Chris Oakshott Is a Weirdo, an outsider who manages to fit his roundpegness into many square holes….He was born in Melbourne and now resides in Cairns. He likes to write songs about Baby Poo, Bus stops and Peaches. He has jammed with many folks from all walks of life, and played in a great number of wateringholes, eateries and backyard shindigs around the traps. He likes to entertain but also to push peoples buttons with music and has had all sorts of reactions to his playing.. From drunken sing-alongs to outright hostility… ” I think it’s great to shake people up in such a way… People seem to love it or hate it” He said.
On his relocation from Melbourne to Cairns, Oakshot offered “Originally Cairns was only going to be a stop off destination and I was not planning on staying to long before I travelled overseas through Asia. But after seven years of living here it’s become home. The tropical lifestyle and weather was something which attracted me to Cairns and keeps me here. I never really thought I’d end up playing more gigs here than I did in Melbourne, which is kind of ironic as Melbourne is well known for it’s music and arts.”
I asked Chris about his recording history to which he replied “I have a couple of CDs. One was with a band I recorded with in Melbourne we called SheOak and the Album was called Kiss my Marble. It was named after an embarrassing incident involving a marble and body parts. It was recorded at studio called Hit sound in Bayswater, an outer Eastern suburb famous for Bogans and factories, which is the area I grew up in. The other CD I recorded in Cairns using a portable handheld recorder. I went to various locations like a bus stop on Sheridan st and Holloways Beach and recorded songs in one take. The idea was to capture as much background noise as possible to add to the ambience of the music. For instance the recording at the bus stop features lots of cars driving past, motorbikes revving and jetplanes taking off. I even recorded an instrumental where frogs feature as part of the track. I’ve been recording at home and a couple of studios around town recently and although I haven’t bought a cd out for a while. I’ve been making my own videos and posting them on youtube.”
Chris went on to tell NQMP what fans can expect at the MOFO show on the 28th of June at the Germania club in Cairns “The Mofo gig is basically a solo show as it is under my name, although I have a couple of friends who are going to join me on Didgeridoo and Djembie and and another guitarist called Andy Mac who is going to play too. I do play in a band called Folkcentric from time to time which features the singer/songwriting talents of Charmeone Quayle. Punters who come to the Mofo gig on the 28th July can expect from me, and I’m sure everyone else on the bill, some good music, some onstage shenanagins, witty banter, and some outlandish costumes and most of all good times.”
And the Baby poo song? “The song baby poo was me musing on basically new born Baby poo. I’ve got a 16 month old daughter. Before babies start eating solids the color of their poo is exactly the color of the food their mother has been eating, even though the breast milk is white in color. Amazing… I was also thinking about vermin like flies for instance, which are very partial to faeces of all descriptions and if it wasn’t for flies and dung beetles the world would be over run by Shit. So one of the verses is in honor of some of the unsung animals of our world. ”
Oakshot is performing at the MOFO show at the Germania club in Cairns on the 28th of June.
Todd Macalpine