Australian music

We have a crisis of venues these days, predated but exacerbated by COVID.

Too many inner city places get gentrified, and the new residents (attracted by the scene) suddenly start making noise complaints and getting venues to stop putting on bands. Plus we've gone poker machine mad - lots of pubs rely on them now for income and screw any pretense of being a venue for people to get together let alone rage to a band.

I think of all the places I used to play in the early 80s, I wonder how many are still venues? Harold Park Hotel is now Jazz and comedy, Forest Lodge Hotel is a big screen sports bar. French's Tavern closed forever ago, the Britannia on Cleveland street is now houses. Randwick Hotel, gone.

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/apr/10/australia-all-ages-music-venues-brisbane-rock

Most of the music I share is 80's and 90's, because that's when I was experiencing it.
It was long before Youtube and Spotify etc. So artists couldn't have their work exposed to a billion people overnight. As I've referenced before, our industry is small simply as a function of our population, and was smaller then. So you go back to that time, artists that wanted to be successful, needed wide ranging appeal. There simply wasn't a big enough audience for a highly pigeonholed genre.

Referencing Hinge's observations above, the live music scene here isn't coming back in the way that we experienced it.

This is really going back. TMG 1975

Much more recent

Another instalment of Mr John “can sing any genre” Farnham.
Gethsemane from Jesus Christ Superstar



I also wanted to share one of my favourite live ballad renditions but it seems to have been blocked all over the internet only in the past few days, because it’s been up for years.

I like to drift into the more obscure indie stuff (especially when I think it has pop value but never found it's market, or marketing)
Silly Girl - Scribble

I previously put the studio version of this one on. But it's missing something - a somewhat unique audience participation. I saw The Angels live so many times I actually lost count.

More 80s indie obscurity
Walking In The Dark - Deckchairs Overboard

Have always loved this since the first time I heard it live (I wanna say my 18th birthday at the Sefton Hotel)

The first Gotye single (Out Here In The Cold)

A bit of leftfield pop
Coma - Max Sharam

Back when the Oils might have become a prog rock band
Off the first album - Nothing Lost, Nothing Gained