Kid Sam + Deep Sea Arcade @ The Troubadour 20-04-10

Kid Sam

Although I did see a few Kid Sam songs at this year’s Laneway Festival, I will admit that choosing to request this show was largely a result of them being nominated for the Australian Music Prize, just in case they won the award at the previous week’s winner’s announcement.

In the end, rightly or wrongly the award and the $30,000 prize money went to Lisa MitchellMuch has been written on the subject of the 2010 winner so I won’t add much more other than a couple of points:

  • Firstly, could any of the judges on the panel look me straight in the eye and tell me with a straight face, hand on their heart, that in their honest opinion Lisa Mitchell produced their favourite (and by default, the ‘best’) album last year, better than everything that they heard/reviewed in 2009? and
  • Secondly, on a slightly more pedantic note, if you write an album overseas and a significant proportion of the album consists of co-writes with a host of British musicians (5 of the 14 songs according to Wikipedia, plus a Rogers & Hammerstein cover), at what point does it stop being Australian?

So whilst Kid Sam didn’t win the AMP, I’m fairly surprised to find that The Troubadour is sold out fairly early on in the night.  Listening to Triple J in the car (the car is the only place I generally listen to the radio.  And that should probably read ‘listened to’…) over the next couple of days it’s obvious that Triple J‘s support of the band has played a big part in them selling out the venue, with Down To The Cemetery on high rotation, as well as Kingsmill (I think) doing an interview and providing a listof the tour dates on the day after the gig.  Somewhat surprisingly, tonight’s gig isn’t supported by Triple J, although it got me thinking of a question that I have previously posted in a few Australian music forums but without anyone providing a decent answer: how it works when Triple J ‘presents’ gigs/festivals.

I don’t listen to Triple J much but whenever I do they seem to play a song and then tell us not to forgot that Triple J are presenting the band that they just played and give us the tour/festival dates.  They also seem to do this with their CDs (Like A Version, Unearthed, Hottest 100 etc) and their magazine (JMag).

When street press ‘presents’ gigs/festivals,  it gives a discount on advertising to the festival/tour/act, gets to have its logo/name/banner plastered over ads and venue etc and also gets the plum interviews, giveaways and vip tix to said events.  So is Triple J just giving free ad space (and plenty of it) to commercial promoters just in return for some free tix?  And what is the criteria involved in them selecting what tours they are going to be involved with and flog constantly between songs?

My interest in this is largely driven by remembering the BBC getting into trouble a few times with the media regulator in the UK for doing something similar to this (i.e. cross-promoting its own ‘products’ for free on its own channels) a few years ago.  And I have been led to believe that the ABC Act bans the broadcast of advertisements.  So, if anyone can explain how it works with Triple J advertising their own products and tours that they generally co-present with commercial enterprises, please add a comment and enlighten me.  Thanks.

Anyway, a couple more photos on Flickr, nothing very good as the combination of Troubadour darkness and Troubadour sold out capacity doesn’t make for anything near good photos.

Kid Sam
Kid Sam

Deep Sea Arcade
Deep Sea Arcade

Deep Sea Arcade

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