Doug PollardTranscript: Digging Deeper with Guy Blackman
DOUG: This hour as usual, we are digging deeper with someone gay or someone of importance to the gay community. I think this is the first time we’ve actually had a musician in the studio in this segment. We’re joined by Guy Blackman, good morning, Guy – what was that piece of music and why did you choose it?
GUY: Good morning, that was a track from my album called: Adult Baby. Which came out a couple of years ago now and the song was called: "Dark and Quiet Place". Which was a duet with a handsome, Swedish man – Jens Lekman. Set in a men’s steam bath.
DOUG: Why particularly that, is it a reminiscence of an actual event or - - -
GUY: Actually, I’ve never been to one. I just had a friend who used to go quite a lot to the men’s saunas and was always telling me these tales - - -
DOUG: Yeah?
GUY: - - - and so my mind just – yeah, started percolating. It was an imaginary scene, I’m not sure if saunas are actually dark or quiet. I don’t know.
DOUG: I don’t think they’re particularly romantic and that sounded like a rather romantic song.
GUY: Yeah, it’s not that romantic. They guy’s looking – in the song, the guy’s looking for somebody who reminds him of his first crush - - -
DOUG: Yeah.
GUY: - - - and he sees someone with the hair over his face from all the steam and the water in the sauna and thinks that guy could be it. But when he pushes the hair out of his face it’s like – no, then walks away.
DOUG: Yes, I know that feeling.
GUY: [laughs]
DOUG: In my days when I used to go to saunas and back rooms, I’d always leave my spectacles behind - - -
GUY: Good idea.
DOUG: It also saved money, I didn’t need beer goggles I had them built in – m’mm, now tell us a bit about yourself, where were you born?
GUY: Where was a born; in New Zealand - - -
DOUG: In New Zealand.
GUY: - - - a small town, Talpo, in the North Island - - -
DOUG: M’mm, m’mm?
GUY: Lake Talpo - - -
DOUG: I’ve actually been there, can you believe?
GUY: - - - yeah?
DOUG: We got off the coach for a toilet stop.
GUY: That’s pretty much it. I’m sure it’s a nice place, I’m sure it’s a lovely place - - -
DOUG: Yeah, but you’ve not been there for some time?
GUY: - - - no. I went to Auckland when I was very young and to Australia when I was six-years old so, yeah. From Auckland to Perth.
DOUG: Are you an only child?
GUY: No, no - - -
DOUG: Or do you have a raft of siblings?
GUY: Just one older brother - - -
DOUG: M’mm, m’mm.
GUY: - - - yeah. He’s an engineer, I’m a musician. We staked out the separate territory early on - - -
DOUG: There’s certainly a contrast there.
GUY: Yeah – well, he plays music, too. Actually. Our lives are more parallel than we’d like to admit.
DOUG: Yeah? You get on well with him, then - - -
GUY: We don’t talk all that often.
DOUG: No?
GUY: Yeah – well, we get on fine but - - -
DOUG: It’s not one of those chat every day – or every week, kind of - - -
GUY: No, for birthdays and Christmas kind of thing.
DOUG: Yeah, my family’s mostly like that, too.
GUY: Sure.
DOUG: What were your parents like?
GUY: Great, my mum’s - - -
DOUG: She’s musical, too?
GUY: - - - yeah, she plays the piano. Used to play on New Zealand radio when she was young. Taught a bit of music and languages were big for her, too. She worked in an embassy, the Belgian Embassy - - -
DOUG: M’mm, m’mm?
GUY: - - - for many years. So, she’s - - -
DOUG: That’s two languages before you even start, isn’t it?
GUY: I don’t think she got to the Flemish part. But she – just did - - -
DOUG: French.
GUY: - - - yeah. My dad’s more analytical, an engineer as well.
DOUG: Yes?
GUY: M’mm, very mathematical. Very precise.
DOUG: Very logical outcomes for the two children then; one goes father’s way and one goes mother’s way - - -
GUY: I guess it often happens that way, doesn’t it? I was a mummy’s boy.
DOUG: Oh, dear; well, I was a bit of a mummy’s boy, too. But my mother was a cook – I mean, I can cook - - -
GUY: Yeah?
DOUG: - - - I’ve never done it professionally.
GUY: Okay.
DOUG: So, what was your childhood like – I mean, did you know you were gay early on – or did that come to you, later – or - - -
GUY: I didn’t realise how deep we were going to delve in this interview; childhood was – yeah, I was aware that I was gay from an early age - - -
DOUG: M’mm, m’mm.
GUY: Pretty much resigned to it but not too happily - - -
DOUG: Not ecstatic about it but - - -
GUY: - - - yeah. I didn’t feel like it was anything I could change or anything I was going to grow out of. But then by the time I hit my early to mid-teens, I was basically fairly comfortable with the idea - - -
DOUG: Yeah?
GUY: My parents were supportive and that was very helpful.
DOUG: That’s half the battle.
GUY: Yeah. Absolutely, absolutely. I was scared of telling my dad, he was authoritarian and – you know, used to lose his temper sometimes. I came out to my mum when I was 16 and told her not to tell dad - - -
DOUG: [laughs]
GUY: - - - but then she went and did it, of course.
DOUG: Of course.
GUY: (and)He was fine. He was better, even, he was – like, “if anyone gives you a hard time you come to me” [laughs] “I’ll sort them out for you”.
DOUG: Well, isn’t that nice?
GUY: Yeah.
DOUG: Isn’t that nice, I wish more dads – any dads with gay sons listening take note if you haven’t already said that to your son, take the opportunity the first chance you get. So, it sounds as though you had a pretty good childhood. It sounds as though it all went fairly simply, easily for you – school and everything else, no huge problem – I mean, I’ve talked to people on this programme who’ve had horrendous times at school for example and others who seemed to have sailed through almost under the radar?
GUY: Well, I definitely sailed under the radar in terms of my visibility as a gay person. Yeah, I didn’t come out until I was safely in first year university - - -
DOUG: Yeah.
GUY: I mean, I came out to a couple of people. One teacher and a couple of friends - - -
DOUG: M’mm?
GUY: But, yeah. It was very much – I just kind of played along, but yeah – and childhood was fine. My parents were divorced but it was amicable and my brother and I used to fight tooth and nail but apart from that everything was - - -
DOUG: But don’t brothers always - - -
GUY: - - - yeah, exactly.
DOUG: Brothers and sisters, even – I mean, I have one sister and we used to fight like crazy, all the time.
GUY: Sure.
DOUG: M’mm – but, we didn’t really mean it. We did at the time but - - -
GUY: [laughs] You always love each other.
DOUG: So, music was a big part of things from the beginning with you, then; because obviously, it was around you? With your mother being musical - - -
GUY: Yeah, definitely. I was having piano lessons and guitar lessons from a young age and at first, everything was all classical - - -
DOUG: Yes?
GUY: - - - my mother was a big classical music fan and I became one, too.
DOUG: I can just see you in a tailcoat, sitting at a grand piano – not?
GUY: I was heading in that direction but, yeah – I diverted. Discovered rock and roll - - -
DOUG: M’mm.
GUY: Yeah – like, up until the age of 13 or 14, it was all Chopin and Brahms – and Bach – and things like that and then I’m not sure what happened, something twitched - - -
DOUG: Hormones, probably.
GUY: - - - exactly. M’mm.
DOUG: It’s amazing, though, how many people who go on to make a career in popular music, rock music – non-classical music, actually start out with a grounding in classical music. Do you think that has been a good thing for you?
GUY: Absolutely. It’s helped me a lot, I spent a long time trying to pretend that I didn’t have that background. That I could – kind of, you know - - -
DOUG: [laughs]
GUY: Punk way, you know? Just re-invent myself from Ground Zero but - - -
DOUG: You didn’t try to give yourself a working-class accent as well, did you?
GUY: Not exactly, no. But yeah, I picked up the guitar instead of the piano and played loud guitar for many years. But then, eventually, re-embraced the classical and the piano and I tried to let that influence - - -
DOUG: M’mm, m’mm?
GUY: - - - filter back into the music.
DOUG: Yeah. I remember hearing Margaret Throsby on her interview segment, on her programme – saying, once: “We used to only play classical music in this segment until somebody, one of my guests said to me, it’s all just music - - -”
GUY: Exactly.
DOUG: (and)Since then, they’ve actually mixed all the different genres together according to what the guest wants to play and that works really well – and I think, that’s a really important point to make.
GUY: Great. Yeah – definitely - - -
DOUG: Because classical music does have this stuffed-shirt barrier around it a lot of the time, doesn’t it?
GUY: Sure – I mean, I did one year of music at university. I was trying to combine the two; I was studying music but I was also playing - - -
DOUG: Sloping off to play in a band at the pub - - -
GUY: - - - yeah, yeah, yeah and I had nothing in common with the music students at the university - - -
DOUG: [laughs] No. Tends to be a frightfully middle-class occupation, doesn’t it?
GUY: It does.
DOUG: Classical music. Both for the audience and the performers, in a lot of the cases which is a pity.
GUY: I mean, the prejudice exists on both sides, obviously. I wanted - - -
DOUG: You didn’t want to be a Nigel Kennedy of the piano?
GUY: No, I wasn’t – I guess I realised that it was more about – like, self-expression and lyrics. Because the writing had been a big thing for me ever since I was young, too. I was always going to grow up to be a writer or a novelist or – you know, something like that.
DOUG: This hour, we’re digging deeper with Guy Blackman who among other things, founded his own record label in 1992 at the tender age of 17, Chapter Music. That’s very early to start being so entrepreneurial?
GUY: Yeah, I don’t know what came over me. I suppose I was still a kid, living at home. My mum was quite surprised. She was like – m’mm, yeah – it just seemed to come out of nowhere.
DOUG: But did you know anything about record production or setting up a record company - - -
GUY: Well - - -
DOUG: - - - where did you get the idea from and where did you get the information from, how to do it?
GUY: I guess I was just inspired by a couple of examples around me. I was almost 18 and I was slipping into live shows with fake ID and buying cassettes – like, cassettes were all the rage.
DOUG: I remember cassettes.
GUY: Back in the early ‘90s – especially, in Perth. Where I was living - - -
DOUG: [laughs]
GUY: - - - we were so far removed from the rest of the country - - -
DOUG: It was just Perth, it was just Perth – you didn’t have eight-track over there, did you?
GUY: M’mm, I think they were more of a ‘70s thing – m’mm, Perth bands couldn’t seem to afford to get vinyl records or CDs manufactured at that time. So, everyone was putting out tapes - - -
DOUG: M’mm, m’mm?
GUY: - - - and there were a few examples of other people who were putting together little magazines which was how my label started. I was doing a fanzine – you know, a music fan magazine. Partially based on Sid Barrett who you just heard - - -
DOUG: Yes.
GUY: You know, I was such a big fanatic that I started this little magazine dedicated to him. But I was also writing about local music and reviewing things and so, I put out a cassette that came with an issue of the magazine.
DOUG: Right?
GUY: (and)That’s how it all began, basically. Once I did the cassette I was – like, God, this is fun – maybe even more fun than doing the magazine and so, the cassettes and the releases on the label continued but the magazine stopped.
DOUG: It was all on cassette to begin with?
GUY: Yeah, the first ten or so releases – from ’92 to ’95 or so, everything was on cassette. When we did our first CD it just seemed like this huge milestone.
DOUG: Now, did you get airplay with these cassettes?
GUY: The thing about Perth back then, was very few people were doing – you know, there was a small community and not many people were really very active, very musically active. So, if anyone actually put their hand up and started doing things then people responded quite immediately.
DOUG: So, the radio stations and that were happy to have local product?
GUY: Yeah – it helped that I was doing community radio, I started on 6UVS FM, in 1990 - - -
DOUG: Yes?
GUY: - - - and then when that changed to RTR FM, I was pretty heavily involved. So, I had a show – the first cassettes were funded by the radio station. They lent me the money and I would pay them back – well, eventually - - -
DOUG: We have a refugee from RTR here, at our station – our station manager Danae Gibson.
GUY: Okay.
DOUG: Came to us from RTR and I think, we’ve got some other RTR people around as well.
GUY: I left in ’95, when I moved to Melbourne. So - - -
DOUG: That’s a long while ago.
GUY: - - - yes.
DOUG: That’s a long while ago but it’s good to know, the tradition continues so to speak - - -
GUY: Yeah.
DOUG: - - - community support and that. But outside of community radio, commercial radio, were they interested at all?
GUY: No, it was small scale. It was deliberately so. At that time I was very influenced by lo-fi – you know, a movement - - -
DOUG: M’mm, m’mm.
GUY: About people recording themselves at home on their – like, four-track tape machines.
DOUG: Yes.
GUY: People making records outside the major industry - - -
DOUG: Yeah, the sort of way people had to do it before we had – like, you know, powerful laptop computers and music-editing software - - -
GUY: Exactly. Yeah. So, I put out lots of really hissy tape recordings which sounded fantastic to me. So full of character and atmosphere but – yeah, I think that mainstream radio would have run, screaming.
DOUG: Well, obviously something worked because you’ve been doing it ever since, more or less haven’t you?
GUY: Yeah, it’s been a fairly – it was an ideal in my mind. I was a music nerd, collecting records and scouring – looking at the back of records all the time and seeing who put them out, learning about different record labels and the idea of running a record label just seemed the most exciting and exotic - - -
DOUG: [laughs]
GUY: - - - and you know, romantic thing.
DOUG: Did you make any money at it?
GUY: [laughs] No. To this day, I still work a day job, basically. To finance the label.
DOUG: So, it’s a labour of love?
GUY: Yeah. It’s a life’s work but it’s more of - - -
DOUG: (and)You’re on CD now, did you go through an intermediate vinyl stage?
GUY: Absolutely, yeah. I worked at the vinyl record factory for six years. Actually making them, myself. Operating the machines, yeah. So - - -
DOUG: That was you day job and you ran-off your own discs in your spare time or - - -
GUY: Yeah. It was a good – you know, perk.
DOUG: - - - yes.
GUY: I could just make the records myself, I’d pay cost price and sell them cheaply. So, yeah. It was a good time but making records is – was really hard. Dirty, stinky and noisy - - -
DOUG: Yes.
GUY: That seemed – like, my dream job when I got it, you know – like, aged 21 or 22.
DOUG: When you say it’s stinky and dirty and noisy give us an idea of what you had to do to actually press a batch of vinyl?
GUY: Well, the machines were ancient from the mid-‘60s. Steam powered, basically.
DOUG: [laughs]
GUY: There was steam and there was water and air and oil, all going into the machine or leaking out. Because the machines were so old so, I was usually standing in a puddle of oil and water and - - -
DOUG: (and)A cloud of steam.
GUY: - - - yeah and the vinyl itself, would if it gets too hot emits this horrible smell - - -
DOUG: M’mm, m’mm.
GUY: It’s carcinogenic. So, you have to clear out if you burn the vinyl, somehow. It’s really, really noisy. You’ve got all these machines going all at once and I’d wear headphones – not headphones, but you know what I’m talking about - - -
DOUG: Yeah. Ear muffs - - -
GUY: - - - ear muffs. Yes.
DOUG: (and)It sounds like you needed a gas mask as well?
GUY: [laughs] Sometimes, yeah.
DOUG: (and)Rubber boots and everything else - - -
GUY: Exactly. I wore overalls. That was one of the good things, I’d go to work and back in my overalls. I felt very manly.
DOUG: Good for the butch image.
GUY: Exactly.
DOUG: When you’re talking about pressing a batch of vinyl to sell, how many would you press of a particular song?
GUY: We’re talking – like, on the independent scale in Australia – 500, maximum 1,000. Really.
DOUG: Right?
GUY: Some of them have become collector’s items, some of them are as few as 200 – you know, the early seven inches – you know the seven inch, 45rpm records?
DOUG: M’mm, I remember them.
GUY: Yeah, I think - - -
DOUG: Hey, I remember 78s on shellac.
GUY: Really? We didn’t press those - - -
DOUG: [laughs]
GUY: - - - I think my first-ever record, my first band made 200 copies of a seven inch single - - -
DOUG: Yeah? (and)What, did you take them ‘round to record stores, you would sell them mail order or both?
GUY: Yeah, used to have to go ‘round with a little invoice book and visit all the record stores in Melbourne and then send them in the mail to interstate equivalents - - -
DOUG: M’mm, m’mm.
GUY: - - - yeah and then people would write letters with well-hidden cash. Or mail order – you know, little money orders and I would send them around - - -
DOUG: M’mm.
GUY: The Internet changed all that, obviously.
DOUG: Well, obviously it’s very different now because you’ve got different methods of production, you’ve got different methods of distribution – I mean, even now we’re moving away from any kind of physical product - - -
GUY: M’mm.
DOUG: We only move around the bits and bytes now, don’t we?
GUY: I get a statement every month from my digital provider and it’s been three or four years now, since I went on line like that. It’s a company that puts all the music up on iTunes and all the other sites where you can download music.
DOUG: Yes.
GUY: Each month – you know, it seems to get better and better. It’s a bigger slice of the pie.
DOUG: Yeah, it’s made a big difference hasn’t it – and I suppose, in many respects it’s been good for independent music because being small and being independent it’s relatively easy for you to switch.
GUY: Yeah, I can sell the records - - -
DOUG: You don’t have any huge investment in machinery or distribution channels or anything else?
GUY: No, it was surprisingly easy. I wrote away and all I do is send one CD to this place in America and they do everything for me – and yeah, the music’s available in Kenya, Korea and you know, all around the world.
DOUG: Yeah – and do you get sales from all around the world?
GUY: Yeah – I mean, it’s US and UK, Japan, they’re – like, the main markets. Internationally.
DOUG: What sorts of music do you put out – I mean, what kind of genre if it can be defined in a genre, shall we say?
GUY: Well, the label’s always tried to be very wide ranging. I focus on – you know, it’s very hard to put my finger on – you know, it has to have an emotional resonance for me. I want to be moved by music – but, yeah, I’ve done American-folk stuff from the ‘70s. I do a lot of re-issues, I’ve done Japanese music after I lived in Japan for a while - - -
DOUG: M’mm.
GUY: I’ve done Australian late ‘70s, early ‘80s scratchy, punk records. Also, new bands. Lots of new, Australian bands. So, yeah. It really runs the gambit.
DOUG: You’ve obviously got very eclectic taste which always a good thing, I think. Not to be too narrow - - -
GUY: Yeah.
DOUG: What’s the next piece of music you’ve chosen for us?
GUY: This is one of my first bands that I was in, called: Sleepy Township. We formed in Perth, in ’94 - - -
DOUG: Was it referring to Perth, sleepy - - -
GUY: - - - yeah. In a way. It was, pretty much; but also, in the news I think that phrase kept on coming up at the time when there was some guy staked out in a barn somewhere, shooting people. It was - - -
DOUG: It’s one of those news room clichés, isn’t it – there are no real, sleepy townships – like, in the news. It’s only in the news that people “flee”, have you ever seen people “flee” or talking about “fleeing - - -”
GUY: [laughs]
DOUG: - - - in real life, they only do it in the news.
GUY: That’s true, it’s true.
DOUG: So, Sleepy Township – and the song is called?
GUY: Yeah, this is called: Migraine Boy. One of the first songs I wrote about my boyfriend, Ben. One of the first openly gay songs that I wrote.
DOUG: Okay, here we go.
[song plays]
DOUG: (and)We’re digging deeper this hour with Guy Blackman and that was a song from one of his early bands, it’s called Sleepy Township - - -
GUY: Yes. “Migraine Boy”.
DOUG: “Migraine Boy”.
GUY: My boyfriend used to get migraines almost every day. Luckily they seem to have disappeared over the years.
DOUG: You say your boyfriend, you’ve been with one guy for quite a long time haven’t you?
GUY: Yeah. We had our 15th birthday – anniversary – our 15th birthday - - -
DOUG: [laughs]
GUY: - - - the other day. A couple of weeks ago.
DOUG: Where did you meet?
GUY: Where did we meet - - -
DOUG: M’mm.
GUY: - - - m’mm - - -
DOUG: How did you fall across each other?
GUY: At a gig.
DOUG: Yeah?
GUY: Obviously. M’mm, I was in town from Perth - - -
DOUG: So, it wasn’t in a sauna?
GUY: [laughs] No. No, no, no – m’mm, we were both very young and innocent at the time. He was 19 – oh, 18 – and I was 20, when we met - - -
DOUG: Yeah?
GUY: - - - and I was visiting Melbourne from Perth, playing some music. I saw him in the street, walking past and said, ‘that boy’s cute’ and he was at the show and ended up at the party afterwards - - -
DOUG: (and)Thought, this cannot be coincidence.
GUY: Exactly. Our friend maneuvered us together.
DOUG: Yes, ‘the universe is trying to tell me something’ or at any rate, my friends are - - -
GUY: Yeah. So, that was the beginning of 1995. The very beginning, in January and I went back to Perth and lived there for another six months before deciding to chuck it in and move to Melbourne – and then, we started going out the day after I got here.
DOUG: So, you didn’t come here to be with him but it was just a factor, perhaps, in your decision - - -
GUY: Yeah - - -
DOUG: - - - making processes?
GUY: We exchanged a few letters while I was back in Perth and I always knew that he was going to be around. So, it definitely was a factor.
DOUG: M’mm, what else drove you from Perth to Melbourne – or drew you to Melbourne from Perth, perhaps?
GUY: Well, I was a big champion of – I wanted everyone to stay in Perth and to make a small community work because everyone – you know, it’s like a brain drain - - -
DOUG: M’mm, m’mm.
GUY: Everybody leaves Perth for the big cities and anyone that’s good will be around in Perth for a couple of years and then get tired of it. I stuck it out for five years – you know, from 16 to 21, those are my years of musical activity in Perth. After that, everyone I knew was leaving so, I just didn’t want to be left behind.
DOUG: Besides, love beckoned.
GUY: That’s true. In the back of my mind, at least.
DOUG: In the back of your mind, at least; did settling down with someone affect your music, did it change your music – I mean, when you enter into a long-term relationship with somebody obviously at the beginning, you don’t know if it’s going to be a long-term relationship - - -
GUY: M’mm.
DOUG: - - - but when you start adjusting to spending a life with another person it changes you as person, has that been reflected in your music?
GUY: Oh, absolutely. Back in the early days every song that I would write would be – Ben would be my sounding board and so, if he wasn’t too ecstatic about something then it’d be back to the drawing board. But then, also as the years went by I started to realise that our relationship was the primary source material – you know, became the primary source material for the music and the songs – and also, noticing that there were very few other songwriters out there that were writing songs about long-term, gay male relationships. I mean, you can find songs about more stereotypical aspects of gay lifestyle - - -
DOUG: Sure.
GUY: You know – m’mm, one-night stands - - -
DOUG: Yes, I was listening to one this morning as I was driving in which was playing on the station which was called: Get Your Kit Off – or something - - -
GUY: [laughs]
DOUG: - - - you don’t need to know anything more about it than that, really - --
GUY: Sure. But songs about commitment and developing trust and all those kinds of issues. They’re pretty rare in modern music, in a gay context.
DOUG: They’re pretty rare in a straight context too, actually - - -
GUY: [laughs]
DOUG: - - - aren’t they, nowadays. It’s all about your booty or whatever else and - - -
GUY: I love that part of music as well - - -
DOUG: Well, it’s fun.
GUY: - - - and I try and incorporate some of it into my songs.
DOUG: Well, we’ve got to have the fun. But you’re right, there isn’t much that’s about commitment in that side of things and maybe there ought to be a wee bit more; you mentioned earlier on that you went to Japan, what did you go to Japan for?
GUY: Well, that was basically so I could – well, one reason was that I wanted to get out of that record factory.
DOUG: [laughs]
GUY: It was such a small business and I was so closely involved the only way I could leave was to - - -
DOUG: Go all the way to Japan.
GUY: - - - exactly.
DOUG: That’s as good a reason as any.
GUY: I was very fascinated by Japanese music and Japanese culture and I really wanted to have the experience of making music in a different country. Ben and I had talked about living overseas together, somewhere – yeah, so, Japan ended up being the - - -
DOUG: Because Japan is a very – for a westerner, Japan is a very different culture - - -
GUY: Definitely.
DOUG: - - - they seem, looking at it from the outside they seem very insular in that they don’t – m’mm, they value their cultural purity if I can put it that way, to a high degree - - -
GUY: That’s true.
DOUG: Even though they are exceedingly American in some aspects, now.
GUY: M’mm – yeah, only one per cent of the Japanese population is not Japanese - - -
DOUG: M’mm, m’mm.
GUY: - - - but also it’s one of the few countries where there’s this really well established employment opportunity for foreigners. You can go and teach English - - -
DOUG: Teach English as a foreign language.
GUY: - - - as a foreign language. Yeah.
DOUG: So many people I know have done that - - -
GUY: Yeah, exactly.
DOUG: - - - experience around the world.
GUY: (and)Some people use that just for the money or just to look good on their resume. But I used it for my own ends so that I could experience more of Japan and Japanese culture and make friends, learn the language – I mean, there’s a real ghetto mentality in those English-teaching schools.
DOUG: Yes.
GUY: They don’t associate with anyone else, except English teachers.
DOUG: Well, it’s a bit like English speaking ex-pats anyway, they tend to congregate in their little watering holes and don’t talk to the natives - - -
GUY: Yeah, I really didn’t want to be a part of that.
DOUG: - - - no. So, what were you a part of – did you rent a Japanese house, did you sleep on tatami mats on the floor – all of that sort of stuff?
GUY: Almost. Yeah – I mean, I had a Japanese apartment rented from a Japanese guy and I would play music as often as possible. I met friends, I had friends before I went there, who introduced me to others - - -
DOUG: Japanese friends?
GUY: - - - yeah and so I just tried to infiltrate this little scene of Japanese bands and musicians that I found inspiring and ended playing – like, 12 shows. In a year or so and – m’mm, started collaborating with people and recording and eventually came back to Australia and released some music by those bands.
DOUG: So, when you say: Japanese music – are you talking about contemporary Japanese music?
GUY: Yeah. It wasn’t - - -
DOUG: Did you get exposed at all to the more classical Japanese music while you were - - -
GUY: Oh, absolutely. There was a bit of crossover – I mean, the people that I was making music with seemed to have a really deep understanding of Japanese tradition as well as modern stuff.
DOUG: So, they had their version of classical music - - -
GUY: Yeah, they were playing kotos and shakuhachi as well as electric guitar and - - -
DOUG: Yeah. Well, my partner comes from Hawaii and - - -
GUY: Ah, ha.
DOUG: - - - there’s a lot of fusion-style music over there which is partly American, partly jazz, partly rock, partly traditional Japanese - - -
GUY: M’mm. The Japanese influence is huge in Hawaii, yeah.
DOUG: Yes – and we have several albums from groups like Hiroshima - - -
GUY: Okay.
DOUG: - - - m’mm, so, that’s the kind of thing you were interested in?
GUY: Well, it was more – there was a psychedelic, an improvised and a folky-kind-of-thing - - -
DOUG: M’mm, m’mm.
GUY: - - - bands that would change line-ups every time I’d see them play and change the instrumentation, change the set list – you know, you never knew what to expect. It was free wheeling and very spontaneous and for me, I was a little bit [indistinct] bound, you know? Playing the same songs in the same settings and same arrangements every week, with my band in Melbourne. So, that was really liberating - - -
DOUG: It was liberating in that way.
GUY: Yeah, definitely.
DOUG: (and)Obviously influenced you from there on, I would think?
GUY: Yes, definitely – I mean, the connections are strong and ongoing and I’ve only been back once but I still am in close contact with a lot of people and still release music by some of them – and still - - -
DOUG: Again, thanks to the Internet we can do this.
GUY: (and)I organise tours for friends of mine from Japan.
DOUG: Do you release records from Japanese bands, here, you said?
GUY: Yes, one band especially called: Tennis Coats – and they’ve been out here a bunch of times.
DOUG: I love their use of the English language.
GUY: Yeah, I’m not quite sure how they - - -
DOUG: [laughs]
GUY: - - - their name’s meant to be some kind of pun on the Japanese-way of saying: tennis court. But - - -
DOUG: Okay.
GUY: - - - anyway - - -
DOUG: The Japanese-way of saying: swimming pool – su-wee-moo-poo-roo - - -
GUY: But it’s still not funny.
DOUG: No – well, I don’t wish to generalise or sound racist or whatever, but sense of humour doesn’t really translate across borders - - -
GUY: That’s true. Exactly.
DOUG: - - - not very well. So, you had your time in Japan. You still retain links to Japan and that’s a kind of influence on you; is there anything else besides Japan that you’ve taken from other, overseas cultures – have you got into ambient flute music or something like that at any point?
GUY: I guess the French-thing was influential - - -
DOUG: French?
GUY: - - - growing up with French as a part of my childhood, I guess I was fascinated by French pop music.
DOUG: That would put you in a minority.
GUY: Really? Well, there’s - - -
DOUG: A lot of people say French and pop music don’t belong in the same sentence.
GUY: Oh, really. Okay.
DOUG: There is only Johnny Hallyday and that’s it.
GUY: Francois Sardi and Johnny Hallyday – I mean, that ‘60s yeah-yeah-thing, there was a French version of beat pop music in the ‘60s. I love that kind of stuff, I used to sing in French a couple of songs and collect all these French pop records and also the New Zealand-thing, growing up as a kid in New Zealand – I mean, it’s not that far away but it’s surprising how separate Australian and New Zealand musical cultures are.
DOUG: It’s a different world.
GUY: Yeah.
DOUG: It’s a different world. It might look somewhat similar and sound somewhat similar but it ain’t(sic). What’s your next choice of music going to be?
GUY: That’s a good question – oh, it’s: The Crayon Fields. They are a band on my record label, Chapter Music, they’re one of the flagship bands at the moment - - -
DOUG: Yeah.
GUY: M’mm, that are doing really well, they put out their second album late last year called: “All the Pleasures of the World”. This guy, Geoff, who wrote some music, he plays music with me he’s in my backing band, usually - - -
DOUG: M’mm.
GUY: - - - we’re very close and this song is just a classic pop song.
DOUG: Okay, here we go with The Crayon Fields then.
[music plays]
DOUG: This hour, Digging Deeper with Guy Blackman from Chapter Music; now, off air he was just telling me that one of the great things about his time in Japan was that that’s when he started writing openly gay songs because nobody understood them - - -
GUY: Exactly, yeah.
DOUG: - - - [laughs] - - -
GUY: I felt very free to say whatever I wanted to say. It was my first time as a real solo artist to – when you’re in a band, I was in a band with three other songwriters I guess you fit the songs that work within that kind of context – group context so - - -
DOUG: M’mm?
GUY: - - - by myself I could just say whatever I wanted. I was writing openly gay songs before but this is where it really started to snowball.
DOUG: Yeah – and you kept it up when you got back?
GUY: Yeah. I decided that once I got back that I had been writing these songs which if people could understand the lyric, might have been taken aback or straight audiences might have felt a little uncomfortable, perhaps. Then I decided I wanted to press – you know, to push that and see how uncomfortable I could make those audiences.
DOUG: Well, I’m reading one of your press releases in which it says you describe yourself tongue-in-cheek as: “an adult contemporary faggot” so, I guess that’s pushing a few buttons?
GUY: Because the music I play these days is meant to be pretty - - -
DOUG: M’mm, m’mm.
GUY: - - - and it’s meant to be ballady(sic) – and piano, Elton-Johnny(sic) and all that but then the lyrics are meant to cut through that. It’s – like, you get lulled by one thing and jolted by the other.
DOUG: It’s the old spoon full of sugar trick - - -
GUY: Yeah. Exactly.
DOUG: Yes.
GUY: [laughs] I thought I was doing something new.
DOUG: [laughs] No, you didn’t there isn’t anything new anyway. You know that. Just old things in new combinations.
GUY: It’s kind of sad.
DOUG: Where do you perform nowadays, what sort of venues do you perform at – is it club venues, small venues that you mainly - - -
GUY: Yeah, mostly – like, I have performed from the Forum Theatre – like, that’d probably be the biggest place - - -
DOUG: M’mm, m’mm.
GUY: - - - to, you know – tiny little clubs, m’mm – where-ever will have me. Normally, if I’m playing my own shows it’s small places but occasionally I get invited to support touring artists from overseas – you know, who’ll fill the bigger venues.
DOUG: Now, you said earlier on that the label didn’t make money. That - - -
GUY: M’mm.
DOUG: - - - it’s a labour of love, that at the best it broke even and you have a day job. I guess the same must also apply to your music, as well?
GUY: Yeah, sure – even more so, I mean in my mind I’m a musician first then I run a record label second and third(sic), I’m a journalist but in terms of what earns the money it’s completely reversed - - -
DOUG: Yes.
GUY: - - - it’s journalism, my record label and then playing music.
DOUG: Who do you write for?
GUY: I mostly write for The Age, I write for Sunday Age, generally. I’ve got a column in the Sunday Age, I do a bit for the EG on Fridays. I’ve got a big article coming out this Sunday. I’ve been pulling back a little bit because it’s all freelance - - -
DOUG: M’mm, m’mm.
GUY: The label is actually getting better, bigger – busier – so, I’m focusing on that more but still not pulling - - -
DOUG: Well, I mean it’s very handy to have the income from people like The Age when you need it.
GUY: Absolutely. I’m lucky – like, I can work from home - - -
DOUG: Yes?
GUY: - - - I can do everything, I’m in my own time so I can run my label and play music and fit the writing work into the corners.
DOUG: Sounds like an ideal life to me – m’mm, earlier on, also, we touched on the whole business about how the Internet has changed things.
GUY: Sure?
DOUG: In fact, technology has changed things as far as music is concerned because we heard you graphically describe earlier on, it used to be a question of standing in a stinky factory stamping out hot vinyl - - -
GUY: That’s true.
DOUG: M’mm, now-days it’s all very cool and clinical – and keyboards, you know – you’re sitting there with your laptop and you’ve got your own - - -
GUY: Yeah, sure.
DOUG: - - - files - - -
GUY: In my album my voice is auto-tuned, to the max - - -
DOUG: [laughs]
GUY: - - - try and get my faulty, off-key voice into shape.
DOUG: It is a whole, different ballgame both in the production of the music in the first place, the generation of the music – I mean, you don’t actually need to have or play an instrument anymore if you don’t want to, do you?
GUY: No.
DOUG: You can just plug notes into a machine and it will produce a tune for you?
GUY: Well, that’s true I suppose. Yes – m’mm, there is some kind of musicality – that’s all anyone’s ever needed, I mean, I’ve - - -
DOUG: You’ve said you auto-tune your voice, do you use technology a lot in producing your music for your – pumping it out?
GUY: I have no aversion to it – I mean, when I went through that whole phase of everything has to be - - -
DOUG: Authentic?
GUY: - - - authentic, everything has to be real. I loved an out-of-tune guitar and an off-key voice – and a hissy-cassette recording - - -
DOUG: Yeah.
GUY: [laughs]
DOUG: Have you heard Brittany Spears without auto-tuning?
GUY: R&B had a big influence – you know, all of those – like, Destiny’s Child and Brittany and all those kinds of things – you could obviously make really expensive music but I loved all that stuff. I’m not trying to make music like it but – you know?
DOUG: M’mm, m’mm.
GUY: I’ve embraced computers and digital technology.
DOUG: The business of selling the music, though. As I said you’ve gone away from these stinky bits of vinyl now it’s all just bits and bytes on a computer and that gives you access to a much bigger market than before?
GUY: It can do, definitely. You still have to make people aware of the music, that’s the hard thing - - -
DOUG: M’mm.
GUY: - - - the key really isn’t what format you release it in because I still release vinyl. I do - - -
DOUG: Well, let’s talk about selling music - - -
GUY: M’mm?
DOUG: Selling it over the Internet, in particular; another facet of this change in media which is beginning and growing and growing and growing is Internet radio - - -
GUY: M’mm, that’s true.
DOUG: - - - there’s lots of Internet radio stations that specialise in quite narrow, niche musical product. Is that somewhere you try and place your stuff, do you use Internet radio as a sales channel?
GUY: I – m’mm, send CDs to a couple of places. But it’s still a world that I’m pretty unfamiliar with - - -
DOUG: M’mm?
GUY: There’s DIG, I think – ABC digital and they’re on my mailing list. I send out hundreds of CDs each time I put out a release, I send out promo copies - - -
DOUG: Yeah.
GUY: Certainly, by the hundred. Everyone gets a freebee – m’mm, but – yeah, I think there’s new markets like that that you really have to – you know, keep on your toes to keep up with. I might be lagging a tiny bit behind with them.
DOUG: But you said it’s growing?
GUY: M’mm.
DOUG: You said the label is growing, is that because of Internet sales and the Internet reach?
GUY: Yeah – well, once I set up my mail-order web store that made a big difference. I have my own, little shop at home now. So, I send out CDs every day to people that buy them on line and people from all over the world, I get orders from Estonia, Latvia – you know? Places I can’t really imagine what life must be like.
DOUG: Or why they would want to be in touch with you - - -
GUY: Yes.
DOUG: - - - listen to your music - - -
GUY: It’s exciting.
DOUG: Well, time’s almost up on our Digging Deeper with Guy Blackman – as a smile of relief goes across his face - - -
GUY: [laughs]
DOUG: - - - of course this is not your only connection with Joy, is it? You’re also involved with [indistinct] instruction now?
GUY: Yeah. Recently, they asked me to start presenting a little segment once a week of those historical, gay recordings so I’ve been doing that for the last two or three weeks, every Thursday night. Between seven and eight, somewhere.
DOUG: Somewhere on Joy, 94.9?
GUY: Exactly – m’mm, the compilation that I’m doing is all men but for the segment on all that [indistinct] instruction I’m doing lots of female music, as well. Women’s music as well - - -
DOUG: Women’s music as well, yes. Obviously, you’ve got pretty much the life you like. By the sounds of things you’ve got your journalism, you’ve got your label – you’ve got making music yourself, tempted to branch out into anything else?
GUY: [laughs] Well, one day I’d like to write a book of something.
DOUG: Because you mentioned writing, we were talking off air and you mentioned writing had been an early thing which we haven’t talked much about at all - - -
GUY: Well, the songwriting – that’s the writing that I - - -
DOUG: - - - m’mm, m’mm?
GUY: - - - you know - - -
DOUG: But next up there might be a book?
GUY: I don’t know if I’ll every write a novel. But I might write a book about music.
DOUG: That’d be a pretty good start - - -
GUY: M’mm.
DOUG: - - - thank you very much for joining me today. We’re going to cram in one, last song from you – what’s this one?
GUY: This one’s: “Gail”. It’s another song off my album: “Adult Baby”, it’s about my long-term, best female friend. I guess every gay man needs one?
DOUG: Rudely called a ‘handbag’?
GUY: Yeah. I didn’t want to say any of those words - - -
DOUG: No. I was deliberating picking the politest(sic) one I could think of.
GUY: - - - yeah, that’s true - - -
DOUG: Yes, best female friend – BFF, I’ve got one of those, too and I’ve known her for 40 years so I - - -
GUY: Wow.
DOUG: So, this is “Gail” by Guy Blackman who’s been my guest today on Digging Deeper – Guy, thanks for your - - -
GUY: Thanks so much for having me. It’s been great.
DOUG: - - - you’re welcome.
