Show & Tell with: Jimmy Dixon of Django Django
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Show & Tell with: Jimmy Dixon of Django Django

What piece of equipment do you have to show us today?

I have my Czechoslovakian 1970’s Jolana hollow body bass guitar.

 

How did you come across this particular item?

I had been looking for one in good condition for a while. It’s quite tricky to trace them down as most of them are in Russia or the Czech Republic and you have no way of knowing what condition they are in or if the electrics work etc. A friend of a friend found me a similar one a few years back but this particular bass popped up on eBay.

 

What is it that you like about it so much?

I love the sound of these bass guitars. They have a really beautiful organic sound and because they’re hollow bodied guitars I can sit at home and play them like I would an acoustic guitar. You can see that the designers and makers of them were really influenced by the ‘50s and ‘60s American guitar makers but they have their own unique style and sound.

 

How do you use it and how has it shaped the way you write music?

When I sit down to write it’s usually on an acoustic guitar but having this at home and in the studio now I’ve found myself playing it and picking out little vocal melodies and structures. I guess because I’m not playing full chords on the bass it frees up where the melody can go. We also used it a lot on Marble Skies album recordings.

 

Tell us a little about what you have coming up?

We have our album out on the 26th Jan so we’re super busy in the run up to that and our UK and European tour starts at the end of Feb. We’ve got a couple of in-stores this week which is always exciting as it’ll be the first time we get to play new tracks to Django fans and see what the response is. After that we’ll be heading out to the US and then into festivals in the summer.

 

 

Marble Skies is out now via Because Music/Caroline Australia and can be ordered here.