Brisbane's very own funksters Golden Sound are gearing up for a couple of shows at The City Sounds, Australia's largest, free, live-music programme held at a variety of locations around Brisbane's CBD every week.
Lead by Peter Golikov, better known as 'Peter G', Golden Sound will dazzle audiences as the G man calls on his inner genius to bring audiences an aural feast. “The live sound is more James Brown inspired, street funk, whereas the recordings are a bit more produced and there's a bit more collaboration. The stuff we do live is mostly '70s cosmic funk and soul with a deep element of James Brown inspired rhythms – I call it feel-good funk or I call it cosmic funk, so you know, it's a blend of the recorded stuff and a blend of the live. The live show is a lot more raw though.”
Peter G has recently returned from a busy trip around Asia where he performed live with some amazing musicians from Australia and around the world. “I just returned from the Philippines where I was doing some shows over there, so that was a great experience. I got to hang out and work with a lot of amazing talent like Taylor McFerrin from America. I was jammin' with the cat over in the Philis cos he was playing at the same festival I was playing at and we kinda just hung out and a whole bunch of us collaborated when we were there. Tom Thumb was also over there from Australia, we did a live track over there which I put up on Soundcloud recently.”
Playing over in the Philippines is not the first time Peter G has played on the international stage. One of his career highlights was playing a live-house set with his previous band in Kathmandu, Nepal. “That was an interesting experience, I was actually there with my previous band PTYLTD, and that was over ten years ago now. When we went there we were doing live-house music at the time, and no one had ever seen a live band play electronic music before. They'd only seen DJs do it, so they were kind of a bit spun out by it. Playing in the foothills of the Himalayas was a pretty special experience, and they're beautiful very giving people as well.”
While Peter G is better known for his '70s inspired, Rhodes-laced cosmic funk, he also had a stint in the world of electronic music, including being the resident percussionist at Family nightclub in Brisbane for nearly ten years. “I went under the name of Russian Percussion for about nine years. I played all around. I did big festivals and nightclubs and I played around a lot.”
Peter even got the chance to support OG house-music heavyweight Derrick Carter in Chicago after he had one of his tracks remixed by him. “Someone rang me up to say, congratulations dude, Derrick Carter has remixed your stuff and I had to make a few calls to confirm that. We ended up in Chicago playing with him, and we were three white boys in a black club with 300 cats, so we got the baptism of fire there, but they really dug us.”
Since those days, however, Peter has been focusing on the music that he loves the most – deep, soulful roots and funk. “I want to focus on the stuff that I really like more which is soul music and roots music. I just wanted to get back to being a real musician again. I love electronic music and all of that but they're just two highly different things, if you know what I mean.”
Golden Sound is Peter's main project nowadays, a band that faithfully recreates that '70s funk sound with proper vintage instruments and hardware. As well as fronting the Golden Sound band, Peter also spends a lot of time in his aptly titled studio, Golden Sound Studios. “My studio is all vintage inspired, so a lot of the recordings that we do are very much old-school type recordings and that's the Golden Sound as well. It's a vintage sound, we don't like to sound slick or new.”
Peter's studio collection is almost overflowing with collectable and desirable vintage instruments, yet his favourite by far is the Fender Rhodes. “Because I like so much older music, it just makes natural sense. I need to use old instruments. They're richer. They sound better. I collect far too many vintage keyboards, in fact I'm running out of room. I have a lot of old microphones and a lot of old valve gear and a lot of reel-to-reel gear and stuff like that, but I'm a sucker for the Rhodes. I intend on playing that thing until the day that I die.”
Despite being a fan of the recording studio, Peter says he'd much rather play live shows, not just because of the need to maintain a steady income, but also because nothing beats the rush of playing on stage. “Let's not forget we're in Brisbane so the opportunities to play live aren't always a lot. I love the studio as much as I love playing live and if I could justify making a living from spending time in the studio, that would be great. But I do love both, the buzz you get from playing live is a completely different thing to the studio.”
Peter G is constantly keeping himself busy with countless projects at any one time. He's currently collaborating with some of the industry's finest dub/ roots musicians. “I like to have my fingers in a lot of pies, and I like to collaborate with a lot of musicians. There's a lot of projects happening at the moment, I'm working with a lot of people at the moment. I'm working with the very talented Anthony Forrest from Kingfisha, we're doing a side project together at the moment which is sounding really good. I'm also working on a project called The New Buzz, which is a soul project, with Pauly B and Pauly Dub from Dubmarine, so that's kind of an all-star line-up there.”
So what does the future hold for such an established and accomplished musician like Peter G? “My main goal is to end up basing myself in the Philippines and spending more time in Asia this year too. It's good to stay busy and good to stay focused, especially in a town like Brissie – you have to keep setting yourself goals, otherwise before you know it, you're sitting on your hands for too long.”
Golden Sound play The City Sounds at Post Office Square 17 & 24 April; from 5pm.
