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belle phoenix

  • belle trio soaring

    Belle Phoenix with Jeffery Wegener and Ken Gormly
    + Fabels
    Thursday, 4 September 2025
    Lazy Thinking, Dulwich Hill, NSW

    WORDS: Ed Garland
    PICTURES: Keith Claringbold

    With her elfin appearance and cat’s eyes, Belle Phoenix, is part musical performer and part Factory girl, and surely would fitted into Andy Warhol’s Bohemian scene of 1966. Her sweet vocal has held her in good stead as a backing singer on other people’s albums, but she’s steadily built an impressive body of work with her own material.

    Belle Phoenix’s music would work as a soundtracks to European movies (indeed, she did live in Europe for a time with Finland a home base.) It has hints of the spoken word spirit that pervaded the San Francisco of 1958 when alcohol-fuelled beat poetry nights were all the rage, long before anyone had an inkling of the Summer of Love that was lay ahead.  Yet, Belle can also sing like the angels and produce pure soprano bliss amidst her swamp darkness.

  •  booges 2021Booges filling in on drums for Brisbane band HITS on a string of Radio Birdman supports.  

    After a weird couple of years and having to shelve my label for family reasons and a pandemic, you could say I’ve dropped out of music to a certain degree. Anyways I do have a Top Ten.Some are releases, some arte new bands and some are life choices. Onward, upward and ideas flowing for the label and a possible live venue. In no particular order:

    Belle Phoenix - “The Glorious Dead”
    One release that got affected by my situation. Thankfully Beast and Spooky released this absolute gem. Belle was living in Brisbane a few years ago when my friend Mary Mihelakos contacted me, saying I should talk to Belle. I did, we met up, listened to the recordings she did a few years ago and put my head down to help her as much as I could behind the scenes. I was planning on releasing the album but family issues and then COVID put my label at a standstill. I’ve been listening to it for a few years now and haven’t stop listening to it.