A History of Popular Indigenous Music

SINCE THE INVENTION OF recording technologies like the phonograph in the late 1800s, Indigenous music has been performed and recorded across Australia for a wide range of audiences. In the early twentieth century, for instance, music was recorded by anthropologists keen to capture the sounds of a culture that was believed to be in rapid decline (Thomas). Individual performers were not considered important in these recordings; their music was produced for scientific posterity rather than popular pleasure. And even though Aboriginal participation in local music festivals, touring vaudeville shows, and community gatherings was well documented throughout the twentieth century, it was not until the 1950s that Indigenous “pop stars” began to sell records for mass consumption(Dunbar-Hall and Gibson). Yet, with the persistence of recording artists like Jimmy Little over the past sixty years, Indigenous musicians have steadily gained prominence in Australia’s mainstream. This has been particularly true of the past twenty years, especially since the Sydney Olympics, where promotional strategies have brought about a new popular pride in musical achievements, based upon a celebrated history of diverse sounds and voices.

Art of sleeping - "Like a Thief"

Research background Art of Sleeping’s “Like a Thief” is an EP of popular music produced at Airlock studios and released in 2012 by the record label Dew Process. “Like a Thief” contributes to studies in the field of music production, as well as furthering research into the role of of national radio play in the development of emerging musicians and artists. Using Australian bands such as Boy and Bear as a reference point, the EP showcases the vocal range of Caleb Hodges and investigates possibilities in extending the modes of musicality possible within the recording studio through use of multiple layering of processed keyboards and electric guitar. Scholars such as Ben Eltham and journalists such as Everett True have written about the importance of the support of Australia’s national youth broadcaster Triple J in the early stages of a band’s development. The approach of the production of the EP was conceived with this agenda in mind, and asked, what can we learn about the relationships between popular music production, distribution and consumption, and the role that national public radio has come to play in the Australian context? Research contribution This project has identified that certain avenues of the music industry continue to aligned with Triple J airplay, that these avenues play an important role in the level of success that artists are likely to achieve, and that targeted understanding of music production techniques and aesthetics may contribute to success in this regard. Research significance The EP’s two singles were both in the top 100 most frequently played tracks on Triple J in 2012, and the band were able to leverage this exposure in securing a record deal with Dew Process, along with being selected as part of the competitive peer review process for festival performances such as Splendour in the Grass. The work received positive peer reviews, with indieshuffle writing: “Brisbane's Art of Sleeping are a truly talented band. … the five-piece gained plenty of local attention earlier this year with their stunning single "Empty Hands.” This was the first single off their new EP, Like a Thief, which was produced by the renowned Yanto Browning (The Medics, The Jungle Giants) … The EP includes five tracks of incredible power and sentiment … Title track "Like a Thief” is … [a] standout, again a vast and expansive song which showcases the band's completeness”

Thesis Eleven's 'Festival of Ideas' : a report on 'what's wrong with television'

This article reports on the public lecture given by Associate Professor Ron Jacobs from the State University of New York in June, 2011. The lecture titled 'What’s wrong with television: media narratives of economic crisis', was held at The University of Melbourne in association with Thesis Eleven’s ‘Festival of Ideas’. In his talk, Jacobs discussed the ways in which media narratives inform and shape social life and described how major economic, social and political events are represented and re-told in the making of news.

The kite string tangle : blissed-out beats at the Brisbane Festival

Danny Harley has had a pretty big year with his one-man band project The Kite String Tangle. There have been festival appearances, both at home and abroad, a song in the top 20 of Triple J’s iconic Hottest 100 annual music poll and a sold-out tour to mark the release of his debut EP, which wrapped up this week with two shows in the Spiegeltent at the Brisbane Festival...

Juana Molina : left-field folktronica at the Brisbane Festival

Argentine singer-songwriter Juana Molina is one of those fearless artists. The kind of fearless artist who abandons a successful TV show at the height of its popularity to pursue a solo career in making and performing slightly left-field South American folk-tinged electronica...

Boat race festival in Samoa

A travel article about the Teuila Festival in Samoa. "IT isn't a festival without a boat race," Faumui Iese says. We stand together on one side of a spectator boat as it follows the Teuila Festival Fautasi Race. On the shoreline, a crowd clambers down a retaining wall. It seems his is a common sentiment. Each team represents a village...

Popular Science

Review of The Anatomist by Bill Hayes (Scribe, 2008). Bill Hayes wanted to write about Henry Gray, the author of Gray's Anatomy (1858), which at least until the television series connoted a standard text for anatomy students. Perhaps even more seductive for the biographer than the book's enduring appeal was a sense that Gray himself had partly disappeared from the historical record. Here was a scientist with the sort of brilliant young mind that seemed a specialty of the Victorian Age, and yet one who had not benefited from that period's compulsive documenting of the men of the moment and their deeds. Surely in that mystery there lay a narrative...

Great expectations : a project by Boxcopy for Federation Square, Next Wave Festival 2008

Part of the Next Wave MEMBRANE Project, Great Expectations draws attention to the parallels between our expectations of art and new technology to make the world a better place. The theme of the 2008 Next Wave Festival, ‘Closer Together’, refers to the way society is ― for the better or for the worse ― becoming increasingly connected by media and communication technologies. Sceptical of the acclaimed social achievements of new technologies, Boxcopy: Contemporary Art Space, a Brisbane-based artist-run initiative, explores the futility of human activities, including art production and consumption, with a collection of works created by young and emerging Brisbane artists. Works for this project include: Early machines such as the Commodore 64 were tape-based, and hence had their games distributed on ordinary cassettes (2009) by Tim Kerr & Extra Features (2008) by Tim Woodward; Spine (2008), Joseph Briekers; Whiteout (2008), Channon Goodwin; Explosive Revelations (2008), Daniel McKewen.

North West Music Festival in Port Hedland, Western Australia

A travel article about a music festival in Port Hedland, Western Australia. At first, the crowd gathers in small groups, as though we’ve arrived at a picnic day. Girls in long skirts wearing bands in their hair call out across the wide lawn of the Turf Club, and run over to meet friends. They sit cross-legged in the sun, half swaying to the music, chatting. On stage, Thelma Plum, a girl with a voice from the 1960s, circles her lyrics with her hands. You wonder if she’s casting a spell, an appeal to the decade of revolutions...

Queensland's film culture: The challenges of local film distribution and festival exhibition

Organisations at the centre of the state’s industry, such as Screen Queensland, have undergone substantial and ongoing changes in the last five years. Other organisations funded by Screen Queensland, such as QPIX, Queensland’s only film development centre, have recently closed. The Brisbane International Film Festival has been restructured to become the Brisbane Asia Pacific Film Festival as of 2014. In an uncertain industry currently characterised by limited funding and diminishing support structures, local emerging filmmakers require significant initiatives and a sophisticated understanding of how to best utilise fledgling distribution models as part of a tailored strategy for their content. This essay includes interviews with emerging Brisbane filmmakers who have used a combination of traditional and contemporary approaches to exhibition and distribution thus far in their careers. It argues that for these filmmakers, while film festivals do function as crucial platforms for exposure, in the current digital market they cannot be relied upon as the only platform in securing further mainstream or commercial release. They can, however, be incorporated into an alternative distribution model that shows awareness of the contemporary situation in Australia. The research findings are arguably indicative of the challenges faced by filmmakers statewide, and suggest that further support strategies need to be considered to revive Queensland’s film culture and provide immediate support for emerging filmmakers. Queensland’s film sector is currently in the midst of significant change.

Out of the Box Festival for 3 to 8 year olds (Artistic Director)

The Out of the Box Festival was founded in 1994 by the Queensland Performing Arts Centre and has been held biannually ever since both within and around the centre in what is now known as the Cultural Precinct at Southbank. It is unique in Australia in that it caters entirely to children aged 8 years and under, with a highly curated program of ticketed performance events, workshops and free arts-based events. It is attended by school and kindergarten groups and by families, and besides engaging children in high quality arts experiences, the festival is also a platform for advocating the developmental and educational benefits of the arts for children. Dr Mark Radvan was the artistic director of the 2008 festival, with responsibility for developing the curatorial direction of each festival, for creating and programming its events, and for working with festival partners The Queensland Art Gallery, The Queensland Museum, The State Library of Queensland and The Queensland Theatre Company. Radvan designed selected and commissioned works to demonstrate how the arts create memorable, celebratory and immersive experiences that stimulate children’s imagination, their curiosity and confidence about the material world and the cultures of its people. A core event was an outdoor music and dance performance space featuring entirely Indigenous performers that was not only the beating heart of the festival, but served to underlie the importance of mainstreaming awareness of our first peoples in the increasingly culturally diverse communities of children attending.

Festival focus : Brisbane International Film Festival

In 2012, the Brisbane International Film Festival officially came of age, celebrating its twenty-first birthday. The festival has emerged from a tumultuous adolescence and redefined its position on the Australian festival circuit as an advocate of locally made films and documentary filmmaking in particular. Brisbane’s International Film Festival opened in 1992 and has since been attended by more than 400,000 filmgoers. The festival is held annually and showcases a diverse range of feature films, documentaries, short films, animation and experimental work, children’s films and retrospectives.

Food for Thought (Next Wave Festival)

Food for Thought embraces the notion that a revolution can start at the dinner table. Drawing inspiration from Judy Chicago’s seminal artwork ‘The Dinner Party’, LEVEL Artist Run Initiative hosted a series of dinner party events in order to create vibrant discussions concerning the role of women and feminism in the twenty-first century. The work consisted of a reading room, four dinner party events, and four public talks covering the topics: 'Women and the arts';'Generations: plurality and difference'; 'Women in the media'; and 'How can art contribute to political change for women in the 21st century?'

Black Diggers: Out of the trenches at the Brisbane Festival (Theatre review)

The performance space in which Wesley Enoch’s play Black Diggers is being performed at the Brisbane Festival is a large black box. It features a raised stage in the middle which proves versatile for battlegrounds at home and abroad – and later as ground for discriminatory encounters experienced by Aboriginal returned ex-servicemen. The fire-filled 44-gallon drum off to the side creates another space of encounter; there are few other props. Now and then, dates and other details are whitewashed on the black walls...