Brisbane Rockabilly

The fact that Brisbane is home to a thriving (albeit quite underground) Rockabilly subculture is a little suprising on first thought. Here we are, in Australia, 2011, over fifty years on since Rockabilly originally formed, which took place in America, the other side of the world.

Yet when you consider the way today's societies are wired across the globe, it makes sense. Roy Shuker describes Locality as a key factor in the study of popular music, and its applicability to all off-shooting subcultures. The following paragraph, taken from Shuker's book Popular Music: The Key Concepts, outlines one way locality is used to study popular music;

"To consider a global process of cultural homogenization and commodification, and the intersection of these with the local. The study of the global geographical distribution of recorded popular music is concerned with the nature, status and operation of cultural imperialism, and the relationship between the local music and the international music industry. Here locality becomes a marker of political experience, juxtaposed against the other to ideologically valorize and support local music."

Of course, the process described is equally if not more applicable to Rockabilly when it was first conceived, but remains relevant for the 'revival' as well. 

"This internationalization of the local is a process encouraged and fostered economically by the  major record label companies, who place particular local sounds within larger structures, reaching a larger market in the process. Similarly, local sounds/scenes and their followers are ideologically linked through internationally distributed fanzines, music press publications and the Internet."

This is very true for today's Rockabilly subculture. Australia is not Rockabilly's local scene, and Brisbane only has a scene of its own because of Rockabilly's internationalization, through social media and technology.

The following YouTube clip is a great example of Australian Rockabilly - it shows a young Brisbane/Gold Coast female fanatic. Interestingly, music doesn't get a single mention. Rockabilly, for some, is more about fashion, dance and memorabilia. 

Evidently locality has expanded to a world-wide scale as the subculture, like most others, has become globalised. However, each location's adaptation of rockabilly will have its differences.

Bibliography:

Shuker, Roy. Popular Music: The Key Concepts. Routledge, London, 1999.