MEET MARY-LOU … In the nick of time, Mary-Lou was created by Claude for The Gentle Enemies’ debut European tour. Her main special feature is the P90 pick up. More pics and detail on the ‘making of’ coming soon. In the meantime if you are in the area you can check out Mary-Lou in action at these shows in Europe: Saturday July 18 (SOLO) Blues Peer Festival Peer, BELGIUM Onstage 12pm with special guest appearance of bass player from the Gentle Enemies (Ryan Van Gennip) (Mary-Lou won’t be making it for this show – her sister Lucy will be the main attraction here) Thursday 23rd July (new added show!) (SOLO and BAND) Tam Tam Muziek Cafe Deurne, NETHERLANDS (Mary-Lou’s first show in Europe!) Friday 24th July (BAND) Zwarte Cross Festival Lictenvoorde, NETHERLANDS 19:30, The Bayou Stage Saturday 25th July (SOLO and BAND) Pee Rock Festival Colijsnplaat NETHERLANDS Saturday 1 August … Read more

This May Sydney-based solo artist Claude Hay will tour the east coast to announce the arrival of new single “Crossfire” and then immediately fly out to The Netherlands for another week to do the same in Europe, where he’s playing at two major festivals. From it’s ‘wipeout’ inspired scream ‘Crossfire’ stumbles and grinds along like a Tom Waits-meets-Morricone ghost town drunk and features instrumentation not often heard in Claude’s music, including a spooky honky tonk piano. Not in a hurry to drastically change his signature one man band touring rig, and staying true to his DIY technology ethos, Claude manages to play the piano live on his new guitar ‘Lucy‘. Like all Claude’s instruments, Lucy is hand built, this time from a piece of plywood, an old BBQ grill plate and is wired with a midi controller. More more info on Lucy click HERE. Crossfire was produced and recorded by Claude at the brand new Rhythm Section Studios in the Blue Mountains with guest … Read more

Lucy made a sneaky peak appearance a couple of years back – but needed a few more adjustmentsand she is unveiled in all her glory this month. She’s made out of left over building materials from Claude’s own Blue Mountain home and the resonator cover is an old BBQ lid. At first she was to have a resonator cone within, but after some experimentation she couldn’t make the cut above the rock and roll noise so now she has a mod con synth pick up installed in her. It allows Claude to make sounds and patches from bass to acousitc guitar, resonator guitar, banjo and even piano, all at a flick of the switch. It also allows for guitar tuning to be changed from standard to open in record time. Perfect for a One Man looping Band who needs to change things up quickly to keep the show rockin. Lucy … Read more