Listen to my entire DJ set from a few nights ago in Sydney, featuring tracks from records given to me by the musicians I met and played with at Greenroom Festival 2010 in Japan (and some cheeky Japan-themed extras in there too).

Dedicated to all my friends in Japan. Stay safe everyone! Much love – R

Playlist:
Mabanua ‘Peace In My Mind’
45 feat. Bulljun ‘Another Place’
laidbook ‘I Love Music’
Ovall feat. Nicholas Ryan Gant ‘Mind Games (Done)’
Ovall feat Ol’k ‘We Been’
Thirdiq ‘A Kind of Nocturne’
45 aka SWING-O ‘Mysterious Journey’
45 feat. Youngs ‘Fagettaboutit’
Mount Mocha Kilimanjaro ‘A Woman Changed My Life’
Mabanua feat. Kev Brown ‘Holdin It Down’
Mabanua ‘Dream About You’
laidbook ‘Stratus’
Mabanua feat Akil MC of Jurassic 5 ‘Live Show’
Mabanua ‘My Lady My Lady’
Ovall ‘Take U To Somewhere’
laidbook ‘Light My Fire’
Ovall ‘Marry (Flying Beats)’
A Tribe Called Quest ‘Find A Way’
Mabanua ‘Done Already’
Cibo Matto ‘Know Your Chicken’
Mount Mocha Kilimanjaro ‘Sweet Las Coke’
Mount Mocha Kilimanjaro ‘Caught in the Middle’
Towa Tei feat. Miho Hatori – ‘Out of my Addiction’
45 feat Amphibious Underground + Youngs ‘Right Now’
45 feat Marcus Nealy ‘Big Man Hunting’
Mount Mocha Kilimanjaro ‘Theme of Kilimanjaro’
45 aka SWING-O ‘Sweet Sweat pt 2′
Thirdiq ‘Yellow’
Towa Tei feat Miho Hatori ‘Mind Wall’
Cibo Matto – ‘Vamos a la Playa’

Recorded live at Cafe Lounge, Sydney, on 19 April 2011.

UPDATE 21.04.11 ~ Listen to the entire DJ set here.

Amidst packing my bags for o/s (haven’t left just yet – still recording the new EPs), I’m sneaking in a cheeky DJ set.

I’m gonna give one last spin to all the records given to me by the bands The Ray Mann Three met and played with in Japan at Greenroom Festival 2010, as well as a few other Japan-inspired things too…

Once again, I’m gonna try to tweet the playlist as I go – crazy! Follow the chicanery on my Twitter.

This gig is free – donate to Japan.

Event details:
What: Ray Mann DJ set – ‘To Japan, Love from Sydney’
Where: Cafe Lounge, 277 Goulburn Street, Sydney
When: Tue 19 April, 8-10pm Sydney Time (find out when that is in your time zone)

CC: You recently toured with Rev Al Green & Tori Amos, what was that like?

RM: They were my biggest and most exciting shows up to that point. On the Tori tour, I was playing solo to 2,000 people a night in venues like the Regent Theatre and the Sydney Opera House – it would have been more intimidating, but the audience response was so warm – especially when you consider I was just some anonymous dude singing soul tunes, a very different vibe to the lady of the hour, so that was humbling. As for The Rev, it’s an amazing thing to share the stage with someone whose music has influenced your stuff; and after playing such large rooms by myself with Tori just weeks before, it was great to have the ‘Three’ with me, and see how our dynamic translates from rooms of a couple of hundred people to ten times that.

CC: You have achieved a great deal since the formation of ‘Ray Mann Three’ in 2005, does it ever feel that way? Discuss.

RM: You know, I don’t stop and think about that as often as I possibly should. Let’s see: I’ve recorded an album in a weekend; played shows here and overseas; tried my hand at making music videos; put on a couple of exhibitions of my art here in Sydney; shared the stage with artists like Jamie Lidell, Sharon Jones, Arrested Development and Rickie Lee Jones; and along the way I’ve found myself surrounded by a collective of wonderful musicians and collaborators… You know what? Thanks for asking me that. This may be the first time in a while I’ve taken stock of all that, just because I’m always excited to move onto the next thing – I’m excited about that right now!

CC: What inspired you to contribute your visual artwork within your performances?

RM: I’m a visual person as much as a musical one, so I’m interested in trying to bring these things together, whether it is in music videos or our live shows. From day one, I always saw the artwork of ‘The Ray Mann Three’ as important as the music; in trying to create my own little world. For the first few years I developed that aesthetic with our gig posters and promo art, until last year when I tried animating my drawings for the music video to our single ‘Opa Opa’. So this for me is the next logical step: incorporating the visuals into the live music show, communicating not just what I hear, but also what I see in my head. I get excited watching a gig that has that extra element, and I don’t see many other local bands doing it at the moment, so why not?

CC: What does it feel like to have your own art exhibition in Sydney and are you planning to have exhibitions overseas?

RM: So there were these two guys I didn’t know walking around my very first art exhibition, this time last year in Sydney. They stood in front of one piece, shook their heads, and kept walking around the gallery. I remember thinking, “This is real! Strangers are looking down their nose at your art! In a gallery! Your art! They’re critical! You’re in the art world now!” The experience of putting on the show was even more nerve-wracking than playing my first gig. I couldn’t really explain why; it’s probably just that I have a few years more experience as a performing musician than as an exhibiting artist – so the visual artist part of me has a lot of catching up to do. It was also really important to me that people view my art in a gallery space and not a music venue – it is one thing to be creating artwork purely in the context of promo material, but there’s nothing like exhibiting your work on its own, to tell you what it’s lacking or if it needs improvement. I’m hoping to get out one more exhibition soon, before I take my art – and my music, of course – overseas again in 2011.

CC: Was it difficult to leave ‘Kid Confucius’ and form your own band? Discuss.

RM: Leaving Kid Confucius was difficult purely because I’d spent most of my 20s in that band; stepping out on my own was daunting, but inevitable. I had a lot of affection for the guys, the music and the lifestyle, but Kid C was not my baby; and I knew I had more in me artistically, that there was room for in that group. The Ray Mann Three had been going for a couple of years before I left, but I’d been treating it as a side project, even though I wasn’t writing or singing in Kid C (there were three other guys in Kid C taking care of that). My role in Kid C was purely as lead guitarist, in which I enjoyed and learned a lot from, but my own musical ideas were a little more holistic. Kid C was a very demanding thing; time and energy-wise, juggling life around it in general had always been pretty hard. So my decision to focus on the Ray Mann project meant having to “leave home”, as it were, and take a chance on something I knew I had to at least try.

CC: Japan is a country which every much admires your music, is there a huge comparison between Japanese and Australian crowds?

RM: Oh man, Japan audiences are something else! We visited Japan for the first time in May this year, and our first show was at Greenroom Festival, playing to 3,000 people – and they knew all the words! Surreal! It was the same thing, at the much smaller club show we played at; they seemed fanatical and reverential all at once – not just toward us, but what we saw of them in general. You start a song and there’s this thrill of recognition, then they quickly settle down and become just so attentive; they do not want to miss a thing. Funnily enough, the Australian audience I’d compare them to is Melbourne – really responsive, digging the details, nuances, little moments, everything. For us, the shows are intimate and full of improvisation, it’s really rewarding.

CC: You have a vast list of artists that you’ve played along side; do you ever feel overwhelmed by the amount or the tremendously talented people you have met?

RM: I feel blessed, more than anything, to have met so many talented people. From folks like Jamie Lidell (who was all class and approachable at the same time) to Al Green (he talks just like he sings!), to the really wonderful, talented musicians in Sydney and in Melbourne I’m proud to call my friends, I feel… yeah, blessed.

CC: Are you excited about playing at Red Bennies for Melbourne’s Fringe Festival? Discuss.

RM: We’re really looking forward to being a part of Melbourne’s Fringe Festival. What hooked me was Red Bennies’ deco-theatre-on-an-intimate-scale vibe; I definitely feel an affinity with that. After spending this year experimenting with the “Multimedia Show” concept, and looking for an opportunity to get back to Melbourne, this invitation to be involved in the Fringe Fest and in this wonderful room, felt too much like the stars aligning to say no. We don’t visit Melbourne anywhere near enough and these are our only shows for this year! We can’t wait to share this with you!

Ray Mann: Multimedia Shows perform as part of Melbourne Fringe at Red Bennies between Oct 7th-10th as part of Melbourne Fringe Festival 2010.

Check out the happy snaps from our shows in Japan at Greenroom Festival 2010 and at Duo (with Blue King Brown).

In May 2010, The Ray Mann Three visited Japan for the first time to perform some shows. The band’s first show in Japan saw the band play to an estimated 20,000 people at Greenroom Festival in Yokohama alongside such acts as Arrested Development and G-Love & Special Sauce. The second show, with fellow Aussies Blue King Brown in Tokyo, was the band’s first (sold-out) club show in Japan.

Twelve months earlier, The Ray Mann Three album was released in Japan through P-Vine Records. The first single, ‘Smile’ debuted in iTunes Japan’s Top 10 (outselling Rhianna that week), and the music video for ‘Smile’ (made for a modest $50) was featured for a month on the Billboard Top 40 Japan TV show.

The Ray Mann Three is all set to embark on our first-ever visit to Japan to play shows in May 2010.

It’s a short but action-packed visit: the boys will play shows at Greenroom Festival (which this year features local and international acts including Arrested Development and G-Love & Special Sauce) as well as a sideshow with compatriots Blue King Brown. This is the band’s first trip to Japan since the debut album, The Ray Mann Three, was released there last year (the first single, “Smile“, debuted in iTunes Japan’s top 10, outselling Rhianna).

Here’s the complete run of dates for The Ray Mann Three in Japan…

Sat 22 May ~ Greenroom Festival, Music Stage
with Arrested Development, G. Love, Monkey Majik, 元ちとせ, 渋さ知らズオーケストラ, 伊藤ふみお, 大橋トリオ, and many more ~ details on Greenroom Festival website

Sun 23 May ~ Greenroom Festival, Art Gallery ~ Just Added
Live music jam with 45Trio with art by Ray Mann

Tue 25 May ~ Duo Music Exchange, Shibuya
Blue King Brown + The Ray Mann Three ~ details at Duo Music Exchange website