Hi. Thanks for chatting with Beat. What’s your role over at Tone Control?
My name is Al and I am the producer/director of the show. It’s a great role and I really enjoy putting together a program that supports live music. I work with an excellent team of dedicated volunteers who work really hard to produce a great quality show.
So, what’s Tone Control all about?
Tone Control is all about showcasing live music. We get bands from a wide variety of genres to come into the studio and we film them playing live. We also interview each band and get some of the stories behind their music. We love bringing live music into people’s lounge rooms so people can discover the great bands playing around Melbourne and can go and check them out next time they play.
Season 3 started airing on September 12 on Channel 31. What can we look forward to from upcoming episodes?
There are so many great performances lined up for Season 3. We have Dallas Frascaabsolutely tearing up the studio and Mike Watersstripped back and sharing some pretty special performances. We have ‘60s surf punk-inspired The Reprobettes, the folk fun of The Bon Scottsand amazing story telling from Charles Jenkins & The Amateur Historians. There is something for everyone on this season of Tone Control.
You guys are big on filming live performances in an honest light, no lip-syncing or miming. What’s behind this ethos?
Living in Melbourne, we are spoiled by a thriving live music scene. We want to do everything we can to support and showcase great live musicians and bring them a bigger audience. Plus, there are too many TV shows out there applauding lip syncing, miming and playing other people’s songs and we want to shine the spotlight on real musicians doing what they do best: playing live.
What have been some of your favourite sets from past seasons? Where can we check these out?
There have been so many great moments from the past two seasons. Some of my favourite performances were Stella Angelico and the Switch, the Kashmere Club and The April Maze. Our website is packed with lots of clips of performances and we are regularly updating the website with more performances.
How could promising musicians go about getting on the show themselves?
We are always on the lookout for up and coming musos for the show. They can check out our website tonecontrol.tv or our Facebook page facebook.com/tonecontrol.tv and get in touch.
TONE CONTROL airs at 10pm, Saturday nights on Channel 31 Melbourne and Geelong. Hit up tonecontrol.tv for more details.
