Still, there's troubling findings from the most recent countdown, and they have to do with this endlessly self-promoting merchandising multimedia powerhouse called Triple J. Whose mission, as a Government broadcaster, used to be to promote Australian music for the furtherment of Australian youth culture. If that's the case what are all these fucking Pommy acts doing in the countdown? Half the top ten was taken up by acts who were pasty and had bad teeth and complained about the weather constantly.
And that was just the never-ending train-wreck interview with Lily Allen. And sure, while hanging shit on Pommy Gaga is entertaining, as well as on those who seem to think the Cockney Britney is some sort of lyrical genius rather than just being Mike Skinner from the Streets in a floral frock, that doesn't solve the Issue at Hand. That being, Triple J has killed Australian music.Okay, okay. Slightly leading statement. Australian music is doing a'ight, taking the minor cheese on offer ref. the podium. The Hilltop Hoods stood the fuck up for Aussie hip hop (thanks v. much Scribe) in third place, with possibly their worst single on record; and some Unearthed dance act took second, with possibly the worst single ever recorded. So the club acts and the yo-bro-peace-out-2-mah-homiez contingent are reprazentin'. Only one problem. Where are the bands? Rock, punk, garage, metal, fucking rockabilly skank for all I care. People with guitars and the intent to use them, in concordance with causing a disturbance of the piece. Where the fuck are they? Other than Bluejuice at #5 - who appear to be a Huey Lewis And The News covers band, based on 'Broken Leg' - nowhere. None. Not a fucking sausage.
Now at this point you might argue that Triple J aren't responsible for their audience's voting habits, which I would argue would make you an ignorant, hapless moron, as there is near-endless opportunity for the final makeup of the countdown to be finessed by Triple J, from the initial selection and rotation of the playlist to even choosing which songs make the list of 'most popular' tracks they make available to voters, as akin to a how-to-vote card as anything I've seen outside an election day polling booth. The inevitable conclusion is that Triple J aren't playing guitar bands anymore, and furthermore, aren't interested in doing so. And you could try and argue that music has moved on from guitar bands and that rock dinosaurs are reaching extinction. Which again would make you a congenital retard; the biggest live acts in the world are still guitar bands, and the overwhelming majority of Triple J Hottest 100 winners, including the last two before this year (Muse and Kings of Leon) were guitar bands. The biggest buzz out of the Big Day Out was a guitar band, Muse (OK they faff about with a bunch of electronic production, but they're still a guitar band) borrowing the lead singer of another guitar band, Nic Cester from Jet, to bash through a deafening show-stopper cover of 'Back In Black', the signature tune of the greatest guitar band in history, AC/DC.
Meanwhile, in the countdown proper, Jet and Wolfmother both found themselves well out of the running and mired deep in the 70s. Where, you might argue, they are well suited. To which I would reply, fuck off smart arse I do the jokes around here. Powderfinger, perennial pointy-end-scarers, finished in mid-table obscurity with the lead single off their latest album, Fifty-Fifty Vulture Street And Odyssey No.5.This all sounds like the incoherent disentitled rantings of a bitter middle-aged man who can see the writing on the wall ref. the remorseless march of time, namely his, in the direction of Away, and yet refuses to give the kids their radio station back. And yeah, it is. But there is a point here. There was a time when Triple J nurtured Australian bands, put them on heavy rotation, supported their tours, got them on festival lineups. It was called the 1990s. Count them off - you may need to take off your shoes and socks to do so - Powderfinger, You Am I, Regurgitator, Silverchair, Grinspoon, Spiderbait, The Living End, Magic Dirt, Eskimo Joe, Custard, Killing Heidi, Frenzal Rhomb (even though they got banned from the Jays until they 'grew up'), Skunkhour, The Cruel Sea, Machine Gun Fellatio, the Superjesus, TISM... and into the Noughties, the Vines, Jet, Faker and Wolfmother. Most of the '90s generation are now old and at retirement age; you can't rock out for the kids when yours are old enough to be listening to the Jays themselves. Unless you're Shihad of course, who will die and be cremated on stage. And this isn't a lament for how music was better in 'my day' - though it was, of course - but simply to point out the replacements for these guys aren't coming through. Beeso, arch-apologist for Pommy Gaga that he is, had a pertinent analogy - that of Sheffield Shield cricket, where aging pros seek to keep young hungry tyros out of the state sides in order to maintain their career and their earning opportunities well into their late 30s. And a glance down the lineup of this year's BDO seems on face value to confirm that - Powderfinger (first played on Triple J in 1994), Grinspoon (JJJ Unearthed winners 1995), Eskimo Joe (since 1999), Jet (since 2001), Magic Dirt (since forever) and a reformed Tumbleweed (since even longer than that). But the Bluejuices, Kisschasys, The Scares etc are still getting festival gigs, and it's not as though the JJJ playlist is swamped with tracks off any recent album from any of the above elder statesbands. In reality, the Jays are stacking 'em deep and selling 'em cheap; by filling their Australian content quota with unsigned, often unsignable acts through their various Unearthed initiatives, they score the same political points with their gummint masters for considerably less effort. No wonder the kids prefer the shine of Muse or Kasabian when the local alternative is a bunch of bogans from Lismore hacking away on their axes with nary a clue. And setting aside the new Grinspoon album, the Unearthed acts are usually pretty Amateur Hour as well.
So can the creeping death of the Australian alternative rock band (or punk band, or metal for that matter, since fuck all of either got played yesterday either) be pinned on Robbie Buck-style aging hipster tosspot music programmers deep in the bowels of Triple J's Ultimo HQ? Probably not. The creeping death of live music in Melbourne, thanks to fucking ridiculous liquor licensing laws which demand multiple seccies on duty any time someone plugs in a tatty old Les Paul copy or Stratocastoff, has a lot to do with it. Most of the above acts were either from the Melbourne scene or cut their teeth playing there. Sydney's scene might be making noise about opening more intimate venues
for young performers to get a start, but the loss of landmarks like the Hopetoun and the Annandale (currently marking time) will take more to overcome than opening a few bijou hipster bars with a stool and a low wattage PA.And that sucks. Because listening through to the sharp end of Hottest 100 and finding yourself actually saying the words 'Thank Christ, something decent and Australian. Hilltop Hoods' is a desperately grim experience.
The Doctor is OUT.
29 comments:
I knew there was a reason this blog was called world of bollocks!
LOL This should be in a magazine.
You know YOB I appreciate you taking one for the team and actually listening to the countdown. I couldn't risk perforating my eardrums...not even for the sake of lampooning the tunes.
I don't have any answers. The odds are stacked against it. Sad thing is all the young ones associate music with eccies and huge festivals. None of them could know the joy of seeing a young band in a pub (or in my case the Mansfield Tavern...GURUS YEAH!!) and watching them rise from the ashes. You felt like you were a part of it...not just some zombie drone with Mum's credit card and a facebook page.
Moko is right. Send this to music rag. Awesome-ness-ness.
The Hopetoun? The Annandale?
Man, I am never visiting Sydney again. It would make me too sad.
Here's an interesting aside from me, though: maybe a huge problem with Australian music is that there is a pervasive attitude that bands starting out don't get paid to play. For three years, I lived in Bumfuck, Pennsylvania, where my husband's just-for-fun punk band was paid a pittance for occasional gigs and support gigs at dive bars in the area. And yet, I thought to myself, that's more than I ever got paid gigging original music in Sydney. The culture of not paying young musicians has been there so long that nobody expects to be paid or to pay for live original rock music. It's fucking wrong, and it killed the scene.
ALD and Beeso - thanks as ever for the highly intellectual standards of debate that you gents bring to the table
Moko - can't be arsed but cheers
Nat - only actually listened to the top 20, followed the rest on Twunter. Not wasting precious bandwidth on the BBC Radio 1 Hottest 100
Morm - the Hoey's closed indefinitely, the Annandale is still coughing up blood though. Interesting point you make - my brother had a similar experience with his originals band in Melbourne when they came home from playing in Montreal and LA, they used to get a pittance there (had to be, they were there on tourist visas) but it was less than fuck all of a pittance in Melbourne, and they chucked it in. You simply can't sustain life as an originals band, even as a covers band it's thin margins.
I'm hearin ya, Yob n Nat, but I'm not entirely convinced of the death, or even dying, or Aus rawk music. Or that the Hottest 100 can be used as a barometer... especially here in Bris.
Being on the very slight peripheral of the "scene" here (fk that sounds so wanky... what I mean is that I go to quite a few gigs, some of which in a more-than-a-punter kinda way), it's quite obvious Js are entirely irrelevant to what the 'kids' are doing these days. And it's a vibrant scene regardless, with most venues opening their doors not just on weekends, but midweek, to healthy crowds. Guitars still reign supreme, along with bumfluff and wiggly arses. Sure, it's not as sweaty or greasy or flanno-clad as when I was an ageless scenester, but it still has an energising vibrancy to it.
The point being (was there a point? Fuck knows...) is that the bands that are doing this - local, national and international - are nowhere near the Js or their ilk. From what I can gather, the current scensters see the Js as the first step to bland-dom in terms of musical edginess.
It's fkn shit that such a great bastion has become such an ugly caricature of itself, but I don't think the lack of its relevance is having all that much of an impact.
As to what it's been replaced by in terms of providing a platform for up-and-coming talent - I have no idea. I keep thinking there's this amazing on-line community somewhere where all the cool bands are hanging out and I've just come late to the party... but I don't think that's the reality. I think listeners are working a lot harder to localise their personal listening habits and invest much more time listening to their own rapidly growing collections than tuning into a radio station. Due to this, the fervent nature of the audience is growing. Ie - the kids are at the gig or downloading the album not simply cos some pimply wannabe on a radio station decided it was worthy.
Peer guidance has been my radio station of choice for some years now, and I suspect that to be the case for many people. Hence how I came to get off on La Roux's blips and bops - thanks to Beeso's big-upping it. Lily Allen, on the other hand... can go get fucked.
Ah that's more like it. Cheers Albion.
If the Js are now effectively irrelevant to the kids, I think that's more than just disappointing. That's a waste of taxpayers money and they need to be slapped about the head until they get back on-message. Their mission, explicitly, is to be relevant to youth culture - by reflecting it, not attempting to drive it like a thousand other cultural elements, usually commercial, try to. On my experience of listening to (bits of) the countdown, am hearing what you said about it becoming a self-promoting, self-perpetuating caricature of itself. Even the individual DJs themselves - Lindsay McDougall in particular, sadly for me as I was a big wrap for Frenzals and now I just want to slap him - have gone through the same process.
There is an obvious failing in using two fairly flawed 'endpoint assays' - Hottest 100 and festival lineup representation - to argue my case, but standing on tiptoes trying to see over the horizon into WTF is going on is a bit tricky from my current vantage point.
Oh it's a massive waste of taxpayer funds, I totally agree. But what would you propose as not only the logical end-point, but also the path in getting there?
Both the end-points I can think of (shutting it down being one, total commercialisation being the other) would be fraught with political danger, would it not? Considering you and your ilk - white, male... I won't say middle class, but you get my drift (which I count myself one of) is a rather large political force and also holds the idea - if not particularly the practice - of the Js in extremely high regard.
Unfortunately the days of the Js being a revolutionary force in not only the content, but also the ways in which the medium can be used, are long gone. They will merely be hangers-on with whatever make-up the modern radio station takes in the digital world.
Perhaps its time we hung up the romantic glasses and stopped vesting so much of our cultural identity in what was a rather weird abboration in terms of media usage? Or, as you rather succinctly put, "give the kids their station back" to make of it what they will
Just to clarify, by endpoint assays I meant I'm using how Aust alterna-rock bands do in H100 and BDO as an output measure of how the scene is going. It's obviously a shit way of gauging how things are going at the 'input' end ie down at the coalface of new bands.
That said - Triple J would have to be the best resourced of all the government radio networks. When the ABC was being reviewed under Howard it was shown that it could actually fund itself through merch if it had to. So it's not lack of resource that prevents them doing their job properly. Neither commercialisation nor shutdown is a fix, and neither is needed. Perhaps a management purge. They've always had an in-house, promote from within management strategy - eg Kingsmill as head of new music forever and a day - and I'm not sure that's healthy, it promotes a corporate mindset of protect the entitity and the brand as job #1. Their mission is youth culture and music relevant to that. How are they currently assessing, surveying and promoting this? Are they doing anything much at all other than having a Facebook page and answering texts on the Net 50? Are they bothered to do anything more than they've always done? I suspect not. This is where they need to reinvest some of that cash earned from flogging Drum logo t-shirts.
Media has changed, obviously. Triple J was so important in the 90s, esp out in the sticks, because that was the only way we got new music. Not the case any more, and won't be again. But if Triple J is to stay relevant - and it absolutely HAS to or some penny-pinching conservative government will axe it, Howard sure as hell wanted to - it needs to do more to get into new media. It does some podcasts and a bit of TV. Waheyyy. Why aren't Triple J trawling through the interweb and Deadspace looking for new unsigned bands, rather than holding a big fuck-off lottery and calling it a talent quest?
You're right of course, JJJ can't won't and doesn't mean as much to the kids born in the 90s as those born in the 70s. And I'm happy to give the kids their station back. Provided the kids actually want it. Which is the station-master's job to ensure. Time for a new Fat Controller or three at Ultimo possibly.
Ok now dinosaur land, lets get a grip. Triple J is still relevant and doing more for up and coming music than the rest of the radio land put together. They push a lot of winners thru the unearthed brand now, have you heard of seth sentry or The John Steel Singers? Bands are getting onto radio that has a broad reach much much quicker than they would have when i was running venues.
Back then i would wade through piles and piles of shite looking for support bands for shows, the problem was that i am one man and as dr yobbo has shown having one persons taste decide whats good is not healthy. Triple J have flagship shows whose presenter and producer will be pushing their stuff onto the mainstream shows.
Now what the good Doc has his dirty rock crusted undies in a knot over is the lack of rock bands on Triple J. Well i think its because its because the commercials got their arse out of the 70s and 80s and started playing some australian modern rock. Once the commercials start flogging powderfinger and spiderbait then there is no need for the Js to do so. As wil anderson used to joke Eskimo Joe used to play at MMM staff meetings they were that popular
There still are some rock acts on the Js. Sleepy Jackson. Little Birdy. But think on this, you are having a whinge about your style being a bit swamped on one station. That style is flogged to death on the commercials. When i started doing live music in Brisbane, there was NO aussie hip hop or funk on anything but a few community radio shows. So forgive me for not really caring that the next powderfinger or spiderbait is here yet, i know that they'll be along, but they might have to share with some other stuff, even if it is 80's revival electro pop from the pommies.
Oh and another mid sized venue opened in brisbane and is going great guns, just shows sydney has no FKN idea about live music
Not only another mid-sized venue, but also a smallish one (X and Y) and even Ric's seems to have sailed through the recent take-over unscathed. Not sure for how long, though.
The chick booking Rics now really knows her gear, shes been a big supporter of the local scene for ages
She does indeed... she put on a cracker Valley Fiesta. One of the best in the modern era, IMHO.
Well I was kinda hoping for something a bit less rabid and spit-flecked than 'TRIPLE J IS STILL FKN AWRIGHT THERES NUFFIN WRONG WIF IT AND YOUSE IS JUST A FKN DINOSAUR AND PROBLY A POOFTA, AND SYDNEY'S FKD ANYWAY NOW GIS A FOUREX', but if that's all you got, that's all you got. Cheers.
I thought i was being reasonably rational.
Put a bit more thought into this and i think you've just hit a slow year for rock music. Last year you had the grates, the gin club and a few others bring out decent albums.
Where i think the main mistake is judging the work JJJ does by the hottest 100. A heap of people that rarely or never listen vote and listen on australia day.
Same with big day out. Its the most commercial, greedy and overhyped of all the aussie festivals, in fact festivals like laneway and falls and all the little ones are probably replacing the stalwart venues as live revenue streams, even though i'd rather see more small rooms out there.
I still claim that JJJ are doing great things with unearthed though.
Let's leave the stylistic sledging out of it. I could as easily query why semi-literate bogans reciting D-grade beat poetry to someone else's riffs constitutes musical greatness, but genre is not the issue. Triple J may play more new music than any other radio station, but that's a piss-flimsy statement, given that radio is clearly a dying medium. As established above, nobody is listening to radio stations in order to pick up new music, except you, and you're older than me. Triple J's manifesto, from their website: 'We're for young Australians. We don't care so much about the rest.' None of the commenters on this page qualify as such, but I don't know any Australians under 25 who listen to the Js. Mission Fail.
And if you seriously think the mere existence of Ric's and one or two random Valley newbies is the salvation of the Australian live music scene, and will cover for the loss of the likes of the Tote and the Hopetoun, that's small town Quoinslaaaandaaa parochialism on a scale unimaginable by cogent thought.
Where are you getting this no one is listening to triple j for new music. I went camping with a mate last year and her 21 year old brother and two mates were part of the reason i went back to the Js. They mentioned a few songs and told me to listen to the J's to pick up on them. They had their Hottest 100 party planned months ago.
I think you NSW superiority complex is showing. QLD has been a better producer of rock bands for a while now and one of the "valley newbies" is the Hi Fi bar, an extension of that Melbourne venue that has as much cred if not more than any sydney venue.
And i do think that Brisbane might b the salvation of the local music scene. Once upon a time you had to move to sydney or melb to get gigs, so whats so strange about Brisbane being the same centre?
I can say it again in English if you like. Nobody I know under 25 is listening to Triple J. Including people who were IN THE FKN MUSIC SCENE. Having a party for or voting in the Hottest 100 is no barometer of whether anyone listens to Triple J or thinks it's in any way credible - as you pointed out YOURSELF.
My brother's originals band, fresh off the plane from North America, had the choice of Melbourne or Brisbane as their next base. I listed all the advantages of Brisbane - better weather, cheaper std of living, comparable live scene, because I like the place, and I hate Melbourne. At the last point he laughed, shook his head sadly, and booked a flight to Tullamarine. He was right, of course. No band of any credence on the Australian scene has made it without a long apprenticeship in Melbourne or (to a lesser extent) Sydney. You can't say the same for Brisbane, and never will be able to, unless Major Sir Reverend Havock's dream of nuking the Sydney and Melbourne CBDs to glass finally comes true.
Ok now you are making me angry. Did you not read about the three under 21 year old musicians that told me to listen to the Js.
Brisbane. Dew Process is based here.http://www.dew-process.com/ have a look at the bands on their books. They also run Splendour in the Grass.
The Grates, the gurge, resin dogs, Powderfinger for fucks sake, none of which went to melbourne to fucking "make it" other than to do a tour.
We obviously aren't going to agree but your view is correct, for about 2003.
Yeah I read it, doesn't mean it's representative. My bro's band were IN the fkn Unearthed comp and didn't listen to the fkrs because the Js were a pointless miasma of offcuts and shite. And as for bands out of Brisbane - I can't believe you're even going there, that was going to be my next point. No truly great, internationally relevant bands have EVER come out of the Brisbane scene. Custard, Regurgitator, Not From There, and the other bands who got a run on Triple J - yeah we love 'em but how much ACTUAL success did they have? The Gurge shifted a few Units (literally) but most of Australia would be headscratching, let alone the rest of the world. The Resin Dogs - who? Powderfinger - a success in Australia, a prodigious failure anywhere else, big fish in a small pond. The Saints - yeah, but they didn't get anywhere until they relocated to Sydney where that garage-punk sound was resonating in the late 70s. The Go Betweens - cult heroes, which by definition means they were largely ignored in their own lifetime. What Brisbane band has ever been truly big? Savage Garden??
And yay for Dew Process for picking somewhere cheap to have a head office, Virgin Blue style. Ever heard of Modular Records of Darlinghurst? The single most well credentialled indie label in the land? The basis for ITWPT's Exocet Records? (Well OK, David Williams and Shock do get a bit of credit there too.)
Sydney's no Melbourne, where EVERY band is from even if they're not, but the Sydney scene has still produced internationally credentialled acts like AC/DC (Burwood), INXS (northern beaches), You Am I (western suburbs), Radio Birdman (suburb nearest wherever Denis Tek was going to med school), the Hoodoo Gurus (inner west), Wolfmother (Erskineville, will probably be one album wonders but it was one fucking huge album internationally.) Even with a sick and dying scene I'd still back Sydney's historic output over Brisbane's. And if Brisbane ever does get to be greater than Sydney/Melbourne's, it'll be through attrition, not quality.
Again i think you're confusing historical context with modern day reality. No doubt that sydney has mor history and cred from the last 30 years, but Wolfmother aside, who really only surfed a desire to hear a new led zep album, who are the truly great bands out of syd/melb in the last 5 years? I'd argue that WA produces more decent rock bands than any other state in OZ and they have to move to melbourne to make it because it is physically impossible to do good long tours up and down the east coast from perth.
I think Triple J may no longer be relevant to and for your style of music, but bands like The Presets and Empire of the Sun made huge waves in the last 18 months off the back of triple j. I still think it is just that there were no striking rock albums last year.
I also think that modern technology really makes it obsolete where you base yourself, but i do think that the sydney live scene is on the decline wheras brisbanes is booming.
"Who are the truly great bands out of syd/melb in the last 5 years?"
Well, if you want to answer your own question...
"The Presets and Empire of the Sun" are both Sydney acts (Luke Steele was originally from Perth but the 'band', for want of a better description of a two piece who hate each other, was formed out of Sydney.) If you can find two more nationally credible acts in terms of profile which come out of Brisbane, let me know.
If we're talking internationally credible, it's Wolfmother and (though they emerged a bit earlier) Jet. There are no other internationally significant Australian bands of the past five years. That's E-ville and Geelong respectively, I think you'll find.
Wouldn't call Presets or Empire of the sun rock bands though. Jet and wolfmother bigger than powderfinger? I dunno. In fact although i grind my teeth to say it, the chair are probably oz biggest rock band of the last five years.
I would say the grates are of an equal standard to presets or EOTS. More so overseas, they were the talk of South by Southwest two years ago.
No they're not, but Brisbane's scene - no matter what genre you're talking - hasn't outperformed either Sydney or Melbourne's in terms of output. Jet and Wolfmother are the biggest acts to EMERGE in the past five years (Jet with the stated caveat that they actually emerged probably 7 yrs ago.) Newcastle's Silverchair were already established. As were Burwood's AC/DC. I suspect the latter were bigger.
Wll if you want the biggest band to emerge in Oz in the last five years, it is without doubt the Hilltop Hoods. From that well known music heartland Adelaide
I was gunna put up Keith Urban, but he's a filthy Kiwi... and from Caboolture.
I would back Beeso's assertion that '09 was a dull year for new rock everywhere, not just Aus. Apart from the bleeps and bops 80s revival stuff, the shoe-gazing "nu-folk" and indie hipster feel certainly took over.
As far as city vs city? I honestly have no idea. I'm too heavily vested in Bris to have an objective view of other scenes. Sydney has had the view of being very hard on musos for the past 10-15 years, and recent developments with Melb's licensing laws looks like they're in for a rough trot, too.
Beeso - nup, unless your calendar is missing a couple years. Hilltops had already emerged by 2003, Nosebleed Section was up the pointy end of the '03 Hottest 100 - the one Jet won - and if you're going to claim that HH have sold more albums or played to more punters than Jet worldwide, you really will have vacated your senses. Wolfmother's breakthrough period was summer '05/'06 (album released, touring BDO, all over Triple J etc.)
Albion - yeah it might be just a bad trot. But some bad trots you don't come back from without specialist coaching.
Having grown up in Sydney, and haunted the Hopetoun, the Trade Union Club, the Southern Cross, and the Harold Park Hotel, my gut feeling is that Sydney's now a wasteland as far as live music goes. Heck, Melbourne outperformed us in 1980! Dr Y, go check out that doco about the Tote. There is a point where Johnson Street gets blocked off by the crowd turning to complain that one of their favourite rock pubs is being shut.
And on the subject of radio, we have 3RRR and 3PBS. Brisvegas has 4ZZZ. What has Sydeny got? 2SER? Snerk.
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