700 reflections. Vin M.

Design by Chris Rees

As we approach our 700^th website story and also begin rehearsing for what will be our tenth year of concerts (give or take two years of an ongoing pandemic), it seems apt to take a look at kindred spirits in the Venn diagram that could be called ‘music and memoir’. Whether it be websites or concerts, radio or books or podcasts, there is no shortage of personal stories about the songs that shape our lives.

When this website started in early 2014, I was unaware of Changing Tracks, a weekly segment on ABC Radio Melbourne’s Raf Epstein program, in which listeners send in their stories about a song. Raf narrates the story and the song is played at the end. Changing Tracks has clocked up hundreds of stories.

You can go right back to BBC’s Desert Islands Discs, which has been running since 1942, for radio programs presenting a personal perspective about songs.

Brian Nankervis, our long-time colleague (and major drawcard for our shows), hosts Songs & Stories on ABC Radio, interviewing musicians, activists, writers, actors, the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, and many more.

Zane Rowe has been presenting Take 5 on Double J for 15 years or so, with a recent foray into a TV version.

Stereo Stories author David Oke was a guest on BBC4’s Soul Music in 2019, as part of a program about the song Wind of Change.

Our closest website cousins are our partner site Almanac Music and the Los Angeles based Memoir Mixtapes. An off-shoot of the long-running Footy Almanac, Almanac Music has a broader editorial brief than the specifics of our site but we have much in common, including the website template, and writers such as Smokie Dawson, Jeff Dowsing, Mickey Randall, Rick Kane, John Butler, Kevin Densley…

Memoir Mixtapes began in 2017. It has published 11 issues of its magazine. Each issue (a PDF, not a hard copy) is based around a theme, similar to our collections about mental health, roadtrips, grief, love, summer, and more (Our collections are created retrospectively.) Memoir Mixtapes also publishes stories about songs that are separate to the magazine themes.

When we started our concerts in mid-2014 I had yet to attend a Liner Notes show. It had been running for a few years, scoring gigs at high-profile writers’ festivals. Like us, Liner Notes had a band and writers but it was edgier, bolder, more overtly theatrical, and deliberately flew by the seat of its pants. Each show was based around an album: Ziggy Stardust by Bowie, Nirvana’s Nevermind, The Blues Brothers soundtrack, and others.

Late last year The Wheeler Centre – Victoria’s umbrella for various literary organisations – presented Mixtape Memories: ‘some of our favourite writers, performers and music lovers share the songs that have soundtracked their lives’ greatest hits (or heartbreaking misses) in an evening of tales and tunes’. The venue was the gorgeous Melbourne Recital Centre, a dream performance space if ever there was.

Author Kirsten Krauth has shaped her autobiographical novel Almost A Mirror, about being a fan of pop and punk in Australia in the 1970s and 1980s, into a podcast and a concert. On stage she narrates extracts from the novel, backed by a band. It’s a fine show, described as an ‘an edgy mash up of live music and storytelling’.

Speaking of books, there would be too many for our humble Venn diagram, but check your local library for 31 Songs by Nick Hornby, Long Player edited by Tom Gatti and Minds Went Walking, re-imagining the songs of Paul Kelly, curated by Mark Smith, Neil A. White and another of our very popular story-tellers at our concerts, Jock Serong.

Well before radio and television and books and the internet people were no doubt celebrating music and memoir in one way or another. Maybe it was around a campfire outside a cave, or under a night sky in the desert; maybe there were concerts centuries ago when writers narrated eloquent vignettes about particular songs, accompanied by a band or a soloist or an orchestra or a troubadour.

Changing Tracks

Desert Island Discs

Songs & Stories with Brian Nankervis

Take 5 with Zane Rowe

Almost A Mirror by Kirsten Krauth

31 Songs by Nick Hornby

Long Player edited by Tom Gatti