50. Musicians, memoirs and maps_TMBTP

Musicians, memoirs and maps: a bookish Curtin-side chat with Sarah Taylor and Sam Whiting. In this episode of This Must be The Place Elizabeth is joined by Sam Whiting, a PhD candidate and lecturer in popular culture in the school of Media and Communications at RMIT; and by Dr Sarah Taylor (Elizabeth’s sister), who recently completed a PhD on the historical geography of live music in Sydney and Melbourne and who is now a data scientist, also at RMIT. Sam’s PhD explores small live music venues: how they work as concentrations of cultural & social capital, and as places where acts get their first break. His study sites are The Old Bar and The Tote, in Melbourne’s inner north. Sarah’s PhD compared spatial patterns of live music in two cities over three decades, during which Sydney’s live music scene declined, and Melbourne’s grew, albeit both in spatially uneven ways. Sam and Sarah spoke with musicians about how they got started with gigs, and their experiences in different venues and cities. Inspired by Elizabeth recently reading autobiographies by Phil Collins and Johnny Marr, they discuss the ways musicians live and remember their lives in the context of spaces and places.