A fan has found links at my site and the original sites for mentions of Russell's musical connections:

http://www.murphsplace.com/crowe/GQ05.html

The Greatest Actors of Our Generation
THE HARD-ASS
Interview by Chris Heath
Photographs by Nathaniel Goldberg
GQ (USA) - March 2005

... He leads me back to the book-lined office of his waterfront Sydney home, disappears for a moment, and returns, his face full of fatherly delight, his 1-year-old son, Charlie, in his arms. When Charlie has taken his leave, Crowe suggests we listen to some music. He guides me through the highlights of (Last Night We Were) the Delicious Wolves, by the Canadian Hawksley Workman (February 23, 2005 - Hello Friends, We hope the winter is treating you well !! Hawksley just returned from a short stay in California and his starting to work on some new songs ! If you happen to pass by a magazine rack check out what Russell Crowe has to say about Hawksley in the new GQ.... stay warm!) a record Crowe was introduced to in Toronto by his Cinderella Man costar Renée Zellweger. Together we take sensible, mystified pleasure in the line You took your clothes off to remind me of the ocean. Then he asks whether I would like to hear his own latest song. He has been collaborating with a songwriter named Alan Doyle, from a Canadian band he likes called Great Big Sea; this new song, “Raewyn,” has a different level of poise and grace than much of the records by Crowe’s band, Thirty Odd Foot of Grunts, and its lyrics are both elegant and more direct. It draws on two traumatic early deaths in the Crowe family tree-his mother’s sister Raewyn and his father’s brother Charlie-and on his own new family, on how these are linked by name and heritage, and of what it is to be a parent and a child:

“My mother’s sister committed suicide when she was 21. Slashed her wrists in the bath. And my father’s youngest brother died in a scuba-diving accident when he was 17. It just hadn’t occurred to me what my father would have been able to say to my mother when she lost her sister, because he had had the same experience, and how close that must make them.”

Growing up, were you very aware of all this history?

She died while I was alive. He died just before I was born. It was one of the odd things, when Dani wanted to call the baby Charlie and I said, “I don’t think that’ll go down very well in my family.” We’ve had two Charles Crowes. One died scuba diving at 17. The other, the uncle of my grandfather, died in the Battle of Britain at 21. But Dani had an Uncle Charlie who moved from York to Hollywood and lived till he was 96. So I went on two things: a combination of genes and third-time lucky.

ECMA Gossip: All-Star Hook-ups, Hockey Fights And Hernias
Tuesday February 22, 2005 @ 04:00 PM
By: ChartAttack.com Staff

The word from the other Sydney - Australia, that is - is that Matt Mays is currently in the land down under working on Sam Roberts’ new album; and that Great Big Sea’s Alan Doyle is also in Australia working with his pal Russell Crowe on the actor’s latest solo album.

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Russell rocks in to Coffs
By JENI FAULKNER
08.03.2005

RUSSELL Crowe was up to his old tricks again on Friday night, leaving the security of his Nana Glen property to pay a surprise visit to his local watering hole, the Coffs Hotel.

But talk of movies was not on the agenda for our Oscar winner - this ‘off-the-cuff’ visit was for a jam session.

Rumours had been spreading that Crowe would be performing at the Coffs Hotel on Sunday afternoon, but everyone kept tight-lipped about the performance to keep the hungry media away.

Word spread quickly and by Crowe’s third song, the mercury at the Coffs Hotel had certainly risen.

Wearing an unusual three-piece outfit Crowe displayed a vest embroidered with the words ‘Cinderella Man’. He later revealed a blue T-shirt over the top of a long-sleeve shirt.
Crowe and friends joined regular performers O’Tallowood http://www.midcoast.com.au/~mparker/ on the stage for a quick half-hour session, before retreating to the beer garden for a quiet ale.

There was no denying that the vibe proved contagious and, even though Crowe only stayed for a short time, the revellers partied on.

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Rusty doing time behind the camera
March 17, 2005

RUSSELL Crowe was busy working on a film shoot yesterday, but spent his time on the opposite side of the lens.

And no, Rusty hasn't taken over the directorial duties on the stalled Eucalyptus.

He spent the afternoon with a film crew outside Bill and Tony's cafe in East Sydney, directing a film clip for his band Thirty Odd Foot of Grunts.

The clip, shot on several Super-8 cameras, featured some elderly men sitting around an outside table, a trumpeter, a dancing couple dressed in 1950s garb and an classic Allard car.

The actor and the members of his band who were present did not feature in the clip, but Crowe's voice could be heard coming from a loudspeaker, singing an emotive song with lyrics about football and coffee, while he looked through a lens at his actors.

"There was about 20 people here," a Bill and Tony's staff member told Confidential.

Crowe was "very nice," he said.

"I didn't expect him to be so nice."

Crowe has apparently been hard at work on a new TOFOG album and has reportedly played some new material to friends.
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Insider - Crowe Charms the Locals
Tuesday May 04, 2004

Russell Crowe

So Russell Crowe walks into a bar ... No, really. While in Toronto filming The Cinderella Man, Crowe took in a performance by singer-songwriter Slaid Cleaves at nightspot Hugh's Room. Slimmed down for his role (as Depression-era fighter Jim Braddock) and unassuming, Crowe, who arrived right before the second set, surprisingly attracted little notice. He even agreed to sign a Master and Commander DVD for a Rounder Records rep who bought him a drink – but only if it was the deluxe edition. "Because I might have only just signed certain letters of my name otherwise," he quipped."

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KUNKEL'S STUDIO WITHOUT WALLS TAKES ON JBL'S LSR6300 SERIES MONITORS

Nathaniel Kunkel, audio engineer and owner of Studio Without Walls (based in Los Angeles and San Francisco), recently based the monitoring of his mobile studio concept around the new JBL LSR6300 Series.

Kunkel's list of credits is extensive, with a slate of fine sound work done for artists such as Sting, James Taylor, Lyle Lovett, Maroon 5, Sheila Nicholls, the Insane Clown Posse and Element...
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http://www.murphsplace.com/crowe/newsbits04-6.html

This is an excerpt from an article in the Nov. 25 issue of the Halifax Daily News.The article was called " A decade of great music" and was an interview with the front man of the group "Great Big Sea." - The journalist was Sandy Macdonald.

"....Alan Doyle (GBS frontman) has been chumming with the Gladiator. Turns out actor Russell Crowe is a big fan of GBS, and his weekend rock band , 30 Odd Foot of Grunts,covers some of GBS's tunes.

"Russell was in Toronto all summer shooting a film called "The Cinderella Man" and came to see our shows", explains Doyle. "I actually met him at the NHL Hockey Awards...He was coming to our show at the Molson Amphitheatre, so we met up then."

Crowe had set up a little recording studio in Toronto, and invited Doyle to come by whenever he was flying through. "So I did that three or four times over the summer, and spent some time hanging out,writing and recording some songs."

Though a respectable musician,Crowe has been so much with making movies over the past 18 months that he had to let the music slip,says Doyle.

"Some nights we'd just sit and sing Jim Croce songs, and other nights we'd write or talk about Paul Hyde and Ron Hynes songs."

Doyle says the Oscar-winning actor is a talented songwriter."He knows a good line when he sees it"

Slaid Cleaves

Duane 'Bones' Hillman ( Midnight Oil )

Alan Doyle

Paul Hyde Website

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Thanks to Cindy

ABC Radio Interview July 2003 Transcription

RC: Well, I was for many many years, and I started playing live in band in circuit gigs at about the age of 14 and more seriously in nightclubs at the age of 16. There was a period of time there before I was 20 where I was doing 200 shows a year, and you know, for me…the band……the guy who plays guitar in TOFOG , I've been playing with since 1984, so we'll have our 20th anniversary next year. (ABC: Gosh!) The base player I've known since 1987, the drummer has been around for 10 years. We've had other drummers before him, but, he's the man. Even the youngest member of the band, a guy called Paul Berton, has joined us for this tour, but if you go back over the albums for TOFOG, there are six of them now, you'll find his name on every one. So, our associations are long, and that's what people hear when they go to a TOFOG gig. It's not that we got together last Sunday and we came up with some songs. They hear the years, the unity of the band, the unity of the band as a musical force. That's what gets to the back of the room.

Thanks to Chattles

The Liam Barlett interview

LB: And what about the members. I know there’s a recent addition, Paul Berton, but what about the other guys? You’ve been around a long time....

Russell: Paul’s actually been playing with us for a long time too. I mean on pretty much every record Thirty Odd Foot of Grunts has done, he’s done something. It’s just finally bringing him onto the stage, type of thing. But everybody has got their own lives going on and what we do with the band is something we’re all passionate about. We all make time for it.

LB: What do most of those guys do? Are the in entertainment or they just have other jobs?

Russell: Well, Dave Wilkins is a producer and songwriter so he works most of the time in the business. Stuart Kirwin, the trumpet player, is basically a gun for hire outside Thirty Odd Foot of Grunts, so he ends up playing with orchestras and musicals and touring with Jimmy Barnes and whatever it might be. Dave Kelly, the drummer, is a cameraman editor. He has a post production facility in Sydney called ??? Digital. The bass player is a merchant banker who was just recently doing government contracts with other countries like Indonesia and Malaysia and stuff.

LB It’s a fair old combination there, isn’t it?

Russell: For us music is it’s own reward. We do it because we really enjoy it and we love the power we generate as a unit, particularly with the years and miles underneath us that we have. It’s just something that’s far more than just a hobby or passing interest or whatever. It’s a lifetime commitment that we all have to it.

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30 Odd Foot of Grunts featuring RUSSELL CROWE
The Photograph Kills (3:26)
(Russell Crowe/Dean Cochran/Garth Adam/Don Brown/Mark Rosieur & P.B.Berton)
Produced by Charles Fischer. Engineer Phil Punch. Recorded at Electric Ave. Sydney, Australia
Mixed at Hollywood Sound Recorders, L.A. by Gross. Mix Engineer Chris Johnson Assisted by Brian Davis
(P) ©1995 & 2000 30 Odd Foot of Grunts

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OWOS - Additional Musicians:

Tommy Morgan - Harmonica Track 5 - (? that's Inside Her
Eyes, not What's her Name ?)

Ian McLagan - keyboards track
Tosca Quartet - tracks 7 & 10

Brett Garsed, Ric Fierabracci, Paul Lani, Stu Hunter, Matt Cornell, Agent Jackson, Erin Workman, Bernie Barlow, Joe Mansour.

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Spencer splits
The Sun-Herald
February 6, 2005
S14

DANIELLE Spencer is no longer associated with record company EMI, although she is continuing to write and record material for a new album project.

The singer-songwriter, who is married to Russell Crowe and mother of baby Charlie, had an amicable split with the company recently, after earlier releasing her album White Monkey through the label.

A spokeswoman for EMI confirmed the split with Spencer last week: "We understand that Danielle Spencer is currently working on new material, however she has amicably parted ways with EMI," she wrote in an emailed statement. "Therefore we have no real timeline [sic] on when it is expected that she will release any new material." It is believed Spencer may now release her album independently midway through the year.

Despite her husband's current preparations for Eucalyptus in northern NSW, Spencer was out and about in Sydney last week; she was at the Australian Chamber Orchestra's 2005 season launch at the Conservatorium of Music in Macquarie Street.

Film fans will recall the ACO's artistic director, Richard Tognetti, was heavily involved in Crowe's movie project Master And Commander, teaching the Oscar-winning star how to play the violin, and writing pieces for the film.

Tognetti is a personal friend of the couple - he performed at their wedding at Nana Glen.