If there’s one week every year in the Judith Wright Centre that is guaranteed to be crazy, it’s the week of the Bigsound music conference. Heading upstairs to YAQ I see musos, managers and record company people squishing the largest possible number of conversations into their morning.

The event runs on coffee, forums and gigs, gigs, gigs. On Wednesday night I made it to a fantastic showcase of regional musicians and caught up with Cassey Russell, the Transit Lounge Caboolture A-Venue Program Coordinator.

Moreton Bay locals “Gentlemen” gave us some fantastic electrorock and friend of YAQ Leanne Tennant made the trip from Cairns. Hearing her alt country originals with a full band definitely got me moving.

Now that we’ve all had some sleep I gave Cassey a call to find out more:

Alex: How did you first get involved with Bigsound?

Cassey: I first got involved four years ago as a volunteer. Transit Lounge Caboolture had just run our bandcamp project in partnership with Qmusic so that’s how I found out about it. When A-Venue Moreton Bay was funded I became coordinator. We started bringing musicians to the conference. It’s a great way to learn about professional networks and new musicians who see the showcases see what they need to aspire to.

Alex: Apart from the A-Venue showcase,  what were your highlights for this year?

Cassey: Leanne de Souza. She’s a music manager I really look up to. And the dented heavy metal forum.

Alex: I always find music industry networking is very slick and high speed. I consider myself a good networker but I find it a bit intimidating what do you think?

Cassey: Yeah. I don’t network that much with speakers – more with the people  we’ve worked with before. For some of the people there wouldn’t be much of an outcome to networking with them.

Alex: Do you have any tips?

Cassey: Always have a purpose in mind. Why are you networking with this person. Don’t go to every panel – your brain will die. Pick the panels you go to based on the topic – not the speakers. If you go to a panel hoping to hear about how a manager got a band to where they are in their career, but the panel is about funding – you may not get the information you want. If the information you want isn’t covered then try and make a meeting with them to find it out.

Alex: Is there anything you would improve about the conference if you were running it?

Cassey: There’s a bit of a void when it comes to the under-age music scene. It would be a good thing to talk about in the future.

Many thanks to you Cassey for your time and insight