KarismaKatz
Since forming in 2004 the KarismaKatz have established themselves as a versatile group with the emphasis on passionate performances.
Whether performing as an acoustic duo or 6 piece showband, whether playing Jazz, Blues, Funk or Roots music, performing at festivals, wineries, corporate functions, folk clubs or bars, KarismaKatz is a class act.
Core members, DJ Gosper and Christo Carlsen, regularly tour the Australian countryside performing their original brand of Blues, Jazz and indefinable ‘other’ to enthusiastic accolades.
As an acoustic duo, Carlsen and Gosper perform with stunning synchronicity and emotional depth. Intense songs are interspersed with earthy banter and humour. Together they reveal their stories of getting on with life through adversity, shaking off their demons and connecting with their audiences without pretentiousness along the way.
KarismaKatz regularly perform with:
❧ Dave O'Neill (fiddle, mandolin, guitar)
❧ Bob Rodgers (vocal harmonies, acoustic & electric guitars)
❧ John Black (keys, vocal)
❧ Leo Joseph (keys, Hammond organ)
❧ Rafael Jerjen (bass guitar)
❧ Paul Leeder (bass guitar)
❧ Aidan Lowe (drums)
❧ Michael-John Stratford (drums)
KarismaKatz Festival Appearances:
❧ La Dolce Vita Festival (King Valley VIC)
❧ Milawa Blues & Jazz Festival (Milawa VIC)
❧ Tallangatta Blues Festival (VIC)
❧ Australian Blues Music Festival (Goulburn NSW)
❧ Nimmitabel Blues Festival (NSW)
❧ Tilba Valley Easter Festival (NSW)
❧ Merimbula Jazz Festival (NSW)
❧ Moruya Jazz Festival (NSW)
❧ Cobargo Folk Festival (NSW)
❧ Music at the Creek (Major’s Creek NSW)
❧ Tulip Top Festival (Sutton NSW)
❧ Railway Blues (Richmond NSW)
❧ Broadbeach Blues Festival (QLD)
❧ Apple Blossom Festival (Batlow NSW)
❧ Shoalhaven Winter Wine Festival (NSW)
❧ Dubbo Jazz Festival (NSW)
❧ Wine, Roses & All That Jazz Festival (ACT)
❧ Wine Harvest Festival (ACT)
Karismakatz performances:
❧ Official launch of the ACT Chief Minister’s Dept ‘Grooving In The City’ Entertainment Program
❧ Media Launch of The Folkus Room
❧ Wine, Roses & All That Jazz Festival playing for the Sydney and Canberra Public and Media Launches
❧ Bosom Buddies Annual Gala Fundraiser (annually)
❧ Shoalhaven and District Breast Cancer Support Group’s Annual Function
❧ Australian National Botanic Gardens’ ‘Summer Concert Series’
❧ Australian National Botanic Gardens’ ‘Grazing in the Gardens’ Annual dinners
❧ Territory and Municipal Services ‘Party in the Park’ Entertainment Series
❧ The National Capital Authority’s Media and Public Launch of it’s Music by the Lake Entertainment Program
❧ Queanbeyan City Council’s ‘Sunday in the Park’
❧ Queanbeyan City Council’s Annual Regatta
❧ Public Launch of the Canberra Multicultural Festival
❧ Blues at the National Gallery Sculpture Gardens
See them live and discover why they have been described as “world class”, “spellbinding” and “inspirational”.
DJ Gosper - Vocal, blues-harps, guitar
DJ grew up in a musical family where sing-a-longs were a regular occurrence. She played piano for many years, and still plays at home for fun and song-writing.
She has been performing in bands and singing the Blues for 18 years since falling helplessly in love with the Harmonica. She has since developed a reputation as one of the tastiest blues-harp players in Australia, an expressive vocalist with an engaging and spirited stage presence.
After spending 2007 to 2008 recovering from breast cancer, DJ is “performing with a passion that knows no tomorrow.” (Bill Arnett, the Folkus Room, Canberra). Gosper says “Before cancer I was a part-time musician with dreams of becoming full time. My career was just beginning to take flight when I was diagnosed. While the illness, surgery and treatment, has set back my career, it has also fired me up to live my dreams. I am now a full-time Musician, and as tough as it is I’m loving every minute of it!”
Her professional musical career began in 1995 fronting The Dynamic Lifters as singer, harmonica and keyboard player (she had studied Classical piano for 11 years). This band exposed DJ to a range of music, from original songs to obscure Folk songs to Pub-rock and Blues-rock covers and helped her to begin her journey toward finding her own sound.
As member of renowned vocal trio The Blues Cowgirls from 2002 – 2005, DJ played at various Australian Blues and Folk festivals. The independent release of ‘Ask Any Woman’ was awarded "Best CD of the Year" by Canberra Roots Music.
She formed KarismaKatz in 2004 and co-wrote and produced her second CD “Spirit on the Rise” described by Phil Birch-Marston of Artsound FM as: “… something special, superb performances, lyrically powerful and thought provoking…” and by John Williams (Trad & Now) as “beautiful music indeed”.
In November 2007 DJ scooped the Canberra Blues Society Awards winning three of the six music categories: "Best Vocalist", "Best Instrumentalist" and "Best Song" (Burn Baby Burn, co-written with ‘Katz guitarist, Christo Carlsen).
DJ has shared the stage with some of Australia’s great Blues and Roots performers including Jim Conway, Fiona Boyes, Dutch Tilders, Damon Davies, Damian Coen, Dave O’Neill, Kate Meehan, Jan Preston, Ross Ward and the USA’s Eugene Hideaway-Bridges.
With a record number of entrants in 2009, DJ again scooped the Canberra Blues Society Blues Awards this time winning Female Blues Vocalist, Blues Song “Baby Rose” (co-written with Lynnie Gosper) and Best Blues Album “Hot Flush Blues”.
Read her personal story about breast cancer at www.djgosper.com
Since her return to the stage following surgery and treatment for breast cancer, DJ is now a full-time musician making her mark in the blues, jazz and folks scenes.
Christo Carlsen - Guitars, vocal, composition
A veteran of the Canberra music scene, Christo Carlsen was born in Nottingham in 1952, moving to Australia with his family a few years later. His father was an alcoholic toolmaker and jazz musician who joined the RAAF to escape the devastation of post-war Britain. His mother was a housewife, part-time nursing sister and reluctant librarian. The young Christo vowed never to become a drunk like his dad but, predictably perhaps, wound up just that.
At age 14, after hearing Dave Davies’ blistering solo on The Kinks’ All Day And All Of The Night, Christo took up the guitar, forming his first band, the nerdishly named Runcible Spoon, just two years later. The group performed a few gigs around Canberra before disbanding, the other members citing their need to get a ‘real job’. More bands followed, but Canberra, it seems, was just not ready for the blues and Christo found himself, like many others, working folk clubs and wine bars, playing James Taylor, Crosby Stills & Nash and Leonard Cohen covers, tunes he still performs occasionally.
In 1973, 20-year-old Christo left Canberra to join the industrial-strength blues and boogie outfit, Bad Companions, working out of the New South Wales Central Coast. It was here, in this debauched, anarchic environment, that Christo’s drinking and drugging took hold in earnest. By the late 70’s, most of his few remaining friends had written him off as a hopeless case, destined for the madhouse or, if he was lucky, an early grave.
Carlsen spent most of the 1980’s in a substance-induced haze, wounding and alienating anyone foolish enough to get close emotionally, until, faced with ostracism and, more worryingly, immanent mortality, he made the decision to quit the booze and the scag once and for all.
Unemployable in the mainstream workforce, and changed for life by his experience amongst the dispossessed, Christo fell back on his skills as a guitarist in order to secure a living—even with the trials and vicissitudes of the preceding decades, he had never stopped playing. Christo fronted a series of blues/rock pub bands in the 1990’s and early 2000’s.
He joined KarismaKatz in 2006, where his years of experience in the Jazz, Rock, Folk and Blues idioms have merged, creating a masterful guitarist – self-taught, unique, highly regarded by his peers, with left-field licks, and a sophisticated rhythmic style that often leaves entranced audiences in awe.
Also a talented song-writer and composer, Christo is responsible for the composition and arrangement of many of KarismaKatz’ original songs as well as superb vocal harmonies.
2 of Christo’s original songs have been recognised in the 2009 Australian Songwriters Association Competition, ‘Weekend People’ – shortlisted, and ‘Just For A Moment’ – Top 10.