ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES
Julian Knowles
Since the mid 1980s, Julian Knowles has established himself as a prominent artist in the area of electronic and new music, achieving significant critical recognition for his performances and recordings.
Specialising in new and emerging technologies, his projects span the fields of composition for theatre, dance, film & television, electronic music, sound and new media arts, popular music & record production.
Knowles has an extensive background in the Australian and UK independent music scenes from the mid 1980s as a performer, programmer and producer in bands such as The Shrinking Violets, Even As We Speak in addition to guest work for Big Heavy Stuff and Swirl.
Although working primarily as a solo artist, he has been a member of the experimental sound art ensemble Social Interiors since the early 90s and has collaborated with a wide range of Australian and international artists. His work has been presented at venues and events such as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Experimental Intermedia in New York City, Sydney Opera House, the Seoul International Performance Art Festival, and a range of major arts venues.
Roger Grierson
Frontman for the punk band the Thought Criminals, Roger Grierson has been a key figure in the Australian and New Zealand independent music scenes since 1975. Having fronted multiple record labels (White Light Records, Green Records, and later Polygram Music Publishing), Grierson finally went on to become Chairman of Festival Records in 1998.
Over his career he has been responsible for releasing music and touring artists such as Leonard Cohen, Powderfinger, The Go-Betweens, Beasts of Bourbon, the Buzzcocks, and Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds.
In 2005 Roger Grierson left Festival and retired from the music business. A year later he reformed The Thought Criminals, and in 2007 formed the UnTh!nkables with Phillip Judd from Split Enz.
Clinton Walker
Clinton Walker is an Australian historian and author, best known for his works on Australian popular music.
Born in country Victoria in the late 1950s, Walker began as a journalist for community radio and magazines in the late seventies, before publishing his first book, Inner City Sound, in 1981 (a revised and expanded new edition was published in 2005). His third book, Highway to Hell: The Life and Times of AC/DC Legend Bon Scott (1994) was a best seller in Finland. He is also the author of Stranded: The Secret History of Australian Independent Music 1977-1991 (1996). Buried Country, which is a history of Aboriginal country music is his sixth book, followed by 2005's Golden Miles: Sex, Speed and the Australian Muscle Car.
He has also worked at ABC Television on the documentary series, Long Way to the Top and Love is in the Air, "Sex with Apes", as well as co-hosting the live music program Studio 22.
Jaimie Leonarder
Jaimie Leonarder is an Australian musician, archivist, social worker, film critic, radio announcer and DJ. In the 1980s, Leonarder formed an experimental noise rock band called the Mu Mesons, and he now works as a DJ for the monthly "The Sounds of Seduction" night club.
In 2005 and 2006, Leonarder co-hosted the The Movie Show, a film criticism show broadcast on SBS, with Fenella Kernebone and Megan Spencer.
Currently, he hosts The Naked City (a radio show on FBi Radio in Sydney) along with his wife Miss Death and Coffin Ed. He also hosts the weekly Cult Sinema Monday night at the Annandale Hotel in Sydney and shows films and documentaries at his private cinema, the Mu-Meson Archives.
Stephen Mallinder
Original member and vocalist of Sheffield electro pioneers Cabaret Voltaire, Stephen Mallinder is also the co-founder of the label Offworld Sounds with Pete Carroll. On this label they released 'Bibleopoly’ by Sassi and Loco (a side project consisting of Mallinder and Travis Calley from Yummy Fur) in 1997.
Having recently completed his PhD is music and popular culture, he is now teaching at the University of Brighton. He also runs the ADM-OER Project with the University of the Arts London, University for the Creative Arts and the Faculty of Arts Cumbria, releasing open access learning materials in art and design.
Tom Ellard
Tom Ellard is an Australian electronic musician most well known as the founding member of the electronic and industrial music group Severed Heads. Ellard's first music contributions began in the late 1970s as a teenager, when he was influenced by groups that emerged from the early United Kingdom and Australian punk movement, such as Throbbing Gristle, SPK, Wire and other like artists.
Predating music technology such as MIDI and personal computers, Ellard's early work was performed with tape machines, tape loops and basic analogue equipment. Through the 1980s Ellard began to take advantage of technological developments such as the music sequencer in combination with looping sounds before sampling.
Severed Heads were probably most well known in Australia for chart success with a 1994 remix of the track "Dead Eyes Opened" (initially released in the early 1980s) which made the Australian top 40. Ellard is also noted for his early contributions to the electronic and industrial music movements in Australia and overseas. In 2005 Ellard received the Australian Record Industry Association's ARIA Music Award for the best original soundtrack/cast/show for the soundtrack to the Australian film The Illustrated Family Doctor.
Ellard currently resides in Surry Hills, New South Wales and continues to record music and soundtracks and also lectures at a variety of educational facilities on music production in Australia. He is the creator and director of sevcom.com, a website for alternative methods of music distribution and creation.
Andrew Penhallow
Andrew Penhallow co-founded GAP Records in 1980, which licensed the innovative UK label Factory Records for Australia (Joy Division, New Order, Happy Mondays). In 1984 he founded Volition Records, Australia’s first dance music label (Severed Heads, Southend, Itch-e & Scratch-e, Single Gun Theory, Boxcar) and that same year established Factory Australasia which he ran till 1992. In 1994 Andrew co-founded the "Boiler Room" dance stage for The Big Day Out and in that same year he Initiated the Dance Music Award category for ARIA ,which Volition artists won two years in a row with Itch-e & Scratch-e and FSOM.
Ross Harley
Ross Harley is an artist, writer, and educator in the field of new media and popular culture. In the late 1970s, Harley made music video for seminal Brisbane/Sydney power-pop bands The Riptides and his own bands The Myth, Phollowers, and Catchcry.
From 1986-91 Ross Harley was managing editor then editor of the controversial art theory journal Art + Text. Art + Text was at the forefront of the postmodern debate, and had considerable impact upon the contemporary art scene in Australia. He has written regular columns for a number of Australian magazines and newspapers including Rolling Stone, Cinema Papers, The Sydney Morning Herald, and The Australian.
Harley is also well-known for directing the audio/vision for the Cardoso Flea Circus videos and live performances with Colombian-born artist Maria Fernanda Cardoso. The CFC has been presented at the Pompidou Centre Paris, San Francisco’s Exploratorium, Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney, and the Sydney Opera House. The video-tent installation has been acquired by the Tate in London as part of its permanent collection.
Ross Harley's work continues to cross the bounds of media art practice, cinema, music, design, and architecture.
Stephen Jones
Stephen Jones is an Australian electronic musician and video artist. Jones, together with Tom Ellard, was a principal member of Severed Heads.
In 1982 Stephen Jones set up Heuristic Video, a post-production facility for independent video production. Jones later joined up with the electronic band Severed Heads and produced the world’s first live video performances with a band as part of the band's touring show, continuing to work with Severed Heads until 1992.
Stephen Jones continues to engage in researching the history and development of art & technology as represented in computer graphics and electronic and digital imaging in Australia. He continues to work as an electronics designer for artist’s interactive projects and other prototype development.
Ian Andrews
Ian Andrews is a Sydney based independent film, video and sound artist who has been practicing since 1981. Beginning with experimental audio collage, Andrews gradually moved into the production of film and video, and film and video soundtracks, and then to electronic music, digital animation and interactive net art.
Much of Andrews’ work consists of video/sound collage, "cut-up," and agit-prop culture jamming utilising a diverse range of visual styles – from animation to "found" footage. The work is often characterised by themes such as technology and subjectivity.
In the early 80s he produced a number of 16mm "cut-up" films which were shown in conjunction with live audio performances, During this time he also created experimental radio work and audio cassettes, and collaborated with international artists on various experimental sound projects.
Andrews has exhibited his works in various international film and video festivals including festivals in Edinburgh, Rotterdam, Hong Kong, Naples, Catania, Amsterdam, Berlin and Wellington, in addition to numerous events throughout Australia. He has spoken about and presented his work at various conferences, both nationally and internationally. In June 2001 he presented a retrospective of his work, from 1983 to 2000, as part of the Sydney Film Festival.
Michael Tee
Michael Tee co-founded independent Sydney – based label M Squared record label in 1979, which was run on a shoestring budget from a small recording studio in Sydney, Australia between 1979 and 1984. Bands who released material on the label include Systematics, The Makers of the Dead Travel Fast, Scattered Order and Ya Ya Choral. Michael also was a member of Scattered Order, Ya Ya Choral, did sound engineering and booked live shows for M Squared bands. He is currently active as a member of Scattered Order Mk1 and A Cloakroom Assembly.
