This is chapter ELEVEN – to read the previous chapters from the start GO HERE
Peter Hayward was a behind the scenes icon in the music products industry. Peter, at 25 years of age, had completed an Economics Degree and was wooed into the music industry by a visionary and entreprenuer, Alan Rose, Managing Director of Rose Music. Rose Music had been one of the major music product importers in the 1960’s, along with Lamberti Brothers in Melbourne. Alan had picked off a few young people to bring into the Australian Music business with some good business acumen and who were not emotionally involved as musicians or music fans. Rose Music was the Yamaha Music distributor in Australia and had hired a few smart people who all went on their own through the 70’s with their own import companies.
Peter had moved away from Rose Music and was a key figure in setting up Roland Corporation in Australia and then in 1973, starting Australis Music, an importer of Ernie Ball strings, Ibanez Guitars and Casio Keyboards,
He was, however, a smart business man and when he spoke, everyone listened. Peter had integrity and vision. So fast forward to 1997 and I call him directly to ask about the State Managers role with Australis Music.
“Hi Peter, remember me, I use to work with your brother, Paul, at Palings Music and had a store called Music Worx. I heard there was a position going in your company?”
“Well Dodgey,” he replied, “I am down to the final two and I am meeting them in the next day or two, maybe we should catch up anyway whilst in Brisbane”, he said.
So I planned to meet him at the Stamford Plaza Hotel and have a catch up. Not knowing who the other two people were he was interviewing, I waited in the lounge of the hotel. Next minute my old mate, Tim Mason came past. “Oh no,” I said. Tim and I had worked together at Music Worx and it was only a tad awkward for both of us. Then Kev Wilmot (from the Academy of Music) came in. We all looked at each other and we laughed.
I met Peter and we clicked. So he offered me the role as State Manager (which is a great title for a sales rep ) and I started calling on over 50 stores across Queensland and Northern NSW, representing Ibanez Guitars, Peavey Amplication, Tama Drums, AKG Microphones, Akai Electronics and Beale Pianos.
Australis Music team – 1998
Having been in retail for so long it was great to get an insight into the wholesale side of the business. It was so nice to meet the people within the stores and the owners who were trying to make their own businesses work. I felt that I needed to do more than just be an order taker, so I started doing some quality training when I visited the stores to bring them up to speed on the brands we carried. I would do breakfast and run competitions for the staff to answer questions about the music products we supplied to them.
I had been discussing with a few guys, who I had met over the years, Stephen Grimes, or “Grubby” as he is known and Cam Gunning, who had worked with me at Music Worx.
We came up with an idea of putting together a show every month for Ibanez Guitars and Peavey Amps. Peter Hayward had decided we could do some promotions with our dealers (retailers) and we had a small budget to set this in motion. My old mate, Don Morrison, from Electric Factory, was planning to do some drum shows with a new drummer, Grant Collins through Stephen and Cam’s business, AVT.
“The Ibanez Industrial Revolution Show” started with two local guitar players, Peter Howlett and Fletch Whipp, two guitar teachers and Ibanez dovotees I had met over the years. We ran a show each month using lighting technology and a large sound system. This proved to be a huge hit for our dealers for quite a while. Grant Wallis took on the role in our shows in 1998.
Whilst calling on various music stores in 1998, I had been impressed by a small store at Capalaba, Carroll’s Music. Paul Carroll had a young manager, Matt Jones, and they had quite a good business going on selling music gear. They invited me one night to speak about AKG Microphones on a Saturday night with a local guitar school, Shane Browne’s Music School. Being a Saturday night, I honestly thought many people wouldn’t show (it was my view that most musicians would be playing at gigs) and that it would be a small group of enthusiasts. To my surprise it was a group of over 200 people with families in tow. To top it off, they had a jam at the end of the night, the only down side was that the guitar players all solo’d over the same 12 bar blues (the basis for many blues songs like Johnny B Goode etc).
Driving home from this cold, wet night in Capalaba, it got to thinking about what had ever happened to a “back to music making” music programme I had heard about in the USA, called Weekend Warriors. “Maybe I had missed this part of the music industry”, I thought to myself. I likened it to a taste one gets of singing in Karaoke, a favourite Asian past time just becoming more popular in Australia. I joked to myself that maybe if I had started a Weekend Warrior programme at the old business, Music Worx, then maybe I would have found a whole new set of people who were excited about making music for a whole different set of reasons than the “business of music” was offering up. I let this simmer in the background.
One of my dealers was the Australian Academy of Music at Spring Hill. Having been their competitor through the early 1990’s, here I was in the company of their new music products buyer, Scott Mullane. Scott had joined me in Music Worx only 3 years prior. Small industry? You bet.
Scott had taken over the helm from Kev Wilmot who had moved on from managing Australian Academy. At this time in 1997 – 1998, Australian Academy of Music was one of the golden businesses in the music world. They had been running the Australian Academy of Music’s “Queensland Rock Awards” for almost 25 years and Scott was developing a “High School Rock” band competition for young new original school bands. The heats would be hosted by the schools and then the grand final was on stage at the Festival Hall in the heart of Brisbane.
Scott had asked for us to sponsor the event for Ibanez Guitars, as they represented international bands and artists like Korn, Limp Bizkit and Jo Satriani (many more too). I went along to the grand final and a young band of 13, 15, 16 years old won the competition from the Gold Coast, Messiah. I left it a few months to get in touch with them, until things settled down, and went to talk with them about their future, music and guitars.
I chose to work closely with them and their parents at the time, lending them an Akai Digital Recorder, for them to record some demos on and develop their songwriting skills. They only had two originals ready and their influence’s were inspired by Rage Against the Machine, Pantera and Metallica – a blend of new heavy metal. The singer was Jason Brown and his younger brother, Dane, was on drums. Luke McDonald on guitar with Sean Van Gennip on Bass guitar. They were a tight band and really nice natured kids.
We decided that they should record an EP and I suggested they record at Sunshine Studios in Brisbane, owned by Leon Prescott. Sunshine Studios had been responsible for some great local rock recordings, partly because of some of the older analogue equipment that Leon would never let go in a new emerging digital age. After they had written a larger number of songs, we chose a local producer, Mark McElligott, who was the main FOH sound engineer with Powderfinger and was the ex drummer from local Brisbane Band, Fear of Falling in the late ’80’s.
The boys had a dream to perform onstage at a festival. Vans Warped Tour was a collection of touring metal and punk bands from around the world. I had a an old friend who had been involved with the Livid Festivals and was overseas working with Vans Warped production team. I called “Kerro” – Kerry Nicholson, to see what could be done about getting Messiah onto the tour and he arranged for them to do a set. They were excited about this opportunity and meeting one of their favourite bands, Deftones. At this stage I was attempting to get them an Ibanez guitar and bass endorsement as well with Ibanez International. Only Inxs’ bass player, Gary Beers, had been the only Australian endorsee. I was finding I was putting more time into the band and was developing a good relationship with them when they asked me several times to manage the band.
I had been unsure, due to the fact I was trying to get them do the independent route, however, Luke’s father had gone to school with Denis Hanlon, who was Sony Records, Managing Director in Australia. This was concerning me, because they were so young and hadn’t really lived much of life yet. Getting signed to a corporate record company like Sony (the internet was only just starting to get faster and itunes had not been developed, and Napster was about to be born) was what I believed to be the wrong move for them at this stage. I had been discussing a name change with the band – as the name, Messiah, was interpreted differently if they got to go to otehr countries to play. The word “Messiah” meant, Liberator of the oppressed – so the boys decided it was time to change the name, sink the Messiah and changed it to “Sunk Loto“. We parted ways in June 1999, when I told them I was taking a new role with a local family music store at Kedron, Ellaways Music in July 1999.
It was time to move on from the wholesale music and back into retail. Even though I enjoyed it, it was the driving to Cairns and back too many times that convinced me. However, I had an idea that had been going around in my head since I saw the guitarists playing for fun at Carroll’s Music. I had tried to convince some store owners to look into the USA programme, Weekend Warriors, as I could see how it could work really well. By joining Ellaways Music in 1999 as the new Marketing Manager I was determined to do something significant again. In my first few months I called and wrote to the Executive of the Australian Music Association, Rob Walker, and he was not interested in getting me some information on the programme developed in Sacremento, USA from NAMM, USA. They had tried to bring it to Victoria in 1996 – 97 through Michael Brash at Brash Allans and Tony Moore from Moore Music, however, it had never ever started up in Australia.
Part of my role for Ellaways Music was in developing the first web site to sell instruments and accessories online. I knew little about this area, however, John Kenny (local IP lawyer), Jason Horton (guitarsite.com and Hitsquad.com) and Phil Tripp (Australian Music Industry Directory and IMMEDIA) along with hosts, QMusic, had arranged a conference called Cybeat with the key note speaker from Harvard University/Electronic Frontier Foundations, John Perry Barlow, with local universities and local state government. It was a weekend conference about pending changes to the music business. I participated in the conference and met an amazing young web savvy entrepreneur. Out timing to meet was great for both of us.
Greg Dodge ~ “Life is not measured by the breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.” 