I am stoked to be talking to two amazing Melbourne based singer songwriters in the shapes of Katie Bates and Rose Zita Falko. Oceans of gratitude to my producer Derek Myers of Castaway Studios and the generous support of Luxe Country. 

More Than A Whelan

Katie Bates And Rose Zita Falko - Singer Songwriters

I am stoked to be talking to two amazing Melbourne based singer songwriters in the shapes of Katie Bates and Rose Zita Falko. Oceans of gratitude to my producer Derek Myers of Castaway Studios and the generous support of Luxe Country.  

Katie Bates and Rose Zita Falko - singer songwriters

Mikki Michelle refers to herself as a Stripping Songstress. You may be more familiar with the term Burlesque Artist. Either way she's our first dancer as a guest on the show and we had a most excellent chat!As well as being a singer/cabaret performer she's  also the director and founder of Cabaret Abnormal, which has been running in Canada and Australia since 2016.Cabaret Abnormal present Riot Circus at 24 Moons in Northcote on the 29th November.  Featuring Mikki Miichelle herself as well as Miss Burlesque Australia 2019 Bettie Bombshell! Also starring O Nyx, Izzy Bellissima, Aleksandra the Great, Cat Scurvy and Stage kitten: Penny DropsTickets available here! 

Mikki Michelle - The Stripping Songstress

What a blast to chat with Abdulrahman Hammoud.Poet, teacher and founder of The Dirty Thirty Writing Challenge and editor/compiler of The Dirty Thirty Anthology.You can purchase the Dirty Thirty Volume 2 Anthology right here! Thank you so much to my producer Derek Myers and Castaway Studios. And to my generous supporter Luxe Country.Whelan... out. 

Abdulrahman Hammoud

More Than A Whelan goes live once again at the glorious Merri Creek Tavern. Featuring special guests Maggie Alley, Natasha Johanna, Gabriela Georges, Jessica At Birth and Mitch Power! Please note because I'm a dickhead I accidentally introduced Gabriela by the wrong name surname on stage. Apologies Gabriela!

Absolute Beginners - Live at the Merri Creek Tavern

Peter Bakowski was one the first poets I ever met. So it was an absolute joy to talk to him about all things poetry in the Castaway Studios. To keep up on Peter's work please visit here.

Peter Bakowski

Peter Drew is one the most iconic artists in Australia, he has a new book out through Black Inc called Poster Boy, he's the first street artist we've had as a guest on the show and it was an absolute joy to talk to him.You may not immediately know his name but chances are high that if you live in a major Australian city then you've probably seen his work. 

Peter Drew - Poster Boy

For the very first time More Than A Whelan is presented as a live show for the Melbourne Writers Festival. With special guests Hannah Blackburn, Natalie Jeffreys, Aurelia St Clair and Justin Bernasconi. Plus the debut performance of Crystal Veins.The first Sad is Rad event took place at the Merri Creek Tavern in May this year. Have a listen to Episode 28 if you want to experience the birth of Sad is Rad. It was a hell of show featuring Jaymee Leyana, Amarina Waters, Ben Mastwyk, Patrick Wilson, Poppy Sloan, Caitlin Saunders and Ben Pobjie. I loved the experience so much I pitched the concept of the show as a possible event at the 2019 Melbourne Writers Festival and I was stoked they thought it would be a perfect fit.So on Sunday 8th September More Than A Whelan made its debut at the Melbourne Writers Festival only a year after the podcast was started!Sad is Rad was the theme of this show, an exploration of the theme of melancholy through music, poetry/storytelling and comedy. Our first performer for the show was Hannah Blackburn. I came across Hannah's single Did You Always Know earlier this year and it absolutely floored me. I still think it's one of the best singles of 2019. So I was so happy that she performed both that song and another song called I Want To Love You. And make sure you check out her new single Tiny Car which is being launched on November 2nd in Melbourne at Nighthawks.Next up we had wonderful writer Natalie Jeffreys, winner of the 2018 Melbourne Spoken Word Prize. It was after seeing her perform the poem The Purity of Sadness that I decided she would be perfect for this bill. And make sure you check out her side hustle Puddledog Productions where you can specially commission her to write a song!Following Natalie I welcomed incredible comedian and meme queen the wonderful Aurelia St Clair. Aurelia is currently presenting her new show Woke at the Sydney Fringe Comedy Festival. Subsequent states and the rest of the world to come! Keep an eye out for this brilliant show. I closed the show by presenting the debut live performance of Crystal Veins. Crystal Veins is a collaboration between myself and musician Justin Bernasconi. The collaboration was born from the very first More Than Whelan live show when I spontaneously asked Justin if he would mind improvising with me on stage as I read a poem. It went so spectacularly well that we decided to continue working together and thus Crystal Veins was born. We performed three pieces. Don't Drink The Heavy Fog, Stay Gold and I Am. For the last two pieces again the incredible Justin Bernasconi completely improvised on the spot. Crystal Veins are working on recording their debut album to be released later this year. Follow us on Facebook or Instagram to keep informed of its release. I have to make special thanks to Allegra Hartford Davis, who supplied the prompt Spring: new beginnings . I rudely forgot to give her a shout out on stage, what a jerk! Allegra is our muse of the week! I am filled with gratitude for the Melbourne Writers Festival for granting this opportunity to More Than A Whelan.As always eternal thanks to Castaway Studios, without whom this podcast would not exist.And a big smooch to our generous supporter Luxe Country and to Brendan Bonsack for taking such glorious pics of the event. Check out our More Than a Whelan Facebook or Instagram to see further documentation of the event. Please consider leaving us a review on Itunes if you enjoyed this show as it helps immensely to grow our audience. Whelan, out. 

Sad is Rad Live at the Toff In Town for Melb Writers Fest

So good to have a chin wag with two time Austin Poetry Slam Champion Bill Moran on his sixth visit to Australia.Bill starts of the show with a powerful poem called Fortis Collum Hymnus from his brand new chapbook titled Dragged Into Heaven By The Hair.Bill also reads another work from his chapbook, a poem called Saint Nikolas Challenges Senator Marco Rubio To A Fist Fight. One of the themes of the poem is around gun control. This was eerie timing as it was only a couple of days later when two mass shootings occured in Dayton, Ohio and El Paso, Texas. Nine people were killed in the Dayton shooting and twenty-two in the El Paso shooting.I read a poem inspired by the prompt boxes, boxes, boxes by Stephanie Robinson. Thank you Steph!My poem is called There Are No Words Anymore.Bill reads a poem untitled written especially for the show inspired by a visual prompt by Mileta Rien. Thanks Mileta!Bill performs another poem called Dream Funeral

Bill Moran

So damn pleased to have our very first international guest in the Castaway Studios, Arielle Cottingham, the Texas born 2016 Australian Poetry Slam Champion. Arielle is an Afro-Latina poet, performance artist, and dancer. She began performing spoken word in 2014 while studying at the University of Melbourne. In September 2015, she began a career as a full-time working performance poet, as well as creative producer of Slamalamadingdong. She published a chapbook in 2016, The Tarantist's Soapbox. Her first full book of poetry Black and Ropy was published in July 2017 with Pitt St. Poetry.

Arielle Cottingham

Thrilled to have a chat with poet/performer and Bondi royalty Adam Gibson (The Ark-Ark Birds, Modern Giant, The Aerial Maps) at the Coogee Bay Hotel. I want to start by apologising to all the residents of Coogee Bay for pronouncing Coogee incorrectly. Thank you Adam for bringing that to my attention. And thank you Adam for reminding me of the incredible history of Selina's, the band venue at the very hotel we recorded this episode at. Selina's has hosted Nirvana, Midnight Oil, INXS and many other legends of music by Australian and international. I found the link to the D Generation skit of Melbourne themed songs that Adam spoke of! You can listen to Adam's 'Angie Hart' track right here. Years later Going Down Swinging would commision Angie Hart to write and perform a response to Adam's piece. You can read the story of that here. Adam performs a poem on the show called The Shark. You can hear the recorded version of this with this band The Aerial Maps right here. Oceans of gratitude as always to my producer Derek Myers of Castaway Studios. And to my very generous supporter Luxe Country. Visit our online store at Luxe Country to purchase yourself some sweet More Than A Whelan merch. Also in breaking news our amazing More Than A Whelan logo is now available on a tshirt! Please visit this link to grab yourself the hottest look for summer. And lastly I just want to remind you that More Than A Whelan is coming to the Melbourne Writers Festival! I am so thrilled about this, tickets are available from here right now!

Adam Gibson

So good to have novelist, poet and performer Paul Mitchell in the Castaway Studios for a chat. Paul's short fiction collection, Dodging the Bull (Wakefield Press) was published in 2007 and was part of the 2008 The Age State Library Summer Read. He has also published three collections of poetry, Minorphysics (IP, 2003), Awake Despite the Hour (Five Islands Press, 2007) and Standard Variation (Walleah Press, 2014). And his novel We Are Family was published in 2016. I start the show performing a very old piece of mine from 1995 called Coughing Up Ink, originally published in Verandah. Paul and I have a chat about My Coffin Lid, My Shield, a recorded collaboration with Simon Mason and his upcoming performance of this album on August 4th at the Night Heron. I finish the show by performing a poem inspired by the creative prompt 'the sound of animals snoring' by Annie Molenaar. Thank you Annie for the prompt! Annie Molenaar is also behind the brand new magazine from Unholy Matrimony callled UM, in which I have a new piece of writing. Out now!

Paul Mitchell

Performance poet Caitlin Saunders joins me under the disco ball in Castaway Studios for a chat about imaginary friends, favourite words and poetry! Check out the video for My Honest Poem, which was a year in the making! Produced by Rat Race Visual Media. Many thanks to Jaymee Leyana for providing the creative prompt 'Make-up Remover and Maccas' which inspired my poem this week and became title. Both Jaymee and Caitlin were special guests at the More Than A Whelan live show at Merri Creek Tavern, dedicated to the theme of melancholy. You can also see more of Jaymee's work on her Instagram page. Also many thanks to Cameron Semmens for the prompt 'Intergalactic Elephants' and Kim Jeffs for the prompt 'Frost Fractals.' Make-up Remover and Maccas Just under the lip of a freeway overpass on Eastlink there resides a Catalogue Spiritghost. Catalogue spiritghosts or Catagods as they referred to in the biz, place themselves in high traffic areas for humans and they watch and catalogue their daily toils. And the end of the day they collect their notes and report back to their superiors by riding an interstellar elephant back to an undisclosed location. This particular Catagod has a name unpronounceable by the human tongue, so we’ll just call him Ralph. Ralph has the power of knowing every single action moment of a person’s like with just one glance into their eyes. He records their struggles into a tiny star and once his bag of stars is full he knocks off for the day. On this day, an automobile passes by that catches his eye and then he catches her eye in his mind. She’s getting by as well as she can. She has been destroyed but now she is rebuilding. Heavy scaffolding surrounds the construction site of her soul. Behind the scaffolding something remarkable is happening. There is an ocean of love in her heart. This ocean is always there. It replenishes itself on a daily basis. Love is her preferred method of communication. Love of friends. Love of family. Love of words. Love of speech. She photographs the sky as a form of meditation. In the sky there is everything and nothing. She shares the sky. She is generous with her findings. Sometimes when the sky falls, she falls too in solidarity with its descent. And the night turns blue and pink and purple. And she swims through the colours like an Esther Williams bath bomb and when she comes up for air the colours are gone. That’s the price the night takes from you sometime. The ferryman always demands a fee. And in the morning all that’s left on the shore of her bedcovers is crumpled empty bag of maccas and the makeup remover she forgot to apply before she fell asleep. And she yawns and stretches and she steps from her bed to draw the curtains open and fractal frost covers the leaves of the trees as punctuation marks and the light of the day pours into her like orange juice into a glass and she turns and looks for her camera. Ralph the catagod pauses and reflects upon the life contained in the star within his palm and he says to himself ‘this will do’. And he whistles for his interstellar elephant that dutifully appears for the long ride back to an undisclosed location to report this important news to his superior. By Sean M Whelan Inspired by creative prompts from Jaymee Leyana, Cameron Semmens and Kim Jeffs. Whelan and Stealin' For Whelan and Stealin' both Caitlin and I read the work of the wonderful [Sabrina Benaim] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabrina_Benaim). Caitlin read First Date and I read The Loneliest Sweet Potato. We finished the show discussing an hilarious incident that occurred in my life as DJ HOT WHEELS which has spurred this range of merch. And don't forget More Than A Whelan will be appearing at this years Melbourne Writers Festival!! We will be presenting at special live show called Sad Is Rad, celebrating all things melancholy through music, comedy and poetry at the Toff In Town on Sunday 8th Sept 2:30. grab your tickets here now before they're all gone!

Caitlin Saunders

Brendan Bonsack is a poet, musician, photographer and film maker. It was a pleasure to talk to him about all those things and more. Brendan is also on the committee for Melbourne Spoken Word who are launching their Spoken Word and Poetry Festival on July 12th. Get around it! We're very lucky to hear some music from Brendan on the show and you can hear a lot more of his music right here. https://brendanbonsack.com/albums/ His work is also available on Apple Music and Spotify, but if you're going to stream music then use Apple because they pay a MUCH higher rate to musicians. FACT. Links referred to in the show. http://movingpoems.com/ http://accidentalbedfellows.com/ https://www.3cr.org.au/spoken-word

Brendan Bonsack

What a blast to talk to singer/songwriter/musician Moogy Morgan. Also our first full band session in Castaway Studios! She's joined by Venom on drums and Steve Hadley on bass. LINKS https://www.reverbnation.com/moogyreverbnation The Imajinary Friends - Bandcamp https://theimajinaryfriends.bandcamp.com/

Moogy Morgan

A podcast where I ask you to give me creative prompts to write to. I write a piece and perform it on the show. It’s that simple. Feed me please.

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More Than A Whelan

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