bravington (Cuba Is Japan) and Gerald Wells (The TM Band). Montero’s debut album The Loving Gaze has been praised by Triple R as a “generous and open-hearted collection of glam rock jams and triumphant, transcendental synth-psych nuggets”, with their feel-good live performances loved for their old-fashioned showmanship and 70s’ Beach Boys meets Burt Bacharach glam pop mix of harmony and melody.

Rounding out the bill is the new poster boy of Italo funk disco and Goodgod favourite Donny Benét, bringing a new brand of ‘80s post disco synth to the Joan Sutherland Theatre.

From 23 May – 1 June, Sydney Opera House will welcome some of the most ambitious and innovative local and international artists for Vivid LIVE – a ten-day celebration of music on the nation’s most famous stages – as part of Vivid Sydney, the Southern Hemisphere’s largest festival of light, music and ideas.

Now in its sixth year, and owned and managed by Destination NSW, the NSW Government’s tourism and major events agency, Vivid Sydney, over 18 days, features large scale light installations and projections (Vivid Light); music performances and collaborations (Vivid Music including Vivid LIVE at the Sydney Opera House); and creative ideas, discussion and debate (Vivid Ideas), celebrating Sydney as the creative hub of the Asia-Pacific.

Vivid LIVE invites the world’s leading artists, creative collectives, promoters and digital animators to raise the roof of Sydney Opera House’s theatres, rehearsal spaces, recording studios and most famously, its iconic sails, which are transformed into a unique canvass each year for Vivid Sydney.

Vivid Sydney, 23 May to 9 June:
For more information visit www.vividsydney.com

Vivid LIVE at Sydney Opera House, 23 May – 1 June:
For more information visit www.sydneyoperahouse.com/vividlive

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