PREMIERE: Danny Yau - Courtney's Moving To Newtown (To Start A Band)

Fledgling solo singer-songwriter Danny Yau may appear to be an unknown quantity but, having been a decade since he acted as the frontman for Sydney rockers The Reservations, his debut full-length, Do You Think We'll Live Here Forever?, actually comes with indelible experience and maturity woven into its DNA.

The first example of Yau's catchy, intelligent indie comes in the form of new single Courtney's Moving To Newtown (To Start A Band), an honest, amusing recount of a friend's journey following in the footsteps of so many creatives who came before them, all the way to their musical destiny. Oh, and it's based on real people.

"Courtney, Paige and Emma are girls I know, who all love music, and are hella rock'n'roll," Yau said. "They live in the Inner West of Sydney, the place with the late-night pubs, the share houses, the restaurants, the students … and it tickled me that they were on the same journey I was at 20, moving to that area, playing in bands.

"I think Elton John calls it the Circle Of Life."

The clip itself is oh-so-Newtown, a love letter to a suburb immortalised through multiple film-clip appearances such as John Kennedy's Love Gone Wrong's King St, Sticky Fingers' Australia Street and Coldplay's A Sky Full Of Stars, and it is littered with real-world references — and informed by Yau's own globetrotting history — to deliver a warm, wonderful ode to an inanimate Aussie legend.

"That is actually my guitar that has seen the world and covered in stickers," Yau explained of the clip in a statement. "You will be surprised how hard it is to find stickers sometimes."

"The film clip stars my friend Cass [Scully] as Courtney," he continued. "She looks way more interesting than me and she will be on the album cover as well.

"We filmed at her house, as well as at my mum's house. Mum cooked for us. There's the slightest bit of narrative in there, like in Paul Kelly's Before Too Long clip. But hopefully it's just a nice thing and makes you smile occasionally."

Well, if that's the mission, then Yau can consider it accomplished — Courtney's Moving To Newtown (To Start A Band) definitely has us interested to see what else the troubadour has in store on his debut full-length, due out later this year.

Keep your ears to the ground and swing Yau's Facebook page a Like to keep tabs on what the newly solo singer-songwriter has up his sleeves in the near future.