This page, along with the Gigs page will be updated on a regular basis, and was last updated on 14 June, 2005. These two pages will keep you up to date on the latest Citrus happenings.
13/06/05 - On Saturday night, Tim was interviewed on the Rhema Newcastle radio program 180 Degrees with Aaron Brown. Tim spoke about the history of the band and gave some insight into the Citrus songwriting process. If you are a regular listener, please continue to request your favourite Citrus tracks for airplay on the program.
10/06/05 - A full version of the Citrus track Homeless has been made available for download from the GC Jam Website. Citrus will be playing at GC Jam on 18 June 2005.
28/09/04 - Citrus has been invited to take the Black Stump Musical Challenge. On the final night of Black Stump 2004, Citrus will be one of several bands performing a well known song, outside their usual genre, as if it were their own. Keep your ear to the ground for any clues as to which famous song will be made over to become Acoustic Rock with a Fresh Folky Edge.
04/04/04 - Citrus recently appeared on Sunday Night Live on Radio 2 (1611 AM). The interview with Gordon Moyes went to air on 28 March 2004, and was followed by Eagle, a song from the band's album, 'Adam Ate the Mango'.
02/04/04 - Eagle and Hold On, the first two singles from Adam Ate the Mango have been gaining airplay at Christian radio stations and programs across the country. A good number of stations have added the song to their regular rotation, and many have added it to their library for use on an occasional basis and to fill requests.
If you enjoy the music of Citrus, please request Eagle or Hold On on your local Christian station. If you work at a radio station and did not receive a copy of the two singles, please E-mail citrus@tpg.com.au with the name and address of your program requesting a copy.
01/04/04 - The Australian Independent Artists chart, or TRAA Indie Top 20, compiled by The Rock Across Australia listed Citrus as number 20 this quarter based on sales of the album Adam Ate the Mango from December 2003 to February 2004.
01/04/04 - Citrus was recently reviewed in Zeebozine, a US based E-zine. The review was very positive and according to the review 'Zeebozine proudly recommends Citrus to its readers.'
To read the full review, visit Zeebozine, or to purchase a copy of 'Adam Ate the Mango' visit your local Christian bookstore (if you're in Australia), or the Album page of this site.
28/03/04 - As part of the Citrus' commitment to musical innovation, Tim has made himself a Cigar Box Guitar from a Dominican Republic cigar box, a piece of 1x2 maple and 3 tuning pegs. When Citrus arranged a CD swap with Shane Speal, the 'King of Cigar Box Guitars', Shane sent Tim his CD in the cigar box, along with 3 tuning pegs. So far as we know, this is the first Cigar Box Guitar in Sydney, and it sounds great in a 'Down Home Alabama' kind of way!
For more information about Cigar Box Guitars, visit http://www.cigarboxguitars.com or, for instructions on how to make your own, http://www.cigarboxguitar.com.
11/11/03 - Citrus has been named as a finalist in the Best New Gospel Artist category of the Australian Gospel Music Awards. This honour comes as recognition for the band's outstanding work on their debut album Adam Ate the Mango which was released earlier in the year.
The winner will be announced at National Gospel Happening in Canberra, where Citrus is also playing, on Saturday 22 November 2003. For further information, please visit the Australian Gospel Music Awards website.
15/10/03 - With Alabaster Box in one tent, Crying Out Loud in another, and the Black Stump Musical Challenge in yet another, at 10:30pm on the final night of Black Stump 2003 a substantial number of people chose to enjoy the folk/rock stylings of Citrus in the One World Cafe.
Citrus treated the audience to a 40 minute set of songs mainly from the album, with a few new songs and crowd favourite, 'Stick'. After the show the band enjoyed catching up with some of the audience members, and even posed for a few photos, before finding a seat to enjoy the music of Chris Stewart who played next in the One World Cafe.
02/10/03 - Citrus has been chosen as one of 10 bands to feature on the Waffle Records compilation Waffle Platter 03: A Taste of the Sydney Independent Scene. Copies of the CD can be purchased for $20 directly from Citrus, via Waffle Records, via The Attic, or through your local Christian bookstore.
Other artists on the compilation include Catapult, Crying Out Loud, Stealing Second, and The Windmills.
20/09/03 - On 12 September, 2003, Citrus played at 'Africa Uncovered', an evening in support of African Enterprise. The night, organised by GT's Cafe and a team of enthusiastic volunteers featured Stephen Lungu as guest speaker, entertainment by Citrus, a period of congregational singing and an opportunity to give.
Stephen shared the powerful story of what God has done in his life, which included leading him to Christ mere minutes before he had planned to blow up a tent full of Christians - he had come across the mission tent on his way to blow up a bank in a terrorist attack!Around 450 people attended the evening and over $8000 was raised for the work of African Enterprise and an African Enterprise mission team to Malawi. Even more exciting was the fact that a large number of people gave their lives to Christ on the night! We pray that they would continue in their faith and that we would see them in heaven on the final day.
20/08/03 - Citrus were recently offered performance spaces at Black Stump and National Gospel Happening. The band is looking forward to performing at the two festivals. They are raring to share their music with a new audience and a good number of existing fans at both events.
18/08/03 - In less than 12 months, the front page of http://citrus.lovesmusic.com has received an impressive 1500 hits. Citrus would like to thank their fans for their support and enthusiasm helping to spread the word about the band and the website. Citrus is looking forward to continuing to create exciting new music and sharing it with the audiences at upcoming gigs.
In late April 2003, within a few days of their three Sydney album launches, Citrus packed their bags, arranged their car boot and cabin to fit an acoustic guitar, acoustic bass, snare drum, doumbek, a box of CDs, three travel bags, and assorted musical bits and pieces, (managing to fit themselves in the few gaps remaining), and headed north to Queensland for the Australian Gospel Music Festival in Toowoomba.
Citrus played two sets at the festival, both of which were received quite well for a band performing in a new state for the first time. A few people even tracked us down to let us know how much they enjoyed the music, and Ian, the manager of Jive Express, introduced himself to express his appreciation.
Other highlights of the festival were hearing Sons Of Korah for the first time, Tim riding the mechanical bull, and spending some time with our friendly billeters! A warm "Hello!" to everyone that we met up there, and thankyou for making our trip so enjoyable!
The 3 concerts to launch Adam Ate the Mango, the debut album of Citrus, were met with enthusiastic responses.
While the line-up varied slightly for each night, the usual Citrus 3 piece was supplemented by several of the guest musicians who played on the album. Greg Dixon (the man behind Aphek Recording Studio ) added electric guitar and Derek Sadubin (ex-NorthernLine) played timbales and additional percussion for each of the three nights. Lindsey Forster joined the band for a few songs at the opening launch, with Gail Oakey adding cello for the final launch.
While Citrus still performed around half of their 1.25 hour sets on their own, the additional instrumentation helped to showcase the band's songs at their finest, and made each night a night to remember.
The band would like to thank everyone who made the effort to come to the launches - the show of support was most definitely appreciated!
A series of 3 concerts have been scheduled across Sydney on 29 March, 5 March and 12 March, to launch the highly anticipated debut release of Citrus, Adam Ate the Mango. Following these three dates, the band will head up to Toowoomba for the Australian Gospel Music Festival.
If you would like some flyers to help promote the launches, please send a short E-mail to citrus@tpg.com.au with the heading "Launch flyers wanted" and stating your name, postal address and the number of flyers you require in the body of the E-mail.
The band is eagerly looking forward to these performances, and to finally making their CD available to their fans!
Full details can be found on the performances page.
After one of the busiest four months of their lives, Citrus is nearing the end of the recording process. With tracking completed and mixing started prior to Christmas, the album is now in the post-production stage with final mixing and mastering due to be completed by early February.
Unfortunately the hit counter was reset for http://citrus.lovesmusic.com due to work done by our ISP. As a result, the counters now display all hits since September 2002.
Citrus has a hectic schedule planned for the next few months. Entering Aphek Studio in the first week of September to lay down the tracks for their debut album, the band has also secured performances at the ACAN NSW Musicians Breakfast, Black Stump 2002 Christian music and arts festival, a string of performances in the Southern Highlands, as well as their usual assortment of gigs.
Please pray that the album will come together well and that it will bring glory to God in its quality of music, Godly lyrics and ability to express truth in a way that is fresh, inspiring, and Biblical.
Citrus will be entering the studio in September 2002 to commence recording their much anticipated debut CD, which is scheduled for release in March 2003. We'll keep you posted on the band's progress right here.
Following Citrus' recent performance at The Attic, a review was added to The Attic's website. According to Reuben Rose, "[Citrus is] perfect for church events, Black Stump One World Café, Youth Alive and other such events. Overall, a good set and the feedback was excellent. Citrus can and will go far!"
More of Reuben's review can be found on the Quotes page or on the Attic website.
Whitfest was a great success, with well over 400 people coming, and over $6000 raised to provide a bursary for a black African student at George Whitefield College in South Africa who would not otherwise be able to afford the fees.
Citrus was recently selected to perform at Gracenotworks.com Unplugged, a concert to raise money for Gracenotworks.com, a prominent Christian website. Citrus was selected for the remaining position on the night from 11 acts who entered the Play Live at Unplugged competition.
Gracenotworks.com Unplugged was held on 5 April 2002 at St Andrew Cathedral in Sydney. Other artists were John Dickson and Ben Shaw, Melanie Cooke, Nathan Tasker, Mark Peterson, Rob Smith and Colin Buchanan.
Citrus was received well, with numerous positive comments and several gig offers following the show.
Two 30 second snippets from the Citrus demo CD are available for download from our Music page.
Feel free download them and send them to your friends, but also encourage your friends to visit this site and consider buying our album which is due out in late March 2003.
Citrus has been involved in some heavy planning, being part of the Whitfest Organising Committee. Whitfest will be a benefit concert to provide a bursary for a Southern African student to attend George Whitefield College, an Anglican theological college in Cape Town South Africa. Whitfest will include Melanie Cooke, Nathan Tasker, me + Ty, and of course, Citrus!
It was recently discovered (26/2/02) that http://citrus.lovesmusic.com is currently ranked numbers 1 and 2 on the search engine Google.com for the search terms 'Christian Band Sydney' and 'Acoustic Rock Band Sydney'.
If you have any suggestions on how to improve our web presence further, or other we'd love to hear them. Send them to citrus@tpg.com.au.
Citrus is currently looking to record their first album in mid to late 2002. The band recently recorded a 4 song 'live with one take per song' CD for demo purposes. This recording will not be officially released but will be available where required to secure performance dates. If you are interested in having Citrus perform at your event, please E-mail Citrus at citrus@tpg.com.au, or call Tim Bower on (02) 9889 3890.
If you would like to have Citrus come and play for you, would like to join our mailing list,
or just have some questions regarding the band, please contact Tim Bower at
citrus@tpg.com.au
or on (02) 9449 5626.