All posts tagged splendour-in-the-grass

• July 20, 2014

  Qweekend story: ‘The Grass Is Greener: Paul Piticco’, July 2014

  A story for the July 19 issue of Qweekend magazine; a profile of Australian music entrepreneur Paul Piticco. The full story appears below.

  The Grass Is Greener

  Paul Piticco struck success while managing Powderfinger and now oversees an empire that stretches beyond music into events and hospitality

  

  by Andrew McMillen / Portrait photograph by Russell Shakespeare

  ++

  Five of the men who walk out onto Brisbane Riverstage on this warm Saturday night are well-known to the 10,000 fans in attendance, as together they have written some of Australia’s most popular songs. Between encores, though, another bloke in a grey suit with short black hair makes an appearance. Drummer Jon Coghill playfully wipes a towel across the stranger’s forehead. The band’s frontman approaches the microphone. “Ladies and gents, we have to introduce the virtual sixth member of Powderfinger: this is our manager,” says Bernard Fanning, gesturing to the man who is now copping a good-natured head-rub from guitarist Ian Haug. “He’s been our manager for the whole time. His name’s Paul Piticco. Put your hands together.”

  The crowd obliges. After he gives a few quick bows to the hill and to each of the bandmembers, Piticco waves and jogs back to the side of stage, seemingly embarrassed at such public attention.

  It’s 13 November, 2010, the night of Powderfinger’s final performance, a hometown send-off for the Brisbane quintet crowning a 34-date national tour that sold more than 300,000 tickets and grossed $30 million. After a final encore performance of ‘These Days’ and a group bow, Powderfinger ends its career on a high.

  The band’s achievements are remarkable. Among them, more than 2.5 million albums sold in Australia alone, 18 ARIA awards, five consecutive ARIA No 1 album debuts, and twice topping Triple J’s annual Hottest 100 music poll. Behind their artistry was the business brain of Paul “Teaks” Piticco, a self-taught entrepreneur whose beginning as the wet-behind-the-ears manager of a little-known Brisbane rock band expanded into successful stakes in music festivals, touring and publicity, two independent record labels and a recent foray into the restaurant business.

  As he tells it, Piticco’s achievements can be attributed to persistence, enthusiasm and a willingness to have a go. “That philosophy that you’re only as good as the last thing you do is something that I’ve always subscribed to,” he says. “That’s how you do great work: by being really interested, and by giving a shit about the outcome. I certainly don’t want to die wondering.”

  It wasn’t always thus, according to Coghill, the last member to join Powderfinger, completing the quintet’s line-up in late 1991. In the 2011 band biography, Footprints, the drummer recalled his first impressions of the men with whom he’d spend the next two decades: “They were just these potheads who used to sit around the lounge smoking,” he said. “And Teaks was the ringleader … I remember that night [we met] he showed me this massive marijuana plant he had in the back yard. It was four metres high and two metres wide. I think before Teaks was the manager of the band, he was the manager of the lounge room and the bong.”

  ++

  An only child born to Sernando and Carmel at the Royal Brisbane Women’s Hospital on March 7, 1969, Paul Anthony Piticco grew up in the inner-west Brisbane suburb of Paddington and attended Petrie Terrace State School. He loved school because it was his first chance to measure himself against others. “Maybe that was the germination of my competitive streak,” he says with a smile.

  His father had emigrated to Australia from Italy at age 19, carrying only a suitcase and $10. He cut cane in North Queensland, bought a house in Brisbane and started a construction business. Piticco says Sernando advised his son to “figure your own shit out” and learn from his mistakes. Carmel – who worked part-time jobs in nursing and education – encouraged Paul to spring out of bed in the morning, follow his dreams and do what makes him smile.

  His parents’ record collection was “diabolical”, so it wasn’t until he started at Kelvin Grove State High in Brisbane’s inner north-west that Piticco’s musical horizons expanded. When KISS played at Lang Park (now Suncorp Stadium) in 1980, he snuck down Ranley Grove onto Given Terrace and watched them through the fence. It was the first time Piticco made a connection between hearing a song on the radio and tens of thousands of fans going to see a band play live in a stadium. He was enthralled, and started buying cassettes and vinyl – David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, Dire Straits – while learning guitar and saxophone, both of which he failed to practise. At 15, he’d take a square of cardboard to Queen Street Mall and attempt to breakdance while dressed in baggy pants. This phase soon passed – as Piticco puts it, “The world moved on, and I moved with it.”

  It was during his first job, as a paperboy selling the Telegraph, that Piticco established his work ethic. He determined how to achieve the maximum return with the smallest effort by catching customers at the former Arnott’s biscuit factory on Coronation Drive when shifts were crossing over. A regular clientele earned the ten-year-old hefty tips for his value-adding personal touches, such as handing over the paper with the sports page or the horoscopes facing up, ready to read.

  In his mid-teens, Piticco worked weekend nights at the 24-hour Windmill Cafe on Petrie Terrace, where he learned how to be patient with intoxicated people, which he notes has “come in handy working in bars, venues and festivals in the years to come”. He completed Year 10 at Kelvin Grove High but dropped out part way into the following year. “My passion for study declined rapidly,” he says, after he discovered smoking and drinking.

  In his late teens, Piticco tried working part-time for his father and uncle’s construction business. It didn’t take. “I didn’t want to work a manual job, grinding it out in the sun like my dad. I knew that I wanted something different; I just didn’t know what it was yet.” It was around this time that he discovered cannabis. “There was a fair degree of overlap between my pot-smoking days and my lost years,” he says. “It just heightened all my senses in terms of listening to music and having a good time. In a stereotypical way, it was a countercultural way to rebel as a late teen.”

  At the time, Piticco worked as a steel sales representative for Boral and lived in a share house in the western suburb of Indooroopilly. One night, he and housemate Ian Haug went for a drive, and the guitarist asked his friend whether he’d be interested in managing Powderfinger as Haug had grown tired of juggling his band’s business interests and writing music.

  “He knew nothing about the music industry; we gave him an opportunity because we could see something in him,” says Haug. “We needed a ‘bad cop’, and he was a good bad cop. We didn’t want to be the ones ringing up bikers saying ‘pay us our money’. He had to be the tough guy. And Piticco’s a pretty tough name.”

  Bassist John Collins saw it another way: “We thought, if he could sell steel, he could sell rock.” With the assistance of a lawyer, the band drew up a management contract which determined that everything outside of the actual music-making would be split six ways. “After that contract lapsed, we worked with him without a contract for most of our career,” says Haug. “Probably in retrospect it wasn’t a wise business decision for the band, but he did a good job for us.”

  It took years before the band started seeing any real money for their efforts. “As a manager, you’re only ever as good as your band,” Piticco says. “Your fates are hitched in a fiscal sense.” As Powderfinger’s star ascended, the six men named on the contract came into good money following years of low-income toil. “Money was always much more important to Paul than the rest of us,” says singer Bernard Fanning. “We were always surprised by the fact that we actually earned a living and made money out of being musicians. Paul has always liked the idea of money, and the potential of it, rather than the actual act of splashing out and buying a fancy bottle of champagne.”

  Haug suggests Piticco didn’t change much throughout the band’s two-decade career. “He’s just loaded now, whereas he used to be flat broke,” he laughs. The entrepreneur reinvested his earnings into the industry, forming an artist management company, Secret Service. His independent record label, Dew Process, was established in 2002 and has released popular albums by international acts such as Mumford & Sons, The Hives and London Grammar as well as Australian artists The Living End, Sarah Blasko and, of course, Bernard Fanning. Album sales still account for the majority of the label’s income. In 2012, Piticco established another record label, Create/Control, which in effect turns the old business model on its head by partnering with acts to distribute and market music they’ve funded and recorded themselves.

  In conjunction with Powderfinger’s longtime booking agent, Jessica Ducrou, he established Splendour In The Grass, an annual multi-day music festival – being staged at North Byron Parklands next weekend – sidestepping the competitive summer circuit. All 27,500 tickets to this year’s event, headlined by Outkast, Lily Allen and Two Door Cinema Club, were sold within hours of going on sale. “Paul and I have done all sorts of glamorous jobs – directing traffic, picking up garbage,” says Ducrou, 44. “He’s really positive, he mucks in. He has no airs and graces. He’ll do whatever is required.” The pair’s Secret Sounds touring company has also invested in The Falls Festival, traditionally a southern (Tasmania and Victoria) camping event which debuted in Byron Bay in late 2013.

  Critics point out that a handful of Piticco’s acts inevitably appear on Splendour’s bill each year, a tradition that stretches back to the first event in 2001, headlined by Powderfinger. “Why wouldn’t you book yourself?” asks Patience Hodgson, singer of Piticco-managed Brisbane pop band The Grates. “Paul doesn’t take any commission when we play Splendour, and that’s to lower his invested interest.”

  If such criticisms are laid at Piticco’s feet, so be it. He’s happy to wear the tar and feathers if it means his artists stay squeaky clean. “If people hate him, but love the band, he totally understands that’s fine,” says Hodgson. “He’s not trying to protect himself; the band always comes first. If he’s offered a gig and thinks we should be paid more money, he asks. I really appreciate that, because I could never do that for myself; I wouldn’t want to seem like a dick or be rude. Paul is happy to ask, and if people say no, he doesn’t feel shame.”

  ++

  Piticco has one favourite album – DeadSexy by little-known Rhode Island (US) alternative rock band Scarce – and two favourite songs: ‘Heroes’ by David Bowie and ‘The Funeral’ by Seattle rock act Band of Horses, who he has booked to play Splendour twice. His favourite Powderfinger album is 1998’s Internationalist. When asked to name a favourite song, he deliberates for two minutes. “The one that makes me feel and think most positively about the band is ‘Sunsets’,” he replies, referring to a single from 2003’s Vulture Street album. “Amongst all those anthems that they wrote, that one, to me, sounds and feels like Australian music at that time. It definitely pulls at my heartstrings.”

  At 45, Piticco is showing no signs of slowing down. In 2014, he seems to have his fingers in more pies than ever before. “There’s a good balance between Paul being a serious, effective entrepreneur and knowing how to switch off and have fun, and not take things too seriously,” says Ducrou. For his 40th birthday, Piticco booked an AC/DC tribute band to play at the property near Mount Warning in northern NSW where he lives with his partner of 15 years, Lisa Wickbold, and their children Phoebe, 7, Ivy, 5, and Darby, 3.

  It takes considerable drive and intensity to create record labels, music festivals, national tours and artistic careers out of thin air, especially when based outside of the traditional Australian music business seats of power in Sydney and Melbourne. For Piticco and Powderfinger, moving south never appealed. “We were regularly encouraged to leave by labels, agents, promoters and other bands; ‘Come down here, it’ll be better, there are more opportunities!’” he says. “Brisbane had value to us. It wasn’t just more affordable, it provided a framework and an emotional base. Our social networks were here. It’s something we’ve always been proud of, this city. There was never any doubt. I’m glad we stayed.”

  The sun sets over the Brisbane skyline on a recent cool evening as we sit at a table in South Bank restaurant Popolo, which Piticco co-founded in late 2011 with restaurateur Andrew Baturo and Denis Sheahan, Powderfinger’s former tour manager. Its name is Italian for people, in reference to the menu’s inclination towards shared dishes. While we talk, plates are laid out in quick succession. It’s far too much food for two men; Piticco jokes that his children will have some interesting leftovers for tomorrow’s lunch.

  In addition to Popolo, Piticco co-owns a stake in CBD venue The Gresham Bar, which opened late last year. This left turn into the hospitality industry has been on the cards for years. “The chef is the artist, the restaurateur is the producer,” Piticco says. “The chef serves up his works; the producer critiques them, works out which ones are going to be the hits, which ones will pad out the menu. Instead of listening, you taste. The ambience is the marketing and packaging – the visual representation – but the real thing that makes a successful restaurant is the food. It’s just as it is in the music industry: a lot of bad bands have an image, but the songs are really the meat of the proposition.”

  Observing the detritus of a fine meal, Piticco sums up his life so far in simple terms. “I’ve always had this theory that stems from my mum,” he says. “Whether you’re a chimney sweep, a brain surgeon or a band manager, if you’re good at what you do, the rest takes care of itself. I just like having the opportunity to make a living out of music, for myself and others, and along the way make a whole bunch of people happy by enriching their lives in some way. And to get paid for it? That’s fucking awesome!”

  Splendour In The Grass, July 25-27, North Byron Parklands, Byron Bay. splendourinthegrass.com 

  1 Comment / Feature Journalism, Music Journalism, Published Writing / Andrew McMillen

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• August 12, 2010

  Mess+Noise story: ‘Splendour 2010: Your Questions Answered’, August 2010

  A transcribed public Q+A for Mess+Noise.

  Splendour 2010: Your Questions Answered

  What does it take to run one of Australia’s largest festivals? At a public forum on day one of last weekend’s Splendour In The Grass, co-founders Paul Piticco and Jessica Ducrou gave punters a unique insight into how they pull it off. Transcription by ANDREW MCMILLEN. Photos by JUSTIN EDWARDS.

  How did Splendour come about in the first place? Why did it happen?

  Paul: We got together on the idea of “we should do a little festival”. Boutique, start out small, something different. A camping event. We came to the conclusion that it was probably best to avoid the competition and summer traffic, and do it somewhere that people would like to escape to in the winter. And that was Byron Bay. That was 10 years ago.

  What’s your vision for the future of Splendour?

  Jess: Part of the reason for our move to Woodford is that it’s allowed us to steer the festival in a direction that’s quite different from Belongil Fields, and much closer to our vision, which is a camping festival. Ideally, we’d like to camp everyone on-site. The format this year is that gates open at 4pm on Thursday and don’t close until 12pm [on Monday]. You’re creating a city; your own experience. We weren’t able to do that at Belongil Fields, as we didn’t have the space to do it. It’s pretty satisfying being here now, and seeing where the festival has come, 10 years down the track.

  Read the full article on Mess+Noise.

  However! What’s published on M+N is an abridged version of what took place on the day. My editor cut around 2,000 words for brevity and clarity. For posterity, I’ve included the full 50 minute, 6,000 word transcript below.

  Splendour 2010: Public Q+A

  A new addition to the Splendour In The Grass program in 2010 was the Forum component, which hosted several events across the weekend. First up, though, at 10am on Friday was a Q+A session with the event co-founders, Paul Piticco and Jessica Ducrou. ANDREW MCMILLEN was there to capture the session, and ask a couple of questions. Monique Schafter from ABC’s Hungry Beast was the Q+A’s MC.

  Monique: I’ll ask the first question, just to get us rolling. This is the tenth year of Splendour In The Grass; how did Splendour come about in the first place? Why did it happen?

  Paul: Well, Jessica started out in the music industry as a booking agent, and I was a manager. We shared bands; I managed them, and she was the booking agent. How we modelled our business was pretty much a strategy where agents and managers in a lot of other countries use concert promoters to put on their bands’ shows. For a lot of Australian acts, we cut that link out, and the agent and manager take on the responsibility of promoting shows. So Jess and I already had that relationship, but Jess was also in business with another guy doing the Homebake festival. So Jess had that festival experience which I didn’t have, and the other side of our business we got working together on was promoting Aussie bands, essentially, and we got together on the idea of “we should so a little festival”. Boutique, start out small, something different. A camping event. We came to the conclusion that it was probably best to avoid the competition and summer traffic, and do it somewhere that people would like to escape to in the winter. And that was Byron Bay. That was ten years ago.

  Monique: It’s certainly grown a lot in the last ten years. What’s your vision for the future of Splendour?

  Jess: Part of the reason for our move to Woodford is that it’s allowed us to steer the festival in a direction that’s quite different from Belongil Fields, and much closer to our vision. Which is a camping festival. Ideally we’d like to camp everyone on-site. The format this year is that gates open at 4pm on Thursday and don’t close until 12pm [on Monday]. You’re creating a city; your own experience. We weren’t able to do that at Belongil Fields, as we didn’t have the space to do it. It’s pretty satisfying being here now, and seeing where the festival has come, ten years down the track.

  Paul: Jess and I have had this ambition: we are fans, and have been patrons of the great festivals of the world. The Glastonburys, the Coachellas, and so many great camping events around the world. We didn’t really think that Australia had one. Our aspirations are to build an event that’s of that global standard. Something that Australia can hold up as its globally-recognised festival. That’s another thing that we’re aiming to get to, and we think we get a little closer every year.

  [Audience questions begin]

  Q: I’m wondering about the numbers. What capacity did you have ten years ago, and now, is it like a ‘big Australia’ policy? Or do you have a good level of people now? Have you felt at any stage during the ten years that, “Oh shit, that was a bit big that time.”

  Paul: The first year was 7,500. There was a little bit of a joke among the international agents and booking community. When we were starting out, not everybody knew us, but they were like, “Oh, you’re the festival that sold out, but still lost money!” [laughs] That’s what happened in year one, because we weren’t very good at budgeting, obviously. We sold all our tickets and went, “Shit, we don’t have enough money to pay bills.” It started out at 7,500, and I think I’ll let Jess take the second part of the question.

  Jess: I guess there’s a financial reality that what we’re hoping to present costs money. All of the different areas that we’ve brought to this particular site cost money. The only way we can afford to pay for that is through ticket sales. But there has to be a good balance between economics and an experience for those coming to the show. There’s certainly been times at Belongil Fields where we’ve had crowd flow issues, and a general sense from people that there’s too many people at the show. We’ve tried to re-assess that in the following years. We might try and tighten up our guestlist, and try and open up more space. So there’s ways to do that. It’s very difficult once you set a precedent, in terms of what you’re doing with a festival, to move the costs backwards. The reality is, the show will suffer if you start reeling in the costs.

  Q: So you can only get bigger?

  Jess: No, but I’d have to say our vision in the long-term is to develop a program. And by developing the program, you’ll have to pay for it, so there’ll be more people. I think that the festival really is at about 50% of where we see it, and I don’t mean that in terms of capacity, but in terms of what we want to present. We want to have different musical genres. We’d like it to appeal to people between the ages of six to 60. We’ve started upgrading the kids area; we want there to be a kids festival. All of that costs money.

  Paul: To touch on it, too, a lot of people primarily come here for the four or five particular acts, but it is this, [the forum] that we’re doing right now. This isn’t a revenue raiser. This isn’t something that takes money out of your pocket. These are the kinds of thing that we see increasing the vitality of the event, like Jess said. If you’re a parent, or will hopefully one day have the pleasure to be, we’ll have a giants kids area. That’s something we want to grow. We want to grow the forum; this is the first year we’ve had it. We’ll watch this over the weekend and if it’s great, we’ll grow it. These things cost; a lot of people work this show 300 days of the year. For your three days of enjoyment, there’s 300 days of wages to pay. We try to keep that fine balance between expanding the vision, but maintaining the amount of people we need – and the ticket price – to keep it relevant.

  Q: How many thousand do you have this year?

  Paul and Jess [simultaneously]: 32.

  Q: Is that about what you’re comfortable with? What about 40,000 [next year]?

  Paul: It’s hard. We don’t know. It’s one of those things where, usually, Jess and I will sit down, have an argument over a vision, then we’ll work back form the vision until we hit a budget. Sometimes those things get shot down; sometimes we go, “You know, that’s doable.” So just saying an arbitrary figure – “will you have 40,000 next year?” – is irrelevant, because we don’t know what we’re going to add, or what we’re going to expand.

  Jess: We also need to see this show happening here for a few days, to have an opinion on how well this space can cope with what we’ve done this year. It’s definitely an intention for us to keep it intimate. That’s one great thing about this site, with all its different areas, to a degree there’s intimacy there. At the same time, you need a space to present the big acts, so that everyone can see them if they want to. We don’t know what we’ll do next year. We’re just going to try and get through this weekend.

  Paul: We’ll likely be here next year. For 2012, we’re not sure yet.

  Q: I’m Lou, and I’m from Melbourne. I’d like to know a bit more about why you’ve come to Woodford from Byron this year. Why did you move; what are some of the politics behind it?

  Jess: There were two reasons for the move. This venue gave us the opportunity to present the show in a format that we wanted. In Byron, there’s currently not anywhere we can do that. And we also had the instant support of Bill Hauritz, the director of the Woodford Folk Festival, and the council, which was very appealing. And the other reason for the move was in reaction to a draft events policy that Byron Council were creating, which was going to limit the size, length and location of events [in Byron]. We were already feeling like we’d outgrown Belongil, and we really wanted to present some new areas for the show. It was more about survival.

  Paul: Space was one of the primary concerns. Returning to the previous question about having an expansive vision, we simply ran out of room at Belongil Fields.

  Q: I’m Gus from Perth. This is my first year at Splendour. We actually did a road trip from Byron, which is quite amusing, because it was the original home. I’ve got two questions. Paul, are you a perfectionist? If so, how do you deal with all of the stress that’s involved with running a function of this size?

  Paul: I would say that we’re both very driven to detail. Jess has a different set of criteria to me, but the visual image of the festival is definitely more her bag. The attention to detail and the level of perfection that goes into that, as you know when you look around, that’s where that goes. How do I deal with stress? I’ve got a pretty stressful job. I run a record label [Dew Process], I do this, and I manage bands. Between all that, I just… let it go over. I just do what I an, and try not to freak out too much. Occasionally I fail, and have a meltdown, but generally I just make a list, try to smile through it, tick boxes and plow through. Otherwise, I don’t really know. Take multivitamins, they’re very good for you.

  Gus: The second question leads in from the first. This is more of a gossipy questions. You don’t have to name any names, but obviously when you’ve got so many people that are a part of this event, you’re going to get let down. Is there any good goss you can hit us with about people who’ve absolutely left you floundering, where you’ve just gone “never again”?

  Paul: We were very disappointing with Jane’s Addiction not showing [in 2009]. We caught Whitley with a golf buggy out on the main road. He was very drunk. I don’t think we’ve ever been let down catastrophically by anyone. Let’s just say that there’s almost too many to mention. You add 30,000-odd people, a thousand artists, three days of drinking, fun and food, and people do silly things. Nothing immediately comes to mind. I’ll come back to you if I think of anything.

  Gus: On a more positive and less gossipy note, what are some of the bands that stand out as highlights?

  Paul: Was it two years ago that Band Of Horses first played? [Audience confirms] When they played ‘Funeral’, that was probably the highlight and the lowlight for one particular song at the festival. I was so moved and emotional, I started to well up. That was the highlight, obviously. The lowlight was watching a lot of the road crew looking at me, going “what the hell is he crying about?” I was just standing there, crying. That was a great moment.

  I was very proud the first time that Coldplay played [in 2003]. That was a coup for us, considering the size of festival we were at the time. The Grates have always had great sets here, I’ve always enjoy watching them.

  Jess: The Flaming Lips last year was pretty awesome. Sigur Rós [in 2008] was a very left-field performance. We took a bit of a risk by putting them so high up the bill, on the main stage, as not a lot of people know their stuff. But it was such a phenomenal moment. I felt very proud of us; we did something that’s less obvious. I’m a huge fan of TV On The Radio, so I thought their main stage performance [in 2006] was a knock-out. And unfortunately, the one band I wanted to see two years ago was Band Of Horses, and I didn’t get to see one song. So I’m hoping that there are three or four bands that I’ll get to see this year, and that I won’t get dragged off to, you know, check out some portaloos overflowing somewhere and actually get to watch some bands.

  Actually, I know a pretty funny experience. Brian Wilson…

  Paul: [laughs] Oh yeah, this is good.

  Jess: Brian Wilson played Splendour [in 2006] and I was smoking cigarettes at the time. I was standing side of stage. I’d had a drink. I was with my partner, we were chatting away. All of a sudden the side of stage crowd parted, and started looking at us. Brian Wilson pointed at me and said, “You are smoking. Stop smoking. I’m going to stop playing if you don’t stop smoking.” The whole 15,000 people in the tent were looking at me; I didn’t know what was going on.

  Paul: I thought he was joking. I thought it was part of his banter, the old man jokey rant. But after about 20 seconds we realised, no, he was waiting for her to stub it out. [laughs]

  Jess: And he just didn’t let it go for the whole set. I actually had to leave the side of stage. I couldn’t watch any more of the performance. I was quite traumatised by it.

  Paul: Oh, another really proud moment for us. We’re also the concert promoter for Bloc Party in Australia. From their first tour, we’ve done all their shows, not just at Splendour but around the country. That’s one that we’ve really used for the festival. We’ve really brought them up – well, they write amazing music and have huge amounts of fans and hits, so it’s not all our doing – but how they’re perceived in the live arena. [Australia] is one of the biggest per-capita live markets in the world for them. So that’s something else we’re both pretty proud of, and a band we both love immensely.

  Jess: Oh, watching The Vines play when they were our mystery band [in 2006]. I do all the agenting for The Vine. It’s been a long road; there are highs and lows, lots of cancellations along the way. [In 2006] they hadn’t played in a long time, and we were a bit anxious about how they were going to be. Craig [Nicholls, The Vines singer] doesn’t handle pressure very well. But it was fantastic watching them play, and pull off a great show.

  Paul: [With The Vines] it’s always going to be a spectacle, one way or the other. Either an amazing show, or it’s not.

  Q: Epic line-up this year. How do you decide who plays, and who doesn’t?

  Paul: We fight, short answer. Like brother and sister, cats and dogs sometimes. Because we have a pot of money, right. It’s like this: put you and your best friend in a room, and you go, “OK, we’ve got this much money to spend on the ultimate line-up,” and then you start arguing. So it goes back and forth, and through attrition we agree on things. Sometimes one of us gets lucky over the other, because we both want something and my option’s not available, or Jess’ is, and I go “well, we’ll have to take that then.”

  Jess: But in saying that, there’s a lot that we agree on.

  Paul: Yeah, we do. We ultimately agree.

  Q: Who wanted what this year?

  Paul: Let’s see. The Strokes have been on our list forever. So have The Pixies, but they’d just been here [in Australia], so we agreed on that. Temper Trap I erred Jess toward, a little bit; maybe the other way around for Florence [+ The Machine]. LCD [Soundsystem], Jess was a slam dunk, I didn’t even bother. That was definitely something she was big on.

  Jess: We really put a concerted effort in. We started booking the line-up about six months before we announced the show.

  Paul: In October/November last year, we were making lists, and negotiating deals overseas. Before Christmas this year we’ll be overseas again, probably making two or three trips around LA, New York and London, booking talent for next year.

  Jess: So to buy a band, you should go and sit in the agent’s office, and see what they’ve got available. Often what they’ve got available is based on whether they’ve got a new record coming out. So there’s that, but there’s also a hitlist which, for instance, The Flaming Lips, The Strokes and Pixies are probably three that have always been on the list and we don’t care if there’s a new record or not, we just want them to play.

  Paul: There’s quite a few still on the list. But we won’t tell you who they are.

  Q: Band Of Horses were on everybody’s lips last year after their set. It was a little bit of a surprise, I don’t think everybody expected that going in. To hazard a guess, have you got any idea of who might be on everybody’s lips after these three days? Someone who’s a little less obvious, maybe?

  Paul: Well, there’s a lot of bands on that are huge, but not everybody’s seen. Like Mumford [& Sons] and Florence, not everybody caught when they first toured because they were quite small, so I think they’ll be pretty big.

  Jess: Personally, I think Surfer Blood are worth checking out. After The Strokes, I’m most excited about seeing Alberta Cross, who’re on Paul’s label. Yeasayer. The Magic Numbers…

  Paul: I saw Band Of Skulls at SXSW this year, and that was a thing for me. I think they’ll do really well in this country. Their sideshows in Sydney and Melbourne have sold out. There’s a real buzz in the live community about them. They’ll go on to be a bigger band, so I’d make sure people saw them.

  Q: Out of your budget, how much money do you have to fork out for your headline acts, like say The Strokes, or The Pixies?

  Paul: We can’t really say the specific fee, but it would be safe to say that the line-up of talent for the show is in the multi, multi millions of dollars. Just to give you some idea, it’s our biggest cost – and believe me, tents, fences, staff, they don’t come cheap – but still, talent is… We spent a lot of money on the line-up. For us, it’s [the] core of what we do. We probably could have taken 10 bands off this bill and substituted them out with cheaper options, but it’s not in our style. We start out with a utopian line-up, and we try to make it affordable for us.

  Jess: To give you some perspective, we set a budget to spend on bands. This year, we spent $1.5 million over that budget. And I mean, that money has to come from somewhere, so we were just really intent on creating the best line-up that we could.

  Paul: The feedback that we’ve got on the line-up has been immense, this year. It’s pretty gratifying, too, because we were moving site, we had a history in Byron Bay… It really felt to us that the line-up was so strong that everybody was going to come with us [to Woodford]. And you did, which is great. But part of the thinking, too, was that it was our tenth birthday and we were in a new location, and we wanted to make it a special year. It was worth every penny. Well, we haven’t seen it all yet, but we’re hoping it’s worth every penny.

  Q: G’day, I’m Melissa. I’m wondering with the change in location, what – if any – support you guys got from the Queensland Folk Federation?

  Jess: Well Bill Hauritz, the director of the Queensland Folk Federation, has been a friend for many, many years, and just a fantastic supporter of the arts in general. When we were in this quandary about how we could develop the festival, and also feeling frustrated by the Byron Council’s draft events policy, Woodford physically is exactly the property we’d like to be on. Knowing Bill, we just rang him and said, “This is a kind of crazy question, but are you interested in having us?” And the timing for them; if we’d asked the year before, they wouldn’t have been ready to accommodate us. Bill, Amanda and all the people who work on the Woodford Folk Festival have moved heaven and earth to welcome us here. They’ve been so incredibly supportive. They’ve been really integral to allowing us, and not trying to restrict what it is that we wanted to present. And allowing us to stick a yacht in the dam [‘Ibeefa’] and running with us on some of the crazy ideas we come up with.

  Q: Are there other events that you get inspiration from, or model your event on?

  Jess: Plagiarism’s rife.

  Paul: I went to Burning Man [held in the Black Rock Desert, Navada] a couple of years ago, and their arts program is off the hook. I had ideas from that. Jess travelled to Glastonbury, Coachella…even little ones, not just big ones. See something that works! Go, “Hey, wow, great idea. Look at that! A mobile lemonade stand for people who’re standing in the queue,” or whatever it might be that you think is a good idea.

  Jess: Then you go and take photos of it, and come back, and try and call it your own. [laughs]

  Paul: To go back to the Band Of Horses questions, I’ve just been having a look at the line-up. Delphic, I think could have a really big set. Also, Two Door Cinema Club are amazing. The Drums, amazing live. Frightened Rabbit. LCD. Oh, and early reports – because we’re the promoter of Foals, who’ve done shows in Adelaide and Melbourne in the last few days – which went crazy. Nuts. They all sold out, so you’ll have to check out Foals as well.

  Q: Just regarding what you were just saying about good ideas. I thought the whole exchanging a used can for a dollar off a drink was a really good idea. Was it just costs that made you rethink that?

  Paul: I’ll explain what it was, then I’ll let Jess answer why we’re not doing it this year, because that’s the easy part and she’ll have the hard part. What happened in the past was that we put a $1 surcharge on a drink item, so if it was $6, you paid $7 for it, but there was inherent value, then, of the dollar in a can. So if you returned the can to a recycling station, you’d get a $1 drink ticket back. So you could technically accumulate 10 or 15 cans, and go get enough money to pick up a couple of drinks. That was the system, and it did keep the site very clean.

  Jess: This site is quite complicated for us. We were really stretching our resources just trying to accommodate such a large amount of people in the campgrounds. That [can system] is quite complicated. It has so many ramifications beyond putting a cost on the drink ticket, which is everything from staffing it t, to making it work for people. And also, while it’s a great initiative, a lot of people object to even the idea that their drink seems a dollar more expensive. They can’t wrap their head around the fact that it’s only paid once, and they can actually get it back in the long-term. So we went, “look, let’s just try to get the show right,” and then hopefully we’ll look at all of those issues and we’ll try and do it next year. We certainly haven’t let it go, we’ve just put it on ice for a while.

  Paul: And just to elaborate a little bit on that, too. Once again, consumer sentiment might have been guys drinking beer going, “well, a beer is a dollar extra,” but we’re not bringing that money in any more. We’ve had to divert a lot of money, obviously, into an increased cleaning bill. Everything gets recycled, regardless of whether you guys were picking it up and getting a bargain, or a cleaner’s picking it up, it’s all going to be recycled. But it was just a change of the balance, to see if we could make more people satisfied by not having a more expensive drink. The reality was, the majority were paying for the minority to pick up the cans. Which could work, but I guess maybe the majority weren’t satisfied with paying additional money for their drinks.

  Q: Just with the mid-strength alcohol laws in Queensland, how’s that been?

  Jess: You know, it’s incredibly disappointing. We went to inordinate lengths to meet with licensing to try and beg and plead to get full-strength. It’s not something we’ve had to do before. The reality is that we’re in Queensland, and to a degree, we have to toe the line with what licensing want to give us. That said, we’ve had some really great wins, like at the wine bar, you can buy a bottle of wine, and we’ve been able to operate quite late hours, as well. In many ways, we’re running longer hours than we were at Belongil Fields. But yeah, it’s a pain in the arse.

  Q: Many of the ideas that come into the festival, are a lot of them the Splendour team’s ‘brain children’, or do a lot of outside people who want to run cool stuff come to you?

  Paul: Both, I think, is the answer. Under us, and predominately under Jess, there’s a raft of event managers – partners, almost – across all different areas: environmental stuff, décor, theming, running different areas. They all bring IP to the mix, and how it can be improved. They’re all fairly proactive. We get pitched all the time. We do have resources that we offer back out to the community, and we have artists pitch to us. Those kind of things come from outsiders. But we also have funding with which we deliberately engage other artists, which Jess might want to talk about.

  Jess: I just want to go back to our managers. A lot of them are very involved in the show. They come up with some awesome ideas. One of them is the boat in the dam [‘Ibeefa’], which started out as, “How about we do a piss-take on Ibiza and make it as cheesy as we possibly can?” And we’re all like, “Yeah! Let’s embrace it, let’s create this little world.” A lot of the things around the site are ideas that people have come to us with, and we’ve developed them. I think that’s why we have such a great team, because everyone really feels like they can bring things into fruition. It’s certainly not Paul and I sitting here, coming up with everything. There’s a lot of people contributing.

  On the artwork front, we’re constantly fielding ideas, whether they come through our website, or people who know people associated with the event. If some of those ideas are good, we’ll embrace it. It does get to the point now, though, where our program is so complicated that we physically can’t do everything, so we’re going to have to work out a way to keep engaging in those ideas, and to develop them. Which just means more people to organise it, really.

  Paul: Do you want to talk about [the arts program] Splendid?

  Jess: We were spending quite a lot of money on our arts program, for many years. We had this great bloke, Steven Alderton, who’s the director of the Lismore Regional Gallery and a bit of a mover and shaker in the arts world. He saw what we were doing and approached the Australia Council, and said “These guys are sinking truckloads of money into the arts, we should collaborate with and fund them for a couple of years”. So what came out of that is we’re spending $150,000, and they’re spending $450,000 and counting to present three years of collaborations in this artist workshop. There are three on site this year, I don’t know if you guys have seen them. There’s the [giant inflatable] ‘up yours’ hand; there’s the ‘best time ever’, which is a stairwell and sundial up on the hill; and ‘where the party’s at’, which is a balloon installation. We still fund other aspects of the arts program.

  Paul: So those joint arts projects are also a way to bring up to Splendour, that we’ve funded jointly with your taxpayers’ dollars, through the Australia Council, and then also those works get to be seen by people not necessarily at Splendour. They can tour those works to other festivals around Australia, or around the world. So there’s a program that’s internal, then there’s a kind of, if you want, a ‘give back’ aspect to it, where those works can go on and have lives, and have other people enjoy them.
  Q: I’ve heard the Government is going to invest some money into developing the site. I just wondered what kind of plans there are.

  Jess: Are you talking about the $3 million that was announced yesterday?

  Q: Yeah, I heard it on the news.

  Jess: So if the Labor government win the next federal election, they’ve pledged to give $3 million to Woodfordia, to help upgrade their site. I can’t really speak on behalf of Woodfordia, because the money’s going to them, not to us. But from what I read in the press release, it would go towards putting in more permanent toilets, showers, upgrading roads, sewerage and power. All those kind of things that you guys don’t really notice, that make it much easier to run events. So let’s hope the Labor government wins, and Woodford will be a better site.

  Q: Hi there, my name’s Ros. Can you please let us know what’s happening with the site you guys purchased outside of Byron? Where are things at there? Is that under the Byron Shire Council still?

  Paul: We have a property – 620-odd acres – at Yelgun, as some people know. We bought that property after some consultation with the Byron Shire Council. As we went through the approvals process, I think the Byron Shire Council changed their opinion, potentially, about the viability of it. We went through the Land and Environment Court, and there was a zoning issue with some land that made the Council’s approval null and void. It got a little sticky at that point, going forward, and got to be a bit of a political hot potato, wouldn’t you say, in Byron Bay?

  Jess: I guess we lost the support of Council when there were a very vocal minority who were opposed to us being at that particular site. I think if you break it down, their objections are really based on that they don’t want to live next door to it. I can completely understand; who would want to live next door to a festival site?

  Paul: These people might, the festival-goers.

  Jess: We have had the support of Byron Council, and they did approve our trial event, and then we lost over a technicality in court. Since then, the [NSW] state government took on the application and they realised the potential that [Splendour] and other events could bring to that particular region, and so our application for an events venue is about to be lodged with state government in the next week. We’ve spent years putting it together, and a lot of time working on everything from the ecology, to traffic, to noise; it’s a fantastic project, and that will then sit with the Department of Planning for probably six months, and we’ll get a response then as to whether they’ll let us operate back in Byron.

  Q: I came in a little late. Just wondering, are you guys here again next year?

  Paul: We think so.

  Q: Hi guys, Andrew from Mess+Noise. I want to ask you about Brisbane sideshows. Aside from Goldfrapp, and more recently The Pixies, it seems that Brisbane tends to miss out on sideshows. Why is that, and do you see that changing in the future?

  Paul: The why is that generally most of the Splendour audience comes from Brisbane, so to keep the exclusivity of our event, we will often not announce sideshows. One of things that we’ve found in the past, also, is that due to Brisbane being a smaller city than some of the others, the ticket trends for bands who did do sideshows were pretty bad. Brisbane could be, for certain acts, quite risky. So it was a combination of making sure that, for the Brisbane market, Splendour was seen as an exclusive opportunity to see those bands, and also a way of taking out a certain element of risk. Will it change in the future? I don’t see it changing radically. A couple of bands did it because they were under exceptional circumstances, so we permitted it. Our policy to this date, is to not [allow Brisbane sideshows].

  Like many countries. I know a lot of acts who go and play Glastonbury, or V Fest in the UK, those are their only UK shows, full stop. They don’t play any other cities at all. I know it frustrates music fans in Brisbane, but it’s a slippery slope if we start doing shows in Brisbane, then you’ll probably start off a chain reaction of people who, when Splendour goes on sale, waiting to see which sideshows are announced before they buy a ticket, and then Splendour might not sell out. It’s a chain reaction that we’re probably not too game to experiment with at this point.

  Andrew: Have you considered a contractual clause wherein, if Splendour does sell out, then you can announce sideshows?

  Paul: Yes, but then people learn to expect that.

  Jess: We have done some Brisbane sideshows, but they just don’t work. The reality is that we’ve lost money on every single show we’ve done in Brisbane, because the majority of people come to Splendour. I think if there was a huge demand, and shows were selling out, we would probably run with it. The reality is that there’s just not [a demand].

  Paul: The Pixies playing at The Zoo, that would sell out in a heartbeat. They wanted that as a warm-up date, to physically grace the stage before they hit the big stage. I don’t even know if Goldfrapp has sold out; they’re playing The Tivoli. If it hasn’t, that would be an indicator as to what we’re trying to explain.

  Q: Looking at the timetable, at a clash like Foals and Yeasayer at the same time, is there a reason you do that so early in the day?

  Paul: You know, can I just say that if that bothers you, we’d switch it out, but then it’d bother someone else. We can’t make everybody happy with scheduling. It’s just a fact. We needed LCD Soundsystem to be in the Mix Up Tent at the same time as whoever in the main Amphitheatre, so that we don’t have 35,000 people trying to get into the Amphitheatre at the one time. It’s a safety responsibility.

  Jess: It’s just a reality of a festival. You’re going to have overlaps, unfortunately. We really try and keep each act in mind when we’re placing them, and also, some can only play on a certain days because they’re got international obligations. So suddenly you’ve got acts of the same size that you need to put on.

  Paul: We have bands that fly out tomorrow [Saturday] to go and play Fuji Rock in Japan on Sunday, so those bands all have to be on the Friday. As Jess said, if they’re of a similar size and they need to be off-site tonight a certain time, we don’t really have much choice.

  Q: My name’s Calvin, I’m one of the Splendid artists. I came a bit late, but what’s your reasons for not making this a touring festival? It’s obviously one of the best organised festivals going around. Why have you chosen not to tour it?

  Jess: Because it takes us a year to organise this show. Turning it into a touring festival would mean that we’d have to stretch our resources to different cities. I’d rather make this the biggest, the best, the most fabulous experience, [rather] than water it down to make five or six [events] around the place. Also, I’ve been doing events for a long time, and Paul as well, and I just don’t have the energy to do that many shows. It’s fucking exhausting.

  Paul: Can I just add: this is untourable. It’s just not tourable. Jess has been on-site for three weeks, I’ve been here for two weeks. There’s people doing works out here, prepping, weeks and weeks in advance. I mean, it’s a mini-city. We have a police station, we have a fire brigade base here, we have a couple of ambulances. We have 38 electricians, 22 plumbers. It’s a city. It’s a little town. You just can’t tour little towns.

  Monique: To finish up, what inspired you to introduce the Forum element to Splendour this year?

  Jess: I just wanted for all the fun things out there, for there to be some kind of serious platform at the show, and an opportunity; even for us to be here, to be able to answer the questions that must drive you nuts, like the question about timetable clashes, which must shit you up the wall. To have the opportunity to answer those kind of questions is great. We’re trying to have a bit more of a dialogue, rather than people just coming here, having a drink and seeing some bands, if we can extend that experience for them, to talk about it; that’s why we’re here, and why [the Forum] is of interest to us. And if there’s 100 or 200 people sitting here, listening to what we’ve got to say, that’s a success to us. That’s worth persisting with.

  Paul: Absolutely.

  No Comments / Music Journalism, Published Writing / Andrew McMillen

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• August 5, 2010

  Mess+Noise festival report: Splendour In The Grass, August 2010

  I attended this year’s three-day Splendour In The Grass music festival on behalf of Mess+Noise. My friend Justin Edwards took photos; I’ve included a couple below. You can read an excerpt of my work below, and follow the links underneath through to the full report, which is split into two parts.

  Splendour 2010: Day One

  ANDREW MCMILLEN reports on day one of Splendour In The Grass as it makes its Woodfordia bow. Photos by JUSTIN EDWARDS.

  Our decision to arrive at Woodfordia – Splendour’s new site after 10 years at Belongil Fields in Byron Bay – around midday on Thursday proved wise. Those less punctual were subject to queues that stretched back a reported 10 kilometres as security checked vehicles for booze. Upon winding down car windows, our friendly guard tried scare tactics.

  “Where’s the booze?” he demanded.
  “Pardon?”
  “It’s easier to give it up now than face a potential fine of up to $1000,” he began, while his offsiders began rummaging through our vehicle. They came up empty-handed.

  A great many passed these tests, however, judging by the amount of “BYO” consumption that occurred throughout the weekend. Note to self: never underestimate the human capacity to do whatever it takes to get fucked up.

  These initial difficulties were seemingly compounded by the fact that the venue’s only public entrance is via a single road. Perhaps the venue could benefit from multiple entrances? Just a thought.

  Once safely inside, Thursday was spent setting up camp in cowpat-littered paddocks and becoming familiar with the festival grounds. Gates eventually opened at 4pm. Though the Thursday evening program was limited – none of the three bigger stages were operating, though the smaller Temple Stage hosted some live acts and DJ sets until 3am – it provided our first glimpse of the festival’s new home.

  Read part one in full on Mess+Noise.

  Splendour 2010: Days Two-Three

  ANDREW MCMILLEN reports on the final two days of the Splendour In The Grass festival, which sees stellar sets from Cloud Control and The John Steel Singers and a disappointing finale from The Vines. Photos by JUSTIN EDWARDS.

  Day Two: Saturday, July 31

  A 10am “Women Of Letters” event proves surprisingly popular among the bleary-eyed and literary-minded. Hosted by Marieke Hardy and Michaela McGuire, the gathering features the likes of Paul Kelly, Clare Bowditch and Jake Stone (of bluejuice) orating letters to songs they wish they’d written. Later, Wil Anderson chairs a panel discussion on social media and privacy. All of the forum events are lively, inspiring and, at the very least, entertaining. Full marks to organisers for coordinating such cerebral activities among the frivolity.

  Read part two in full on Mess+Noise. Justin’s photo gallery is here.

  No Comments / Music Journalism, Published Writing / Andrew McMillen

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• May 21, 2009

  ‘RiP: A Remix Manifesto’ Brisbane Screening and Music Industry Panel Discussion

  I went to a screening of ‘RiP: A Remix Manifesto‘ last night, along with around sixty others. The audience included local promoters, distributors, musicians, writers and university students. Via nfb.ca:

  In RiP: A Remix Manifesto, Web activist and filmmaker Brett Gaylor explores issues of copyright in the information age, mashing up the media landscape of the 20th century and shattering the wall between users and producers.i

  The film’s central protagonist is Girl Talk, a mash-up musician topping the charts with his sample-based songs. But is Girl Talk a paragon of people power or the Pied Piper of piracy? Creative Commons founder, Lawrence Lessig, Brazil’s Minister of Culture Gilberto Gil and pop culture critic Cory Doctorow are also along for the ride.

  A participatory media experiment, from day one, Brett shares his raw footage at opensourcecinema.org, for anyone to remix. This movie-as-mash-up method allows these remixes to become an integral part of the film. With RiP: A remix manifesto, Gaylor and Girl Talk sound an urgent alarm and draw the lines of battle.

  Which side of the ideas war are you on?

  The screening was organised by Phil Tripp, who started The Australasian Music Directory, as well as themusic.com.au and IMMEDIA!. In addition to the film screening, Tripp organised a panel comprised of five Brisbane music authorities to discuss the film, and some of the wider issues that the modern music industry is facing.

  I transcribed the majority of this panel discussion – approximately an hour’s worth – because I want to share their thoughts and opinions with those who weren’t there.

  Some of their comments are valid. Some are misguided. Some are ridiculously outdated. I’m not going to point out which is which, though. That’s up to you.

  Note that this post is quite long – around 8,000 words.  It gets into some very specific topics. I have occasionally edited their words for clarity, and omitted a couple of uninteresting bits. But you should read it to gauge the five speakers’ beliefs about what is happening to the music industry. To save you scrolling up and down, I will repeat each speaker’s title each time they are quoted,  so that you can contrast their opinions against their commercial beliefs.

  Download links for the audio files are at the bottom of this post. Enjoy.

  [Tripp gives an introductory speech before the film starts.]

  Phil Tripp – Managing Partner, IMMEDIA! [pictured right]:

  The future of music, the way we look at it, is about going overseas. But not giving up your home country. You hear my American accent; I’ve been here 28 years, and I always love to come home to Sydney. And for the set of trips that I’m doing this month, I found a film at South By South West (SXSW) – which is an event in Austin, Texas that I rep for this region – to show throughout Australia. We decided to show it, not because I’m a benevolent person wanting to educate you, but because I want to give you an idea of where the future of music is going, from one point of view.

  Now, this film is propaganda. It is a film that has been made with a purpose in mind, and a message. And the message is, that when I was a kid, my teacher told me, along with the rest of the class, that “tonight, we want you to go home to your parents and we want you to cut out little pictures, and things from magazines, and bring them in tomorrow, and we’re gonna take out the paste pots, and we’re gonna glue them all down on paper, and we’re gonna put them out on the wall outside, and we’re gonna make what’s called a collage”.

  Little did she know that that was a violation of copyright. Taking other people’s images and mixing them into a ‘mash-up’ of visuals. Back then it didn’t matter. Now, you people have tools that go far beyond scissors and paste pots. You have the tools to take music and turn it into a whole new form of art. And that’s great. Except I’m a commercial bastard. I have intellectual property – the Music Directory, and our site themusic.com.au – and if anybody wants to take my intellectual property, which is basically a phone book, and put it on their website because they’re believe it’s free because it’s on the internet, they will get a hot testy letter from me, with the legal advice that I may take their house, or whatever property they have.

  So I’m not exactly the kind of guy who believes that people should take intellectual property and steal it, and use it, and make money from it. The cool thing about this film is that it talks about somebody who has done just that, but he’s done it as art. But there came a point at which it crossed over into commerce. When I found out about this film at SXSW, I thought this would be a great introduction to the conference we’re doing in August…

  [Tripp describes his conference.]

  Phil Tripp – Managing Partner, IMMEDIA!:

  I think this is the most exciting time for you people to be in the music business, because although the recording industry has gone to shit, the music business is actually doing pretty well. Especially for the live side of music, or new revenue streams though mobile phone companies, or through internet sites, and also through the future of what will evolve.

  Anyway, I hope you enjoy the film tonight. I hope it makes you think. I hope you realise that there is the commerce of music, and there is the art of music. And the two don’t necessarily mix. Unless you’re going to make money and also share the money you make with the people that actually created it originally.

  [The film plays. Tripp then introduces the panel speakers.]

  Paul Paoliello – CEO, Mercury Mobility
  Rick Chazan – Manager, The Boat People
  Lars Brandle – Australasian Editor, Billboard Magazine
  Steve Bell – Editor, Time Off

  [The panel discussion begins.]

  [Tripp describes local initiatives to help Australian artists export their work nationally and overseas.]

  Phil Tripp – Managing Partner, IMMEDIA!:

  […]There’s another group called Sounds Australia, which this year helped Australian artists so that they were able to afford to attend SXSW and The Great Escape [Andrew’s note: Sounds Australia also appears to be run by Tripp.]. And there’s AusTrade, the Australian Trade Commission, which has been one of the greatest evangelists for Australian music from our Government in a long time. The Australia Council [For The Arts] has just this year got on board, after supporting the works of dead composers for many years, and forms of music called ‘opera’, ‘classical’ and ‘symphonic’.

  This year, it’s cool to be contemporary. They have put considerable money behind the need to take Australian artists to the world. Because, let’s face it, kids: you’re not gonna ‘make it’ here. You’re not gonna make enough money in this country, at this point, to actually have a living. So you need to have an export strategy.

  [The panellists discuss their thoughts and opinions on the film. I didn’t transcribe this bit.]

  Phil Tripp – Managing Partner, IMMEDIA!:

  Rick, I want you to tell us – because you have a relatively successful band here, out of Brisbane – have you made any money from mobile music? And if so, how?

  Rick Chazan – Manager, The Boat People [pictured right]:

  As far as music mobile for The Boat People is concerned, it’s been an area which we really haven’t pursued. It’s one of those things that’s on the radar; everybody’s saying that this is the way in which it’s going to take over, and that everyone is going to be consuming music through their mobile phone. We’re well aware of that, but my understanding is that it’s very much a media that’s beginning, and as Paul described, it’s going to be dominated by what’s in the charts. Our music is distributed through Shock, and so Shock is working with different distributors who will likely make our music available on mobile platforms. But our mobile music income at this stage is negligible. And I’m not sure whether it will become relevant for us.

  Phil Tripp – Managing Partner, IMMEDIA!:

  Okay, what about iTunes?

  Rick Chazan – Manager, The Boat People:

  We work as an independent band with IODA, who is an aggregator for digital music. So our music is distributed by them internationally. In Australia, it’s through Shock. In terms of digital sales, our experience is that 80-90% of our digital sales are through iTunes. We’re on Napster and Rhapsody and all the different sites that exist, but iTunes is where the vast majority of sales come through. Digital is fantastic: it means that you’re very mobile, very agile, and it means that the band can be everywhere at once in the world very quickly. But it’s really the same game as it always was: “how do you sell records?” “How you sell digital?” And you need to be able to promote [the product]. Our sales internationally have happened through traditional means; namely, radio. In the US, we’ve had a good run with radio – we’re currently on about 20 stations, so we’ve had a lot of support – and when that happened, our digital sales on iTunes spiked considerably, and they’ve been growing since.

  Phil Tripp – Managing Partner, IMMEDIA!:

  What about YouTube?

  Rick Chazan – Manager, The Boat People:

  This is an area which is very close to my heart, because I think there’s such a great opportunity for bands to have an incredible reach by doing something very inexpensively. The Boat People tried to do something smart, and it didn’t quite work (laughs) We created a film clip for Awkward Orchid Orchard, where within the clip, there are clues for 54 band names, from The Beatles, to The Shins, to The Boat People. So we thought this’d be a fun game for any music nerd, and they’d share it with their friends. And it worked to some degree – we’ve had 20,000 hits, whereas our previous clip had about 5,000 – so it’s kind of worked.

  But there’s a Brisbane band called Blame Ringo, who’re pretty unknown. The band had an idea to shoot a film clip, where they got a friend to go to Abbey Road and shoot at the pedestrian crossing, to capture how people mimic The Beatles album cover. They cut a few pieces out of that and created a clip from their three hours of footage, and it put it up on YouTube using a few Beatles keywords, and in a few weeks they got, I think, around half a million hits. They had an interview on Weekend Sunrise, and they got a call from a US national TV show. This is a band that had absolutely nothing going on! This is staggering. YouTube is a fascinating tool, which if people are creative and thinking, they can use to give themselves a real ‘leg up’.

  Lars Brandle – Australasian Editor, Billboard Magazine [pictured right]:

  That’s just making me think; going back to the movie, there was that comment about how the future of music will be less creative, because of the locks that are being put on copyright. But here’s this band, Blame Ringo, who have just shown us that if you’ve got a good idea, and if you can follow it through, and make it happen on a world stage. The technology’s in your hands. You don’t have to grab someone else’s inspiration, and rework that; if you’ve got an idea in your head, then you’ve got the tools to make it happen. So I don’t agree with that comment, that ‘the future will be less creative’. I think that’s wrong.

  Phil Tripp – Managing Partner, IMMEDIA!:

  Rick, how has your band been ripped off digitally? Have you got any stories of how you’ve discovered some copyright infringement?

  Rick Chazan – Manager, The Boat People:

  No, but we’re looking forward to when it happens (laughs) Nothing’s really happened like that for us, at this stage. I don’t think we’re quite famous enough to be ripped off at this particular point.

  Phil Tripp – Managing Partner, IMMEDIA!:

  You don’t have to be famous to be ripped off. You know what happened to me? Our music directory is online, and some people will subscribe to it and then they’ll pull down all the information. And we’ll find it, because we have little bots that search. We get people all the time who take our information and put it up on their website, like they’re creating a new music directory and giving it away for free. Man, I have had so much fun with them. There is a publisher named Deke Miskin who has a big house on the harbour. And Deke had some stupid intern take my information and put it in another magazine. We found it on the newsstand; I called him and said “Deke, guess what? It’s settlement time. Violation of copyright. You are now on notice. Do you want to go to court? Would you like me to shame you in the Sunday papers?” And rather than do that, Deke, being the man of honour that he was, paid me a whole bunch of money to shut the eff up. And then he withdrew the title from circulation. It was one of those little “how to get into the music business” mini-magazines, for suckers, for $6.95.

  Now, you’re in the magazine business, Steve. You’re in the new age of finding out that the print medium is being shot to shit, while the internet has everything for free. However, I must say that I do a lot of work with Street Press Australia; they’re one of our conference sponsors. What I find interesting is when Leigh Treweek [of Street Press Australia] spoke for this event in Perth and Melbourne, he talked about the whole idea of branding, and how his publications and street press in general is not going away anytime soon. He also gave some very interesting stories of how bands become brands. How do you see the internet affecting you, as a street press publication, and what are some of the more innovative ways that musicians can use your medium to push themselves ahead?

  Steve Bell – Editor, Time Off [pictured right]:

  Well, there’s no doubt that the dissemination of information is definitely changing. We’d be fools to not realise that. We haven’t rushed into a web presence. I mean, we’ve got websites and stuff, but they’re just sort of token for the moment. We’re trying to work out the best model for going forward, and what it’s going to entail. We’ve spoken to a lot of people, we’ve actually hooked up some meetings with Craig Treweek, Leigh’s brother, this week in Sydney with some friends of mine who’ve got some really interesting ideas on the future of the web. It’s moving so fast; it’s very difficult to really work out. There’s no black or white.

  So we are very aware of it, but we’re sort of playing it by ear, because there’s no certainty as to the future. But we do realise that all the interviews Time Off has done are a resource. And by just letting them go each week, and not accumulating them into some kind of archive, we are, down the track, burning ourselves. We should be putting this together and using it as the resource that it is. At the moment we’re not; it’s just going into the paper each week, and becoming landfill, or whatever happens to it. We are addressing it, but it’s still in the infancy stages, I guess you’d say! (laughs)

  In terms of bands using us, probably the first thing that comes to mind is Savage Garden meeting through our classifieds, so there’s still that old sort of model. Don’t blame us for that! But the street press is just a different form of exposure. It’s one of many that you use. I can’t think of any real examples.

  Phil Tripp – Managing Partner, IMMEDIA!:

  What about brands using street press to push themselves forward to another level, like Chupa-Chups, for example, going onto MySpace? What sort of brands have done anything innovative with you in the last year that you can think of, and use as an example?

  Steve Bell – Editor, Time Off:

  Because it didn’t work very well, I can’t think of the company, but there was a media company that put a DVD on the front of an issue, who paid quite a bit of money to.. you know, often there’s things like that. Companies will use us as a way of disseminating their product, or samples, just because of our distribution channels. But that’s not really using our brand as such, it’s more using our pickup at various locations. Do you have anything in mind? I’m struggling to think of anything.

  [Tripp describes one of his magazines, Urban Animal, to the audience.]

  Phil Tripp – Managing Partner, IMMEDIA!:

  Lars, where do you see the future of the music industry here in Australia, and overseas?

  Lars Brandle – Australasian Editor, Billboard Magazine:

  Well, it’s the million dollar question, isn’t it? As a kind of segue to what you were just saying about the pet industry, and how “you can’t download dog food”; the one really, really strong point of the music industry in the last couple of years has been the live business. The reason why the live business is so hot is because people love to see bands, and you can’t steal a live performance. Unless you dig a hole under the fence at a concert, you can’t actually rip it off. So live performance has been booming. It’s absolutely been soaring in recent years. The future of the record industry, now, we are seeing the major record labels trying their hand at getting into the live business, because they realise, “hey, we’re kind of screwed here”. Revenues in the last ten years have dropped a lot, so to safeguard their future, the big labels are looking at investing in companies involved in live music. Or going out alone.

  In a way it’s desperate, because the record companies don’t have expertise in the live music business. There’s a lot of ‘shyster’-ing that goes on in the live business, and the record labels don’t really know this. They don’t know that sector of business so well. We’re going to see a lot of jostling in that space over the next couple of years.

  Sony Music are the first of the four Australian majors that have declared their attention to have a go; they’ve created a touring division. They’re co-promoting Simon & Garfunkel. Huge tour; there’ll be a lot of money on the table. If tickets don’t sell out for this, I’m sure that Sony Music will lose a lot of money. They will get their fingers burned, because it’s a tough business and they’re playing with some real sharks. Those Simon & Garfunkel world tour dates have only been announced in Australia so far, so the world will be watching here first.

  To date, the tickets haven’t sold out. We’re in tough economic times. No-one really knows if they want to see Simon & Garfunkel, either, or whether they can still ‘cut it’. It’s really interesting. From a journalist’s point of view, I’m interested to see how this goes, because for me, that is the obvious route that record companies will take – entering the live business – because live is hot.

  Digital.. everyone’s been talking about digital for ten years. Of course, we saw how the RIAA clamped down stupidly on Americans, in particular, but the international recording industry have done the same thing in issuing lawsuits against downloaders. It was a bone-headed thing to do, but they were desperate to get a handle on control of the dissemination of music. Now, the record labels are so far behind the game, they have to catch up. They’re also getting into bed with technology firms, and they have to. They have to get wise to the digital environment, because that certainly is the way forward.

  We’re not there yet. Digital music in Australia accounts for, I think, about fifteen percent of album sales, so it’s really ‘small beer’. Those headlines you read about “CDs are finished, it’s all about digital” – that’s not right. We’re still looking at 85% of record sales in Australia comprising CDs; although it’ll ebb away in time, we don’t know when. In a nutshell – and I’ve rambled on – the future is certainly going to be a strong live business. We don’t know if it’s peaked yet, and I suppose that it hasn’t. And digital will be the way forward, but it’s not here yet. But the record labels have a lot to learn.

  Phil Tripp – Managing Partner, IMMEDIA!:

  Two comments. Gregg Donovan, who is the manager of Airbourne, Josh Pyke, Grinspoon and a few other bands, talked at our seminar in Sydney about how he had been approached by major multinational record companies who wanted to do ‘360 deals‘ with some of his artists. For those of you who don’t know what that is, a 360 deal is where a record company wants to act as the manager, the touring promoter, the agent, the merchandiser, the publisher; essentially, everything.

  And Gregg went to them and say, “okay, I’ll tell you what”, to this American record company. “Let me see your t-shirts. Where are your t-shirts? You manufacture t-shirts? You’re a merchandising company? Take me to your t-shirt factory.” And of course, they couldn’t, so he said “no deal there”. And then he asked, “you have management? You have a management company within the label?” And they replied, “oh, no, but we’re getting it…” Gregg said, “no”. What happened here was Sony, aside from setting up a touring division, they also bought half of that doofus from Australian Idol, Paul Caplice [Andrew’s note: I can’t find this name online. Maybe I can’t spell it.] and David Champion, who I call “tweedle-dumb” and “tweedle-dumber”. They bought into this, and they found out that it’s a very expensive job that you have ahead of you, if you have incompetence running the management side of a record company. It’s actually very funny to watch from the outside.

  And I’ll make one more comment on what you said, Lars. Yes, digital is only fifteen, maybe twenty percent of revenue in our industry, but every download sale is a sale without physical product. Most albums print out a thousand for every hundred they sell. And it takes about ten or twelve failures for one success. So although physical product is selling more, it’s also destroying more. It’s being given away, it’s been put into landfill et cetera, because you can only buy it in a record store eight hours a day. With digital, you can buy it 24/7. Steve, tell us, where do you think it’s going?

  Steve Bell – Editor, Time Off:

  I guess it ties in with what you were saying about 360 deals. For the last ten or so years, most bands have changed the way they’ve approached revenue streams. I used to run TSP, the t-shirt printers, [who are] one of the biggest merch companies in Australia. We used to represent big overseas touring bands – Green Day, Foo Fighters, Chili Peppers, Nine Inch Nails, Tool, what have you. The amount of money that we’d make out of any given show out at Boondall (Brisbane’s Entertainment Centre), and I’d see the figures for the whole Australian tours, while knowing the costs of this stuff, it was quite remarkable. There was a fad of punk kids wanting to buy those fuzzy wristbands, which were selling for around $15 at shows, and I think if you make them in bulk they cost around 8 cents per unit.

  So bands who are focussing on touring, and merchandising, and the different revenues that come with that are changing their approach to recorded music. Instead of being a cash cow itself, it’s become a way of drawing attention to the band and their different revenue streams. I mean, they still want to make money from it, of course. But I think the one certainty is that there’s always going to be a market for music. People still want to create, and there’s obviously all of us here tonight as music fans. It’s just going to be a matter of how it’s disseminated, and how it’s received. I think it’s exciting, really, that all these new models are out there, and bands are discovering that they don’t need to spend so much money to make great music. I still interview a lot of bands, though, and more often than not, they’re not spending five months in a studio, they’re doing the bulk of it at home. Costs are going down, and there’s going to be a lot of changes down the track, but I think it’s a really exciting time. Music’s going to flourish, despite what the nay-sayers say.

  Rick Chazan – Manager, The Boat People:

  The future of music.. I don’t know, of course. But as a manager trying to help artists to flourish and survive in their careers, it’s quite true that the recording income from CD and digital sales are one or two income streams, but there’s maybe 15 or 20 income streams that flow from the recording. So how you look at it commercially is an interesting question. There is no need to despair in that sense: it’s always been tough, it’s still tough and it will be tough to make a sustainable career as an artist, but the fact that there’s a decrease in recording income shouldn’t be such a big problem.

  One of the opportunities which is here now is, because of the internet, and MySpace, and Facebook et cetera, is the ability to create communities around your band. And this suits some bands better than others, but I think it’s worth thinking about. A great example is a Brisbane band called The Red Paintings, who I’m sure you all know. One of the strong things about the band, outside of the music, is that Trash, the band leader, has a very defined, strong philosophy of what the entire act is about. And I think that’s very interesting. He understands it so well that when he talks to you, you’ll get it when speaking with him for two minutes. I spoke to him briefly on a telephone call and he explained to me that, with his live shows, the philosophy is that it’s about being able to express yourself creatively and freely, without hurting anybody. So that’s the essence behind his whole live show. When you go to a Red Paintings show, you’re allowed to paint, and have a lot of fun, and do things that you’re not allowed to do normally, but you can do it at a Red Paintings show.

  Now, with that, he’s actually developed a community of people that subscribe to more than just the music. They subscribe to this philosophy that he’s espousing. I don’t know if you know this, but for his last record, he put out to his fans that if they put in $40, they’d get their name on the CD. So a thousand people theoretically put in $40, and he raised $40,000 to fund his own CD independently through that. [Andrew’s note: individuum‘s Academy Of Dreams sponsored $25,000 of the $40,000 total]. I think that’s just something to think about: you [the musician] have the ability to create a community.

  The other thing that’s interesting is that the notion of status in our society is changing a lot. Status symbols used to be – I read this is a Sunday Mail article, so I don’t know how great of a reference it is – it used to be that if you had a gold Rolex watch, or a great house, that was a status that people would care about, that you’d show off to your friends. Now I think what’s happening is that status is more about the experiences that you have, and the ones that you can talk about. So if you went on a spaceship to the moon to have a party with U2, that would be something that would impress your friends, if you see what I mean.

  I think that what’s happening with festivals, why they’re succeeding so much, is that it’s not just about the music, it’s because you’ve got to tell your mates that you went to Big Day Out, or you went to Splendour [In The Grass]. It’s like a badge of honour. I think the other thing to keep thinking about is how you can create something that gives people that sense of good feeling that they experience.

  Phil Tripp – Managing Partner, IMMEDIA!:

  Please don’t tell me that you think the future is frickin’ Twitter. Paul, where do you see the future of music going?

  Paul Paoliello – CEO, Mercury Mobility [pictured right]:

  Obviously, the barrier to entry to the music industry these days is a lot lower due to technology. Anybody can get into the business, but the bottom line is still around creativity. You cut through in this industry via your creativity. If you have something special musically, it’s going to cut through, but also in terms of reaching your fans; these days, it is about getting creative around building those communities, as the other guys have been saying. So the approach to this business, or career that you take, or this art form that you’ve embraced around music – it is more of a business, and you have to embrace it. Because it is so complex.

  The exciting thing is that you can take a more ‘do it yourself’ approach with music. There are many tools out there that enable you to create music, and to connect with a fanbase. And to monetise your music, whether it is, as Rick said, coming up with an interesting concept to get your fans to help you fund an album, build an album, sell a download, build a mobile community, or whether you want to get your music on iTunes. There is no barrier to entry to getting a sales channel for your music, these days, but it really does come down to being a lot more savvy around the music industry, and how to build a career around it. And as you go, to build up as much leverage as you can around your intellectual property – your music and all the things associated around it – and obviously, the multiple revenue streams that you are driving from your music. Whether it’s your recordings, or your t-shirts, your whatever; the more leverage you have, I guess that becomes the enabler for your future relationships with the broader industry. And that’s when the major record companies come along, and they start knocking on your door, and you’re in a stronger position to decide whether you want to work with them or not.

  These days, they [major labels] are really the bank that you need to make a big hit bigger, or a big business bigger. As the guys were saying, the major record companies are trying to keep themselves afloat, so they are trying to grab hold of what everybody’s calling the 360 elements of the industry. But they don’t necessarily have the skill set, or they, like everybody else, try to get fewer people to do more work, with less skills. So it becomes a lot tougher. But if you are driving those revenue streams, and if you are in a lead position, then you are in a much stronger position to determine whether that relationship works for you, on a 360 basis. Or whether it is only 270, or 90, or 10 [degrees].

  And I guess, having left the music industry in its tradition form and gone into mobile, my feeling was that getting into digital, I needed to build my skill set around this ‘brave new world’ that digital and mobile is becoming. In the last couple of years, as Lars was saying, it really is the tip of the iceberg. As Lars was saying, it hasn’t matured in any way, shape or form. Digital is very much driven by iTunes. Mobile is very much driven by the iPhone. And with the new application landscape, it is driving what mobile is essentially going to become. And that’s the exciting part. That access to music on-the-go, and having a device that is going to be all things to you.

  Phil Tripp – Managing Partner, IMMEDIA!:

  Okay, I’ve got to tell you that the future of music will have a lot to do with mobile handset manufacturers. I’d like to share my vision on the future of music with you, from an old fart who’s been around in the industry for 38 years. 38 years ago, when I got out of the drug trade – I mean when I got out of the fine stone trade – I was living in a small place in Atlanta, Georgia, on 14th Street, which was about one block away from Piedmont Park. One Sunday, when I woke up at about one o’clock in the afternoon, I heard this great music. I heard a guitar playing like I’d never heard, and two drummers. I walked down to the park, and there they were, in the gazebo: The Allman Brothers Band.

  They were playing every Sunday, live, free, and they were building a music community, at that time. That was almost forty years ago, and they’d been going for two years prior to that. When I was in the States last at SXSW, they did a run of the Beacon Theater in New York. They do it every year, maybe ten shows, over a two week period. And they sell out instantly, because they’ve maintained that community over many years. People believe in them, people who know their brand, wear their t-shirt, buy every single live album they ever do; they buy anything. There’s even a magazine devoted to them, called Hittin’ The Note.

  The future of music is this. I’ve experienced it and I love it. I buy music, I don’t download stuff for free. I don’t want worms, and all that other stuff [Andrew’s note: he is referring to viruses]. I want either FLAC lossless, or I want 256k downloads. And I’m not going to be getting that from all of my iTunes purchases. I don’t purchase here. I don’t mind saying it: I don’t buy Australian music. Most Australian music is for you people, the younger people. The last Australian band I bought was The Greencards. I have four of their albums. Most of you wouldn’t think of them as Australian music, you’d call it ‘bluegrass’.

  Truth of the matter is, I buy about $5,000 of music each year, and it’s not just iTunes. I would love for you to go home tonight and go to a place called Munck Music [munckmusic.com]. It’s based in the US, and created by a producer and an engineer who believe that if they recorded bands and offered their live music for sale to their fanbase, they could make a lot of money. Especially if like, Little Feat, they have a hundred concerts out there. Bruce Hornsby has about 50; the entire New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival has a couple of a hundred shows by artists up there. The Grateful Dead, and others [do too], including The Allman Brothers Band.

  I’ve purchased probably 20 Allman Brothers concerts, 20 Little Feat concerts, 10 Bruce Hornsby concerts, and you can get them one of three ways. CD: $14 (USD) for a concert, usually three hours’ worth. Secondly: as a 256k download. You can sample the music, you can view the setlist, so you can see and hear what you’re going to get. You can also get it as in the FLAC lossless file format, which means that it’s not ‘2 per cent milk’, like MP3s are; it’s more like ‘full-cream milk’. It takes a long time to load, and you better have a big account for it, and a large storage device. However, these bands have made a fortune from selling their own music to their own fanbase. And they also go on cruise ships, and take their fans around to Jamaica, or up and down the Mexican coast, or through the Caribbean, doing nothing but cruise ship shows, full of fans.

  The other place you’ve got to go is called Moogis [moogis.com]. It was started by The Allman Brothers’ drummer, Butch Trucks, who had an idea that when technology and downloads could meet the need for video and audio to be compressed reasonably, and give high quality, then that would be the time for a band to be able to sell a subscription to their six months of concerts, for users to pay $100 to see that show as much as they want. With backstage footage, various camera angles, and the full concert, in high definition, and with high quality audio. So Butch and the band started selling that, and I don’t know how much they’ve sold, but it’s worked for them. They’ve done extremely well.

  But to me, and you, the future of music is being able to create a brand with your band. Create an audience, and keep them as a community. Don’t ever lose that community you have ‘back home’, just because you want to go overseas and make it rich. The day you lose that is when you lose your career. [The future is] Selling your music directly to your community in any form you can, and especially if you’ve got a great song, selling it to them in ten different ways. Extended ways, mixed ways, whatever.

  The future of music is going to be about you knowing the business of music, too. Because without the business and the understanding of copyright, commerce, and a lot of other issues, you’re not going to be able to succeed. So I suggest that you line my pockets by coming to my conference, in August, because my future of music is dependent on you, too.

  The future of music of music for you [the audience] is this: get a job. Work with people who inspire you, and pay you fairly. And can give you the opportunity to do things. Don’t necessarily work for free, but ask lots of questions, take lots of notes. Watch, observe, and above all, be honest.

  What we want to do now, because you’ve been such a great audience, we want to answer any question you’ve got about the music business, or anything else you’ve got.

  Paul Paoliello – CEO, Mercury Mobility:

  Phil, just one thing. Google ‘Trent Reznor‘, because there was a case study that was done earlier this year at Midem, the music conference at Cannes that they have each year. They studied Reznor, who basically decided to revive his career, and looked at the whole digital model, and did a combination of offering his albums for free, offering limited editions, box sets, digital versions, hiding USB sticks at concerts, special versions hidden in storage drains as a treasure hunt based off his website. It’s a really interesting case study who is interested in trying to enable their fans, and keep their fanbase loyal, and building around that model.

  Phil Tripp – Managing Partner, IMMEDIA!:

  Music should always be about discovery. Questions, please.

  [Audience Q&A section commences. It comprises four questions and is fifteen minutes in duration.]

  Question 1: Just on Trent Reznor – if you look up a Digg interview with him, he talks about his entire business model, and it’s fascinating. My question is regards to copyright law: what do you think the future is going to be? How are copyright owners going to enforce their copyright? Will it go more toward the Creative Commons?

  Phil Tripp – Managing Partner, IMMEDIA!:

  They can take my copyright pen out of my dead hand, clutching it to the very bitter end. I’m gonna fight for copyright. Look, I have intellectual property. It’s boring, but it’s very lucrative, and my intellectual property has nothing to do with songs. I think copyright will continue to evolve, but unfortunately it will evolve very slowly, and far behind the ability for people to steal. Just like they haven’t figured out a way to stop people shoplifting yet, have they. Paul?

  Paul Paoliello – CEO, Mercury Mobility:

  Yeah, I was just going to say the same thing. The minute you open that door, the floodgates open, so they’ll never be able to move with the times. Country by country, it’s going to be different. That’s where a lot of the ISPs are getting frustrated, the Yahoos and Googles of the world, because they’re saying “well, cross-border, we’re trying to do this as a global thing, to try and clear copyright across borders, but we just can’t do it”. It’s still remaining territorial. Some territories are going to be more open to change than others. Here in Australia, they’ve been trying to change the law the for a while, and the cogs are still turning.

  Lars Brandle – Australasian Editor, Billboard Magazine:

  I’ll jump in here. I think that Creative Commons is a wonderful opt-in solution for people who want to allow anyone to use copyright. When the music industry initially shut down Napster, we saw Lars Ulrich speaking on the movie earlier. He made himself an enemy to a lot of people worldwide who wanted to use Napster to disseminate their music. So that a kid in Atlanta could be heard by someone in Peru. There are now platforms which allow you to do that, but I think that Creative Commons underwrites that, and enables people to create that copyright.

  But coming right back, absolutely, I don’t think copyright rules will change any quicker than snail’s pace, but anyone who has a vision and wants to create, should have the right to patent it and receive royalties, at least while they’re walking on this planet.

  Question 2: Do any of you have any concept – because I know it’s variable – just roughly what artists are getting percentage-wise for music downloads? Is there some ballpark figure to get ideas?

  Rick Chazan – Manager, The Boat People:

  If you sell music on iTunes, they’ll take their cut, which is 30%. And then the distributor will take their cut – typically between 20-25%. And then the artist gets the rest, so in the case of an iTunes sale, the artist will receive 70 or 80 cents per song. Which is actually quite good, because there’s nothing physical that’s being created, and you’re getting this invisible sale. The latest statistics show that only 5% of music online is bought, and the other 95% is ‘taken’.

  Lars Brandle – Australasian Editor, Billboard Magazine:

  We also have to look around at other ways of generating alternative revenue streams. There’s a fascinating case going on at the moment with YouTube, the user-generated content platform, and some of the major record labels who’ve nixed any of their content that’s available on YouTube. Warner Music‘s one of them. So we’re looking at transactions on iTunes as one way to make money, but in the years ahead, if your music is being used on these user-generated content platforms, you ought to – in theory – earn a cut of advertising revenue on that platform. This space is changing; there is money to be collected out there, but it gets very confusing, and very complex.

  Paul Paoliello – CEO, Mercury Mobility:

  Just on that, Gavin from Sony BMG often quotes a Justin Timberlake cases. When they brought out his last album, they found about 120 revenue streams for that album, at last count. So from a ringtone to a full track download, to a YouTube revenue stream, to an online radio stream, to a CD sale, and so forth, there was 120 different revenue streams, for that one release. And that was a couple of years ago, so these days, it’s probably even greater.

  Phil Tripp – Managing Partner, IMMEDIA!:

  The other side of the equation is – to answer your question more directly – it depends on how smart or stupid you’re going to be in assigning your music to someone to sell it. We use the term ‘aggregator’; these are people who take your music and place it on a variety of different sale sites. Some of them take a very small amount, such as Tunecore, who charge a flat fee to put the music up; they don’t take a percentage. Whereas others charge large fees and take large percentages, and don’t necessarily always report to you. There’s CDBaby, for example, which has been around for a while, and IODA, and Amphead.. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend the Australian alternative. The Orchard.. I’m ambivalent [toward them]. But the thing is, there’s a lot of people waiting to rip you off, just like there was with the compilation scams of many years ago. “Get yourself on a CD that we send around to all the A&R people, for a fee.” Be very aware that if people are trying to charge you a fee to put your music up on iTunes or wherever, you should very carefully check into them. Fortunately, it’s a lot easier these days to find out.

  Question 3: Something the film didn’t really didn’t cover is the role of the ISPs. I know from conversations that I’ve had with people from APRA, and that sort of thing, that they are trying to negotiate with ISPs to come up with a solution to this. What are your thoughts on the role of the ISPs in Australia?

  Lars Brandle – Australasian Editor, Billboard Magazine:

  We understanding of the argument is that ISPs are the ones who are getting the benefit of all the music being there – people going there [online], and getting free music – and of course the ISPs are getting their subscription. And the value of that subscription is incredibly valuable, given that you can get a whole lot of free music by going online. One solution that’s being offered up is that the ISPs are forced, in some ways, through some legislative creation, to track all of the downloads, including the free ones, and somehow compensate the artists. Similarly to the way APRA does, through the form of either radio or live [performance royalty fees]. This is just one of the possible solutions that are there; whether it will go down that way, is questionable.

  Phil Tripp – Managing Partner, IMMEDIA!:

  APRA is a great organisation that has done an incredible amount for the music industry, from bringing court cases and seeking judgements from tribunals, and increasing the amount of money that is paid to the composers, the songwriters, and their publishers. It’s a shame that the PPCA [Phonographic Performance Company of Australia] and ARIA [Australian Recording Industry Association] haven’t had the vision, the forethought, or the ability to do much more than ‘sweet FA’. As a result, fortunately, composers, songwriters and their publishers get paid. Artists often do not. And one of the interesting points that’s raised about this is that with all that money that was awarded to the record industry on the Kazaa case, the $54 million: artists didn’t see that money, and they won’t ever. One more question.

  Question 4: Okay, just before when you were talking about the royalties, about how artists generally get nothing, and where they’re making their money is through live performance.. why should we really care that we’re downloading their music for free, and giving it to other people? I would not know half of the artists that I know through free downloads, if it wasn’t available to me for free, because I wouldn’t be able to afford to go out to the stores and buy it.

  So in essence, when I’m giving all my free downloads to my friends, and the ‘word of mouth’ thing is working, and we’re all going out to the live performance when they come to town, and there’s more requests for them to play because we’ve had that whole word of mouth.. why should we really care if we’re really giving our money back to our artists anyway? Aren’t we kind of bypassing giving our money to the corporations and the record labels, by not buying their CDs?

  Phil Tripp – Managing Partner, IMMEDIA!:

  I heard it best said that “you may consider yourself to be an auto-enthusiast, because you like fast cars. But when you decide to steal that car, you are a thief.” And it’s not necessarily going to enrich General Motors, Porsche, or whatever, that you decided to steal that car. Now, what you just said made a lot of sense. A lot of people who download music do buy it. They do discover it that way. However, I really don’t believe that people like you are gonna be that generous when it comes to actually paying for things.

  Now, the same people who download music [for free] are the same people who try to get into clubs for free – get on the ‘free list’ – and stand outside the fence at Splendour In The Grass. The same sort of people who want to wear a phony t-shirt of a band, because it costs a lot less than the real thing. I do take your point that you are trying to discover music, and hopefully it [Andrew’s note: money, presumably] will reach the band. But I’ve been in this business a long time. I don’t see anybody out there who does ‘sonic shoplifting’ that really thinks altruistically about ‘the brothers’ in the bands.

  Rick Chazan – Manager, The Boat People:

  I agree, and I’ll add to that. What you’re saying is that it’s actually not bad for the bands, because by allowing it to be free, you’re actually discovering the bands and therefore, you can love them and maybe go and see a live show, et cetera. And so you’re saying therefore, it’s okay. But it’s got to be the artist’s choice that it happens that way. You’re still taking something which they’ve created and paid for, and put time and work into, like anybody doing anything. And for example, you might discover that music on MySpace, which the artist chooses to allow to be free; [to be] streamed, not to be stolen of off. You can learn about the artist through five or six songs; I know in The Boat People’s case, we’ve got five or six songs up there from the last two albums, so there’s a bit of a mix to get to know the band. You could listen to it all day long, and get to know the band, and want to go and see them live. And if you loved them enough, you’d actually have to have that CD.

  As an independent band, we’re losing that opportunity, and I don’t see it [inaudible]. I’d hate to come across as a moralist, but I have a problem that what’s being lost in the whole conversation is that it’s now being said that, because it’s easy to do, and everybody’s doing it, it’s ‘okay’. So it’s like, nobody’s saying to a young person, “look, this person actually toiled, they put their work into it, their effort into it, therefore they actually have value in it, and therefore to enjoy that, you need to actually trade for it”.

  Now it’s being said that because it’s so easy and because it’s so bloody hard to do anything about it, it’s ‘okay’. So, to me it’s not all about criminalisation, because I think that’s a waste of time, to sue some individual teenager for downloading a song. But it’s more about conscience. It’s more about, you know, when they asked the people in the movie, “who downloads music for free?” and all of their hands went up, and then they asked, “who thinks they stole the music?”, or did something wrong, and it was only one out of a hundred.

  See, I know about this a lot better than anyone, because when I was a teenager I used to record tapes. I used to do that, because I really wanted the music [from the radio], and I didn’t have enough money to get it. But I knew that it was wrong, and I did feel a little bit like my conscience was saying “this is not quite right”. I feel that we’re eventually going to the lose the consciousness of taking something from another person, and that’s the part that disturbs me.

  Phil Tripp – Managing Partner, IMMEDIA!:

  Great, that was perfect. I have one other thing to say. It’s kind of like: if you think you can get somebody drunk enough at a bar that they’ll screw you because they have no more control over themselves, that’s about the same way that I equate the moral ability to download music. Because you think you’re going to give somebody else a good time. That was a good one, wasn’t it? (laughs)

  [Audience Q&A session ends.]

  Download Phil Tripp’s introductory speech
  Download the panel discussion (I transcribed from 26th minute until the 67th minute)
  Download the Q&A session

  The film will screen in Brisbane at UQ‘s Schonell Theatre from June 4, 2009.

  8 Comments / Music Journalism / Andrew McMillen

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