Joanna Funk

music, gardening and my dog


Roaring Lion rehearsal for Thirsty Chiefs, BBQ Bazaar and Banana Bender Pub!

Roaring Lion rehearsals are in studios and warehouses from Brisbane to the Gold Coast. We are always looking for places where we can be loud, with enough space for nine musos plus all their gear, at a time when we can all make it! This weekend we were at lead vocalist Glen’s church, where he is the Pastor. He was chuffed to claim that he got us all to come to church, at last.

We have a new acoustic set to perform at Thirty Chiefs Brewery Company in North Lakes Saturday July 16th and are really excited as we work on that! A lot of vocal harmonies happening and we are keeping the instruments to the bare minimum. It’s how we will open — up close and personal. After that the sets will be our familiar big sound for everyone to dance to!

Then it’s over to Burleigh Heads BBQ Bazaar on the Gold Coast on Friday July 22nd. Another band Doughboy Groove will open the night then we’re on for about two and a half hours. We’ve learned new songs and have some new arrangements of the classics — it’s important to us to keep it fresh for the people who always support us at BBQB.

I’m super excited about this gig because a bunch of my piano students are coming with their parents! I’ve reserved a long table for them. Even the family of my very first piano students in Australia, Jess and Sasha, plan to come! The girls are no longer doing piano but the family remains very close. Below is an illustration of Jess and me in 2013, which was my piano teacher business card, in the days when I used them. She’s about to go to university now. Sigh!

Jess and me. Illustration by Mary Funk

The QLD Ska & Reggae Festival is happening and we are part of it! We’re playing Saturday October 8th at the Banana Bender Pub on the Sunshine Coast. We’ll be sharing the night with the ska band Sunny Coast Rude Boys (Ooh. A bit of Madness popped into my head… welcome to the house of fun…) That sounds like a fantastic night to me and I plan to have a chat soon with Mick Hughes of the Sunny Coast Rude Boys, who’s also the festival organiser. So watch this space!

That’s it for now, but for sure I’ll write more about each of these events later.

Woo hoo! Play some music to have a wonderful day! 🎶 🤗



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About Joanna

Joanna is British Australian. She worked mainly in financial news in London. In her forties she moved to her parents’ birthplace, Sabah, a Malaysian state on the island of Borneo, where she became a pianist in a hotel and wrote a blog about musicians. The blog became a book before Joanna came to Australia in 2012. In this blog she writes mostly about music, gardening, and trips to Sabah. Oh, and Wookie the Havanese.

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