Dave and Kieran from The Sunday Washup came along to UnConvention last weekend and gave us a great wrap on their Bay FM Sunday evening slot.
If you missed your hard-copy of the UnConvention Brisbane Zine you can grab a digital copy here.
The zine was made in two hours as part of the Self Publishing Online and Off.
Jade Rehder spoke to UnConvention Presenters Daniel 'Monster Monster' Wright and Cameron 'Saint Surly' Rutter about their involvement with this years UnConvention Brisbane:
Brisbane beat-producers Daniel ‘Monster Monster’ Wright and Cameron ‘Saint Surly’ Rutter will be presenting at this year’s Unconvention Brisbane. The pair have been gigging around Brisbane for a few years, and are well-placed within the local hip hop scene.
Saint Surly says Unconvention Brisbane is "about a sustainable sort of industry, not just people making it big and pissing off.” Monster Monster agrees: "it’s looking at success, and what that means, but not necessarily going platinum.”
Both are mostly self-taught, with an obsession with music, in particular the intricacies of beat construction fuelling their desire to create instrumental hip hop, a niche segment. “I got into hip hop as a pimply teenager, it was the sounds that I was really interested in, and how it was constructed,” says Saint Surly. Monster Monster agrees, “I’ve always screwed around a bit with music, and when I finally got a computer and some software I could track out some ideas.”
The duo cites the Beastie Boys as major influences during these formative years, as well as other 90s hip hop. A recent trip to India turned into a scouting opportunity, with Monster Monster bringing back a few Bollywood records that is broadening their musical references and igniting their creativity - “the different types of reverb and compression, and other things that colour the sounds are amazing.”
Working together since 2007, the duo released their debut album Out of the Woodwork under the Videorama label last year, with a follow-up slated for early 2012. They are appearing on a panel entitled ‘We Don’t Play Guitars’, organised largely by Alex Yabsley, of Dot.AY fame. The theme of the discussion is music coming out of Brisbane that is not guitar-driven, and how to continue to be innovative, using laptops, turntables, synths and bent circuitboards.
According to Monster Monster this is a welcome topic, given that while there is a lot of support for indie rock bands in Brisbane, “there’s maybe not so much with the beat and electronic-drive kind of thing.” “It will be interesting to see what people say, and the differences between us all,” adds Saint Surly.
Come along to UnConvention this weekend to check out We Don’t Play Guitars and chat with Monster Monster and Saint Surly.
Brisbane MC Rainman was interviewed by Jacklin Yap for this weeks Scene Magazine about his session at UnConvention this year, explaining "what's really good about this session is that it's really trying to break down this idea that Brisbane [music] equals pop / rock".
Read the rest of the interview below and get along to UnConvention this weekend to chat with Ray and a small host of other inspiring and interesting people.
Kellie Lloyd discusses her upcoming panel at UnConvention Brisbane with Dennis Semchenko in Rave Magazine this week.
GEARED: How did you first get involved with UnConvention, Kellie? KELLIE LLOYD: I was on a panel last year – Music And Culture. I was quite outspoken because I was talking about the institutionalisation of rock & roll and things like that. It’s confusing for me; I work at Q Music and I deliver workshops – I didn’t grow up with that type of stuff available to me and I don’t know how I would have felt about it when I was younger, but being in that position where I’m the person on the other side of it … I really enjoy it. I think it’s really worthwhile. After the panel, I was interviewed by the organisers of the global event – they must have thought “she can talk – let’s pick her! [laughs]” G: Your panel this year is called Sustaining The Chaos... KL: I know – I think it’s a contradiction in terms. I like the idea of it; it’s very true if you think about it. Rock & roll is chaos – it’s a pretty chaotic lifestyle and onstage, rock & roll is chaotic. It’s really hard to maintain a lifestyle that’s chaotic and to bring out the best of your art. I’ve been a touring artist for a really long time. You’re living away from home a lot when you’re travelling – it’s chaotic to you, the people you live with and the people who surround you. A lot of my friends are in nationally-touring bands and we’ve had big conversations about how we do what we do and how we maintain sanity, because touring is crazy and we get home and it’s all normal. It’s very hard and then you have to go back to your ‘regular’ life, working in a full-time job – you get stuck in that routine, but then you’re an artist and you’re a bit crazy. I think about that a lot and I think it’s a very worthy conversation to talk about how people maintain chaos in the ‘normal’ world. G: Are you also going to discuss the less ‘chaotic’ side of things in the music biz? KL: I guess what it really comes down to is finding out who these people are and what type of person does those things. Someone like Dom Miller [ex-Rocketsmiths] – a musician who played for a while and did quite well, then stopped and turned to management; he’s now working trying to fulfil someone else’s artistic dream and desire. What kind of person does that take and what type of skills do you need to be a manager? What makes a really great producer, for example, is somebody who can coax a great performance from someone. You need to be a real people person, be able to work out how to get into someone’s head and make them feel comfortable. A manager needs a lot of different skills: they need to be a good business person; they need to be able to be an arsehole to people who have to be arseholes; they need to be really close to people they work with and because they are employed, they need to deliver what that band needs. You need to spend a lot of time with people – that’s why mentoring is really important. |
There’s not much going on (music-wise) in Brisbane, our sunny, but sleepy city. Or is there? We have good bands here, and we have good venues for them to play in, right? But for some reason the stigma that Brisbane just don’t got it goin’ on still hangs around like a bad smell.
And then Unconvention came around. The inaugural conference first started in 2010 and is a not-for-profit, grassroots-led music conference which focuses around creating sustainable careers within the local independent music industry. In short: Melbourne Schmelbourne! Sydney Schmydmey! We can do it all, and right here in Bristown.
There’ll be forum discussions, workshops and networking events over the two days of Unconvention, and it’s open to pretty much anyone: independent musicians, promoters, labels, entrepreneurs, writers, technologists, innovators and artists. It’s time to shut down that sleepy city stigma – Unconvention’s a good place to start the revolution. Buy tickets here.
There is also a broad range of things that go on at The Edge, one of which is something else you’re also involved in, which is UnConvention, which is coming up on the 11th and 12th of June. Can you give us a bit of rundown on that, while you’re in the studio?
Sure. I am a co-organiser of UnConvention Brisbane 2011. It’s the sequel of UnConvention Brisbane 2010 funnily enough. It started last year as a grassroots independent music community networking event. It’s much the same format this year, with more of a focus on encouraging discussions during the panel sessions.
As well as that, there’s a networking event at the Boundary Hotel on Saturday night, and a few local artists will be showcasing throughout the weekend at the Edge and at the Boundary Hotel.
How did you get involved with the UnConvention organisation?
It’s based on a concept that started in the U.K. a few years ago and it’s since been replicated around the world, like in Brazil and India and all sorts of places. UnConvention Brisbane last year was the first Australian UnConvention. A co-organiser named Dave Carter who is a lecturer at the Conservatorium and a local musician himself, he saw the idea and thought about bringing it to Brisbane because he felt there was a bit of a gap in terms of strengthening bonds within the independent music community and bringing them together.
That’s what we really aimed to do, and based on feedback from last year we had about 220 people come along to the Edge and hopefully we’ll do the same again this year. The feedback was really positive.
I caught a thread online the other day about Brisbane and the difference — a lot of people say that Brisbane isn’t quite as cultural as our other cities of Australia and whether that was a problem of representation in the music industry, or whether that was a lack of talent in Brisbane. The general consensus was that there’s bits of both but there’s slightly less cohesion I suppose was the general consensus of the thread. I wasn’t a contributor or anything, I just took it off.
This is on Collapse Board, perchance? ['An Open Question to Brisbane']
Yeah.
It’s an interesting thread. I’ve kept an eye on it too, and I haven’t contributed myself either. It’s one of those discussions that’s been around for a long time and I know the guy who started it, Everett True, who is running a workshop at UnConvention about online publishing or self publishing.
He’s a pretty good writer.
Yeah, he’s amazing. He’s literally been a music journalist his whole adult life; he knows what he’s doing, for sure. But he started it because he wanted to answer the question “Why does Brisbane perceive itself to be a cultural backwater”; those sorts of questions. There are no easy answers for that because… I don’t even know where to start.
Interviewer 1: I was thrown to each side of the argument as I read on. I thought, “Yeah, clearly because everyone leaves Brisbane and goes to Melbourne if you’re a creative person.” And the I read a little bit further and I thought, “No, I know there’s venues in the suburbs and there’s music.”
Interviewer 2: We do have a massively creative scene as well. The number of good local bands coming out is always pretty impressive.
Interviewer 1: I think it’s a stigma that holds around that there’s not much going on in Brisbane. Just the fact that there is a stigma, people keep re-saying it.
It’s funny, because it exists down south. People down south perceive Brisbane to be like that, and somehow, for some reason, Brisbane people believe that, in some cases. That’s why I think it perpetuates.
I think so.
So you’re saying Everett True’s running a workshop on self-publishing.
He’s co-hosting that with Bianca Valentino, who’s done a lot of her own zines called “Conversations With Punx”.
I think I’ve been to a seminar by Everett True a couple of years ago. He was pretty cool.
There we go; a reason to get along to UnConvention in a couple of weeks! You panelled, at the last one, a discussion on music and the media. Is there going to be something similar this time or is that retreading old ground at this point?
We have aimed to start a whole new series of topics, although we have retained a similar kind of one in the music and culture discussion. I think that was really valuable. This year that’s being held by Kellie Lloyd of Screamfeeder, and Q Music. What was the question again? The music and media panel, last year. No, we’re not doing that exact topic this year but we are doing ‘documenting Brisbane’s music scene’, which is run by Justin Edwards, a local music photographer.
Cool. I’d say there’s a lot to get to as well as National Young Writers’ Month, which you can log on. We’ll post up the site.
UnConvention is held at The Edge in South Bank, next to the State Library of Queensland, on June 11 and 12. That’s the Queen’s Birthday long weekend. It’s $30 to get in and that gives you access to both days of panel discussions and networking events, as well as lunch on both days. For more information, you can visit unconventionbrisbane.com
UnConvention Brisbane panel curator Alex Yabsley sat down with Jodie Grinsted from Scene this week to discuss his part in this years event and being an electronic artist in Brisbane.
UnConvention Brisbane's resident expert on all things Techy and Geeky, Jaymis Loveday, spoke to Scott Fitzsimons at Time Off about his upcoming panel - Music and Geekery.
Jaymis explains "my panel will be about how to get you the fans, the way to use the internet and the geeky stuff to reach people you wouldn't have otherwise been able to phsycially".
You can read the full interview in the current issue of Time Off, or below.
There's only two weeks to go to this years UnConvention Brisbane so make sure you get your tickets for a chance to chat all things techy with Jaymis, Rock Band lead designer Dan Teasedale, Bandcamp's Leigh Dyer, AMRAP's Chris Johnson and local musician Hunz.
UnConvention Brisbane co-organiser Dave Carter was interviewed by AAA Backstage about this years UnConvention – check out the excerpt below and head over to AAA Backstage for the full interview.
Independent. Not-for-profit. Realistic. Collaborative. Inclusive. Valuable. All ages.
Held 11-12 June 2011 at The Edge in Brisbane’s South Bank precinct, UnConvention Brisbane 2011 will comprise forum discussions, workshops and networking events focussed around creating sustainable careers within the local independent music industry.
UnConvenion Brisbane is a not-for-profit, grassroots-led music conference for independent musicians, promoters, labels, entrepreneurs, writers, technologists, innovators and artists. The goal of UnConvention Brisbane is to bring together like-minded individuals to discuss the future of independent music and how it will develop and flourish in the technological age.
To email the event organisers, click here.
Theme designed by Dave Carter; borrowing from the Dakhar Posterous Theme and Tabby by Cory Watilo
Powered by Posterous
GEARED and UnConvention 2011 panelist, Screamfeeder member and solo artist KELLIE LLOYD talk about sustaining and surviving the chaos that is the music biz.