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Hugh McGinlay

GOOFY DAD AND REFORMED METAL-HEAD HUGH MCGINLAY IS A STALWART OF THE MELBOURNE LIVE MUSIC SCENE. BUT HE ALSO LOVES THE TOP END (WHO WOULDN’T?) AND IS BRINGING HIS GENTLE SOUNDS BACK TO HAPPY YESS THIS MONTH. 

What was the first concert you ever went to? 

I saw Arrested Development when I was 13 at Festival Hall in Melbourne. I went with film maker Joe Loh, who back then was known simply as Joe from Year 8. The band was incredible, powerful and honest. 

What’s your favourite album of all time? 

My first thought is Alice in Chains Jar of Flies EP because it came out when I was 15, and at that time of life you really fall in love with music and out of love with almost everything else (or at least that’s what it was like for me). Of course, two decades on it’s probably not my favourite anymore and as it’s an EP I get to mention some others, right? Tori Amos’ From the Choirgirl Hotel, Richard Buckner’s Our Blood and anything that Thomas Hugh has ever put out would be on my list today (which will change tomorrow). 

My friends would describe me as... 

Loud, goofy, the first or last to leave a party, loving, loyal and very uncoordinated. 

Whose posters did you have stuck to the wall when you were a teenager? 

Lots of grunge, lots of metal. I was talking to a new friend the other day about how much my 15 year old self would be shocked with my band now. I think he would like the sounds, but want to go to a metal show afterwards. The posters on my wall these days are drawings by my kids, which are just as cool as Pantera and Soundgarden, I assure you. 

Describe your sound in three words. 

Earthy, human, tender. 

HAPPY YESS | FRI 3 JUN | 8PM | $10 

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