The Sicilian-born Margherita Benincasa chose the streets of Melbourne to try out her first busking session. The singer-songwriter defined her experience performing at Southbank and Melbourne Central Business District as a positive turning point in her career as a musician. 

Interview recorded on April 15, 2022 (Southbank, Melbourne) by Daniel Bacchieri.

Music excerpts from the song "Inverno", written by Margherita Benincasa.

Photo credit: Henry Lim

https://linktr.ee/Margherita_bs

[Beyond Bourke Street] #38 MARGHERITA BENINCASA

Only One By Cori & Kent Hopwood

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. Both 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.  Geographies of live music are revealed not only by memoirs (which are, in Sam’s words, usually “romanticised, but that’s kind of what rock and roll is all about”), but patterns of success clearer at a wider scale.  
One theme is the pull of cities like Melbourne in the migration of musicians, famous and not. Sam explains most staff and musicians at Melbourne venues are from regional and interstate areas. Aspiring musicians often migrate based on authenticity myths surrounding venues (“the home of rock”). Also covered: places musicians get breaks, musicians as public figures (or, often, notable jerks), managers & social connections, conundrums of liking songs despite musicians’ personal lives, community radio, planning regulations, and long-running venues- these are rare, and those that survive navigate risks of becoming a museum to their pasts. 
Sam is suspiciously averse to musician biographies and claims to have rarely read past a first chapter, as musicians are “fundamentally boring people”. Sam is a musician, and teaches music & writing about music - which may explain his burnout on biographies. Sarah by contrast (though also a musician) is a voracious reader of musician biographies, even bad ones. 
The episode was recorded outside the Curtin Hotel in Carlton, a live music venue. You can hear the band upstairs starting up, adding to sounds of motorbikes, buses, sirens, and chewing ‘loaded’ fries. Tune in for trivia on bands you may like, dislike, or like (but risk disliking if you hear about their biographies). Explicit content warning – swear words, horrible musician stories.

Reading List: 
Phil Collins “Not Dead Yet” 
Johnny Marr “Set the Boy Free”
Jeff Apter “Tomorrow Never Knows: The Silverchair Story” 
Jimmy Barnes “Working Class Boy” 
Carrie Brownstein“Hunger Makes me a Modern Girl”
Kim Gordon “Girl in a Band”
Tex Perkins “Tex” 
David Nichols “The Go-Betweens”
Andrew Stafford “Pig City” 
Bruce Springsteen “Born to Run” 
Daryl Easlea “Crazy in Love: The Beyonce Knowles Biography”
Spandau Ballet “Soul Boys of the Western World” (documentary) 
Martin Kemp “True”
Gary Kemp “I Know This Much”
Anthony Kiedis “Scar Tissue”
Motley Crue “The Dirt” 
Nikki Sixx “The Heroin Diaries” 
David Hasselhoff “Making Waves” 
Mark Seymour “Thirteen Tonne Theory” 
Sara Cohen “Rock Music in Liverpool”
Justin Heazlewood (aka The Bedroom Philosopher) “Funemployed”
George Orwell “Road to Wigan Pier” 
Burke, M. & A. Schmidt How should we plan and regulate live music in Australian cities? Learnings from Brisbane. Australian Planner. 
Sarah: 
http://cordite.org.au/essays/lost-venues-long-nights/4/
https://www.rmit.edu.au/study-with-us/engineering/surveying-and-geospatial-sciences/meet-our-students/sarah-taylor
Sam: 
https://www.rmit.edu.au/news/all-news/2017/feb/first-melbourne-music-memorabilia-event
https://www.linkedin.com/in/samuel-whiting-04849a110

Musicians, memoirs and maps: a bookish Curtin-side chat with Sarah Taylor and Sam Whiting

Hallelujah

Landslide

Mackenzie (Demo)

My Shadow Is My Only Follower

When The Streets Fell Silent

In this episode, Paul Cartledge introduces Ancient Greece, a period of unmatched influence on the politics, philosophy, religion, and social relations of Western civilization.

Learn more about "Ancient Greece: A Very Short Introduction" here:
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/ancient-greece-a-very-short-introduction-9780199601349

Paul Cartledge is the inaugural A.G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture at the University of Cambridge.

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© Oxford University Press

Ancient Greece - The Very Short Introductions Podcast - Ep 1

Keep the Faith is the 2nd single release from the new Album "The Loop of Life". 
The song is a reminder for us to keep our faith, and lift our spirits up, even when times are though.

Keep The Faith - Brazaman

StreetMusicMap Radio, a global research on street music. Produced, recorded, and edited by Daniel Bacchieri. Newest podcast series: 'Beyond Bourke Street: Melbourne Buskers in the Digital World'.

[Beyond Bourke Street] #38 MARGHERITA BENINCASA

Beyond Bourke Street

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