Michael is from a coastal rural town in Australia and has always been an avid music collector. His interest drew him to radio as a programmer/presenter in his hometown and creating a Facebook page. It's from that Facebook group that this book materialised. Here, his daily posts from over many years on musicians’ birthdays, releases, and events have been collected as a whole. Michael then sought out artists and identities worldwide to provide insightful tales about their experiences from the halcyon days of New Wave & Post-Punk.
During the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, while living in Sydney, Michael turned his interest towards electronic music. Inspired by the likes of Brian Eno, Kraftwerk, Jean Michel Jarre & Tangerine Dream, he collected various synthesizers, electronic devices and tape machines and possibly became the first to combine samples of Australian Indigenous music and electronica with his independent cassette release Thematic Variations. This release was eagerly sought out by listeners after it attained rotation on the national radio station 2JJJ.
In 1982 Michael experimented with tape loops, cut-ups, and samples, incorporating synthesizers, effects pedals, a drum machine, and an unknown sample from an Australian Aboriginal record. This creation became part of his cassette release, Thematic Variations. Left Ear Records, out of Melbourne pursued to release some of this unique recording on vinyl and digitally. Michael and Left Ear searched to uncover the sample’s origin and after number of years they uncovered the sample was “Wangga”, a ceremonial song from the Emmiyangarl people of Northern Australia. Today a remastered version of this recording is again now available. https://leftearrecords.com/jungles-arnhem-land