What makes creative Sydneysiders tick? Getting below the surface with the people who make great things happen in our city, the people who create companies and radio stations, paintings and music, buildings, landscapes and so much more. Hosted by Matt Levinson.
Episodes
Saturday Nov 04, 2023
Saturday Nov 04, 2023
Ricky Simandjuntak has had a hand in so much that is good about music in our city right now. Sampa The Great, The Kid Laroi, Becca Hatch, ONEFOUR - four entirely different acts, all global stars or stars in the making - and you can see him front and centre in the new Netflix doco Against All Odds, as ONEFOUR’s manager. I started talking with Ricky for a project on live music, and there was so much in it about music, culture, branding, identity and so much else, I had to know more.
Saturday Sep 30, 2023
Saturday Sep 30, 2023
Jess Hill has almost unbelievable stores of nerve. A teen actor who convinced advertisers to get on board with a Dolly meets Time magazine startup at 19, she’s made a career of doing things few of us have the courage for. Fearless and tenacious in pursuit of a story, she’s rigorous, passionate and deeply affecting in the telling of them. Despite staring down a deadly cancer, Jess has changed the conversation on one of the most insidious and destructive aspects of our culture - coercive control and family violence. After following her work for years, I deeply appreciated this window into Jess’s incredible life.
Sunday Sep 10, 2023
Sunday Sep 10, 2023
Topher Boehm took the risky move of going foraging for native flowers to create the yeast for his beers instead of getting a typical off-the-shelf starter, and the results are truly imaginative and special.
His story starts in Dallas Texas, with stops in Rome and northern Spain, and an unfolding love affair with Sydney. It takes in cosmology and big data astrophysics, and building the tables and chairs in the brewery from scrap. I loved this conversation and hope you do too.
Sunday Jun 18, 2023
Sunday Jun 18, 2023
Kenny Sabir was playing a violin three-and-a-half. Programming a computer at four. He started Sydney’s Elefant Traks record label and the label’s flagship band The Herd; and he’s a software engineer who’s worked at Bell Labs, IBM’s Watson Lab, the Garvan and now leads R&D for the $100m livestock management startup AgriWebb. He’s pretty extraordinary, and I’ve always wanted to know more about what makes him tick.
Friday May 26, 2023
Friday May 26, 2023
Shaun Christie-David has created some of Sydney’s best places to eat. In the infamously precarious world of running restaurants, he’s making opportunities for refugees and people seeking asylum, Aboriginal people, people who’ve dealt with addiction and a range of disadvantage to find their way into good work. It’s practical and extraordinary work, and yet despite knowing all that, it was a chance conversation one night that really piqued my curiosity - I had to know more about what made him tick.
Sunday Apr 30, 2023
Sunday Apr 30, 2023
Meagan Loader is one of the most influential people in music and radio. A key player in the creation of FBI radio and Double J, she’s nudged and shaped the careers of countless talented people. Meagan is someone who creates space for people to succeed and succeed on a large scale, she’s mischievous and fun, empathetic and encouraging, she taught me so much. I feel so indebted to her, for her encouragement, leadership and disarming humour, and I’ve always wanted to sit down and get below the surface.
Sunday Apr 09, 2023
Sunday Apr 09, 2023
Jess Cook is an absolute force, one of those people who electrifies a room. She’s a leader in Sydney’s creative community with a record of building real things - particularly the big welcoming room and stage that is 107 Projects in Redfern - but go back and she’s been involved in countless shows, performances, projects and festivals. When I first met Jess I was blown away by her creative entrepreneurial spirit and energy, but I’d never had the chance to sit down and chat, until now.
Sunday Mar 19, 2023
Sunday Mar 19, 2023
Ben Peake is an architect, responsible for playful, clever and creative work like Annandale’s photogenic Concrete Blonde house and Blacktown’s Woodcroft neighbourhood centre. He writes about architecture. He’s won awards. But he’s also kicked against the edges of the profession, pushing for change, including campaigning for the iconic Sirius building. So it might surprise you to know he came to architecture late, after plenty of surprising stops along the way including a career in IT, a tilt at electoral politics and a website devoted to the Hoff.