I’m forever thinking about the future of live music.

How we keep it going, how we protect what’s left, and how venues, artists, media and audiences might need to reshape themselves to suit whatever comes next.

This particular style of brainstorming has led me down some colourful paths, including one where Talking Boony dolls reign and gig-guide ‘police’ scanners somehow sound like a perfectly reasonable idea.

For anyone who missed the mid-2000s, Talking Boony dolls were little plastic versions of Australian cricketer David Boon that occasionally delivered messages during the cricket.

They were promotional toys you got free with a carton of beer. And they spoke unexpectedly, in unison apparently, from people’s lounge rooms.

This seemed incredibly advanced at the time.

Which got me thinking: wouldn’t it just be easier to bring back the Talking Boony dolls?

Except this time, it’s a banana.

OK, hear me out.

A ‘police’ scanner but for gigs

A small YELO banana sitting on the counter at your local pub, record shop (definitely at Bad Habit Nambour), café or takeaway. Every now and then it crackles to life like an old police scanner and announces the gigs happening nearby.

“The Warehouse. Townsville. August 14. PNAU.”

Static.

“The Presynct. Nambour. July 18. Screamfeeder.”

Then silence. Maybe a little Calan Mai jingle for good measure.

Until the banana decides there is something else the people need to know.

It would be particularly useful for people who want to know what’s happening without spending their entire lives scrolling through social media, deciphering posters or accidentally watching 47 videos about someone reorganising their fridge.

People could simply walk past a talking banana and receive the news.

A bit like Principal McGee in Grease delivering important, albeit random, announcements over Rydell High’s loudspeaker, if the whole setup looked more like an old cheeseburger phone.

“Attention students. There will be live music at Norton Music Factory on Friday night.”

This is where my mind goes when I think about music infrastructure.

Not apps. Not algorithms.

Countertop bananas. That’s where it’s at.

Leaving the weird bits in

I’ve also been watching The Big Lez Show, an Australian animated series made largely by Jarrad Wright from Tweed Heads using basic software, with Wright doing much of the animation, voices, music and sound himself.

It is strange, handmade, unmistakably Australian and completely committed to its own world.

It made me think about how much creative work gets polished until the thing that made it interesting has disappeared.

Sometimes the oddness is the point.

YELO music editor Penny Brand has been speaking about this on YELO’s ABC Sunshine Coast segment with Sarah Howells. The Dreggs had deliberately left imperfections throughout their new song “Golden Lights”, instead of cleaning every tiny error out of the recording.

And turns out Billy Howler’s track “Sagittarius” was released with a similar view, coming from an old live studio demo he found while going through his files.

Rather than leaving it there for some possible future day when it could be perfected and over-produced, he had the original recording mastered and released.

As Billy told me: “Messy can be fun a lot of the time.”

Maybe that is what these musicians are teaching us about the future of music.

At the very least, artists seem increasingly willing to leave some of the roughness in. The imperfect take. The strange little sound. The moment that was never meant to become the final version.

And I think audiences want that as well.

Not necessarily work that is unfinished or careless, but work that still feels human. Something with fingerprints on it.

The future may not need to be more polished. It may need to be more honest, more handmade and more alive.

What live music is really competing with

Live music is no longer only competing with other gigs. It is competing with phones, streaming, the couch, early nights, tighter budgets and a whole range of ways people now choose to spend their time.

Some people drink less. Others would rather have a puff on the 420 with their tiramisu, over six schooners with uncle Steven. And then there are most of us who just want something cheap, easy and a bit different.

Which means venues and promoters may have to think differently too. Dessert bars. Earlier shows. Cheap tickets. Free haircuts with phat beats at Blackflag Mooloolaba. Talking bananas.

Not every solution has to involve another platform, another login or another perfectly targeted digital campaign.

Maybe the next good idea will be something simple, physical and slightly ridiculous that people actually notice.

Leave the mistakes in.

Release the old demo.

Build the homemade cartoon.

Let the banana talk.