Too Big For Australia, Not Big Enough For The Rest Of The World?

Thanks SO much for having me on the show Justin!! You are such a legend and I promise I know the theme song now. 😩

Just came back in the house after wrestling a kangaroo and donging a crocodile on the head with a cricket bat to this being on happy days

Firstup, thanks for singing happy birthday to me in Syd at the Enmore! A lot of the issue with Australian music scene is the vast majority of Aussies are super conservative and basic af. They hate anything new, and don't support local – Just look at all these comments talking about bands from the 80s…Most Aussies don't have the ears for grassroots performers, instead will stand there drinking Great Northern (shit beer) and bag out anything that doesn't sound like INXS or Cold Chisel, even though King Gizz, Airbourne or Lagerstein are far more fun.

Aussie Millennial here.. Love King Gizzard/Liz Wiz, Amy & The Sniffers, Rolling Blackouts, The Rubens, etc. When I was a kid, I didn't think Australia produced anything worthwhile, but at 12 I discovered my dad's mysterious record collection and the revelation slapped the s..t out of me. Deep in that dusty vinyl collection in that rarely accessed room we called ''old room for old stuff'' were records by The Angels, Rose Tattoo, Cold Chisel, Divinyls, Billy Thorpe & The Aztecs, Lobby Loyde And The Coloured Balls, Buffalo, The Saints, Radio Birdman, Midnight Oil and Skyhooks. Albert Production logo on those old Bon Scott era AC/DC records. Acca Dacca weren't just some cartoon band that used to come from Australia; they were once the products and architects of an often overlooked scene. Music that came from the unforgiving, lawless Australian pub rock scene where carpet was sticky and audiences had little tolerance for wimps. The music is unapologetically gritty and raw and I just can't go back to anything else, to be honest. AC/DC is the biggest success story and export from this period of Australian pub rock. They are to Oz Rock what The Beatles are to the Merseybeat scene; what Blondie are to the GBGB scene; what Oasis are to Britpop… You may not agree with the names I had chosen, but they're the most recognisable, let's face it…

When I hear people talk about Men At Work when referring to Aussie music, I think ''Aw, how cute! They're talking the same way I did when I was 9''.

When people talk about Kylie, same thing.

When anybody outside Australia, including you Justin (and that intro) talks about Australian music, I sit back to hear wha they have to say and more often than not I'm thinking ''wtf do you know about Aussie music? Wtf would you know about us?''…. Keep listening to ''I Touch Myself''; I'll stick to ''Boys In Town'' and the whole Desperate album, thanx

What a fairly naive Sydney-centric view. Please be aware there are huge scenes in Melbourne, Brisbane and other capital cities. Another thing is that JJJ is quite a monoculture in terms of music and there are a great many artists who never make it to Radio Play on JJJ but are played on various community radio stations. Compare. 3RRR and 3PBS both based in Melbourne

There's so much good Aussie Rock that most people in the world will never have heard of.

Give the Screaming Jets a listen. Tear of Thought is an absolutely world class album.

Sydney is not the epitome of Australian music by a long shot. If you take a deeper dive e.g. an LRB, even Crowded House (though NZ origins) and many others, who hit the Int. scene long ago. Yep even Kylie.

So let's not forget the Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide scenes. We can speak of artists who broke before an INXS. And those afterwards.

For some exuberance and indulgence, Sydney (as an Int. destination) seems to procure the baulk of recognition when there where many more city music cultures ahead, who set the pathway alight.

Please keep all your lousy Australian copying of real music in Australia. We have enough talent in real Western countries.

I must admit I nearly stopped watching when she said she didn't know the theme tune..

shout out dean on the drums in those live clips! great NZ drummer

I believe Australian music these days is quiet boring. 70s were when Australian music was itself and not trying to be something else.

Some of the context missing from the talk of ‘rockstar egos’ is the Australian cultural cringe. There is a frontier mentality. Things are done how they are done, and we don’t like upstarts upsetting the applecart.

New Zealand calls it tall poppy syndrome. If you stick your head above all others, you might get it cut off. Best not to.

Coming to these countries involves travelling to the end of the world. In generations past, once you got here, everybody was stuck with you. This bred a culture where norms were enforced. The culture tolerates people going off the rails to blow off steam once in a while, but as a rule we don’t talk about those moments in normal everyday life.

Justin, Give Convict Class a go. Yes selfish plug. Warrnambool Country Victoria

You Am I, anyone?!

The obsession with converting everything to wealth has simultaneously smartened up Sydney and enshittified it in equal measure.

I follow a lot of musos from Sydney. Most of them are in about 5 different bands and also do their own things too. So rotating singers, guitarists,bass players, drummers on the regular is quite common, depending whose touring with who at the time, there's no animosity about it though, they're all working hard.

Justin, we have watched through the years as your theme song morphed and developed into what you eventually settled upon, but…. there's a band from Down Under (coz in Australia we like to claim anything that's not nailed down) who started off in New Zealand called Split Enz. Now they had a song in 1980 called "I hope I Never". I think you ought to take a listen to the middle, around 1 min 30 seconds, and thank Tim for the inspiration (and not litigation). 🥝

Sadly the music industry in Australia is very bias… if it's not alternative, hip-hop or metalcore you don't stand a chance!

We had so many great Aussie bands that ascertained serious success – AC/DC, The Angles, Rose Tattoo, Inxs, Cold Chisel, Midnight Oil, etc. when our music industry was HUGE.

Sadly nowadays we have many great rock acts – Airbourne, Southern River Band, The Poor, Rose Carleo Band, Roadkill, Black Aces, The Lazys among many others and none of these bands are known to mainstream music lovers in Australia. It's a closed shop down under…

Its the same for Perth and Adelaide in Australia. Adelaide music scene is amazing with such a diverse range of bands. Distance has a lot to do with it.
A list of bands to come out of Adelaide from the 40s to now

The Penny Rockets, The Neville Dunn Orchestra, The Masters Apprentices, The TwilightsZoot, The Vibrants, The James Taylor Move, Cold Chisel, The Angels, FraternityStars, Redgum, The Mark of Cain, The Dagoes, Fear and Loathing, The Mad Turks from Istanbul, Exploding White Mice, Where's the Pope?, The Superjesus, Hilltop Hoods, Testeagles, Crisp, I Killed the Prom Queen, Atlas Genius, Wolf & Cub, The Audreys, Lowrider, Bad//Dreems, West Thebarton, Electric Fields, Horror My Friend, Teenage Joans, Sunsick Daisy, The Empty Threats, Molly Rocket to name a few

Great episode!

Freddy did not grow up in poverty. Or even in the general neighbourhood of poverty

I watched some live videos of TLDP recently. Those girls can really put on a show and they're all top level musicians. Abigail is a great frontwoman. A bit of Kate Bush with a dash of Freddy.

Superheist " sunk loto " Cog " Grinspoon ! Across the ditch new Zealand shihad " blindspott " devil skin " iam giant