🐈 Cats and Frogs 🐸
#9 | June 4, 2024
Quick Overview
We talk to Jacob Snell of Look Out Kid management, who has made the long journey from Perth with his wife and biz partner Apple Bagios and their cat George. They are now part of a thriving US community of Australians.
Related, we take a look at what’s happening at Future Classic, where the reality of an Australian/US music alliance can be found in a small LA neighborhood known as Frogtown. (Not to be confused with the legendary fairground and music festival site in Calaveras County, which hosted the Little River Band and Men at Work way back in the day.)
It’s peak festival season in the west. On the heels of Coachella, Bottle Rock (Napa Valley), Electric Daisy Carnival (Vegas) and Lighting in a Bottle (central California), all happened in the last few weeks. We share some of the highlights from Aus artists.
We also have some pics from our Hollywood Aussie/Kiwi vinyl night last week (pic below), and a couple of showcases from Sounds Australia coming up.
Three Cool Gigs
Glass Beams | Paradise Rock Club Boston | June 5 and 6 - just a few shows left to catch them on this Nth American run before a fall return
G Flip | 9:30 Club Washington DC | June 5 and 6 - first night sold out
Ocean Alley + The Grogans | Emo’s Austin TX | June 12 - Aussie double banger in one of the classic Austin clubs
Interview: Manager Jacob Snell
The ways in which we've worked with North American artists initially was very much helping businesses that weren't subject to the same levels of funding that Australian businesses were. It was in looking at that through a positive lens, it really helped us immediately understand what it was like to be a North American artist without various funding available to you and what happens when you need to do X and it could be a great opportunity but the money's just not there. There's not a grant application that you can write. There's not these other ways to solve the problems. Although it proved to be a challenge immediately, it did frame an understanding of what it was like to be an artist in North America and the requirement to treat your career as a business, and I think, yes, there's a lot of other ways in which the US industry works…
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☝️Apple Bagios, Jacob Snell and George (prior to leaving Perth)
Report from Frogtown
Squeezed into a little strip of land between the LA River and 5 Freeway in LA’s Elysian Valley (think the back of Griffith Park) is a neighborhood known as Frogtown. Deep in that neighborhood, just a stone’s throw from the river, is the US headquarters of Future Classic, a label and management company helmed by Harry White and best know for artists like Flume, G Flip and Sycco.
Recently, the FC team were joined there by Look Out Kid management, which is best known for artists including Courtney Barnett and Faye Webster. That followed a move early last year where Monster Management merged with Look Out Kid , which was founded by this Cockatoo’s interview guest Jacob Snell. Jacob and his wife and business partner Apple Bagios added acts including The Beths, Hatchie, Methyl Ethel, Cloud Nothings, and Palehound to the LOK roster.
☝️The Future Classic parking lot
A thing that stands out about this crew is how effective and intentional they have been in leveraging their familiarity while still becoming part of the LA community. For starters, the location of Frogtown is an LA deep cut that took local knowledge and nouse for FC to find. The spot has a decent sized parking lot where they host events like record fairs, film screenings and album launches. A visit there on any day finds artists writing and recording in their studio, and different industry folks coming and going as they keep a stable of artist businesses moving along.
It’s a great example of keeping an Aussie identity, while not losing sight of the importance of embracing where you land.
Vinyl Night #2
We teamed up with APRA-AMCOS to get some folks together last week. Thanks to LA’s APRA-AMCOS rep Sam Cook, Adam Townsend from Aus member services who was in from Sydney, Mike Hall from NZ member services who was in from Aukland, DJ Lil Pangea, and Rhino and the team at Lost Property Bar. And of course cheers to everyone who came along! 🍻
Festivals in the West
The Kid LAROI with help from a fan at Bottle Rock in Napa 👇
Royel Otis murdering it at Bottle Rock 👇
Alison Wonderland with a Weeknd remix at EDC Vegas 👇
Glass Beams performing Taurus at Lightning in a Bottle in central California 👇
RÜFÜS DU SOL with a surprise set behind the decks at Lightning In a Bottle 👇
Sounds Australia Gigs
Sounds Australia are taking the BBQ to Nashville on June 8 for CMA, with 12 acts performing country and western. Then they’re back at Summer Stage in Central Park for another BBQ and show on June 15 with Thelma Plum, Sheppard, Jebediah, Sycco, Last Dinosaurs and Northeast Party House.
Who’s Touring?
The list got so long we had to make it a link until we get a new format sorted.
Follow our Instagram for more regular updates.
And please let us know if you know anyone touring who we’ve missed! 🙏
Managing Editor: Adam Burke 🗞️ Content Editor: Billy Bianchini
