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Indigo FM invites you to our 2023 Radiothon Launch Party RADIOWAVES at Beechworth Memorial Hall on Saturday 4 November.

This live music event will feature Eastbound Buzz and This Way North – each with a big sound sure to fill up the acoustics of Beechworth’s iconic Memorial Hall.

Also on the bill is Euroa’s Neale Williams and Yackandandah’s Candice McLeod.

To celebrate our 2023 Radiothon, Indigo FM is offering all attendees at RADIOWAVES the option to also become a member of Indigo FM for 2024, which is included in the $30 ticket price. The same offer applies to our Concession and Family Membership categories.

Indigo FM’s Marketing team have been super busy behind the scenes for a couple of months organising this event. President Scott Landells praised the work of key official Tiff Ellis who led a successful Arts grant application and is now bringing RADIOWAVES to fruition.

“RADIOWAVES is largely due to Tiff’s passion for live music and her creative thinking. She convinced our Marketing team and Committee of Management to pursue this opportunity and has been willing to do the bulk of the work. In a volunteer run organisation that kind of attitude and energy is so valuable. Beechworth Memorial Hall is an awesome venue, and holds a couple of hundred people and we’re looking forward to seeing it full on 4 November”, Landells offered.

“We’re also excited by a band of enthusiastic, skilled volunteers behind the scenes who have quickly come on board to assist staging RADIOWAVES. And we’re incredibly grateful to Regional Arts Victoria whose grant is making it all possible.”

The artists collectively cover a range of styles from the pin-drop intimate folk of Candice McLeod to the literal wall-of-sound of Melbourne 5 piece Eastbound Buzz.

Yackandandah’s This Way North are a dynamic duo with a big sound and Neale Williams will offer something quite unique with his repertoire of life on the road stories in a blues and roots style.

Tickets can be purchased through Humanitix here. So jump online and get yours early as well as a Membership to Indigo FM for 2024.

All enquiries regarding RADIOWAVES can be directed to [email protected]

If you can’t make it along to RADIOWAVES – head over to our Membership page and peruse our Membership options.

This project is made possible by the Australian Government’s Regional Arts Fund, which supports the arts in regional and remote Australia. Radiowaves is supported by the Australian Government’s Arts and Cultural Development Program, Regional Arts Australia and Regional Arts Victoria.

We have some awesome Radiothon prizes too, for all new and renewing members including:

• a framed A3 size Victorian High Country Photographic Artwork from Kev McGennan
• tickets to 2024 Spring Ditch in Stanley (2 March)
• tickets to 2024 Yackandandah Folk Festival (22-24 March)
• tickets to 2024 High Country Hop (23 March)

The above prizes will be drawn in early December.

Indigo FM’s 2023 Annual General Meeting was held yesterday in Wooragee at the Community Centre.

Members voted to elect a similar group to manage the affairs of Indigo FM for the next year with office-bearers being:

• President – Scott Landells
• Vice-President – Greg Clydesdale
• Secretary – Tiffany Ellis
• Treasurer – Greg Bourke
• General Committee – Nigel Jones and Phil Fraser

One further General Committee positions remains open for the Committee to fill throughout 2023-24.

Members heard that Indigo FM had a successful year financially as well as with the many community projects we are involved with right across Indigo Shire – literally with our live music events from Kergunyah to Wahgunyah.

Our schools program has grown with regular podcasts from Wooragee Primary School joining the Yackandandah Primary School suite of weekly programs. Watch this space as more schools are coming on board in 2024!

Our live streams were bedded down in 2023 which was a long term goal ticked off.

Our Podcasts continued to record very strong audience numbers.

Indigo FM continues to be very well served by our Marketing and Tech-Programming Sub-Committees as these groups handle a range of projects.

We’re super excited about the year ahead and look forward to sharing them with you.

Click here to read our 2022-23 Financial Statement and President’s Report

Indigo FM is holding it’s 2023 Annual General Meeting.

Date: Sunday, 1 October 2023

Time: 5 pm – 6 pm

Venue: Wooragee Community Centre (Hall), Wooragee.

We welcome your attendance and strongly encourage anyone with an interest in helping with the running of Indigo FM to nominate for our Committee of Management. Written nominations on the form linked below may be scanned and emailed to [email protected] or mailed to The Secretary, PO Box 64, Chiltern VIC 3683. Nominations may also be lodged at the AGM.

If you can’t make it to the meeting an option to contribute to the Meeting via remote video link will be provided. If you would like another Indigo FM member to represent you by proxy, you may like to use the Proxy Form via link below.

Along with adopting Minutes from our 2022 AGM, election of Committee of Management and confirmation of Membership Fees for 2024, these are the only items of business permitted at an AGM as set out in the Model Rules.

The Agenda is below. Also our 2022-23 Statement of Income and Expenditure / Balance Sheet, President’s Report, 2022 AGM Minutes are all available via the links below.

We will hold a brief informal General Meeting following the AGM for those members who wish to participate.

Tiffany Ellis
Secretary

AGM Nomination and Proxy Form 2023

Agenda

2022 AGM Minutes

2022-23 Statement of Income and Expenditure / Balance Sheet

President’s Report

Here at Indigo FM we have been building strong relationships with young people across Indigo Shire for over a decade and 2023 has seen us take these partnerships to exciting new heights.

In the first of a series of articles we’d like to focus on our work with Wooragee Primary School.

Wooragee Primary School is located roughly halfway between Beechworth and the turn-off to Yackandandah on the Beechworth-Wodonga Road.

It has a standout Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden as well as some wonderful natural areas for the students to explore. Olive trees grow on the front lawns and the school entrance from the car park is adorned by a striking sunflower sculpture.

In mid 2021 while reflecting on the exciting shows being created by students from Yackandandah Primary School, our team wondered how similar opportunities might be offered to smaller remote schools who didn’t have the relative luxury of an Indigo FM studio 100m down the street from their School. 

Indigo FM President Scott Landells elaborates on this off-site program. “Not every primary school has an Indigo FM site in their town. We’d heard about the Rodecaster PRO which is a portable mixer unit with microphones and headphones and thought that if we acquired one we could hit the road and produce podcasts with remote schools. We submitted a community grant application to Indigo Shire and were successful. We approached a few remote schools and Wooragee Primary School were keen to come on board.” Landells said.

“Some training took place in 2022 and in Term 1 2023 we commenced creating podcasts and it’s been a great success. The students are a delight to work with and we think some have exceptional potential to host their own regular radio program on our airwaves in the near future.

We create approximately 3 podcasts per term, the podcasts being hosted by School captain Elena who brings in a rotating set of her fellow students from Years 2-5 to share the airwaves. Thus far we have heard Toby, Arden, Alice, Artemis, Finn, Poppy and Bella on these podcasts.”

Principal Angela Gray offered her thoughts regarding the partnership with Indigo FM.

“The students at Wooragee Primary School are all excited to be a part of creating a podcast with Indigo FM. Students plan out their program with news from the school and the community and with the support of Elena, our school captain and Scott from Indigo FM produce a professionally made podcast.”

You can check out any of these podcasts via the links below:

• Term 1 #1 with Elena and Toby
• Term 2 #2 with Elena and Arden
• Term 2 #3 with Elena and Alice
• Term 2 #4 with Elena and Artemis
• Term 3 #5 with Finn, Poppy and Elena
• Term 3 #6 with Bella, Artemis and Elena
• Term 4 #7 with Frankie, Artemis and Elena

The podcasts are also programmed for 9-10am Monday mornings on Indigo FM Online

If you’re reading this and from a small Indigo Shire Primary School, that’s keen to have Indigo FM create podcasts with your school, feel free to email us at [email protected] and we’ll discuss how your school can get involved.

Indigo FM is proud to partner with Arts Rutherglen and Destination Rutherglen to present The Weeping Willows live at Wahgunyah School of Arts Hall on Sunday 8 October. It’s a chance to again highlight original songwriting and storytelling which has been a focus of this partnership from mid-2022 onwards.

3 x CMAA ‘Golden Guitar’, Australian Folk Music and Music Victoria Award winners, The Weeping Willows (Laura Coates and Andrew Wrigglesworth) are a couple of old souls, steeped in Bluegrass tradition and draped in Gothic Americana imagery. They regale their audiences with stories of sunshine and romance, God and The Devil, murder and decay. Real music.

Indigo FM President Scott Landells said Indigo FM is excited to be able to partner with Arts Rutherglen on this event. “The Weeping Willows have been creating their deep southern gothic style of Americana for around a decade, impressing festival audiences everywhere. They have just returned to our shores after a successful tour of the UK which followed them wowing crowds at this year’s Yackandandah Folk Festival. And it’s a pleasure to be able to come on board a promote their concert at Wahgunyah on October 8.”

Tickets are $25 for general public, $20 for members of Indigo FM, Arts Rutherglen and Destination Rutherglen and $10 for young people (13-17yo). They are now on sale, so grab yours here.

Support act is Mieke Bosland.

Bosland is a young queer person, singer/songwriter and producer from Beechworth, Victoria. Mieke loves performing and sharing her stories through original songs, who impressed at the 2023 Busking Rutherglen event.

“We have been observing Mieke for a couple of years now performing at various local markets and events, including Yackandandah Folk Festival and this year’s Busking Rutherglen. She has an impressive repertoire of original songs which is quite an achievement considering she is yet to turn 18yo”, Landells said.

Mieke is currently studying music production at Wodonga TAFE to accelerate her journey as an artist and allow her to produce and release original work in the near future.

Mieke enjoys gigging throughout northeast Victoria, where she has played alongside bands and musicians such as This Way North, Benny Williams, Melbourne based Robert Baxter, Asha Bright, Swim State and Bad Ibis.

Indigo FM’s latest Playlist 21.0 is officially on our airwaves. It is highlighted by 900 songs featuring 72% Australian content and 15% Indigenous content. As we cap the maximum number of songs per artist at 2, this allows for 650-700 different artists. The Indigenous content equates to 135 songs by over 100 different artists.

Indigo FM President Scott Landells explained that setting such ambitious targets, directs the volunteer-run radio station’s energy to a creative exploration of what music is available. “On this latest playlist we feature some remote and bush recordings conducted in Western Australia and Northern Territory. WA Music have an ongoing project they commenced in 2004. We purchased their most recent release Demos from the Ngaanyatjarra Lands (2022) and feature all 14 tracks on this Playlist. Another compilation we purchased recently was the Wantok Music Vol 3 album (2022). Wantok Music is a leading, not-for-profit Music Label representing First Nations and World Music groups of Australia and Oceania. And of course we also have a number of current day indigenous bands and artists such as Tia Gostelow, Thelma Plum, Charlie Needs Braces, King Stingray, Caiti Baker, Yirrmal, Birdz, Alice Skye, Briggs, DRMNGNOW, Miiesha, Emma Donovan and many more.”

“We’re also eternally grateful to the many record labels that send through their new releases on a regular basis, and to our volunteers who sort through them and put them forward for each playlist.”

As well as embracing diversity, Indigo FM Playlists are renowned for celebrating the unique and quirky. For example it’s quite usual to find long tracks clocking in at 7 minutes plus on Indigo FM.

This Playlist has 10 songs 7 minutes or longer headed by New York experimental veterans Swans, their hypnotic track “Paradise Is Mine” clocking in at 9:24, It’s closely followed by two local psychedlic tracks – King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard’s “Iron Lung” (9:05) and Even frontman Ashley Naylor’s guitar instrumental SPACESHIP (8:51). Also in that 10 is the much loved late 60’s classic – Suite: Judy Blue Eyes by Crosby Stills and Nash (7:24). And rounding out our 10 longest songs on this latest Playlist is Connecticut, USA 5 piece Goose with their track “Hungersite” (7:07). If you follow Goose’s Bandcamp page, you’d notice they release several digital albums by the week! What they have become adept at doing is uploading high quality audio recordings of their concerts to Bandcamp, usually the next day. In 2023 they have alread released a staggering 47 albums!!!

Landells explained the thinking behind what some may see as an exercise in indulgence. “So much of radio everywhere peddles the idea that a song can’t be longer than 4 minutes, yet think of the classics – Dylan’s ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ rambles along over 6 minutes, Led Zeppelin’s ‘Stairway To Heaven’ runs just shy of 8 minutes, Arcade Fire’s ‘Reflektor’ comes in at 7 1/2 minutes. Then there are shorter ‘radio edits’ where a great 4:30 song is cut back to 3:30. Why? We like to think our audience has a decent attention span and appreciates long-form music. We think our Playlist which in total clocks in at around 55 hours and has 900 songs ought to have room for pretty much everything. 10 x 7 minute songs out of 900 is around one every 5-6 hours. At the other end of the scale there are 17 songs that run under 2 minutes. You will hear all genres on our Playlists – world music, Britpop, folk, hip hop, soul, indie rock, country, bluegrass, indie folk, grunge, shoegaze, electronic, Americana, punk, blues and obviously a lot of traditional indigenous music.”

On the quirkier side of things we feature a track by a 70yo artist Leonard “Lowdown” Brown who will soon release his debut album.

Artists local to NE Vic / Riverina on Playlist 21.0 include Well Into Winter, The Northern Folk, Asha Bright, Eastbound Buzz, Brent Shirley, Dean Haitani, Liv Cartledge, Surprise Chef, Toby Mobbs, Fanny Lumsden, Luke Mac, Jack Gregory and Rhys Duursma.

When it comes to artists having appeared at the 2023 Yackandandah Folk Festival, we have that well covered too with Dean Haitani, The Burning Hell, Emily Barker, Hannah Schmidli, The Water Runners, Gretta Ziller, The Humbuckin’ Pickups, Jayda Jean, Daniel Champagne, Fred Smith, The Beez, Tim McMillan & Rachel Snow, The Weeping Willows, Jarrod Shaw and John Smith.

Indigo FM’s Playlist supplies around 70-80 hours of music per week to each site. It’s what is played from midnight – 7am 7 days per week as well as around 40% of the “daylight hours” air time between 7am and 8pm at night.

You can tune in to a live-stream of Indigo FM any time here

Little Quirks may be young but don’t let looks fool you.

Sisters Mia and Abbey and their cousin Jaymi are aged 20, 23 and 26yo but this NSW trio have been at this indie folk caper for some time. Little Quirks combine soaring vocal harmonies, effortless folk pop songwriting, catchy melodies and pounding rhythms,. They are a breath of fresh, unbridled joy. 

Indigo FM, Arts Rutherglen and Destination Rutherglen are thrilled to be bringing the dynamic trio to Rutherglen as the perfect prelude to the 2023 Busking Rutherglen Festival.

Indigo FM’s Scott Landells describes Little Quirks as the ideal band to kick off the weekend’s Busking championships.

“It’s hard to imagine a better fit or story arc. Little Quirks are the real deal. Their Facebook page has cute videos of them busking at Terrigal Beach and local markets in 2014, aged 11, 14 and 17. Last year they did 2 tours of the UK and also the huge South by South West Music Conference in USA. We are so lucky to have them come to Rutherglen.” 

Tickets are $50 or $45 for members of Indigo FM, Arts Rutherglen and Destination Rutherglen. Available here or from the Facebook event.

Doors open 6:00pm, Music from 7:15pm.

Get your tickets now before they sell out.

Seating is in tables of 10, so round up your group of friends now. If it’s just you or a small group, you can join a partially filled table – the layout which you can view via the venue diagram on our ticketing website.   

A bar will operate serving wine and beer – strictly no BYO alcohol. You can however, bring your own food – snacks and nibbles. And enjoy a fabulous night of live music.

Adding even more authenticity to the Busking vibe is support act – up and coming Melbourne singer-songwriter Sadie Mustoe.

Sadie at 19yo has “years” of busking at folk festivals all around Australia, winning a swag of awards along the way, most recently at Queenscliff Music Festival’s Foot-in-the-Door 2022 and Runner-up for Folk Alliance Australia’s ‘Youth Folk Artist of the Year’ 2021.

She is described as a modern-day storyteller who takes audiences on a journey as seen through the eyes of a Melbourne teenager. Featuring a unique and captivating voice, her folk-pop songs are gripping and personal.

Indigo FM’s Scott Landells has been following Sadie’s progress for a while and describes her as a prodigious talent. “I fondly recall a 14yo Sadie taking the stage at Chiltern’s gorgeous, iconic Star Theatre on Australia Day 2018 in support of a Canadian touring group Belle Miners. At 14 Sadie confidently delivered a set of captivating original songs. In those intervening 5 years, Sadie has obviously grown into a young adult and is unsurprisingly pursuing music studies at Melbourne Uni. She is a very exciting talent.”   

As part of our focus on original songwriting and storytelling, Indigo FM in conjunction with Arts Rutherglen and Destination Rutherglen, present Minor Gold live at Wahgunyah School of Arts Hall on Friday 21 April.

Minor Gold are the new Americana duo featuring ARIA nominated artists Tracy McNeil & Dan Parsons. From the opening strums of acoustic guitars, you are drawn into a world, wonderfully reminiscent of such classics like Van Morrison’s ‘Astral Weeks’ & Eric Clapton’s ‘461 Ocean Boulevard’ – transported down the hedonistic highway of early 70’s grooves, 60’s folk, and the romance of 80’s pop. Their stunning vocal blend, deft guitar playing and classic songcraft, make Minor Gold the real deal.

“We’re terrificly excited to have the opportunity to bring such a class act as Minor Gold to the area. We’ve been fans of both Tracy and Dan’s work for around a decade. They’ve released many outstanding albums between them with the band Tracy McNeil and the Good Life and also Dan’s work as a solo artist. Their new duo act is going to be a gorgeous night of Americana sounds and harmonies”, said Indigo FM President Scott Landells.

Kicking off the year with performances at Folk Alliance International in Kansas City USA, and making their Australian debut at Port Fairy Folk Festival in March, Minor Gold have hit the ground running. This show is not to be missed.

Support act will be Molly Jane. Molly is a young local singer-songwriter who has several years of tuition under the watchful eye of Andrew Baker at Victory Lutheran College and also Sal Kimber in her role as Indigo Shire Youth Development Officer from 2016-20.

“We’re always keen to encourage and offer performance opportunities to the region’s young up and coming songwriters and Molly fits that bill. She was in a cohort of young people whose performance opportunities were impacted very much by Covid as they were in their mid-teens at that time. She has written a number of her own songs and will showcase them along with a few covers as the opening act for Minor Gold”, Landells said.

Tickets are starting to sell quickly so grab yours here

Indigo FM Presents is excited to announce two fabulous back to back shows on the weekend of 4 and 5 February featuring the exceptional storytelling and songs of Joel Havea.

The first show is at Kergunyah Memorial Hall on Saturday evening 4 February (6pm start); the second is at Rutherglen Convent on Sunday afternoon 5 February (3:15pm start) and is co-presented with Arts Rutherglen and Destination Rutherglen.

Tickets are on sale now and are strictly limited. You can click the links above to head to the ticketing site for each show.

These shows are a must-see with Havea featuring songs from his 2020 album Ki ‘a Lavaka which explored his Tongan heritage as well as songs from across his career including recent single Feels Like July.

Havea has spent the past 12 years based in Hamburg, Germany with occasional return visits to Australia and his family home in North-East Victoria.

Indigo FM President Scott Landells said that the volunteer-run radio station is excited to have the opportunity to host these shows. “At Indigo FM we have always valued highly original storytelling and songwriting, and Joel is a great exponent of the genre. He is a warm, charismatic performer with an impressive repertoire of songs across several albums as a solo artist and also with his German based band. Joel also has strong ties to north-east Victoria having grown up in Yackandandah, so it’s a great honour to be able to present these shows”, Landells said.

“Supporting Joel is 12yo Staghorn Flat country music sensation Jack Gregory, a very young singer-songwriter and performer who is just beginning what is sure to be a fascinating career.”

“We also love the concept of getting music into funky spaces and venues like Kergunyah Hall and Rutherglen Convent are spaces we just love. There’s so much character and stories these buildings hold and we’re looking forward to adding to that history on 4 & 5 February.”

Further details can be obtained via email addresses below:

• Rutherglen – [email protected] or [email protected]
• Kergunyah – [email protected]

We’d like to say Merry Christmas and thanks for your support throughout 2022. Feel free to tune in any time to our 88.0 FM sites, our internet radio station or a podcast. You can find them here.

2022 was a busy and productive year. Our podcasts were again immensely popular and received thousands of plays and downloads.

We also achieved a long-held goal of setting up live streams for each of our 88.0 FM sites which we offer in conjunction with our Internet Radio Station. Huge thanks to Tony Stockdale and the team at First National Beechworth, Yackandandah Community Centre and Michael Rosenbrock for their invaluable assistance in achieving this goal. In 2023 we aim to tidy up our website for easier access to our streams and current live programs.

Xmas Playlist On Air Now!
This week we have switched across to a Xmas Playlist of around 270 songs that will run for the next few days. It’s on air now at each site as well as on our Internet Radio Station. You can view it here Xmas Playlist 2022

Rather than traditional Christmas Carols, we have selected the many fun and quirky songs that have been written and recorded about Christmas over the years. 

Many presenters will also be re-charging their batteries although a few will opt to continue through the festive season. These next few days we have a special program schedule – see below of by clicking this link. It includes a mix of current and shows from our archives for your enjoyment. These include:

• A Funky Christmas with Chris and Lauren (2015)
• CLAP Christmas Carol Special (2020)
• Eclectic Avenue Christmas Extravaganza (2022, 2020 and 2015)
• Bullfrog’s Roadhouse Stocking Stuffer
• various end of year reviews from Dean (The Blurred Crusade), Bernie (Friday In My Mind), Scott (Everyone Deserves Music) and the team at Aussie Music Weekly

Our volunteer admin team will be taking an official break from 24 Dec – 4 Jan, back on deck on Thursday 5 Jan. We’ll catch you then, all set for a big 2023.

Wishing you and your loved ones an enjoyable, safe and relaxing Festive Season.