Wasp Summer Australian Shows 2014

Earlier this year, I got an email out of the blue from Geoff, the Editor of Going Down Swinging, the long-running and innovative Australian journal of poetry, writing, graphic novels and art.

He requested that, for one night, we reform Sean M. Whelan and The Mime Set, the 2005-2008 collaboration between my former post-rock band and one of Australia’s best spoken word performers. They had funding to fly me back to Melbourne from Berlin for the show. I actually cried.

So, Sean M. Whelan and The Mime Set will perform their One Night Wonder on Friday 28 November, 2014 at the Mission To Seafarers Chapel in Docklands, Melbourne. Click here for tickets. We’ve also picked up a Canberra show on Sunday 30 November, for the Bloody Lips night held at New Acton.

Sean M. Whelan & The Mime Set
Friday 28. November – Mission to Seafarers, Melbourne
Saturday 29. November – Bloody Lips @ New Acton, Canberra

And while I’m in the country, why not show people what Wasp Summer’s been working on in Berlin? So I’m organising solo Wasp Summer gigs in Victoria and Queensland. Here are the confirmed dates.

Wasp Summer
Thursday 20. November – The Old Bar, Fitzroy, Melbourne
Friday 21. November – The Eastern, Ballarat
Saturday 22. November – The Bridge, Castlemaine
Friday 5. December – Couplet @ Brisbane Square Library, Brisbane
Wednesday 10 December – Skukum Lounge, Brisbane

New Song: Burning

I think this is probably the best demo I’ve ever made. I am really digging the harmonies – they’re so tense, tight and quietly dramatic. This song points to the new direction I’m taking Wasp Summer in, especially now I have the three-piece band with bassplayer Simon Morrison (Remarkable Shipwrecks, Dead Sentries, ex-Assassination Collective) and journalist/drummer Stuart Braun (ex-Dust) – sexier, looser, less folk and more rock, noisier. I’m fronting a band on guitar for the first time. It’s exhilarating.

Here’s Burning: