TAGG – ISSUE 18 flipbook
Flick through the TAGG issue 18 flipbook including Melbourne’s live music gig guide for 29th February to 13th March 1980!
The TAGG time capsule series
TAGG – ISSUE 18.
In this TAGG The Alternative Gig Guide time capsule series, you can revisit the Melbourne live music scene from 1979-1981.
Each issue featured the all important issue gig guide, reviews, venue locations, interviews and stories. Australia’s original street press was the perfect printed back pocket friend filled with everything a live music lover needed to know each fortnight.
We’re working our way through digitising TAGG’s back catalogue so you can relive (for those who were there) revisit (for those who weren’t and those who don’t recall) the original issues of the magazine on the TAGG website. cool hey!
TAGG – ISSUE 18 – Table of contents:
Includes the all important gig guide for 29th February to 13th March, 1980
4. TAGG file – Chris Maxwell
12. TAGG mags
16. Who’s recording where
17. Services directory
18. TAGG prospects
23. Confirmed concert dates
24. Listings – Feb 29 – Mar 6
30. Gigs of our lives
32. TAGG minifold – Australian Crawl
34. Venue locations
37. Listings – Mar 7-13
43. Rock lobster – Inc. The coastal scene
49. Gig review – Airwaves
52. P.A. Systems
55. Services directory – Records
56. Consumer guide
60. 3RRR-FM Top 40
63. Classifieds
We hope you enjoy flipping through TAGG – issue 18!
TAGG – ISSUE 18 excerpt…
Page 4 The TAGG File Chris Maxwell, Music Director 3XY
By Allan Webster
It’s hard to imagine, but sooner or later Melbourne’s top-rating youth orientated radio station 3XY will eventually become a beautiful music station.
Why? Because yesterday’s teenyboppers are tomorrow’s geriatrics. But at the moment most are aged between 18 and 25.
Chris Maxwell, XY’s Music Director, has seen the stations slowly moving and growing with its audience. “Six years ago when I started here we were just after kids – it was a pure rock station and we went for kids under 18 because there were so many of them. They’re the ones spending money, and advertisers like you because you’re the one with all those kids listening, so the station makes lots of money and everyone’s happy.
“But in the last few years everything has changed – all those kids have grown up – the majority age group has grown older and will be the dominant group until they die because of zero population growth. Theoretically, the station will grow older and older, and by the time we’re in our rocking chairs we’ll be a beautiful music station.”
That’s a long term view; in the short term XY, along with every other AM radio station, is more concerned with shoring up its defences for the onslaught of commercial FM later this year.
“We sat back about a year ago and formulated what the station was going to do and sound like – and that’s basically what we’re doing now. We’ll give FM a run for its money. We’re not going to sit back and let them walk all over us, which is what happened in America where AM stations got scared and ran and hid. They tightened up their playlists and suffered in the long run because FM walked all over them.
Maxwell defends the high rotation policy – under which records are given one of three ratings – A, B or C. ‘A’ means the record is played once every three hours, ‘B’ is every five hours and ‘C’ is every seven hours. The rating depends, as does selection of a song for inclusion on the playlist, on a number of factors.
“We always get criticised for having a short playlist, and depending on your programming you go through periods of getting lots of complaints. But we haven’t had any for a long time now.
“The important thing for us is to have a blanket sound that’s consistent right through, so that no matter what time you tune in you know it’s 3XY – it’s not gonna sound like the ABC.”…
Maxwell maintains that XY’s policy is to reflect what the people want and what they’re buying. But doesn’t that depend on what the radio plays?
“That’s the oldest argument since Top 40 radio began,” He says. “We don’t go out of our way to break songs. People say that unless we play it it’s not going to be a hit, but it need not necessarily be a hit if we do play it. We’ve played records for weeks that we believed in and they haven’t done a thing.”…
***
