The Story

The twisted offspring of junkyard folk, old-world gypsy, ragged celtic & dirty blues. A multi-instrumental globe-hopping jaunt through the Australian musical landscape.

A Bastard Children show feels like a crowded party in a big old house. The songs are like different rooms down a dark hallway with creaking floors and heaving walls. It’s the wheeze of the accordion, the spilled blood of a dirty harmonica, the tearing of guitars, the scrape of the mandolins, banjos, keys, horns, whistlers and more. The Bastard Children is the sound of Melbourne by night - the real Melbourne - it’s visceral, its unpretentious, and it’s bloody fun.

The twisted offspring of junkyard folk, old-world gypsy, ragged celtic & dirty blues. A multi-instrumental globehopping jaunt through the Australian musical landscape. The lads present a fast paced live show that leaps through various styles and instruments with all the urgency of a thirsty drunkard. Sordid, scandalous and superbly attired, The Bastard Children are, like it or not, bastards of their own diverse cultural heritage. A roaringly successful season of over 60 shows in four weeks at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2008 was where the band found inspiration for their debut album High Tide & High Times (2009). The Bastards returned to their home town of Melbourne to record the album in an old 1970’s ex brothel - think alice in wonderland gone very wrong. The
result was an album of diverse material that has enjoyed critical acclaim and garnered airplay nationally. High Tide & High Time, as you would expect, varies hugely in sound and style, blending old world charm through a range of stories and drinking songs that span both genre and influence
With a fast paced live show already drawing a great response from audiences at shows and festivals across the globe. Make sure you catch this extraordinary band on the way up.

“this idiosyncratic quintet put on a show that not only provides excellent music at the forefront of new folk songwriting, but is absolutely great fun.” Miranda Heggie, The List Magazine Edinburgh

“They carve a time in your life with the listening of this album, detached from nationalism; encapsulating a sense of roaming freedom and wild eyed, possibly demented, joy. They have taken their cues from Tom Waits, Jeff Lang, and, among many others of course, The Band.” Jarred Keane, Dwarf Magazine

“Instrumentally, High Tide & High Times is a fragrant pot-pourri of percussion and strings and horns and everything in-between, creating a folk wall of sound” Teri Louise Kelly, Independent Weekly
“their versatility and roaming experimentation lead to something unpredictable, unassuming and outright fun.” Claire Sellwood, Drum Media