Nymagee rocks! The 2009 Nymage Outback Music festival is now done and dusted. If you were there for the ride, make a comment

The Nymagee Outback Music Festival....a myth or a real event? - spoken of in hushed tones, whispered in secret corners and discussed in darkened rooms. Rumoured to be the birthplace of Country Rock n Roll and the festival from which the Re-Mains and the Lonely Horse Band and The FUGS have sprung.....yes it is real, in fact, like the sixties, if you havent been there then its impossible to explain anyway....this year, the action continues with the single day of frenzied activity.....its our 10th Birthday ! !The infamous festival site wedged between the industrial copper-slag heap and the radio-active green water storage still slumbers in its creative hibernation (still a mandatory walking trip for festival devotees).....and the festival has moved like a ragged tweenager into the township proper. Multiple stages, new and improved artists, as well as the crusty old ones that you've come to know and love....all the important things remain - A Day in the Dirt ! ! - a festival for the artists, by the artisits - the conditions are bad but at least the pay is shit... use the 'Contact Us' page to find out how to get your name on the list and start packing your swag in preparation ...

excerpt from Same Head, Different Shirt. www.mickdaley.com .....It was about this time that I’d been travelling to Newcastle to play as guest bellower and sidekick with The Australian Beefweek Show – a kind of country rock Australian version of The Pogues – their modus operandi was to get as drunk as possible wherever they played, be as loud and obnoxious as they could, and by the end of the show get completely naked. They also wrote some killer songs and played with a vulgar panache that was irresistible – I loved the attitude and the sound. I knew two of the blokes in the band – Pete ‘Bufo’ Hansen and Chris ‘Washy’ Greenhalgh, from the old Bushpunk days. We’d frequently toured to Newcastle and played on large bills with their bands – respectively Bufo Marinus and The Wash, who’d actually been Triple J darlings at one point in time. Washy and I had a lot in common, including an ex-girlfriend who we both still love and admire. I’d played some wildly interesting gigs with Beefweek, including in the middle of a forest doof at dawn during torrential storms, on and falling off the back of a truck in Bourke and at a horse ...

Welcome to Nymagee! Spectacular Wongaibon Country! If you haven't come here yet, then the Outback Music Festival is a great way to expand your mind-map of Western NSW. Roughly 12 hours drive from Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Adelaide, Nymagee is a tiny ghost town in the middle of spectacular surroundings. Native pines, grasses and big old gums provide a true bush experience, while the amazing 'Bald Hills' - granite mountains who sit like old men around the festival - dominate the Northern horizon. The town once boasted over 5000 miners and their families, indeed, many nearby communities in the area had many 1000s of people working the rich seams of gold, copper and silver. Remnants of their incredibly hard life abound, including some fantastic examples of old miners cottages, Butcher, Community Hall, Picture Theatre and in-tact Bakery. The World Wars, dust storms, Rabbit plagues, drop in mineral prices and drought decimated the area's population. In recent memory, the old families who maintained a rural existence on once rich but now barren lands have gone. The school was lost when the last remaining young couple with children could no longer survive the harsh conditions and left for greener lands. Today a skeleton crew maintain a pub, ...

We are a music festival designed and operated by artists. Professional musicians, some established, some about to explode on the national scene, donate their time and energy to create a day of musical celebrations for the bush folk of mid-western NSW.  Well known for its nearly decade of hard-times, drought and exodus of people, this area of Australia personifies the characters of the Australian Bush: resilient, generous with what little they have, hospitable and knowing how to let their hair down!  People of many cultures have been coming here to Wongaibon Country for the last 150 years in search of gold and riches of the earth. From Chinese tree cutters, Afghan camel drivers, Cornish miners, the Scottish, English, the Irish, the Greek and Italian, many people came and made this place their home. From once 5000 strong, the town now has a permanent population of little more than 30. But riches still abound. We have found it in the people. With scarce donations and good will, the festival is one time when the locals can enjoy top quality original singer songwriters and top shelf musicians from all around Australia. This is our way of helping in the only way we know how...making music. ...

The Western sun rises over a sleepy outback village, a few dusty peppercorn trees shade the remains of the houses still standing in the deserted street. In the back of a dusty corrugated iron cottage in an old stone floored cookhouse there is a body dressed all in black sprawled on the floor. Pinned to the chest of the unmoving form is a note with the words of the legendary Townes Van Zandt scrawled across in a rough hand. “Living on the road my friend, was going to keep you free and clean, now you wear your skin like iron and your breath’s as hard as kerosene….” The body is that of festival organiser, Tonchi McIntosh, the day is Sunday the 2nd of November and the town is Nymagee. Soon Tonchi will rise to greet the day; he will smell bacon and eggs being cooked on the festival grounds where the Slowdowns are busy preparing sustenance for the weary travellers. The previous day they sold ‘slowdowns specials’:- (bacon and egg roll, berrocca, Panadol, coffee and a slowdowns cd) and they performed a set of their legendary country classics to a willing audience of Nymagee locals and travelling musicians. Tonchi will nurse his head while ...