iDIDJ Australia Didgeridoo Cultural Hub

I'm curious ~ when did you begin playing? In the early 90's there was somewhat of surge in interest in the Native flute. I wonder if this is also the time that popularity in didgeridoo arose as well? If it did what caused this interest in "primitive" music?

I began playing in the early 90's (1991) after watching a presentation. Prior I had not witnessed anyone playing. I don't think there was much interest in this country back then....

My parents told me we've seen a busker in London when I was 3 y.o. and I was totally amazed at that time already !
Though the first memories I can recall are in Australia back in 1992, listening to Yothu Yindi
Then when I got back to France, Jamiroquai began to be famous with his first albums on which Wallis Buchanan was pulling the didj.
Jamiroquai really is the band that made the didj' famous in Europe in the 90's.
Newer French generations of players are often attracted by Zalem or Gauthier, the two modern French top-players.
Or Ondrej Smeykal and Dubravko Lapaine in a totally other type of style.

I discovered the didj many years ago when watching grainy black and white ethnographic film footage. I immediately became very interested in it back then...but that was well before the days of internet. I think the boom in didj popularity kind of paralleled the spread of the internet. I mean...back in the old days it would have been impossible for me to get a hold of a real didj, or to communicate with Guan on the other side of the globe, or to use Paypal to buy a stick from him. IMHO, I'd say the didj always had great potential but it was only in the last two decades that the web was able to bring the didj into our lives.

I brought a small didge back from an Australian holiday back in 1999 purely as a souvenir along with every other Aussie souvenir I could find because I wasn't sure I could ever go ever go back again! Met a new partner 3 months after returning who was Australia mad and we went again in 2002/3 with our 9 month old baby so another ( I am am embarrassed to say) white fella didge came back with me(in my defence I knew absolutely nothing about it's origin, authenticity or the implications of purchasing a "fake one at that time).
In the meantime I discovered a well known internet didge shop that supplied "aboriginal instruments" as I had started to realise my previous errors and wanted to but only genuine ones from now. I still had no idea about The real McCoy "trad instruments". I bought 3 of these but after gaining more experience and "discovering" trad makers I became increasingly sceptical about this companies ethics, suppliers and methods of manufacture so any further purchase from them stopped(the 3 didges have been sold).
From then on armed with more knowledge and a commitment to support Traditional makers and communities I only purchase such instruments from people whom I know who have the same ethics as me. I started practising playing trad (I play nothing else now) in about 2007 but have made it more of a personal goal to improve in the last 2 years or so..

Paul

LoL I almost forgot about that place. Are they still in business?

If we have the same place in mind then yes. I even made an appointment to have a chat with the proprietor whose name begins with a "S" when I went to OZ back in 2008 and to be fair he welcomed us (Me, my partner and our son) into his home and was very pleasant. In a nutshell as far as he is concerned his instruments are genuine aboriginal instruments (he does not indicate or imply that any of his instruments are trad ones, I need to make that clear), he does employ aboriginal artists to paint them and says he buy his blanks from aboriginal cutters, albeit them being not consistent with their supply. My concern was over the amount of work done to them apparently by non aboriginal's ie the finishing of the blanks prior to painting and all those processes applied to the bores which they are so proud of. I wasn't going to make an issue over it, he was a nice guy running a business making didges and putting a bit back into the aboriginal community(and I don't doubt he does). Whether you can by your own standards and investigations though call them "Genuine Aboriginal Didgeridoo's" that's for each individual to decide and their conscience to dictate. I just made my mind up from what I had seen and heard not to buy any more instruments from there and to stick(no pun intended!) to what I know and expect to get when I consider buying a genuine aboriginal instrument, trad or otherwise.

Paul