Brisbane’ experimental music scene by Jennifer Moses

It seems Brisbane’ experimental music scene may be flourishing again. Peaks and troughs, ebbs and flows are common not just to Brisbane’ music scene but to its very demographic. Census data tells us that huge swathes of “young people’ leave Brisbane yearly to live, work and study abroad. The entertainment sector presents us with film titles like “All my Friends Are Leaving Brisbane’ and local band nights called “God Hates Brisbane’. As an outsider looking in you have to wonder how Brisbane’ creative side feels about itself. The creative arts have had, historically, an uneasy relationship with Brisbane’ conservative and rural minded heritage. So, when it comes to an experimental music scene, one has to wipe the dust from the laminex table, put the kettle on and butter up the pumpkin scones in order to scratch under the surface of the city that has always been referred to as a “growing city’ by locals or a “big country town’ by its visitors. Undeniably, the ground is fertile in Queensland and as the tentacles of experimental music’ vines intertwine and weave through different genres. Cyclic Defrost asks the question; what is feeding the soil in Cattle and Cane country?

Brisbane City Council is just about to officially open a new bridge, “The Go Between’, with a live concert featuring mostly interstate bands and a guest appearance by Robert Forster. The bridge was named by public vote and it links South Brisbane to Milton; or from near the Brisbane Theatre Company to Suncorp Stadium, the city’ main sports venue. Another public vote is trying to get the name changed to “The Go-Betweens’ bridge.

Robert Forster, singer-songwriter of legendary Brisbane band The Go-Betweens performed a solo set at The Sydney Theatre Company recently as part of the Sydney Writers’ festival. For anyone who grew up in Brisbane and has always been motivated by music, but left found wanting in that town, it was an enlightening performance. The room wasn’ quite full, on what was a rainy and windy night and Forster postured that had he had his stroke of genius weeks before, not hours before, to do “15 songs about Sydney’ the room would’ve been packed. Sydney is a city that loves to celebrate itself and if you get on to the press quick enough that an out-of-town musician wants to sing your praises, at the Sydney Theatre Company as part of The Sydney Writers’ Festival, there’d have been calls for a second show. Forster peppered this more intimate performance, with tales of the band’ formation in Brisbane in 1978 and having to live in London and Sydney for extended periods to record and perform for The Go-Betweens. “The business’ of making music not being as viable in Brisbane at the time. He recounted anecdotes between tracks of travelling and performing and the business of making music. One memorable tale was of a road trip he took to Sydney with Grant McLennan in order to put pressure on the vinyl pressing plant that was late in delivering their self funded first single, the 1978 release “Lee Remick’. Forster had the crowd guffawing at the image he painted of a young McLennan running out of the first service station they found after crossing the New South Wales border waving a Playboy magazine excitedly at Forster waiting behind the wheel of an idling Falcon. The latest copy of Playboy magazine, banned in Queensland, had a lengthy article and exclusive interview with Bob Dylan, which McLennan read aloud to Forster the rest of the way down to Sydney.

Queensland Government records show Brisbane’ population at just over one million in 1978; the year “Lee Remick’ was released and a year with a major spike in police arrests. The government had banned street protesting, which accounted for some arrests, and it also set up a special “Task Force’ to deal with the strange increase in “drunken & disordly’ behaviour and “hooliganism’ that same year. While The Go-Betweens were getting out of town and pursuing an indie-pop path, a large portion of Brisbane’ music scene was revelling in anarchistic punk. A major contributing factor to spikes in arrests of 1978 can be traced back to, well, ironically “The Saints’. Joh Bjelke-Peterson, a part-time farmer and full-time right-wing conservative was “running’ Queensland as the head of the National Party and frankly punk music wasn’ really his thing. Neither was it then-Police Commissioner Terry Lewis’ gig. The disgraced Police Commissioner ended up in jail some years later for corruption and you can’ help but wonder if The Saints’ “(I’m) Stranded’ resonated for him later in life.

Nevertheless, an underground punk scene that had caught worldwide attention thanks to The Saints being signed by EMI in London on the strength of the single ‘(I’m) Stranded’, flourished. The UK magazine, Sounds declared it the independently recorded debut “Single of this and every week”. The fact that the world was listening to a band from Brisbane that pre-dated even The Sex Pistols did wonders for morale in experimental music. The Saints’ sudden worldwide popularity helped create a structure that would support the experimental music scene in that city. Local radio station 4ZZZ started broadcasting from the University of Queensland in 1975 and was an important catalyst for sowing the seeds that would see Brisbane’ music scene builds a cohesive foundation. Being brave enough to broadcast local punk music that no other station would touch helped swell the crowds at local gigs. This swell of support then attracted police attention and the special Queensland Police “Task Force’ was established to combat “hooliganism and unruly behaviour’. Another influential band at the time, Razar, released a 7”single in ’78 called Stamp Out Disco’. The b-side “Task Force’ became an anthem of the punk cause. 4ZZZ didn’ escape controversy for its support and was officially shut down by a Young Nationals student union executive at UQ. The station went on to broadcast from premises in Toowong until it secured a loan in 1992 to purchase the former headquarters of the Communist Party of Australia in Fortitude Valley where their signal beams from today.

4ZZZ still plays an important role in promoting Brisbane’ underground and experimental music by playing local music and supporting local gigs, yet a DIY culture still dominates. Once you start digging you start to see the vines weaving in and out and find clear posts in people supporting the structure of the current scene.

Ian Rogers is a musician, academic, writer and occasional music promoter whose interest in the experimental music scene is multi-layered. Rogers has been playing music in a variety of guises in Brisbane for years using different bands to explore different genres. He’ explored indie-pop with Iron On and then metal/drone with No Anchor, things turn electronic with Tom Hall in AxxOnn and evolve to the experimentation of Ambrose Chapel. A keen advocate for live performance as a way to experience music, he has also taken up the DIY culture that has sustained Brisbane’ experimental scene for decades. The latest gig he’ putting on is called “God Hates Brisbane #1′. Rogers explains the gig’ title. “It’s a joke. There’s been this weird vibe about Brisbane lately and I don’t know exactly where it’s coming from but suddenly there’s this misperception that the city is some sort of fucked up culturally oppressive shit-hole. It’s not.”

Musicians support each other by swapping members between bands, which deepens the level of respect and camaraderie, although finding venues to play in can be a challenge. Rogers says that while there was a shortage of venues over the last 18 months, Brisbane’ musicians took advantage of their enviable weather and planted the scene in backyards. “Tom Hall’ regular house party series, Sonic Boom, of last year seemed to be dictated entirely by the idea that good sound is good sound so let’s all get drunk in the back yard. He had everyone from Luke Henery from Violent Soho play his first noise show through to Mystic Eyes from Perth do an improvised soundtrack at that thing,” says Rogers. He sees the experimental scene in Brisbane as incredibly supportive and explains that through his music career he’ “had people like Lawrence English floating around (see our Room40 retrospective in this issue) and he’s such a good example of what a sound artist is to my mind. He makes and releases beautiful ambient music, mixes and masters my ugly sludge doom band and produces my next door neighbour’ pop band.”

Lawrence English is a name that crops up time and time again in association with Brisbane’ experimental and art scene and rightly so. English is a prolific artist and is well known in experimental circles globally. His record label Room40 is well recognised for releasing international artists plus his own material. English echoes the camaraderie amongst locals expressed by Rogers. “I think one thing that has always made Brisbane work is the fact there’s good networks of people out there working to create opportunities for more people than simply themselves. There’s a really healthy cross-pollination of ideas and philosophies so in that regard there’s an opportunity for everyone.”

English’ ties to the art scene have helped him secure art spaces for performances and curate shows that may otherwise not find venues. “I’ve been lucky to have the chance to present series like Fabrique, Syncretism and most recently MONO at the IMA.” English is also involved in curating the 11th annual Liquid Architecture Festival of Sound Arts that has become one of Australia’ premier sound festivals. Liquid Architecture Festival runs for four weeks and goes to seven cities across Australia; in Brisbane the festival will be performed at the Brisbane Powerhouse. Finding venues for the experimental music scene seems to have definitive art-based leanings, but does that resonate with getting people through the doors?

“Filling venues is increasingly less of a problem. It wasn’t always that way. In fact when we started doing shows and projects, 40 people was a good turn out.”

But where the experimental music scene may find easier access to art houses and backyards for its sound exploration than traditional music venues, English has taken the whole damn thing to the street.

“Consider it Inhabited’, a ROOM40 initiative, sprouted up in laneways through Brisbane in June.

With four events scattered around the city the people of Brisbane were treated to new laser work by Robin Fox and sound installations from Leighton Craig, DJ Olive and Janek Schaefer. An “urban jungle’ was even built for the exhibition, a temporary oasis of tropical green in the centre of Brisbane down Eagle Lane in the City. With laser shows and experimental sound performances springing up in laneways it certainly sounds like the Brisbane experimental scene is blooming, but how much has it grown?

Ken Weston, the Lowdown half of the Strictly&Lowdown team has been performing as a VJ based in Brisbane for nearly 15 years. Strictly&Lowdown built their visual careers working within the music industry designing live visual, stage concepts and video content to complement the performing artists. Their first gigs were with local artists like Soma Rasa and The Resin Dogs. From there they went on to score gigs with touring experimental musicians like Scanner, I/03, Stereolab and DJ Spooky. Strictly&Lowdown have worked with Lawrence English on some of those same gigs and Weston notes that English has been a major influence on the scene. After starting out with small experimental shows collaborating with musicians, these VJs now regularly perform at a number of high profile Australian Music Festivals like Splendour In The Grass, Future Music Festival, Parklife and Good Vibrations.

Weston and his business partner, Rachel Johnston have “developed a great national network where traveling interstate for gigs is normal”. So how does Brisbane’ scene compare to other capital cities? “I would say Brisbane definitely has less attendance compared to other cities. I notice this is starting to affect promoters choice to bring experimental acts to Brisbane.”

Ian Rogers has a slightly different opinion; “As for filling venues, it doesn’t seem to be easy to fill venues anywhere in Australia unless they’re small. In Brisbane, if you can get a hundred people to your show then you’re doing really well…but I’ve played shows in Sydney and Melbourne that Brisbane people would lose their pants over in terms of the quality of the music booked and still it’s about a hundred people.”

What gets Weston’ goat is that Brisbane promoters are less likely to pick up experimental touring acts and bring them to Brisbane. He cites the recent Autechre tour as a classic example. “Autechre are experimental electronic music royalty and they can’t land a show in Brisbane. They had shows in Perth, Melbourne and Sydney. Brisbane can be so hit and miss and promoters just don’t want to take the financial risk.” Bringing high-profile experimental acts to Brisbane would surely encourage the scene to grow further, but of course the support needs to be there.

Frith La Vin Lloyd, a music enthusiast and Brisbane local in her 20’s is someone who seeks out experimental music. She relishes the opportunity to see live experimental music after moving from a country town west of Brisbane to the city four years ago. Frith feels that there is a consistent level of artists experimenting in Brisbane. “It seems to be a fairly close knit community and therefore there is a level of mutual support between the artists so you’ve got the built in crowd of peers.”

Although the lack of diversity in venues to see artists is frustrating she says “there is a far greater level of adventurousness amongst the punters – you’ll get a lot more people checking out something they’ve not seen before, on the off-chance, than you would at say, an indie gig.” She says her favourite experimental artists are Lawrence English and Tom Hall and would love to see them fill a traditional music venue.

Frith is one of the nearly 1000 people who have signed up to change the name of The Go Between Bridge to “The Go-Betweens Bridge’ but aside from seeing Robert Forster perform, isn’ that interested in attending the Brisbane City Council’ concert. Perhaps if there was more support at a government level where music venues were supported and experimental musicians celebrated, Brisbane’ scene would gain further momentum. It seems the “growing city’ or “big country town’ tag persists. Will it always? We hear government proclamations of Brisbane being the “fastest growing city’ every year but it doesn’ seem to be experimental artists pushing up the population. Those young creative people who haven’ left seemed to have built a tight, supportive network amongst themselves and the seeds of experimentation in music have continued to blow around the city.