Big Sound - Day 3
Friday 11th September 2009
Brisbane

For me, Day Three was when it all came together. I’m not sure if it was fateful organization (I’d imagine so) or fatigue or relief that the whole thing was coming to an end but I felt good on the third day.

The morning keynote was delivered by John Farnham manager and commercial industry figurehead Glenn Wheatley. There was a good sized audience in attendance but it wasn’t a packed house. This surprised me, maybe people expected a slick spin on his personal history or more industry talk, maybe people saw him as big industry or old industry, maybe everyone was tired. Whatever the case quite a few stayed away and I think they missed something. Wheatley delivered an even-handed, plainspoken account of his career (raging success, longevity) and its pitfalls (a jail term, financial strife) and despite a few cheesy moments, I was on his side. Obviously he has an agenda when he complains of beer costing ‘as much as a movie ticket’ at concerts but he’s absolutely right and what rings home in his business chatter is something I often forget: these big guns of music built their careers not on the recording industry but on the entertainment biz i.e. the trade of making people happy enough to fork over their dollars. It’s a sensibility much more evident in Wheatley than in a dozen of the smaller players surrounding him at Big Sound.

(As an aside, during the reading of a particularly awful set of John Farnham lyrics by Wheatley, the solemn quiet of this deeply reflective moment is thankfully punctuated by another delegate snot-laughing to point of crying.)

The following panel discussion on entrepreneurialism wasn’t anywhere near as interesting and felt a bit redundant. I’m always suspicious of anyone who aims to strategise innovation – I’m not saying it’s without merit – but I tend to agree when Danny Goldberg brushes the talk aside to quip that anyone fortunate enough to end up with genius artists (as he frequently has) is, for the most part, doing as much as they can to succeed.

After lunch I attend the songwriters panel which is a little nerve-wracking in it’s diversity. Let me just lay it out left to right: Rob Schneider (Apples In Stereo), Romy (formerly Macromantics), the guy from Icecream Hands, the guy from Gangajang (who chaired, and also, puzzlingly, answered his own questions), Kevin Mitchell (aka Bob Evans) Jeff Martin from The Tea Party (yes you read that right) and Van Dyke Parks. Martin was a last minute, secret add in. It was more than a little strange to see him in this setting as the last time I saw Jeff in person he was in a strip club in Ottawa, Canada with a midget in his entourage (yes you read that right). Sans sad-eyed naked women and midget, he’s not nearly as impressive but people seem almost overwhelmed by his appearance - even Van Dyke Parks is excited. What all these panelists end up talking about is the day to day experience of songwriting – the highs and lows, the glory and challenges. No one comes off particularly insightful, subjective as it is, songwriting is not an easy thing to discuss in an inclusive way. But a lot of quotable things are said; my memory favours Van Dyke Parks reading Lil Wayne lyrics aloud (‘Damn I hate a shy bitch’ says the 60+ year old genius on the end) and Jeff: ‘I just see colours, I see colours in my mind.’ Hmmm, colours.

Music & The Internet: Models For Prosperity is on next and also entertains but for entirely different reasons. All conference I’ve been waiting for the audience to arc up. There was once a time where the most entertaining panel at any industry conference was the one where they rounded up all the label A&R people and sicked a crowd of angry musicians on them. Teenagers would moan and gnash their teeth, industry folk would get annoyed and frustrated, it was great stuff. But it didn’t happen at Big Sound 2009 until this panel, where it seems that digital distribution is the new button topic. As it happens, young people hate being called thieves about as much as they hate being called failures, ensuring much talking over one another and snippy rejoinders. At last! I didn’t trust any of them as it turned out, not the newly empowered audience members who ‘share’ music (yeah right, you dirty thieves) nor the panel members who were a motley collection of slick and fast talkers. The lawyer from the Queensland University of Technology told us that the industry had dropped the ball as if it were revelatory; Alison Wenham from the UK tried to convince us that the industry wasn’t greedy (though she has a lovely tone of voice) and the others talked about new models and ideas in a way that could roughly be surmised as such: ‘Yeah, they’re okay. They won’t really work but they’re okay.’ I left feeling that the industry of ‘fixing the music industry’ was probably the most annoying place in the known universe to work or socialise.

And in the end, I took all these bad vibes and commercial headaches and ‘challenges’ and promptly forgot them about two minutes into Steve Bell’s keynote interview with Rob Schneider of Apples in Stereo. Here was a guy who talked my sort of sense. Telling the audience to make music for the future, telling the kids to be 100% hands on and DIY without a hint of dogma (and with the personal history to lend this stuff some weight). He told a crowd of wannabes to keep their day jobs, not because it’s ‘liberating’ or pure but because music - if done correctly – is completely, unaffectedly, incorruptibly awesome. So I take my hat off to the Big Sound organisers and staff for this (and for Van Dyke Parks enthusiasm and for Jeff Martin’s weird bejewelled appearance and for coaxing interesting things out of Glenn Wheatley and for giving Everett True a microphone). But mainly I commend them for ending on the most important note. The one that served to remind the more impressionable in attendance that, really, bullshit and business aside, the desire to make music is a good impulse, one that should be followed without distraction by those who feel it.

DAY 1 REPORT | DAY 2 REPORT