Bio

Is this Traditional New Orleans Jazz? Inner city acoustic folk-punk?
Or artistic collective improvisation?

Hoodanger music is all of this. It defies description. 

It borrows heavily from the tradition of communal improvisatory jazz but does not obey its strict rules and etiquette. 

This has set this band apart. 

It continues to set them apart…

The Hoodangers possess a relentless, thumping energy. Music played by six unique individuals who bring skill and humour to their group performance. It is intense, honest music with a great big thirst for fun, laughter and life. 

Born in 1996 around the inner suburbs of Melbourne, Australia, The Hoodangers quickly harvested a fanatic following from like-minded youth, eager for diverse musical sounds and grooves. While much of the bands early material had its roots in early 20^th century New Orleans music, it rapidly evolved into a platform for their own diverse songs and improvisatory techniques.

The band began composing original music, much of it reminiscent of the pop songs they had grown up with through the 70’s & 80’s. However, some of the music was composed in a more intricate and instrumentally detailed manner while other parts reflected the improvisatory group tradition they were already borrowing from.

A true musical melting pot evolved…

The band began touring Australia to play festival and club gigs but in 1997 they travelled internationally for the first time.

They flew to Russia & Siberia for a six week tour also playing in Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan before heading to Finland, Sweden, Denmark, The Netherlands, Switzerland & Scotland.

With a taste for Europe in their large mouths they returned on four occasions over the next eleven years to play mostly in Denmark but also added Iceland and Norway to their fat passports. 

The Hoodangers also travelled further afield to play festivals in Canada, India, 

New Zealand and Fiji in addition to surreptitious gigs in New Orleans’ French Quarter, U.S.A.

They have, however, always faithfully returned to their birthplace of inner city Melbourne, even as multiple band members now reside in other parts of Australia and Denmark.

The Hoodangers have recorded five independently released albums – with their latest double album, ‘Stor Fisk, Lille Fisk’ recorded in Denmark at a Copenhagen studio and a live festival set on the island of Femø.

Press

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The Hoodangers Bio & Press Quotes

click the below image to download a PDF of The Hoodangers Bio and a series of selected quotes from publications around the globe.

The Hoodangers Stage Plan 

Looking for how to setup the stage for a Hoodangers performance, click the image to download an enlarged stage plan. (PDF)

Selected Quotes about The Hoodangers

Melbourne’s ‘punk trad’ sextet The Hoodangers have long been one of my favourite ‘live’ bands, with their special blend of musicianship, energy and irreverent humour. They have released three albums, none of which has quite captured what the band is all about. Their latest, Live In Fitzroy, rectifies that. Recorded last year, it finds the band working out on venerable jazz staples like ‘The Girls Go Crazy’, ‘Climax Rag’ and ‘ Wild Man Blues’. Great solos from Eugene Ball (trumpet), Chris Tanner (clarinet) and Ben Gillespie (trombone), high-spirited vocals from Tanner or Gillespie on every other song, and fantastic, controlled drive from Mal Williams (banjo), Mark Elton (bass) and Ollie Browne (drums) throughout.
- Rhythms magazine – July 2006

"(The Hoodangers) perform with such energy and wit that it's impossible not to feel this music is the product of current culture rather than moth-eaten memories...their aim isn't just to play music but to revel in the sounds they're creating, to push themselves into places they've never been before, and to let loose the Siberian tigers of their imagination."
- Jessica Nicholas, The Age Newspaper, Jan 25 1999.

"It took Australians to give us a lesson in New Orleans jazz...you'd think that they were punks - except that instead of electric guitars these six Australians played with a beautiful musical sense.
- Laurence la Presse, MontrÈal, July 8 1999.

"They sounded like the illegitimate offspring of King Oliver and Sid Vicious."
- The Age Newspaper, 6 November 1996

"One of the hottest bands, The Hoodangers, was also one of the youngest... [they] looked like punk rockers, but they played the old classics with all the passion and energy that the first conventioneers must have possessed."
- Down Beat April 1996.

"It's like the Clash would've played trad jazz if they'd had the chops."
- Tom McDermott, New Orleans Gambit Weekly, July 27 1999.

"...A scruffy looking lot, their clothes and haircuts as far removed from the striped-shirts-and-straw-hats Dixieland image as could be: if you reckon trad jazz is tired and boring, think again."
- Jazz-Line Australia, 2001.

“The egotistical performers … their names are not worth mentioning should not be invited to spread their ‘smut’ on our beautiful island and attract such ‘slutty’ behaviour from our young!!”
- Gulf News, 2002.