INDUSTRY: WAM And What It Does

Tue 6th Jul, 2004 in Features

In Western Australia, the music scene has been rapidly growing over the last number of years. Although there are hundreds of bands in the circuit and many businesses focussing on the scene relating directly to W.A, only a handful of bands have gained national and international success and recognition.

So what is the underlying factor that has helped Western Australian talent in relation to music grow, expand and gain what we like to term success? The association called WAM (West Australian Music Industry Association) is the threshold of the local industry. Without such an organisation, local artists wouldn’t be able to showcase their talent at various festivals around Australian nor various international festivals such as South-by-South West (SxSW) in Austin, Texas each year.

“WAM was originally formed in 1985,” states Executive Director of WAM, Paul Bodlovich. “It was originally formed with the purpose of staging an annual awards program recognising the achievements in the music industry and was a function of the Musicians’ Union in the first couple of years of existence.”

Although there wasn’t or isn’t a WAMi festival dedicated to the WAMi awards this year, there was an interim festival (which also went to regional towns) recently held over six days in June entitled WAMi Weekender 2004. The idea was to shorten the break between the WAMi awards, as there is usually a long eighteen month gap.

Paul continues to identify what WAM is, aims to achieve and what the Weekender entailed.

“WAM is the WA Music Industry Association. We’re a membership based organisation that represent the WA music industry and undertakes a range of activities aimed at developing the local industry with the long term goal of contributing to an environment in which more people are able to be sustained in employment within the industry. The highest profile things that we do are the WAMi Festival and the WAM Song Of The Year, but we are also active in schools, regional areas and the indigenous music sector and have a comprehensive local artist/industry database. Another very important aspect of what we do is create an intersection between the industry and policy makers in government at all levels.

The WAMi Weekender consisted of twenty five gigs over six nights, plus some workshops on the weekend. With gigs in the metro area plus three regional tours at the same time. A couple of highlights were the launch of the WAM Hall Of Fame on the opening night and over 1000 people attending the Saturday Spectacular – there were a lot more highlights but that’s a start at any rate.”

Some bands which participated in this years’ WAMi Weekender were End of Fashion, The Panda Band, Gyroscope, The Meaning Of, Enforce, El Horizonte, Yunyu, Adam Said Galore, Dave Mann Collective, Civilised, Simon London, Salamander, DJ Fdel, Rawbone, Moriarty, Gulingi Nunga and many more.

In relation to national and international recognition, Gyroscope are a band that has surpassed the initial negativities that many people seem to have when it comes to Australian music breaking through to the mainstream market. Although it’s taken seven years for Gyroscope to accomplish this, it goes to show that patience really is a virtue especially when it comes to music. And even though it’s only now that Gyroscope are starting to really get noticed more so in Australia than overseas, this does not affect their goals and what they hope to achieve. “The journey so far has been exciting, fun and interesting. I am totally stoked to be doing what I love full time… and I get to do it with three of my best friends!!!” reminisces Rob Nassif, the drummer for Gyroscope.

Gyroscope was the only band during the WAMi Weekender that got to perform for Live At The Wireless presented by Triple J and WAM. “WAM basically put our names forward as they knew we had our debut album coming out the week after the WAMi’s. Triple J also got behind the idea and bam…we were doing Live at the Wireless... It’s fantastic. I am still excited whenever I hear or see one of our songs in the media. Hopefully it can keep continuing and hopefully we can continue to write better songs,” comments Rob.

“The Perth music scene is as strong as it’s ever been at the moment. And by the end of this year, I think it will be even stronger after bands like Jebediah and Little Birdy amongst others release their albums. I don’t see any major problems with the scene at the moment. I think the WAMi Weekender was absolutely fantastic! I had a great time, got to see heaps of bands and think that WAMi’s were organised really well,” replied Rob in relation to what he thought about the strength of the Perth music scene and about the Weekender.

Just because Western Australia is a large state with a small population, it does not mean that it lacks talent. However, it is often harder to find that extra special something and because of the tyranny of distance, it’s not often A&R representatives get to come along and see and hear first hand what we have hiding in our crevices.

Music is a three-way street depending on how you look at it. Without music, there’d be no music industry. Without the businesses that make up the backbone of the industry (WAM, venues, sponsors, management teams, booking agents, magazines and websites dedicated to local music, merchandisers, local radio etc) there wouldn’t be as many people into the local music. This then turns to loss instead of profit and bands wouldn’t be able to afford to play their music and businesses may not be able to survive. WAM has helped to make sure that music never dies in WA and it ought to be commended for it.

For more information on WAM and it’s many useful services and comprehensive information, please head over to their website.