IGN Australia story: ‘Advice: Careers in the Games Industry’

A story for IGN Australia, which I compiled as a result of asking members of the Australian game development community for their games careers advice while writing my previous story for the site, about the games education sector. Excerpt below.

IGN Advice: Careers in the Games Industry

How should you go about entering the games industry? IGN talks to the pros.

As a supplement to our feature story about the Australian games education sector, IGN asked 10 members of the game development community for the best advice they could give to those looking to gain employment within the local market. Our thanks to everyone who participated in creating this feature.

Jane ‘Truna’ Turner – coordinator, IGDA Brisbane / co-founder, 48 Hour Game Making Challenge

Play games. Read books. Watch movies. Understand your world, so that when you’ve learned some hands-on, practical skills, you have ideas to make new, exciting forms of games. Generate your own enthusiasm, and your own, new industry. Don’t go and be a little worker; go and make your own world. I think games are just beautiful. Design is powerful. Game design is utterly powerful. You’re playing with culture and philosophy and fun and image and audio; the whole kit and caboodle. Don’t just think about making new forms; think about pushing the boundaries with it.

If you go to uni, you’re in the ideal position, because Duncan Curtis – one of the guys who started 3 Blokes Studios – I think it was him that coined the phrase ‘the uni advantage’, which is: there you are. You’ve got your mates, you’re used to not sleeping, you’re used to living off noodles, you haven’t got a mortgage yet. You can actually afford to set up a little company and see what happens, and explore. You need to do it for a portfolio anyway; why not start making experimental pieces, put them up on Congregate, do some iPhone dev, do some Android dev? Little, fast, experimental work.

John Passfield – Chief Creative Bloke, 3 Blokes Studios / co-founder and former Design Director, Krome Studios

One of the big things we look for when we’re interviewing people is their portfolio. Whether it be as an artist showing your work, or a programmer and having a playable game; that just puts you so far ahead of other people when you’re applying for a job. And even a designer, if you have a little walkthrough video. One of the guys we hired at Krome for Ty the Tasmanian Tiger 2 – Rob Davis, a graduate, who’s now working at Microsoft Games Studios in Seattle – he had a walkthrough of a Ty The Tasmanian Tiger level that just blew everyone else away. He’d thought about it, and made a level up. He couldn’t program, or really do art, but he did a simple little walkthrough video, and explained his thought processes. That was amazing. It gave him such competitive advantage.

So many people come for an interview, but they don’t really have anything to show. And clearly, if they’re going for a particular job, it’s really important to have something [to show] that applies to that job. If you’re applying for an iPhone developer, even if you can’t program, if you just mocked up an iPhone game on screen in Flash or something, or as an animatic using whatever tools you’ve got, that would definitely put you way ahead of other people – as long as it’s an interesting [game] concept. That simple process of coming prepared with an example of your work, targeted to who you’re applying for. That’s how you put yourself ahead of people. The staff we’ve hired at 3 Blokes are those who’ve had workable demos up on a place like Newgrounds or Kongregate.

When I’m looking to hire, I look for enthusiasm in the medium, the platform that we’re making games for. That’s really important. And also – team fit. Games is a collaborative process. And obviously, if you’ve started a degree program, it’s important to see that you’ve finished a degree. It’s really good to show that you’ve finished something. Degrees are good, because it shows that someone has the wherewithal to stick it out. Holding a degree answers a lot of questions about somebody when they come in.

For the full article, visit IGN Australia.

triple j mag story: Queensland Festival Road Trip, 2010-2011

A story for triple j mag about the forthcoming 2010-2011 music festival season in Queensland. Article below – click the image for a closer look, as it’ll probably make more sense to read it that way.

Festival Road Trip: Queensland

Local experts have given us the ultimate round-up of festivals and stuff to see in every state and territory these summer. Plan your road trip now!

Festivals:

1. Island Vibe Festival

This unique beachside musical experience at Point Lookout’s Home Beach features over 40 reggae, hip-hop, roots and soul artists. Californian reggae act Groundation and NZ hip-hop artists Ladi6 and King Kapisi headline.

Oct 29-31, North Stradbroke Island

2. Mud, Bulls and Music

This four-day camping event combines bullriding, 4WD action and the likes of country stars Lee Kernaghan and John Williamson.

Nov 4-7, Jimna

3. Full Noise Festival

Full Noise aims to expose Townsville to the kind of high quality, cross-genre events their southern brethren take for granted. Wolfmother and Bliss N Eso are top of the bill.

Nov 20, Townsville

4. Harbourlife

From the promoters of Parklife and Summafieldayze comes Harbourlife, a new Qld festival based on its Sydney Harbour counterpart. The Temper Trap, Metronomy and Yacht Club DJs are all on board.

Nov 28, Gold Coast

5. Woodford Folk Festival

Got stamina? This six-night camping festival attracts around 130,000 patrons annually, and its music program features more than 2000 local, national and international performers.

Dec 27-Jan 1, Woodfordia

6. Summafieldayze

Live performances from The Rapture, Art Vs Science and English rapper Tinie Tempah mix it up with some of the world’s best DJs.

Jan 2, Gold Coast

7. Sunset Sounds

The Falls Festival’s little sister features most of the bands appearing in Vic and Tas. See Interpol, Klaxons and Joan Jett & the Blackhearts close to home. Ace.

Jan 5-6, Brisbane

Qld Sights:

Whitsundays

The most popular resorts are located on Daydream, Hamilton and Hayman Islands, which all offer easy access to day cruises, diving, parasailing and helicopter rides, among other activities. Most islands permit camping; book early though.

Whale Watching

From June until the end of November, the coastal town of Hervey Bay becomes one of the best spots in the country to witness whales in their natural habitat: the freakin’ ocean.

Theme Parks

The Gold Coast is home to some of Australia’s biggest theme parks: Dreamworld, Wet ‘N’ Wild, Warner Bros. Movie World and Sea World. Go on all the rides and eat junk till you hurl.

A Conversation With Trent Dalton, 2010 News Award-winning Features Journalist Of The Year

Trent Dalton [pictured right] is the best feature journalist in Australia. I first had this realisation sometime in 2005, during my final year of high school. That year, Queensland newspaper The Courier-Mail launched its new glossy magazine, Qweekend, which was included in the Saturday paper. Each week, the magazine ran three feature stories written by journalists in Queensland, as well as the occasional piece syndicated from overseas publications. From the beginning, the magazine’s editorial policy divided its attention between big, complex issues, and profiles of remarkable people doing worthwhile things with their lives.

Qweekend has since built a reputation for exhibiting the state’s best feature journalism, and, by extension, its best feature journalists. Like Trent Dalton, who has been at the magazine since the beginning. Over the years, I’ve found myself continually drawn to Trent’s distinctive style of storytelling. It’s a habit I’ve been unable – and unwilling – to kick. The man has a freakish knack for crafting engaging, long-form narratives. I covet and cherish his words more than those written by any other Australian journalist. If I can become half as good a writer as Trent, I’ll die happy.

Last month, Trent Dalton won the News Award for 2010 Features Journalist of the Year for the second time, having previously won the award in 2008. This time around, judges paid special attention to two interrelated stories named Story of a Man and Story of a Woman. You can read them both by clicking on the story names, or by clicking on the images below. (Both links open the stories as PDFs in a new window.)

Last week, I interviewed Trent specifically about these two award-winning stories. I highly recommend reading both stories before reading my interview.

++

Andrew: Tell me about the process behind the News Awards. Did you nominate your own stories?

Trent: Yeah. So what happens is every year News Limited runs their national big news awards for all their publications, and so in the feature writing category you submit what you consider to be your five best stories, written throughout the year. I submitted what I thought my five best were. One was an interview with a child pornographer. Another one was an interview with a guy who was imprisoned in Brisbane for 20 years, and believed he was innocent. There was another one on euthanasia, and another one called Home Truths, which was about these boys out at Riverview Boys Home who were chronically abused when they were children. But now they’re 60 years old, and they had a reunion out there which they invited me to, and it was an incredible moment.

The other one was a combined, two-part story, Story of a Man / Story of a Woman, which got great feedback. And that was the one that the judges highlighted.

You write a lot of stories. Do you find it hard to pick favourites?

It definitely wasn’t hard to put in the pair that the judges responded to, Story of a Man / Story of a Woman, because that was also my favourite thing that I’ve done this year. It was probably the first pitch that I gave to my editor that’s come out exactly as I’d hoped it would in the genesis of the actual idea.

The pitch to my editor was: let’s do a story on a woman and a man, a completely ordinary woman and completely ordinary man, but tell their entire life story. Go up to them and say, “I want to know every last thought that is in your head, and I need you to be as honest as humanly possible.” I asked about hundred strangers in the street if they would be willing enough to share their stories, and everybody said “that’s a wonderful story but I’m not going to be the volunteer who gives you my entire life story, warts and all”.

Luckily, there was this extraordinary woman called Liz Parr. She got the ball rolling. She said “yep, that’s a great story and I really want to do this, I think it’s going to be great.” She wanted to do it for womanhood, and she took it in the spirit that I was trying to do it. It was an amazing trust exercise, because she totally told me everything, from her hopes and fears and dreams, to literally her sex life and some of the misfortunes she’s had in her life. It was amazing. It turned out to be a really great journalistic experience. It wasn’t hard choosing those ones.

All Qweekend stories have headings at the top of the page; the heading for these stories was ‘real life’. Did Christine [Middap, Qweekend editor] go for it immediately? It seems like going for this story might have been a bit of a risk for her.

Yeah, she did go for it immediately, but only because she knew what Qweekend has been thriving on. This is where I think we’ve developed an audience; we’ve thrived on the stories of ordinary people. We have this column called Ordinary People which we started five years ago, and without a doubt, we get the biggest response from that column, more than any other regular feature in the magazine.

It’s really connected with readers, so if it wasn’t for that column being successful, I think she might have balked at the idea. But given the success of that, she was like “Yeah, I can see the power of this,” and she knew where I wanted to go with it. She knew too that it would take finding the right people; it could have failed abysmally if we didn’t get that right people. It totally taught me the power of finding the right subject in any story that one might be writing. The right person, not just the right topic, but the right human being to actually be the conduit for the reader.

Qweekend has been around for five years now. When did you first come up with the story idea?

Around three years into it. I had the idea for a long time and I mentioned it once before to Christine, and then I got put on a really big story. It was a difficult story that took up a long time, and then I came back to it. Then I was chasing down someone to interview and that person couldn’t do the interview for a certain amount of time, so I needed a stop-gap and said, “Christine, what about this idea I had, about a man and a woman?” She said, “Yeah, let’s do that.”

The man and the woman stories ended up being way more interesting than the story about the guy that I was chasing down, who was holding off on the interview. You never know what’s going to work. It was something I’ve definitely always wanted to do; an epic about just an ordinary person’s life, because I honestly think the person walking past you, any given day, is just as interesting as Tom Cruise… well, not anyone is as crazy as Tom Cruise, but that idea that every human being has an amazing story to tell; it’s just about how much they want to share with you to get to that amazing story.

Where did you find Tony and Liz?

Liz was in Indooroopilly Shopping Centre, and I found Tony [Mitchell] in the western suburbs, out where I live, near Darra. He lived out at Richlands, so I was just walking around the shops there and I stopped him and said “Mate, how do you feel about this idea: I want to tell every last bit about your whole life story?” He laughed. And he was a completely courageous guy as well. He’s a normal, blokey type guy and he just said “Yep, I want to do it.”

He wanted to do it because it was a document for his kids, that idea of: where else do you get someone to write 4,000 words about your life? He was like, “why not?”. And it was totally his life up until that point in time, for better or worse. In his case, it was a completely, amazingly beautiful life, but with moments of such tragedy for him, and moments of doubt. But he was such a brilliant man. I admire him so much because he was willing to share that stuff. I couldn’t tell you how many readers wrote in saying “Tony inspired me to no end because it reminded me of my dad,” or “it reminded me of my brother,” or “it completely reflected my life story.” Seemingly an ordinary guy from Richlands turns out to inspire people; that’s pretty amazing. That was really something great to come out of it.

Did you censor anything?

I censored some elements about Tony’s relationships and things, but not to protect Tony, because Tony was more than willing to share aspects of his life. But having a sense of the people that he’s talking about. That was it, which is something we’re always running across, and I’m always getting in trouble with our lawyers because I’m inadvertently defaming someone through a quote that someone has said something about someone, perhaps an ex-wife, or cousin, or anything.

It’s not saying that Liz or Tony said horrible things about anyone, but as a general thing, this happens to me all the time when someone might be bagging a relative or something, but the relative will be able to identify themselves in that. All the person’s other relatives will be able to identify that person, therefore I am defaming them, and I could get in massive amounts of trouble. There is always so much censoring that goes on, and a lot of times it’s to get me out of trouble. Which is great.

Both stories centred around the home. Did you spend a lot of time in their homes?

Yeah, totally. I spoke for a long time on the phone with both of them, preparing ourselves, readying for this one day. The idea was building up a relationship of trust with them for a couple of weeks, and in the event that I would be able to focus on one day in their home, in their ordinary lives, and it would be sharing every aspect, crystallised within one day. It was definitely that idea of home life: what goes on behind the closed doors? Any story I’ve ever written has been, like: the person’s out doing something, and you never really find out about what is actually happening in the person’s home, because it’s such a personal place.

That was the concept. It was like: what happens in the home? And then: can we describe that in an exciting way or some sort of way that might be interesting, just the minutiae of life in the home. Can that be interesting? Can that be enlightening, and have bigger repercussions, or add bigger meaning to something?

It really did get down to the more routine, mundane aspects of life. I remember the moment in Liz’s story where there’s a hole in a strawberry, and all the kids crowded around looking at it. It’s such a tiny aspect of the story, but it’s interesting and fascinating.

Thanks for the observation! I love that stuff, from the writing perspective, that you can capture in a factual piece something truly beautiful and eloquent, just this little moment in time. I love little moments in time, that’s my big thing. I’m writing to moments of time this year; I’ve just been writing a lot of moments in time, and it’s been cool because I love that concept that life is just a series of wonderful little moments in time. That strawberry moment was this beautiful moment; the cutest little kids marvelling over a hole in the strawberry.

Have you re-read the stories recently?

I have, because to go in the awards entries, you re-read it and write about your thoughts on it and give insight into how it developed, and all that. I have re-read it and I really enjoyed it. Whenever I re-read anything with a certain amount of time in between… actually, it doesn’t even have to take time. It could be from the time I submit it to my editors to the time it’s actually printed on the page. I shudder when I read it on the printed page. You feel like, “that sounds a bit too strong” or it’s a bit too ham-fisted, because at the time you’re writing it, you’re getting swept up in the freight-train vibe of the story, and you’re not detached enough. All it takes for me to get detached is about a week’s time of not thinking about the story, and then you go back to it and you go “Oh no! I shouldn’t have written that. That sentence doesn’t work at all,” but you’re probably overly critical.

Those two stories were one of the few times I’ve gone, “I’m really quite proud of how that stands up,” in hindsight, whereas some of the other stories that I entered into those awards I thought, “I probably could have done that a bit better”. The other ones were a little bit more complicated in the sense they all had a million different sources and all that; the complexity of a normal big feature article. The beauty of those two stories, Story of a Man and Story of a Woman, though, was that there was only one person that was really driving the story. That made it much clearer, and it was a joy to write. It was a real joy to write those.

When those days of observation were taking place, were you framing the stories in your head? Did you see certain moments that would fit well, in the structure of the story?

Absolutely, yeah. That stands for anything I write. They’re the ones that I write in my notepad and I put massive asterisks next to them, saying ‘this was key’; ‘this was some amazing key moment’. That day in Story of a Woman, Liz’s children mapped out the day. By focusing on a day, already you had a natural structure to a story, because it could start very early in the morning. I got around there at about 6am and it went until about 6pm. It had a great, natural structure to it, and then you could blend in Liz’s life story among all those daily things.

Along there, there’s that idea of narrative payoffs. There are these in-built narrative payoffs. For example, she makes lunch in the morning and then you know that that lunch is going to come back into the story later on, because it naturally will; either the kids won’t eat their lunch, or she won’t ever get to eat her lunch, or a fly’s going to land on the lunch. You just know, so you make sure you take notes that the sandwich is going to come back into it. Take note of what’s on the sandwich, because it’s going to logically have a good, narrative payoff later on! [laughs]

Did you show drafts to your subjects before you submitted?

That is a great question, because if ever there was a story that probably the subject did deserve to see, because they were giving so much of themselves, it was this one. But it’s a really strict policy where I work at The Courier-Mail and on Qweekend; you can’t show the story to the subject. Oftentimes I call them and go through it with them. Maybe there’s flexibility there, or maybe there should be, because it’s kind of a nice… people want to have that access. If they’re giving so much of themselves, maybe they deserve to see and protect themselves.

I called them up and said on the difficult areas, “This is where it’s going,” but they were really good in the sense that they said “Just write it.” They knew what it was about, and they said, “this is my life”. Even during the interview, if they were talking about a delicate thing, you might stop and say, “Do you mind if we talk about that for the story,” and they might think about it and go, “Yeah, right, let’s talk about it, let’s go there.” To answer your question, no, I didn’t show them beforehand.

Liz told me that when she picked it up, it was really confronting for her. It was really hard for her [to be] picking it up; she was like “Wow! It’s really out there.” She knew it was going to be real, but it was really real. She was like “wow”. And it’s hard on her husband too; the really lovely husband she has. It’s hard to share that much of yourself, but Liz has since said she totally feels like it was really worthwhile because she’s got so much wonderful feedback from other women, and it tapped into something out there.

She still stands by it, she’s really glad she did it, and I’m so glad that she feels that way. I’m so glad she doesn’t regret doing it, because so often as a journalist you feel so bad. That’s the great dilemma that keeps me up at night. I really lose sleep over the idea that you’re telling someone’s story; that you’re taking the stories and putting them out there. You’re exposing their vulnerabilities. It’s one of the harder aspects of the job.

Anyway, I’m sounding like a tosser; it’s not all that… you’re being very indulgent! But that is a real concern, that side of things.

What about Tony? Was he happy with it?

He’s right down the line, in the sense of “it is what it is”. His wife had to read it – she sent me an email afterwards. She said “Trent, thank you for the story.” She hated it the first time she read it, and then she said “I really liked it on the second time.” So I’m so grateful she gave it a second reading, because I’m sure that first reading would have been “Oh no!”. It would have been all bad, because he shared too much. But I’m happy that on the second reading, she felt some of the power of it.

Was it harder to write than some of your other work?

Probably one of the easiest to write, and that’s a great indication of the power of the story for me. Sometimes the stories that I don’t quite hit a home run on…  I should change that. I hate using American terms.  I’m going to say ‘hit a six’;  we use too many American terms now, just in general parlance.

What I’m trying to say is, the ones that you struggle writing often turn out to be the ones that a reader struggles reading. So often the ones that are easy to write just flow. That saying – ‘they write themselves’. Both of those stories did, because the subjects just gave such wonderful material.

You nominated your five stories, and then you were shortlisted. And then on the night you were given the award.

Yeah.

There’s a photo of you holding a statue and proclaiming something from the platform [pictured below right]. What were you saying?

Probably saying how amazing my fellow finalists were. There were three finalists from Qweekend, which is fantastic. It was a great coup for Queensland writers out there. It was really wonderful. Basically I’m saying “I can’t believe I’ve got this!”, because those two writers I was nominated with – Matt Condon and Amanda Watt – are absolute inspirations, and heroes of mine.

I was saying something along the lines of that, and then following it up with saying how amazing my wife Fiona is, because she’s the one at home looking after the kids for the past three years, and indulging me all those times at midnight, when you should be saying romantic things, and I’m saying “What do you think about this for an introduction?” She’s like: “Stop talking about writing!”

Would you say you’re becoming more obsessive about writing as your career progresses?

Yeah, definitely. It’s gotten to the point now where, when my wife and I go on holiday, I’m not allowed to bring a notepad and I’m not allowed to bring my laptop.

Wow. Where do you keep your ideas?!

I know; you have to write then down on serviettes and things, and secretly stash them into your pockets! It’s getting really bad! Really embarrassing. And it’s become a massive issue in our home. I’ve been really conscious of it because that idea of being present for your partner, and not thinking about a story or some sort of storyline, some way of saying a sentence or something, some little gem of an idea. You just go, “this is ridiculous – my family life is way more important than this”.

As much as I love writing for Qweekend and writing stories and stuff, it’s nowhere near as important as having a really great relationship with your partner, and with your kids. So I’ve been really conscious. I’ve got countless notepads of just scribbles, to the point where you wake up in the middle of the night and you’re reaching for a notepad. It’s embarrassing, ridiculous. But it’s all good.

Well, you’re well aware of how inspirational you are to me as a writer, and I’m sure I’m not the only one in Brisbane – let alone in Queensland – who feels that way. So congratulations on the award, Trent.

Man, thank you so much Andrew. People like you inspire me. I’m not just backslapping; people like you inspire me because it reminds me of the fire. It keeps the fire alive and I think it’s wonderful that there’s a community out there, particularly in Brisbane. If there’s one thing that comes from awards like this, it’s to show that yes, great writing is happening here in this state, and it’s going to continue. That all those people look up from Melbourne and Sydney and go, “yeah, there’s some great stuff going on”.

Cool. I’ll leave it there.

Thanks for indulging me!

++

To keep track of Trent’s feature writing, pick up The Courier-Mail each Saturday for the Qweekend magazine, or keep an eye on the Qweekend website, which is updated each Monday with feature stories from the latest issue. You can also follow Qweekend on Twitter.

Junior ‘Issues’ story: Concert ticket scalping in Australia

Junior is a new street press started by the folks behind Scene Magazine here in Brisbane. 115,000 copies are distributed monthly throughout QLD, NSW and VIC.

I was commissioned to write a feature for their first issue on the topic of concert ticket scalping. Click the image below for a closer look, or read the article text underneath.

Issues: To Scalp Or Not To Scalp?

No discussion associated with live music is as emotionally-charged as ticket scalping. Junior spoke to several key players within the live music industry to gauge their opinions on the issue.

“It’s a difficult issue, as in some ways it is a free economy and the laws of supply and demand apply,” begins Chugg Entertainment managing director, Matthew Lazarus-Hall, whose company is currently touring acts like Gorillaz and Rufus Wainwright. “The greater challenge is: would the general public accept dynamic pricing from the start? Do people really care that someone paid more or less than the person they’re sitting beside?”

Lazarus-Hall refers to the practice of changing prices at regular intervals – every few minutes, hours or days – based on actual consumer demand. Introducing dynamic pricing would mean that the quality of a seat directly correlates to the ticket price. In real world terms, it’d mean that those sitting closest to the stage opt to pay more, while those poor souls stuck in the nosebleed section would likely pay substantially less.

This differs from the existing systems offered by Ticketek and Ticketmaster, wherein a flat rate is applied to all seats within particular sections, regardless of their distance from the stage. For example, ticket holders Row AA in section 42 of the Brisbane Entertainment Centre pay the same as those in row ZZ, despite the spatial difference.

“There are about 20 different price types on a plane trip from Sydney to Melbourne,” Lazarus-Hall continues. “Same destination, same experience, and people do not care. Whereas at concerts, people are far more emotional and there’s a perception that the person sitting next to you should pay the same – except when scalping is involved.

“Our preference is that scalping didn’t happen, as the artist misses out on the revenue. We do the best we can [to avoid scalping], but we do not need more legislation,” he concludes.

National ticketing company Moshtix – who provide service for a wide range of music events, like Splendour In The Grass – welcomed a June 2010 Commonwealth Consumer Affairs Advisory Council (CCAAC) review into ticket scalping by conducting their own survey, which garnered responses from around 750 Australian gig-goers. Over half of respondents (54%) had purchased a ticket through an onseller; around a third (35%) had paid more than the market price.

According to Adam McArthur, Moshtix general manager, there’s simply no need for scalping. “We’re against it, because we’ve found that, with the use of some technology tools, you can eradicate scalping without penalising the original ticket purchaser.” These tools include limiting paper ticket delivery by issuing tickets electronically; collecting the names and birthdates of attendees and verifying these details at the point of entry; and a resale facility, which allows ticket holders who can no longer attend events to securely return their ticket to the market.

No such measures have been adopted by Australia’s two biggest ticketing companies, Ticketek and Ticketmaster.

“If they’re not being pushed to do it, then why bother?” asks McArthur. “Both Ticketek and Ticketmaster haven’t been challenged in that large arena market for some time. They just keep offering the same services, because they don’t need to change.” Despite these frustrations, he disagrees with the notion of Government intervention. “Legislation is really difficult to enforce in this industry, so the best thing the Government could do is put some broad guidelines in place.” McArthur notes secure ticket delivery and resale facilities as his top two concerns.

“The government question is hard,” admits the man behind Andrew McManus Presents, whose company is presenting forthcoming tours from Brian Wilson and Guns N’ Roses. For him, it’s more about “the need to make people aware of the risks of buying a scalped ticket, rather than trying to stop scalping.” McManus does point out, however, that he’s against the act of scalping for profit. “On a personal level, it’s unfair for those who line up, wait for hours and miss out on tickets due to some loser buying 50 and selling them on eBay for three times the price, just because he knows the fans will buy it. We put on shows for the fans, not for scalpers to make a buck.”

Andrew McManus Presents always set a per-transaction ticket limit for their shows in an attempt to curb scalping. The ticket limit “varies from show to show, but is always in place. We also monitor eBay and other similar auction sites,” the promoter says. “Anyone found selling our tickets for profit runs the risk of being reported and having their listing removed, or even having their tickets cancelled. I don’t think sites like eBay should intervene on their own, but if a promoter tells them to take something down, they should. And for the most part, they’re pretty good at doing that for you.”

“We do get the odd request from venue owners and promoters, but it’s very rare,” admits eBay Australia‘s Head Of Corporate Communications, Daniel Feiler. “Generally though, unless it’s legislated, we don’t remove the tickets. In Australia, there are laws in Victoria and Queensland around resale of certain types of tickets.”

At present, the only Victorian event impacted is the AFL Grand Final, to which tickets cannot be sold above their face value. In Queensland, it’s unlawful to sell tickets for events held at eight venues – including the Brisbane Entertainment Centre and Suncorp Stadium – for above 10% of their face value.

“If someone does sell a ticket that’s above 10% for an event where the legislation applies, it’s up to the Queensland Police,” says Feiler. “If they want information about either the buyer or seller of that particular trade, then we’ll provide them with the registration details of those people. Then it’s up to them to choose to make an arrest or issue a fine.”

Feiler points out that, for a “blockbuster” event held at Suncorp Stadium – which holds around 52,000 people – typically, only a few hundred will end up on eBay.

“That’s the story that people don’t necessarily hear about,” he says. “There’s an assumption that just because the tickets are being sold on eBay, they’re being sold above face value. Our experience has always been that if you put the tickets in the hands of genuine fans, they’re unlikely to sell them, as they desperately want to go to an event. It really comes down to the promoter, and whether they want to put the systems in place to make sure that genuine fans get tickets first. We don’t see it as eBay’s role to fix up an issue that may or may not be created by poor original distribution in the primary market.”

Enough philosophising about this issue. Junior went straight to the source, and spoke with a pair of ticket resellers (or scalpers, depending on whether you consider it to be a pejorative term): one who operates on eBay, and one who doesn’t.

Stuart Hamilton runs a full-time ticketing business under several eBay usernames , including Chilli Entertainment, though eBay accounts for only “a small part” of his customers; most of his business comes from corporate clients. At the time of writing, Hamilton has over 100 ‘buy it now or make an offer’ listings for events which range from concerts like U2, The Wiggles and Iron Maiden, to non-music events like the AFL Grand Final, The Footy Show and Robin Williams. Is the business profitable?

“Yes and no. At the end of the day, I cover the over heads and make a good wage similar to a middle manager’s wage at any major company,” says Hamilton, who started the four-year old business after leaving his role as senior sales manager. His decision came at a cost: “I often do 10 hours a day on the computer, doing the shit that needs to be done. It’s high stress and high risk: you can lose thousands on a concert if you get it wrong. The trick to this game is to know when to cut your losses, quick. To be honest, I wonder if it’s all worth it at times, and I do have my eye open to new opportunities away from reselling.

“Sometimes we get a big premium for an outstanding located seat,” he continues. “These are usually purchased by a wealthy person who just wants the best. But we don’t get many of the best tickets – maybe four or six per concert if we’re lucky – so we have to make the most of the ‘big hits’, as it’s not always roses.”

To illustrate, he points to his tickets to Powderfinger in Perth, which he’s currently selling for half price ($49 each), thereby losing about $70 a ticket. “With 30 of them, that hurts,” he admits. Some of his customers are happy to pay $60-$120 more for a good ticket simply because they “don’t have the time to go through all the stress and headaches of purchasing from Ticketek, whose internet systems often crash during a big-event sale.”

Hamilton seems content with his role as reseller. “We provide a good service for those who want convenience of purchase, and we’ll often get a better ticket than they could get themselves anyway. If it’s through a safe marketplace like eBay, 99% of the time, no-one will get ripped off. Let the fans have a choice: they don’t have to buy off a reseller, but they then have to make sure they make the effort to get their tickets early.”

Several independent ticket brokers operate outside of the eBay realm, three of whom were publicly dissed by Suncorp Stadium general manager Alan Graham on brisbanetimes.com.au in mid-September: Red Circle, worldticketshop.com, and ticketfinders.com.au. Simon Williams, manager of the latter website, was none too pleased by being tagged by Graham as an “unscrupulous operator”.

“We’re not a fake website,” he tells Junior. “We source and supply tickets to hundreds of clients every year, and fulfil our obligations every time. We do not rip anyone off.”

At time of writing, Ticket Finders’ prices for access to the ‘sold out’ 8 December U2 concert in Brisbane range from $175 (general admission) to $950 (‘Red Zone’ area); face value for these tickets were $99 and $350, respectively. Their web form allows customers to request up to 50 tickets per section.

“Call it scalping if you want, but ticket broking has been around as long as there’s been tickets for events. We operate in a free market based on capitalist ideals. What’s the difference between buying and selling houses and cars, and pieces of paper?” Williams asks. “I think it’s hysterical that people get so worked up about it. Of course, a ticket’s got more of an emotional attachment to it.”

“We provide a service: people can’t find a ticket, then we’ll find it. We pay a premium ourselves to find it, and we charge a premium on top of that. It’s not any different to people buying and selling cars or houses, or any commodity. It’s not like we’re selling drugs or weapons.”

For more information on Junior, visit their website – which, at the time of publishing this blog entry, is still under construction.

A Conversation With Matthew Condon, Brisbane-based author and journalist

I met with Brisbane-based author and journalist Matthew Condon [pictured right] in late June 2010, to discuss his newest book, Brisbane, for a profile in The Weekend Australian Review. You can read that story here.

Full transcript of our conversation is below. As mentioned elsewhere, this was a particularly enjoyable interview, as Matthew is one of my favourite feature writers – I hold his work for The Courier-Mail’s QWeekend magazine in high regard. Brisbane is a great read, too.

Beware: for those who haven’t read Brisbane, there are spoilers.

++

Andrew: I read your book yesterday.

Matthew: Right.

To give you a bit of my background, I grew up in Bundaberg, then came to Brisbane for university in 2006. Although my father’s from Brisbane, I’ve not paid a lot of attention to Brisbane’s history, so I did find it quite an educational experience. I liked the way that you blended it alongside your stories from growing up in this city.

Obviously, I had to include the history, but I wanted the book to move back and forth in time to try and get that effect of – ‘is the past still in the present?’, and so I structured it in that way, no chapters, that it would just meander, and that the present and past would constantly chafe against each other. There were little thematic links; I tried to stitch it through and run a few parallel narratives so that at least rather than a dreary history of a city, that it would have at least a few narrative lines that would pull people through it.

It definitely had a narrative arc, from your experiences as a child through to you telling your children about the history of Brisbane, and them asking questions.

That was organic, really, as the book grew. It was interesting how that line of it sort of came to the surface. I didn’t have an intention to write a book about children; however, maybe writing about Brisbane and my childhood is looking for the child that I was, and then seeing it perhaps in my children.

So, in a way, that too is the shimmering of the past and the present, which I think is unique. Ironically, even though we have very little historical buildings, my point of the narrative line of F.W.S. Cumbrae-Stewart and the monument was this; what does it say generationally about the people of the city that really aren’t that fussed with historical accuracy? What does it mean, and does it flow through?

Even though we had very few historical monuments left in terms of buildings and treasuring our historical sites, it’s still weirdly a city where the past is always somehow present to me. This is just my view, but is that nostalgia? Maybe it is. I don’t know. It’s a city that I think most Brisbane people who go away and come back, it’s a city that puts its claws into your heart, funnily enough.

The recurring metaphor you use, a ‘book without an index’, seems quite apt.

Yeah, a lot of people will get upset with that but I think it’s very true. When I went to look for my relatives in Toowong Cemetery, I’ve since been in touch with them and they’ve said “you can always come to the office and we’ll guide you,” but the point is if you want to wander in and visit your antecedents, it’s a very difficult thing to do. You wouldn’t think it would be that hard.

So to me, the cemetery in the end of the book became a microcosm of this entire city. Funnily enough, topographically, it’s sort of a miniature – it’s the leaders on the hills, the rest of us are down in the valleys, which is very much as Brisbane is now. The ridges are either populated by the church, or the wealthy, and that’s a paradigm that replicates itself in cities across the world. It’s not just Brisbane.

So what was the brief you received for this book? How did Phillipa [McGuinness, New South books’ commissioning editor] bring it to you?

The brief was probably the singular most simplistic, liberating brief that I’ve ever received. She just said “Look, you do Brisbane and approach it the way you wish,” which on one hand is brilliant. On the other, when you come down to practically writing, when you come down to trying to put your arms around an entire city, it was very difficult. It sounded great.

The task was very difficult because I had deliberated for months and months, how does one write and capture a city? How do you go about it? Then I decided it’s impossible, it really is impossible to do it thoroughly. It would be endless. The city is organic. It’s constantly shifting and changing, so I had to not be afraid of giving myself limitations, that it would be my personal view, and after months and months of deliberating and thinking the usual; does one do it by the seasons, or to give yourself this sort of predictable structure?

And then I tossed all of them through my mind and one day I just decided “Look, I’m going to go to where X marks the spot, where Oxley came ashore. That’s the Caucasian history of the city. I’ll start there, and I’ll see where it takes me.” I did that.

One day I just put a notebook in a bag and a camera, and I went down to North Quay, to the dreary granite monument, and I’d never stood before it. I’d seen it a million times, all through my life, and as I wrote. So I stood there with the traffic roaring on both sides, and something about it [laughs] I don’t know what it was, something about it struck me as wrong. The wording was sort of hesitant. It didn’t feel right. So I thought, “Okay, this is where I start. I’ll investigate the monument.” And that kicked the journey off, really.

I liked how you brought your investigative journalism with Qweekend into the mix. That’s probably what influenced Phillipa in asking you to do it, in that you’d been writing in and around Brisbane since you returned.

That’s a really good point, because I only realised halfway through the book how important it had been to be doing that journalism for five years, and how in fact I’d touched on many, many things across the city – both contemporary and historical – and I wasn’t as removed from it as I actually thought that I was.

I looked at this book personally as a way of trying to write my way back into the city. When I came back, I felt I knew it was the city I’d been born in. In those first couple of years, I’d drive past my childhood house several times. It was me trying to reconnect with a city that I’d lost touch with for 18-odd years. And something deep inside of me told me to do this book, because perhaps it would embed me back into Brisbane. In many ways, it did that.

It required me to concentrate on the geography, the landscape, where I was living, and to open my eyes basically. So, it served a very important personal purpose for me. Doing the book made me feel more comfortable and relaxed here now, and at home, in a sense.

And along the way you did touch upon some personal experiences, like finding that film canister in your great grandfather’s darkroom.

Yeah; that’s a story from when I was about 12, and it just fitted into this book, in terms of me searching for evidence of myself and hopefully the wider populace of my generation in particular. You’re of a different generation, but as I’d mentioned in the book; when one leaves a city like Brisbane, the longer you’re away, the more the city that it was to you calcifies in your mind, and becomes fixed as ‘Brisbane the city’, your home city. But cities move on. People grow older, things happen, buildings get torn down, landscapes change, cultures change. Brisbane’s culture is phenomenally, vastly different from when I left.

When you come back you’re shocked. It’s not what you thought it was, because you’ve sort of fairytale’d it in your head. I realised only after I’d written it and read through it that the book is a partial examination of memory and the function of memory.

Indeed as you’ve noted, at the end of the book I test my memories against living contemporary people in my life. They say “No, that didn’t happen, that’s not here, no.” So it’s an examination of memory and how we fictionalise ourselves, so there’s that game playing in the book as well.

When that part came up, it was a real shock because it was almost like breaking the fourth wall, I suppose, to say “So this is what I’ve written, but these parts might be false. These might not have happened.”

Exactly, and it’s sort of a spring that unloads in the book, I think. And, when I wrote that little section, it’s not huge, I was trying to be as honest as I humanly could. Maybe I am wrong. Maybe all of that memory I have has altered, changed, mutated over 20 or 30 years. Maybe that’s what we do with memory, we fit it to suit ourselves, and we reinvent lines of family life and history. How do we do that? Why do we do that? Why does that happen?

Maybe it’s like the monument in that we ultimately end up believing that’s really where Oxley came ashore, even though in the back of our mind we know it’s wrong. So maybe that’s a sort of human trait that is obvious to most people, but it’s just something that grew as part of the investigation, and the journey through the book.

I wanted the book to represent a journey as well, because it was a journey for me. It was while I had young children and all of that was kicking in, and looking at my son; he stars in the book to some degree. There were moments when I’d look at him and go “That’s me. I’m time travelling here.” Some things that he would do, I did that, precisely.

And so there’s a way we can travel through time in that sense and I wanted to try, whether it’s even humanly possible to replicate that in literature I don’t know, but I was trying to do that, as best as I could to enunciate the passage of time, which has always been funnily enough a preoccupation with my work. Now that I’m older and have written several things, I see now, you see a recurrent theme. Now there’s a primary theme.

I like how you dwelled upon the issue of time in Brisbane, centuries ago, when there was no one clock that told the time, and it was driving people crazy.

[laughs] It’s always been a city that has an uncomfortable relationship with time I think. [laughs] I really do think that. To others, for decades, we were always seen as “behind the times” and you know; that’s a part of the fabric of this town, really.

I like the way that you segued into the city hall and the clock tower discussion, how you and your son were sitting in your home and you heard the bell chime from city hall.

Yeah, and that’s happened a few times since. I was just sitting there with my son. I remember my grandmother lives not far, around the corner from where I live now in Pennington, and I remember sitting on the back step of her tiny little old Queenslander and you could hear the clock. Then to hear it again through the business of a modern metropolis raised the hairs on my neck basically. That might seem uninteresting and minor to some people but it was like reaching your arm back in time 40 years. It was creepy.

And little things like that happened. When writers are doing a book they often go “Oh there was an incredible coincidence while I was writing the book, this happened.” I’ve had that for several books, that things – you go “That’s perfect for my book! I can’t believe that just happened.”

But I think when you’re working on a project, your antennae are so sensitised to what you’re doing that things come in and you notice things specific to your project. You’re more attentive to everything, and sensitive to everything. And they’re not coincidences; it’s just that you have a heightened sense of appreciation when you’re embedded in a project like that. That’s sort of what happened with this book when my son and I were down at the park opposite Suncorp [Stadium, Milton], as I wrote in the book.

I’d just been researching how that was the first major cemetery for the city, and that day after it had rained and he said “Daddy, it smells like skeletons,” and that’s a direct quote from him. I thought “Wow, I can use that.” [laughter]

I hope your son appreciates how much of a star he is in the book when he reads it.

At the moment he’s reading about dinosaurs and spiders, but he may. He narrated to me his first short story the other night. He’s almost five. It was called “The Mantis in the Plane by the Sea”. And so I transcribe it and read it out for him so that one day he might look at that and go “Wow, that’s interesting.” I guess I’m quite a sentimental person, human being as well. I’ll keep them; whether he addresses or not is not important but I’ll keep them for him.

Phillipa tells me that the series was pitched as “travel books when no one leaves home,” but you’re a bit of an anomaly to the book process because you did leave for the middle part of your life so far. I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing because it allows you to step away and describe and outsider’s perspective of Brisbane and how you felt upon leaving and upon returning.

Exactly. I think I was in a unique position, having been born here, and left for important years of my life to come back and see this demonstrable change. On one level, yes, enormous change, but as I’ve tried to portray in the book, a constancy running underneath as well. The Brisbane light, the feel, the weather, the lushness, the vegetation – that’s the same as when I was a kid. Other things change around it and I think to get that perspective was unique in the sense that I did have that time lapse, came back to it with fresh eye,s I guess, and it may have been a very different book if it had been written by a writer who had stayed here.

I tried to give it justice and to give it fairness. If I’m a critic of the city, I’ve tried to balance it as I would my journalism, or whatever. But there may be some things in there that Brisbane people disagree with or are offended by. That’s great. That’s indicative of a grown up city. We should be debating, questioning ourselves, tilling the soil, and asking these things of each other because that’s what a civilised community is.

I do point out in the book that my supposition is that there are some traits that are in Brisbane people, have been from the start because of the nature of our birth, white birth; it was a very aggressive city, violent. There was death, crime and punishment just over the river there not far from the executive building that the current Premier sits. That’s where the convicts were flogged on the A-frame, the short walk to the Premier’s office 200 years later. Things change enormously but sometimes they don’t change that much at the same time.

So, our relationship with Sydney and the colony of New South Wales is always aggressive and we always felt we were poorly treated by them, and so a chip on our shoulder evolved from that. I think if you look and listen carefully enough, we still have some of that. The ghost of that is still around. While I think we’ve moved into the 21st Century to a large degree, there are those beautiful generational traits that only your place can give you and I think we still have them. I tried to examine that, but that may ruffle some peoples’ feathers and it may not. I just tried to be honest.

It wasn’t overwhelming, but there was I feel a recurring theme of romanticism that you brought to your experiences in Brisbane, how you said you “keep coming back to the light of Brisbane,” and you describe how that tends to bring people in. That’s the first thing they notice when they get off the tram, and so forth. Did you realise that before you started writing it?

I think I did because when I moved away, Brisbane was always my home. It was always where I was born, the place on the planet where I was born. It does have distinct, peculiar characteristics that delineate it from other cities in the world, let alone Australia. And [David] Malouf has written about this, Rodney Hall and others have written about this. They write about it because it’s very true.

The greatest, strongest memories of my childhood are the light, and the pitch blackness of the shadows, and that’s different when you live in other places in the world. It’s distinctively different. The smell, and in summer when a violent storm comes over the ranges, and the steam comes off the bitumen and the plants are breathing out, it’s unique to the city and it strikes you as something new every time. “Oh wow, that’s Brisbane.” And it’s something that you keep very deep inside of you, I think. I’m a lot older than you. The older you get these things sort of are like little drawers inside of your person and nothing will change them.

That may be romantic, that may be nostalgic, but as I said to you earlier; this is a city that from my own experience prompts sort of nostalgia and as a birth place, loss of heritage, mistreatment of the landscape and heritage; as a Brisbane person I feel that very keenly the way the Sydney people probably do about their own environment. This was where I came into the world. Nothing’s going to change that.

This is not so much a question as a comment; when I interviewed John Birmingham the other day, I asked him to comment on the divide between popular fiction and literary fiction. He brought up that he thinks you are one of the finest literary fiction writers in Australia.

God bless him. I’ll have him stuffed and mounted. [laughs]

This was without even mentioning that I was interviewing you for this book. He just came upon that. I thought that was a nice little turnaround.

I’ve known John for years and some of the old dudes are coming back home, artists, painters, writers, musicians, actors. It’s was a very different place when we left. It was very claustrophobic. I won’t say it was parochial, there was an element of parochialism to be honest with you, but the politics was suffocating, all of that. The assumption, right or wrong, was that if I’m going to make it I can’t make it here.

Twenty-five years later you can be in Brisbane and be making it [like you would] in London or New York or Berlin. Everything has changed, and the city has changed too as well, clearly, but the imperative to leave I don’t think any longer exists. We were sort of refugees for a reason that’s no longer here. Why do we come back? It’s a myriad of reasons for that. I just got tired of Sydney and it just became very hard to live daily. I was freelancing and doing all of that. Where do you go in that circumstance? You drift home and see what happens. Then my partner – now wife – fell pregnant, and now I’ve got two children, and it sort of becomes home again.

I wonder whether this project was more gratifying for you than your fiction work.

It’s very different. I found it exhilarating but very difficult in the respect that I’m not an historian. There are some brilliant historians in Brisbane that have combed the soil over, and over, and over; there virtually wasn’t a corner I could look into that hadn’t been effectively and interestingly covered by a gaggle of local historians. The city has been documented quite well, but I don’t know how they do it, historians.

The freedom of fiction, to me, is so much more pleasurable. That element is part of my journalistic work too. Obviously, I deal with fact every day and I wanted a book that was not mired in dreary history and it wasn’t a history book. But I would hope that someone visiting the city would pick it up and go “I didn’t know that about this place,” get a feel for the city, rather than a raft of facts.

I don’t know how you’ll feel about this, but upon finishing the book; I thought it’d be great and very apt to see that book start appearing on high school recommended reading lists.

I’d be very happy for that to happen! [laughs].

Because as you said, it’s not a dry, factual, historical piece. It mires in your personal life as well, which I feel is more important than ever to put a next generation of Brisbane residents to come across.

That’s a really nice idea. Just to elaborate on what I was saying then; I hope the book gives people a sense of what the city has been like, and what it’s like to live here. I would hope that it gives them that deep connection to their heart, rather than just their head. That’s a huge ambition for a little book. That was underplaying everything that I was trying to do with this piece of work. Whether I achieved it or not, it’s a big question, but that was my aim to do that. The other important element, too, is that I was really loathe to actually write about my own life here, because in all honesty it was quite dreary, suburban, unremarkable.

Yet you made it sound remarkable.

I thought, “How am I going to do this?” I didn’t want to be self-indulgent or dull, and then I thought “I’ll employ a fictional technique, and just look at a boy in Brisbane.” That boy is largely based on me. The minute I stood back from that boy, all the details, fine details, the smells, the senses, everything came in. If I’d written just about myself, and I started to do it, it died on the page. When I stood back and looked at myself as a novelist and journalist, and looked back at this separate figure, everything unlocked. All these memories and things that I hadn’t thought about since I was five years old rushed in.

So that’s the liberation of using a fictional technique on fact. It was a really interesting process for me as a writer to do that. I’d played around with it. “Should I try it, should I not?” The minute I started doing it, bang. It just bloomed.

Many elements of this book were a journey for me, in writing, in memory, in trying to get back to what the city meant to me, what it is now. In many ways, when I finished it, I wasn’t quite sure what I actually had. There were so many new paths I was taking in this little book, so in that sense it was a very gratifying project that gave me more than I had imagined when I first agreed to do the commission.

I think [the City series] is a terrific idea, which has been done loosely in the northern hemisphere. Kerry’s book on Sydney, and there have been books on Paris and Evan White. I found it a really interesting and obvious idea. I was surprised no one has actually ever done it, but we would get writers to do the major cities of the country, so as a series project it was very attractive. But yeah, that was the trip.

Phillipa tells me that when she read the book, she was struck by your love for Brisbane. It really shone through, and I agree with her summary, the way it ends from the character as a child through to standing in the cemetery; it’s quite beautiful.

Thank you. It’s a recognition that one is mortal… [laughs] and the next wave [of children] is out there. I’ll always love Brisbane. There are things I hate about it, there are things that annoy me, that frustrate me but that’s like any resident I guess in any city. But since coming back, it’s given me a lot as well, I think. It’s been wonderful to come home with my own kids and I may move from the city; I don’t know. Who knows? I’m not saying I’ll be here forever, but yeah it’s been a very pleasurable reacquaintance.

As an extension of Philipa’s comment, do you think it’s fair to say that it’s a kind of love letter to Brisbane?

Yeah, in the way that some love letters are raw and honest, can be confusing and upsetting, but if it’s a love letter, its heart is in the right place. I agree. It’s a nice phrase. At the end of the book, I pay homage to many writers. Several of them aren’t quoted in the book but I felt it was important to say thank you to all of those others that have written beautiful stuff about this place.

Gerard Lee, when I was young, when I read his novels, what I understood from that was I could write about Brisbane and it’s okay. That was a vital breakthrough for me. When I was at university in my late teens I read him and thought “We can do this.” When I read Thea Astley’s It’s Raining In Mango and all of those, I thought “I can write here. This is going to work. I can do it.” And so they were vitally important to me. The great Peter Porter, [David] Maluof… So I hope this adds another page to that homage to a place, and others will do it again. My son might do it!

That’d be nice.

That’d be interesting. God save him! [laughs]

++

I highly recommend ordering Matthew Condon’s Brisbane through the publisher, NewSouth.

The Weekend Australian story: ‘Tales Of The City’

A story for The Weekend Australian’s Review: a profile of Brisbane author and journalist Matthew Condon [pictured below], framed around his latest book, Brisbane. An excerpt from the published story is below.

Tales of the City

by Andrew McMillen

Matthew Condon’s literary ‘love letter’ to Brisbane is set to reignite debate about the Queensland capital’s historical origins.

HOW does one write a book that captures a whole city? This is the question that confronted Queensland writer Matthew Condon, who describes the opportunity to write Brisbane, the second book in publisher NewSouth’s series devoted to Australian capital cities, as the “singular most simplistic, liberating brief that I’ve ever received”.

Commissioning editor Philippa McGuinness told Condon to approach the book any way he wished, “which on the one hand is brilliant”, says the author, “but on the other, when you come down to writing [it], trying to put your arms around an entire city, it was very difficult. I deliberated for months and months: how do you go about it? Then I decided that it really is impossible to do it thoroughly. It would be endless. The city is organic. It’s constantly shifting and changing. So I had to give myself limitations.”

Eventually, Condon decided to ground his book in an examination of the location where explorer John Oxley first landed on the Brisbane River in 1824. “I decided, ‘Look, I’m going to go to where X marks the spot, where Oxley came ashore. That’s the Caucasian history of the city. I’ll start there, and I’ll see where it takes me’.” Notebook and camera in hand, the author visited the granite monument. Located at North Quay, which was erected to celebrate the centenary of Oxley’s landing, he says “it’s possibly the most unimaginative foundation stone of any city in the Western world . . . I stood there with the traffic roaring on both sides, and something about it struck me as wrong.”

Full story available on The Australian’s website.

If you have any interest in the story behind the Queensland capital, I highly recommend checking out Condon’s Brisbane.

This was a particularly enjoyable feature to write, as Matthew is one of my favourite feature writers – I hold his work for The Courier-Mail’s QWeekend magazine in high regard.

Reflections on UnConvention Brisbane 2010

UnConvention Brisbane 2010 happened 12-13 June at The Edge in South Bank. It was a grassroots music conference aimed at fostering a dialogue between like-minded members of Brisbane’s independent music scene. I co-organised the event alongside Dave Carter, Maggie Collins and Brett Wood. To read about how it all came together, read this blog post written a week beforehand.

I also moderated the music & media panel. You can view some highlights here, or embedded below:

From left to right (click their names for more info):

Myself, Michelle Brown (4ZzZ radio), Christopher Harms (Rave Magazine), Graham Ashton (Footstomp Music), Matt Rabbidge (LickIt Media), Steve Bell (Time Off), Crystle Fleper (FasterLouder QLD), Paul Curtis (Valve Records / Consume Management) and Matt Hickey (WhoTheHell.net / The Vine). Chris Johnson (AMRAP) and Sophie Benjamin (WhoTheHell.net) had to pull out at the last minute for personal reasons.

To listen to the full music & media panel conversation, click here to use the embedded audio player on the UnConvention Brisbane website.

In whole, UnConvention Brisbane 2010 was a winner. I’m thrilled that 120 (or so) members of the city’s independent music scene were willing to spend their weekend – or at least, part of it – listening to and engaging with fellow venue operators, band managers, musicians, business owners and label representatives. For mine, this was the highlight: bringing people together, and putting them in a low pressure social space where they felt comfortable interacting with one another.

While it wasn’t a perfect event – the free showcase attracted a smaller audience than the paid panel discussions, which was disappointing – I feel it was a great start to what we intend to shape into an annual event.

I’m told that the first year’s always the hardest; having never been involved with a project of this scale, I’ll have to take my friends’ word for it. Our ‘next year’ list of learnings and recommendations is huge, though, and we’re confident that UnConvention Brisbane 2011 will surpass what we achieved this time around.

Thanks to all involved – you know who you are. If you met me on the weekend and want to a continue a conversation, contact me via the link at the top of the page. If you want to be involved with next year’s UnConvention Brisbane in any capacity, please visit the website and click ‘contact us’. Any and all feedback and support is welcomed. Thank you for giving a shit about independent music, Brisbane.

There are plenty of video clips taken during the weekend at the UnConvention Brisbane website, which can be found here.

To conclude, I’ll leave the summarising to a bunch of bloggers who took the time to record their feelings on the event.

UnConvention Brisbane by the Bloggers

Here’s some of the cherry-picked highlights. If you’d like to add to the conversation jump on Facebook or Twitter and let us know your feedback – we’d love to hear it.

The Good

“I had suspicions at first that it would be simply a congratulatory circle jerk but I was wrong. Having a panel discussion allowed for an array of often divergent views to focus attention on what may be good and what may be not so good about the local music scenic. Furthermore, I also got to say ‘hey’ to some fellow bloggers, including Bianca from Music For the Laundromat and Jodi from Plus One. It’s always great to put faces to names. Congratulations to Andrew McMillen and Dave Carter for organising what was a great and badly needed conference that I hope returns next year” –  Darragh, Parallel Lines for a Slow Decline

“Unconvention was fantastic. I’ve been involved in several “creative” conventions, and find that they’re not usually worth the hundreds of dollars per ticket, so at $20 including a sausage sizzle, Unconvention was the best value convention I’ve ever encountered. It was filled with smart, creative, fun, talented people, who were all super approachable, and keen to share and network” – Jaymis, Oxygen Kiosk (and UnConvention Tech Nerd)

“The weekend was an invaluable experience for me. It was enlightening to hear people’s views on the ever changing music scene in Brisbane, and it certainly gave me a more positive perspective on it. If you didn’t get to make it this year, I would highly recommend it for next year” – Bianca, Music for the Laundromat

“Undesirable questions received a Capella singing in response. Fifteen or so minutes were dedicated to stories about hair and rock stars. Tom Hall advised aspiring promoters that you could get up ‘100 posters in an hour at a good run’. Everyone ranted about the state of music in Brisbane and nobody agreed. I don’t know what happened but hell, it was good fun.” – Jodi, plusonebrisbane describing the Music as Culture panel.

“I went and really enjoyed the whole thing. I learned a lot about how this music industry operates. … I can’t believe the whole thing cost $20. If they have one of these things in your local area you really should go.” – Brendan, Turn It Up to 10

“I have learnt a lot, but it has also affirmed my belief in punk rock, and its ability to work outside of any conventional music industry” – Matt, Papercuts Collective

“If their intention was to inspire, I would say, “mission accomplished.” It really was quite an experience to realise that these people who are ingrained in the industry, and who are doing great things for independent artists, had an idea and followed through with that idea, making mistakes, grasping opportunities and making contacts along the way” – Shayne, Cowbell Music (and UnConvention panelist)

The Not So Good

“I can’t speak for whether Unconvention was indeed unconventional in its otherwise pristine imitation of a Music Business Convention. Somehow I suspect not. But, um, good on them for bringing attendance prices down or something” – Everett True (UnConvention Panellist)

The Plain Weird

“Five weird things that happened to me on the weekend:

1. I went to the Down Under Bar. Worse still, I dimly remember being pretty excited about it.
2. Unconvention Brisbane took place for the first time. I chaired a panel on Music As Culture and during which Andrew Stafford, the author of Pig City: The Saints To Savage Garden, broke into song. Fellow panelist Everett True had decided that if we were asked a question we didn’t wish to answer, we had to sing. What did I ask Andrew? Oh just something light and breezy: ‘So what was the worst thing that happened to you because you wrote Pig City?’ (I made Everett sing as well).
3. I walked around Highgate Hill at 3am with a cocktail.
4. A taxi driver told me that we should just shoot people who wish to immigrate to our country. ‘Just shoot them, it doesn’t cost a lot to shoot people.’ And I tipped him. This morning I couldn’t remember why. Then I did. I tipped him because I was scared he was going to kill me and dump my severed body parts in the river.
5. Walking up Merthyr Road last night, not 15 minutes after Ted Bundy the taxi-driver, a car pulled up next to me as I walked along. The driver said ‘You want a lift.’ I told the driver I lived closeby so it was cool. I was eating a packet of crisps. Then the driver said ‘Do you want me to suck your cock?’ and I said ‘Nah man, I’m good’ and he drove off”

- Ian, Ambrose Chapel (and UnConvention ‘music as culture’ panel curator)

UnConvention Brisbane 2010, a grassroots music conference

Twelve months ago, my friend Dave Carter came to me with a concept called UnConvention, which originated in the UK a couple of years ago. He described it thus:

UnConvention celebrates music. It’s purpose is to provide a forum for those of us who work at the grassroots. For artists and musicians that want to understand how to get their music heard and how to practice their craft. For labels who want to champion this music and to spread the word. For people who want to work with music whether they be promoters, publicists or creatives.

UnConvention understands that the most interesting stuff happens on the margins. We don’t mind the mainstream. We just don’t find it relevant.

UnConvention is a forum for ideas, for creativity, for shared experiences and knowledge and for seeing and hearing great artists.

UnConvention doesn’t believe in ‘do it yourself’. We believe in ‘do it together’.

Dave is a lecturer at the Queensland Conservatorium in music technology, and an acclaimed researcher (check out his online marketing research paper here, which was presented at last year’s Big Sound music conference). So I said: sure, let’s make this happen here in Brisbane.

We asked Brett Wood – managing director of local indie label Starving Kids Records – if he wanted to get on board; he said the same thing. And as we set a date and found a venue and ironed out who we wanted to be involved, Maggie Collins – triple j radio presenter and manager of Brisbane bands DZ, The John Steel Singers, and Skinny Jean – approached us with enthusiasm. So we said: sure, you’re welcome to join us.

Next weekend, 12-13 June 2010, the first UnConvention Brisbane will take place at The Edge, the State Library of Queensland’s digital culture hub. As the venue is in the heart of the city’s arts precinct, it’s the perfect location. There’s a poster to the right which describes what will take place: click for a closer look. Some information from the event website is below.

UnConvention Brisbane is a grassroots-led music conference for independent promoters, labels, entrepreneurs, writers, technologists, innovators and artists. The goal of UnConvention Brisbane is to bring together like-minded individuals to discuss the future of independent music and how it will develop and flourish in the technological age. The weekend event will comprise panel discussions and networking events focussed around creating sustainable careers within the music industry.

Access to both days costs $20, and tickets are available via OzTix.

On the Sunday, I’m presenting the music & media panel discussion, which features the following lovely people.

Sunday June 13, 2010, 1pm – Music and Media

Music journalist and blogger Andrew McMillen will discuss the opportunities for mixing a passion for music with blogging, journalism, radio, marketing, publicity and other shady practices with:

• Paul Curtis (Founder, Valve Records / manager, Regurgitator, I Heart Hiroshima)
• Sophie Benjamin (Journalist and music blogger, whothehell.net)
• Crystle Fleper (Editor, FasterLouder QLD)
• Christopher Harms (Editor, Rave Magazine)
• Steve Bell (Editor, Time Off)
• Michelle Brown (Sponsorship & Promotions Manager, 4ZzZ community radio)
• Matt Rabbidge (Partner, Lick It Media)
• Graham Ashton (Executive Programmer of Big Sound and founder of Footstomp Music Services)
• Chris Johnson (Manager, Australian Music Radio Airplay Project [AMRAP])

Check out the full program details here.

We’re also proud to be presenting a free, all-ages showcase of some of Brisbane’s best independent acts on the Saturday night, which is sponsored by creative media educational institution, SAE.

The showcase will feature:

• Hip-hop/roots collective Laneous and the Family Yah
• Folk act Lion Island
• Indie rock band The Cairos
• Electronic pop trio Hunz

It’s a pleasure to be involved with an event that seeks to investigate how to sustain careers within Brisbane’s independent music industry. It’s important than ever to have these conversations. After spending a couple of years working in and around the local scene, I’m glad to be in a position to give something back.

Follow UnConvention Brisbane on Facebook or Twitter if you’re so inclined. The weekend Facebook event is here, and the free, all-ages showcase event is here; keep an eye on the website to see how it all unfolds.

Mess+Noise story: ‘Hundreds Protest To ‘Reclaim’ Brisbane’s Nightlife’

On March 11, concerned members of Brisbane’s music community turned out in force to protest a proposed 2am shutdown on all live music venues and nightclubs. I reported for Mess+Noise.

Melbourne had its march for the ages last month, though it was too late to save The Tote. Yesterday, it was Brisbane’s turn to take to the streets in response to proposed legislation that threatens to undermine its vibrant nightlife and culture.

While the Victorian SLAM rally was triggered by a “senseless and arbitrary” liquor licensing regime that tarred all live music venues with the same high-risk brush, the situation up north is a little different. The Anna Bligh-led Labor Government and Police Department Union last year launched an inquiry to curb alcohol-fuelled violence across the state. A proposed response is to close licensed venues at 2am, and enforce a “lockout” at 12am, thereby overruling the existing 3am lockout.

Ahead of the inquiry’s findings – to be released on March 18 – concerned punters gathered outside Queensland Parliament House, a kilometre south of the CBD and located on the edge of the Botanic Gardens. Pitched as a peaceful, strictly drug- and alcohol-free protest named “Reclaim The Nightlife”, the organisers’ expectations for 2000 attendees seemed ambitious as the clock struck 4pm.

Full story (and more photos) at Mess+Noise, published March 12 2010; above photo by Elleni Toumpas.

This was the first organised protest I’d attended. It wasn’t a particularly well-organised or memorable occasion. On the ground, I made the decision to report purely on the proceedings, instead of conducting interviews and collaborating those results into my story. I probably wouldn’t use that same approach on similar events in the future, but for this time, at least, I felt it was worthwhile.

How I Pitched ‘For The Record’

In June 2009, The Music Network published my first commissioned article. It was the first in a five-part series called ‘For The Record’, a retrospective feature on the album format and whether it’s still relevant. Start with part one here.

I recall spending a couple of hours on a May morning putting all of my thoughts and feelings on ‘the album’ down onto paper, and then transcribing it into a document and emailing it to the assistant editor. At the time, these articles (and the resultant commissions) were just about all I had going, so I threw myself at the opportunity completely.

It’s funny and a bit embarrassing for me to look back over this pitch, as it’s quite childish, incoherent and – as I’ve since learned – the exact opposite of what most editors look for in story pitches: brevity and clarity.

Below is how I initially pitched the article to the magazine for their ‘Digital View’ section (which later became ‘Digital & Media’ after their redesign).

The Music Network – Death Of The Album pitch (this is a placeholder title, btw)

This is a feature discussing the reduced importance that consumers place on the concept of the album, and how the music industry should largely adopt a new ‘organising principle’ in order to match consumer demand. I will be careful to qualify this by stating that release schedules should be re-examined on a per-artist basis, though, because the album still has some place; it’s just been marginalised.

The articles will use a consistent, measured tone that injects humour and attitude, but forgoes condescension. I’ll strive for objectivity here, though this is a topic that I could easily rant about subjectively. ;)

I envisage five parts, though it could go one less or more. This will become apparent once I start writing.

Precis:

I: A history of the album

• Why does the album exist? Who imposed the 74-minute limitation?
• Summarise the development of the format; Sony, Phillips, competing technologies, how it took a decade for the CD to supersede the LP
• Album historically serves as the preferred way to contain profits and maintain both consumer interest and a release schedule. Containment and maintenance.
• From LP to CD to digital; the medium has changed but the ‘organising principle‘ (the album – a term attributed to Gang Of Four’s Dave Allen) remains the same
• The industry revolves around the album: release schedules, record deals, album reviews, pricing structure
• Why is this a problem? Hint at changing consumer habits, and part II

II: What’s changed?

• Objection: “I still listen to albums!” So do I. Because it’s still the most prevalent manner of distributing music.
• It is important to understand this point: albums are still sold, whether digital or physical, but the widened choice afforded to consumers has resulted in a decreased attention span.
• To illustrate: here’s a regular album. It’s front-loaded with some great songs, the ones that you heard before you bought it. Then you get to the second half of the album and, more than likely, it’s not as good. Think about all those times you’ve tried really hard to enjoy later tracks on album just so that you claim to honestly love it all. It’s hard work; I’d argue it’s an unnecessarily big ask on the listener.
• It’s a complaint as old as the album itself: “A few of these tracks are awesome, but the rest are a waste of time.” Hi, MGMT.
• Define consumer; who is buying music in which format? Different trends for different demographics
• Discuss ‘killer versus filler’: Bob Lefsetz quotes here
• No band deserves all of your attention, and it’s selfish of them to expect that from you. No band claims to be the best band in the world, except The Hives. So why do they tack noticeably sub-par songs onto the end of otherwise riveting albums? Because record labels are tied to the concept. Lead into part III.

III: What hasn’t changed?

• The main point to reinforce here is the change in consumer (listener) habit. Technology and portability has severed our attachment to the album format. Provide anecdotal evidence of what the album (LP) used to represent; a social object that could only be played in the home, or at a dance hall.
• Every notion you hold about albums – the great, the poor – are built upon a format created to streamline label profit
• If our attention has splintered beyond the confines of the standard 12 tracks/45 minutes, why do new albums keep appearing on store shelves, both virtual and physical?
• Quote iTunes facts here – single vs album sales
• Point out the correlation between these facts; that is, a division between consumer habit and industry habit.
• Visual analogy: picture listeners and labels as running on two parallel lines. While the latter ignores the changing habits of the former, the two shall never meet. Piracy and discontent will deepen the divide.
• Major label profits have dived as a result of piracy, sure, but consider an alternative: that consumers are sick of spending $20 on a disc with only a couple of good songs. It’s easier to download the lot and listen to what you want, or to just pick and choose individual tracks.

IV: What needs to change in order to better serve consumer interest?

• Marketing structures and strategies (thanks Jade!). Label-signed artists who are locked into multi-album deals have it tough.
• These multi-album deals perpetuate the ‘few strong songs, mostly average songs’ trend to which we’ve become accustomed. To which we’ve responded with ignorance, piracy or pick-and-choose song downloads.
• What we need is increased quality control on the label’s part. Work with artists to allow them to discover the medium with which they’re most comfortable releasing music, and then work with them to realise these goals.
• Gone are the days of slapping a ‘one-format-fits-all’ tag on all artists, with the end-goal of album after album. There may be artists who still want to do that, absolutely. But to portray the album as the only marker of recorded success? This is a fallacy has been disproven.
• It is vital that adequate pricing structures and business models are adopted for a variety of releases – single song, small collection of songs (EPs), live performances – to ensure that artists can live comfortably off their earnings. So that they may continue to make music.
• This is an aspect that is often forgotten among the frequent discussion surrounding ‘the music industry’. All too often, we forget that the industry is built on the creative talents of songwriters, musicians and performers whose music engages. Music is an inherently social creation that is only becoming more social, as fans connect online and artist revenue streams continue their shift from recording-based to performance-based.
• Discuss alternative business models; hint at part V

V: The future of a reduced reliance on the album as the organising principle

• I imagine a steady stream of single tracks, with occasional EP and album releases. I think Bloc Party have done this recently?
• Give examples of artists who have tried alternative release models + quotes
• Give examples of artists who have successfully trialled new models. Avoid relying on big cases here (eg Radiohead, NIN); if this is to be believed, I’ll need to give more compelling examples than artist with millions-strong fanbases.
• Reinforce why a reduced reliance on the album is not a bad thing. Our listening habits have changed, but we still feel an attachment to the album concept. Cognitive dissonance might be worth including here.. or that could just dilute my argument. Will see.
• Reinforce the ‘digital’ aspect here, for this is The Digital View, damnit! Digital is the entire reason that the album has become a less pertinent format of music dissemination.
• But – what of record stores, if a reduced reliance on albums (‘records’)? There’s a discussion for another column, one that’s not necessarily attached to this five-part album discussion.

After the articles were approved – and I totally rejoiced, as this was the first time I’d written anything other than CD or live reviews for money – I ran the above pitch past my friend, David Carter, who lectures at the Queensland Conservatorium. His expertise on matters concerning the music industry are documented on his blog, Where To Now?

David’s comments in (an appropriately academic) red.

I: A history of the album

• Why does the album exist? Who imposed the 74-minute limitation?
• Summarise the development of the format; Sony, Phillips, competing technologies, how it took a decade for the CD to supersede the LP
• Album historically serves as the preferred way to contain profits and maintain both consumer interest and a release schedule. Containment and maintenance. think you might be missing something here re production and distribution costs that need discussion up-front; what was the first album? why was the first album? these might be better ‘organising principles’ here – trace development of the album as a collection of singles to autonomous artwork – point out that the album-as-art had to do with innovative / creative use of the medium rather than an inherent element of the medium itself
• From LP to CD to digital; the medium has changed but the ‘organising principle’ (the album – a term attributed to Gang Of Four’s Dave Allen) remains the same
• The recorded music? industry revolves around the album: release schedules, record deals, album reviews, pricing structure ‘music’ industry has always included other revenue streams – side point but worth pointing out
• Why is this a problem? Hint at changing consumer habits, and part II

II: What’s changed?

• Objection: “I still listen to albums!” So do I. Because it’s still the most prevalent manner of distributing music perhaps a more important objection – ‘I still want to sell albums’?
• It is important to understand this point: albums are still sold, whether digital or physical, but the widened choice afforded to consumers has resulted in a decreased attention span not so sure about this – Your assertion that ‘widened choice’ has resulted in ‘shorter attention spans’ is problematic – I don’t think you can prove a causal relationship here and not sure if it’s really attention span you’re talking about or a lower tolerance for filler? I think you’re getting at changing methods of the consumption / reception of music thanks to advances in computing and telecommunication technologies and while this has resulted in wider access to certain types of content the key thing here for music listeners has been the ability to easily re-order and separate out albums. It’s not the ‘internet’ that has ‘killed’ the album but rather the ability for consumers to ‘roll their own’ albums. – one point I think you’re missing in terms of what’s changed is ‘technology’; particularly the iPod. It seems to be there in III but not explicit here? Another point to make is that online the cost of manufacturing and distribution approaches zero for both content creator and consumer and this has fundamentally changed the marketplace.
• To illustrate: here’s a regular album. It’s front-loaded with some great songs, the ones that you heard before you bought it. Then you get to the second half of the album and, more than likely, it’s not as good. Think about all those times you’ve tried really hard to enjoy later tracks on album just so that you claim to honestly love it all. It’s hard work; I’d argue it’s an unnecessarily big ask on the listener.
• It’s a complaint as old as the album itself: “A few of these tracks are awesome, but the rest are a waste of time.” Hi, MGMT. this has always been the case with pop music and why labels used to sell singles; need to think about / discuss why digital is different.
• Define consumer; who is buying music in which format? Different trends for different demographics and also think about what / why they’re buying and what they end up doing with it. Maybe there’s an element of musical discovery in exploring ‘album tracks’ by Nick Drake or Dylan (for example) that grow your appreciation for their artistry; maybe you want the physical backup of a CD; if your iPod is your only music storage device what happens to those mp3′s you don’t want to listen to anymore?
• Discuss ‘killer versus filler’: Bob Lefsetz quotes here
• No band deserves all of your attention, and it’s selfish of them to expect that from you. No band claims to be the best band in the world, except The Hives. So why do they tack noticeably sub-par songs onto the end of otherwise riveting albums? Because record labels are tied to the concept. Lead into part III. or because they don’t think the tracks are sub-par; because they’ve bought into the notion that the format is art rather than product; because the drummer wrote the song and was complaining about not getting enough writing / royalty credits; etc. – there are a lot of reasons albums contain filler, some of which pertain to market expectations but not all. Don’t think you’ve made this point convincingly.

III: What hasn’t changed?

• The main point to reinforce here is the change in consumer (listener) habit. Technology and portability has severed our attachment to the album format. Provide anecdotal evidence of what the album (LP) used to represent; a social object that could only be played in the home, or at a dance hall. think you can provide physical evidence here in terms of sales from the iTunes music store – overwhelmingly consumers are buying singles;
• Every notion you hold about albums – the great, the poor – are built upon a format created to streamline label profit and a format that still must make monetary sense to the labels – even online; why? discuss.
• If our attention has splintered beyond the confines of the standard 12 tracks/45 minutes, why do new albums keep appearing on store shelves, both virtual and physical?
• Quote iTunes facts here – single vs album sales
• Point out the correlation between these facts; that is, a division between consumer habit and industry habit.
• Visual analogy: picture listeners and labels as running on two parallel lines. While the latter ignores the changing habits of the former, the two shall never meet. Piracy and discontent will deepen the divide. suggest you need to discuss / take into account that albums and bands still make money off physical discs – at present people are still buying CD’s, despite all the rhetoric; perhaps not so much that the labels are running parrallel to consumer sentiment but that they haven’t viewed digital downloads as a fundamentally different product?
• Major label profits have dived as a result of piracy not sure if you should concede this point – have they dived because of piracy or because of a format / consumption shift? , sure, but consider an alternative: that consumers are sick of spending $20 on a disc with only a couple of good songs. It’s easier to download the lot and listen to what you want, or to just pick and choose individual tracks this is an old argument that I don’t think you need to embroil yourself in – this isn’t about copyright and piracy it’s about how (if) recorded music can be marketed and monetised.

IV: What needs to change in order to better serve consumer interest?

• Marketing structures and strategies (thanks Jade!). Label-signed artists who are locked into multi-album deals have it tough.
• These multi-album deals perpetuate the ‘few strong songs, mostly average songs’ trend why? ideally everyone involved wants an album worth of strong songs – what stops this happening? wonder if there’s something here to do with advances in technology / no development money allowing a lesser level of songwriter / composer access to an audience? to which we’ve become accustomed. To which we’ve responded with ignorance, piracy or pick-and-choose song downloads.
• What we need is increased quality control on the label’s part. Work with artists to allow them to discover the medium with which they’re most comfortable releasing music, and then work with them to realise these goals.
• Gone are the days of slapping a ‘one-format-fits-all’ tag on all artists, with the end-goal of album after album. There may be artists who still want to do that, absolutely. But to portray the album as the only marker of recorded success? This is a fallacy has been disproven. not sure this is what labels are doing though – again, they want to make the most money they can from a release in the context of a very unpredictable market; if they thought they could do this with singles they would; why haven’t they?
• It is vital that adequate pricing structures and business models are adopted for a variety of releases – single song, small collection of songs (EPs), live performances – to ensure that artists can live comfortably off their earnings there’s a fallacy going around that artists used to live comfortably off their earnings from record sales – it’s not true – very few artists (particularly major label artists) made / make significant personal profit from album sales; the real money for artists is and has always been in royalties, touring and merchandising. There is such a small percentage of records that actually make anyone any money it’s ridiculous – why then have record companies and artists perpetuated such a seemingly flawed business model? So that they may continue to make music.
• This is an aspect that is often forgotten among the frequent discussion surrounding ‘the music industry’. All too often, we forget that the industry is built on the creative talents of songwriters, musicians and performers whose music engages. Music is an inherently social creation that is only becoming more social, as fans connect online and artist revenue streams continue their shift from recording-based to performance-based think you need to address the differences between music as product vs music as service in here somewhere
• Discuss alternative business models; hint at part V

V: The future of a reduced reliance on the album as the organising principle think you might want to review / throw out some of this and incorporate whatever’s left into part IV – particularly artist examples. Don’t think there’s enough new ideas here to warrant a fifth part.

• I imagine a steady stream of single tracks, with occasional EP and album releases. I think Bloc Party have done this recently?
• Give examples of artists who have tried alternative release models + quotes
• Give examples of artists who have successfully trialled new models. Avoid relying on big cases here (eg Radiohead, NIN); if this is to be believed, I’ll need to give more compelling examples than artist with millions-strong fanbases.
• Reinforce why a reduced reliance on the album is not a bad thing. Our listening habits have changed, but we still feel an attachment to the album concept. Cognitive dissonance might be worth including here.. nah – be honest; too many people out there already saying ‘this is the future’. not enough willing to say ‘I’m unsure / conflicted / fascinated’ or that could just dilute my argument. Will see.
• Reinforce the ‘digital’ aspect here, for this is The Digital View, damnit! Digital is the entire reason that the album has become a less pertinent format of music dissemination.
• But – what of record stores, if a reduced reliance on albums (‘records’)? There’s a discussion for another column, one that’s not necessarily attached to this five-part album discussion.

Read the published articles here: part one, part two, part three, part four and part five.

Note how the latter half of the series totally deviated from the initial pitch, as – like David rightly pointed out – there weren’t enough new ideas to warrant needlessly dragging the feature out. So I decided to interview some musicians instead; always a reliable fallback for any stuck music journalist.