"Locating the canon in Tamworth" winner of the 2014 Rebecca Coyle Prize

The International Association for the Study of Popular Music Australia-New Zealand (IASPM-ANZ) Branch Conference was recently held in Dunedin, New Zealand. It was announced during the conference that the 2014 Rebecca Coyle Prize for the best paper on popular music in the Australia-New Zealand region published in 2013 was awarded to my article, co-authored with Alison Huber, called 'Locating the canon in Tamworth: Historical narratives, cultural memory and Australia's "Country Music Capital"'.

Rockmuseum Munich - the highest DIY museum in the world?

Although last month my data collection for the project officially concluded, a brief trip to Munich, Germany, has enabled me to expand my fieldwork sites by one with a visit to Rockmuseum Munich. No interviews were conducted here but it was a delight to discover this little gem tucked away in a famous Munich tourist attraction.

Data collection concludes

The fieldwork stage of this research has now come to an end. This blog post gives a brief 'statistical' overview of the fieldwork.

Collaborations with colleagues at Birmingham City University

This month should have seen me visiting the UK and Ireland for events co-organised with colleagues from Birmingham City University. Circumstances meant I had to stay in Australia but the events went on in my absence. Accounts of both events have been helpfully blogged by Jez Collins.

Presentation on affective archiving and collective collecting at Edinburgh conference

The last two days have been spent in Edinburgh at the conference "On Collecting: Music, Materiality and Ownership" held at the National Museum of Scotland. 

Popmuseum - a museum and archive of popular music in the Czech Republic

My travels for this research have already taken in a host of countries - Australia, Austria, Germany, Iceland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Switzerland, UK and USA. My latest destination is the Czech Republic where today I made a visit to Prague's Popmuseum, located in District 2. 

Radios galore and more at the Sound Preservation Association of Tasmania

This week I found myself in Hobart where I made a visit to the Sound Preservation Association of Tasmania on that city's eastern shore.

The Ramones Museum in Berlin

After my successful trip to Germany last year visiting the Lippmann + Rau Musikarchiv in Eisenach and the Klaus Kuhnke Archiv fur Populare Musik in Bremen, it is great to be able to return to this hot house of popular music preservation; this time to Berlin to see the Ramones Museum. This is only the second artist-dedicated museum I have visited for this research, the other one being KD's Elvis Presley Museum in New Zealand, and the two examples of this kind of heritage enterprise are very different.

Talking DIY sustainability with Jez Collins at the Poplife conference

It has been an enjoyable two days at "Poplife: the value of popular music in the twenty first century", a conference hosted by the University of Northampton.

Preserving the music history of the Ocean State - the Rhode Island Music Hall of Fame

I'm writing this during a layover at Washington Dulles airport, having arrived this morning from Rhode Island en route back to Australia following a successful two weeks of fieldwork. I was in Rhode Island to visit the Rhode Island Music Hall of Fame. Located in Pawtucket, the Hall captures "the Ocean State's rich musical history".