www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdyzk-kHLWI

Dying With You Baby

Nothing left to say
Nowhere else to go
It’s only you and me here on my own

Shallow empty days
Passing street parades
We both know something’s got to change

I got you red roses but still you sleep
I got no words for keeping you alive

I’m dying with you baby, I am dying here
Dying with you baby
I’m dying with you baby, I am dying here
Dying with you baby, I am

Well I had a taste
Of that perfect place
Who am I to say you can’t replace

Took the morning train
Past the dawn lit harbor
For seven days a fire burned for love

I got new eyes for loving
Got more than faith
I got this boat for crossing through time

I’m dying with you baby, I am dying here
Dying with you baby
I’m dying with you baby, I am dying here
Dying with you baby, I am

Melodic sounds at Lawler’s Hut

Melbourne folk-pop group The Wishing Well will perform at Lawler’s Hut this Saturday night.

In the melodic tradition of Ryan Adams, David Gray, Dave Matthews Band and The Waterboys, The Wishing Well combines orchestral music with evocative lyrics.

The bandis made up of (from left) Oscar Lopez on bass and vocals, drummer Rod McCleod, Sarah Busuttil on violin and vocals, violinist Rivkah Larkan, and Jai Larkan on vocals and acoustic guitar.

A deep, rich well of folk, pop and rock

Australian band The Wishing Well create spellbinding sounds which produce a rich tapestry of folk, pop and rock.

The band is excited to introduce to fans, new and old, their unique blend of violin-driven folk/rock and will perform at the Railway Hotel in Byron Bay tonight (Jan 21).

In the melodic tradition of Ryan Adams, David Gray, Dave Matthews

Band and The Waterboys, The Wishing Well appeals to lovers of emotive lyrics and memorable melodies.

Their inspiring live performances have generated a legion of dedicated fans.

The band has just returned from a successful tour of Ireland, The UK and Europe.

By Ben Hermann

Not for the faint-hearted:
The Wishing Well played 70 days straight in Europe

Melbourne folk-rock troubadours the Wishing Well are not a group that do anything by half measures. Since their inception in 2007, they’ve traversed not only our own brown land but also parts of North America and Europe, playing almost 700 shows and burning through 32 band members in the process. This month sees them launch yet another tour, bringing them through Canberra twice in two weeks.

”It’s really tiring, and certainly not for everybody. All the musicians we’ve played with have been world class, and absolutely beautiful people, but to maintain our lifestyle takes a lot of stamina and vision”, says Rivkah Larkan, the group’s violinist – a law graduate who worked for the UN before committing herself completely to music.

”When we were recently in Europe, we’d get up around 9am, go find a busking pitch, play for three hours, have a nap, then go to sound check. We did that every day for 70 days. As is the case in Australia as well, the busking is more profitable than the shows. We made back all our money from flights, food, accommodation and venue hiring, plus saved enough to record our next album.

” Such feats would normally have even the most hardened on-the-road musician quivering with a nervous chill, but Larkan brushes it off like nothing more than a hard day at work, digressing to discuss tales from when the group were once paid for their threehour show in wilted beetroots, to playing with Van Morrison, and busking for 500 people in front of Milan’s famous cathedral.

”The amazing thing about music is that if you truly love it, it gives you so much energy” says Larkan. ”You can play a particular chord or lyric and you can physically see how it moves people. It’s a true and deep feeling, and completely and utterly addictive” she says.

”And as the Dalai Lama is quoted, ‘You should judge life by what you’ve given up’. Now, we’re not successful by any stretch of the imagination, but we gave up security, jobs, and I was in huge debt at the beginning of our last tour. But we’re doing what we love to do, and that’s play music. We can do it all day every day and we don’t have to do anything else. There’s not much more we could ask for.”

In the context of such a masochistic touring lifestyle, it’s not surprising the group has only released one album – Life on the Border – thus far. Recording for their follow-up, Fire on the Hill, was scheduled for late last year, but as Larkan points out, time has slipped so easily through their fingers.

”The recording we’ve done so far has been more challenging than our first album. It’s more epic, and there’s a lot more production, which has taken up lots of time” she says. ”But we don’t really have much time to just sit down and work on the music. Jai [the group's vocalist and lyricist] has difficulty finishing his lyrics with such constant disruption. So we’re at a point now where a majority of the music is finished but things still need tidying up.”

But before then, there’s more touring to be done, including trips to both the Phoenix and the Front. Larkan suggests that seated venues dedicated to live music are the group’s ideal, but that every setting is entertaining in its own right. ”RSLs are entertaining every once in a while. Once a guy threw a bottle at us,” Larkan says. ”But it was actually because he liked us. He was just really excited.”

The Wishing Well With: Vamp When: Monday, January 18 Where: The Phoenix, Civic (& The Front on February 1) Tickets: Free

Fire In The Valley nearing completion

Upcoming tours (NEW DATES AND VENUES ADDED):

Jan 14 – Feb 1 VIC, NSW, ACT, QLD;
Feb 2-15 WA
March 12-13 VIC
March 18-21 TAS

• Next Melbourne Show:  Friday, Feb 26 The Corner Hotel, Swan Street, Richmond  FULLY SEATED SHOW
• European Tour starts: June 21
• Seeking fill-in drummer
• Hands up who wants to be a nanna for the night for The Wishing Well in Canberra, Sydney, Byron Bay, Perth/Fremantle Sunshine Coast, Brisbane?
• Your large vehicle could earn you $1,000
• Froupies needed to put up posters in Byron, Sydney, Perth, Canberra and Melbourne
• Best monthly moment winner: Rivkah
• The Wishing Well’s monthly blahblah – too hot for our monthly blahblah folks tune in next newsletter for more blahblah
• New Euro dates added

Greetings and salutations to all you friendly people out there!  How are you going on your New Years resolutions?  Ours are being whipped into shape and week two sees us still being true to well at least some of them!  It’s been a full on year for us already: we toured Tassie, have been busking in the sweltering sun at The Queen Victoria Markets, putting the finishing touches on Fire In The Valley and gearing up for our next tours!  Check the gig guides below as some venues have jumped on board in last few days.  Apart from this, we are looking forward to playing The Corner again on Friday, Feb 26.

The Wishing Well folk rock the beautiful Salamanca Arts Centre Courtyard

Tassie Tour Blog:

Tassie was especially awesome this time!  Lots of great shows, and great new friends.  Our nannies were especially lovely!  The hospitable Jacqueline even got up at 6:00am to make us a scrummy eggs on toast breaky before we trundled off to play a red-eyed gig at Salamanca.  Special thanks to the lovely lady at Salamanca who came back to buy a second CD for her friend instead of just burning a copy.  We really appreciated that!  We know times are tight but it really is a lovely gesture to invest in our music by buying instead of burning our CDs since we really do struggle to keep on doing what we do and our CD sales are a major part of our continuation so thanks so much for your generosity and integrity to our music.  See you in March you wild Tasmaniacs

The Republic Bar and Brookfield Vineyard

Upcoming tours: Jan 14 – Feb 1 VIC, NSW, ACT, QLD; Feb 2-15 WA

We have a pretty busy touring schedule  (which as you know is pretty much always the case) coming that sees us playing all over Oz far and wide.  We are looking for some lovely nannies to take us in under their wings and away from the dreadful clutches of Formula 1.  Lettuce know if you need some people to crash on your floor, we’re there in a flash.

Melbourne – February

Feb 26, 2010, The Corner Hotel, Swan Street, Richmond
Our show at The Corner will probably be our last Melbourne show before we head back to Europe until December so be sure to book your tickets early if you want to see us play.   The fun police have cracked down on our busking (apparently too many people were smiling and maybe just maybe we were playing a little bit too loud) so no more watching The Wishing Well with a fistful of Lord of Fries at Flinders Street anymore BUT please do come and see us play at The Corner we can’t promise you Lord of the Fries but we can promises you an awesome show.   You get to see us rock out in great splendour minus Connex announcements and tram whistles! Supports will be announced soon.

Tickets available from Corner Box Office 11am-8pm Mon-Sat, 9427 9198 or www.cornerhotel.com

Regional Victoria – January

Jan 16 2010, 6:00pm, Lawler’s Hut, 100 Gavin Street, Bright Victoria,

ACT, NSW, QLD – January

Canberra:

18 Jan 2010, 8:00pm, The Phoenix Bar, 21 East Row, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory

1 Feb 2010, 8:00pm, Front Bar Gallery, 1/2 Wattle St, Lyneham ACT 2602

New South Wales:

15 Jan 2010, 8:00pm, The Astor Hotel, Young Street, Albury, NSW

17 Jan 2010, 4:00pm, Thomas Blarney Tavern, Albert Street, Wagga Wagga, NSW

20 Jan 2010, 6:00pm, The Rails, Jonson Street, Railway Station?Byron Bay, New South Wales

28 Jan 2010, 8:00pm, The View Factory, 64 Scott St (Cnr Telford St), Newcastle, NSW

29 Jan 2010, 8:00pm, Wauchope Community Arts, Oxley Lane, Wauchope, New South Wales

30 Jan 2010, 8:00pm, Hotel Gearin, 273 Great Western Hwy, Katoomba

31 Jan 2010, 7:30pm The Funky Café, 256 King Street, Newtown, Sydney, NSW

Queensland:

23 Jan 2010, 8:00pm Crystal Waters Community Deck, off Kilcoy Lane Conondale, Crystal Waters, Queensland

24 Jan 2010, 9:00pm, Harrigans Drift Inn, Huth Rd  Jacobs Well, Queensland

27 Jan 2010, 8:00p, The Troubadour, 3/322 Brunswick St, Fortitude, Brisbane, Queensland

Western Australia – February

5 Feb 2010, 9pm, The Prince of Wales  41 Stephen Street, Bunburry, Western Australia

6 Feb 2010, 9:00pm, Settler’s Tavern, 114 Bussell Hwy  Margaret River, Western Australia

7 Feb 2010, 8:00pm, The Indi Bar, 23 Hastings Street  Scarborough, Western Australia

9 Feb 2010, 8:00pm, Mojo’s, 237 Queen Victoria St  Perth, Western Australia

12 Feb 2010 8:00pm, The Camel Bar, 20 Chapman Road  Geralton, Western Australia

13 Feb 2010  8:00pm, Rainbow Jungle, 14 Bridgeman Road  Kalbarri, Western Australia

14 Feb 2010, 9:00pm  Southerley’s Tavern  Dongara, Western Australia

European Tour starts: June 21

We have started to make our bookings for our next Euroinvasion tour to the UK and Europe.  Lift off is June 21 and we are really looking forward to catching up with all our Euro buddies and indulging in some great beer.   If you really really want us to come play a concert in your town now is the time to let us know and about any other venues you think would be great for us.

July 1, 2010 – Ryan’s of Odense, Odense, Denmark

July 2, 2010 – Skagenfest, Skagen, Denmark

July 3, 2010 – Skagenfest, Skagen, Denmark

July 4, 2010 – Skagenfest, Skagen, Denmark

July 14, 2010, – Schokoladen, Berlin, Germany

And many more to come so stay tuned!

Sez and her groupies / Rod helps the Forth locals get there groove on / Sez jamming with Pedro the Alpaca

Seeking fill-in drummer

Rod is off to India for some rest and relaxation but the show must go on!  So we are looking for someone to fill his big bird shoes with us while he is away.  If you’re up for some fun tours and like hanging out with some weirdos then give Rivkah a call on 0423 425 009 and she can give you all the details.

“Man I need some funky brother to lock these beats down with…”

Dear nannas…

Hands up who wants to be a nanna for the night for The Wishing Well in Tas, Canberra, Sydney, Perth, Sunshine Coast, Brisbane and Byron Bay? Our nanna for the night program has been great fun for us and the nannies!  If you are able to host even some of us and even for just one night you would be helping us out an incredible amount.  It makes such a difference to us being able to avoid those stinky hotel rooms and stay in a real house.  We are seeking nannies for the following nights and places:

Jan 17, 18, Feb 1 Canberra ACT

Jan 20 Tamworth, NSW

Jan 19, Jan 31 Sydney, NSW

Jan 27, Byron Bay, NSW

Jan 29, Wauchope, NSW

Jan 22, 23, 25, 26 Sunshine Coast, Queensland

Jan 24 Gold Coast, Queensland

Jan 28 Newcastle, NSW

Feb 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 Perth/Fremantle WA

Nannie gallery

The fabulous Tassy Nannies – The Murrays

The Schwenkes – Our Adelaide homeys away from homeys

Come On Tour With Us

If you have a van or other large vehicle that lounges around the garage and needs to get out more, you could hire it to us!  It makes you money and we save some!  Give Rivkah a call on 0423 425 009 for details.  We are looking to hire a van Jan 14- Feb 1 for our tour from Melbourne to Queensland and back and could hire your van or large vehicle for $1,000.  We are also seeking to hire a van Feb 3-15 in WA.

Calling all froupies far and wide!

Froupies needed to put up posters in Byron, Sydney, Perth, Canberra and Melbourne, please contact Riv on 0423 425 009 if you think you are a bit of whiz with glue and street poles.

Best monthly moment winner…..goes to Rivkah
For falling on her bumb mid song at The Salamanca Arts Centre in Hobart and still playing and not bleeding anywhere!  Well done to the Riv

Facebook, Twitter join up won’t ya?
Myspace is SOOO 2006.   Give us a tweet on Twitter.  You can join here: http://twitter.com/wishingwellband

To buy your copy of Life on the Border please go to The Wishing Well Store at

www.lifeontheborder.net

Thanks for reading ? and to all the people who throw change in our
case, buy our CDs, come to our shows and take time out of their busy
lives to let us know how much our music resonates with them.  It’s the
highest reward for us to connect with you through our music.  We often
share moments and meet people through playing our music that we
otherwise wouldn’t.  To see someone jamming along with us who speaks
English as a second language or comes from a place we have never been
to or even heard of or who lives a life that is so different from
anything we have ever experienced and to be able to connect through
music is a beautiful and rare experience we never tire of!
See you soon
x The Wishing Well (Jai, Sarah, Rivkah, Willow, Oscar and Rod)

JK Rowling

JK has sold more than 400 million copies worldwide, yet single mother Joanne Kathleen Rowling almost gave up on her first novel Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone when it was rejected by around a dozen publishers before British publishing house Bloomsbury paid just £2500 (around $4500) for the manuscript. The Harry Potter series has since been translated into 67 languages and Rowling’s seventh instalment, Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows, sold 11 million copies in its first 24 hours.

Martin Scorsese

It took 26 years, six best director and two best screenplay nominations before the American film director took the Oscar for best director in 2007 for his film The Departed. He received the award to a standing ovation before saying: “Could you double-check the envelope?”

Coco Chanel

Genius she may have been, but Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel was 30 when she opened her first fashion boutique and 42 when she created the “little black dress” – the design classic which would cement her reputation as the all-time great couturier.

Red Hot Chili Peppers

Californian rockers Red Hot Chili Peppers shot to fame in 1991 with their classic album Blood Sugar Sex Magik. At the time, the band seemed to burst on to the music scene – new, fresh and overnight. In fact, they’d been playing backwoods LA clubs for almost 10 years and their first album, released in 1984, received scant exposure beyond college radio stations. Since then, the band has gone on to win multiple Grammys and sell over 50 million albums.

Tina Fey

She makes it look so effortless, but it has taken more than 10 years of hard graft as a comedy writer, one NBC show (30 Rock) and that impersonation of Alaskan Governor Sarah Palm to turn plain old Elizabeth Stamatina Fey into the 39-year-old white-hot-comedy-icon she is today.

Define your genre in five words or less:

“Violin driven stadium folk rock.”

So, someone is walking past as you guys are playing, they then go get a beer and tell their friend about you… what do they say?

“Friend ‘I just saw this great band busking outside Flinders Street. They’ve got two chick violin players in corsets, another girl who plays mandolin and electric and the singer has a really expressive voice and writes great lyrics. They perform a cool mixture of lush ballads and rockin tunes with fierce violin solos.’ Other friend: ‘Oh yeah, The Wishing Well, I know them. They play constantly. I’ve got their CD and can’t wait for the new one. I first heard them outside Flinders Street too!”

How long have you been gigging and writing?

“Three years, eight days and four hours.”

What has been your favourite gig you’ve played to date?

“Blue Balls Festival in Lucerne, Switzerland – the downpour broke into sunshine when we struck the first chord of the first song and then a rainbow encircled us.

Which band would you most like to have a battle! showdown with?

“We don’t battle bands, we sit back and appreciate. Mumford and Sons are a new band we’ve discovered and like appreciating.”

What inspires or has influenced your music the most?

“The people who recognise beauty in uncommon placer.
As an independent self-managed band, we often play more gigs than concerts. The people who are moved by our music even in the most un-ambient of places, like that dreadful TAB in Port Macqoarie, encourage us to continue.

Those few killjoys out there who tried to tell us that we couldn’t do what we do, or that we should just be a little bit more ‘something’ have also influenced us.. to stay true to the music we believe in and to keep on doing exactly what they said we couldn’t.”

What do you think a band has to do these days to succeed?

“Quit their day jobs, live, breathe, eat, fart their music. Stop waiting for perfection, build it yourself imperfectly.

Become a holistic musician, play the song not just your instrument, embrace the business side of music and incorporate all the arts into performances (theatre,visual art, story telling etc.) don’t dress on stage in the outfit you used to clean the toilet. Don’t let the music industry define your music, how or where you play it – they exist because of us, not us because of them.

Never underestimate where opportunities can come from, no matter how dodgy they first seem. We once played for a few beetroots. They were organic, but still. Someone saw us play at that daggy beetroot concert and booked us to play a festival a few months later. A true musician never turns down an opportunity to play.”

Do you have any record releases to date? What? Where can I get it?

“Life On The Border (2008 LP) is available straight from our little paws and off our website lifeontheborder, net which we also built with our own little paws. Over 5,000 people in the past year have purchased it this way – so can you. Fire In The Valley (2010 LP) is due out in January.”

Why should everyone come and see your band?

“We don’t want everyone to come and see our band. We want only the people who get it to come and see us play. The rest can go to the footy.”

When are you playing live/releasing your album/EP/ single/etc?

“The Beat Back Stage at Queen Victoria Market tonight, Wednesday December 16. Our next Melbourne show is at The Thornbury Theatres on Saturday, May 8, 2010 to launch Fire In The. Valley. Until then we are touring Oz heavily and then go back to Europe in July.’

The Wishing Welt play the Beat Back Stage at Suzuki Queen Victoria Night Market tonight, Wednesday December 16. Get along and also nail some freakin’ ace food and booze – it’s a rip snorter of a night out.

MELBOURNE band The Wishing Well bring their blend of violin-driven folk rock back to Tasmania this weekend.

The Wishing Well – Jai Larkan (vocals, guitar), Sarah Busuttil (violin, vocals), Rivkah Larkan (violin), Alex Rottier (bass, vocals) and Mikey Minten (drums) – have only been together for a few years but have already played more than 600 gigs on the international circuit, evoking a gamut of emotions with their rich tapestry of mesmerising folk. pop and rock music.

A cacophony of three-part harmonies released in March 2008, The Wishing Well’s debut album Life On The Border showcased Jai Larkan’s moving songwriting, haunting vocals and poetic lyrics.

The band’s captivating and inspiring live performances have helped them develop an enthusiastic and ever-growing fan base around the country. They have established themselves as one of Australia’s hardest working independent bands, booking all their own tours, organising all their own publicity and financing their own recordings.

The Wishing Well embarked on their maiden European tour earlier this year, which was a huge success. Now they are touring Tasmania before heading into the studio to record their second album.

“Tassie, we miss you!” Larkan said. “We always have a great time and are looking forward to seeing all you wild Tasmaniacs again.”

The Wishing Well play at Margate’s Brookifeld Vineyard from 7pm tomorrow, the Republic Bar in North Hobart from 10pm Saturday ($5 cover), and at The Bridge Hotel at Forth on Sunday Afternoon.

“…Music is everything to us: our work, our party, our meditation, our holiday, our inspiration, our frustration…”

It takes a bit to scroll through the numerous gigs lined up for The Wishing Well on their MySpace. If you’re wondering why they’re so popular, with consistent dates for (at least) the next six months, it might have something to do with the extremely passionate nature they play their S orchestral folk rock. If they had one wish, it would simply be that they continue playing music together, and it seems the Melbourne band have had this one granted – and then some. We caught up with violin player Rivkah, who really wishes you would come along to one of their shows this January!

If you could drop a coin in a wishing well and make one wish right now, what would it be?

We love coming to Tasmania, and it would be nice if it could float north to Port Phillip Bay like a lost child to its mother, so we could stroll across anytime we want for some fun gigs and cheap Cascade.

What’s one thing in your life you wish you hadn’t done?

That we hadn’t chopped up and buried that over-playing bass player who could never remember the chords.

What’s one thing you wish you had?

Found the current members of our band sooner. It’s a difficult combination to find – a group of six people that get each other personally and musically, are willing to live on the road andwith one another, and that accept that part of playing in a band that is establishing itself means not a lot of money and a whole lot of work. It’s taken enough people to fill a small orchestra to find these people.

Who’s one person you really wish you could meet and why?

Bruce Springsteen for his inspiring music, humble manner and amazing on stage presence.

You guys have a LOT of gigs lined up for the next six months, is it like your wishes have been granted?

It’s more like the fruits of our hard work have been granted. It’s a pretty intense lifestyle booking and publicising all our own gigs, organising the logistics for all our tours, writing new songs, rehearsing and playing live constantly.

We are used to living out of the van, driving 8 hours to a gig and then doing the same thing the next day. But we are getting better at it after doing it over 600 times in the past 3 years. With every gig we play, we learn more from each other musically and personally and from the audiences who either love us or play pool over the top of us.

Do you ever wish you could take a little break?

Music is everything to us: our work, our party, our meditation, our holiday, our inspiration, our frustration. It would be like taking a break from eating. We could do it but not for very long and we would just be thinking about it all the time anyway.

What’s one thing you wish to see when you make it to Tasmania in January?

The Army Reserve restraining thousands of fans at the airport. See you there!

MEEGAN MAY