8pm, Sunday 22 June

The Back Room

Wellington Arts Centre

61 Abel Smith St

Think cranking rock 'n' roll riffs, moving into Afro-Cuban grooves, to funky beats straight out of the late James Brown's personal repertoire. From soul comes the wailing moaning blues, over to sweet Appalachian ditties, and then down to wild tunes from the dark folds of Eastern Europe. Forbidden Joe aren't your average salty old sea dogs, and they don't do weddings. They sing, harmonise, shape and deliver their music with vibrant energy. All this, from just a concertina, 'cello, and banjo. And voices.

Alex Borwick... Even in the womb, Alex was being subjected to music. More specifically, the music of the film 'La Bamba'. After taking the fairly normal route of piano and trumpet lessons at school, at the age of 12 he picked up the trombone, and from there blossomed his passion for jazz. Over the next few years, Alex also tried his hand (s) at the drums, playing in rock bands, including alternative rock band Inverse Order, until studying jazz at the New Zealand School of Music. After an intense year of musical rendezvous in Wellington, Alex moved back to Auckland where he stumbled upon the Devonport folk club and discovered the tenor banjo. As a result of this unconventional concoction, Alex brings to the lineup his own heady flavours of jazz, funk, and rock.

Frances Dickinson... Frances spent her childhood on the shores of the bitter coast of Northern England, up to her eyes in seaweed and dreaming of pirates and a career as a shark diver. At convent school she was exposed to fiddle and choir lessons, until she discovered an addiction to good ‘Craic’ in the backstreet pubs of Whitby. She has been proudly jammin’ away with dirty old men ever since. Frances redefines the boundaries of 'folk'. Her dirty, fiery tunes on concertina and her angsty yet silky vocal tones are making folk music the new black. Her original material is exquisite and, mixed in with her fetish for sea songs and wild tunes, provides strong reference points throughout the band's musical ventures.

Emily June Giles... Emily's womb experiences were also noisy. Her mother took an alternative approach to nursery rhymes with the help of a 5-string banjo. It is still unknown if Emily’s kicking was an enthusiastic response or just plain fury, but it proved she had rhythm. Emily learnt the recorder at school but moved on to the cello when recorder techniques became too hard in the second year. As a result, she did time with the usual classical suspects and for the last six years has been jamming with musicians on the Auckland acoustic music scene, performing in folk clubs and festivals around NZ. Influenced by traditional Irish and English music, gospel, Eastern European fusion groups and American roots music, her style is unlike anything that you’d expect from a 'cello - versatile, staunch and funky.