The trio, consisting of singer and guitarist Oscar Blaxland, violinist Emma Greenhill, and mandolinist David Rizzolo, were inspired by the performance culture in New York, which sees musicians from all walks of life openly busking on the city subway. “I studied in New York the year after I left school,” says Blaxland, now 20. “I saw all these people jumping on trains playing music and I thought, that would be really cool. No one in Sydney does that.”
Likening their musical style to bands such as Angus & Julia Stone and Mumford & Sons, Blaxland says the group played a series of small venues before turning to trains. However, he’s adamant the band isn’t busking – the stints are purely about getting the name out there and building a following.
“As soon as you start playing, the first thing you notice is people start pulling out iPhones, iPads and smartphones, and they all record you,” he says. “We can get 40 Facebook likes in a night. You just don’t get that doing gigs.”
Earlier in the year, City of Sydney established a Live Music and Live Performance Taskforce, responsible for developing a series of recommendations that will feed into an action plan council will consider later in the year. “The live music scene has struggled, with key venues closing or going into receivership and musicians finding it harder than ever to find gigs,” said Lord Mayor Clover Moore in a statement.
In May, Australian experimental violinist Jon Rose published “The Music of Place: Reclaiming a Practice”, a Platform Papers essay critiquing the state of music performance in Australia. Rose claims that in cities like Sydney, public music has been “legislated to the edge of non-existence”. “Compared to the street music of Paris, Moscow and Berlin, finding interesting music on the streets of Australian towns requires extreme diligence,” he says.
Among his suggestions for reinvigorating the public music scene is designating a carriage on trains for live music.
Busking on RailCorp property requires approval from a Stations Customer Manager, with buskers needing to address issues such as safety, noise pollution, customer flow and public liability insurance in their applications. A performer who isn’t soliciting money, however, is not required to submit an application, but is advised to “use common sense” when playing on a train or at a station, a RailCorp spokesperson said.
“Playing on trains is just so much better, in terms of getting your name out there. I think it’s because it’s so abnormal. If everyone were playing on trains it wouldn’t matter, because at the moment everyone is playing gigs,” Blaxland says.
Jack Selwyn are planning to record an EP later in the year. In the meantime, the band’s music can be heard both on the trains and the Jack Selwyn Facebook page. “It’s not really about the money at the moment,” Blaxland says. “If you’re about the money right now, you’re kidding yourself.”
