Check one too. I'm a little bit horse today because this is the day after the show.
What his voice sounds like in the mid afternoon From The Australian. This is the weekend edition of The Front. I'm Claire Harvey. It's better to burn out than fade away, sings Neil Young in the song hey Hey My My ironic given the fact he's still performing after sixty years in the music biz, I guess it's a more romantic idea to spectacularly flame out in love and life than
to just endure. There's not many songs about consistency or perseverance, but staying relevant and experiencing longevity in any artistic career is a huge achievement. Today we look at Australian singer Sarah Blasco's enduring career and how it's small towns the Australian bush that have helped keep Blascow's flame burning bright.
So everybody's setting up their instruments and I'm standing my outfit with the in house stammer.
I mean, this is the rock and roll lifestyle, isn't it.
Yeah. Earlier this year, our audio producer Jasper League got an email from Sarah Blasco with an offer. Sarah was on the hunt for a bass player for her regional tour promoting her new album I Just Want to Conquer This Mountain. With shows booked for weekends falling neatly around his work schedule, Jasper jumped at the opportunity to work
with one of Australia's best singers. He packed his bass and gig outfits, along with a microphone and a camera to interview Sarah and shoot some video and record some audio along the way.
To my memory, I started doing regional tours probably on my second record, and I've always done it. I get the feeling that that matters to people. If you consistently go to their place and the people at the venue they're like, oh, welcome back, and they appreciate that you're
doing that. And then yeah, but I just love playing shows, so I wanted to play as many as possible, And if you just played the cities, you'd literally be playing five shows each time you put a record out, which to me feels disappointing.
I'm only looking forward, I don't look back. And when you hear something by someone new, like you first hear at Tcheran or as a goal in Australia called Sarah Blasco. And whenever you hear something new that inspires you from the young, it makes you feel I'm going to do that. I want to do it. Once you stop, you die.
That's the voice of Elton John in a segment of James Corden's Couple Karaoke. Neatly articulating and instinct shared by artists all over the world. The need to create, record and perform and to do so for as long as possible, no matter what.
Recently, I have to sit down and listen to my first record a lot because I'm putting it out on vinyl for the first time. And as I was listening to it, I could sense from what I was trying to do with the artwork and the songs of the sentiment was to sort of show that I wanted to do this.
For a long time.
So I was kind of in a way, kind of proud of myself that that was what I wanted, and I was kind of trying to set that up. So for me, it was just about that I would have loved to have had a song that was huge, or to go on like David Letterman or like all those sorts of things were like, oh, that be amazing to have an international career. In fact, it was quite brutal at one point where I kind of realized, oh, that
wasn't going to happen. Then you regroup and work out you know that those things aren't actually career goals as such. Like the music, the projects are the actual making of the music. I always have to think, well, how can I make the most of what I have? So this is one of the things I have. I have these small pockets of people who want to come and see me play all over the place, which is actually a godsend,
really like, it's really very fortunate. And then you realize, yeah, not everybody does have that.
There's something very rock and roll about the way she's living out her art now, which is not to curl up in a ball and be sad that she didn't end up playing Madison Square Garden or the O two Arena that she's playing the be a Chuka Town Hall, a.
Chuker Paramount Theater, which is actually a cinema. We were playing in theater I while the latest Hollywood blockbus that was playing in the theater next door.
It's so cool to embrace that be proud of that and throw herself into it being a touring artist in the way that she can. She's not giving in to the disappointment that she's obviously felt at some points in her career that she's not Lady Gaga.
Yeah. Growing up in Australia, so many young artists have these aspirations of going overseas and it's almost like the size of the venue is somehow the best barometer of how your career is going. But I guess the nature of dreams is that they do evolve over time, they do change, and they mature. And she's arrived at this point in her career where instead of looking around and thinking about the things that she doesn't have, she's grateful for the things that she does have. I think it's
a real antidote to bitterness. And what she does have is something that has eluded so many artists, and that is longevity. She can rock up to pretty much any talent around our country and a couple hundred people are going to come out to see her. That's a significant achievement and is the byproduct of a lot of hard work and consistent output.
Regional venues face an inherent challenge which comes down to money and geography, securing high quality acts that attract audiences big enough to keep venues operating. Some venues struggle to bounce back after COVID lockdowns, and it's estimated more than thirteen hundred Australian live music venues have closed since the pandemic due to increases in public liability costs, rising rents and energy prices. So who's helping these places stay afloat?
Made muchical.
The vibe in a lot of those places is very different because a lot of the people are volunteers, so there's definitely a different energy.
It's not there.
Job as such, it's kind of more, you know, something that they're trying to foster in their community. The theater draws people that maybe they want to see from the city to that place. If you're into the arts, or you're you know, you love music, or who you want to get out one night a month or whatever, then yeah, you would put your energy into it because you probably know that you know that's your lifeline in that place,
and it creates an atmosphere in the community. Like I really felt that in the Brunswick Kids Place, there was a couple of people that were hanging around at the end that were clearly just in the community, but had made friends with the owners and come to things there all the time, and you can feel that they're invested, Like they were wearing their Brunswick Picture House T shirt and they're keeping it alive.
I did manage to ask a couple of volunteers why they did do that, and their motivations were almost always for the benefit of their community. They understood what these concerts brought to their community, the sort of the enriching nature of these concerts, and that's something that was important to them and that they wanted to continue to contribute to. I almost likened it to like people who retire and end up working for the rfs or community radio stations
or something like that. You know, these people are community minded and they understand the value that these venues bring to their communities.
Coming up how Blasco's childhood in the church is shaping her musical present. Sarah Blasco's latest album, I Just Want to Conquer This Mountain, her seventh studio album, is Honest and Raw. It's produced by Blasco with Nords to Nigel Godrich's work with Beck and French group air, and though there are large ensemble moments, it's largely driven by the piano and Blasco's incredible voice. The album is also autobiographical.
Okay, Out of the Marriage one Roz only twenty six a Ladda Novo Giller Mosa the Wog.
I grew up in the church, and like in the Pentecostal church where everybody would kind of make up all of these songs. As much as I kind of turned my back again on the on the church, there was something really beautiful about that experience and performing live, I
just love the community of it. I think as well, like there's something about the way that when everyone is interacting and playing together, you you're not necessarily looking at each other or it's just a very intangible, magical kind of feeling.
I think.
There's something very evocative about these little venues. They feel a bit like church halls, don't they. And they feel a bit like church meetings with people who are not your normal necessarily rock and roll crowd sitting in chairs or on pews, you know, looking up at the stage.
Yeah, it's such a good way of looking at it. And I hadn't seen the overlap between these regional venues in the church. But you're absolutely right. Probably the biggest thing that they have in common is that they function as community hubs as much as they do anything else. I mean, obviously they're set up as music venues, but it's almost like the music is an excuse to get
the community together. And this isn't to take away from any artists that manage to draw a crowd in the country, but the reality years there's less to do in these places. And we actually played a place called Brunswick Picture House, which is a converted cinema up in Brunswick Heads on the Northern Rivers, and there was a huge sign outside that venue that said get off the telly, come to a concert. Something like that. Artists like Sarah who breathe in and out of these towns, they sort of act
like magnets really for those local communities. But another way it's reflected is the age spread and the diversity in the crowds. It's not like a concert in the city where certain bands draw a certain crowd that all dressed the same or have similar haircuts. Some of these venues that we'd go and play, you'd have three generations under one roof.
That sign about getting off the telly and getting out to a live show. I mean, that's relevant for all of us, isn't it, especially when the best television that has ever been made is available for us all every night. What do you think about that idea that we have sort of an obligation to go out and experience entertainment live.
I think the obligations on everybody. I think the obligations on audiences for being honest with yourself and thinking, hey, have I gotten a bit sort of stuck in my ways? Maybe I should make more of an effort to go out and support the arts in whatever form that might be. But there's a responsibility on performers and musicians in this case as well to entice people off the couch. And I think Sarah does deliver that she has a gift.
She's an incredible singer. To see her sing and to hear her perform her music is a really attractive alternative to another night of watching Love Is Blind or Maths in my case, So.
How has Sarah Blasco enticed people off the couch and built a national audience?
Kids A drive inside just bus meby.
I used to get played on Triple J and that had a huge effect on my touring and playing festivals and everything.
But yeah, I don't know.
I think it's probably just been that period of time where I've just kept going at this point, so people might know the name or know my cover of Flame Trees at the very least.
The Choshnus.
Bless makes.
Sarah Blasco performs for the last two shows of her tour this weekend in Hobart and Lawnceston and Jaska will be there. You can watch tool video called Longevity at the Australian dot com dot a you right now thanks for joining us on the front this week. Our team is Jasper League, who produced and edited this episode and composed our music regular producer Kristin Amiot, Stephanie Coombs, Tiffany Dimack, Joshua Burton, Leat Sammagloo and me Claire Harvey.