All posts tagged triple

  • Rolling Stone story: ‘The Discovery Channel: triple j’s power over Australian music’, December 2011

    A feature story published in the January 2012 issue of Rolling Stone Australia, under the ‘National Affairs’ banner.

    Click the below image for a closer look, or read the article text underneath.

    National Affairs: The Discovery Channel
    Is triple j’s power over Australian music being used for good, or evil?

    by Andrew McMillen. Illustration by Andrea Innocent

    In many ways, triple j studios – located on the third level of the cavernous ABC building on Harris Street, in inner Sydney – also functions as the central nervous system of the Australian music industry. On any given day, hundreds of thousands of listeners across the country are tuned in. Label owners, promoters, publicists and musicians follow the station with relentless fascination, as its playlist and musical preferences can literally make, delay, or break careers in the notoriously fickle music business.

    For decades, since the national broadcaster’s inception in August 1980, triple j has continued to grow: in terms of staff numbers, audience popularity and, as a direct result, cultural influence. With great power comes great responsibility. As triple j continues to slowly evolve into a gangly octopus whose arms now extend far beyond its initial radio habitat into print media, significant online networking, year-round event promotion, and – with the October launch of a standalone Unearthed station – digital radio, it’s worth taking a magnifying glass to the station’s many activities to examine whether their great power is being used for good or evil.

    Two senses are immediately pricked entering triple j studios: the eyes are met with bloody red walls contrasting against innocuous whites, and the ears latch onto the sounds of triple j being piped through the station’s corridors, while Zan Rowe broadcasts her morning show live to air just a few metres away. Station manager Chris Scaddan strolls past their huge music library to his corner office. His coffee table is stacked with months’ worth of printed music media: street press, monthlies, international imports. A recent issue of triple j magazine sits conspicuously atop the pile.

    He turns down the live broadcast to a quiet gurgle as he considers a question: how would he describe triple j to someone who’d never heard it before?

    “It’s uniquely Australian,” Scaddan says. “We’re about new music; mainly, new Australian music. We’re targeted at 18-24 year-olds, so we’re here for young Australians. We play diverse styles of music; we’re independent and non-commercial, which is important. At this point, we’re a brand that reaches across quite a few different platforms. We’re our audience as much as anything, as well. We’re really in touch with our listeners, and we hope that what we’re doing is reflecting and inspiring what they want, and what they want to listen to, and what they want to know about.”

    Eight minutes into the interview, in response to a question about whether triple j’s support is crucial to the success of Australian bands on a national scale, he cites a recently discovered statistic that he’s clearly very proud of: in October 2011, the station posted audience figures of 1.5 million in the five capital cities (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide).

    “At the moment, we’ve got as many people listening as we ever have. But are we crucial to a band’s success? I don’t think so,” Scaddan says. “Certainly we’re a national broadcaster, and we’ve got a really strong audience. I wouldn’t say it’s crucial to whether you make it or don’t. There are so many different ways that you can find a career or an audience through the Australian music industry. There’s so many examples of bands who may not have been played by triple j who are doing just fine.”

    “Just fine” is a relative term, of course. For every Art Vs Science, Boy & Bear or Washington playing to thousands-strong crowds on the national stage, there are dozens – perhaps hundreds – of acts across Australia who enjoy strong support within their hometowns or capital cities, but struggle to make the jump to national notoriety without the nod from triple j. Does Scaddan find that bands get pissed off when they get told, ‘thanks, but no thanks’ in response to their latest release?

    “That does happen,” he replies. “That’s the nature of the business we’re all in. Just like artists who are pitching for articles in Rolling Stone and don’t get a mention get pissed off, and can’t understand it sometimes. It is really, really difficult. We’re always looking to try and find a really good balance of genres, of locations – nationwide, so we’re not just picking bands from Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane all the time.”

    “It’s difficult, and sometimes bands who want to get triple j airplay might not crack it on the playlist. That doesn’t mean they’re still not getting played in other ways on the station. They tune in and they’re not getting played as often as Gotye, or Florence + The Machine, and they think they should be. You just hope they can understand that there’s a limit to how much music can fit on the station and make it work.”

    Such programming decisions lie not with Scaddan, nor with music director Richard Kingsmill, but with the entire triple j staff. When Kingsmill is questioned – in jest – about whether he’s the most powerful man in Australian music, he practically explodes in exasperation from a couch positioned nearby the station’s carefully stacked CD collection.

    “It is not anywhere near the truth. It is just such a misconception to think this place isn’t a team of people,” Kingsmill says. “I have said this time and time again, and if people still think that I sit there and basically call all the shots, they are wrong. I can’t say it enough. This station is built on teamwork. It always has been. If you’ve got a bad framework, or teamwork vibe happening in this place, it shows on the other end of the radio. When we all work together, we get the results. It’s as simple as that.”

    ++

    What happens when your band wins the musical equivalent of the lottery, the triple j Unearthed slot to open the main stage of Splendour In The Grass? In 2011, the competition was won by Brisbane indie pop band Millions. Twenty-two-year-old drummer James Wright is being a little humble by equating the contest to a lottery: those rely on luck alone, not songwriting talent.

    Still, it’s curious to hear Wright honestly state Millions’ intentions upon forming in December 2010. “The entire objective of the band was using triple j to get where we want to go,” he says. A four-piece comprised of members from three Brisbane bands you’ve never heard of, Millions realised during their initial rehearsals that their sound might appeal to the national broadcaster.

    “There was the fleeting chance that, if we maybe more deliberately went towards the triple j sort of sound, in terms of being more accessible than our previous bands, then we might have a shot at actually doing some good, and getting played,” Wright says. “We didn’t exactly have high aspirations for it, but we were really happy with the two songs we’d written [at the time].”

    He says that Millions are “the exact opposite” of their previous bands, in that their path was “extremely thought through, to the point of calculating exactly how many shows it would take us to get where we wanted to go, and to who we should play these shows with and why we should do them and where we should play them.” The Splendour 2011 slot was unexpected for the band, and “pretty much blew everyone’s mind” according to Wright, but not unsurprising given their ambitions.

    Stephen Green is well acquainted with this kind of mindset among artists. Since beginning as a radio “plugger” – a guy who pitches new music to stations across the country – he now runs his own publicity consulting business, SGC Media.

    “The problem of triple j being so dominant is that it artistically skews what some bands are coming out with,” he says. “If you’ve got the opportunity to do the song that’s in your head that’s not very ‘triple j’, or you tweak it somewhat and make it sound like bands that are getting airplay… I think a lot of bands are going down [the second] path a little more.”

    “The tracks that I think work least are the ones that the band have gone, ‘right, we’ve got to get on triple j’, and they’ve tried to write a ‘triple j song’,” Green adds. “If it just happened like that, then – great. But I think too many bands push down that path. Being generic so that you sound like every other band is not usually the way to stand out and have a particularly successful career.”

    When Green works on publicity with Australian artists, he never plans a campaign assuming that the act will get triple j airplay. “If you do that, you’re setting yourself up for a big disappointment,” he says. “I don’t think you can make assumptions that anybody’s going to play anything.” So what happens when triple j rejects the song or record you’re pitching them? “Well, you kick the wall, the client gets shitty and says, ‘you didn’t rep it properly’. You break up, and that’s the end of that!” he laughs, clearly joking.

    Like Green, Megan Reeder Hope places a high value on including triple j in her marketing plans. As general manager at Secret Service Public Relations, Reeder Hope works regularly with the Brisbane-based record label Dew Process, whose roster includes Mumford & Sons, The Grates and Seeker Lover Keeper. “triple j is essential,” she says. “It’s probably the crux of my plans of how we work at Dew Process.”

    “That’s not to say that we don’t value the rest of the media: community radio is really important, as is commercial radio when you get to a certain point,” Reeder Hope says. “But I think triple j is that centrepiece that needs to be in place to be able to do all of the other ones, as well. From our perspective, triple j has a high level of integrity. They really do things in a way that’s uncompromising of their own editorial policy, while still always putting the music first. It really is all about the music for them. They support artists, and they support them throughout their careers.”

    Back at the station’s Sydney studios, music director Richard Kingsmill is clearly proud of the station’s success, and unapologetic to its critics. “If anyone’s got any complaints and arguments against us, or thinks that we’re in some ways trying to monopolise the Australian industry….” He pauses. “You get damned if you do and damned if you don’t. If we sat back and went, ‘Well, we shouldn’t monopolise the Australian music industry, we should sit in this corner and do our little job and not try to do anything,’ we’d get criticised for being negligent and not proactive. If you’re proactive, then you tread on toes a little bit, I guess, but we’re not meaning to tread on toes.”

    “It’s not supposed to be 100 per cent,” Kingsmill continues. “No one can be 100 per cent, and no one should expect triple j to be 100%. We do what we do to the best of our abilities, and we try as hard as we possibly can, with the best of intentions. But at the end of the day, we’re all humans. So we’ll take chances and we’ll take risks, and sure, we’ll piss people off, but we wouldn’t do it if we didn’t think there was a section of the community out there who was actually enjoying it.”

    Further reading and discussion:

  • The Weekend Australian book review: ‘HipsterMattic’ by Matt Granfield, November 2011

    A book review for The Australian, reproduced in its entirety below.

    Retro types in pursuit of the vacuous

    HipsterMattic: One Man’s Quest to Become the Ultimate Hipster
    By Matt Granfield
    Allen & Unwin, 303pp, $24.95

    First a definition, for understanding this central premise is crucial. The 2000s-era wave of hipsterdom, Matt Granfield writes, began as a quiet and conscientious uprising that unfolded behind the scenes.

    “Long-forgotten styles of clothing, beer, cigarettes and music were becoming popular again. Retro was cool, the environment was precious and old was the new “new”. Kids . . . wanted to be recognised for being different — to diverge from the mainstream and carve a cultural niche all for themselves . . . The way to be cool wasn’t to look like a television star: it was to look as though you’d never seen television.”

    Thus, the modern hipster. In the wake of a crushing break-up, wherein his ex-girlfriend – who works for Triple J, “the biggest hipster radio station in the country” – accuses the author of not knowing his true identity at age 30, Granfield decides to “throw everything into becoming a particular brand of person”. It helps that he’s halfway there: in the words of his best friend Dave, the author is “probably the biggest f . . king hipster I know”.

    This is not a particularly strong foundation for a book, yet Granfield redeems himself after a tenuous start by sampling and experiencing a wide range of styles and activities enjoyed largely by the cooler kids. Almost all the action takes place in the inner-city suburbs of Brisbane which, as the author proves time and again, are fertile grounds for would-be hipsters. It’s helpful that he lives in New Farm, adjacent to the grungy nightlife hub of Fortitude Valley, “the sex shop and strip-joint capital of Australia”.

    By day, Granfield runs a social media and PR agency and writes and edits for the ABC’s The Drum and Marketing Magazine, yet his professional life is almost entirely ignored. This is a curious decision, as viewing the advertising industry through hipster-tinted glasses might have made for interesting reading.

    Instead, Granfield grows a beard, learns to knit, gets a tattoo, runs a fashion-oriented market stall (for one day), buys a fixed-gear bicycle online and takes a photography course using only his iPhone. All par for the hipster course.

    A visit to Ikea shows the author at his best: “In 5000 years when alien archaeologist anthropologists want to identify the point at which human society began to devolve, they will dig up a homemaker centre car park and find the skeletons of 2000 white lower middle-class suburbanites, loading flat-screen televisions they can’t afford into Hyundais they don’t own, buried and perfectly preserved under a volcano of interest-free store credit paperwork.”

    Such moments of brilliance are rare, unfortunately, though Granfield’s writing style, which flits between inner monologue and punchy dialogue, is enjoyable on the whole.

    Occasionally, he digs beneath the flimsy veneer of hipster culture and unearths some interesting points, such as how Triple J staff are sent so much new music by record companies that they don’t have time to discover anything for themselves; or how indie record labels aren’t interested in what’s cool, only in what will make them money, a process that relies on some hoodwinking of hipsters.

    The narrative draws to a close as Granfield explores drinking alcohol, trying to enjoy coffee (by drinking 12 shots in a single session) and alternative lifestyles. “There are three reasons why people choose to be vegetarians,” he writes. “The first is because they have a moral objection to eating animals. The second is for medical reasons. The third is because they’re trying to impress a girl.” Guess which category the author falls into?

    He also tries to start the ultimate hipster band, while making occasional references to past musical experiences. Like his advertising industry sidestep, this is another curious decision on Granfield’s part, as his history includes a stint in a relatively successful indie rock band. Another missed opportunity, perhaps.

    Fittingly, the photos that appear within these pages were all taken using the iPhone app Hipstamatic, which uses software filters to give off the effect that the images were taken using an antique film camera, not a smartphone.

    This kind of retro fakery is central to the conceit of hipsterdom. By holding a mirror up to hipster ideals through his pursuit of a new identity, Granfield convincingly exposes the true absurdity of it all.

    Andrew McMillen is a Brisbane-based freelance journalist.

    This review was published in The Weekend Australian Review on November 26. For more Matt Granfield, visit his website or follow him on Twitter.

  • The Vine story: The Flaming Lips ‘Zaireeka’ iPhone experiment at 4ZZZ Brisbane, November 2011

    A live review-of-sorts for The Vine.

    The Flaming Lips – Zaireeka iPhone Experiment
    4ZZZ Studios, Brisbane
    Sunday November 20 2011

    “There’s a lot of things where, when you think about them, you think they could work. But it’s different when you do them.” Wayne Coyne, singer and songwriter of The Flaming Lips, is sitting before a microphone at Brisbane community radio station 4ZZZ. It’s 12.50am. Four hours earlier, Coyne and his band headlined the Windmill Stage at Harvest Festival. Now, at Triple Zed, he’s here to lead something that’s never been done before: an attempt to simultaneously play all four albums of the Lips’ 1997 album, Zaireeka, live on the radio, in sync, via 160 iPhones split into four groups of 40 fans.

    “It’s tough to get this many people together, and to be doing it live on the air, and not knowing whether it’s going to work,” Coyne says. “But you seem to be open to the idea of experimentation, and I think your audience will be forgiving enough if it’s not perfect. Everybody out here is having a good time, so that seems to count for something.” He’s right. The station’s three floors and car park are buzzing with the excitement of iPhone-wielding fans, harried-looking Zed staff, and plenty of hangers-on who’ve snuck in via the back entrance just to be a part of it all. Judging by the sunburns, most spent their day at Harvest. Many are in altered states.

    The singer is being interviewed on air by Zed presenter Brad Armstrong, who began petitioning his ‘Bring The Lips to Zed’ campaign in late August. Armstrong eventually got through to Coyne’s camp, and the two have been in touch for weeks leading up to his arrival tonight. “In the end, you and me were texting back and forth,” Coyne says to the 23 year-old presenter. “There was a couple of times you were calling, and we were just getting ready to walk on stage. I was like, ‘Hey Brad, I can’t talk to you…’” The pair laugh. Armstrong is nervous; his mind repeatedly blanks during the interview. “But persistence is a good quality, for sure,” the singer smiles. “You seemed like you were interesting to work with. Now I’m at the mercy of your organisational skills.”

    Though Armstrong is clearly enjoying himself in the booth, he’s shot himself in the foot somewhat. He’s the default mastermind of this whole operation. While he eats up airtime, a handful of Zed staff flit between the groups, trying to make sense of it all. Guest ‘conductors’ include Richard Pike from PVT, a dude from The Holidays, and local punk duo DZ Deathrays. None of them have any idea what they’re doing. Someone forgot the seemingly obvious step of supplying radios for the four groups; these are eventually put in place, while Armstrong attempts to lead a test run. In the preceding week, the 160 iPhone holders were instructed to download the Atomic Clock app and transfer one of Zaireeka’s four discs to their phone, plus a test track. Eventually Armstrong communicates that everyone should set the test track as an alarm for 1.32am, and then hold up their phones so that microphones can pick up the sound. Zed staff then run throughout the building, yelling out the same message.

    Watching all of this unfold is exhausting.  I pass between all four groups and share many raised eyebrows and shrugged laughs. One group doesn’t even have a radio; they’re broadcasting Armstrong’s commands via speakerphone, using the studio’s phone system. I’m on the bottom floor when the Atomic Clock strikes 1.32am. Some participants are still talking as the test track kicks in; they’re met with shushes, which are momentarily respected. Some instinctively touch their screen once the alarm appears, which instantly stops the music. To confuse matters further, the two minute test track is largely comprised of silence; a six-second synth blast is used to check whether each of the four groups’ output are being picked up by the microphones. Those few seconds aside, it’s silent but for an announcer’s voice. So even when the synchronisation is working as planned, the participants think something’s broken.

    Cue more frantic tweaking, alarm rescheduling, and general chaos. A decent chunk of the 160 participants – if there are that many; some rooms hold around 40, while the car park crowd barely nudges 20 – don’t seem to give a shit. They continue talking, drinking beer, and having a great time, while Zed staff attempt to gain some semblance of control over the situation. It’s the aural equivalent of herding cats. The sheer lack of leadership on display is unnerving. Armstrong, the mastermind, still sits powerless in the booth. Coyne tweets to his 76,000 followers: “Trying to do Zaireeka live on Australian freak radio!!!”

    Eventually the message filters through that Zaireeka’s first track, ‘Okay I’ll Admit That I Really Don’t Understand’, is to be scheduled as an alarm for 1.43am. This time it works – mostly. Armstrong leads Coyne out of the booth to tour the four groups, who titter nervously as the singer graces them with his presence. As he descends from the top floor to the car park via the back staircase, he remarks, “Wow, this is a big station.” Armstrong takes the mic again after the song ends – 2 minutes and 51 seconds later – to announce the experiment as a success. The group in the car park cheer, and congratulate themselves. And then the night takes a turn for the weird.

    I don’t hear how it went down on the air, but I’m told second-hand that Coyne said – I’m paraphrasing – “This’ll take too long to play in full. Let’s just fast forward to the party.” And so Zed staff begin herding all four groups out into the car park – a tiny space perhaps six metres wide and ten deep, which probably isn’t meant to hold 150+ people. Staff throw balloons and party poppers out into the crowd, while everyone stands around, bemused. Some still have their iPhones out, looking forlorn. Upstairs is suddenly empty. I venture back to the window outside the broadcast booth; inside, Coyne is being photographed with a handful of fans, and signing vinyl. Then a blonde girl that takes him by the hand and begins leading him out toward the car park. Coyne is hesitant. She says something like, “Are you scared?” Most people have prematurely detonated their party poppers, but as Coyne skirts the hallway, a few fans shoot off theirs in his direction.

    Ropes of coloured paper settle on the singer’s greying mop, as he shakes hand after hand and attempts to engage as many snippets of conversation as possible. One drunk weirdo begins singing Flaming Lips lyrics LOUDLY in his presence. Others simply rub Coyne’s grey suit as he passes by, presumably so they can tell their friends they did. One girl shakes his hand, then remarks to a friend, “It’s like meeting the President!” It’s acutely embarrassing — excruciating, even. He takes perhaps another ten steps into the surging throng, before retreating. Dozens of fans – many brandishing cameras overhead – fill the space left in his wake, and pursue him back into the station.

    Minutes later, Coyne is led back through the car park, after a man who appears to be his tour manager has cleared the way. The singer swigs from a beer. A shoulder bag bumps against his thigh while he strides through the crowd. He has one final photo taken with a fan – who practically blocks the exit in order to secure the shot – and then he’s walking down St Paul’s Terrace with the blonde girl and his tour manager. Dozens of people mill about on the footpath, uncertain. Coyne and his offsiders walk down the street a little more, in an apparent attempt to regain some personal space. Moments later, the crowd follows. Then the trio flag a taxi and hop in. It’s 2.10am.

    If one tenth of the starry-eyed worship that ebbed through the halls of the station tonight had been replaced with sound management and adequate organisation, together we might have shared a truly magical night. Instead, through miscommunication, misdirection and prevailing confusion, we heard only Zaireeka’s shortest song played simultaneously through around 100 iPhones, before witnessing an imposing, fawning, mob-like groupthink take hold. Then we watched Wayne Coyne hop in a taxi, seemingly spooked by his overbearing fans.

    The original version is archived on The Vine, where you’ll also find a gallery of photos taken by Justin Edwards, including the image used above.

  • triple j mag story: ‘How To Throw A Warehouse Party’, June 2011

    A short feature for triple j mag’s 50th issue. Click the below image for a closer look, or read the article text underneath.

    ++

    How to: Throw a warehouse party

    Think it’s just a matter of finding a space and asking some bands? Here’s how two different operators went about it

    Phil Laidlaw is a co-founder of the Brisbane independent venue Lofly Hangar, which opened in 2007 in the residential suburb of Red Hill and held 100 events before closing in late 2010. Built on the warehouse model of booking cool bands and inviting friends to come party (BYO alcohol), the Hangar attracted more than 300 paying guests a month at its peak.

    Did you rent the space legally?

    The venue was rented as a recording and rehearsal space, and we had public liability coverage for those two elements of the business. We did look at getting public liability for events, but it was prohibitively expensive. There were a lot of requirements, like having security present at every event. So from the beginning we were operating as a private party at a residence, and we never had any problems.

    What worked for Hangar?

    Our sound gear. People will come if it’s an awesome warehouse, but they won’t keep coming back if it sounds shit. Having said that, you don’t have to start with the most awesome gear. You can build it up over time. It’s also important to keep some control over who you invite at the start, and try and establish a culture in the space that’s made up of your friends and associates before it gets too big.

    What did you learn?

    The earliest wake-up call was how loud it was for the neighbourhood. After a few shows, we realised we needed to do quite a bit more soundproofing.

    Hangar’s door fee was always $10. Why?

    You’ve got to decide if you want to be in it for the glory or the money. [laughs] It’s not a great way to make a stack of cash, but it’s a great way to have a really good time. It’s a good aim to keep it sustainable.

    Advice for aspiring warehouse party starters?

    Collect a group of friends that you can rely on to help you out, because you won’t be able to do it by yourself. It’s best done by a group of like-minded people. You’ll always need someone to run the door, or help clean up.

    ++

    Another Brisbane-based crew, Sceneless, threw two warehouse parties on consecutive nights in October 2010. Whitelight was warmly lit and headlined by The Jezabels, while Dappled Cities headlined the UV-lit Blacklight. The events were hosted at a converted warehouse-for-hire and attracted a combined total of 800 people. Although attendees couldn’t BYO alcohol like they could at the Hangar, an arrangement with the nearby X&Y Bar allowed Sceneless to obtain a limited licence for the two nights.

    Did you consider anything like public liability, or were the events considered private parties?

    Yes, the venue owner had public liability insurance. It was included in the venue rental.

    What worked?

    The concept – an exclusive boutique, two genre, mini-music festival run over two nights, in an exclusive venue, subtly tailored to each night. We had two respected interstate headliners supported by mainly local acts, from newcomers to breakthrough acts.

    What didn’t work?

    We had more security than was required… We understood that this was the first official warehouse party in Queensland, and so being an unknown quantity it required some kind of official surveillance. We hope that now a precedent has been set and since the crowd were well behaved, we can continue to put on events without as much of a heavy ‘Big Brother’ presence.

    ++

    Boring but essential stuff to think about

    • Security. Just how big could this party get? And what are you going to do if it gets Corey-style out of hand?
    • Talk to the authorities. If you’d rather your first meeting with the police and fire brigade didn’t come when they were shutting you down, think about letting them know what you’re planning. It’s only manners, and they may well have some good advice.
    • Limited liability insurance. Do you have it? Does the venue have it? Who’s gonna be responsible if someone falls down those lethal-looking stairs?
    • ‘Donations’? OK, so this is just a ‘regular’ party, but you’d like your ‘guests’ to kick in a ‘donation’ to cover expenses. Remember, there’s a big difference legally between a donation and a cover charge.
    • Locatio.n So, you’ve found the perfect venue. Except that it’s in a residential area, isn’t adequately soundproofed and is marked for demolition. Hmmm. Think again. Make sure the venue meets all the relevant codes and is well away from angry neighbours. And that you have actually have permission to be there.
    • Local council planning laws. Some of these might apply to your shindig, so do your homework.
    • Drinks. BYO alcohol? A liquor licence? Again, do your research.
  • triple j mag ‘We Salute You!’ party-starter profiles: Jaddan Comerford, James Wright, Zoe Barrett, June 2011

    A couple of short profiles of young Australian party-starters for triple j mag, as part of their party-themed issue (#50, May 2011).

    Click the images below for a closer look, or just read the accompanying text.

    ++

    Who: Jaddan Comerford

    Where: Melbourne

    weareunified.com

    Although it wasn’t a party in the traditional sense, 2010’s No Sleep Til festival put thousands of music fans in a celebratory mood. According to promoter Jaddan Comerford, the mission statement was simply “to put on a punk rock event”. Headlined by Megadeth, NOFX and Dropkick Murphys, No Sleep took in five Australian capitals, as well as Auckland.

    “There was a bit of stress involved,” 27 year-old Jaddan admits. The Brisbane event was most memorable, as it rained all day.

    Jaddan says he love “organisation and making sure the ‘product’ is good”. That means ensuring people are enjoying themselves at the festival, and that there’s enough food, drinks, and toilets.

    Though No Sleep Til 2011 is unconfirmed, Jaddan is busy as the owner of UNFD, a ‘music services’ company he founded. Part label, part manangement/marketing/booking agency, UNFD recently announced a deal with Warner Music.

    Festival models Jaddan digs: “I love Laneway. It’s small, it books new acts and actually breaks them in the market. I also love the way they use venues not everyone else uses.”

    ++

    Who: James Wright

    Where: Brisbane

    thefansgroup.com

    For 22-year old James Wright, becoming booking and event manager of Brisbane’s most popular club night was a result of performing at similar events. As drummer in indie punk band Stature::Statue , James played a show put on by the Fans Group in 2008 and was intrigued to see its inner workings. “Fans is a party-throwing company started by four guys who wanted to do cool things with their love of music, girls and alcohol,” James says. “Their sole purpose on this earth is to effect that end.”

    After asking Fans’ directors if he could learn more, James now sees Lambda Lambda Lambda – held each Thursday at Fortitude Valley’s Alhambra Lounge – closer than anyone: he books bands and DJs, coordinates worksheets, organises fees and makes sure that the night runs smoothly.

    A recent highlight of James’ career was when most of the bands playing Laneway Festival crashed the party. Warpaint and Les Savy Fav were booked to DJ, but Yeasayer, Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti and !!! turned up, too.

    Qualities a good event manager should have: “Patience; ability to listen and comprehend carefully; be organised and open to ideas, even from unlikely sources. You also need to have a professional attitude and a penchant for late nights and drunken conversation.”

    ++

    Who: Zoe Barrett

    Where: Fremantle

    thenewport.com

    According to Zoe Barrett, four ingredients comprise a great party: being organised, creating the right atmosphere, social networking ads, and bubble machines. As Events and Marketing Manager at the Newport Hotel in Fremantle, Zoe loves the fact that she gets to see “loads of great live music for free”. With her help, the Newport has a growing reputation for putting on quality original bands each week; recent headliners include the John Steel Singers, Illy and Philadelphia Grand Jury.

    Zoe recently launched a new club night, Bass Culture, which is “all about heavy, heavy bass music. It’s nerve-racking starting a brand new night,” Zoe says, “but when the place fills up and the new idea takes shape and kicks ass, it’s an awesome feeling.” If Zoe could’ve attended one legendary event, she’d pick the club party in London after The Beatles finished recording Magical Mystery Tour. “I would love to go back in time for that,” she says. “That’d be genius!”

    Zoe’s CV: “I just moved to Freo and I was working at the bar [at the Newport] but I have a degree in Creative Industries majoring in Advertising, so when the Newport marketing manager left, I applied for that job.”

  • IGN Australia story: ‘A Matter Of Size: The State of Triple-A Game Development in Australia’, February 2011

    A feature story for IGN Australia. Excerpt below.

    A Matter Of Size: The State of Triple-A Game Development in Australia

    IGN AU looks at whether the Aussie scene can still support big studios… and whether it should even want to.

    Judging by the tropical imagery splashed across QueenslandGames.com – in which a solitary human sits, gazing out across the placid ocean toward distant sand dunes – a naïve game developer intending to work for a Queensland-based company might expect to write code while breathing in salty air and wriggling their toes between the sand. The reality, of course, bears no resemblance to this image, which makes its ongoing usage questionable. Especially considering the rather dismal state of the wider Australian game development industry in 2011.

    It used to be that mutually profitable relationships with international publishers saw Australian developers working on console titles that would be marketed across the world. In the past, Australian talent had a hand in working on mega-selling licenses like Star Wars, Transformers and Jurassic Park. This trend continues, in a limited capacity: Canberra-based studio 2K Marin played a significant role in the development of both Bioshock and its sequel, and is the lead studio working on the new XCOM game; Team Bondi is currently putting the finishing touches on the May-due PS3 and Xbox 360 title L.A. Noire, on behalf of Rockstar Games. It will be the first time since 2002’s State Of Emergency that the company is outsourcing development of a Rockstar product to a non-Rockstar studio.

    But locally, these contracts are, by and large, drying up. And with the decrease in work comes the decrease in employment, as seen in the recent collapses of Auran, Pandemic, and, late last year, Krome Studios. All three were Brisbane-based. All three are no more.

    “The big oak trees have fallen; it’s time for the little seedlings to get stuck in there,” IGDA Brisbane coordinator Jane ‘Truna’ Turner told IGN last year in the wake of Krome’s demise. Indeed; much noise has been made about the success of smaller, independent Australian game devs, with Halfbrick Studios, based in Kelvin Grove, universally showered with praise for the remarkable sales of Fruit Ninja, as has Firemint, with its Flight Control and Real Racing games. But let’s not forget that smaller companies, by nature, employ fewer people. While those 40-odd staff who’re housed comfortably under Halfbrick’s umbrella are likely thanking their lucky stars nightly, what of the hundreds of skilled staff shaken loose from the big oak trees in the past few years?

    With few real opportunities to work on big, ‘triple-A’ titles – the kind that sound great on your resume – here in Australia, such talent is left to either shift overseas, or consider alternative careers. Either way, the Australian industry loses out. The dominant mindset – that this country is unable to support triple-A-level development – continues, and everyone involved continues to downgrade their expectations of what Australia is capable of in terms of games.

    What, if anything, can be done to stimulate this process? Are we really headed toward a local industry consisting of a mere handful of bigger, publisher-owned studios – like SEGA’s Creative Assembly and THQ’s Studio Oz, both based in Brisbane – and a galaxy of smaller, agile developers concentrating on mobile platforms? Is Australia no longer a viable market for foreign publishers to invest in game development?

    For the full story, visit IGN Australia.

  • triple j mag story: ‘Queensland Festival Road Trip, 2010-2011’, December 2010

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

    Festival Road Trip: Queensland

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

    Festivals:

    1. Island Vibe Festival

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

    Oct 29-31, North Stradbroke Island

    2. Mud, Bulls and Music

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

    Nov 4-7, Jimna

    3. Full Noise Festival

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

    Nov 20, Townsville

    4. Harbourlife

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

    Nov 28, Gold Coast

    5. Woodford Folk Festival

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

    Dec 27-Jan 1, Woodfordia

    6. Summafieldayze

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

    Jan 2, Gold Coast

    7. Sunset Sounds

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

    Jan 5-6, Brisbane

    Qld Sights:

    Whitsundays

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

    Whale Watching

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

    Theme Parks

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

  • triple j mag story: ‘Robert Forster interviews The John Steel Singers’, November 2010

    This is a feature story which was published in the November 2010 issue of triple j mag, but it was an unconventional one: the editor assigned me to observe Robert Forster interviewing Brisbane pop act The John Steel Singers. Forster produced their debut album, Tangalooma, so there was a nice synchronicity to it all.

    Click the below image for a closer look, or read the article text underneath. Photograph taken by the wonderful Stephen Booth.

    Under The Bridge: The John Steel Singers

    Brisbane-based six-piece The John Steel Singers release their debut album, Tangalooma, on November 5 through Dew Process. Produced by Queensland’s pop statesman, Robert Forster – co-founder of The Go-Betweens, the widely-loved pop group after whom Brisbane’s Go Between Bridge was named – Tangalooma showcases The John Steel Singers’ lively, colourful take on indie pop. We asked Robert to interview three of the band members for triple j magazine and sent Andrew McMillen along to a pub in Brisbane’s West End as the, um, go-between.

    Robert Forster: What was the ambition of the band at the start?
    Tim Morrissey (guitar/vocals): We always wanted to go overseas. Not necessarily to be ‘successful’ overseas, but to go overseas as an experience. Which we’ve since done a little bit of, but my goals at the start were just to play with certain bands and do certain shows.

    Robert: When you started the band, was playing Splendour one of the things you wanted to achieve? [The band played there this year.]
    Tim: I don’t know that Splendour was necessarily on my radar at that point, but a festival of that stature, for sure. I remember going to the early Valley Fiestas, though [Brisbane’s annual street music festival, held in Fortitude Valley], and thought it’d be really nice to play a Valley Fiesta in a good slot. Which we did, on the weekend! That felt a little bit surreal.

    Robert: The John Steel Singers: realising dreams. What are the next couple of dreams?
    Tim: A bridge!
    Robert: Okay. I know the Lord Mayor. I’ll put the word in. So between playing Valley Fiesta and the magic heights of having a bridge named after you, what are the other steps in between?
    Scott Bromiley (trumpet/keys/vocals): The healthy evolution of our music.
    Robert: Oh, that’s good.
    Scott: No radical left turns, or anything like that.

    triple j mag: Is touring overseas still a goal?
    Tim: Definitely. Go overseas, sell three albums, live in squalor for six months, then come back with egg on our faces.
    Robert: Where overseas?
    Tim: Anywhere that will have us, I guess. I’d love to go to the US, Berlin, UK…

    Robert: Thinking about the band’s sound, where can you hear that being best received at the moment?
    Scott: Ballarat.
    Tim: Geelong.
    Scott: Bendigo, perhaps. Albury. Wodonga.

    Robert: Okay. Let’s get Tame Impala out of the way. Great album. What’s the vibe about going on tour with them in October?
    Scott: We’re good friends with those guys.
    Pete Bernoth (trombone/keys): We’ve known them since Southbound 2008. We hung out backstage and stole Faker’s rider together. We were young and stupid; we’re not like that anymore.
    Robert: Are you scared that the next couple of songs you write are going to be guitar-oriented psychedelia?
    Scott: Yeah. We constantly try to avoid that.

    Robert: But playing with them, won’t that only bring it out more?
    Scott: Perhaps. But maybe they’ll take in some of our influences, and start writing keyboard-flavoured pop gems.

    Robert: You get the call to play Big Day Out. What do you say?
    Scott: “I’ll be there in a jiffy.”
    Tim: After hearing those stories about Grant [McLennan, Go-Betweens co-founder, who died in 2006] – definitely there in a jiffy. I want to play cricket with Coldplay, and stuff.

    triple j mag: What are these Grant stories?

    Robert: I got bowled by Coldplay’s drummer [Will Champion]. They are very good cricket players; they’re probably better cricket players then they are as a band. (Everyone laughs) Really! Chris Martin’s very good, and Champion bowled me on an off-cutter. Unbelievable!
    Scott: I just thought of a montage: Chris Martin training in a tracksuit, with Brian Eno holding a whistle.

    Robert: Okay, this is an imagined scenario. You’re in Adelaide one afternoon. You’ve soundchecked. You come out of the building, and there’s a young three-piece band on the street. They ask, “What advice can you give us – a) musically, and b) career-wise?”
    Scott: a) Get yourself a disgruntled redhead trombone player. [referring to Pete]
    Pete: Hook your claws into some stupidly talented dude who can play everything, like Scott.
    Tim: b) If you’re in Adelaide, use the free bike paths. When you ride your bike, that’s a good time to think of songs.

    Robert: Do you find cycling conducive to songwriting?
    Tim: Damn straight. I’d say I write 70% of my melody ideas on the bike; 30% in the jam room.
    Pete: My advice is that even if you’re playing to no-one, don’t treat it as a joke. Try to take every show seriously. It’s hard, and sometimes you fail miserably, but every show’s a show. Do your best.

    Robert: Let’s say I’m from a record company called Dew Process. I’m an A&R rep, and I’m going to give The John Steel Singers $100,000 to record their next album. Spend it as you will. What are you going to do, what would I hear, where would it be done?
    Scott: Well, you’d probably hear it about five years later!
    Robert: Good! Brilliant!
    Tim: We’d definitely stay in Australia. We’d go either Darling Downs, or the Sunshine Coast Hinterland. We’d hire a house out for six months, and we’d deck it out with some nice studio gear. We’d fly Nicholas [Vernhes, the Brooklyn-based engineer who mixed Tangalooma] out, and we’d spend six months recording. That’s it.

    triple j mag: What did The John Steel Singers learn from their debut album producer?
    Robert: You can’t ask that in front of me! I’ll go to the toilet. (He leaves)
    Scott: Everything, really. There wasn’t much that we didn’t [learn]. Just what a fantastic presence he is in any given situation.
    Pete: He took our songs back to basics.
    Scott: That’s right. Robert’s got a way of distilling everything down to its purest form so that you can see what the true value of a song is, without it being hidden by production.
    Tim: And he’s a very competitive ping-pong player.

    Needless to say, this was a fun conversation to observe. Forster really got into the interviewer role, which really comes across in the article.

    Elsewhere: an extended interview with Robert Forster earlier this year for the Mess+Noise ‘Icons’ series; a review of The John Steel Singers’ debut album, Tangalooma, for The Vine.

  • triple j mag story: ‘Music Counts For Something’, September 2010

    A feature for the September 2010 issue of the recently-renamed triple j mag, which discusses what Australian musicians make from selling music as a proportion of their overall income. The full article text is underneath.

    triple j mag story, September 2010: 'Music Counts For Something' by Andrew McMillen

    Music Counts For Something

    by Andrew McMillen

    We asked some top independent artists to speak specifics on the art of selling music in the digital age – and to advise up-and-comers on how not to get rorted.

    Throughout the history of recorded music, album sales were a strong indicator as to artists’ personal wealth. The equation used to go: gold and platinum record sales + sold out tours = money in the bank. But in 2010, people are less and less likely to pay for recorded music, with the equation continuing to shift away from sales toward touring.

    The Presets

    The Presets’ Julian Hamilton is blunt when discussing musical economics, as an ambassador for APRA – the Australasian Performing Right Association – might well be. “These days, if you want to be a working musician can’t just rely on record sales to make money,” he says.

    According to Julian, music sales through publishing account for “around a third or a quarter” of The Presets’ overall income. “But it’s tricky because the way that musicians earn money is so varied, through so many different revenue streams that come in at different times. Some months, you might make no money.”

    His advice to aspiring musos: “Try to keep the creative and business sides of the bands different: don’t talk about money when you’re rehearsing, and don’t talk about lyrics when you’re in a business meeting. Set up a group account under the band’s name, where all members can see where the money’s going.”

    “If you can sort the shitty business side out, so that you don’t worry about it, that’s gonna make the fun stuff even more fun.”

    Gotye

    Under the pseudonym Gotye, Wally de Backer put himself $30,000 in debt to fund his ARIA Award-winning album Like Drawing Blood in 2006. That risk paid off: following mainstream interest in his independently released second LP, Wally eventually made over $100,000 in album sales and royalty payments.

    At the release of the first Gotye album, 2003’s Boardface, de Backer got the feeling that “making music wouldn’t ever be more than something I could produce and finance in my spare time from ‘real work’. Having been a full-time musician for a couple of years now, I’m amazed at how much time can be spent dealing with accounting, chasing and checking royalty statements, managing budgets, and basically financial planning so you don’t end up in a bus in middle of Eastern Europe with a maxed out credit card and the bank foreclosing on your mortgage back at home. I’d rather be on top of everything and organise my music-making time accordingly, rather than remain oblivious and potentially have tax and income issues down the track.”

    His advice for young musos: “If you can cover all or most bases and get your career off the ground yourself, then you’re in a strong position to negotiate good deals later on, rather than being at the mercy of ‘industry standards’.”

    Eddy Current Suppression Ring

    Melbourne rock band Eddy Current Suppression Ring’s third album, Rush To Relax, debuted in the ARIA top 20 earlier this year.

    Despite their popularity, the band’s guitarist (and manager) Mikey Young is frank about how he and his bandmates treat the project.

    “We all have other ways of making money. We treat this band like a hobby. Outside of shows, we get a random few grand every so often from record sales, APRA and publishing, but once it’s split between the four of us and we put a bit back towards the band, it’s really just bonus pocket money.”

    “None of us could solely live off [the band’s income]”, he continues, “But that’s our fault and not due to the state of the music industry or anything. We choose to keep our band a thing we do for fun when we feel like it, so we’ve never made that leap into having a crack and living off it.”

    Urthboy

    Tim Levinson – better known as MC Urthboy, in addition to being a founding member of The Herd and head of Sydney independent label Elefant Traks – reveals that royalties from album sales comprised 14% of his overall income in 2009. The majority of his earnings came from touring and label-related revenue.

    “If a musician has only ever had a part time job to sustain their real passion of playing music for a living, you can understand how vulnerable they become,” says Tim. “It’s important to take this into account when understanding the significance of how much sacrifice artists make to pursue their music.”

    For all but the biggest fish in the Australian musical pond, Tim confirms: “If you’re a musician, you can never piece together anything resembling an income without including some sort of regular or fall back job. But if you’re instinctively passionate about it, you have no choice. You are compelled to do it. It’s art that is created out of just a necessity to express yourself, and that’s a great thing.”

    Philadelphia Grand Jury

    Philadelphia Grand Jury’s manager, Martin Novosel, runs us through the economics of a popular, self-released indie band. “Once a quarter, the band will see approximately $8-9,000, minus 25 per cent in distribution, minus pressing costs for the albums (if more needed to be pressed), minus any marketing costs, minus mechanical costs, and finally, minus management commission on profit. In real money terms, this equates to something in the vicinity of a couple of thousand dollars per quarter for the band members.

    “However it does go up if you are a commercial act,” he continues. “The reason for this is because bands are kept in consumers’ minds through media presence.”

    Martin acknowledges that the indie market is very live-driven; “An act needs to be playing often to keep its currency with media to get that exposure. And an act can really only tour Australia twice or three times in an album cycle before it has overplayed and needs to provide new material”.

    Compared with their income from touring, publishing and merchandise, Novosel estimates that the Philly Jays’ music sales comprise only 5-10 per cent of the band’s overall income.

    The Butterfly Effect

    The Butterfly Effect’s bassist, Glenn Esmond, suggests that about 25 per cent of the band’s yearly revenue is from album sales.

    Though he grew up idolising the glam rock model of luxury and privilege – private jets and the like – as he got older and started playing in cover bands at local pubs, Esmond realised that “it’s just enough to be able to pay your rent, and have a bit of money left over at the end of the day to buy a beer.”

    He suggests reading the book Music Business, by Shane Simpson. “You might decide to be independent or you might go with a label, but at least you’re informed about how the industry works, and how deals are recouped. I’ve read about some bands who signed deals where the label makes 85% of the band’s income while retaining the rights to the masters. It’s insane, man. How does anyone ever make any money? Sometimes people don’t, and that’s the reality.”

    With a laugh, he concludes: “You’ve gotta do it for love until you get too old, or your missus goes, ‘Sorry mate, you’ve been doing this for ten years and you’ve made no money – you need a real job!’”