Five Times Aussie Music And Politics Have Gone Head To Head

SLAM music rally, Melbourne

This is the first thing I thought of where the music industry and politics have had a real head to head public fight. This one was exciting. Every second week there’s a venue closing down due to council restrictions or public complaints but that’s less political and more social I think. This was a result of state government implementing broad brush liquor licencing laws, with good intentions but as with a lot of political decisions, unpredictable outcomes. It had direct results in killing live venues like the infamous Tote Hotel, fortunately reclaimed now. We were all living in Canberra at the time and the news and social media went crazy. We couldn’t believe the response by the music community. Try to get a bunch of musos out of their houses, it’s almost impossible but this was impressive. ten to twenty thousand in the streets or something. A testament to the Melbourne music culture, you just wouldn’t get it in Sydney.

Jimmy Barnes, Paul Dempsey and others, APRA/AMCOS at Parliament house

I read about this recently, although it seems less like a clash and more of a really friendly, adult discussion on the importance of live music in Australia. Not very rock'n'roll and pretty boring compared to the protests in Melbourne but probably as effective if not moreso long term. The Parliamentary Friends of Australia Music group (had to Google that) has been formed in Canberra. I’m always pretty sceptical about musicians being able to change the world for the better, like that delusional folk singer claiming he’ll go and play a peace concert in front of ISIS, hahahaha good luck pal. They can raise awareness to issues, which is important, but can only make an already shit world a bit more bearable in my cynical opinion. I can only imagine all the really hard, boring groundwork was done by people from APRA AMCOS and industry people behind the scenes. What a job, you gotta give it to them. You still need the musos being loud and annoying also, don’t get me wrong.

Super best friends — Round and Round

Canberra political agitators and super old friends of ours, Super Best Friends, pulled this clever little stunt. Matt Roberts, the band's bass player at the time, works as camera crew in parliament and managed to wrangle a few of the politicians, including Tony Abbott, Kevin Rudd and a few others, to feature in their film clip about the media circus that is Capital Hill, you’d think they’d eaten some of the mushrooms that grow in the surrounding gardens. The video got about 400,000 views, Johnny Barrington has to be happy about that! Right John? 

Anthony Albanese wearing a Celibate Rifles T shirt

This is the best thing I’ve seen on the Internet. 

Go Albo!

The Celibate Rifles are such a great band and so underrated. To me they were like the ugly twin of Midnight Oil, more underground, a bit darker and some great social commentary from the nasal, cynical stoicism of Damien Lovelock. What a character. Sydney has pumped out some the best Aus punk rock in my opinion. We used to listen to their live album, Yizgarnnoff, in the van a lot on tours and during the recording sessions for the last album. Best live album if you haven’t heard it. The energy of the crowd was captured so well, some pretty classic characters attending the show by the sounds. I think that’s an era gone. I heard they named the album after some drunk woman in the crowd between songs leaned over to Damian and yelled, "Yous are goin' off!" For a while we covered their song Cycle. It felt so natural to play, I think we played it through once and decided it was pretty much ours. We should bring it back, dang it.

Peter Garrett in music and politics