Music

I wrote my first song when I was sixteen and continued making music ever since…

From humble beginnings at Pearson College when I recorded my first songs (and some covers) onto a cassette using Mary Ellen MacDonald’s beat box (which had a click but recorded things pretty well) and Belinda Schmolke made a cover for me, I’ve made about tapes and 2 CDs with dozens of my songs on them.

The last release (2002) was a CD called Clean and featured 12 songs – it’s just voice and piano. A friend described my music as cabaret-folk, which I kind of liked.

The release before this one was a tape called Take-off and Landings (1999) featuring 10 songs.

I’ve also done a lot of singing with choirs, both gay and lesbian choirs and Sydney’s Honeybees Gospel Choir. My song “Big City” was performed by London’s Pink Singers and recorded on their CD “Hand in Hand”. “Big City” was also performed by the New Mexico Gay Men’s Chorus and the Vancouver Gay Men’s Chorus.

Soundcloud

You can hear some of these songs on my Soundcloud page:

https://soundcloud.com/andyquan

I used to have songs up on MySpace which seemed to go the way of the dodo bird. In something like 15 years or longer, there were 160 clicks on ‘Clean’, 127 on ‘The Little Things’, 117 on ‘Big City’ and 111 on ‘Why Can’t I Be Superman?’. Technology changes so quickly: MySpace was once popular with all the cool kids, and now I bet the cool kids have never heard of it.

Trent Radio

I am also really honoured to be included on Trent Radio’s pages of artists who lived in Peterborough. It was a time of great creativity for me, at university, and when they reached out in 2005 to say they’d created a page for me, how flattered I was. It has links to songs from three of my tapes.

Youtube Videos

I have also started recording songs, originals and covers, on youtube – and in 2009 included a short solo that I had with the wonderful gospel acapella choir that I sang with for about 3 years, from 2008-2011, the Honeybees.

Check out the videos here on my Andy Quan Music youtube channel.

News

In early 2010, my song “The Little Things” was included on an international compilation of folk music called “Goin’ Back Home International, vol. 10” by Quickstar Productions – available through itunes (a first for me).

Finally, if you’re interested in my music, write to me and we can figure out how to get some to you.

CLEAN

Album promo: Get Clean

Singer-songwriter Andy Quan’s new CD “Clean” features twelve new original songs in his own unique brand of “cabaret-folk”. These intimate vocal and piano tracks speak of love and loss, travelling the world, and getting one step further down that road to knowing who we are. His lyrics, full of image and poetry, hint at his other vocation as a published poet and short fiction writer.

He’s sung on stages with gay and lesbian choirs in London, Vancouver and Sydney as well as at Gay and Lesbian Pride celebrations in Brussels, during the Mardi Gras Festival in Sydney and at the open stage of the Sydney 2002 Gay Games. He’s performed solo and with actor Anthony Wong in cabaret shows in Sydney and his song “Big City” has been recorded by London’s Pink Singers on their CD “Hand in Hand” and performed by the New Mexico Gay Men’s Chorus.

Born in Vancouver, Canada, he’s lived in Toronto, Brussels and London and currently works as the international policy officer for the Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations in Sydney, Australia.

Clean (2002) features 12 original songs. Robin Gist at Electric Avenue Studios helped me record it, David Malone again did a stunning cover using photos by Clive Aspin and David Ellingsen. A whole host of my friends helped me choose which of my songs they thought were the best. Focus-testing is a good idea.

The twelve songs on the CD are:

  1. A Place Called Home
  2. Don’t Let Me Be Lonely
  3. The World Just U & Me
  4. Icarus
  5. Strength
  6. Sleep By My Side
  7. I Want It All
  8. Wings
  9. Your Eyes
  10. Clean
  11. Happy Ending
  12. Never The Same

TAKE-OFFS AND LANDINGS

Take-off and Landings (1999) featured 10 songs. I produced it on cassette, since at the time, doing a CD seemed a bit too expensive for me.

The ten songs on the cassette are:

  1. Out of the Blue
  2. Not Enough Time
  3. Goodbye Song
  4. Wanderer
  5. If you could love me more
  6. You
  7. Talk to me with your eyes
  8. I’d still have you back
  9. Meaning of Love
  10. The Little Things

Yes, my hair is really that white on the cover. It was my first experiment with blondness. The fantastic tape cover is by David Malone who showed me exactly what I was imagining when I described to him what I wanted to do!

Just for the hell of it, here’s the names of my other cassettes and one CD

  • Private Music (1987)
  • Second Draft (1988)
  • And One by Jane (1989)
  • Directions (1990)
  • Songs to Grow Your Hair By (1991)
  • Composure (1993)
  • Bald (1994)
  • Halfway Round (1996)

A few music links

  • Pink Singers – I sang with the wonderful Pink Singers, London’s Lesbian and Gay Choir, when I lived there in 1997-8. They were, and I suspect still are, a great group of people. Before I left, I arranged a song for them, “Big City”, which patient conductor Mladen helped them to learn. It meant a lot to me when it was sung in concert. It’s on their CD, Hand in Hand, which can be found on their website.

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