A Conversation Between Robert Forster and John Willsteed

This is a conversation between Robert Forster, co-founder of Australian pop band The Go-Betweens, and John Willsteed, formerly of The Go-Betweens. It took place in Brisbane’s Avid Reader bookstore on November 9, 2009 to promote Forster’s first book, The 10 Rules Of Rock And Roll, which is a collection of his music writing for The Monthly magazine between 2005 and 2009.

John: Hello there, I’m John Willsteed. Robert would like to do a song. [Forster plays 'Pandanus' from his 2008 album 'The Evangelist'; audio embedded below]

I met Robert a little over 30 years ago. This is the first time we’ve been on the stage, I think, in 22 years. It’s not a stage. It’s a book shop. It’s very interesting. I think it’s intriguing that there is music; I like music in a book shop like this; it’s fantastic. It’s the meeting of these two things, music and writing, that we’re here for, because we’re talking about the release of Robert’s book. Why don’t you tell us what these 10 rules are?

Robert: Alright, the 10 rules of rock and roll, which is the first section of the book and what the book is obviously named after, I’ll tell you them now.

1. Never follow an artist who describes his or her work as dark.
2. The second to last song on every album is the weakest.
3. Great bands tend to look alike.
4. Being a rock star is a 24-hour a day job.
5. The band with the most tattoos has the worst songs.
6. No band does anything new on stage after the first 20 minutes.
7. The guitarist who changes guitars on stage after every third number is showing you his guitar collection.
8. Every great artist hides behind their manager.
9. Great bands do not have members making solo albums.
10. The three-piece band is the purest form of rock and roll expression.

That’s the ten rules.

I think they’re contentious rules.

You can take umbrage with any you wish to do.

Rock and roll needs rules, and I’m glad that you’ve finally laid them down.

I like the idea of the two things coming together because rock and roll, theoretically, it’s supposed to have no rules. That’s what it is founded on, to an extent, or the myth is that it has no rules. Obviously, the point of the rules and the point of the book being named that is to bring these two things that normally don’t go together, rules and rock and roll, together.

Is it true that in writing about music, which is what you now do, that’s not saying you don’t continue to make music; you obviously do, but in writing about music, do you apply rules? Are they similar?

Yeah, one of them is I try not to put myself too much in each piece, or go to ‘I’, which is a great, great temptation. I pull myself out, because sometimes I have connections. In one of the pieces in the book, which is on Delta Goodrem, I review her last album Delta, and it’s her third album. I reviewed the album. I did that about two years.

What I don’t put in the article is that when The Go-Betweens were doing their second to last album, Bright Yellow, Bright Orange in 2004 in Melbourne in studio, she was in the studio. I didn’t know who she was because I’d lived over in Germany for a number of years.

You didn’t know who she was?

No. I’d lived over in Germany for a number of years, and she’d sort of come through Neighbours and things like that. I think she’d had one or two hits at this stage. It was a studio complex and we were in the main studio and she was in a room mixing a single with an engineer. When we were taking breaks from recording, we’d been out playing ping pong and she was sitting over on the piano. There was an old upright, a bit out of tune, and she’d sit and sing; not in any sort of flashy way, but a really nice way. She could play piano. She had a really good voice. It sounded really good.

I only found out who she was later, but she would sit there and play, not try and impress, just because she felt like she could do it for hours. I only discovered who she was at that moment and I only heard her records later, but a couple of years later when I came to hear her record and it seemed like an odd choice to review a Delta Goodrem album, I remembered that I’d had that experience. I didn’t put it into the review because I didn’t think it was needed. One rule is when to put myself in and out of the reviews.

I suppose an earlier rule, in a sense, then, is what to choose to review. How do you get to a point of choosing what you want to write about?

Perversely enough, it seems to be the ones that I think I know something about, or that I have personal experience with. A band like Franz Ferdinand, who I really liked, like right from the first album. They’re a Glasgow band. The Go-Betweens, in the very early ‘80s, were on a label called Postcard in Glasgow. We were around Glaswegian musicians like Orange Juice, Josef K, Aztec Camera; we knew these people.

And so when Franz Ferdinand, these sort of four Glaswegian arty, hipsters came along in 2005 with the great first album, I loved the album and I would have loved it if I hadn’t have known that they were from Glasgow, but the fact that they were just brought it a little bit closer. When I was thinking of an album to review, I reviewed their second one. I put that in a review and there is a paragraph about Glasgow. It’s just from personal experience. That is part of the thing; that I have a connection, that I think I know something about the record, or the concert, helps.

It doesn’t explain Delta Goodrem [pictured left] yet, though.

I always end up talking a lot about Delta.

We can let it go.

No, I’ll add to what I was saying. My niece had some of her records in the time between I’d seen her in the studio. She’d become a big star so I was aware of her and I actually quite liked a single of hers called “Born to Fly”, which I think is on her first or second album. If I had to choose ten great Australian songs over the last decade, I’d put Delta Goodrem’s “Born To Fly” in there. It’s a great MOR, big ballad. It’s a fantastic song, which she co-wrote, to her credit.

It seems like there would be a danger in reviewing when there was no connection, and that would be the point where there would be a danger of bringing yourself into what you’re writing, or purely being about the technicalities of what you’re listening to if there is no connection. I would imagine the connections go way back with you into your past. That’s the reason why you choose Nana Mouskouri, to not only to see but to write about, and Glen Campbell, to listen to and write about. Is that a fair thing?

It is, but at the same time, my ear and my eye goes to new things as well. Even something like Vampire Weekend, who I really like and I reviewed their debut album, and Vampire Weekend are 22 years old. I hear Talking Heads. It’s a New York band and I’ve loved New York bands since the Lovin’ Spoonful, the Velvet Underground, or New York Dolls, or Television. Vampire Weekend, although they’re 22 year olds and doing something really fresh, they go back. There is a myth about a New York band so that sort of plays in as well. I do try and have a sense of adventure in what I choose. I do try and not be predictable, which again plays to Delta, I guess.

I came across Robert’s writings by just subscribing to The Monthly when it started, just because it was a great magazine. It not only had good cultural reviews, but it had good political stuff in it. I was really pleased; there are some choices that I was really pleased with the way you wrote. It was very familiar to me, for some reason. Maybe there is a familiarity that comes from you as a lyric writer, and you as a critic. There is something in your language which resonates between those things.

There is a lot of me in what I write. I have a romantic view of rock and roll. I also have a sense of cynicism, perhaps. I know those two things don’t normally go together, but that helps me with my writing.

I think they’re very common bedfellows, romanticism, and cynicism.

I think people are passionate. I think people project fantasies onto bands and fantasies onto songs, and they always have. I think a lot of – and I’m not trying to do a critique of critics – but I think sometimes it can be quite dry. I think my feelings towards music are quite passionate, and I think people have records and songs that are all about a place, a time, and I think people are quite perceptive about music in terms of the structure of songs or choruses, or people just have a great knowledge about music and I think often reviewers don’t acknowledge that. I think also that there is a huge fantasy level. I think people do think about what it would have been like. When they hear a Velvet Underground record, they throw themselves into it in some bizarre way, or they hear a U2 record or whatever. I think people place themselves in those records.

When music arrives, there’s something about context. There is something about what you feel when you hear something. There are historical points that I can follow back in time. This music comes from these places. Do you think it’s your role to point some of that stuff out, as a critic?

I can’t help myself. Without sort of having a tone in what I’m write as though I’m lecturing, but when I hear a record, it does set off a sense of associations. Normally, even if I don’t put them down on paper, I follow those associations to see where they’re going to take me.

The beautiful associations, they kind of put music in a history of songwriting and music-making. I suppose it becomes more like the folk music that it is, rather than the pop music that it seems to be.

Exactly.

I am fantastic.

That was brilliant, John.

I’ve been bullshitting at the university now for a number of years.

It’s being taped by the way. You can try it in your lectures.

I found a typo on page 249, would you like me to –

Tell me later.

I wrote here, “There are things with which I concur.” Nash Chambers did a great job on that album [Rattlin' Bones, by Kasey Chambers and  Shane Nicholson]. I’m really glad that you point things out like that sometimes, that people who were listening to something might not necessarily think in that way, and they might not necessarily look to a producer and think this person is intrinsic to this process. The reason I love listening to this thing is it’s not just about the song or the singer, but it’s about the way things sound, as well.

I think with Nash Chambers, who is Kasey Chambers’ brother and he’s a record producer in Australia, where I think there is a lack of great record producers. When I hear one and I think he does good work, it’s like fairly country/alternative country field, but he makes really good records as a producer. When something like that happens, I like to mention it and he’s just done the new Angie Hart album, the former Frente singer, so he’s sort moving more now into pop, in a way. People are starting to see that can produce records, because his records are so well put together in a country context, that they could work in a pop context.

[More “things with which I concur”] The Monkees are up there with the Velvets and the Beach Boys. Rick Rubin could be that caretaker at the caravan park. I think he probably is the caretaker at the caravan park.

I have an observation. I’m full of observations. I’m really pleased that you wrote specifically about a song and specifically about “Have You Ever Seen the Rain?” which I really love. It reminds me that you have a song called “Clouds” that I played guitar on. We both played guitars together. That song was in my mind as always being about the same sort of rhythm as what is in “Have You Seen the Rain”. I just really love the fact that you can pick a little thing like that and say this thing here is embedded, this rhythm can move from song to song, and generation to generation. Would you like to play another song?

I will. I just want to say something about Creedence Clearwater Revival. There is a bit in the book, one page, where I wrote I was asked by The Sunday Times in London to write about a song. I wrote about “Have You Ever Seen the Rain” by Creedence Clearwater Revival. Creedence, to me, have always been a touchstone for what I’ve done, as you pointed out, because to me they’ve always been a little bit like a Brisbane band.

There is something about their rhythm and hearing Creedence in Brisbane; Creedence sounds different in Brisbane than it does in Sydney or Melbourne. Driving around in the car in Brisbane and hearing Creedence, to me they sound like a local band. I think it’s just that rhythm, the easiness of the music, the realness, the funkiness of it just… they always sound like they come from, like Toombul, or Nundah, to me.

What’s wrong with that?

Nothing, it’s a compliment! I sort of see them down by the canal there.

On the way to the airport, hanging out under the railway line. It’s a good point. Creedence are at home in Brisbane. Are there other bands that are at home in Brisbane, do you think?

Not so much as Creedence. A famous band – my other theory is that Brisbane reminds me a lot, now, of LA in the ‘60s; the climate and the layout of the city. Especially when I’m at The Gap, where we live, I half-expect to go down to the shopping center and see The Byrds.

Not that Hitchcock sort of thing.

No! There’s actually a photo in the latest edition of Mojo that has just come out. There is this big photo, double-page photo of Brian Wilson in 1965 or 1966. I pointed it out to Karin, my wife, last night. He’s got a baseball bat and he’s on a concrete front drive, and behind it is just a really dry hill. There are these funky sort of ‘60s low-set houses and cars on the street, and you would swear it was on the back streets of Brookfield, or The Gap. It’s amazing. I’ve often thought The Gap is like L.A. in 1965, and then I see Topanga Canyon and the whole thing. This is the fantasy we live out there!

You’ve gotta have something!

I know, and I saw this photo and it was like: evidence, there it is. Anyway, I’ll play a song. [Forster plays 'He Lives My Life' from The Go-Betweens' 2000 album, The Friends Of Rachel Worth. It's embedded below, but note this is not his performance from the bookstore.]

I love Fiona’s shop [Avid Reader] and always have. You talked before about how there are connections between writing songs and writing words. My memory of you is that you were always a letter writer, as well. I don’t know whether that’s true or not. I just have an abiding memory of you writing letters home at a time when there was no email, and phone calls were expensive when we were traveling. Is there a progression? Do you feel that writing in this way isn’t something you would have done 20 years ago, but at this point in your life this is the right time for this? If so, is there a place with writing where you’re heading? Is this part of your journey now?

Very good question.

Thank you.

I’m happy to do reviewing at my age. I think I’d have been unbearable if I’d have had this power and this access when I was 28. I think I would have been unbearable and I would have shot myself in the foot and I would have been going all over the place. I’m pretty happy that it’s come. I started reviewing when I was 48. It’s actually a good time for me to be doing this.

It was a leap. I keep a diary and I keep books that last about a year and a half, filled with everything, like poems, what I did that day. I don’t write in it every day, but it’s a real mish mash that I keep, that I have these books. There are a lot of starts over the years, like a fantasy, it was a novel – or short story. I’d read it the next day and put it away. There are all those starts, and in a way, when I started to write for The Monthly it was great because it was nonfiction.
I found I could write these paragraphs for these reviews. Right from the first review, when I sat down and wrote the very first review on Antony and the Johnsons album, I found that I could write paragraphs and live with them the next day, and keep on writing, and then live with what I wrote the next day, which is something I could never do with anything else I ever wrote in terms of fiction and short stories.

So there is a real freedom in that, then?

There is, and amazingly enough, I’ve always been – I was blind to it, but I’ve always been a non-fiction reader. Whenever I come to a book shop, it’s biography, history; I’ll read anything. Some of my favorite books are just off-beat; Sammy Davis Jr.’s first autobiography, Gloria Swanson’s autobiography, Swanson on Swanson. This sort of stuff, I’ll read. I lent you a book on Willem de Kooning, which you gave back to me…

I didn’t read it.

You looked at the pictures.

I didn’t even look at the pictures. It was a door stop.

You sat on it maybe as a cushion? [laughs] I’ll read a really thick book on Willem de Kooning, that’s got really good reviews. I’ll read that, and I have a passing interest in his art, but I love the story and things will come out to me that will be a lot like de Kooning, one of the great 20th Century artists; he didn’t have his first solo show until he was 45. I found that amazing. I found that enriching, and a great fact to know. I’ve always been a biography reader so it’s really no surprise that I enjoy dealing in facts with a little bit of imagination as opposed to, you know, “Cecilia Page lived down at Redcliffe Pier and had 15 children…”. I don’t just leap off into a story. It seems beyond me.

The biography thing, one thing I particularly like in the book is the Normie Rowe piece, which is one of two pieces of fiction in the book. The other piece of fiction is quite light, and almost a little folly, or something. I feel like the Normie Rowe thing I really quite substantial in some ways, yet at the same time, it’s almost a mock-autobiography or something. Is that something that you think you would pursue more?

I do, I can imagine writing an ‘I’ – first person biography – that you would think would be my life, but would be entirely someone else’s life. I like playing with that idea. I’ve got another one that is similar to “The Coronation of Normie Rowe”, which is in the book, called “Art World”, which places me as an artist in New York. And I know Robert Hughes, and I’m painting people up on the Upper West Side, and I have nothing to do with the downtown art scene. I started [writing] this, and it has nothing to do with my life, but I do all of this and I’m hanging out with people, and they’re real names, so that it feels real and that it’s historically correct, but the whole thing is a pretense. And I like that.

I like that too. I’d read that, unlike that Willem de Kooning book! That’s great. There was something else I was thinking. It’s a bit like a song, in a way.

It is. With my songwriting, it stays quite close to what I do. I don’t have any songs like ‘Eleanor Rigby‘. There isn’t anything like that in anything other than my back catalogue. There is nothing. I have to be careful with this because I’m scared that I’m just throwing my life at people all the time, so I try and disguise it and play with a little bit so it’s not just one long 30-year confessional. I try to play with it. I don’t really do leaps off into characters.

One of the pieces that was in The Monthly, reasonably recently, was a review of the two David McComb books. Would you like to talk about him, and those for a minute? That was a beautiful piece. I really liked that.

David McComb from The Triffids [pictured right]. Amazingly enough, they were one band that Grant and I, in the late ‘70s, we didn’t feel like there was any other band in Australia that was really close. We read about in Ram Magazine or something – this is 1979 or 1980 – about this band over in Perth who were into The Velvet Underground and Dylan, and also Talking Heads and Television, and Grant and I went “okay!” This is years before we met them. We had a feeling about the band before we starting playing shows with them.

We played a lot of shows in Australia with The Triffids when they lived in Sydney in the early ‘80s. I wasn’t really all that close to David. I played tennis with his brother Robert, and that’s a strange way. I guess it’s history now, but you play tennis with Robert McComb, the brother, and I was a lot closer to him than I was to David, although David was the other songwriter in a band like myself.

Yeah, not particularly easy to know, either. He was a little aloof.

Yeah, he was, but I liked David a great deal. There’s a book about David McComb called Vagabond Holes, and I write a remembrance of it. It’s based on three songs. I once ran into David on the streets of Darlinghurst in 1983, ’84. The Triffids had just put out a record, I think it was an EP, and it had a song called “Red Pony” on it, which I loved. When I ran into David, it was very early in Darlinghurst Streets. I’ll play “Darlinghurst Nights” next.

I ran into David on the street at about 8:00 in the morning and I said to him how much I liked “Red Pony”, if he’d show it to me on guitar. I was at a house about two days later and he knocked on the door and he had a guitar. He played me the song and it was a beautiful moment that he just remembered, and he came around, and he found out where I was, and he played me this song.

There was a drunken party about three years later in London. It was a drunken party and I was drunk, and I went up to David and they’d just put out ‘Born Sandy Devotional‘ and I said, “I really love ‘Wide Open Road’. Would you play it to me sometime? He said, “Now!”. We walked into a bedroom, this crazy ‘Australians in London’ party, and he just sat on the bed and I sort of crouched down and he played me ‘Wide Open Road’ on a guitar. Then it was like, “Okay, we can go back to the party.” I was just watching his hands. I can’t play it now, but it was these big strummy chords.

And the third song is in 1995 or 1996 I was playing down in the Continental Café, which is a venue down in Melbourne. He was DJing that night and I was playing acoustically by myself. I knew David was DJing on that night, and just before I went on he played this song called “Mississippi” which is off an album and he and I both loved. It’s by John Phillips from the Mamas & The Papas, who put out a great solo album called “Wolf King of L.A.”, which he wrote a biography many years later which he devoted half a page to this record. It’s a fantastic solo record. I love the record and so does David. We used to talk about it. He played a song from it just before I went on stage, which was a really lovely “hello”.

That night, after the end of that show, ’95-’96, I was staying at a hotel in town and he and his girlfriend drove me into town because I was going to get a taxi and he and his girlfriend said, “No, we’ll drive you into town.” We went into the city and I got out of the car to say goodbye and said I’d take my bags, thanks for driving me into town. I walked around the back of the car, and I got my guitar – this guitar, actually – and my bag out, and David was standing there. I said, “Thank you for dropping me off, thanks for DJing, thanks for playing ‘Mississippi’” and he got in the car, and that was the last time I ever saw him. He died about three years later, but he was great.

I’ll play ‘Darlinghurst Nights‘, dedicated to David McComb.

John: Maybe I should open it up a bit and invite questions. I’ve talked enough. Would anybody like to ask Robert a question?

Audience: My name is Jenny Watson, and I did the album art for [The Go-Betweens album] ‘Send Me A Lullaby’ [pictured left]. Robert, I want to ask a question about when you walked into my flat and saw those small canvas paintings, and I’d only had five exhibitions and you said, “You’re doing our next album cover”. Are you usually that decisive in your business dealings? Because you were more decisive than any top-notch art dealer, I can tell you!

Thank you, Jenny. I try and follow my instincts. That has got me into trouble at times.

John: Are you impetuous?

Not impetuous, but it’s like the idea of Brisbane is LA 1965, 1966; how far do you take that?

John: All the way, baby!

Oh well, it can get you into trouble and you can find that you’re trying to do something that the rest of the world doesn’t understand, which could be difficult. No, I try and – also the other thing is when I see great work before me, I always hope that I recognise it. I did on that circumstance, and I try and do that whenever I can.

John: It’s a big thing, isn’t it, Jenny, having some of your work put on somebody’s album cover and spread around the world.

Jenny: It was fantastic. It was in a book called ‘The Best 500 Record Covers in Rock and Roll’. Thanks for the publicity!

John: Anybody else have a comment, statement, or a question?

Audience: I’m really interested in the fact that the writing in this book is so beautiful. Just if you pick it up and read the first essay, you’ll realise that you’re in the hands of a master writer here. Stuart Glover, who is head of creating writing at the University of Queensland, said exactly the same thing. I wonder when you said that you will read any non-fiction; do you have non-fiction work that you won’t read? Do you have a filter where you say the writing has to be of great quality, or is it just the subject for you?

No, there has to be quality with it. A great biography writer is someone like Richard Elman, who wrote a very good book on Oscar Wilde, and James Joyce. He’s one of the masters. John Richardson, at the moment, is writing a great biography. It’s his third volume on the life of Picasso. They’re fantastic books. There has to be a certain standard to keep me there, but I think it can also go – and something that I’ve always been interested in, is going-high brow and low-brow. It’s not indiscriminate taste, but I see value broadly, but there is a limit. I do have an autobiography of Shaun Cassidy, which I bought at an art shop, which I refuse to read. This was published in the mid ‘70s. I don’t touch it.

Knowing you have it is enough.

It is.

No Alain de Botton, any of that sort of stuff?

No, no.

What about the Dylan book? That’s an interesting autobiography, isn’t it?

‘Chronicles‘? Yeah, I leapt on that, and that is a great book. In a rough way, I template if and when I write something that’s biographical about myself; that would be a book that I would always have in mind. I think Dylan’s done an astounding job on that book.

There is something surprising about it, in that style.

It is.

Would you like to be that unpredictable, I suppose, or it’s not impetuous.

No, I think if I did write – I wouldn’t write my autobiography, I don’t think, but if I wrote something biographical I think I would have to, in a way, break the mold or play with the form the same way I have done with The Monthly, the same way I have with that song I just played, “Darlinghurst Nights”, which doesn’t really conform to many rules as a song. It’s melodic and has a sense of poetry and information giving about it, which are all important to me, but if I did write something like that, then I would like to certainly play with the form. It’s not going to start, “It was a blue day in Brisbane in the 29th of June, 1957 when Robert Forster came into the world.” I can’t do that.

I’d buy that. Do you ever feel like you have nothing to say? Sometimes, do you ever feel, “I have nothing to say”?

No, unfortunately I don’t find myself in that position.

John: That was very quick. [laughs] Anybody else out there have a question?

Audience: On ‘Darlinghurst Nights’, I want to thank you, because that’s such an evocative song. Thank you for playing it. As a long-term resident of Darlinghurst in those years, I saw the Go-Betweens play their first show there in 1980, at the Paris Theatre, where Grant played with his back to the audience most of the night.

Really? See, this was the first show that the Go-Betweens ever played in Sydney at the Paris Theatre in 1980. The Paris Theatre has now been demolished. The bill for this night was The Go-Betweens on first, the Laughing Clowns on second, and The Birthday Party on third. It was a great bill. We’d actually headed down by train – Lindy [Morrison], Grant [McLennan], myself – and we went to the back of the Paris Theatre. We didn’t know anyone and we sat in the stalls in the darkness and watched the Birthday Party and the Laughing Clowns [half of the band pictured right] sound check.

We were completely spooked. We just wanted to crawl out of that theatre and get back on the train and come back to Brisbane. We stayed and played, but I did a signing yesterday in Newtown and I met someone else – the first time, in almost 30 years, I met someone that was at that show. That’s the first time in 30 years, and now you’re the second. That’s amazing.

John: I’m surprised you remembered.

Was there a question? I’m sorry, I’ve just taken off.

Audience: I’m glad to hear that. I’ve just wondered if you’d been to Darlinghurst in recent years, and what it evokes today when you go there?

I have been. It’s quite different because in the early ‘80s, the roads coming up on the hill, like Taylor Square, a street going down to Williams Street. Crown Street had one-way traffic that was like a blitz going through all hours of the day. There is a lot more traffic, life, and noise in Darlinghurst. I’ve been there 5 years ago and it was very quiet. Is it better or worse? I don’t know, but it was the early ‘80s when we were there. It was very active, and there were a lot of people that I knew living around that area.

Audience:Two weeks ago I walked from Central up through to Taylor Square, through all these old streets and lanes that I used to walk through. It’s very quiet now. It’s quite dull, really.

It is. There used to be “No-Names”, the restaurant, but it used to be the place outside The Cross in Sydney where you could get a coffee. Reggio…?

Audience:Reggio is still there, I think.

They used to sell very, very strong coffee there that would keep you up for about three days. A lot of people create a lot of work on this; it was high-octane coffee. It was like one or two cups of this stuff and you’d honestly be chain smoking ten cigarettes and you’d be up for about three days.

John: Babbling in Italian.

Ed Kuepper used to drink a lot of those! A lot of Laughing Clowns material was written on this coffee that Ed was drinking down there.

John:I gave up alcohol and drugs at one point, and the thing that I survived on for the next few years was ‘duplos’, like double, short, blacks from Darlinghurst. I didn’t mean to say that thing about the, you know, with the ‘D’… Has anybody else got any questions they might like to ask?

We’ll make this the last question.

Audience:It’s kind of two questions. Is there something you won’t review, and also how did you make the selection for what when into this book?

There are things I won’t review. I was very wary of Australian artists for the first two or three years when I was reviewing for The Monthly. I was almost scared. If you look at the reviews that I did in The Monthly for the first couple of years, a lot of it is overseas. It’s almost like I was careful and as I said before, I didn’t want to come in with this ‘boots ‘n’ all’ attitude.

I feel a lot more comfortable with it now, like this year I wrote a big review on Paul Kelly’s double CD about his career, which I would have never done the first two years. I wouldn’t have had the confidence. It was quite natural. I saw the record in Rockinghorse, on the wall, and I went, “I can do that,” which I wouldn’t have been able to do before. There are certain areas I don’t go within Australian music because I know the people and I don’t really want to go there. What’s the second part of the question?

Audience:How did you make the decision for what when into the book?

Some of the things I left out were the reviews I wrote in the first year. I re-read them and I think I started settling into a rhythm about eight months in, where I thought I was writing well. I started to keep them. There is not much from the first eight months. I dropped quite a few things. I think also, at that stage, when I started writing for The Monthly in April 2005, The Go-Betweens were just putting out ‘Oceans Apart‘ which would be the last album. The Franz Ferdinand piece, I remember I wrote a lot of it in a hotel in Madrid, a day off. I had to send it back to Melbourne.

I dropped the Bill Callahan one, which is all over the place. It’s about a Smog album. Right now, it takes me two weeks to write them. I don’t know how I did this, but I wrote the complete Smog review in a hotel in Canberra, and we were playing that night. I wrote the whole thing; woke up, knew I had to do it, spent the whole day in a motor inn, in Canberra in my pajamas, and just had people delivering coffee. I knew I had to be at the sound check at 4:30pm. I got out of bed around 9am. I listened to the record quite a few times and I just wrote the whole day.

I think William Holden could play you in a movie!

There’d have to be a couple of whiskey bottles then, I think. But no, I left that out [of the book]. To me, when I read it again, it read like it was written in pajamas on a lot of coffee, in a Canberra motor inn, in one day. I just thought “no, that can’t go in”. I think after the first 8 months, I think I’m a lot more consistent. There are a couple of pieces that I left out after, where I just failed.

The other thing that I have to admit is I started this at 48. I wrote a piece on Lucinda Williams’ ‘West’ album about two years ago. I just didn’t get it. It was messy when I handed it in, and I just failed. That happened one other time as well. I’m not a journalist that’s had 15 years experience, done university, worked at The Courier-Mail, worked at Sydney Morning Herald, done stuff overseas. I’m not that journalist. I’m still failing. I’m still messy, and I still miss what I’m trying to get at, every now and again.

You’re getting better.

I am getting better, but it’s still scary. Month by month.

Thank you very much, Robert Forster.

Thank you. Thank you for coming along. I appreciate it. John Wilsteed, everyone!

Fiona: Robert, Avid Reader would really like to thank you because you had a sell-out session last week, and because of the sell-out you agreed to a second session. You’ve had 200 people in Avid Reader listen to you, which has never happened in the history of Avid before. Thank you so much for your generosity.

Thank you for coming along!

More on Avid Reader at their website; more on Robert Forster at his.

How I ran social media for One Movement For Music Perth, July-October 2009

This was my first venture into blogging on behalf of a commercial entity. It was a massive learning experience and I’m grateful for the opportunity to run what I believe was the first dedicated Australian music festival blog.

The first One Movement For Music Perth ran October 16-18 2009. The event was a bold combination of music industry summit, artist showcase festival, and local artist street performance. Think of it as a nascent SXSW for the Southern Hemisphere.

Between July and October 2009, Nick and I ran One Movement’s blog and social media presence.

Located at onemovementword.com, the One Movement blog became the central hub of online activity surrounding the event. We published interviews, festival announcements, guest posts, a ‘four questions with‘ series, and event coverage.

From July-October, traffic looked like this:

One Movement promoters Sunset Events handed over the event Facebook and Twitter accounts to us in mid-September.

By the end of October, our Facebook fans looked like this:

And our Twitter followers looked like this: (Source: TwitterCounter)

So, what worked for us when blogging for One Movement?

1. Short, sharp posts that featured the input of festival artists. The ‘four questions‘ series proved particularly popular and attracted the attention of the fanbases surrounding the dozens of bands we profiled. (Witness the Big Day Out blog successfully replicating our formula here)
2. The guest post by Kyle Bylin of Hypebot, and the couple of One Movement-related placements we coordinated on their site.
3. Our Indonesian music industry feature, which was the second most popular entry on the blog.
4. Embedding music videos wherever possible to encourage visitors to stay on-site. This was especially useful during ‘four questions‘, as we asked every respondent to name their favourite song of the week, and included the music videos where we could.
5. Seeding exclusive content among fan communities. This involved posting links to the blog articles on artists’ Facebook pages, fan forums, and Last.FM profiles as soon as relevant articles were published. We also used artists’ Twitter usernames where possible to notify them of the new content, and encourage them to retweet the content.

Why did these work?

1. Put simply, people want to read artists’ opinions. They also want to know what artists are listening to; what’s influencing their work. The ‘favourite song of the week’ offered a quick snapshot into the artists’ mind, and offered a talking point for their fans.
2. Hypebot is a popular music news destination, and my relationship with associate editor Kyle Bylin ensured that he directed traffic off-site to provide OMW with the exclusive on his latest article, which we used as a guest post.
3. Indonesians are interested in reading about analyses of their music industry, since it appears that such articles are few and far between. Check out the response on Indonesian band The Super Insurgent Group of Intemperance Talent’s Facebook page.
4. Most users will stay on the blog to watch the embedded videos, which increases ‘time on site’ metrics. And obviously, a combination of image, video and text makes for a visually appealing blog.
5. We decided early into the ‘four questions’ series that it’d be valuable to make each artists’ fan communities aware of the new content by posting the link on the most popular Facebook page/group, their Last.FM profile, and by including the artist as an @reply in our One Movement Twitter updates whenever we posted new content. This ensured that any switched-on fan (or fansite/forum operator) could easily find new content relevant to their artist, and reblog it wherever possible.

Facebook and Twitter

Once we were in charge of the event Facebook and Twitter, we built communities by posting daily updates based on the blog content, as well as responding to @replies and Wall posts as they happened.

Project Outcomes

• 6,700+ unique visitors to the event blog, One Movement Word
• 600+ Facebook fans
• 280+ Twitter followers

What did this mean for One Movement?

• Within four months, a thousands-strong community of passionate music fans built around a new event on the Australian festival calendar.
• Accolades surrounding the construction and ongoing maintenance of the first popular blog built around an Australian music festival.
• The ability to listen to, and learn directly from these engaged fanbases. (see below; click for full-size)

This post that originally appeared on waycooljnr.

A Conversation With Simon Noynay, illustrator

Melbourne-based Simon Noynay [pictured below right] illustrated my ‘future of the music video‘ story for Rolling Stone, as shown below. His work has also appeared on t-shirts for Threadless [my interview with Art Director Ross Zietz here]. Coincidentally, I wore his ‘drum ‘n bass‘ shirt design last night. Spooky. I asked him some questions about his craft.

Simon, are you a full-time artist and illustrator, or do you work on a freelance basis?

Until recently I was working as a part-time freelance illustrator, but have since joined a commercial illustration agency and heading towards full-time client work.

How did you follow this career path?

I have been drawing since I was five and originally began pursuing a career as a fine artist after high school. Although I’ve been a part of several exhibitions and artist’s residencies, I was searching for other creative avenues where collaboration was more encouraged. I completed a Bachelor of Communication Design last year which helped reinforce my love of illustration and character design. I now enjoy working together with artists of different disciplines, ranging from animation, sculpture, fashion and graphic design.

How did you become an illustrator for Rolling Stone?

I was introduced to the art director of Rolling Stone through my illustration agency. I’ve currently worked on three recent and upcoming issues.

Where else has your work appeared? Who are your regular clients?

My work has appeared in different media and in a variety of styles. From clothing, shoes, magazines, books, installations & tattoos etc. I was also profiled by Art & Australia and NOISE as one of the top 25 artists under 25. While I have had the privilege to create things for clients like Adio, Adobe and Qantas, my regular clients like L.A. clothing label Acrylick and my own character design creation, “The Moops” are my favourite jobs to work on.

Is it difficult to illustrate for briefs? How much do you like to know about a story before you’re comfortable illustrating for it?

On occasion, it can be difficult when there is a lack of clear communication and indecision, nevertheless I enjoy the pressures of deadlines and the overall processes of working with clients and art directors. Sometimes all you have to work with is a short sentence and a few examples; however my illustration thrives under these conditions and the result becomes something surprisingly refreshing compared to my laboured exhibition artwork.

Web or print illustration – do you have a preference?

I love web graphics and animation but my work is usually created for print, so I have to say I prefer that certain thrill of seeing my pieces printed and sometimes wearing them.

What advice would you give to young illustrators looking to work for commercial clients like Rolling Stone?

Show your work to clients you wouldn’t normally approach, talk to art directors and get as much feedback as possible. Also don’t be afraid to experiment with different techniques and points of views.

View more of Simon’s work at huskworks.com. He can be contacted via email.

Writers outsourcing interview transcriptions: lazy or smart?

An interesting discussion on the Mess+Noise boards today.

The thread linked above is dedicated to transcribing interviews, and the hatred thereof. The first message:

[transcribing interviews ] …is possibly the most tedious task on god’s earth.

oh lord, I hate it.

It was started in February 2007 and has been periodically resurrected as M+N writers bemoaned deadlines and the tedium of transcription.

I wrote this, 17 November 2009.

I’ve outsourced every interview I’ve done (ie. dozens) since June this year to a mother of five in Israel. Rates are very reasonable and her work is top-notch. Message me if you want a reference.

Mobile phone on speaker > Sony USB recorder > YouSendIt. Word document back within a few days, always.

I’ve mentioned this fact on my blog before, where I detailed how I came across the services of transcriptionist Tamara Bentzur of Outsource Transcription Services after interviewing Neil Strauss and querying him on the matter. From my interview:

Do you have any interview transcribing tips?

Yeah – outsource it. (laughs)

For real. Even if I couldn’t afford it.. I just have to have someone else transcribe it. Sometimes it’s good to listen to because then you relive the conversation, but sometimes I find it easier if if I can fucking find someone I could pay a little bit to do it. Even when I didn’t have the money, I was like, fuck – it just makes my life easier.

So I did, and like I said, I’ve engaged Tamara’s services dozens of times since June. She’s awesome. It’s one of the best decisions I’ve made this year.

Some of the other writers didn’t take too kindly to my admission.

M+N writer A.H. Cayley – talented in her own right, and certainly a young writer to keep an eye on – didn’t like the suggestion at all.

Jesus, NiteShok. How incredibly lazy. Her name should go right next to your byline, I think.

I hope you pay her more than half of what you get paid, given that transcription is the longest, most tedious part of the process, and the least fun.

My response:

It’s her business. She is a professional transcriptionist. Why are you so offended by this concept?

Cayley again:

I think it’s incredibly lazy, and I’m not sure I’d have the gall to call myself a writer if I didn’t actually do the writing part.

Each to their own.

Whoa. That stopped me in my tracks. A strong accusation. M+N writer Shaun Prescott came back with:

well, transcribing isn’t really writing. if the Q&A is going to be published as is, then I don’t see a problem with it.

I doubt niteshok has Israeli women transcribe his live reviews while he sits in the corner dictating in his slippers with a pipe.

Great imagery there. Craig Mathieson – the former editor of M+N, who also wears the crown of Australian rock journalism – said:

C’mon Anne, handing off the transcription doesn’t make you any less of a writer.

Cayley then admitted she’d gone too far. But the whole discussion got me thinking.

Does outsourcing interview transcription devalue the role of the writer?

M+N user MichaelDudikoff suggested:

I actually applaud McMillen for his inventiveness while worrying that he might miss nuance.

A fair statement. The responsibility of transcribing a conversation is significant, especially considering the reputation of the publications in which my writing appears. But I trust Tamara. She hasn’t let me down in the five months we’ve had a business relationship. I proof-read everything before it’s submitted, of course, and pay attention to the construction of sentences to ensure that it reads as the conversation played out. Where Tamara’s unsure of certain phrases or the speech is inaudible, she’ll timestamp the section and move on, leaving me to listen back to the audio and finalise the correct transcription.

Writers, what are your thoughts? Is outsourcing interview transcriptions lazy or smart? Does it devalue the role of the writer? Do you feel I’m less of a writer for engaging the services of a professional transcriptionist to free up my time elsewhere?

Rolling Stone story outtake: Bridezilla

A conversation with Pia May Courtley, guitarist in Sydney rock band Bridezilla, for my fan-sourcing music videos story.

Pia, how did the partnership with Genero.TV originate?

Through our label (Inertia). I’m not sure if Genero approached our label or vise versa. Either way – someone approached someone and here we are now!

Which element of the ‘fan-sourcing music videos’ concept appealed to you?

I like the idea that there’s a bit of a role-reversal between bands and their fans. As a musician it’s refreshing to engage with new people on a creative level – a charming change from the producer/consumer relationship.

Do you view this as just a way for you to save cash on video production, or was there a more profound reasoning behind the decision?

I guess the cash thing maybe plays a minor role but moreso, for us, it’s about potentially coming across ideas we would have never thought of ourselves.

Any concerns about this method of video production arise before you agreed to partner with Genero?

There is an element of risk involved. But like a first date or foreign food…you never know until you try…

Why did you lend that particular song to Genero?

‘Beaches’ is our current single, or first single and the only song from our record to be released so far.

Do you think that fan-sourcing the creative content of music videos devalues the music video medium?

Not really. There’s lots of young people out there with great ideas making viral videos anyway. And if anything these people don’t have rules as to what sells so their ideas end up being more genuine.

More of the band on MySpace. Check out fans’ music video creations for ‘Beaches’ on Genero.TV. A live recording of ‘Brown Paper Bag’ at All Tomorrow’s Parties New York 2009 is embedded below.

Rolling Stone story outtake: The Temper Trap

A conversation with Lorenzo Sillitto [pictured below right], The Temper Trap‘s guitarist, for my fan-sourcing music videos story.

How did the partnership with Genero.TV originate? Was it through your label, or otherwise?

The partnership with Genero came about by coincidence really. We had done a few videos which we weren’t really happy with and that had cost a bit of money, and we were a little fed up with the whole process. So as an alternative we wanted to see if we could hold some type of competition on our MySpace or the like to see if fans or would be film makers would be interested in making a video for one of our songs. Then coincidentally we were playing a small showcase gig in Melbourne and our manager Tom introduced me to the guys at Genero, which was quite out of the blue as they were putting together the resources that we were desiring, so that’s how the partnership started.

Which element of the ‘fan-sourcing music videos’ concept appealed to you?

All of it, I think it is a really good way to get your fans involved in something tangible that the band is doing, it allows them to feel a part of the process. It also gives the band a few options when it comes to selecting video. It is also really good creatively, because you are going to get a set of completely different concepts.

Do you view this as just a way for you to save cash on video production, or was there a more profound reasoning behind the decision?

I think this process is great in getting fans involved and even young aspiring video makers and it gives them the opportunity to work with artists which they may not have otherwise been able to work with. It is also advantageous to us as it gives us more options when it comes to selecting a video. Radiohead have been involved in this type of thing before and have had great results. And I guess saving money is good also as videos can often cost a small fortune. This is not to say that we wouldn’t pay the creator if we selected a video that we liked and we would use.

Any concerns about this method of video production arise before you agreed to partner with Genero?

There is always going to be a little trepidation going into an exercise like this, such as:will people make a video? Will any good ideas come out of this? Will we get a bunch of young boys or girls jumping on their beds singing one of our songs? But generally you are always going to have concerns with the final product, it doesn’t matter whether it is with novice or a big-time director.

Why did you lend ‘Love Lost‘ to Genero?

The reason was that this is probably going to be the next song that we hope makes to radio, and we wanted to have a clip to go with it.

Do you think that fan-sourcing the creative content of music videos devalues the music video medium?

I don’t think so. there are so many bad film clips out there these days that I think the video medium is already devalued. If anything, I think this could possibly spice up the market as people in the industry are looking for different avenues to connect with the audience, and getting them involved creatively is a great place to start. Some of my favourite videos have either been done by friends of the the bands or people who said “I really love the song” and made a clip for it.

There is no better way to represent your band than through passionate fans and people around you. I’m looking forward to seeing the entries and what ideas they have come up with…

Check out fans’ music video creations for ‘Love Lost’ on Genero.TV. A video for The Temper Trap‘s song ‘Sweet Disposition’ is embedded below.

Rolling Stone story outtake: A conversation with Gavin Parry, General Manager of Digital & Brand Development, Sony BMG

Here’s an outtake from my first Rolling Stone story on streaming music subscriptions. It’s an interview with Sony BMG‘s General Manager of Digital & Brand Development, Gavin Parry [pictured below right]. Sony launched the digital music outlet bandit.fm in late 2008. I spoke to Gavin on 25th August, 2009.

Andrew: As I understand it, Gavin, Bandit is currently a pay-per-download site, but in October, it’s being re-launched as a purely subscription-based site for streaming music. Is that correct?

No, that’s not correct. I think what happened with the article in The Herald and everything sort of spiraled out of control and there was misreport after misreport. Essentially what’s happening is we’re continuing the download service, and a subscription service will run along side of it. You can either choose to download on a pay-per-download model, or you can choose to be involved in a streaming model, which is basically a monthly payment plan.

So it’s up to the consumer to consume music how they want, basically.

It’s all about trying to provide as many options as possible, remembering that we also provide all our videos free to the user, free video streaming. Every featured artist on the site, which is about 1,000 featured artists at the moment and that’s increasing, they have three tracks each that are free to the users for streaming. That’s there right now.

How long has the streaming service launch been in the works? I know Bandit was launched in November as a download service.

We’ve had it in place since November, when we organized all our licenses. It’s always been in our plans.

To my knowledge, all the major labels have music for sale in the store, but Sony is the ones running the site. Is that correct?

Correct – you have to be very clear here. What happened with The Herald article is it said we were running the service on behalf of the industry. That is incorrect. At Sony, we’ve set up Bandit and we own and operate it, but we have licensed any music from any other three majors.

And Sony is the main financial backer of Bandit.

Yes.

What do you think the benefits are of a streaming-based subscription model to the previous, per-download model?

I just think it’s about options. There was a lot of feedback online about how people don’t stream music to the PC and people would never use it. If you look at The Music Network this week, they did an article in there that said 50% of kids stream music to their PC on a weekly basis. We know how popular Spotify is in the UK and Europe. There is no doubt that a streaming service, not just to the PC, but to any Wi-Fi device could be quite popular.

Conversely, what do you imagine some of the costs of a streaming-based site might be, such as high bandwidth and the necessity to allow many concurrent users?

The cost from our perspective or the cost to the consumer?

The cost from your perspective.

From our perspective, basically you have to employ someone like Akamai to cope with the volume. We currently employ Akamai. You are familiar with what Akamai is?

I haven’t heard of Akamai, no.

Rather than streaming from our servers, we basically employ a series of other computers, a network of computers that Akamai operate to take the load off of us so the streaming that occurs from a local PC – if you’re in Perth and you’re streaming from Bandit, you’ll be streaming from a computer in Perth rather than a computer from our hosting arrangement. This means the biggest cost to us is actually paying Akamai to be able to operate that high bandwidth.

There are also hosting costs, obviously to ingest and to hold – we’re up to about 70 Terabytes worth of data. The cost of hosting is pretty significant, as well.

Where do Australia’s internet service providers sit within this discussion? Are you concerned that Australia’s network might be ill prepared for this kind of streaming model, given that other territories have had faster connections and unlimited bandwidth, compared to Australia?

I think it will be fine. It just depends on what sort of plan you’re on. Obviously, cable will work fine; it depends on what plan you’re on with the ISPs. A lot of the bandwidth now should be able to cope with the streaming service.

I can imagine traveling throughout the city and falling into black spots with mobile phone coverage and having the song interrupted by buffering might be a bit annoying.

It’s the same thing you’ve got if you’re on a Wi-Fi network. You’re up to the vagaries of what the network might be. There are concerns but it will all be up to the consumer to ensure the bandwidth they’re paying for with their ISP is adequate to stream the music.

With Bandit, did you consider putting in place an advertising-based free service, as Spotify had done in the UK?

We essentially have got that in place with the video streaming, and with the ‘three free tracks’, which is a limited audio catalog. The problem you’ve got is the advertising model globally, when you actually look at Spotify and other services like iMeem and Last.fm, those services have really struggled to generate enough advertising revenue to continue to operate.

On a similar note, is Bandit’s launch time to beat Spotify to the Australian market?

No, not really. To be honest, when we launched Bandit in November, Spotify was on the radar and probably has significantly upped its profile in the last twelve months. Bandit’s plan was always to have a subscription service operating around October/November of this year.

The other thing I should mention is there is another service that we’ll operate, and again, this is all about providing options to the consumer. We’ll be operating a model very similar to eMusic as well. People can sign up and pay a monthly fee and receive a certain value of downloads.

A certain value, what do you mean?

Are you familiar with the eMusic model?

No.

You pay a monthly fee, but you are given a certain value for that fee. You’re given a value; for say $20 a month you’ll get $30 dollars worth of value that you can download. It’s not about streaming. Again, it’s a regular payment plan, but it’s all about downloads.

Will this value package be launched at the same time in October, or is it currently available?

The plan is we’ll launch it at the same time as we launch the subscription package.

Are you able to provide some figures on Bandit since it launched in November, such as how many users or what is the volume of weekly downloads?

We’ve got a monthly net browsers now of around 80,000. We’re doing about 2 million page impressions per month. We’ve got over 50,000 active users that have actually purchased something. That’s probably enough to give you an idea. We’re quite happy where we’re at after only nine months being operational. We’re pretty much on plan, as far as where we expect the service to be. We’ve done very limited marketing so far.

I was looking around your website earlier, and I noticed that a lot of artists have unique content-rich splash pages, which includes images, artist’s recommendations, and news [example below left]. Who supplies the content that is displayed on those pages? Is it managed in house or is it syndicated?

We’ve got our own editorial team that puts together news stories, and also looks after Bandit on Twitter and our Facebook page. We also have licensed in the All Music Guide.  When you’re looking at all the biographies and all of the similar artists and influenced by, that all comes from the All Music Guide.

What we’re trying to do is build a very deep, rich site that is more than just a download store. You can see how it’s been built by creatives. They’re very graphical and it’s a very appealing site. That shows with our average session duration which is around 15 minutes.

How many staff are working on Bandit full-time?

We’re still in development mode, so we’ve got a team of probably four developers. We’ve also got a person in customer service, editorial, operations, and also we have a programmer who deals with the other labels.

It’s still a pretty small team of around ten, would you say?

Yeah, which we’ll scale down once we’ve finished the development phase.

What inspired the decision to make Bandit operate within the browser as opposed to an external program, such as Nokia’s Music Store?

It’s really a matter of what you can support. If you build something within a browser – it’s really a phased approach. The first thing is once you build it within a browser, you know you’ve got a higher chance of compatibility with most computers. If you build an application, it’s much more work to get compatibility with all the various operating systems. It’s really initially a cost consideration, but having said that; we’re currently working on a download manager which is built using Adobe AIR. That’s basically an application that will sit above the site, which will manage the download process, and also manage your library. We have to roll that out in October, as well.

October is going to be a big month for you, then.

Yeah, the guys are flat-stick at the moment. We’ve got them down in the dungeon, working hard!

Final question – are Sony using the Australian Bandit Store as a kind of testing ground for potential expansion to foreign territories?

I think the focus is just making the Australian site a success, and then we’ll see where it goes from there.

Fair enough. That’s all my questions. Did you want to add anything else?

The other thing that we’ll be adding in October is a level of social networking, which will be quite interesting. In that case, the core part about Bandit is the channels. You can see different channels which split music be genre, by demographic. We put up the faith channel yesterday, which is all about Christian music. Coming in October, when we launch the social network piece, each user will not only have a user profile, but also will have his own channel. The idea is that a user can go on, select their own playlists, stream music, connect to other artist, connect to other channels, connect to other users, and in that way we’re actually giving people a lot more context. Their channel will be a representation of themselves, musically, online.

This idea of ‘channels’ kind of makes me think that you’re trying to build on the concept of the radio station, so everyone has their own channel.

To some degree, that’s it, the ability to essentially create your playlist. We think the subscription service also has quite relevance to families, and it’s not just focused on teenagers and young adults. I think the subscription model going to a family where they have unlimited music online, and they can basically just turn Bandit on to their stereo, set up their playlists, and play music in stereo, I think that is a big thing. In that case, they are actually setting up their own radio station.

Okay, thanks for your time, Gavin. I appreciate it.

No problem.

My World Tour entry: my music journalism so far

Universal Music announced a competition called My World Tour in October 2009.

The job

Ever dreamed of travelling the world, visiting all the hottest music festivals and gigs and getting up close and personal with artists and bands backstage? Do you want to spend some time next year working for one of the biggest music labels on the planet? Are you ready to fight for a chance to have your peers vote you into the job? We thought so!

We’re on the hunt for two passionate, talented and music-obsessed individuals to become the faces of My World Tour globally!

Could this be the best job in the world?

• travelling to 11 of the hottest music festivals around the world;
• interviewing artists and bands backstage;
• recording all the amazing experiences and reporting back to Myworldtour.com.au via videos, blogs, photos, social networking tools and other multimedia.

I entered.

To assist with my entry, I went back over my music journalism career so far to find the best material for submission, beginning with my first review in June 2007: Karnivool live at The Zoo, for FasterLouder. My live review tally currently stands at 133; over one a week, on average.

I didn’t read everything music-related I’ve ever written, as so much of the early stuff is painful and hackneyed. But I’m still proud of my 1,800 words on the Pig City festival at the University of Queensland in July 2007, which remains a reasonably strong piece.. despite my now-apparent naivety regarding the bands who played and their place within Brisbane’s musical history.

Other live review favourites:

• Laneway Festival, 2008
• The Mars Volta, 2008
• Slipknot, 2008
• All Tomorrow’s Parties (Brisbane), 2008
• David Byrne, 2009
• The Songs Of Kev Carmody, 2009
• Robert Forster, 2009

Despite the trend displayed on this blog, I’ve still only had a couple of music-related interviews published: Screamfeeder and I Heart Hiroshima, both for Mess+Noise in 2009.

The other major component of my entry was my experience blogging for One Movement Word, which I’ve not discussed much here just yet. An overview of that is here and here.

The My World Tour entry is here. Please criticise me as you see fit.

Fan-sourcing filmmaker creativity: a counterpoint

My latest Rolling Stone story was on Genero.TV, a website that offers filmmakers the chance to come up with a video concept that may become a band’s official music video.

After I interviewed some of the bands involved and the site’s founder, I sent the link to my filmmaker friend, Paul Rankin [pictured right].

He didn’t take so kindly to the idea. Excerpt below:

[...] This means that fifteen other bands get a free music video, hand-picked from the entire selection of entries, which becomes a promotional tool (arguably a band’s most useful promotional tool) that they will then use to make money, none of which goes to the filmmakers, the ones who did all the work. That is to say, while your music video may be good enough to have the honour of Official Video bestowed upon it, it’s not good enough to warrant pay. There’s also every likelihood that the bands will then sell the music videos on iTunes, the revenue from which you’ll never see.

Bend over, assume the position.

His full rebuttal is here.

While I asked the bands involved, and Genero.TV’s founder whether the concept was just a way for bands to save cash on video production – indeed, that was the central point of the story when I pitched it – I certainly had an “oh, shit” moment when I read Paul’s response.

As a result, I feel like a shit reporter for not further investigating that angle. Reading back over the article now, it seems more promotional than investigative in nature.

Lesson learned. I need to spend more time considering and seeking alternative viewpoints, rather than blindly chasing a desired outcome.

Rolling Stone story: Genero.TV and fan-sourced music videos

Here’s my second story for Rolling Stone, from the December 2009 issue. It’s 600 words on an Australian website called Genero.TV, which allows fans to create music videos for bands for a chance to become their official video, and win $4000. The article was illustrated by Simon Noynay.

Story below – click for full-sized version.

The Future of the Music Video

Fans making official film clips for their favourite bands – is it sharing the love or just a way for artists to get something for nothing? By Andrew McMillen

There was a time when a major artist could easily drop a few million on a music video; from Michael Jackson’s amazing $7 million “Scream” to more restrained efforts like the Gunners’ $1.5 million “November Rain”. These days, of course, it’s very different, and a modern classic like OK Go’s aerobic masterpiece “Here It Goes Again” is proof that even if you don’t have a budget, a good idea can go a long way.

But what if you’ve got no cash and no big idea? Well, there is a solution. Melbourne-based website Genero.tv lets bands post new songs online and then have fans create videos for them. Submissions are judged by the bands and fans alike and the winning entrant becomes an officially approved, internationally distributed music video. The winning clip from each round also receives a $4,000 cash prize.

Genero.tv launched its first round of songs in September this year with the support of 17 artists, including British electronic act Unkle and New York reggae group Easy Star All-Stars and an Australian contingent of Genero.tv artists includes The Temper Trap, hip-hoppers Hermitude, and up-and-coming Sydney-based indie rock band Bridezilla.

“As a musician, it’s refreshing to engage with new people on a creative level,” she Bridezilla guitarist Pia May Courtley, who is an enthusiastic supporter of the role-reversal (and collaboration) between bands and fans. “There’s lots of people out there with great ideas making viral videos anyway. If anything, these people aren’t governed by ‘what sells’, so their ideas end up being more genuine.”

For young artists, the Genero approach makes perfect sense, tapping into a movement that is old hat to every kid on the planet. As Elgusto of Blue Mountains hip-hop duo Hermitude reasons, “Our fans have been uploading YouTube videos set to our music for years, so we’re well aware of the untapped talent of filmmakers out there. Entering the Genero.TV contest could be their way of getting their foot in the door.”

But it’s not just a curiosity about what the public can come up with that is driving artist involvement – frustration played a big part in The Temper Trap’s decision to join Genero.tv, reveals guitarist Lorenzo Sillitto.

“We’d done a few costly music videos that we weren’t really happy with,” he admits, but stresses that getting good results, not saving money, was the major motivation. “Our involvement with the site isn’t to say that we wouldn’t pay the creator of the video we choose,” Sillitto clarifies. “We were fed up, and we saw Genero as a good way to get our fans involved in something tangible that the band is doing. It allows them to feel a part of the process.”

Genero.tv director Michael Entwisle underscores Lorenzo’s statement. “From our perspective, deepening the fan-artist engagement is a main benefit for our featured artists. More engaged fans are going to be the ones who will pay more money for concert tickets, merchandise, and music. What we’re doing shouldn’t be seen as a disruptive model for the music video industry. We’re hoping it just becomes a complementary platform that suits some artists, songs and labels.”

In a similar move this July, Sneaky Sound System announced the winner of their own online video contest for the song ‘It’s Not My Problem’. While it didn’t offer the same creative clean slate that Genero.tv does – entrants were supplied with green-screen footage of singer Connie Mitchell – producer/songwriter Angus McDonald states that the band would run a similar fan-sourced video contest “in a heartbeat”. “Music videos are such a lottery, even with experienced directors and producers at the helm,” says McDonald.

As for whether the lottery is made even riskier by entrusting creative control to their fanbase, Bridezilla’s Courtley admits there’s always a chance it could turn out to be a disaster. “But,” she says, “like a first date or foreign food, you never know until you try.”

Here’s my original pitch, sent September 1 2009.

Crowdsourcing Fan Creativity
In August 2009, a service called Genero.TV launched a business model that allows fans to create music videos for artists. This is how it works: artists contribute the songs and upload them for the fans; the fans create the videos and upload them to Genero.tv; then the world watches, votes and spreads the word.

They’ve just released their first round of 16 artists and songs, which each feature different prizes. The overall prize for this round is US$4000, which will be awarded to the director of one of the 16 final videos. As I understand it, videos submissions are judged by the bands and Genero.tv, and all of the winning videos will become the artists’ official video for that song.

Of the 16 artists, such as UNKLE, Easy Star All-Stars and Casiokids, 6 are Australian:

• The Temper Trap
• Bliss N Eso
• Birds Of Tokyo
• True Live
• Hermitude
• Mirror House Antics

Cool idea. Let’s take a closer look.

• Who’s behind Genero.TV? I can’t find any info on their personnel or the country where they’re based.
• Who funds the site?
• What kind of licensing is required for this kind of business model?
• Who’s funding this business model?
• Why did these Australian acts decide to jump on board?
• What are the acts’ expectations of the quality of submissions?
• What’s the value of the music video in 2009? (I’ll speak to some Australian acts who’ve had viral video ‘success’, to determine the outcomes)
• Is this just a way for lazy bands to turn creative control over to their fans for cheap, or is it a genius idea to shorten the distance between artists and their fans?

Coincidentally, Sneaky Sound System last week announced the winner of a $10,000 fan-sourced music video competition that they ran through their website. They’d provide a good supplementary viewpoint to this article.

As with my first Rolling Stone story on streaming music subscription services, the interviews I conducted far exceeded the article’s word limit. Check back for outtakes from these articles here soon.