Posted August 27, 2008
Flip Out! stakes a claim as Australia's
ultimate DIY festival
The U.V. Race.
By PATRICK EMERY
The end of the winter months signals the beginning of the Australian music festival season. Splendour in the Grass, the Meredith Musical Festival, Big Day Out, Queenscliff, Port Fairy Folk Festival, Chill Island ... the list is endless. But this year there’s a new kid in town, packed full of attitude and promising a sick time. That kid is the Flip Out! festival in Melbourne, organised jointly by the Stained Circles and Aarght! Record labels.
A labour of love for its promoters, and a focus of local and national musical quality – with a sprinkling of obscure overseas acts thrown in for good measure – Flip Out! promises to be more than a linear aggregation of bands. Held over the entire Corner Hotel complex, with record stores and Gimme Shelter DJs holding court in the front bar, Flip Out! is a testament to the enthusiastic and mutually supportive Melbourne independent music scene.
The genesis of Flip Out! is in the disparate plans of a bunch of local music lovers to bring a couple of overseas acts out to Australia. Johanna Greenway and Dan Stewart, owners of boutique independent label Stained Circles were in the throws of organising the tour for a couple of French bands, including one-man primitive blues band King Automatic. Contemporaneously, Richard Stanley, Onyas bass player and one third of local independent label Aarght! Records, was discussing the logistics of bringing American cult punk legends M.O.T.O. (Masters of the Obvious) to Australia, with his fellow Aarght! label owners, Per Bystrom and Mikey Young.
Super Wild Horses“Richard had been planning to bring out M.O.T.O. for ages,” Young says. “And by the time he got around to doing that it was about the time that Johanna and Dan were planning to bring out some Frenchies,” he says. “Yeah, a friend of ours wanted to organise a tour for a couple of French bands, and he asked us to co-promote it,” Stewart says. “We’d been toying with the idea of doing a kind of festival of the better Melbourne bands, and some interstate bands, and use that as a way for these bands to play a really massive shows to a lot of people, rather than a couple of smaller shows in town,” he says.
The other catalytic factor was Young and Stanley’s attendance at the Goner Records festival in Memphis in 2006, which had featured Young’s band Eddy Current Suppression Ring. “Me and Richard also came back from Goner last year – I think that was Goner number four or five – and thought there’s no reason you couldn’t do that,” Young says. “If you kept doing it more people would come, and it was just get better and better”.
King Automatic (FR)The decision was made to pool resources, bands and logistical capabilities and put on a local festival that showcased both the best – the organisers’ humble opinions – local bands, and allowed the overseas bands to play to reasonable sized crowds. “There’s a lot of good music festivals in Australia, but there’s not really a consciousness in the line-up of bands at the larger festivals about what is going on in with bands that are active in music in Melbourne, that are putting on shows and putting out records and that go to shows and that work together,” Stewart says. "The festival also demonstrated the community spirit that pervades the Melbourne independent music scene. “I guess in the last three or four years there’s been a lot more – in my opinion – bands working together and putting on sicker shows. There’s a high amount of enthusiasm for music in Melbourne, for the stuff that we’re doing.”
Initially it was planned to have a two-day festival held over a couple of venues. “But we realised we wanted to do a strong first year, and build on it over time,” Stewart says.
And then there was the issue of the festival name. Like choosing a band name, this was no easy matter. No one’s prepared to admit to the existence of whiteboard or brainstorming session, but there was considerable debate before a title was agreed to.
Deaf Wish“The name took so fucking long,” Stewart says. “We actually had a night where everyone came over, got drunk and sat down. Sat there for about three hours, suggesting names and everyone going ‘urggh’. And then someone – it was Richard – said ‘what about Flip Out!’ and no one said ‘urggh’. So we had to go with it, had to lock it in. No complaints were allowed after that point,” Stewart says.
In true DIY punk fashion, the festival organisers believe their personal relationship to, and enthusiasm for, the bands on the bill, is an important part of the festival.
“The important thing about it is that we’re the people that go to shows, who put out records of the bands that we like,” Stewart says. “We’re in the bands that are playing, we’re actively involved in the music happening, as opposed to someone who promotes a show and gets people to play, like ‘these guys will pull a crowd’, or ‘these guys are interesting’, ‘these guys will fill up a spot’. Whereas all the bands playing here we have some personal connection with,” he says.
“They’re all either friends or we deeply love what they do,” Young adds. “I guess the line-up has turned out a bit more garagey than we thought – one thing I’ve noticed in the last few years is that a lot of the bands I like are in different scenes, and I think people just want to play with good bands now, rather than just, say, doing a hardcore show or a garage show. So hopefully it’ll end up in that direction so we can just put on whatever we want,” Young says.
The set-up for the Flip Out! is impressive – the entire Corner Hotel complex will be utilised, with the Gimme Shelter DJ playing records in the front bar (“there will definitely be Bob Seger,” quips Young), while upstairs will be a more mellow area.
M.O.T.O. (USA)“Upstairs there will also be music, but it will be relaxed. Upstairs will be a place for people to go, relax, have a cigarette,” Stewart says. In addition to the DJs, from two til six o’clock there will be record shops operating in the front bar. “That will shut up shop by about 6, when the drunken footy crowd rolls in,” Young says.
And in the main band room, spread over two stages will be the bands, including local bands Eddy Current Suppression Ring, Deaf Wish, Super Wild Horses, The Stabs, The Frowning Clouds and Beaches, interstate acts Straight Arrows, Dead Farmers, Pink Fits, The UV Race, plus overseas acts MOTO (US), King Automatic (France) and Knife Fight (NZ). “I think what’s awesome about this line-up is that most of these bands have played together at smaller shows but a lot of them are really, really new,” Stewart says.
The order of the bands is significant. While the choice of headlining act – Eddy Current Suppression Ring isn’t surprising, the order of the bands is being developed to ensure bands that wouldn’t ordinarily play in front of large crowds get optimum crowd exposure – including the overseas bands.
The Pink Fits“The order isn’t what you’d expect,” Stewart says. “There’s not like a hierarchy of who’s done what when,” he says. “We tried to put it together so that there’s different stages of the night, so that people who wouldn’t be exposed to bands at times that they wouldn’t expect to,” Stewart says. “People will have to approach a band that would ordinarily open up a gig being one of the feature bands of the night,” Stewart says. “Or if they don’t rock up early they might miss a band that they would expect to see – so I think in that respect, the line-up is well put together,” he says.
Both Young and Stewart hope to enjoy the festival, notwithstanding their logistical and administrative responsibilities.
“It’s basically going to be a show that we want to go to,” Stewart says. Stewart is sure the crowd – and the bands – will have a good time, and hopes he’ll be able to transcend the organisation dramas to imbibe the good vibes and excellent music. “It’ll be a night that we can’t really enjoy, because we’ll be running around like fucking idiots making sure everything is done. But it’ll be the best show we’ve ever been at,” Stewart says.
