Beat Magazine January 2003

Beat Magazine
January 2003

Like that wise man Tom Waits once said, you never miss your hometown til you stay away too long, a truism which held for local songsmith Andrew McCubbin, recently returned from his fledging European tour.

McCubbin, who travelled as a solo artist through Berlin, London, Belgium and the Netherlands, says that the tour reinforced his appreciation for the role that community radio plays in keeping an independent music scene healthy and strong.
‘In Europe and the UK, there’s no independent radio stations like RRR and PBS’, says McCubbin, who organised his own itinerary and pre-publicity months in advance from his Melbourne base. ‘It’s all commercial and corporate - there might be one hour a week which deals with alternative music.You really have to be signed to a major label, if you want to get radio play’.
Then again, as it does for many local musicians, going overseas opened up McCubbin’s vision of what’s possible for an independent Australian artist. Indeed he’s already planning the return tour.
‘Now I’ve got people who are keen to help, and a lot more support’, he reports. ‘There’s a lot more people over there who are interested in left-of0centre music, and it’s made me feel like I can keep doing what I am doing, without feeling like I need to conform to any particular style. And the further I take that, it will be enjoyed, there’s an audience out there. It was like. You’re doing the right thing, stick to your guns and keep going, keep enjoying it’.
‘One of the aims’, McCubbin explains, ‘was to see if what I do would survive in another setting, to see the differences in the way people do things, and other people’s perspectives. I was like a sponge the whole time, absorbing everything and since I’ve been back, I’ve been writing a lot and experimenting with my writing styles so I think there has been a real impact’.
As well as making music around town with his band the Hope Addicts (Gary Aspinal of Killjoys fame, the Anyone’s Mal Pinkerton and Andy Papadopoulos of Registered Nurse), McCubbin also works as a band booker for the Rob Roy and the Builders Arms. He reports that the live music circuit in Europe was not really so different from Melbourne, in terms of economies of scale.
‘It’s usually part of the deal that they put you up, you get paid, you get meals and a place to stay’, he says. ‘Apart from that, it was similar to here - some deals were fantastic, some weren’t so fantastic but overall it balances out’.
The live music scene in the cities McCubbin played did show up that in Melbourne, punters are spoiled for choice with the sheer number of venues. ‘There’s only particular venues you can play - not everywhere has live music, although there’s a lot of good bars.
‘In Berlin, I played at a venue called Schokoladen which used to be an old chocolate factory and they turned it into a bar. The woman who books the Schokoladen took us under her wing, set us up with a place to stay, took us out every night and introduced us to some amazing people. I saw Hugo Race at a venue there, he’s got a pretty steady following in Berlin’.
McCubbin has always been drawn to Berlin and it’s rock’n’roll mystique, and he says it didn’t disappoint. ‘I’ve always had a thing about music that was made in Berlin, like those David Bowie albums and Iggy Pop, Lou Reed and that whole late seventies thing - I was always really into that sort of sound.
‘I had a sort of romantic view about Berlin, I suppose’ he says, ‘ and I just wanted to see if I was right. And yes, it was fantastic’.