It is vital not just to all country people, but to all lovers of independent Australian music, which includes anyone who likes sitting about like we did here at Lazy Ballerina Wines.
Dear friends,
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation has just announced that in 2017 they will be cutting nearly all music programming
from Radio National (The ABC is Australia's publicly owned broadcaster,
our equivalent to the BBC, and the jewel in her crown is ABC Radio
National).
Four great and eclectic shows, The Inside Sleeve, The Daily Planet, The Rhythm Divine and The Live Set
are to be axed, so that only a single one-hour program per week, The
Music Show, will remain.
These programs are invaluable to the Australian
independent music community - they're not the only music channel from
the ABC, but they're the only shows that play much our music and the
music of many visiting independent artists. For many of us they are the only
way to reach a national audience, and taking them off the air will be
devastating.
It's fair to say that I probably wouldn't be doing what I do if it weren't for Radio National's music programming. RN has given me two great gifts; firstly a window throughout my life to the music that has inspired me to be who I am and to do what I do, and secondly, a platform, and actual support, to help deliver my own work to the world.
I grew up out here in what many city folk would call the boonies, 15km down a dirt road outside a village of around three or four hundred souls in a far flung corner of rural New South Wales. It's about seven hours drive North or South to Sydney or to Melbourne, and I don't mind at all - I'm still proud to call this place my home.
Back then, as a teenage boy in the bush, pre-internet, the only window I had to a wider musical world beyond the mainstream (the so-called "alternative" guitar-pop of the day) was Lucky Oceans' show The Daily Planet. Lucky's show was eclectic and amazing. He would play an unknown kora player from Mali one minute, an obscure and mind-blowing songwriter from Nashville, Newtown or Northcote the next, and his passion for the music and the human story of it was contagious.
I tuned in every afternoon and listened with intent. We are porous creatures, and we absorb everything that we open ourselves up to.
In Lucky's show, I found a daily dose of new inspiration and discovered much of the music that would become a tangible part of who I am as an artist, as a human. There was nothing in the world like the Daily Planet, and I believe that is still true today. I was saddened when the show was shortened several years ago and relegated to a lonely late night time spot, but I continued to tune in.
The recent news that the ABC will be cutting the show altogether is heartbreaking to me.
Since I began my work as a recording artist, the support provided by ABC Radio National's fantastic music programs (The Planet, The Live Set, Music Deli, The Inside Sleeve et al) and their respective program producers and presenters has been invaluable to me as an artist.
In a country as vast as ours, reaching out to an audience and building a market beyond your home town is an endless, thankless job of hard work, and much of the time that work doesn't even pay off.
This situation is not specific to regional artists like myself - I'm sure that every one of my city-based peers will tell you the same.
Enter Radio National. Our national broadcaster's charter requires it "to encourage and promote the musical, dramatic and other performing arts in Australia" and Radio National has, up until now, always done it well.
My work takes me all over the country, and wherever I go, RN has played a major part in connecting me with my audience - there are always people who have discovered my work on an ABC RN program, so they come along to a show.
The ABC's announcement that it will cut music programming from Radio National is devastating news, not only for Australian musicians and music lovers, but for cultural venues and festivals, publicists, promoters, agents, record labels, recording studios, and international artists traveling to our country to perform.
The decision to cut nearly all of this treasured music programming from RN's schedule is the wrong decision, and it must be reversed immediately.
Please show your support by adding your voice here.
With love and thanks,
Heath CullenCandelo, November 2016
photos of Heath Cullen at Lazy Ballerina by Philip White
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