💸 Showing You The Money 💸

#5 | March 12, 2024

Mar 12, 2024

Quick Overview

We look into the first round of grants from the new-ish Music Australia which is providing government funds for international projects.

We chat to Darren Cordeux, best known as the front man from Kisschasy, but now living in LA and experiencing a post-pandemic musical rebirth on the other side of the Pacific.

SXSW music is underway, so we’ll let you know what the Aussies orgs are hosting.

As Woman’s History Month continues, do you know the number one streamed song by an Australian female artist? Scroll down for the answer.

The great thing, especially about Los Angeles, you have these people here that probably all have a similar trajectory to me. They've all come here for one reason or another and they've probably had their hearts broken by music at times and they're these incredibly talented people. They just need someone to be like, hey, you shouldn't let this languish and let's do something. It was really cool to be the catalyst for that, for those people.

— Darren Cordeux, The Cockatoo Interview

SYCCO getting warmed up for SXSW at Genghis Cohen last night (📸 Harry White)

Three Cool Gigs

Future Classic @ SXSW | Mohawk Indoors Austin | March 13 - Baltimore to Brisbane, with Detroit, San Franciso and Melbourne in between
School Night x KCRW @ SXSW | Swan Dive Austin | March 15 - Miss Kaninna and Alice Ivy on the bill hosted by 2 LA indie music institutions
Julia Jacklin | Masonic Lodge at Hollywood Forever | March 19 +3 - a series of solo shows in the cemetery amongst supports of Mitski

☝️ The Masonic Lodge at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery where Julia Jacklin has a series of shows coming up (📸 Adam Burke)

Interview: Darren Cordeux

Daz tells us the story of his journey from Australia’s Kisschasy to a new project, Daz & the Demons, an LA band releasing their first studio album on April 6.

📖 Full transcript 📖 🎧 On Apple Podcasts 🎧

$ Music Australia Grants $

The background: Music Australia was announced in January 2023 as part of the Albanese administration’s arts policy. If you are curious about such things, we put together a summary here. The policy established a new body called Creative Australia, with Music Australia sitting under that. In short, Australia got a federal body focused on music. Now what?

The leadership: Last November, Millie Millgate moved over from Sounds Australia — the export arm of Australia’s PRO APRA-AMCOS — to the top job at Music Australia. The first round of international grants under her leadership are now open, focusing on “musical works that are new, original and relevant to contemporary Australia.” There is also a Music Australia Council that provides recommendations. And that leads us to…

The grants: Are “available to Australian citizens or permanent residents who are current practicing music professionals.” The activity must commence between July and October 2024, then you get 9 months to wrap it up.

The categories:

Performance and Touring Activity: Funds to get you on the road outside of Australia.
Professional and Artistic Development: Covers things like writing trips, conferences and visas, as well as, interestingly, engaging an international producer.
Market and Audience Development: Everything from PR campaigns, to appearing on a foreign talk show, to a university lecture.

These application window closes on April 9 so if you’re keen don’t dilly dally!

Real talk: Grants rules and procedures are technical, often confusing, and have ample technicalities such as matching funding in this case. If you’re not familiar with this type of thing, consider bringing in a partner who is. There are also professional grant writers out there. More to come on that.

If you are involved in this process, good luck, and please let us know how it all went for you.

Women’s History

The Australian woman with the most streamed song is Tones and I’s and the song is Dance Monkey. It has over three billion streams on Spotify alone. Not only is that Australia’s most streamed song ever, its is the world #1 for a female artist. In comparison, neither Beyoncé, Rihanna, Mariah Carey, or Taylor Swift have ever broken two billion for a single track. (Thanks to Esti from Sounds Australia for reminding us of this.)

SXSW Events

In recent years, Sounds Australia has teamed up with the American Australian Association out of NYC for their annual SXSW showcases. What was started by Glenn Dickie as a bbq 20 years ago this year, has morphed into Australia House, which is a full-on endeavor. You can see all their events posted here.

Q Music (“Q” being for the state of Queensland) are behind Australia’s annual BIGSOUND conference and they’ll be hosting a brunch this Friday at 10a featuring 5 acts from across the country, all well worth checking out.

In case you missed the last Cockatoo, we previewed all the performers here.