Chris Johnston

Jun 18, 2024 | thesaturdaypaper.com.au | Chris Johnston

Love Changes Everything is Dirty Three’s new studio album, the first from the Australian trio in 12 years. Out this month, it consists of six songs/compositions/outré jams titled “Love Changes Everything”, from “I” to “VI”. The record has no words, no literal indicators – just 40 minutes of extraordinary musical freefall. I say “freefall” because there’s no tether attaching the band to what we might call rock music, no line between Dirty Three and convention.

May 10, 2024 | thesaturdaypaper.com.au | Chris Johnston

We get in at night from Los Angeles in a black Ford Mustang with a deep rumbling undercarriage and enough thrust to throw us back in our heated seats. All those roadside taco vans on the way out of the city, along the underside of the San Bernardino National Forest heading east, passed by in a blur of colour. Dusk, then dark, in California. The cold sets in quickly in the spring.

Dec 20, 2023 | themonthly.com.au | Chris Johnston

The new music I liked most this year came from the north of England. This was not surprising, given this has been the case for me, more or less, through the 1980s and 1990s and retrospectively the two decades prior. For the musically fevered region around Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool and Sheffield, it’s a case of pick your band, pick your producer, pick your genre. And the pickings are rich.

Nov 22, 2023 | themonthly.com.au | Chris Johnston

Margret RoadKnight is a gem. A rough diamond, perhaps. She is plain-speaking and extremely direct, with a flash of wonderful pink in her long, straw-coloured hair. “Eighty years old,” she says, “60 years of performing music this year and 50 years since my first album.” But the veteran singer of jazz, blues, folk, gospel and traditional music – whose career has been largely unsung in mainstream Australian culture –is now wondering whether it might be time to slow down.

Oct 19, 2023 | bvmsports.com | Chris Johnston

By Chris Johnston and The Athletic Staff via The Athletic, Calgary Flames prospect Topi Rönni faces a criminal charge stemming from an incident that occurred in the summer of 2021, a league source confirmed to The Athletic. The incident occurred when Rönni was a minor, and charges weren't filed until July 2023, according to the source. The police report on the incident has been sealed and a date for the... Read more on Publisher's website