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Recorded live at The Soundbox, Arts Centre Melbourne, for Always Live Festival, this episode features Yamatji and Gumbaynggirr vocalist and songwriter, Emma Donovan. Growing up in a musical family, Emma first appeared on the stage with her renowned family band, the Donovans. She's since collaborated with artists such as Paul Kelly, the Black Arm Band, the Teskey Brothers, Paul Grabowsky, Spinifex Gum, the late Uncle Archie Roach and Aunty Ruby Hunter and The Putbacks.
Recently, she was the executive producer for the award winning documentary, Wash My Soul in the Rivers Flow and appeared on PlaySchool, but in 2024, she's set to release her debut solo album 'Til My Song is Done'.
Clare Bowditch is an award winning vocalist, business woman, mentor, mother, actress, broadcaster, podcaster and author. Claire has won the coveted ARIA Award for Best Female for her music, the Rolling Stone Woman of the Year Award for her contribution to Australian culture, and has been nominated for a Logie Award for her role as Rosanna on popular television show Offspring. Her very first book, entitled “Your Own Kind Of Girl” won the 2020 Australian Book Industry Award for “New Writer of The Year”. As a songwriter and musician she has toured with artists such as Leonard Cohen, Paul Kelly, Missy Higgins, Gotye and John Butler, to name just a few. In August 2020, she released an Audible Original audio book entitled “Tame Your Inner Critic” which has remained at the top of the Audible Charts since the day of release. Recorded live at The Soundbox, as part of Always Live Festival, Chelsea and Clare chat about songwriting, body image, burnout and much more.
Zoe Hauptmann is one of Australia’s most in demand session musician’s who has recorded and performed with some of Australia’s most iconic artists including Paul Kelly, Neil Finn, Kate Ceberano and Peter Garrett. She has recorded on over 80 albums, has toured internationally and has twice a finalist in the National Live Music Awards for “Australia’s best bassist”.
Zoe is also the Artistic Director of SIMA, Sydneys’ Improvised Music Association that presents a year round program of events as well as the Sydney International Women's Jazz Festival. In 2018 she won the Creative Leadership Award at the Australian Women in Music Awards.
In this conversation, recorded shortly after the Women’s Jazz festival, I asked Zoe to tell us what she makes a great bandleader, how to negotiate performance fees, how she chooses what projects to work on and much more.
Our guest today was just 16 when she took her first job as a roadie with AC/DC in 1974. I’m talking to the first female roadie, the incredible, Tana Douglas.
Since her first role in the live sector as a roadie, Tana has worked as a sound engineer, a lighting designer and logistics manager. she’s worked with acts such as Suzie Quatro, Status Quo, INXS and Elton John and has over 30 years of touring experience across three continents. Currently based in LA, Tana recently released her first book, the memoir titled Loud.
In this conversation we talk to Tana about inclusion and gender diversity in the live sector, taking care of mental health on the road, and how audiences and the touring industry have changed over the last three decades.
Always Live will present the Control podcast live at the Sound Box Monday 27 November. Hosted by artist/producer Chelsea Wilson, the session will feature two incredible Australian artists in conversation, Emma Donovan and Clare Bowditch. Housed in the Arts Centre Melbourne forecourt, the Soundbox Control session will comprise two back to back Control episodes recorded in front of a live audience. Soundbox Sessions are free, no booking required.
Jasmine Moseley is the Executive Director of the Australian Art Orchestra. A classically trained instrumentalist, Jasmine moved into arts management post music study, and has since worked for organizations such as Melbourne International Arts Festival, the Public Theatre in NYC, the Australian Ballet and Monash University Performing Arts Centre. In this conversation I ask Jasmine about the duel management structure of the Art Orchestra and where she thinks art music sits in Australia. We also cover arts management practice - I ask how Jasmine approaches providing feedback and securing partnerships and how she approaches developing commissions.
Professor Cat Hope is an award winning composer, sound artist, writer, performer, songwriter, artistic director and noise artist. Her work explores low frequency sound, drone, noise, glissandi and the use of graphic scores and alternative music notation. She is the director of Decibel New Music Ensemble, founder of the Low Tone Orchestra and the Australian Bass Orchestra and is a performer in noise duos such as Super Luminum and Candied Limbs. Currently based in Melbourne Cat is a Professor of Music at Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music at Monash University. In this conversation we ask Cat about graphic scores, her use of drones in composition, the role universities play in establishing the canon of popular music and much more.
Xylo Aria is an artist, producer and the founder of Music Production for Women. Named in the Top 50 East London Innovators of 2020 and the Top 100 She Said So Alt Power List, Xylo is committed to improving the gender disparity in Music Production through positive action. This includes providing women with an encouraging and safe learning space, facilitating and creating educational content with women in mind as well as increasing visibility of female role models for the next generation.
In addition to her work with MPW, Xylo is also a Director and Treasurer for the Music Producers and Engineers’ Guild of Australia. In this conversion we chat about the women in production statistics, the MPW programs and how Xylo approaches managing a business whilst maintaining her own creative practice.
Susan Cotchin, is the Managing Director of Good Neighbour working to collect neighbouring rights on behalf of artists. Originally working for PAMRA in the UK, she set up International royalties rescue in London, collecting unpaid royalties from around the world for artists such as Rhianna, Beyonce, Crowded House and many more. In this conversation, we hear about Susan’s journey from a child entertainer, to an educator, to the foremost Australian expert in Neighbouring rights, to establishing a new venture with the late Michael Gudinkci at Mushroom Group.
With a strong background in finance, Lynne Small started her career at Mushroom Festival Records. But for the past few decades she has worked across both ARIA - the Australian Recording Industry Association and PPCA, The Phonographic Performance Company of Australia. In this conversation I ask Lynne how Australian artists can achieve chart positions in the ARIA charts, how albums and singles get nominations for the ARIA Awards and how streams and downloads are counted towards the charts. We also talk about the Radio Fair Play campaign, the current record industry lobby movement to change the government mandated caps on fees radio pays to recording copyright owners, and much more.
