by Naomi Mapstone
Inspiration comes from strange places.
Canberra’s first and only music distribution service, headed by well-known local performer and musical agent Tony Magee in called Crunchy Frog.
Monty Python enthusiasts may recall a particular chocolate by that same name (“tender baby frogs… lovingly enveloped in chocolate, when you bite in the little bones just go crunch”) from the Monty Python Whizzo assortment of chocolates a few years back.
Magee certainly did. He liked it so much he named his company after it.
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| Top, the Crunchy Frog logo and, below, the man behind the label. |
Inspiration for the actual business came in a much more predictable way. Magee was encouraged by a “flurry” of CD’s produced by local musical groups such as the Canberra New Music Ensemble and the Vocal Group from The Canberra School of Music and decided selling recorded music would be a natural progression from selling live music.
At the time, he was busy selling a CD by eight-piece funk-rock band The Throbs, Mind Behind the Sky, to local stores and had made some of the contacts he needed to start selling CDs by other local performers.
Larger record companies do not usually even look twice at people on the local level. “I’m small fry for small fry,” Magee said, which is perhaps a bit of an understatement of the work he has taken on.
He has so far signed a number of local talents, including The Throbs and Folked Up Jazz band Straight Ahead, as well as receiving a number of inquiries from interstate bands.
The Throbs featured this week on Nine Network’s Wonderworld and their CD has been selling reasonably well in Canberra but a bit slower in Sydney, Magee said.
Straight Ahead’s Folked Up Jazz CD has been selling great guns in Canberra, but again, slower in Sydney.
Magee has a number of other projects on the drawing board, including a CD from The Singing Waiters and a classical piano four-hands CD from Mark and Anna Jurkiewicz.
Canberra’s continued expansion will ensure a steady flow of local talent seeking a way to sell their wares. Churchy Frog, it seems, has chosen the perfect time to leap into a ever-growing pond with a great deal of potential.
First published in The Canberra Times, July 16 1994
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