With the days quickly counting down to the second annual Indie-Con Australia conference in Adelaide (26-27 July), when a who's who of music industry tastemakers descend on the UNESCO City of Music, here's a pocket-sized look at a number of speakers who'll be onstage sharing their knowledge.
Set to tackle some big issues including 'How The Indies Can Change The World' as well as presenting unique In Conversations with Inertia & PIAS, Bolster, Spotify and Songtrust, there'll be talk on smart marketing and achieving global impact, advertising with tighter budgets, piracy and trends, artist marketing, authenticity and questions asked of what it really means to be transparent.
With insights into the latest innovations and technologies and case-study revelations, if you're living in the world of independence then don't be the fool to miss out on Indie-Con Australia.
ANDY MAK (Writer/ Producer)
Named by The Music Network as one of the top four Australian producers of the year in 2017, Andy Mak is an award-winning music producer and songwriter, having written and produced and written for some of Australia’s leading artists including Tina Arena, Vera Blue, The McClymonts, KLP and Boy & Bear and internationally with Sebastian Izambard (Ill Divo), 98 Degrees, Berlin and Ronan Keating.
Earlier in 2018, Andy won two Golden Guitar Awards for producing The McClymonts album 'Endless' including Album Of The Year. Andy has multiple Australian, Billboard and Spotify top 10 records and awards/ nominations and gold certifications from ARIA and 2 Top 15 Hottest 100 placements in 2018. Andy's production and songwriting has placed in major films for Disney and Universal Pictures and have featured in more than 30 US network promos and global brand advertising campaigns.
ANTHONY ZACCARIA (Bolster)
Anthony Zaccaria co-directs Bolster Group, a digital, creative and product agency specialising in music, events and entertainment. Bolster takes a fresh approach to digital strategy, using the latest developments in data and tech for clients including Splendour In The Grass, Laneway Festival, Falls Festival, Chugg Entertainment, Secret Sounds, Future Classic, JBL and YouTube.
In the last 12 months Bolster has launched two new apps: Linktr.ee, an Instagram optimisation tool with 650k+ users, and Buzz, a social listening app for events like BIGSOUND and SXSW. More recently, Bolster announced their content division to service the growing demand for content-led campaigns.
BEN O’CONNOR (Chapter Music)
Alongside Guy Blackman, Ben O'Connor is co-director of Chapter Music, one of Australia's longest running and best respected independent record labels. Founded in 1992, Chapter has a catalogue of over 150 releases from artists such as Twerps, Dick Diver, Laura Jean, NO ZU, The Goon Sax and Beaches.
Tone Deaf have called Chapter 'almost unequivocally the most treasured record label in Australia', while Rolling Stone called Chapter 'one of Australia's most enduring and popular independent labels'. Distributed worldwide by US company Secretly Distribution (the distro arm of Secretly Canadian), Chapter champions Australian music with a strong Melbourne focus, although they have also released artists from the US, Sweden, Japan and elsewhere.
Ben manages the careers of Architecture In Helsinki and Power, and together with Guy manages The Goon Sax.
BONNIE DALTON (Victorian Music Development Office)
Bonnie Dalton is the General Manager of the brand new Victorian Music Development Office, where she will be responsible for working with artists and the businesses that support them, to foster sustainable music industry careers and partnering with music organisations and businesses.
Prior to the VMDO, Bonnie worked predominantly as an artist manager but also across events, production and programming. A recipient of the Lighthouse Award for management, she has previously worked with Little Red, The Vasco Era and more recently Ali Barter and Oscar Dawson.
She was the producer of the Melbourne St Jerome's Laneway Festival for ten years, worked in senior management at Falls Festival and has programmed line-ups at a range of festivals and events from Low Light, Queenscliff to Melbourne's House of Vans.
DAVE FAULKNER (Artist - Hoodoo Gurus)
Dave Faulkner has been a professional musician since 1976. Born in Perth, he commenced his musical career there before moving to Sydney in late 1980. Shortly afterwards he formed the Hoodoo Gurus, the band with which he has been most closely identified, still performing with them to this day. He is their lead singer, rhythm guitarist and principal songwriter.
Apart from the Gurus, Dave has written and recorded albums with Antenna and The Persian Rugs as well as composed the soundtrack for two feature films. He has also been a judge for the Australian Music Prize since its inception 12 years ago, serving as its chairperson for the past 5 years.
Dave is also chief music critic for The Saturday Paper. He is passionate about music in general and songwriting in particular. Hoodoo Gurus were inducted into the ARIA Hall Of Fame in 2007, The Age Newspaper's E.G. Hall Of Fame in 2011 and Dave was personally inducted into the Western Australian Music Industry Hall Of Fame (WAM) in 2009.
DAVID VODICKA (Media Arts Lawyers)
David Vodicka is the founder and director of Australian independent label Rubber Records and music publisher Rubber Music Publishing, and principal of entertainment law firm Media Arts Lawyers. He has had extensive experience with over 20 years practice representing musicians, artists, performers, composers, recording, production, management and publishing entities.
He has dealt in all facets of the music recording and publishing fields with label releases from Jet, Lisa Gerrard, the Casanovas, 1200 Techniques, Underground Lovers among over 250 releases.
He is a passionate advocate for local music and creative industries and is chairman of the board of AIR (the Australian Independent Record labels association), a former Vice President of WIN (Worldwide Independent Network), a current board member of ARIA (Australian Recording Industry Association) and the PPCA (Phonographic Performance Company of Australia).
DEB SUCKLING (SugarRush Music)
Deb has been around music for the past two decades. She started out as a singer/ songwriter and musician in the late '90s and is currently working on a new album, now her young family is growing up. In 2006 after seven years playing in bands, she worked for QMusic, going on to run over 100 regional workshops across QLD, start up the Queensland Music Awards and work on BIGSOUND and Little BIGSOUND.
She has held programme management roles at BEMAC and Backbone Youth Arts working with LGBTQI youth. Deb started SugarRush Music with partner Craig Spann in 2006. In 2014, she started The Soldier's Wife project – a community songwriting project which uses song to tell the stories of military wives and families who have served this century.
In 2017, after seeing a massive hole in regional music programmes she setup BIG SKY GIRLS, a songwriting mentoring programme for young regional women in QLD. In 2017 she was part of the industry mentors for Bush Bands Business held annually in the NT and will be once again volunteering her time in 2018.
Deb has worked on songwriting projects with the homeless through the Songs of Roma house programme, Indigenous artists through Murri Mixes and Bush Bands and in remote and regional mining areas with Songs of the Surat. She believes that songs can tell the stories of people from all walks of life and help express that which is sometimes just too hard to express any other way. She lives in Brisbane with her two children, two cats and eight fish.
JANE SLINGO (Young Strangers)
Jane Slingo has worked in the electronic music sector since 1994. Her career path over the past two decades or so has included working as a promoter, publicist, street press editor, booking agent, tour manager and artist manager.
Jane founded Young Strangers in 2006, a boutique music business providing management services to a small roster of electronic music artists including Set Mo and Sampology. Since 2016, Jane has been Executive Producer of Australia's Electronic Music Conference and she is currently on the management board for Music NSW and a member of APRA's Club Music Advisory Group.
LISA BISHOP (Music SA)
Lisa has 25 years experience in the private, public and not-for-profit sectors across industries including music, tourism, events, health, film and the arts. She is a director of the Adelaide Fringe Festival and the Australian Music Industry Network (AMIN). Lisa is Chair of the SA Music Industry Council and a member of the UNESCO Adelaide City of Music Executive Committee.
She holds a Bachelor of Economics (Accounting) and a Graduate Diploma in Management (Arts) and is the General Manager of Music SA, which champions original, contemporary South Australian music and presents the Umbrella: Winter City Sounds live music festival and the SA Music Awards. Lisa is currently producing the short film 'Aftershock'.
MEG WILLIAMS (Inertia)
Meg Williams is the co-director of the Inertia Label Group, previously was the Executive Director of the Association of Artist managers and co-director of boutique publicity and management company Spark & Opus.
PHILIP STEVENS (Jarrah Records)
Philip Stevens currently manages the John Butler Trio, The Waifs, San Cisco, SUPEREGO (formerly POW! Negro) and Stella Donnelly; he also managed Little Birdy between 2003–2007. He is experienced in taking artists from their first tentative steps, establishing them as Australian artists, and then as international artists.
Philip established Jarrah Records in New York in 2002 and has been managing the label and overseeing all label duties since. Jarrah Records was the first artist-owned independent label to debut at No.1 on ARIA charts. Prior to managing, Philip created the alternative music venue Mojos Bar in North Fremantle WA in 1998, which he ran with his partner for four years.
Philip also ran a successful touring company called Jazz Dive Promotions, which promoted concerts in Western Australia between 1990 and 1998. Jazz Dive represented many of Australia's finest acts including Paul Kelly, Weddings Parties Anything and Kate Ceberano as well as international touring blues and world music acts such as Screaming Jay Hawkins, Buddy Guy, Angelique Kidjo and The Bhundu Boys.
Philip has won numerous awards including WAMI's 'Best Management Company' in 2005, 2006, 2012 and 2017; 'Best Label' in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2011 and was inducted into the WAM Hall of Fame in 2014.
STEVE CROSS (Remote Control Records)
Steve Cross and Harvey Saward established Remote Control in 2001. The company provides publicity and marketing services, label management and distribution to international and local artists and labels in Australia and New Zealand. Remote Control has worked on releases by major international artist including Adele, Queens Of The Stone Age, Radiohead, The xx and The National.
The company has also worked with many Australian artists including Courtney Barnett, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Methyl Ethel, Chet Faker, The Smith Street Band, Jen Cloher and Client Liaison.
Click here to read the complete line-up of 2018 Indie-Con Australia speakers.
AIR is also proud to announce global independent rights agency Merlin as a supporting partner of the AIR Awards and Indie-Con Australia. And in celebration of its tenth anniversary, Merlin is providing the winner of AIR's newly added 2018 OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT AWARD – with a $5,000 cash prize to be used for professional/business development.
The AIR Board has introduced this newly created award category to recognise an individual or group who has made a significant and lasting contribution to the Australian Independent Music Community.
"Merlin was born of the desire of a global group of independent industry leaders who wanted to ensure the independent sector could compete and succeed in the digital space," Charles Caldas, Merlin CEO, says.
"In light of that shared spirit, we are proud to be associated with the Outstanding Achievement Award at this year's AIR Awards.
"Those who are at the heart of the ongoing success of the Australian independent music landscape succeed not only for themselves but for the sector as a whole, and being able to play a part in celebrating that is an honour and a pleasure. I look forward to being in Adelaide to see this year's recipient revealed."
