Brisbane 1985 – 2010 (Thru Dodgey’s eyes) Part NINETEEN

This is chapter NINETEEN. To read this from the beginning  GO HERE

For the blog that starts in 2001 with Weekend Warriors – GO HERE

                                                                                                                            

  (Boardroom Blitz – Brisbane Entertainment Centre 2004)

Athol Young was the head of the Creative Communities for the Brisbane City Council.  In 2014 we had started working on developing the youth music initiative at Glenala State High School with over 30 music school students (predominantly Indigenous and Polynesian students) and we had appointed the coaches, Daniel Spirovski, Louis Obertuleter plus husband and wife team, local indigenous performers, Troy and Trevelyn Brady. The desired outcome was for the music coaches to work closely with the school’s music teacher, Leanne, and inspire the students to collaboratively create, write and perform their own songs.  This would give them real skills to understand the process of songwriting and teamwork, plus the opportunity to showcase, in front of their peers at the local Indigenous Hip Hip festival, Stylin’ Up.  We had provided all the music gear from local music stores, as the school had little resources to run this style of programme. The whole process took many months, however, it had also attracted the interest of Dr Steve Dillon from Queensland University of Technology (QUT), along with a Music Therapist, Felicity Baker, from the University of Queensland.  We started to document the process in more detail to look at the students, in terms of engagement with school, school results, attitudes, resilience etc.  The students had decided to call the project, “BNS – The Band Thing“.  It was a huge success that continued through to 2016.

We continued to regularly meet with Athol and his team at Brisbane City Council (BCC), Roz Trappett, Charlie Cush and Jeremy Wellard, and one day Athol asked if I would be interested in offering a similar music engagement initiative to the Weekend Warrior programme, but give it a whole new name, energy and focus.

Come Together was the new name and the first derivative of the Weekend Warrior program to have a predetermined social benefit, and was the first to receive significant government funding. In the years leading up to 2004, one of Brisbane City Council‟s (BCC) Events Officers noted the situation facing the suburban, middle-aged males living in and around Brisbane.  Athol Young revealed that council perceived this specific demographic as “isolated” and the local government saw this as a situation of concern. Subsequently, BCC commissioned a WW styled program that directly aimed to increase social interaction amongst this cohort.
Athol collected key statistical indicators from the Australian Bureau of Statistics to identify Brisbane‟s outer suburbs, which had a high representation of the isolated demographic.
Determined to reach this demographic, Athol was aware of the inability of typical advertising strategies to target this cohort. We used posters and flyers as the only form of advertising, displayed in specific locations in the identified suburbs – veterinary practices, hot bread shops, and mechanics garages.
The expected number of attendees for the introductory meeting of Come Together was between twenty and thirty participants. On the first day ninety participants attended, only two of whom were outside the target demographic. The culminating first performance of Come Together occurred at the Algester Sports and Recreational Club and drew a crowd of approximately 300 people. It was reported that the club had never sold as much food and beverages as it did during that event.
It was great! Participants were bringing their ex-partners, and their kids. Some even brought their parents along with them. The focus was not on the music, the focus was on the pride gained by participants.
After the event a flow of positive anecdotal benefits and testimonials from participants prompted BCC to facilitate and partially fund the program in similar suburbs for another three years. By 2005 Come Together was active in four suburbs: Algester, Jindalee, Albany Creek and Zillmere.  It also engaged many younger people, who had no problem performing with the Baby Boomers and many kids were happy to be in the same band as Mum or Dad.

Boardroom Blitz was in full flight again in 2004, becoming a larger and more popular event.  Ray Smith, Managing Director of local film post production company, Cutting Edge, was one of the key corporate drivers, in partnership with the Cerebral Palsy League.  Ray also wanted to learn guitar, so I offered to teach him in his office.  We would get together weekly and after 5 minutes of teaching, we would end up in a one to two hour conversation about life, business and Boardroom Blitz.  Ray would never practice – so we gave up on that after many months of connecting up.

Weekend Warriors was also keeping us very busy, training music store owners and their staff around the country, how to promote the idea, run the jam sessions and then how to roll out the process of rehearsing, coaching and running the concert.  Ian Harvey and Sara Hood were the Executive Officers of the Australian Music Association and they had been ramping up through 2003/04 a new national initiative, The Music Makers Fund, engaging local and international suppliers, wholesalers, (over 30 importers; Roland, Yamaha, Fender, Australis Music, Electric Factory, Pro Music etc) to help the local industry lobby Federal government to take an interest in the benefits of music making.  The AMA had decided to further boost the exposure of the Weekend Warrior programme around Australia (with over 40 music stores being trained by mid 2004) and they suggested we should do a National launch of Weekend Warriors in Melbourne at Federation Square.  Of course, we now had a few sites running Weekend Warrior programmes in Perth, Adelaide, Sydney, Brisbane, Darwin and some rural Vic and NSW.  Our big day was to be “live” on the channel 7, Sunrise breakfast show, with Kochie and Mel, crossing over with Grant every half hour for interviews and showcase in the weather segment.  Co-ordinating all the bands from across the country, we also decided to make a day of bands performing in Federation Square after the national launch and a night time, social jam, at  a local venue.

                                                                                                                    (National Launch of Weekend Warriors 2004 – Federation Square, Melbourne)

The whole day went off without a hitch and the fax machine ran extremely hot as over 300 new applications flooded into the AMA office to distribute around the country. We had an amazing day and had so much fun with all the characters we met from around the country.  Many of them I had seen at their first jam sessions and at the concerts, so it was a tribe that was now national and had so much good, positive energy.  The AMA had also allowed the Weekend Warriors to continue to perform annually at the Gold Coast at their annual music convention, this allowed the Warrior associations to develop stronger links and forge better ties between them.  Well, that was the idea, and all ideas have concerns when implemented by some of the people who were not inclusive – or had not connected with our vision.  These things happen as things become more successful and it attracts all types of characters. They were all about their band, or their group of bands and I could see friction and tension starting to evolve between associations and between bands.  I realised that not remaining close to the association and their progress, there were people within the groups who had new ideas about what they should be doing.  This was all OK and sorted itself out in the end, however, I was also stretched with our youth music programmes, Amp’d Up, The Band Thing, Boardroom Blitz and now Come Together.  Locally, Weekend Warriors at Ellaways Music was powering along and the only other music store in South East Queensland that started another programme was Paul Carroll and Matt Jones at Carroll’s Music at Capalaba.

By the year ending 2004, I had hosted my last Weekend Warrior programme for Ellaways Music and had decided to leave them completely, so I could focus on all of the new music programmes we had going on.  We parted ways, mutually and respectfully, however, they also knew I like to stretch my wings and continue on my journey.

It was at this time, I needed a new challenge.  As I mentioned back in a previous chapter , the Australian Academy of Music, had gone into administration in 1999 and Peter Hayward from Australis Music, had purchased the business along with the building to keep the largest independent music store, at that time, in Australia from disappearing altogether.  Every year Peter had a new manager appointed and by 2004 it was Mark Richter, who was at the helm.  I had met Mark, who had been the previous store manager at the local city store, Allans Music (formerly Brashes, formerly Palings Music etc) and had moved up from Canberra around 1999.   Mark was not happy that Allans Music (his old employer) had just purchased the Australian Academy of Music from Peter Hayward’s company, Australis Music, as Peter said at the time, “we had a $16million a year business and we had shrunk it to under $4 million a year, time to go”.

Allans Music were the largest national music retailer in the country at the time and already had financial strain some years before, although they had a footprint in most capital city central business districts (CBD’s) and were partly owned by the Roland Corporation (who helped them from falling over after the last collapse).  It was November 2004 and I had heard that they were keen to really get the Academy of Music back to it’s glory days.  I knew this, first hand, because I had been involved with a three day retreat, called the Music Makers Summit, where I had spent some time discussing items with Michael Brash (son of Geoff Brash) who was now the CEO of the Allans Music Group of companies.  When I heard the news that they had purchased the Academy at Spring Hill, I could see a great opportunity to restore the activities of the Academy back to life.   It made sense to restarting the band programme initiatives (including the Q’ld Rock Awards, the High School Rock band competitions, Festival of Music and so on) and I spoke to Mark Richter and we agreed it should work.  He wanted to leave as manager now that Allans were owning the business and I spoke with Michael Brash about starting to manage the business in the new year in 2005.   I had to consider my relationship with Athol Young and the BCC, along with Boardroom Blitz.  I was also developing a new school holiday programme, Powerkidz, at the Brisbane Powerhouse for 9 – 12 year olds, CreActive, with Daniel Spirovski and Louis Oberlueter, after a successfully run programme we had just completed at QPAC (Queensland Performing Arts Complex) at Southbank with the “Out of the box” kids school holiday program.  I also had to consider how Ellaways Music would react.  My loyalty was still to them in a way, although, they also knew I was a passionate human being, who could see an opportunity to go off and have some fun.

Scott Mullane (Aisle Six Productions) had been our regular production company for most of our music events and Scott was prepared to take over the running of Come Together for 2005.  Scott had also been a huge part of the Academy of Music management history and encouraged me that managing the Academy of Music was a good idea and that I should pursue it.  Also nationally Weekend Warriors was now well established and I would relinquish my role as National “warrior chief” to Dom Disisto, owner of Holden Hill Music.  Both of them, I had stated, if the Academy of Music, for some reason, did not work for me, that I would return back to my station.  I was ready for  a new opportunity to create once again and excited by the prospect.

When I was appointed as the new manager of the Australian Academy of Music, I had completely not thought through that the local store manager of the city Allans Music store, Robin C, would be so hard to get along with.  He had been running the new Academy business when Allans Music took it over in November.  He had increased the staff levels significantly and I started in Feb 2005, looked at the figures, and realised we were 8 staff to top heavy.  These were 8 staff who Robin had added that the business could not afford.  Needless to say, I had to terminate 8 staff and this made my first few months with the remaining staff, hell.  I could not get any traction, I had constant interference from Robin and his team from the city store, I realised that I was not coping well in a corporate environment and the toxicity of the games people play.  Within three months I quit – or they let me go – it didn’t matter really, but it was possibly the shake up I needed.  Here I was at the top of my game in the music industry in 2004, and by early 2005, I was out of work and wondering what I could do.  Scott was going well with Come Together for 2005 and he was ok with me taking it back in 2006.

Dom was now the National Weekend Warriors “chief” and would not let it go – and that was absolutely fine by me, I love constantly reinventing myself as you can tell.  I still had great links with my coaches and Daniel and the team were still doing the CreActive youth programme at the Brisbane Powerhouse every school holiday.  I also needed to get some paid work, so I sent an email to my large contact list asking if anyone would like a out of work music marketing guy.  Thankfully, David Young, who had been a Weekend Warrior and was also the owner of a local recruiting company, Australian Recruiting,  and responded to my email and said, “ever thought of recruiting?”  “What is recruiting?”, I replied.  He laughed and said I would enjoy it.  So for the next 9 months I donned a suit and tie three days a week (it was commission only) and worked as a recruiter.  And this is where it gets very interesting.  I had heard through one of my old contacts that there was a new start up company that required a Marketing Manager.  I went out to meet the CEO, Terry Boyle, and we discussed his requirements.  I then chatted to him about the music work we were also doing at the Brisbane Powerhouse and he said maybe we should talk further about this idea.  His new business, Capitol Kidz, was looking at an alternative to child care, and required new, unique activities to engage young people and music and creativity got Terry’s attention.   How this unfolds is all part of the re-building Oxygen42 and establishing creActive.

More of this to be discussed in the next chapter.

Brisbane 1985 – 2010 (Thru Dodgey’s eyes) Part EIGHTEEN

This is chapter EIGHTEEN.  To read this from the beginning  GO HERE

For the blog that starts in 2001 with Weekend Warriors – GO HERE

Ben Ikin and I were from two different spaces.  Ben’s life revolved around sport, particularly ARL, and my life revolved around music.  We did, however, have something in common.  Ben had been a star player in the Brisbane Bronco’s and State of Origin football matches (so I had heard).  His father-in-law was no other than Wayne Bennett, coach wiz, who had written a book I had just finished reading called, “Don’t Die With The Music In You.”  I had picked up a copy because of the book title only and quickly discovered that Wayne was 100% inspirational. Wayne Bennett has had a major impact on the lives of so many successful and impressive people. “You have a choice in life,” he says. “You can sit back and criticise or you can try to make a difference.”  So, Ben had seriously damaged his knee playing football and was in a role at Kedron Wavell Services Club to connect music and sport into local primary schools on the north side of Brisbane.  Ben also has a brother who is a singer-songwriter and another who is a dancer.

We decided that we would take a selection of musical gear into the schools and spend an hour allowing the young, year 4 – 7 kids the opportunity to try a drumkit, an electric guitar, a synthesizer and a DJ turntable.

Just prior to this I had met a current university graduate of Griffith University Conservatorium of Music (The Con), Daniel Spirovski, through a producer I had recently met.  Daniel was about to become a student at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) and complete his Masters in Music (he had not decided specifically what that was to be).   I had also met a local singer, DJ, Louis Oberleuter and then at a local meeting organised by Ben with all the school principals, I met a hip, young music teacher, Rachel Templeton (Rachel had had some amazing success with a local music project – “AIM HIGH – from little things, big things grow”.  It was about healing and bringing community together after some deep pain.

The four of us met, clicked and dreamed up giving the young primary school kids a “taste” of playing an instrument, even if they had never learnt an instrument.  We then invited them to do a school holiday programme for 4 days, funded by the Kedron Wavell Services Club and Ellaways Music. We named this music programme, AMP’D UP!.  Over the holidays the first group of 8 students got the experience of working with these young, highly skilled music professionals (we called them coaches as in the Weekend Warrior experience) and a group of young people created their own music, learnt some cover songs and performed on stage for their families.  It was an amazing experiment and we realised that it was transformational, not only for the participants, but equally for the “coaches”.  The average age was 9 – 12 years old.

In the background Weekend Warriors was growing every week with more new people joining the jams and performing in the concerts. We had also completed our second year of the Jammin’ project at South Bank with “The Con”- which saw a huge public music jam session at the Southbank Piazza venue and an array of musical talent performing in Concert.  Billy had done an extraordinary job of creating a “women’s only” band (with exception to Cam Patterson on lead guitar in the shadows).  “WOMEN IN ROCK” – a large band made up with women only who had come through the Weekend Warrior programme.  We were trying to encourage more ladies to join the experience and “have a go” joining a band (the stats were heavily weighted towards males wanting to relive their youth through making music in a band – isn’t that how you get chicks anyway??  🙂

In March 2003, after a random meeting with a dedicated music teacher, Shea Stanley, who had heard about the growth of the Weekend Warrior programme, and had been disillusioned with changes at the ever shrinking Australian Academy of Music at Spring Hill, approached us about starting a new Jazz Swing Band programme. Back in the “heyday” (as previously mentioned in past chapters) the “Academy” had led the way with large instrumental and concert band facilitation – for fun.  Based on the American music movement, NEW HORIZONS, Shea had been the passionate musical director for the programme in Australia up to that stage. We approached two of the heads of brass and woodwind products and marketing at Yamaha Australia, Russell Cooper and Leah Andrews, about starting a brand new programme, similar to Weekend Warriors concept, however, for lovers of Swing Jazz Bands (from 12 – 20 in a band).  We aptly named this music making programme, WEEKEND SWINGCATS, under the direction of Shea Stanley.  Our first concert was a huge success and many signed up to participate in the next round.  Of course, it attracted a different set of people, whose interests swayed more into jazz and swing, however, this opened up some beautiful linkages to the Weekend Warrior programmes with crossover appearances of saxophones, trumpets etc – enter the “saxual healer” and the brass sections for future shows.  This created more power to the tower.  What is hip anyway? 🙂

Jupiters Treasury Casino, Boardroom Blitz, for the Cerebral Palsy League, was being planned for it’s second successful year. The corporate companies started to take it more seriously and we started to see the development of larger bands being put together to perform.  Jupiters had started auditioning staff and had a whole pre-process of selection for their band members.  Roche Mining started planning early and had put together an amazing line-up (they won the best band on the night).  Brumby Breads CEO, Michael Sherlock, had entered their band in and the names were quite remarkable.  First it was “The Grateful Breads” now it was “Talking Breads” and the ’80’s theme created an amazing buzz.  We had as our guest MC for the night, Richard Wilkins, who was quite a handful  for our Producer, Bruce Kemp. Needless to say, the night was a huge success and fun was had by one and all.

Richard Wilkins and his handler for the night @ Boardroom Blitz

2003 was an enormous year for the development of the recreational music movement in Australia, and in particular from what we learnt in establishing the Weekend Warrior programme. Here we were, Bill and I, visiting Melbourne, Perth, Darwin, Adelaide and Sydney, training other music stores on the benefits and the high’s of starting a Weekend Warrior in their local area. We were busy planning the four jams and four concerts per year, plus these other music programmes that had been spawned from the ideas flowing. For us, the benefits that were flowing for all involved with Weekend Warriors, the Warriors Music Association, with well over 300 members in their club by mid 2013, it really seemed like a total “win-win-win” for everybody (including the Music Therapist at the Mater Children’s Hospital who had been the recipient of over $18,000 worth of donated musical equipment). The association was also running “Acoustic Warriors”, special band nights, jam sessions, showcases and special theme nights for bands that kept people engaged making music for fun.

With Weekend Warriors, as created at Skips Music in Sacramento, USA, they had not encouraged to have any ongoing “music club” attached to the store.  Basically, if you wanted to do the Weekend Warrior programme there, once you had performed you were back on your own – or you would team up and make your own band, find your own gigs and so on. The Warriors Association in Brisbane were breaking new ground and were trying to find their way with new ideas and creating opportunities to keep the bands and opportunities flowing.  Ellaways Music, by keeping the distance away from the club was a good decision in the start, however, there was an element of friction brewing when the club had decided to have “associate members” who had never gone through the WW programme. There was also the difficulty of other local stores starting Weekend Warrior programmes in the local area and trying to sway members to their stores. This had happened with local Allans Music, who even turned up to a Warriors Association showcase concert and actively informed members that they would be soon running Weekend Warriors. (Yes – Billy and I had trained them how to run it, however, I knew deep down that they did not understand the underlying principle of “FUN and MUSIC” and would never be capable of running a recreational music programme).

Billy and I had helped train the new coaches and the stores how to promote, recruit and host a jam and concert in their local areas.  One of the new coaches we met and trained in Melbourne was guitarist Bob Spencer.  Bob had been a guitarist in two significant Australian rock bands in the 1970s and 1980s, Skyhooks and The Angels. he was also in an early rock band, Finch, who I supported in a band in Hobart in 1975. Bob was hired by Billy Hyde Blackburn to be their Coach and we hit it off straight away when we met.  Bob did “get it” and he understood the programme and it was so pleasing to have Bob represent Weekend Warriors in Melbourne. We also had two Sydney stores come online, an Adelaide store, Holden Hill, owned and run by guitarist, Dominic Disisto.  John Goldsmith at Kosmic Music in Perth along with Top End Sounds in Darwin.  All of these stores had run their first programme and we were planning, with Ian and Sara at the Australian Music Association (AMA) a national launch for Weekend Warriors in early 2014.  Things were truly buzzing along.

In late 2003, I had been hunted down by the Brisbane City Councils Creative Director, Athol Young, who headed up a division within Council to get people creatively active in their communities. He had heard about Weekend Warriors and Amp’ Up (which ran at Zillmere on Brisbane’s northside) and asked if I would be interested in developing a music making programme for students at Glenala State School (at Inala on Brisbane’s Southside).  Athol and his team had been developing a locally run youth indigenous Hip Hop festival, STYLIN’ UP, and wanted to know if we could partner and make something extraordinary to happen for these young people.  A performance opportunity for young indigenous and islander students in Hop Hop.  We pulled together a meeting with the Principal, my Amp’D Up Coaches, Daniel and Louis, Education heavy weights and came up with a new programme – the name to be decided by the students,  This was given the green light for 2004 and things were certainly heating up for Oxygen 42 – as a music programme development company.   By the end of 2003, not only had I performed in round six of the local Weekend Warriors programme (see pic below) we had now a stable of new emerging music making programmes.

Weekend Warriors – Baby Boomers (born between 1946 – 1984 approx) – rock, country, blues etc
Boardroom Blitz – Corporate bands (themed annually)
AMP’D UP! – youth 9 – 12 years old (new music, covers)
Weekend Swingcats – 10 – 80 year old (jazz, swing, big band etc)

Spin-offs – Warriors Music Association (past WW members)

The amount of new people getting exposed to music making, with the emphasis on FUN, was growing exponentially.
2004 was already being planned as a big year.  I had started a good creative conversation with Athol about the new music programme and he asked me how could we do a similar programme to Weekend Warriors in the suburbs.   The outer suburbs.  I gasped.  With all that we have going on, why not add another possibility into the mix.  Athol inspires one to put your thoughts together, draw up a proposal, and create a new opportunity for people in the “burbs”.  I was finishing up my full time role with Ellaways Music at the end of 2003 and starting the new business, Oxygen 42 and I could include a new programme.  Mmmm – my juices are flowing for a solution to this challenge…..

We will explore how that rolls out in the next CHAPTER NINETEEN