Three hours drive from Cairns in the vast wilderness of Cape York in far-north Queensland, is a little town called Laura. And for 128 years, this little town that is not much more than a roadhouse and a pub has hosted the annual Laura Amateur Turf Club Race meeting, attracting jockeys, horses and racegoers from all over the state. Fans and competitors alike come from hundreds of kilometres around to take part in what has grown into an internationally known race, rodeo and campdraft event, all su...
Jul 05, 2025•38 min•Season 5Ep. 20
There are some conversations that take you to places you never expected, and this one on the banks of the Brisbane River in Brisbane’s cultural precinct was certainly one of them. This chat with Kate Baggerson I hope will inspire you to be more creative in your everyday life, as it did for me. The executive director of Everybody Now is celebrating the tenth year of this unique arts organisation which harnesses the power of storytelling, creativity and artistic collaboration to make art with impa...
Jul 04, 2025•22 min•Season 5Ep. 19
There’s a little patch of paradise in Queensland’s south-east corner - in some ways not far away from the big city lights of Brisbane, but when you get there, you feel like you could be at the end of the earth. The Scenic Rim spans more than four thousand kilometres with landscapes ranging from lush rainforests to rolling paddocks and serene lakes, with stunning views and an increasingly world renowned foodie scene. This June is Scenic Rim’s Eat Local Month - and Streets of Your Town is taking y...
May 25, 2025•17 min•Season 5Ep. 18
Recently I spent a gloriously rare fine day in Glasgow for Streets of Your Town, wandering around the city’s renowned concert halls and gig venues with music journo Fiona Shepherd - who’s also the co-founder and lead guide of Glasgow Music City Tours. She’s been taking tourists back stage around Glasgow’s renowned live scene for ten years now, sharing many stories from decades past right up to the present about the iconic performers who have come to the city to perform, or who made their big deb...
May 11, 2025•19 min•Season 5Ep. 17
On my recent travels through the UK and Ireland for Streets of Your Town, I was amazed to find how strong the cross pollination between Australian and Indigenous music and Gaelic traditions were, and how it continues to evolve. While I was in Glasgow, I was lucky enough to meet Graham Mackenzie from award winning instrumental folk trio Assynt. Sitting in his Glasgow living room, his fiddle sits between us, never far from his thoughts, as we chat about the band's recent Australian tour. The band ...
Mar 16, 2025•16 min•Season 5Ep. 16
For this episode of Streets of Your Town, wander with me Nance Haxton to County Kerry on Ireland's west coast, to discover how close Australian and Irish cultural traditions are beyond the musical sphere. Tim Hanafin has lived in Kerry all of his 85 years, in a tiny village called Inch. The town is still known by many as the location where the epic Oscar-winning movie Ryan’s Daughter was filmed, putting County Kerry on the tourist trail in the 1970s. Tim is known throughout the Dingle Peninsula ...
Dec 25, 2024•29 min•Season 5Ep. 15
It’s not often that we get to watch a musical star on the rise. A performer whose passion and talent has enabled them to rise from tentative beginnings to starring in one of the world’s most beloved musicals. Here on Streets of Your Town, we’ve been lucky enough to watch Vidya Makan’s singing and writing prowess be recognised over a few short years. We first met her in the pivotal role of Catherine Parr in the juggernaut Australian production of Six, then as the creator, writer and performer in ...
Dec 12, 2024•23 min•Season 5Ep. 14
If you thought that a play about post-apocolyptic zombies couldn’t be compatible with meaningful and hilarious social commentary and analysis of colonial occupation, then you haven’t heard of the radical new production Eat, Slay Zombie. Emerging First Nations playwright Alinta McGrady tells us on this episode of Streets of Your Town how she took her idea born in covid lockdown and created this fast-paced action packed show that is about to open in one of Brisbane’s most prestigious theatres. Thi...
Nov 09, 2024•13 min•Season 5Ep. 13
On this episode of Streets of Your Town, we feature someone I’ve wanted you to meet on this podcast for years. I’ve written about him for national media outlets such as The New Daily and National Indigenous Radio Service, about his achievements acting as a Barrister on some of the most challenging human rights class actions across Australia. Joshua Creamer is a proud Waanyi and Kalkadoon man, who still sees himself as the boy from Mt Isa. But his role now is Chair of the Truth-telling and Healin...
Oct 21, 2024•18 min•Season 5Ep. 12
Just before I head overseas to the land of my ancestors in Scotland and Ireland, I was lucky enough to stumble into an Irish music session in Brisbane. The Irish accents flew thick and fast, to the accompaniment of the bodran, Eilean pipes, tin whistle and fiddle. Jack O’Leary is one of the musicians who makes this weekly quest to reconnect with his homeland. He tells us on Streets of Your Town, how Irish music and Australian culture have intertwined, to the degree that you can find a similar Ir...
Aug 07, 2024•16 min•Season 5Ep. 11
It’s not often we get an Australian jazz singer legend on Streets of Your Town, but we are lucky enough to enjoy that on today’s episode. Vince Jones is well known not only in this country but throughout the world as one of Australia’s most renowned jazz musicians. He tells us how the love of his craft started young, in the lively jazz surrounds of Scotland. And after half a century of performing, and a lifetime of loving music, Vince is gladly still on the road, performing and creating his dist...
Jun 21, 2024•21 min•Season 5Ep. 10
For Paralympian athlete Gerrard Gosens, taking on the challenge of swimming across the English Channel is more than just a physical one. It’s also mental, as the blind swimmer confronts the elements and conditions of the day and then figures out how to overcome them. Gerrard tells us on Streets of Your Town podcast how he is well into an intense training regimen preparing for his attempted channel crossing in August - swimming from the UK to France in his quest to become the first blind person t...
Jun 20, 2024•22 min•Season 5Ep. 9
Some people when they visit Australia, simply can’t stop themselves from coming back time and time again. So it is for Irish performer Ciaran Olohan, who is bringing his show The World of Musicals in Concert back to Australia for the fourth time. And he’s not just taking it on the well worn route to the capital cities, Ciaran and his crew are doing the big lap of Australia, taking their show that has graced stages across the globe to some of Australia’s most off the beaten track locations as wel...
Jun 03, 2024•16 min•Season 5Ep. 8
In this episode of Streets of Your Town Elise McCann gives us insights into her creative process, particularly of late in the musical adaptation of Groundhog Day which had a season in Melbourne. Elise admits that despite her success as a musicals performer, like anyone, there are days that get the better of her, and that’s how she decided to create the stress and motivation app Hey Lemonade. Together with her fellow performer friend Lucy Durack they hope to turn around people’s woes with the Hey...
May 18, 2024•16 min•Season 5Ep. 7
Broken Hill-born country singer-songwriter Raechel Whitchurch spent most of her childhood travelling in her family's country music band, before establishing herself as one of Aussie music’s most recognisable country artists. But her path to songwriting was far from guaranteed. In fact, it wasn't until her family saw Kasey Chambers’ family group The Dead Ringer Band perform in Broken Hill that country music became a family career. Her Dad thought it would be a great way to make a living, so they ...
May 04, 2024•31 min•Season 5Ep. 6
New Meanjin/Brisbane band Yirinda is widening the scope of Indigenous music with a unique take blending Aboriginal language and songs with classical genres. Yirinda combines ancient Aboriginal language performed by Butchulla songman Fred Leone with dramatic soundscapes from Samuel Pankhurst, accompanied by a string quartet, to invoke thousands of generations of story and culture through music. The band has just released its debut album on vinyl, CD and digital following on from their performance...
Mar 12, 2024•29 min•Season 5Ep. 5
There’s only two people who have made it onto Streets of Your Town podcast more than once. And journo and author extraordinaire Trent Dalton is one of them. With the Netflix series adaptation of his first breakthrough novel Boy Swallows Universe now number one in Australia and top ten in the US, it’s time to revisit this Brisbane born and bred talent, whose gritty but hopeful representations of the wrong side of town in his novels have thrust beloved Brissie icons such as the Story Bridge onto t...
Jan 16, 2024•15 min•Season 5Ep. 4
With all the agitation and conflict in the world at the moment - I thought what we need on Streets of Your Town to start this year - is whimsy. Something to make us smile and stir a sense of childlike awe in us again. And so off I meandered in Mildred the Cantankerous Kombi to the Woodford Folk Festival. It’s on every year in the foothills of Queensland’s Sunshine Coast hinterland helping hippies and hippies at heart to spread harmony and see in the New Year with three minutes of silent contempl...
Jan 05, 2024•16 min•Season 5Ep. 3
You can’t be what you can’t see. It’s a saying that prompted a former AFL player to create a children’s band, so that his kids could be exposed to more than the bland musical world they were offered. Nick Gill is the founder of children’s band The Quokkas, with a mission to show children a modern and inclusive Australia through song. After his AFL career Nick went on to become a Channel 7 news reporter and then Breakfast radio host in Newcastle, but it’s writing songs for his twins that reflects...
Dec 22, 2023•18 min•Season 5Ep. 2
The Wandering Journo has just returned from one of the most exciting secondments of my now three-decade journalism career - from the Cathedral of Sport the great MCG, where I was part of the National Indigenous Radio Service team covering the 2023 AFL grand final. And I have brought back a glimpse of the action for Streets of Your Town from behind the scenes of the National Indigenous Service broadcast box, where the incredible NIRS commentators call the grand final live. From this tiny booth th...
Oct 02, 2023•19 min•Season 5Ep. 1
We made it Streets of Your Towners - the 100th episode of the Streets of Your Town podcast!!! This episode we return to the man who so kindly kicked off this crazy Streets of Your Town adventure! The man whose storytelling is equally masterful with words or with the palette knife - who is bookending this series by featuring in episode 1 and 100. This internationally renowned artist - harking from a family of journo’s - generously started this podcast series by telling his story - from his idylli...
Jun 30, 2023•23 min•Season 4Ep. 22
Today on Streets of Your Town we’re revisiting Vidya Makan, who you may remember meeting on this podcast in December 2022 when we featured her as one of the talented performers in the smash hit touring musical Six. The show broke all attendance records at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre during its 2022 season. But this Somerville House and Queensland Conservatorium graduate has not left her run there, and has now debuted her own musical written in collaboration with Sonya Suares, at Sydney...
Jun 12, 2023•19 min•Season 4Ep. 21
From a shy kid on the fringes to years later bringing together an eclectic group of musicians in an orchestra bearing his name, Matt Hsu has found the power of music and passed that joy onto dozens of others. The Matt Hsu Obscure Orchestra has quickly established a following as one of Australia’s most respected ensembles, bringing together a diverse band of BIPOC, First Nations, disabled, non-binary queer and trans artists at the intersection of art and activism. Streets of Your Town takes you b...
May 03, 2023•15 min•Season 4Ep. 20
This week’s Streets of Your Town takes you into the world of fast and slow fashion, and what we can all do to lessen the burden of clothes waste on the world. Have you ever looked down at what you’re wearing, or into your wardrobe, and wondered where those materials came from? Who made your outfit, and at what cost to them compared to the cost you paid for it? Or pondered what the true cost of that bargain t-shirt is when fast fashion wastage is taken into account? These questions are what drive...
Apr 24, 2023•35 min•Season 4Ep. 19
You never know who I am going to meet on my travels in Mildred the cantankerous kombi. In this episode of Streets of Your Town, we enter the creative wonderland of artist, teacher and jack of all trades Angus MacDiarmid. He lives in a converted church in the little town of Boonah in Queensland’s Scenic Rim. Despite its close proximity to the bustling cities of Brisbane and the Gold Coast, much of the Scenic Rim remains untouched. So if you are lucky enough to go for a road trip through this magi...
Apr 10, 2023•20 min•Season 4Ep. 18
Performing in the national spotlight is far from a passing phase for Julian Kuo - whose dedication to his craft since a young age has been rewarded with a prized place in the Australian cast of Hamilton. The multi-award winning musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda is winding up it’s Australian run with the Brisbane season ending on April 23. Before the show continues on its worldwide run, Julian reflects with us on Streets of Your Town, what it’s like to be part of a musical held in such esteem, that m...
Apr 04, 2023•21 min•Season 4Ep. 17
It’s rare that a musician makes such a mark with her first EP that Rolling Stone US magazine raves and international world music festivals beckon for you to play. But that’s exactly what has happened for Brisbane born and Melbourne based artist Tiana Khasi, whose eloquent and distinctive music will grace the WOMADelaide stage this weekend. Her debut EP, Meghalaya – titled for Meghalaya, India, the land of the Khasi tribe whose name she proudly bears – is a testament to the power of her storytell...
Mar 10, 2023•28 min•Season 4Ep. 16
There’s not many awards he hasn’t won for his groundbreaking musical theatre work, and now Lin-Manuel Miranda has shown he keeps his promises too. The Tony, Grammy, Emmy, Olivier and Pulitzer Prize winning creator came to Brisbane this weekend, to watch the Australian company perform Hamilton - his worldwide musical juggernaut that combines jazz, hip hop, R&B and Broadway musical styles to tell the story of American founding father Alexander Hamilton. He also made a visit to the Brisbane Lud...
Mar 06, 2023•26 min•Season 4Ep. 15
The long awaited bio-pic paying tribute to the incredible feats of Jessica Watson has finally been realised, highlighting the struggles she overcame to become the youngest person to sail solo and unassisted around the world. The movie True Spirit was mostly filmed in south-east Queensland, with Jessica Watson’s courageous feats navigating some of the world’s most challenging stretches of ocean now tapping into a worldwide audience through Netflix. Speaking to me by Zoom, Jessica Watson tells us ...
Feb 28, 2023•12 min•Season 4Ep. 14
This episode of Streets of Your Town comes to you (again!) from the streets of the Woodford Folk Festival, where the sublime singing of Punjabi Australian singer and dancer Parvyn Kaur Singh drew me into her orbit. As it turns out Parvyn had just completed a cross country adventure from her South Australian home, bringing all her family up in her Subaru wagon so she could perform at the Festival. She brought her new solo expression to Woodford audiences for the first time, synthesising a lifetim...
Feb 06, 2023•19 min•Season 4Ep. 13
