Accompanying the desert rock concerts will be a screening of the band’s international award-winning documentary Gravel Road.
The four-piece band is famous across Australia for transcending cultural boundaries, with songs infused with rock ‘n’ roll, Indigenous culture and language. Lead singer Jay Minning is a Spinifex man and the community’s traditional songman. He is responsible for creating, performing and passing down songs that connect community to country.
“For a black man, I’m living in two worlds here and I got to get the story across to the other side,” says Minning.
Gravel Road is directed by Tristan Pemberton and follows the debut tour of The Desert Stars as they travel from their home in remote Tjuntjuntjara across the punishing terrain of the Western Australian Desert in support of their second studio album Mungangka Ngaranyi (It’s On Tonight).
“What an utter privilege it’s been to collaborate with singer-songwriter Jay Minning and the community of Tjuntjuntjara in the making of Gravel Road. Every journey changes you, and this one left an indelible mark on all participants in the true spirit of ngapartji-ngapartji (reciprocity). It was all made possible because of Jay’s incredible passion to share his remarkable life, culture and Spinifex history through music,” says Pemberton.
Dubbed “Blacca Dacca”, the band compromises lead-singer-songwriter Jay Minning, lead guitar and backing vocalist Derek Coleman, bassist Justin Currie and drummer Ashley Franks. The band’s music reflects on their profound culture as the last true nomads. With songs of hunter-gatherer life and their people’s survival of the 1950s British atomic testing at the infamous Maralinga site, The Desert Stars’ fanbase is diverse and rapidly growing.
Gravel Road won Best Documentary Feature at Poppy Jasper Film Festival in California and Best Road/ Tour Movie at Sound on Screen Music Film Festival in South Africa. The film made its Australian premiere in Margaret River, WA at CinefestOz on late last year, followed by a surprise live performance by The Desert Stars. The band received so many calls for encores it ran out of songs.
Tickets for the weekend launch can be found here: Cinema Nova, Melbourne; Theatre Royal, Castlemaine and The Piccadilly, Adelaide.
