THE VANGUARDS:

Inter-galactic Roots Fusion flagbearers crusading ever deeper voyages/voyagers into the SPACE BETWEEN!!!
From tap dancing at age 8 to trombone at 15, electric bass guitar at 19 and tenor guitar at 30, with some schooling,three U.S. pilgrimages and some 3500+ gigs along the way, Dale's latest VANGUARDS re-invention is again the perfect vehicle for his eclectic take on Roots music.

“It’s Blues Jim, but not as we know it.”

A VANGUARDS gigging highlight of 2009 was their Wangaratta Jazz Festival performance
where a roadie was heard to say, “This ain’t Blues!!!”

SONIC INFLUENCES:

The Blues/Jazz Greats especially Miles Davis and Duke Ellington, Chess, Delmark and Excello Studios,
Johnny Guitar Watson, George Clinton, Jack Meyers/Myers and Fred Below, Weather Report,
Kraftwerk, Devo, The Police etc.

THE BAND:

Dale Lindrea aka Mr. Ed aka Jnr. Wheel-Barrow:
Bandleader, lead vocals, electric bass guitar, electric tenor guitar, loops, programming, FX, synth.

THE VANGUARDS ALUMNI:

Guitarists: Dai Jones, Ben Peters, Dave Birtwell, Ron Tabuteu
Drummers: Mark Grunden, Lin Wallis, Hugh Harvey, Ronny Ferella, Tom Mc Ewan, Andy Swann
Saxophonists: Dean Hilson, Bruce Sandell, Rob Glaesemann
Bassists: Gary Costello, Steve Hadley, Howard Cairns
Keyboardists: Simon Bourke, Jake Mason
Harmonica: Ian Collard

“Girls In Slacks” THE VANGUARDS (Independent) 4 STARS

Bassist-singer-composer Dale Lindrea is a man with an audacious vision. Reviewing here last year The Vanguards’ debut album, First Time Round, I described the stark combination of Lindrea and guitarist Dave Birtwell as “skeletal chamber Blues” – intimate, quietly forceful – and called it exceedingly brave, or foolhardy. For the second Vanguards’ outing, Lindrea and Birtwell enlist, as they sometimes do in performance, two stalwarts of the Melbourne Jazz and R’n’R scene, drummer Ronny Ferella and Dean Hilson on tenor sax. The expanded sound makes for a broader, more entertaining listening experience. The music brims with good humour and rolling rhythm; imagine the compositional wit of Leiber and Stoller harnessed to, not the Coasters, but the Paul Butterfield Blues Band – or, more specifically, as Lindrea points out, Butterfield of the two Better Days albums (1972, 1973). Lindrea uses a variety of voices and textures to project his music, whether his diverting originals or the refreshing treatments of well-travelled material such as the Blues ballad Evenin’ (Jimmy Rushing, T-Bone Walker) and the elastic-riffed You Don’t Love Me.

Ken Williams THE AGE, Friday 28th Nov 2003