Streets of Your Town

Recently I spent a gloriously rare fine day in Glasgow for Streets of Your Town, wandering around the city’s renowned concert halls and gig venues with music journo Fiona Shepherd - who’s also the co-founder and lead guide of Glasgow Music City Tours.

She’s been taking tourists back stage around Glasgow’s renowned live scene for ten years now, sharing many stories from decades past right up to the present about the iconic performers...

On my recent travels through the UK and Ireland for Streets of Your Town, I was amazed to find how strong the cross pollination between Australian and Indigenous music and Gaelic traditions were, and how it continues to evolve.

While I was in Glasgow, I was lucky enough to meet Graham Mackenzie from award winning instrumental folk trio Assynt. Sitting in his Glasgow living room, his fiddle sits between us, never far from his thought...

For this episode of Streets of Your Town, wander with me Nance Haxton to County Kerry on Ireland's west coast, to discover how close Australian and Irish cultural traditions are beyond the musical sphere.

Tim Hanafin has lived in Kerry all of his 85 years, in a tiny village called Inch. The town is still known by many as the location where the epic Oscar-winning movie Ryan’s Daughter was filmed, putting County Kerry on the tourist t...

It’s not often that we get to watch a musical star on the rise. A performer whose passion and talent has enabled them to rise from tentative beginnings to starring in one of the world’s most beloved musicals.

Here on Streets of Your Town, we’ve been lucky enough to watch Vidya Makan’s singing and writing prowess be recognised over a few short years.

We first met her in the pivotal role of Catherine Parr in the juggernaut Australian ...

If you thought that a play about post-apocolyptic zombies couldn’t be compatible with meaningful and hilarious social commentary and analysis of colonial occupation, then you haven’t heard of the radical new production Eat, Slay Zombie.

Emerging First Nations playwright Alinta McGrady tells us on this episode of Streets of Your Town how she took her idea born in covid lockdown and created this fast-paced action packed show that is a...

On this episode of Streets of Your Town, we feature someone I’ve wanted you to meet on this podcast for years. I’ve written about him for national media outlets such as The New Daily and National Indigenous Radio Service, about his achievements acting as a Barrister on some of the most challenging human rights class actions across Australia. 

Joshua Creamer is a proud Waanyi and Kalkadoon man, who still sees himself as the boy ...

Just before I head overseas to the land of my ancestors in Scotland and Ireland, I was lucky enough to stumble into an Irish music session in Brisbane.

The Irish accents flew thick and fast, to the accompaniment of the bodran, Eilean pipes, tin whistle and fiddle.

Jack O’Leary is one of the musicians who makes this weekly quest to reconnect with his homeland.

He tells us on Streets of Your Town, how Irish music and Australian cultu...

It’s not often we get an Australian jazz singer legend on Streets of Your Town, but we are lucky enough to enjoy that on today’s episode. 

Vince Jones is well known not only in this country but throughout the world as one of Australia’s most renowned jazz musicians. 

He tells us how the love of his craft started young, in the lively jazz surrounds of Scotland.

And after half a century of performing, and a lifetime of loving music, ...

For Paralympian athlete Gerrard Gosens, taking on the challenge of swimming across the English Channel is more than just a physical one.

It’s also mental, as the blind swimmer confronts the elements and conditions of the day and then figures out how to overcome them. 

Gerrard tells us on Streets of Your Town podcast how he is well into an intense training regimen preparing for his attempted channel crossing in August - swimming fro...

Some people when they visit Australia, simply can’t stop themselves from coming back time and time again.

So it is for Irish performer Ciaran Olohan, who is bringing his show The World of Musicals in Concert back to Australia for the fourth time.

And he’s not just taking it on the well worn route to the capital cities, Ciaran and his crew are doing the big lap of Australia, taking their show that has graced stages across the globe ...

In this episode of Streets of Your Town Elise McCann gives us insights into her creative process, particularly of late in the musical adaptation of Groundhog Day which had a season in Melbourne. 

Elise admits that despite her success as a musicals performer, like anyone, there are days that get the better of her, and that’s how she decided to create the stress and motivation app Hey Lemonade.

Together with her fellow performer frie...

Broken Hill-born country singer-songwriter Raechel Whitchurch spent most of her childhood travelling in her family's country music band, before establishing herself as one of Aussie music’s most recognisable country artists.

But her path to songwriting was far from guaranteed. In fact, it wasn't until her family saw Kasey Chambers’ family group The Dead Ringer Band perform in Broken Hill that country music became a family career....

New Meanjin/Brisbane band Yirinda is widening the scope of Indigenous music with a unique take blending Aboriginal language and songs with classical genres.

Yirinda combines ancient Aboriginal language performed by Butchulla songman Fred Leone with dramatic soundscapes from Samuel Pankhurst, accompanied by a string quartet, to invoke thousands of generations of story and culture through music.

The band has just released its deb...

There’s only two people who have made it onto Streets of Your Town podcast more than once. And journo and author extraordinaire Trent Dalton is one of them. 

With the Netflix series adaptation of his first breakthrough novel Boy Swallows Universe now number one in Australia and top ten in the US, it’s time to revisit this Brisbane born and bred talent, whose gritty but hopeful representations of the wrong side of town in his novels...

With all the agitation and conflict in the world at the moment - I thought what we need on Streets of Your Town to start this year - is whimsy. Something to make us smile and stir a sense of childlike awe in us again.

And so off I meandered in Mildred the Cantankerous Kombi to the Woodford Folk Festival. It’s on every year in the foothills of Queensland’s Sunshine Coast hinterland helping hippies and hippies at heart to spread harm...

You can’t be what you can’t see. It’s a saying that prompted a former AFL player to create a children’s band, so that his kids could be exposed to more than the bland musical world they were offered.

Nick Gill is the founder of children’s band The Quokkas, with a mission to show children a modern and inclusive Australia through song.

After his AFL career Nick went on to become a Channel 7 news reporter and then Breakfast radio host...

The Wandering Journo has just returned from one of the most exciting secondments of my now three-decade journalism career - from the Cathedral of Sport the great MCG, where I was part of the National Indigenous Radio Service team covering the 2023 AFL grand final.

And I have brought back a glimpse of the action for Streets of Your Town from behind the scenes of the National Indigenous Service broadcast box, where the incredible NIR...

We made it Streets of Your Towners - the 100th episode of the Streets of Your Town podcast!!!

This episode we return to the man who so kindly kicked off this crazy Streets of Your Town adventure!

The man whose storytelling is equally masterful with words or with the palette knife -  who is bookending this series by featuring in episode 1 and 100.

This internationally renowned artist - harking from a family of journo’s - generously ...

Today on Streets of Your Town we’re revisiting Vidya Makan, who you may remember meeting on this podcast in December 2022 when we featured her as one of the talented performers in the smash hit touring musical Six. 

The show broke all attendance records at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre during its 2022 season. 

But this Somerville House and Queensland Conservatorium graduate has not left her run there, and has now debuted he...