DANNY FEDERICI
april 18, 2008

Longtime keyboardist for Bruce Springsteen, Danny Federici, died yesterday after a long battle with melanoma. Danny can be heard on the BROTHER album "Exit From Screechville".
Angus - "Danny was a pleasure to work with, and a very tasteful musician. I love what he laid down for us on those Screechville tracks. I raise my glass to his next big adventure." -angus

It's an honour to have worked with Danny and to know we have his energy gracing those Screechville recordings. It's always exciting when you have someone like Danny in the studio with you and i give thanks for his distinctive contributions to our music. -hamish

 

EARTH HOUR DOWN UNDER
march 2008

The Glorious MUDsingers will honour Earth Hour, March 29, with their Hellishly good gospel when they open for Aussie singing sensation, Christine Anu, at the Milton Theatre. The choir will take to the stage at 8pm as the lights are switched off all over the country. No lights, no mics, no air con.

The Glorious MUDsingers have just returned from 3 performances at Australia's National Folk Festival in Canberra where they were hailed as the under the radar festival hit.
 

SORRY DAY
march 2008

Over a period of almost 70 years, through to the late 1960's, thousands of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children were removed from their families and communities, often by extreme force. This practice was deemed to be 'for their own good' and 'to integrate them into the white society'. Many never saw their mother or father, sisters or brothers again.

The pain inflicted on the Stolen Generations, as they have come to be known, and their people and the deep sorrows created as a result of this dark period in Australia's short modern history are still felt to this day.

Acknowledgment of these wrongs has been slow in coming. An official apology, though often requested over the last decade, has been repeatedly refused.

February 13 of this year, marked a change in this status quo.

"I move:
That today we honour the Indigenous peoples of this land, the oldest continuing cultures in human history.
We reflect on their past mistreatment.
We reflect in particular on the mistreatment of those who were Stolen Generations— this blemished chapter in our nation's history.
The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australia's history by righting the wrongs of the past and so moving forward with confidence to the future.
We apologise for the laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians.
We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country.
For the pain, suffering and hurt of these Stolen Generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry.
To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry.
And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry.
We the Parliament of Australia respectfully request that this apology be received in the spirit in which it is offered as part of the healing of the nation."

So began Australia's new Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, in a motion to the nation's Parliament - his first official order of business.

Addressing a crowd of several thousand in the middle of Sydney, gathered to share the moment broadcast live on big screens, Aboriginal man Clarence Slockee, from the NSW North Coast, decleared it was the beginning of a new era.

"In 1788 it was estimated that there were over 1 million Aboriginal people," he told the multitude.

"They started counting us in the census in 1967. Today we number just over 500,000.

"We certainly need to account for what happened to the other 500,000, we also need to account for what has happened in the past, but we certainly must move together into the future.

"Today is the first step in what we hope will be true reconciliation."