GENE BRADLEY FISK - KAANGLANG DREAMING
- Lyrics & Music by Gene Bradley Fisk
Produced by Robert Angello @Angello Sound Studios Nashville, TN
The outlaw spirit running wild across the bush and pioneers dreaming of a better life, struggling with a challenging land and fighting a harsh bureaucracy.
A family might eventually acquire respectability and past misdemeanours may become the stuff of legends, but that spirit lingers, passed down through the blood, sweat and toil of many years.
A story-teller like octogenarian Gene Bradley Fisk can’t but help tap in to that spirit, whether he be conjuring up true-life historical tales or channeling the style music of music he has loved, performed and promoted for all of his eventful life.
The words bristle with authenticity and his voice rings with truth.
The Outlaw survives.
- Bob Howe, 2020
GENE TELLS THE STORY BEHIND "KAANGLANG DREAMING"
In the early 1900’s in southern Victoria, Australia, the sons of early settlers wishing
to become owners of their own farms or sheep and cattle stations, found it difficult
to obtain finance (mainly from Banks at that time) to finance their ventures. Most of
them were young married men with young families and some of them, once gaining
the land either by purchase or inheritance, still needed valuable stock to begin with.
In the wild Otway Ranges district, young men began what in Australia is known as
“Cattle Duffing” (also known as Rustling)
The gang who star in the song used moonless nights to carry out their deeds and
chose mainly coastal farms on the side of the ranges to extract young milking cows
to begin to build up their herds as they were mainly skilled dairy farmers. They used a
secret base high in the Otway hills to leave their spoils to be impregnated by a bull or
bulls, and when the female calves were able to travel months later, they drove them
to their various properties.
The Kaanglang area in the Otways was an ideal spot for the operationas, it was very remote (and still is to this day).
Kaanglang is an Australian aboriginal word meaning “Place of the Tiger Snake” Walter
John, the ringleader of the duffing gang was the only one to face the Courts accused
of the crime of “Duffing” which meant a long Jail term if found guilty.He however got
away with it because the prosecution didn’t have enough proof (according to the judge)
My song is based on facts told to me by descendants of Walter John.
