International Regional and Local Music Scenes
Local Newscastle, Australia Music Scene
The local music scene of Newcastle, Australia partly feeds off the bigger scene in Brisbane, which is
780 kilometers north. Even though it's about an eight hour drive, the two cities share many traveling
acts. Some of the well known artists in the region include Silverchair, Daniel Johns, Sarah Wynter, Marcia Hines
and Catherine Britt. Since Newcastle is a coastal city, it is a hotbed of fun summer acts who play for tourists from all over
the world.
There needs to be a raised awareness on the part of unsigned musicians and local talent that songwriting
should fall into two groups: commercial and non-commercial. Commercial songwriting is for people who want
to market their music to an audience, whereas non-commercial music is wide open to any form of musical
expression. The main difference is commercial songwriting is meant to give the people what they want based
on what they already like, whereas non-commercial songwriting aims at exposing new ideas in music.
Important festivals in the city include the Newcastle Regional Show at the Newcastle Showground, the
Newcastle Jazz Festival and This Is Not Art. Each of these shows give regional talent a chance to
showcase their original songs. Even if an artist is trying to sell thousands of units by fitting into an established genre, it
still needs to stand out and sound original. While it's possible for soundalike artists to have big hit records,
it usually takes an artist with a lot of originality to take the music industry by surprise. But the history
of Newcastle music on the radio has mainly been parallel with national music.
Every Newcastle artist needs to sound unique to compete on both a local level and to be discovered on a national
level. Trying to sound too much like established acts may be exactly what the labels want, but that's exactly
what's been wearing down record sales. Evidence shows that piracy isn't so much the big issue as it was in 1999.
People simply can't afford to keep buying the same record over and over, just like
they don't want to watch the same movie every night.
Newcastle flavors need to be nurtured in every region so that each region has its own identity. The University
of Newcastle provides development of the underground music scene. The more music moves
in that direction, the more local cultures and businesses will be supported. If everywhere you turn all you see are
acts imitating national artists, there's really no sense of a local music scene. When the top draws on the local
scene are karaoke or cover bands it's a signal that the scene lacks songwriters who
can resonate with the people about their culture.
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