‘You've got to go to gigs to get gigs’: Indie musicians, eclecticism and the Brisbane scene

Abstract

The present article explores the ‘indie’ music scene in Brisbane, an Australian capital city undergoing rapid cultural and socioeconomic development. Within Brisbane, a dominant narrative of popular music-making has emerged from local history, promotion and music writing. This narrative depicts a commercially successful, professional present and, thus, separates Brisbane musicians of today from the city's troubled cultural/political past. Unfortunately, such readings of local music-making overlook marked similarities between musicians past and present. Drawing upon face-to-face interview data collected from musicians currently working in Brisbane's ‘indie’ scene, the present article strives to document current practice and to reconnect and contextualize the experience of this community with the city's music history. The resulting analysis reveals a music community working within an isolated cultural space plagued by instability and a degree of antagonism, thus bearing strong resemblance to Brisbane's mythologized punk rock past.

Notes

1. For a detailed examination of British post-punk and American hardcore, readers are referred to Hesmondhalgh (1998) and Goshert (2000), respectively. Both movements shared a desire to channel the energy of the late 1970s punk into more sophisticated, leftist alternatives to the then-dominant commercial music industry.

2. In 1997, Chicago minimalist rock trio Shellac released a vinyl-only album called The Futurist to approximately 800 of their friends. The cover displayed the name of every person receiving the album and, on each individual copy, the name of the individual recipient was circled. Such measures were an effort to strictly limit the album's circulation, because copies that were put up for sale would identify the seller to the band.

3. In 2001, The Queensland University of Technology published Music Industry Development and Brisbane's Future as a Creative City in partnership with the Brisbane City Council. In response to rising conflict in Brisbane's Fortitude Valley district between venue owners, residents and liquor licensing officials, the report made a strong case for amendments to local zoning and town planning in an effort to protect local music described therein as a ‘vibrant night-time economy’ (Flew et al. 2001). A link was made by Flew et al. between Brisbane's microeconomy and the music scene. After consultation with nearby residents, venue owners and local businesses, city council enacted the Valley Special Entertainment Precinct, thus preserving the Valley as a music hub of both cultural and economic importance.