The Kransky Sisters

The Kransky Sisters are an Australian musical comedy trio created, written and performed by Annie Lee (Mourne) and Christine Johnston (Eve) in collaboration with Michele Watt (Arva) and Carolyn Johns (Dawn).

The three sisters live a very old-fashioned life and travel around in their 1958 Morris Major performing musical covers. These are performed with their own special panache using tuba, guitar, musical saw and a 60s reed keyboard, not to mention a whole host of other bizarre instruments that pop up from time to time like toilet brushes and kitchen pots.

The Kransky Sisters tell off-beat and occasionally macabre stories and accompany these stories with strangely relevant covers of popular songs.

Fictional history and backstory

The Kransky sisters come from Esk, a real rural town in Queensland. The two eldest sisters, Mourne and Eve Kransky, are full biological sisters and have lived together all their lives. Mourne and Eve's father was a travelling salesman for the (fictional) Asbestos Cookware Company. Their mother left their father to be with his brother, who is Arva and Dawn's father. The two brothers have not spoken since and Mourne and Eve ostracise Arva and Dawn, using their guilt over the affair to dominate them.

Arva, who first toured with the family band, has now joined the Hornbell Military Marching Band. Dawn, the youngest sister, has taken leave from her job as trolley librarian at the Esk Hospital and now tours in Arva's place. The sisters wear the same clothes and Mourne and Eve speak with similar mannerisms. Mourne, the eldest, is clearly the matriarch, sternly keeping control of her younger sisters and doing most of the speaking during a concert, while Eve, a vegetarian who harbours secret passions, eerily echoes many of Mourne's phrases, though she has enough independence to occasionally add to Mourne's stories. Arva and Dawn almost never speak.

The songs they play are learnt from listening to the "wireless" and they drive to their concerts in a 1958 Morris Major. Sometimes the songs are incomplete thanks to an interruption in their reception and the sisters, lacking any normal cultural context, often seem not to fully understand what they are singing about.

One of their neighbours has a computer and has made them a website. They made regular appearances on In Siberia Tonight on SBS Television, The Sideshow with Paul McDermott on ABC Television and also made guest appearances on Spicks and Specks and Adam Hills Tonight.

Instruments

Awards

Award nominations

Discography

This CD contains excerpts from their "We Don't Have Husbands" tour in 2005.

Tracklisting

  1. Love You When (Kransky Theme)
  2. Introduction
  3. Sunrise Sunset - original
  4. The Bakery
  5. MJ Medley - a Michael Jackson medley of Thriller, Beat It, Billie Jean
  6. Pix People
  7. Sounds of Silence - Simon and Garfunkel cover
  8. Arva's Boil
  9. Sexual Healing - Marvin Gaye cover
  10. Mince
  11. Nutbush - Tina Turner cover
  12. Overload - Sugababes cover
  13. Makeup
  14. Pretty Woman - Roy Orbison cover
  15. We Will Rock You - Queen cover

External links