Australian content - to be or not to be?

This is a very delayed update to the coverage of song summit, being that it was over a week ago but never the less, as promised my dissection of the commercial radio debate.

So to give you some background, this is what song summit had to say about the panel-


Australian Content – 'To Be Or Not To Be'

The Australian Government's enquiry into Media Convergence, and the proposed National Cultural Policy, have ignited the debate on Australian Content. Is it good for culture yet a hindrance for commerce? Hear both sides of the argument.

Speakers:

Chris Scaddan
Clare Bowditch
Joan Warner
Russell Thomas
Kath Letch (Moderator)

So essentially what this Panel became about was the amount of Australian music that commercial radios play. In case you weren't aware commercial radios are required to meet certain quotas for their content. Here's an overview of the breakdown:

Commercial radio stations have a minimum quota of music that has to be played that is Australian music, 25% and of that a further 25% has to be new music.
The Quotas are broken down into categories based on the type of music that the station falls under I.e top 40 , adult contemporary etc. 
Public radio, such as triple j and FBI do not have quotas however they are, by their charters, designed as community organisations for the purpose of representing the local arts community and as such usually play a larger percentage of local and particularly independent music by design. 
Triple j in fact have a self imposed quota of 40% Australian music and FBI (from memory) plays about 50% with half of that being unsigned. 
In addition to this Triple j unearthed has become a lot more successful than originally anticipated, leading to the new triple j unearthed digital radio station which plays exclusively Independent or unsigned Australian music,

This begs the question, why are the commercial radio stations so combative when addressed regarding the issue of quotas? (It may be noted that Joan Warner, head of the commercial radio association, came out swinging from the outset. She was clearly expecting a fight and I understand her position but I'm not sure telling a room full of music industry practitioners that radio "doesn't need music" was necessarily the best place to start.) As they so adamantly insist, they not only meet the quotas but exceed them and were they not meeting their quotas surely this would be addressed by the regulatory body. Their argument for not playing more Australian music comes down to quality. Commercial radio stations are exactly that, commercial endeavours whose purpose by and large is to make money. Their argument lies in the fact that local music is not up to the standard of international releases  and additionally that listenership for local music is simply not as accepted by the masses in Australia as are international artists. The obvious answer to this is that in order to win over the commercial radio stations you first have to win over the general music listening public. Essentially this is what most artists aspire to anyway, for if we were only playing music for ourselves we would never leave our bedroom. The contention over quotas therefore seems to stem not from the percentage itself but from the seeming lack of support for Australian music producers from the commercial radio community, with the legislation taking the form of a concerted effort to force the commercial radio stations to give AirPlay to Australian artists whether they support it or not. This forced nature of the initiative inevitably causes friction and resentment on behalf of the commercial networks, not just because of the possible economic impact on a commercial venture but because they may feel that they are doing the work of winning over the public in place of the artist taking this control and earning their representation. However this could be argued against as many of Australia's prominent artists have never had commercial airplay and yet have a dedicated fan base (as Claire proudly pointed out - and a well deserved point it was!).
This could also reflect the fact that most Australians artists are not traditionally pop orientated, which is where the majority of Australian radio stations sit. Possibly then with the emergence of digital radio and the variance of styles available in that medium there will be more opportunity for Australian artists to receive AirPlay on commercial networks, if not on the traditional stations like 2day and foxfm. Alternately if aspiring Australian artists want to gain commercial airtime they have to produce music that fits within the narrow niche of pop or pop crossover (rnb, rock, country). The last option sitting somewhere in the middle of these two options is to create the type of mass market appeal necessary to warrant mass market distribution, prior to approaching commercial stations. That is to make the stations come to you, after you've garnered the publics support. Strangely it seems the best way to do this is still to gain recognition overseas before returning to Australian audiences. The best way to do this however is still the greatest mystery in the music industry. Suffice to say when I figure it out you'll be the first to know. Well you'll probably know before the commercial radio stations anyway.

Song summit 2012 - Day 1

Today was the first day of Song Summit 2012.

I will only give a short recap right now because I'm going to do an in depth post on my thoughts after the Australian content panel, so for now I'll keep it short.

The day started with Brett Cottle welcoming us on behalf of apra, followed by the welcome to country from the traditional land owners. Then we had Simon Crean talking about the importance of the arts to government which left me with the distinct feeling that there must be an election looming. Either that or that's how politicians always speak. Either way he seemed to be speaking quite strongly about how much support labour gives and has given to the arts over the years and asked us to use not just our art but also our choices to make the changes we want from government happen. Sounds like a. Nice sentiment only it seemed to boil down to "we support the arts so please vote for us". Next up we had Stephen Navin who is the head of the publishers association in the uk. He was hilarious, comparing his own kind, that is publishers, to cockroaches. Plus stating that rock music came from ancient times, when they carved music notation on rocks...

Imogen Heap

Imogen was amazing. Not only was she completely candid about her inspiration and her methods she also played a song for us to demonstrate, right off the bat. Plus she likes the sound of people scratching their knees. (google Imogen Heap is this is confusing for you).

Australian content panel

Definitely the most divisive Of the panels today. There was too much that happened to write it all now but I will post a full account of my musings soon.

My music my business panel

This one was mostly about the practical side of things. How not to leave your future and finance in the hands of someone else or worse still no one. Definitely convinced me to talk to and arts accountant this tax time though. Time to start claiming gig tickets as research. No joke.

International songwriting panel

This one was interesting as all hell in the way of understanding the competition. This was songwriters and publishers who work specifically in pop music. Im talking writing songs for the idol winners, every big name r&b and pop diva you can think of, the churn them out big chart toppling hits kind of deal.

It was amazing to hear the difference of perspective. It's never occurred to me or even made sense to me that someone who has the urge to write songs wouldn't want to be the one up there playing or singing them but there are lots of people out there who do and lots of artists whose entire repertoire comes from these people. It was a good perspective to understand because to some extent you can see what our here up against and on he other hand it helps to know that you have advantages in writing for yourself and being to get your own music out there.

Ok so that's the basic wrap up of day 1. Much more learning and excitement tomorrow.

The behavioural effects of wearing a onesie...

And other outcomes of Winter arriving.

I have a onesie. It has a hood and feet, it's bright orange with monkeys on it and I LOVE it. I don't know exactly when I decided I wanted a onesie but at some point i began complaining to my friends that no one made awesome onesies for adults like the ones you used to wear as a kid. You know the ones, you'd put it on and it would be any costume you wanted? You'd be your favourite superhero or animal character, with super powers of course, and inevitably at some point during the evenings events either you or a sibling would make various excuses requiring you to perform perfectly executed run-and-slide manoeuvres over the kitchen floor until finally someone, in my house usually my brother, would take the sliding a little too far and either injure themselves or make a loud enough commotion upon landing that parental people would intervene and send everyone to 'quiet time' activities. I've often noticed that I have an instinctual peter pan complex, not in a responsibility shirking way at all, i'm actually annoyingly responsible - always pay off my credit card, manage to pay bills on time and have thus far have not managed to get any utilities disconnected despite living outside of parental control for a number of years - no, more in a constantly channeling my inner child way, often without conscious realisation.

Where was I... oh yes, so at some point i decided that there needed to be a version of that childhood onesie made for adults, less for the kitchen sliding abilities and more for the comfort, but a onesie none the less. It would appear that I complained frequently and loudly enough at this lacking that my 2 best friends were driven to track down such an item for my birthday a few years ago. They found such an item via the interwebs at a website called Jumpin Jammerz. So upon my 'very adult number of years' birthday I received, much to my extreme delight, my amazing monkey onesie.

Now I have routinely worn this onesie throughout the coldest parts of winter for the last few years and it has served me well. So well in fact that as soon as the autumn chill appeared in the air this year I dug my onesie out of the wardrobe, washed and dried it to remove the musty 'stored for 6 months' smell and promptly began wearing it again. This year however i have noticed some side effects of my winter attire that had not previously been as evident to me. For one, i have been sleeping amazingly well lately. To be fair sleep is not something I do badly, as my friends and flatmates will attest, but the last few weeks have been particularly satisfying.

Warmth and a good nights sleep would probably be placed on the essentials list for any good pair of pyjamas, which is why these aspects have not drawn too much attention from me but i have also been noticing some other side effects that are a little more reminiscent of those kitchen sliding days. Now as a musician I pretty much always have a song stuck in my head so randomly dancing to music only i can hear is a fairly common occurrence. My flatmate is used to this, but the other night after witnessing a particular occurrence while I was wearing my onesie she was prompted to ask exactly what i was doing? to which i responded "i'm wild rumpusing"

Yep, exactly.

You see, in my head wearing my onesie had not only evoked feelings of warmth and rest but apparently had dredged up childhood memories of reading "Where the Wild Things Are". For this reason my dancing somewhat resembled the dancing of Max and the Wild Things.

Funnily enough my friends had actually been tossing up between my monkey onesie and a max onesie at the time of purchase. Clearly the monkey won out but it seems to have had the same effect none the less.

The next effect of wearing my onesie occurred a few nights later when while walking through the lounge room to the kitchen (which i actually can't slide in as we have imitation 'wood' lino which is far from smooth enough to slide on). As I made my way across the open area of the lounge I suddenly had the inspired idea to start practicing my karate moves. Now i have never done karate, and my 'karate' moves probably more closely resembled trying to swat an insect with my feet but I then proceeded to very steathily ninja my way back across the lounge room to my bedroom where I then started writing a super hero inspired song, because as i performed my pseudo-karate moves the thought passed through my head "all i need now is a cape" and I went from there. ?!?!? . Yep, that was the sensible part of my brain's reaction too.

Now I for one am all for random bouts of inspiration and insanity. As am I equally behind embracing your childhood instincts and while I'm not entirely sure exactly why my onesie is bringing out these behaviours in me suffice to say I am very much enjoying it. Before deciding to write this entry I spent a few hours lying on my bed in my onesie working on lyrics and listening to some of my favourite bands. I'm not sure if it's the physical comfort and security or the childhood reminiscence but my imagination was engaged and it took me far less time to get focused on what I was writing than it would normally take me. So in short, for all of the above reasons and for many more that I'm sure you should explore for yourself I heartily believe that everyone should have at least one onesie in their closet. If only for those occasional late night rumpuses.

x

With appreciation and admiration, Rest in Peace Maurice Sendak, 1928-2012