The Lost Husky
The Lost Husky began in 1998 as a solo acoustic side-project for Chris Newton, the bass player for 1990s Sydney alternative rock bands Psyclone Smyle, Tooth and User.
It started out as a country-infused folk act, honed at open mic nights, pubs and local cafes in his hometown of Balmain, and Sydney’s inner west, as a tonic to the many years of high volume rock that Chris had been playing at the time. Over the years he performed many gigs at venues such as Balmain’s Cat & Fiddle Hotel and Mofo Cafe, The Roxbury in Glebe, The Hopetoun in Surry Hills and The Sandringham & Vanguard in Newtown, supporting acts both known and unknown including Jamie Hutchings (Bluebottle Kiss), The Waiter, Jenny Queen, Josh Pyke, Holly Throsby and an early incarnation of Thirsty Merc (known at the time simply as “Thirsty”).
With the help of musician and producer friends from various musical backgrounds, The Lost Husky went on to release three CDs and several down load tracks over a 14-year career span, on his own Portable Hole Recordings label.
In 2005 (after two moderately successful solo acoustic based CDs in 2001’s “Absolutely Knot” single/EP and 2003’s “Les Aventures de The Lost Husky” LP) The Lost Husky recruited several musician friends for a more pop-rock influenced recording session, which eventually became the 2007 EP “Almost Me, Almost You” and 2012 download release EP “B-Grade Life”.
By 2012, the pressure of playing part-time in three other bands started to leave Chris with increasingly less time to concentrate on The Lost Husky project and ,after much confusion amongst his fan-base with another more successful artist known as Husky, he decided to retire the act entirely to pursue his other musical interests. A posthumous LP of various out takes and demos is being planned and will be released as a download at some time in the near future.
Discography
- 2001 – “Absolutely Knot” CD single/EP (Portable Hole Recordings)
- 2003 – “Les Aventures de The Lost Husky” CD LP (Portable Hole Recordings)
- 2007 – “Almost Me, Almost You” CD EP (Portable Hole Recordings)
- 2012 – “B-Grade Life” download single/EP (Portable Hole Recordings)
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I lost contact with Chris and the other members of their band Psyclone Smyle in the mid nineties and only reconnected with him, Ben and Piet earlier this year as Tigers at the Edgs of Time. I’m still discovering the many separate musical projects they were involved in during those intervening years and wasn’t, until now, aware of Chris’ Lost Husky days because, although we are now in touch regularly on Facebook and Messenger, I haven’t had a chance to sit down and talk to them about life in general because I’m in Canberra and Covid has interrupted my plans to do so. Thanks to you I will now look into Lost Husky. I’m not at all surprised that they all went on to pursue other musical careers because I was very impressed with their talents way back when I first heard them play in Psyclone Smyle.