Dammit Zammit: The Publisher's Weekly Warble, July 25

25 July 2011

by Adam Zammit

How lucky we are to live and work in an industry built on the foundations of a broken moral compass. Where giving the finger, sexualising under-18 females and males, profound use of profanity, glorification of racial vilification, and drug-use are all essential tools of our biggest product sellers. Not that every leading music industry executive or promoters phone contact list reads:

Dave Grohl
Daniel Johns
Dirty Black Ho
Dirty Diana
Dickhead DJ
Dealer....

But after the week Rupert Murdoch just had, I would rather be Sumner Redstone, smoking crack and smacking my bitch up in my pimp-mansion, whilst Lil’ Wayne dials it in from Rikers for me on a kickback. hack into that, bitch!

On a less positive note for this beloved sanctuary of an industry, did we really need to get the Cold Chisel tour, Meredith headliner, and Homebake and Stereosonic line-up announcements all within 24 hrs? I’m not sure who wins or loses in those car crash of PR head-ons but it seems like we need an announcement scheduler or behind the scenes industry diary like Social Diary for the PR industry so that shit doesn’t happen. Until then, why don’t you all call me and I will let you each know what days are not clear for you without giving away your tightly held secrets, trust me, I’ve been hacking into all your emails accounts for years anyway, so it’s not like I don’t know where you hid the bodies (or the bad demos).

Homebake’s line-up this year, with Nick Cave, The Church, The Triffids, Icehouse and PNAU as featured acts, deserves special note. In our determination to give artists an easy era box, time and place - and cash cow farewell tour - we have failed to acknowledge the depth of all Australian music at all times, irrespective of whether our artists are within a fashionable cycle or high rotation Triple J play.

Sometimes it seems artists are only in one of four phases:

1. So hot right now
2. So last year
3. Breaking up
4. Reuniting

Listening to James Cruickshank politely correct Robbie Buck on 702 last Thursday night - when he was introduced as “formerly” of The Cruel Sea, that the band never broke up - reminded me of the pressure we put acts under to constantly battle the media’s status update fascination. Homebake, as a festival of great Australian music with a long history of featuring acts in and out of record cycles and ages, will no doubt have to suffer boring assessment of their line up as “‘80s revival” and “reunion explosion,” but it is time for us to get off the fashion ‘of the moment’ and see our artists - irrespective of age or this year’s Hottest 100 - as once great, always great, and always proudly ours.

When you look at the Triple J’s Hottest 100 Albums of all Time only Machine Gun Fellatio, The Go-Betweens, The Saints, George, The Whitlams and Powderfinger have officially stopped performing... and this is a list with INXS (cant kill that with an atom bomb), Crowded House (second biggest fraud for a fake retirement), John Farnham (No. 1 culprit when it comes to faking retirement) and Cold Chisel (plausible excuse for retirement, they really were about to destroy each other).

Maybe if The Vines, Jet, You Am I, Wolfmother, Grinspoon, Silverchair, Regurgitator, and even great pop exponents like Savage Garden don’t have to wait till they are in their 50s to receive Hall Of Fame recognition, we could get on with enjoying their music, and they could proudly promote their legendary status now (and no Phil Jamieson that doesn’t include you yelling in my ear at 3am) and let them get off the JJJ treadmill as they run away from the Next Big Thing - to clarify, I don’t think Darren Hayes is camped outside Richard Kingsmill’s office with a brand new washing machine in his backpack as a “gift”.

Things do keep moving forward, but it is important to know what comes with us as we do.


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