THE BAND

JON CALLWOOD

guitar/ banjitar/ vocal

My roots are in Traditional folk music in the North of England and New Zealand since the sixties...now enjoying genre defying song writing and recording ... ..humour, nostalgia, social comment.. whatever comes along.

PHILLIP SCOTT COWAN (AKA Bagpipe boy)

Highland bagpipes / Scottish small pipes/ practice chanters/ whistles/ didjeribone/ didjeridoo/ electronic pipes/ melodiphone/ vocals

I have always wanted to be a piper and I've been lucky to have made a reasonable living busking and playing full time. With only 9 notes you have to be pretty creative at times and be inspired by people saying " you can't do that on the pipes" ! The 3 key things I credit my success to is to 1. Never give up 2. Never tell everyone everything you know...

PETE HANCOCK

bouzouki/ guitar/ vocals

I'm another product of the 60's North of England folk revival. I was an art student.. pretty much compulsory !!

Since then I've been out, on the edge and in the New Zealand folk scene , playing with various band line ups. Creating our own music has brought the passion alive again... taking us off on a whole new exciting journey. Not sure what to call it... but as the great Louis Armstrong said. "All music is folk music."

What happens when 2 grumpy old men meet a young didgeridoo/ bagpipe player? UZBLOKES. When they get together all that matters is ‘Let’s make music!’.

A guitar groove, jamming a spontaneous tune, the first lyrics for a new song - that’s what ignites UZBLOKES’ ORIGINAL MUSIC and their ORIGINAL SOUNDS - ‘Bouzouki, banjitar and bagpipes on this one?’ Hey, why not'
A Maori waiata over Scottish mouth music from the 1700s.’ That could work. In short, anything goes

The UZBLOKES lineup - Jon Callwood (Jon Ken and Ivan/ Morgan Magan/ Sasana) Phillip (Bagpipeboy) Cowan ( Queensland Police pipes and drums / Sasana ) Pete Hancock (Morgan Magan/ Sasana) all have their roots in Celtic music but now push the boundaries into today’s 'Indie Folk'
ALL THEIR OWN.... ALL ORIGINAL.

Collaborating with UZBLOKES on some tracks are five of NZ’s top musicians : Tom Callwood bass/ Joe Callwood guitar/ Chris O’Connor percussion/ Brent McFarlane percussion/ Blair Latham sax & bass clarinet.

UZBLOKES like to keep the music real and FREE TO LISTEN .........isn't that just as it should be?.........LISTEN NOW