Poster snapshots of music history
FOR promoter Michael Gudinski, music has been his life since he started organising dances while a student at Melbourne High School in the late ’60s.
He got a part-time job with promoter Bill Joseph and when he was in year 11, decided to leave school and work for Joseph full-time in the rock-music business
Staging concerts and managing rock groups was a dream job for Gudinski, much to the chagrin of his father Kuba, a Russian migrant who was a successful builder and believed his son should follow a more acceptable career. So Gudinski left the family home to learn to stand on his own feet.
“I felt confident that I had taken the right step, as it was a big decision to leave school,” recalled Gudinski, 59. “There were no regrets.”
After managing bands, he co-founded Mushroom Records in 1972, which grew into Australia’s largest independent record label. In 1979, Gudinski formed the Frontier Touring Company to promote and present local and international artists in concerts around Australia and New Zealand.
The shows the company staged reads like a who’s who of the music industry, with artists including Billy Joel, Elton John, Bob Dylan, Kylie Minogue, Madonna, Rod Stewart and Justin Timberlake.
To celebrate Frontier’s 30th anniversary, the company has published a book, Every Poster Tells A Story, which features 536 tour posters.
“What makes the book even more relevant to me personally, apart from everything else, is that when I was a kid starting in the business I used to put up posters in the streets,” said Gudinski.
“One day I got nabbed by the cops putting up posters in Bentleigh or McKinnon when I was running dances in Caulfield and St Kilda, and that’s how I really started in the business.”
Gudinski hopes the book and his story will inspire people to follow in his footsteps.
“You must go into it with a real passion and not just because you think it is glamorous. Like any business, it can be a real struggle as an entrepreneur. You can be the cool dude on the street and the artist’s pal, but if you can’t pay your bills you are a bum!”
Gudinski has numerous framed posters at his home, but the one that has a special place in his heart is for the 2009 bushfire fund-raising concert Sound Relief, which raised more than $8 million.
“Sound Relief was so rewarding with so many people helping and getting involved. It was so emotion filled, and is one that stood out,” he said.
“I’ve grown up dreaming of filling the MCG with a concert and we did that with Madonna and Mushroom’s 25th anniversary, but the Sound Relief concert resulted in the biggest paying crowd in Australian history at the MCG.”
One of the early posters in the book is for the sellout 1988 tour by Frank Sinatra, Liza Minnelli and Sammy Davis Jr.
Gudinski’s big regret is that his father, a Sinatra fan, was not alive to be in the audience. Kuba died in 1980.
Today Gudinski is just as passionate about the music industry as he used to be.
“With so many different music styles around it is hard to keep abreast of everything that is going on, but I still go out to lots of shows.”
And he guards the privacy of the industry’s best-known artists.
“I’m a real believer in what goes on the road stays on the road – I don’t like tell-tale books and don’t think it is right to talk too much about the artist.”
Gudinski said Australian artists had been an important part of his business.
“Kylie Minogue was with us from day one to now. It’s interesting to see how she has developed into one of the top performing artists in the world and become a global icon.”
Gudinksi was in the audience at last Sunday’s ARIA Awards when Minogue was inducted into the hall of fame.
Every Poster Tells a Story is available from bookstores and www.frontiertouring.com. $79.95 (rrp)
DANNY GOCS
Photo: Frontier Touring Company managing director Michael Gudinski with Kylie Minogue.