The Intersection - Eastside FM

And that's a wrap for Season 1 of The Intersection. Thanks for all your support and engagement. Send any feedback, gripes or suggestions for future topics to theintersection@eastidefm.org. We'll be back here in this feed with updates along the way.

For Part 2 of Episode 6, we hand over to musician and broadcaster, Preston Peachey. Preston is a Wiradjuri and Malyangapa man who grew up in Sydney. Having played drums in local bands since the age of 14, he went on to study community development while looking at Aboriginal music through that lens. He now works in community engagement on Gadigal Country. His approach for this s...

It became known as “the Great Australian Silence”. The way in which white Australia failed to recognize its Indigenous history. In this episode of The Intersection we look at a few ways in which, from a personal perspective, music tried to counter that silence. Playlist: Eleanor Dixon : My Spirit Is Free No Fixed Address : Vision (Version) Tactics : Buried Country Tactics : A Long Story Tactics :...

For each episode we follow up the main segment with an interview to further explore the themes of the show. Our special guest for this episode is musician and activist Keyna Wilkins. In recent years she has been involved in some extraordinary collaborations with refugees trapped in Australia’s indefinite detention regime. In one case at least, the publicity from the collaboration led to the releas...

In Episode 5 of The Intersection, we make it into the 21st Century. Millennium Blues looks at that fraught period in Australia - Howard, Hanson, Tampa, 9/11, War on Terror, a rise in xenophobia and a backlash against First Nations' people's claims to justice. In particular we look at a 2003 song from Sydney hiphop band The Herd which addressed these issues in the most emphatic of ways. Playlist Th...

We follow up each episode of The Intersection with an interview with an expert on the topic. Our special guest for Episode 4 is historian and musicologist Kay Dreyfus. Her 2013 book,,’Silence and Secrets – the Weintraub Syncopators in Australia’, introduced many people to this extraordinary story.

The Weintraub Syncopators were the hottest jazz band in Weimar Germany. But after the Nazi party passed the first anti-Jewish laws, the Syncopators decided to embark on what was perhaps the longest world tour by any band in history. It ended in an internment camp in rural Australia. This episode traces an epic journey of music, intrigue, war, xenophobia and survival. Playlist Weintraub Syncopators...

Our special guest is historian and activist Gary Foley. A Gumbayngirr man, Gary Foley has been at the forefront of Indigenous activism for over fifty years and was a key figure in the Bicentennial protests.

1988 in Australia. On the musical front, it was seriously divided between the mainstream music industry and the alternative/underground scene, yet both sides had their eyes on the international stage. But there was a bigger issue; 1988 marked the Bicentennial of the British invasion of Aboriginal lands. Indigenous activists were waiting to protest any celebrations. It was this that the internation...

Our special guest is journalist and broadcaster John Highfield. Best known for his 35 years on ABC Radio, it is not so well known that John was a teenage employee of the Lee Gordon organisation in the early 1960s. His recollections are fascinating. Playlist   Chubby Checker : The Fly

Australia may have "turned to America" during WWII, but culturally, it was still doggedly British. This changed in the 1950s. We look at one arbiter of the change -  Lee Gordon -  an American with a shady backstory who arrived in Sydney in 1953 and within a year had created the Australian concert circuit! And how! But it's a very strange story too, and poses a lot of questions.... &...

Our special guest to discuss the themes of the White Australia Blues episode is historian Deirdre O’Connell. She has written at length on the Sonny Clay tour and its background. Her extraordinary 2021 book, ‘Harlem Nights – the Secret History of Australia’s Jazz Age’ was hugely influential in the making of this episode. This interview explores elements of the story that we heard in Part 1. Playlis...

The Immigration Restriction Act of 1901 heralded the White Australia Policy. This culture of whiteness would inevitably affect music in Australia. In this episode we look at the 1928 tour by Sonny Clay’s Colored Idea, the first African-American jazz band to tour Australia. We also look at ways the White Australia Policy continued to affect music even after the policy was dismantled. Playlist Louis...

A series focussing on the intersection between music and history, The Intersection traces the evolution of ideas, social norms and cultural forms in Australia – and the characters and events behind them. Sometimes shocking, with dramatic twists along the way, be prepared for an immersive journey into the surprising moments that shaped our lives and tastes today, and the role that music, musicians,...