Michael Gudinski

Michael Gudinski is a Melbourne-based entrepreneur and businessman who is a leading figure in the Australian music industry.

He was educated at Melbourne High School and Mount Scopus, and was a school friend of several young musicians who later became prominent on the Australian music scene.

Gudinski began promoting rock dances around Melbourne while still in his teens and moved into music agency work in the late 1960s. This led to the establishment of the Consolidated Rock artist agency ca. 1970.

In the early '70s Gudinski founded a short-lived music magazine, Daily Planet, but the publication failed to reach a wide audience and consistently lost money.

Gudinski and fellow music agent Ray Evans formed Mushroom Records in late 1972. The company's first album was an ambitious triple-LP live recording of the 1973 Sunbury Festival. In its first few years Mushroom released albums and singles by some of the most significant Australian rock acts of the period, including Madder Lake, Mackenzie Theory and The Dingoes.

Mushroom struggled to survive for its first two years, hampered by lack of airplay on commercial radio, and the company reportedly came close to folding on several occasions. But the label was dramatically pushed to the forefront of the Australian music scene in early 1975 following the massive success of Skyhooks, whose debut album became the biggest-selling Australian LP ever released up to that time.

Around the same time, Gudinksi was convinced to sign expatriate New Zealand band Split Enz, who had recently relocated to Australia. Although they had only moderate success for the first few years, Split Enz scored huge success in 1980 with the release of their album True Colours and the hit single "I Got You", which marked the emergence of Neil Finn.

Through his ownership of Consolidated Rock, which later evolved into the Premier Artists /Harbour Agency group, Gudinksi became the major player on the Australian east coast booking circuit, and enjoyed a virtual monopoly on rock music bookings in Melbourne for much of the 1970s.

In partnership with others (including Frank Stivala, Philip Jacobsen and Ian James) he has diversified his business interests to include most sections of the music industry including venues, concert promoting, merchandise, publishing and recording.

Often described as the "father of the Australian music industry", the garrulous and media-savvy Gudinski became a highly visisble public figure and was proabably the only Australian record company executive whose name was widely known by the generalk public. Although typically portrayed as as an energetic and outgoing character, those who have worked with him can attest to his volcanic temper.

In the early 1990s Gudinski sold 49% of Mushroom to News Ltd, who already owned Australia's largest record label, Festival Records. He controversially sold his remaining 51% share to News in 1999 for a reported AU$60 million, claiming that the sale was a protest against the changes to Australia's parallel record importation regulations.

In 2005, shortly after the sale of Festival Mushroom's recording division to Warner Music Australia, Gudinksi purchased Festival's publishing division.

Gudinksi's current business interests include:

• Liberation Records
• Mushroom Music Publishing
• Mushroom Pictures
• The Harbour Agency/Premier Artists - booking agents
• Frontier Touring Company
• Agent Mad - event promoters
• Music venues: The Mercury Lounge, The Ding Dong Lounge

External links

• The Mushroom Group
• Liberation Music
• Mushroom Music Publishing
• The Harbour Agency
• The Mercury Lounge