Struck Down 2007

Mia Dyson is on the road. Yeah, we know she's been there since she was 19, but with her third album, Struck Down, she's no longer looking back. It stretches forever in every direction. It's no longer possible to define her by the Australian bush home she left behind, or by how long ago.

"The last three years have been revolutionary for me," she says. "I finally feel like this is my place, that music is my thing and I'm in love with being a musician. I feel like I'm past the doubt, the struggle. This is what I do."

Struck Down is an album about finding your place in the wide world and simultaneously getting lost in it. It's a mature, contemplative surrender to chaos and beauty, confusion and clarity, sadness, strangeness, and to the rich traditions of roots Americana that first made her dream.

Mia's revolution has been both public and private. To the world at large, it began with a nationally televised milestone, the 2005 ARIA Award for Best Blues and Roots Album for her second album, Parking Lots. (Her debut, Cold Water, had been nominated in '03).

In a sense, the other bookend to that red-carpet arrival was her invitation to open for one of the household names of the blues, Eric Clapton, across Australia in early '07. That summer, Mia played to the largest audiences she's met since she picked up her first home made guitar at the age of 14.

Her profile was also boosted by a song on the soundtrack to the acclaimed Australian feature film, Look Both Ways, and an invitation to join Deborah Conway's collaborative singer-songwriters' roadshow, Broad.

Meanwhile, her personal trophies were accumulating somewhere slightly to the left of the mainstream spotlight. Opening for Bonnie Raitt on her recent tour of Australia was a more personal affirmation of Mia's path.

"She was a childhood hero, very much a part of why I play music," she says. "It closed a circle for me, cause Bonnie Raitt was the first concert my Dad (Victorian luthier Jim Dyson) took me to when I was 12.

Perhaps the biggest milestone was Mia's first American tour of June/ July '06. "I've grown up on songs about those places, that countryside; American movies, music: roots music, blues, soul, country, gospel . . . I've got an almost nostalgic feeling for America. When I went there, it was all confirmed for me."

With her past and present, dreams and reality in harmony, Mia checked into a quiet cottage in Lorne, on Victoria's windswept south coast, to define the next step in her extraordinary journey.

Struck Down was again co-produced with Lloyd Barratt, but a new rhythm section seals an advance in her musical convictions. Drummer Angus Diggs had carved a formidable reputation with Jeff Lang, Don Walker and Wilson-Diesel. A new bond was strengthened when he recommended bassist James Haselwood midway through the Parking Lots tour.

"I wanted a band that was deeply into the kind of music I wanted to make," Mia says. "As a trio it's not like they're in the background and I'm up front, it's a lot more intimate than that. They bring in a really unique and exciting feel but also a passion for this music. It makes it very different.

From the first, keening chords and windscreen-wiper rhythm of Struck Down, the band's feel and passion are indivisible. It's a song of everyday wonder that sets the album's warm, wood-grained tone and theme of dawning discovery.

"There's definitely a theme of journeys, driving, being alone," Mia reflects. "Struck Down is about grasping the scope of the world you live in as opposed to just looking at the steering wheel, being open to everything out there."

The album's emotional panorama ranges from the half-amused caution of People Will Turn On You to the hypnotic voyeurism of Cars Fly By to the near hysterical venting of World's On Fire – songs respectively inspired by Australian tabloids, American gas stations, and everything under the sun.

For the first time, too, Mia truly surrendered her songs to the sublime talents of her guest players: that's Garrett Costigan (Tex Don and Charlie) playing pedal steel; Matt Walker plays harmonica on Heavy and lends his voice to Cars Fly By; Steve Grant plays horns, accordion and piano, Jodi Moore (of Dirty Lucy) plays viola and Carl Pannuzzo sings back up.

In various permutations, they borrow a little of The Band's loose, rolling, back porch vibe, or some of Little Feat's restrained soul in the album's only cover, Long Distance Love. They also know when to stand back, most obviously for Mia's solo acoustic take of With The Blue Sky, with nothing but the creek behind the house for accompaniment.

"As a listener, I don't need dancing tunes, I don't need entertaining tunes, I like emotive tunes," she says. "It doesn't matter if a whole record is slow for me, as long as it's pulling me in.

From the rollicking waltz of Never Felt Young to the climactic lament of My Country, Struck Down is an album that pulls you in and takes you for a ride. And this is just the beginning.

"I feel like I've written some of the best songs I've written," Mia says. "I've made a few steps forward and I've taken a couple of steps back. I feel excited that I've progressed as a songwriter, but mainly I've reaffirmed that I can keep going."

Struck Down is out independently August 25th 2007, through MGM Distribution.
Cold Water (Shock Records) and Parking Lots in stores now independently through  MGM Distribution.

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Parking Lots 2005

When Mia Dyson packed her guitars, her band and a portable recording studio into her car and headed out to a friends’ mud brick house in Daylesford Victoria, she had no idea she was about to make one of the most talked about debut albums of 2003. Cold Water was nominated for an ARIA award and jettisoned the then 22 year-old into a continuous touring schedule both here and overseas. Taking in major festivals such as the East Coast Blues and Roots, Falls, Womadelaide, NXNE in Canada and The Edinburgh Festival in Scotland, Mia was wholeheartedly embraced by audiences and critics alike. In 2005 she has returned with her self-produced sophomore album Parking Lots, cementing Mia’s place as one of Australia’s most exhilarating songwriters.

Recorded by co-producer Lloyd Barratt and mixed by internationally acclaimed producer Nick Launay (Lou Reed, Nick Cave, Silverchair) Parking Lots delves into raw, impassioned territory. It launches from a rock solid ground of roots influences, with wild songs of love, devotion, gratitude and dispossession. There is a sense from the album’s opener ‘Roll Me Out’ that one is in assured hands, Mia Dyson has arrived.

Mia plays electric, lap steel, baritone, slide and acoustic guitar on Parking Lots. The focus of the album, like her live shows, is as much about Mia’s dynamic guitar playing as her extraordinary voice. Hailing from the surfing town of Torquay along Victoria’s west coast, Mia grew up in a house passionate about music. Her father Jim Dyson, a respected guitar maker and musician, played Mia records by Ry Cooder, Bonnie Raitt and Little Feat whilst her mother Gail introduced her to the likes of Nick Cave and Leonard Cohen. It was Mia though, who sought out the work of Lucinda Williams, Gillian Welch & Will Oldham.

Parking Lots was recorded at a holiday house in Victoria’s Mt Martha with Mia’s band Lucas Taranto (bass) and Daniel Farrugia (drums). Stage two saw the studio move back home to the bungalow in Mia’s backyard, where she was joined by special guests Matt Walker, Steve Hesketh (Jet/Dan Brodie) Carl Panuzzo and Sime Nugent. Last but by no means least came diva Renee Geyer, who added backing vocals during the album’s mixing stage at Sing Sing, Melbourne.

Parking Lots is a stirring collection of inspired songs, delivered with the kick and command of an artist who has found her voice and isn’t afraid to use it.

What the critics say:
“Dyson has one of the most powerfully emotive female voices
in the country. On Parking Lots, she now demonstrates the songwriting
maturity to let that voice truly soar.”
Patrick Donovan – The Age

“Tough, rocking rhythms and slow grooves on one guitar behind a voice that has control
and a whole lot of welly…it’s easy to see why Australians are getting excited about Dyson.”
Rob Adams - The Herald (Edinburgh) Monday August 23, 2004

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Cold Water 2004

Mia Dyson plays Jim Dyson guitars. That’s not a sponsorship announcement, it’s a fact of life. She’s been breathing her luthier father’s sawdust since the day she was born, in a mud brick house her parents built in the Victorian bush an hour North East of Melbourne.

What’s harder to believe – given the extraordinary depth of passion in her voice, her soulful feel for electric and lap slide guitars, the maturity of her writing and rare magnetism as a performer – is that that day was only 22 years ago.

It was to a very similar house that Mia returned to record her first album, Cold Water , in the winter of 2002. The first tangible fruit of a rapidly escalating stage reputation on Australia’s east coast, it was promptly acknowledged among ARIA’s Best Blues and Roots Albums of 2003.

With a characteristic lack of studio fairy dust and second-guesses, Cold Water resonates with the unadorned spontaneity of the most affecting roots music. Mia’s slide wavers and falters like breath, her voice sighs and breaks over vivid, real life scenarios and simple arrangements.

“Loaded with deeply-felt, closely-milked ballads, Cold Water is a stark, soulful wonder, driven by Dyson’s husky temptress of a voice and her very spare, very bluesy guitar picking and strumming” (four stars)

- Jeff Apter, Rolling Stone, October 2003

“Cold Water is a remarkably accomplished debut…Her breathless rasp soars and sinks with the kind of measured beauty that transcends the usual lovelorn blues.”

- Julie Hosking, Melbourne Herald Sun, April 2003

Mia’s apparent overnight success began at the family piano when she was five years old. She remembers playing the rhythm part to Ry Cooder’s version of “Dark End of the Street”, with her sister Ariel on guitar and Dad playing slide, when she was all of six or seven.

“It was quite an isolated existence,” she remembers of her first home, just outside the spring water town of Daylesford. “I think the significance of that time was that I wasn’t exposed to any trends or fashion or commercialism. It was straight-up country living. All I heard was Mum and Dad’s records.”

With Ry Cooder, Bonnie Raitt, Little Feat, Steely Dan and Bob Dylan firing Mia’s nascent musical imagination, the family moved to the seaside town of Torquay when she was eight.

Turned off the piano by an overbearing teacher, Mia picked up one of her father’s guitars at 14. “I took it up under the terrible pretext of keeping up appearances,” she confesses, “but within six months I was totally in love with it.”

She started writing songs at 16, feeling for the qualities she’d long admired in roots music: “music from the heart,” is the best way she can describe it, “music that’s trying to be honest. Genuine music.”

With the new aspirations came new influences: Lucinda Williams, Gillian Welch, Allison Krauss, Tom Waits, Nick Cave. “I learnt by imitating people, trying really hard to sound like them,” she says, “but then over a stretch of about a year, I started finding my own voice.”

In her last two years at highschool, Mia started performing in local pubs with a variety of rock and roots ensembles. Then, one New Year’s Eve, she wrote a song called “Precious Thing”. It was a revelation. For the first time in her modest writing experience, it was a song she really liked.

“I don’t know why, but I didn’t enjoy performing,” she remembers. “lt was the songwriting that got me excited about the possibilities of playing and it was that particular song that drew me into the idea of being able to continue and grow, the possibility of writing, recording and performing better and better songs.”

Jim gave Mia a lap steel guitar for her 19th birthday. She’d been inspired by revered Melbourne blues player Matt Walker and approached him for a few lessons. “I’m not an expert by any means,” she insists. “I wanted it as a tool for songwriting more than anything. If it can spark an interesting song, I’ll use anything.”

Moving to Melbourne, Mia hooked up with bassist Dean Addison and drummer Carl Pannuzzo for her first residency, at the Dan O’Connell Hotel in Fitzroy, in November 2000. Over the following six months, they threw themselves into the songs that would become Cold Water .

“It seemed natural to head back into the bush to record,” she says. “It was another mud brick place that belongs to friends of my family. We had rooms to stay in, left the recording gear set up. We just recorded the songs we’d been playing, basically live, over a period of a week.”

In the immediate wake of Cold Water , Mia sought out a permanent rhythm section to pursue a growing demand for her live performances. Bassist Lucas Taranto and drummer Daniel Farrugia became an integral part of the sound, the arrangements and the dynamic live momentum of her new material.

Mia intends to record her second album “when it’s ready”. Meanwhile, a steady trickle of new songs has fuelled her shows from the Port Fairy Folk Festival to the internationally renowned Byron Bay Blues and Roots Festival, from pin-drop supports for the likes of Eric Bibb, Tony Joe White and Renee Geyer to ever-swelling crowds at her headlining gigs.

Whatever the bill, Mia Dyson’s arresting voice, her sometimes poignant, sometimes fiery guitar technique and palpable, infectious belief in the power of song ensure a rapt gathering of instant converts.

“I feel quite awkward on the microphone,” she admits with a laugh. “It doesn’t seem to matter though. I’m aware from going to concerts myself that people just want to hear a bit of who you are. I guess when you’re open to an audience, they’ll be open to you.”

Mia Dyson’s first trip to Europe and North America is currently being sketched out for 2004. Cold Water is available through Black Door Records distributed by Shock

Michael Dwyer, January 2004

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Jim Dyson (Mia's Father, Guitar Maker)

Jim Dyson was a late starter, learning the rudiments of guitar playing from a friend at the age of 20. The same friend suggested that if Jim learned Classical guitar, he would be able to play anything. Not knowing any better Jim launched into a 3 hours a day practice regime, teaching himself to sight read as well as appropriating technique from books and friends. This was the early 1970’s and Jim’s listening habits were moving away from Classical back to the popular music of the day; The Rolling Stones, The Band, Little Feat, Steely Dan, Ry Cooder, Bob Dylan and the blues. After a couple of years of study it was becoming clear that Classical technique and sensibility was good for Classical and not much else. With the encouragement of friends and yet more books, Jim’s finger-style technique was put to good use learning blues songs arranged by the likes of Stefan Grossman, Leo Kottke and most notably Ry Cooder. The penny finally dropped about the importance of the backbeat while watching film of a Ry Cooder recording session from the album INTO THE PURPLE VALLEY. At about this time Jim was initiated into the pleasures of slide guitar and he found he had a natural aptitude. From that day to this, Jim’s been on a quest for tone and groove and along the way, with help from Elmore James, Muddy Waters, Hubert Sumlin, Albert Collins, Albert King, Freddy King, Slim Harpo, Johnny Guitar Watson, Ry Cooder, Jimmy Vaughan and others Jim has developed a distinctive R ‘n’ B style where playing “in the pocket” with the rhythm section is the main aim. It’s been five years since Marisa and Jim formed CHUBBY RAE & the ELEVATORS and almost four with the settled lineup of Karl Inderberg on drums and Craig Chiller on bass and Jim still often pinches himself to check that he really is lucky enough to be playing with such great players who are also good friends. Previous to CHUBBY RAE & the ELEVATORS Jim had been in a number of bands – Another Roadside Distraction, Black No Sugar, Fritz the Cat- all of which had one thing on common; they all broke up not long after their initial gigs.
Tone wise it’s been a great journey. In 1972 Jim made his first guitar, a Classical. Teaching himself from a book, he used top quality tone woods and a lot of patience and managed to build an instrument that not only sounded and looked good but one that inspired him to build more. Several Classicals followed and then in 1975 a steel string flat top acoustic, followed quickly in 1976 and ‘77 by his first two electric guitars, both modeled on the Gibson Les Paul. Jim’s love affair with electric guitar was germinated. It bloomed and blossomed over the course of the next 28 years to the point where in the music fraternity Jim’s reputation as a maker of world class electric guitars, lap steel guitars, basses and guitar and bass pickups extends across Australia and beyond.
In Blues circles Jim is also known for his tone, his stripped-back incisive playing and his impeccable wardrobe.
In 1999 when Jim’s youngest daughter Mia –and last to leave home- set off to pursue her musical ambitions in Melbourne, Jim found the extra time and energy he needed to pursue his blues interests. With an ambition only to play some blues and make new friends Jim began attending the Sunday afternoon jam sessions at the Sleepy Hollow Blues Club. At one session in early 2000, seconds after hearing Marisa launch into Steam Roller Blues, Jim was inspired to ask if she was interested in putting a blues band together. Marisa’s answer was an immediate yes, and what followed was a seven year blues journey leading CHUBBY RAE and the ELEVATORS through 2 CD albums and hundreds of shows at pubs, clubs and festivals across 5 states and the ACT

Jim’s Gear
Guitars,
Main guitar, regular tuning; Jim Dyson TONE DELUXE Standard, black w/black pearl pickguard, made in 2005.
Slide guitar, Open D tuning; Jim Dyson Strat copy (Mia’s original guitar), navy blue tint w/whit pickguard, made in 1995.
Slide guitar, Open G tuning; No name Strat copy, black w/mirror pickguard and Jim Dyson pickups. Date of manufacture not known.

Amps
1965 GoldenTone Bassmaster 20 watt head, in Jim’s hand made cabinet and covered in Zebra print
1964 GoldenTone Bassmaster 40 watt 2 x 12 combo
1965 GoldenTone Reverbmaster 40 watt head, in Jim’s hand made cabinet and covered in Zebra print
1966 GoldenTone Bassmaster 60 watt head, in Jim’s hand made cabinet and covered in Leopard print
1965 GoldenTone 10 watt 1 x 12 combo
1965 Diason 10 watt 1 x 12 combo
1966 Maton V20, 10 watt 1 x 12 combo

Speaker cabinets
2 x 12 Speaker cab hand made by Jim, loaded with early 70’s Celestion Green Backs and covered in Leopard print
2 x 12 Speaker cab hand made by Jim, loaded with early 2005 50watt Eminence Legends and covered in Zebra print

Pedals
Ibanez Stereo PanDelay
Ibanez Soundtank Tremolo
Marshall Stereo VibraTrem
Hot Cake Overdrive
The Healer Overdrive
Boss Blues Driver
Jens Crybaby Wah
Boost Driver by David Heard
Amp Tech
All Jim’s amps and pedals are expertly maintained and/or modified by DAVID HEARD of Geelong, ph 03 5229 5037
Shoes by Rocco’s, 43 Station St Malvern

Jim's Guitars

I began making acoustic guitars in the early 70’s, starting out with 5 Classicals in two years and finally a flattop steel string, which I designed and built as a scaled down version of a Gibson J200 in 1975. This guitar is still in use and can be heard on all of Mia Dyson’s three albums. In 1975 my love of the electric guitar, particularly in roots music, started me on a journey in search of electric Tone; the kind of tone that’s inspired the great players since the very birth of the electric guitar and stimulated music lovers ever since.
It didn’t take long to realize that Tone resides in certain woods, and, that it can be liberated. After exploring and experimenting with the tonal possibilities of Alder, Ash, Rosewood, Ebony, Mahogany, and Maple I went looking for similar potential in woods from my own Australian backyard. This part of the journey hasn’t ended yet but I’ve arrived at some sweet destinations along the way; Queensland Maple (a close cousin of Mahogany), Queensland Silver Quong Dong (tonally similar to Alder), Western Australian Jarrah (between Rosewood and Ebony on the hardness scale) and my favourite Tone Wood, Victorian Ash.
Victorian Ash is the backbone of the Jim Dyson sound. It needs to be carefully selected and is difficult to work and to finish, but it’s well worth the extra effort ‘cause consistently, the payoff is singing sustain, a heap of dynamic response and bags of Tone. I use it for both necks and bodies in my Jim Dyson Tone Deluxe range of guitars and basses and it’s my first and last choice for a lapsteel.
I had been making guitars for over twenty years when in the mid 90’s I decided to try and do something about a perceived lack of Vintage sounding replacement single coil pickups. With a homemade winder/counter and a reel of 42-gauge wire I began fooling around with rewinds and then experimenting with my own designs using Australian magnets. In a couple of years I’d designed and built a full range of single coil replacement pickups for guitar and bass. It wasn’t long before some fine Australian players were switching to my pickups for that Vintage Tone. I could finally feel comfortable calling myself a Guitar Maker. Now a few more years down the track the list of highly regarded players who use my pickups and guitars is both long and varied and recently Jason Mowery, Nashville session player with the Keith Urban Band and The Wreckers bought the first Jim Dyson lapsteel to go to the USA.
In very recent times I’ve tried with great success on guitars and basses an even better sounding neck wood than Vic Ash; that wood is Huon Pine, which is every bit as responsive as Vic Ash but delivers an even sweeter tone.
Even more recently I’ve perfected a vintage PAF style humbucking pickup with the kind of clean tones and definition that can work wonders when played through a quality tube amp. As with all my pickups, customer feedback is 100% positive.
For many years my friend Dave Heard in Geelong has been maintaining and modifying the seven Goldentone amps that Mia and I own between us. During that time Dave has made several one-off experimental amps ranging in output from 10-50 watts. They’ve all been very cool but not quite cool enough to persuade me to give up my goldentone sound. However couple of years ago Dave agreed to try making an amp that had the sound and response that I’ve been hoping was possible in a 30watt single-12 combo. It’s been a frustrating two years for Dave who many, many times went back to the drawing board after I would play through his latest creation for as little as a minute before declaring it not what I was looking for. With great determination and not a little genius Dave finally produced a stunning EL34 powered dynamo of an amp that’s got it all; superb, full, clean tones with loads of bottom end, satisfying mids and some sparkle on top; barking, sizzling overdrive with definition so crisp it simply inspires a player to play better; and the facility to go from one to the other purely as a result of how hard you pick. We’ve got the amp and speaker (JENSEN) sorted, in a few months we’ll have the cabinet finalised and the Jim Dyson 30watt combo guitar amp will be on the market. Mia has already sampled and approved the tone and response of this amp; she could well be our first customer.
the story continues…

www.jimdysonguitars.com.au

Guitars and Pickups have been used on recordings by:
Ash Grunwald
The Badloves
Billy Bragg
The Black Sorrows
The Casuals
Chris Joannou
Joe Creighton
The Dirty Three
Mia Dyson
Stuart Fraser
Rene Geyer
Steve Hadley
Jimi Hocking
Leonardo’s Bride
Paul Kelly
Magic Dirt
Manic Suede
Mark Seymour
Midnight Oil
Jason Mowery
Overnight Jones
Pre-Shrunk
Silverchair
Something for Kate
Michael Spiby
Jeff Wells
Chris Wilson
Wilson Diesel