Business: Beggars Group
Position/Title: Director of Live
How did you first become involved in the music business? I did work experience at XFM. Within a couple of months I was assisting on various shows, and within two years was the station's Senior Music Producer, responsible for specialist booking sessions and guests. And sitting on the station's playlist, which opened up the world of labels to me.
What do you perceive to be your area of expertise and how did you gain experience in this field? My background is radio, then radio plugging, the last decade of Live. My experience comes from many years of listening and learning in various areas of music. My current area of expertise is live licensing and the issues/concepts behind that and how they relate to the music business today.
Popular culture tells us that the music industry is all about hedonism, drugs and partying — how true is this in your experience? I'm not gonna say I haven't had a nice time over the years, but I'm very rarely not at my desk from 10am. And I think that's true to say of many people in the industry.
In this time of technological change how do you see the dissemination of music changing in the future? Is there still a place for physical product? Maybe Google/Apple/Amazon will work out how to service music directly to our brain cloud implants!? Right now and in the immediate future physical is still a relevant part of the business — people still have a connection and need to own a physical artifact they can use and access at will.
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Some pundits espouse that the future of music is electronic-based — in your opinion is rock'n'roll passe? This question suggests that electronic-based music can't be rock'n'roll and that rock'n'roll is strictly linked to non-electronic music and instruments. Surely it's a state of mind, a reaction? I've seen crowds kicking off to someone 'pressing a button' and 'strumming a guitar'...
Do you think it's a good or bad time to be starting out as a musician? If you are an individual who needs to play music because you need to play music — time is all you have. If you are someone who wants to play music because you want to be famous for making music, that's always going to be tough; it's competitive out there.
What advice would you give young practitioners in your area starting out today? Most people who work in music didn't set out to "work in music", they did stuff; put on gigs, wrote fanzines, played records, bands, went to gigs, connected with people who did the same. Opportunities come about when you are enthusiastic, engaged; in the right place at the right time.
What will you be primarily discussing during your appearance at the BIGSOUND conference? I'm on a couple of panels. The first will be a broad discussion about the industry; what's happening and how it relates to the Australian industry. The other is about digital music distribution. Both will be spring boards for lots of interesting debates.
What are you hoping that people will be able to learn from your panel/interview? I hope they learn that the industry is changing quickly; we all have to be on our toes. I hope they also realise that the people on the panels are involved in music primarily because they love music and care about its place in culture and securing its future.
What do you personally hope to take away from your time at BIGSOUND? Looking at my meeting schedule I'm going to be walking away with lots of business cards and music! But I want to take away the feeling of being connected to a whole different scene, new music and lots of new people.
