AC2 Productions complete first project

Australian Country Music's newest production team AC2 (Allan Caswell & Al Craig) has finished it's first recording project. It is the debut album by Sydney singer/songwriter Vicki Lester (tentatively titled "Heartsongs") at Al's St Leonards based studio Black Inc.

As the title suggests "Heartsongs" is a collection of deeply personal recollections from Vicki's Life but written in a very accessible and entertaining manner. Vicki is a highly respected dog trainer and her great love of dogs is evident throughout the album. Her pride in being an Australian is obvious in songs like "This is Australia" and "Centre Of This Land", her sense of humor shines through in "Volvo Power" and love for her family in the very moving "Fred and Mary"

Caswell and Craig put together a terrific band for the project including Michael Vidale (bass), Terry Murray (guitar), Pete Drummond (drums), Bob Howe (harp and guitar), Marcus Holden (violin and viola) and ex Roxy Music member Dave Skinner (keyboards).

Trevor Knight is also currently in at Black Inc working on his new album with Allan and Al. The album features some outstanding new songs (mostly co- written with Caswell) and is sounding great.

With Al's business and studio commitments and Caswell's gig and writing commitments on top of their AC2 projects the boys are flat out at the moment but to quote Caswell, "This is fun!"

Country Music Legend , Allan Caswell, this week released his new album through Shoestring Records and was featured on John Nutting''s National Australian ABC Radio Program Saturday Night Country....'

So you know what to expect from an Allan Caswell album?.Don't Count On It!

Allan Caswell's new album for Shoestring Records, Don't Count On It is a dangerous blend of country music and rock and roll.

Don't Count On It is the result of a collaboration between one of Australian Country Music's top singer/songwriters, Allan Caswell and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, Buzz Bidstrup (Angels, GANGgajang).

As Allan describes it "Buzz produced this album. He also wrote all the songs with me, which means he shares the credit and the responsibility for it. Writing songs with a left-handed drummer/rock legend who plays right-handed guitar, upside down is an interesting experience (especially when you're trying to learn the chords). Don't Count On It started life as a one-off songwriting session which grew into six months of writing, rewriting and recording a bunch of songs unlike anything either of us had ever written before. Between us, we'd had years of absorbing all kinds of influences. On Don't Count On It we used nearly all of them".

In many ways the strength of the songs on Don't Count On It comes from Allan and Buzz's willingness to push each other to the limit creatively.

If you enjoy intelligent and wickedly ironic lyrics and tunes that really kick then check out Don't Count On It.

The striking cover for Don't Count On It was especially painted by top
Australian artist Don Waters. "It takes a giant leap of faith to ask another artist to interpret your workfortunately Don is a genius".

Don't Count On It by Allan Caswell (Shoestring Records SR39)

Several years back when South Sydney (The Rabbitohs) were outsed by the Rugby League Board from the main Australian competition for what many believed were very cynical commercial reasons, Allan took a very vocal and public role in the campaign which ended in the High Court and saw Souths reinstatement. Souths future will be celebrated in a number of Sydney functions in coming months and Allan, who wrote the main campaign theme song "Souths will stand alone" will be performing at a number of the events

One of these is the upcoming Charity Shield game at the Sydney Football
Stadium. After 2 years of writing songs and Rupert Murdick jokes,
playing fundraisers, getting banned from a few clubs for a pro Rabbitoh
stance and fronting 80,000 people at a rally in front of the Sydney Town
Hall singing a song he had written the previous night, Caswell is ready
for the big one. In front of a sellout crowd at the SFS, Allan will be
part of the celebration to welcome back the Mighty Rabbitohs.

At the start of March, Allan will be releasing "Black Jack Blues Again"
from his Shoestring records CD "Caswell Sings Caswell" as a single in
Europe. The first single "On The Inside" reached No.17 on the European
Independant Country Charts.