Interview: Denis Semchenko, undergraduate music journalist

Griffith University Communication almost-graduate and current Rave Magazine writer Denis Semchenko kindly saw fit to answer a series of questions regarding his career path, university and internship experiences, and the current state of music journalism on a local and national level.

Thanks for your time, Denis. You’re nearing the end of your Bachelor of Journalism, majoring in Communication (or is it the other way around?) at Brisbane’s Griffith University. How’s that working out for you?

Yes, fingers crossed I’m graduating this semester after finishing my journalism major in Bachelor of Communication (same thing – they make journos!). I have to say it’s a pretty stressful time of the year – I’m the news editor for the Griffith University annual student newspaper The Source, the making of which constitutes the News & Current Affairs Production module (third year journalism subject), so there are always issues with obtaining photos for stories, finishing up others’ work, proofreading, subediting as well as last-minute alterations and unexpected story material, and with the semester’s end looming, I never seem to get bored. Bring on the graduation!

Can you elaborate on your previous tertiary education experiences? 

It’s been a long and somewhat strange trip, to be honest – I wanted to become a journalist since my early teens, but got dissuaded by my parents and their friends who thought it wouldn’t be a suitable career path for me unlike, say, business, accounting or law.

I first started studying Commerce 9 years ago in Canberra; I wasn’t even 18 at the time, fresh out of my high school in Russia, and I ended up hating that course so much I dropped out after a year and went to study IT (again after the suggestion it was the ‘big thing’) at the Canberra Institute of Technology, which I finished after 3 years with a diploma. I did some further IT studies when I moved down to Melbourne 5 years ago but eventually realised my heart wasn’t in programming or systems administration either.

Having relocated to QLD 4 years ago, it took me a further 1.5 years of office work to want to study again, and this time I decided to pursue my original passion – journalism.

I understand you’ve undertaken some rather interesting internships. 

Yes, I’ve managed to accrue a somewhat unheard-of grand total of 6 weeks’ work experience this semester, including 3 weeks at ABC Online, 1 week at Channel Nine and 2 weeks at Rave Magazine.

Were these organised by Griffith, or a result of your own initiative and enthusiasm?

Both I guess – the actual internships were organised by my course convenor at Griffith according to the preferences I’ve specified and the slots available – I didn’t end up getting The Courier Mail, Channel Seven or Channel Ten gigs, for example.

The Rave gig was largely a result of a mutual understanding between me and my teacher who seized on the fact that I tended to write my best assignments on music and art themes; besides that, I had always wanted to write about music and being an avid street/music press reader, it meant a lot to me to be writing for Rave.

How did that eventuate? Had you considered music journalism beforehand?

Chris Harms, the Rave editor, seemed to be impressed by the amount of work I did for the magazine during my 2 weeks of internship, including music news, tour announcements, artist interviews, feature stories, CD and live reviews and was happy to give me extra work to do.

By the time my internship ended, I stated I was more than keen to keep doing it – being a musician and a band-member as well as a journalism student, I felt I could contribute to the Brisbane music scene by putting out the word for numerous bands and providing more recorded and live music coverage, as well as learn from the masters while I was at it. 

I was also told that not many uni students who do internships in music press are actually music fans, nor do they particularly wish to attend gigs, so someone like me – a music/guitar nut - was a find.

All said, I feel I’ve finally become someone I always wanted to be – a music writer.

You mention ‘learning from the masters’ during your time in the Rave office. What’s your opinion on the current state of Brisbane’s four regular street press publications – Rave, Time Off, Scene and Tsunami?

Without being biased, I think Rave is doing a great job – quality written material, extensive live event coverage and people who actually live and breathe music despite the daily stress.

From my memory, Time Off used to be better back in the day than it is now  - we don’t really need Sydney ads here in Brisbane and I don’t have a lot to say on their new website design and structure.

Scene is doing a good job on covering dance music/hip-hop/club events, however the print version has this very odd and not particularly pleasant whiff to it, which still doesn’t necessarily stop me from reading it.

As for Tsunami, I used to think they were primarily dedicated to heavy music but they actually encompass a broad selection of genres, which is definitely a step in the right direction.

You mentioned that Rave do well despite the daily stress, which I took to mean the difficulty in assembling the content for a widely-read publication week after week. Could you elaborate on this stress, based on your time spent in the office?

Story/news requests pile up every day – everyone wants to be in the magazine! I have witnessed how the artist-publicist scheme works, and while I cannot question its effectiveness, it’s what keeps Rave on their toes.

During my internship, I was in the Rave office every day and that’s when my multitasking skills came to force – I was either writing newsbeats, newsbites, album reviews, feature stories or interviewing artists practically every day. There was a number of interviews that other people could not do so I had to step in and do them, or the opportunity of speaking to an artist you like would pop up and you would miss out because you’d be too busy writing and a fellow contributor would beat you to it!

Having said that, however, the notions of seniority, experience and familiarity with a particular artist/genre are also involved in the interview distribution. The same goes for live gig reviews – the assistant editor is working overtime organising those. It does indeed get rather hectic sometimes but not every day in the Rave office is immensely stressful as you also get relatively cruisy days where you just do things in your time. 

Monday is traditionally the busiest and the most stressful day of the week at Rave, as the print version comes out on Tuesday and you’ve got to make sure you’ve handed in all your copy and corrected all the typos and blunders. I twice helped proofread the print version of the mag and stayed in the office until 7pm with the rest of the staff.

These days, I’m only in the office when I have to interview a certain artist by phone, copy the recorded audio file for transcription and pick up some CDs for reviewing purposes – usually once or twice a week during business hours, but I wouldn’t mind becoming a permanent staffer… if I end up sticking around in Brisbane for longer, that is.

Street press exists for several reasons – to promote artists; to provide critical commentary on artists and their output; to provide advertising space.. you can probably think of more. What role do you think the street press should serve, and how are the above four measuring up to these objectives?

I think the primary role of street press is informing people about the wide variety of music, including live music, available in their hometown – and the above four are answering to the challenge, maybe not 100% because it’s impossible to cover absolutely everyone who’s playing in town during the week, but I still reckon it’s a pretty big effort and I have enormous respect for fellow writers and musicians, particularly when I can tell they feel compelled to do it.

The veil of objectivity among music writers is something I find particularly interesting and amusing. I only write about artists I expect to be entertaining or interesting, and I suspect you’re much the same. Thus, we usually already possess a positive connotation of an artist before we see them play live, or interview them, or listen to their album. What’s your take on objectivity as a music critic?

My take is normally ‘objectivity first, subjectivity second or last’ depending on whether I like or don’t like a certain artist – I agree with you on possessing a positive connotation of an artist and I expect them to deliver.
Chris, the Rave editor, told me it was important that my writing stays objective; at this stage, I feel I’m still largely ‘beyond good and evil’ when it comes to reviewing music that I don’t particularly like, however I also agree that sometimes you’ve got to give flak yet be able to back it up sufficiently.

Another contentious musical topic is individual taste. Music fans will rise to the defence of artists just as soon as they would a family member. It’s a really interesting phenomenon that I was reminded of when Everett True made some inflammatory comments about some Australian artists back in August. With regard to the musicians you write about – do you try to steer away from outright criticism, or do you aim for honesty? I guess this comes back to the objectivity/subjectivity argument, too.

Again, I agree (but not always conform) with the notion that outright criticism is great when you can back it up, otherwise it’s not far removed from shitting in your own nest when you’re reviewing Australian artists. Everett True said something not everyone else dared to and copped all sorts of righteous “how dare you, you stupid bloody whinging Pom!” response from all corners, which wasn’t surprising at all considering how much an average Australian cherishes their middle-of-the-road “big” bands like Powderfinger and Silverchair.

Honesty, objectivity and confident criticism are my primary aims as a reviewer – I might be a bit subjective towards the abovementioned Powderchair phenomenon due to my consistent failure to grasp it, being a bloody foreigner and all, but my love for original Australian (and international) music remains undiminished.

You seem heavily into music writing at this point in your life. Can you see yourself carving a name for yourself as a writer in that industry, or do you have greater designs for your career?

Yes and yes – I’m going to keep combining my aspirations as a musician with music writing and I’m prepared to do the hard yards on both accounts.  

Given the people you’ve met throughout your course and your time spent engaging with the media industry itself, have you got any advice you’d like to impart on would-be journalism undergraduates, media personalities or music critics? 

Firstly, ask yourself why you want to do it. Secondly, be yourself and thirdly, don’t get starstruck but be patient, persistent, creative, brave and take chances – the last two are from the advice John Birmingham gave me and I think these are the words to live by.   

Thanks for your time Denis. Good luck with the graduation; I’m sure we’ll be reading more of your work in the near future!

Denis Semchenko is a Communication undergraduate and enthusiastic contributor to Brisbane-based music publication Rave Magazine. He can be contacted via email, LastFM or Facebook. His published work can be found with the assistance of Google.

Presentation: A Recent History of Music

This is a transcript of a presentation I gave as part of my introduction to marketing course on Monday. There were three others in my group; our topic was digital music marketing, focussed specifically on the success of the iPod.

It’s compiled from several sources, including Wikipedia, and it’s over-simplified and facetious.. but it’s okay.
 

So, the music industry today. 2008.

I downloaded Metallica’s new album on Saturday afternoon. Its official release isn’t until Friday. What happened was, someone close to the band or their record label or one of the many pre-release reviewers obtained the completed album, copied it to their computer using an MP3 encoding application, then uploaded it to a file-sharing site on the internet.

I downloaded the album. Tens of thousands of others had done so before. Many more will do so before Friday, which is when the album will be available legally, in both physical record stores and digital music stores.

(*group member interjects*) Hold on a second. Music, on a computer? Download? MP3? I thought that music was only available from my local record store, in CD form. (*holds up CDs*)

Ah, so you’re a bit behind the times. How’s 1998 treating you? Just kidding. Allow me to indulge in a cursory overview of the last ten years in music.

The long-play vinyl record was introduced to the commercial market in 1948. The compact disc was released in 1982. Music was released by artists in one of three forms – single, album, or EP, which was a little longer than a single but a little shorter than an album.

The content of these recordings were created by musicians – songwriters, singers, guitarists, drummers, keyboardists, violinists – and recorded and released by record companies.

A recording contract – commonly called a record deal – is a legal agreement between a record label and a recording artist or group, where the artist makes a record – or a series of records – for the label to sell and promote. 

In the age of vinyl and CDs, labels typically owned the copyright of the records their artists make, and also the master copies of those records. Promotion was a key factor in the success of a record, and was largely the label’s responsibility, as was the proper distribution of records.

This was how the music industry operated, for almost two decades. In 1999, a computer filetype known as MP3 and a handful of enterprising music fans changed everything.

MP3, short for Moving Picture Experts Group, Audio Layer III is an audio format that compresses files with only a small sacrifice in sound quality. MP3 files can be compressed at different rates, but the higher the compression, the lower the sound quality. A typical MP3 compression ratio of 10:1 is equal to about 1 MB for each minute of an MP3 song.

To put this into perspective – (*holds up iPod*) this 20 gigabyte iPod has the theoretical ability to store roughly 5,000 four-minute, four megabyte files. All contained within this portable device, which allows me to play music anywhere. 5,000 songs is 500 ten-track albums.  I don’t know about you, but I find it difficult to carry 500 albums in my pocket.

From the first half of 1995 through to the late 1990s, MP3 files began to spread on the Internet. The filetype’s popularity began to rise rapidly when the software company Nullsoft released their free audio player, Winamp. The small size of MP3 files enabled widespread peer-to-peer file sharing of music ripped from compact discs, which would previously have been nearly impossible due to hard drive capacity restrictions. The first large peer-to-peer filesharing network, Napster, was launched in 1999.

Napster, the name engraved in internet history, was developed by nineteen year old university student, Shawn Fanning. His idea was to allow anyone with an internet connection to search and download their favourite songs. By connecting people, Napster created an online community of music fans practically overnight.

As you can imagine, this free, unchecked distribution method didn’t sit too well with record companies. Music fans ripping, sharing and downloading the creative output of artists meant that nobody got paid. Instead, a lot of people got angry. Most notably, the Recording Industry Association of America, and Metallica.

I’ll cut this history lesson short with a few choice quotes from Metallica’s drummer, Lars Ulrich, in 2000. This was around the time that the band were embroiled in legal proceedings against Napster.

“Napster hijacked our music without asking. They never sought out permission. Our catalog of music simply became available as free downloads on the Napster system.”

“Every time a Napster enthusiast downloads a song, it takes money from the pockets of all members of the creative community.”

Now, Metallica have changed their tune, eight years on. Many artists across the world have. CD sales are still in decline, and will probably stop being a viable music distribution mechanism within five years. Imagine CDs relegated to the same rare, limited edition status that vinyl copies of new albums currently inhabit.

So Metallica probably aren’t all that happy that I downloaded their album for free, especially before its official launch. They’re probably not happy that I have no intention of ever buying the album. But I would pay to see them perform live. And this is the direction that I think the music industry is heading in – an artist’s recorded work, regardless of its method of distribution, will function solely as an advertisement to sell tickets to an artist’s live performances. But that’s an entirely different discussion.

In the place of the physical album sits this (*holds up iPod*). The encoded data contained within 5,000 computer files is processed by this device to produce audio. Music. Songs. Albums. It doesn’t matter. Digital music sales have eclipsed CD sales. iTunes has sold 5 billion songs in 5 years. Five billion songs. And this is within Apple’s closed sales environment, where they receive a significant revenue percentage of each 99 cent song.

Naturally, someone had the common sense to incorporate MP3 playing functionality into the mobile phone. The Apple iPod is the world’s most popular MP3 player. You’ve probably heard of the Apple iPhone, which functions as both a phone and MP3 playing device, among other features. Apple weren’t the first to make this connection. But the immense purchasing power behind the Apple brand has placed them in a pretty solid position to dominate the music phone market. They’re already so far ahead in the MP3 player market that new entrants are at a significant disadvantage. 

170 million iPods have been sold as of March this year. And Apple are continually producing new hardware and functionality upgrades, further segmenting their existing market, and attempting to attract those who are still undecided.

(group member) is going to tell you more about Apple’s history and marketing strategy. Personally, I recommend that you download Metallica’s new album as soon as you get home.

I’ll write more about Metallica in the future.

Anti-Lessons In New Media

I’m sitting in class, waiting to learn. The lecturer’s attention turns toward me when he asks for a critical reflection on a course reading that we’d been set a fortnight ago.

“The young man in the green shirt. Give us a summary of the reading’s content.”

“I didn’t read it.”

“You didn’t read it. There I was, sweating blood with my colleague while writing this chapter several years ago, and you didn’t read it.”

I forgot to mention – he co-wrote the article in question. His tone is more sarcastic than argumentative.

“Do you have any reason or explanation for this?”

“No.”

“Did anyone else in this man’s group read the article?”

They had. I appreciated the lecturer’s reasonable approach to the situation. If I’d been in the same situation with the course co-ordinator – who happened to be sick on this day – he’d have spent at least five minutes attempting to belittle and antagonise me. I’ve seen him do it to others in the class. It’s disgusting. It’s an example of extremely poor marketing on behalf of the School within the University that he represents. Ripping into students for their omissions and oversights is counter-intuitive to the enjoyable learning environment we’re ostensibly here to experience.

This entry is less about what might be perceived as an act of academic rebellion on my part, than the fundamentally flawed nature of studying ‘new media’ within an archaic institution.

After some viewpoints were expressed by members of the class regarding the statement at hand – “does the nature of web-based technology bring people together, or push them apart?” – the lecturer asked for a show of hands for people who agreed, disagreed, or were neutral. Mid-way through this exercise, he looked at me again.

“You haven’t read the article, so you don’t have an opinion.”

By tilting my head slightly downward, I acquiesced to the lecturer’s superiority and power, which he seems to value above giving his students the chance to express their opinions.

This is fine.

I have no problem with keeping my mouth shut in academic situations. The chance to observe and analyse the responses of my classmates is far more profitable than sharing my thoughts – which would have been in agreeance that the nature of the internet brings people together.

Since the cost of all information – including information about individuals in the form of social networking profiles – approaches zero, we are generally able to gain personal knowledge and interact with each other more easily than ever before. You’ll note my definition of ‘closer’ doesn’t include physical touch, but a less tangible connection between individuals that is symptomatic of the nature of web-based communications.

Clearly, this isn’t a fully-developed opinion, but it’s on-par with the arguments raised by my classmates.

While sitting silently and observing my classmates – each of them endeavouring to become the “communication professionals” that my lecturer talks endlessly about – I wryly made the point in my mind that I didn’t read the text: so what? I’m interacting with some of the most forward-thinking, intelligent individuals in the world, on a daily basis. In my mind, their opinions and reactions to developments in the world of new media are worth far more than the ironically outdated opinions of a ‘new media’ lecturer.

Do not mistake this as a personal slight on his character – I like the guy, as he’s generally amusing to listen to – as I mentioned earlier, his approach is characteristic of the fundamentally flawed nature of attempting to write tertiary education courses based on an industry that evolves faster than he could possibly write textbooks.

Fuck textbooks, and fuck course readings. If I were in charge of co-ordinating such a course, I’d prescribe neither. Beyond the classroom, I’m a student of new media for my own enjoyment. I’m learning about literally world-changing events as they occur, and contributing several brushstrokes to the incomprehensibly large canvas that the web provides.