TALENT MOAT PRESENTS: MICHAEL BEACH + GREY CAUSEWAY + EDITH'S HEAD

Michael Beach

On his debut live LP, Live at Phoenix Central Park, Melbourne-based/California-born songwriter and bandleader Michael Beach brings together three of Australia’s most well-known improvisers in a mercurial performance that is both contemplative and expansive, focused and fierce. Playing live together for the first time, the band--Lloyd Swanton (The Necks), Joe Talia (Oren Ambarchi, Ned Collette), and Mick Turner (Dirty Three)—supercharge Beach’s textural songwriting, and tap immediately into a propulsive cosmic pulse.

Known as a deliberate and masterful songwriter, adept in both guitar-based post-punk (recalling Peter Laughner, Pere Ubu) and off-kilter piano balladry (Bill Fay, Peter Jefferies), Beach focuses on the latter as a jumping-off point for Live at Phoenix Central Park. Beach will support Live at Phoenix Central Park with an Australian tour supporting The Exploding Universe of Ed Kuepper) and a headlining tour of the United States - including west coast dates as a trio with Bay Area musicians Utrillo Kushner (Comets on Fire, Colossal Yes) and Eli Eckert (Once and Future Band, Drunk Horse), plus a special appearance at Gonerfest debuting his new project with Greg Cartwright (Reigning Sound) and Natalie Hoffman (Nots and Optic Sink).

“If you’ve given up hope of finding anthemic-yet-arty guitar rock for grown-ups that doesn’t condescend to your intelligence in either direction, add Michael Beach’s Big Black Plume to your wish list. A Melbourne underground stalwart originally from California, Beach has been releasing sick psych-tinged shit for years—just listen to the modular synth majesty that is Drain Brugs. On his album Big Black Plume (Goner Records), he enlists similarly-minded melders of rock and the avant-garde (members of Tropical Fuck Storm, Comets on Fire, the Dirty Three, and The Necks all make appearances) to help whip up a rollicking longform opus free of musical inhibitions and beholden to no rules. Here you’ll find crunchy riffs dissolving into brainy experimental passages, blousy love songs brushed with resonant electronic elements, spare piano melodies undercut with thin currents of drone, and rousing hard rock ballads with a zillion guitar overdubs melting into shimmering puddles of sunbaked psychedelia. Tune in, turn on, turn it up.” - Bandcamp “Cool Band Alert” July 2025

https://michaelbeach.bandcamp.com/

https://michaelbeach.org/

https://www.instagram.com/michaelbeach___/?hl=en

Grey Causeway
Grey Causeway stitches together years of Bay Area underground pedigree with rudimentary post-punk elements into a sound that’s fresh and electric. The band, including Andy Asp, Chris Appelgren, Omen Starr, and Frankie Koeller, are a convergence of Oakland’s storied independent musical history, hailing from bands such as Smokers, Nuisance, The Peechees, The Pattern, Papercuts, and Jim Yoshii Pile Up.

Recorded in the Bunker, a music studio collective and rehearsal space, with longtime collaborator Sikwaya Condon, Grey Causeway’s debut album pairs caustic minimalism with Asp’s haunting lyrics. A melange of existential dread and wry, deadpan satire, Grey Causeway’s sound bridges eras: wiry basslines stripped to a monochrome throb, cascading sheets of corroded melody, and mechanical percussion, with evocative vocals. Asp contorts his voice into a spectral croon, while Koeller’s bass lines are a motorik thrum. Appelgren anchors the chaos with militaristic percussion, and Starr’s textural guitar conjures hypnotic melodies.

Despite their veteran status, Grey Causeway’s music is for today– a clenched fist of jagged guitars and synth sounds, unrelenting bass, that oscillates between detachment and frayed desperate hope. Music for a life lived perpetually on the brink.
https://greycauseway.bandcamp.com/album/grey-causewayhttps://www.instagram.com/grey_causeway_band/?hl=en
Edith’s Head
New Oakland band featuring Andy and Nate from Famous Mammals.
https://edithshead.bandcamp.com/album/my-back-wages