MAL WEBB

Event information

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.