Mal Webb

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 Around the world and into your brain, vocal adventurer, multi-instrumentist and looping beatboxing songwriter Mal Webb plays too many instruments in too many styles to too many people. He gives solo performance a bad name, and that's Mal, whatever your language. Music that stomps all over stylistic boundaries. Ebulliently eclectic. Nefariously varied. Family fun free from facile frippery.

It's as grittily human as it is other worldly, as clever as it is stupid, as playful as it is ponderous. Using a world of vocal techniques, guitar, mbira, slide trumpet, chromatic harmonica, a loop recording pedal called Derek and the audience. Ani DiFranco said "You're a freak!" after Mal played support for her. He's like Bobby McFerrin, Aphex Twin and Cole Porter playing scrabble.

Born in Melbourne in 1966, Mal started learning percussion at the age of 4. This led to singing, piano, trombone, jazz theory and composition all by the age of 12. At 14, he did his first paid gig, playing trombone with a big band at the Hilton Hotel. At 16, he took up bass guitar. Mal's diverse tastes in music led him to be a member of many groups (6-16 at any one time to the present day). He played the support for David Lee Roth in Melbourne, Australia with Afrodisa (a soucous/hilife band).

1987 saw the start of the Oxo Cubans, a brass, percussion and vocal group that went on to tour much of Australia and release 4 CDs, before taking an extended break in 1996. In the Oxos, Mal became more involved in singing and song writing. In 1994, he toured to the Bogota Theatre Festival (Colombia) with roving circus drumming group, Batacuda (of which he was a founding member). The same year, he took up guitar and began doing solo gigs.

Mal's interest in the vast possibilities of the voice increased and in 1996 he did his first solo a cappella show (for the Boite) and formed the a cappella trio Milo, which became Sock after a change of personnel. It featured 3 men, complex arrangements of swapping parts, vocal drumming and a little comedy. Sock went on to release a CD and tour. His piano composition called Schvink Chass was published in the book, "Piano Miniatures" (Red House) and later recorded by Michael Kieran Harvey.

In 1997, Mal got the job writing, playing, singing and recording the music for the ABC TV and Working Title co-production, "The Adventures of Lano and Woodley". The show went for 13 episodes and honed Mal's recording skills. In 1998, he recorded the Sock CD and the award winning CD "Aloukie" by Zulya Kamalova. That year he also began playing trombone and recording with the Overtones, which became Bomba. In 1999, the Sock recording of his song "Roofrack" come runner up in the Canadian Acapella Song Contest (tragically, to a song called "Humpty Dumpty Jumped").

In 1999, Mal recorded his first solo CD, Trainer Wheels. He formed Totally Gourdgeous with Penelope Swales, Carl Pannuzzo and Andrew Clermont, all playing gourd instruments (Mal playing bass, mbira and trumpet). They have recorded 3 CDs and tour extensively. In 2000, Mal began working with hurdy gurdy player Barb Dwyer. They have toured to France and Germany with their band, Hurly Burly.

In 2006 he joined Chambermade Opera's "Phobia" for tours of Singapore and the Nederlands. The same year, he began helping out with research into voice acoustics, principally with French physicists Nathalie Henrich and Lucie Baille.

Mal has made three solo CDs and likes sitting in with his famous friends whenever possible. He occasionally tours to Austria, UK, Germany, Ireland and/or North America when asked nicely.

"Carrot "

"Wake up"