Rants
What Woodie Wanted
Talking about male cancer issues is REALLY freaking boring. I know, I track what you click. If I write about a punk who runs a crap festival and rips off crew, you click 28 x more than if it is about men stuff. Especially THIS man stuff, cancer of the gland that helps you ejaculate.…
Read MoreBand by name alone. When should a band name extinguish?
CX learned a long time ago that music fans get riled about whether ‘their’ band has been dissed. So when Australian Story detailed the terminal illness and decline into loneliness of former Angels front man Doc Neeson, we had some flaming. Because we suggested (on Facebook) that it was time to put the band name…
Read MoreBiz Talk: Mad Crazy Money
It was back to the future at CX Roadshow when I did an encore performance of my Crazy Money seminars from 2012. They were very popular then, and again this summer, pitched at small businesses that are the backbone of entertainment. Almost every freelancer is a small business, and we had plenty from all walks…
Read MoreStudio Dummy Spit
Normal on Friday, demolished on Monday Amazing stories sometimes take a few years to ferment and for the shock and residual dismay to wash off. This is one superb example. We had Julius Events College inside a warehouse near Parramatta and reasoned adding on a working recording studio would be a handy foil against the…
Read MorePassion and Money: the lo$$e$ I don’t regret
You’re looking at an Australian Monitor AM 1600 mosfet power amplifier, made by my firm and designed by Stuart McLean. Greg Hicks was the foreman at the factory we set up behind Graftons Sound and Lighting in Campbell street east Sydney in 1986. Hundreds of these still solider on, testimony to the brutal engineering.…
Read MoreBad Reps. Pick the ‘A’ team!
Every February the CX team tour Australia and meet a lot of industry types, covering all corners of our exciting niche industry. Plus we get to travel with up to 70 product specialists. Some of them are ‘product reps’. Not sure why, but of late the discussion has centred on just how good most of…
Read MoreInside the NEW Sydney Exhibition Centre @ Glebe Island
SYDNEY: CX today toured the completed Sydney Exhibition Centre at Glebe Island, (SEC@GI), a temporary venue intended to provide trade show space until the new International Convention Centre Sydney (ICC Sydney), Exhibition Centre and Theatre open in late 2016. The exhibition industry are sweating on the temporary facility delivering the goods. Joyce DiMascio, Chief Executive,…
Read MoreAnother gig. Another Lightie Screws it up! And about PYRO……
Disturbed at the pontoons loaded with ordinance floating near the publisher pile at Birchgrove, I took a flight as far south as possible to escape New Years Eve. Hobart was booked solid, so I settled for Launceston. Surely they’ve never heard of Foti or met any of the Howard Sons down there, I reasoned? But…
Read MoreDone an excellent gig – and they won’t pay you!
UPDATED 3 January, 2014. While CX is certain every performer and contractor associated with the amazingly bungled NYE Water Party at Village Roadshow’s new Wet’n’Wild park in Sydney was paid in full by the promoter, there’s plenty of tales of woe associated with no payment or part payment generally. No one has contacted CX to…
Read MoreYou want DRUMS with that?
Just briefly – having a quiet few while my mate Chris Mysinski mixes for Peter Northcote at the regular Balmain Sunday Drive gig at The Bridge Hotel. The usual random lineup happens from Northcote’s crony world, which goes to the charm of the whole Sunday (before 7pm) rock gig cover song thing. This drummer, who…
Read MoreFinally a retro band worthwhile: Misex
Although gazillions drive past the old Bridge Hotel at Rozelle few know the joys within. Living in the leafy millionaire’s row at Wahroonga while lamenting the lack of a said million or three, I was too far away to explore classic venues like this. Except for one miserable night earlier in 2012 attempting to identify…
Read MoreChicago parties while Telstra fumbles
Eventually you arrive and if direct from Sydney it will be night. My hotel is simply called PUBLIC and the doorman had to weave and duck through a heaving reception area between two bars loaded with young creatures very similar to those pictured. Indeed a group of girls were posing for a photo right in…
Read More