Oz Rock: The lyrical

At the moment, this isn’t a research entry. I’m just sorting through information for my analysis of the pub rock ‘lyrical’. I’m not sure if it’s academic enough to be considered ‘research’, so at the moment let’s brand it ‘informal post with the potential to become formal’.

So the lyrics of Oz rock are of crucial significance when examining the subculture, and reflective of the dominant Australian values inherit in the core audience: young, white, males, often blue collar workers. While the noisy music is ‘blunt enough to force a way through the dull haze of drunkenness’ (Tony, 1994), the lyrics ostensibly discuss the common ‘Aussie battler’ values, struggles, and locality which the audience understands and sympathizes which, thus making Oz Rock resonate with them.

The most dominant theme within these lyrics is that of the working class man. Where better to start on this subject than with Jimmy Barnes’ Working Class Man?

he believes in god and elvis

he gets out when he can

he did his time in vietnam

still mad at uncle sam

he's a simple man

with a heart of gold

in a complicated land

oh he's a working class man

well he loves a little woman

someday he'll make his wife

saving all the overtime

for the one love of his life

he ain't worried about tomorrow

cause he just made up his mind

life's too short for burning bridges

take it one day at a time

Ahh the beautiful story of the working class man, subservient to the higher universal powers of law, love, and money. He works hard for his money – just enough ‘to get by’ – because really, all he needs is love. Think Daryl Kerrigan as a prime example. This simple man recurs again in many Paul Kelly songs, for instance, To Her Door. This time our protagonist got married early (but never had no money), lost his job, hit the drink, and made a mess of his family life (He took it pretty badly/she took both the kids). Luckily our lovers are reunited for a happy ending when he rides ‘to her door’.

Locality is also another way to assert Australianness and appeal to local audiences. For example Paul Kelly tells us that ‘From St Kilda to King’s Cross it’s thirteen hours on a bus’, while Australian Crawl references the Manly ferry cutting it’s way to Circular Quay in Reckless.

Another recurrent theme lies upon our forgotten war heroes. Of course, who can forget Cold Chisel’s anthemic Khe Sahn, possibly the greatest pub song of all time. In this song, Jimmy Barnes relates to us (in the most cadenced way) the struggles of a returned Vietnam veteran – from leaving his heart to the sappers ‘round Khe Sahn, to the lack of V day heroes in 1973, concluding with going nowhere in a hurry, as the last plane out of Sydney is almost gone. On the other hand TISM shows us a less romanticised view of the war heroes in The Last Australian Guitar Hero, singing: In a tiny inner city pub/the amps were getting stacked/leads were getting wound up/it was full of pissed ANZACs/‘Got no more gigs for Tuesday night’.

But we really can’t go past a good old political message, courtesy of our current Minister for the Environment. How do we sleep while our beds are burning, Peter Garrett? Beds Are Burning notes the injustice of the stolen generation, while other notable acts such as Yothu Yindi, INXS, Sunrize Band, Not Drowning Wave, and Paul Kelly also emphasize gaps between aboriginal and white Australians.

Lastly we can analyse lyrics that pertain to the music itself: the alluring melodies of frenzied drum beating, grinding guitar riffs and screaming vocals. That’s right, rock n roll. ACDC has really summed it up for us over the years, giving us the following varied views on ‘rock n roll’:

• Rock n roll ain’t noise pollution, rock n roll it will survive
• It’s a long way to the top if you want to rock n roll
• [I’m] gonna be a rock n roll singer, gonna be a rock n roll star
• It’s a rock ‘n’ roll damnation
• For those about to rock, we salute you
• That’s the way I wanna rock n roll
• You can’t stop rock ‘n’ roll
• She digs rock n roll, she likes rock n roll, I need rock n roll
• I could be in a rock n roll dream
• Etc. etc.
  Interesting to note that not only do all their lyrics come to the same effect, but so does their music.

So on the whole, Oz Rock targets a specific audience through high-context lyrics. It is made by the working class, for the working class, about working class things. I hope you feel englightened.

Jimmy Barnes: a working class man *and* the voice (try and understand it..)

Beware, the Brisbane Scene

So, for my second research entry, I have decided to investigate the Brisbane pub rock “scene”. As my focus for my assignment is “the local and the global”, I feel it is fitting to explore the local Brisbane “scene” using Will Straw’s framework followed by a series of ethnographic studies in my third research entry. Firstly, Straw (2002) defines the function of “scene” as being used “to circumscribe highly local clusters of activity and give unity to practices dispersed throughout the world”. Though in other articles (Systems of Articulation, Logics of Change: Scenes and communities in popular music (1991), and Consumption (2001)), Straw has also asserted scenes as simply “geographically specific spaces for the articulation of multiple musical practices”. In Scenes and Sensibilities, Straw contends five components which identify the direction and scale of a scene, all which are able to be viewed within the lens of Brisbane pub rock as follows:

1. The recurring congregation of people at a particular place

The daily occurrence of pubs filling up with patrons is slightly neotribal in nature: in the way that it represents an informal, dynamic, and frequently temporary alliance between patrons and the pub. And this happens everyday, in every Brisbane pub or bar.

2. The movement of these people between places and other places

Also known as the notorious ‘pub crawl’, this is the simple activity of patrons visiting a number of pubs in one night, for example the movement from The Tivoli to Club 299, from The Zoo to The HiFi, or from The Royal Exchange to The Regatta.

3. The streets/strips along which this movement takes place

Brisbane offers many strips of nightlife and live music, notably Fortitude Valley, Caxton Street, West End, and the city.

4. Places and activities which surround and nourish a particular cultural preference

This entails the interconnected features that combine to create the live pub rock experience: the alcohol consumption, the socialisation, dancing, noise restrictions, merchandise, requesting songs, liquor licensing, the cab rank, street press and promotions etc. all applicable to the Brisbane scene.

5. Webs of microeconomic activity which foster sociability and link to the city’s ongoing self reproduction

From The Bee Gees to The Saints to Powderfinger, Brisbane is always promoting live music exports as one of our main selling points (see here). The financial exchange between the performer/s and the pub as well as revenue the pub makes from drink sales on the night indicates a micro economy which underscores any live music scene.

So it seems that the Brisbane pub rock “scene” adheres to Will Straw’s “scene” ideology. Other notable academic literature in the areas of locality and “scene” that I plan to examine include Tony Mitchell’s Popular Music and Local Identity (1996), Arjun Appadurai’s five spheres of influence (1996), Andy Bennett and Richard Peterson’s Music Scenes (2004), and Shane Homan’s numerous studies of the Sydney live music scene and regulations. Because there is limited studies into the Brisbane live music scene in particular, I also hope to gather some first and second hand introspection for my next research entry.

feeeling so beerhemian like you

No, sadly this is not a research entry.

Just some light-hearted distraction from mundane uni work. I’ve had a blast researching pub rock, it’s so entertaining some of the things I’m finding, especially the locality aspect of it…I still get a thrill when I read something about Toowong’s Royal Exchange Hotel (I start giggling then loudly exclaim “I’VE BEEN KICKED OUT OF THERE! TEE HEE!”). So here are a few examples of just some of the awesome (albeit questionable) stuff I’ve come across in my research.

“It may seem somewhat insulting to begin our reading of Australia in the pub. But Australians are both proud and ashamed of their enthusiasm for alcohol.”
Fiske, A, Hodge, B, Turner, G. (1987) Myths of Oz

“Drinking…a determinedly egalitarian activity, the great social leveller – except for a Test Cricket crowd there is no more classless place in Australia than a hotel bar.”
Craig McGregor, 1966

“Instead of the fixed, oppressive hierarchical relations of the family lounge, the public bar eschews hierarchy and permanence. It does have on obligation: ‘the shout’, the obligation of every drinker to pay for his round in turn. Because it seems equal, it seems fair, though its equality is coercive: everyone is assumed to drink the same amount at the same speed. It is also immediate justice, not a nebulous system of deferred repayments…”
Fiske, A, Hodge, B, Turner, G. (1987) Myths of Oz

All three quotes I cannot argue with and offer such a beautiful explanation of Australian culture. The authors of the quotes somehow describe the lowest, dirtiest form of Australian art – the stinking, overcrowded, live pub gig – as an intellectual and theoretical example of the elegant learned internal structure, collectively understood across the nation. AMAZING.

SLAM Rally: Don’t Kill Live Music!

On the 4^th of February this year at 4pm, over 10 000 people marched outside Melbourne’s parliament house behind a flatbed truck to ACDC’s classic anthem Long Way To the Top - fittingly on its 30 year anniversary. They had gathered to protest the pending Victorian liquor licensing laws which will force licensed venues to close at 1am, effectively killing the thriving Melbourne live music scene. SLAM is a non-politically aligned organisation supported by notable industry figures such as Paul Kelly, Slash, Nick Cave, Paul Dempsey, Myf Warhurst, Clare Bowditch, The Living End, and Angie Hart. A month ago, they presented Greens senator Sue Pennuicuik with a petition of over 22 000 signatures in a bid to stop the legislation from being passed.

The extent this movement has reached n is mindblowing: that so many people gathered in person to protest these laws shows that live music is a vital part of Australian culture and needs to be nurtured instead of shunned. Not only are our pubs and live music venues great places to have a drink, but over the years have produced such fine talent as ACDC, You Am I, Cold Chisel, INXS, Jet, Paul Kelly, Daddy Cool, Australian Crawl, Radio Birdman, The Divinyls, Midnight Oil, Hunters and Collectors, The Hoodoo Gurus, Magic Dirt, and The Cockroaches. Obviously pub rock has affected thousands of people and touched them so much to make them so passionate about it.

But this isn’t the first time liquor licensing laws have affected Australia’s live music consumption. The ‘six o’clock swill’ introduced in World War I aimed to limit alcohol intake and encourage men to spend time with their families at night. This resulted in them drinking heavily between finishing work at 5pm and the bar closing at 6pm. When these laws were finally abolished (varying year state-to-state), venues were able to put on more live music which effectively kick-started the Australian pub rock movement as well as increased business enormously.

Dr Shane Homan from Monash University published a paper ‘Governmental As Anything: Live music and law and order in Melbourne’ which provides a more coherent account of the importance of live music: the ongoing connections with audiences and peers, live performance as a marketing tool, primary means of income, skills development, and precursor to export. As well as accounting for a large percentage of the $6.8 billion Australian music industry, live music is the primary form of some people’s incomes. This makes musicians reluctant to accept these laws, demonstrated by one particularly spellcheck-ignorant musician’s message to the politicians on the InTheMix forums:

if you stop us playing live music , because its too loud , then why do you sit in your fancy car , listening to delta goodram , i bet she didn't just get there playing onto a CD first shot , she played every single club she could , she dealt with things and pushed through it all , selling herself short so you could sip your tainted wine and complain about how its too loud.

In regards to my assignment, this sweeping movement is tangible proof of the raging Australian pub rock culture. Homan’s paper thoroughly analyses the issue and provides a useful perspective on the contemporary issues facing the pub rock culture. Although these laws are meant to curb violence and binge drinking, it is obvious by the sheer numbers of people opposed to it that the local live music scene is too important to give up. Though there is talk of a similar lockout system in Queensland, I surely hope that live music lovers will unite alike Melbourne’s and make sure this doesn’t happen. As John Kerry says in the video below, “we need to institute laws that promote live music, not demonize it”. Down with the establishment!

Also, you can sign the petition to save Melbourne's live music HERE.

Video shot by Paul Drane, the same guy who did the original Long Way To The Top video in 1976. (I love Kram popping up at precisely 3:00).

G'day

This is my MSTU2000 blog about my chosen subculture, the noble genre of pub rock. Here I will post my three research entries, plans for my essay, and any interesting information or media I come across in my research.