Photograph: Joshua Watson
This week saw the launch of Brisbane Noise, our fifth immersive multimedia feature.
It explores first-hand the music, the characters, and the history of the Brisbane underground music scene: from BYOs to pop-ups, from goon-sacks to distros. Framed by the tragic death of one unifying voice, the story celebrates an aggressive freedom - from commercial restraints, from rules, from location, where no venue is off-limits.
The makings of the feature all began with a chance conversation with Danny Venzin, member of the band Nite Fields and label owner of Lost Race Records. I was interviewing one of his artists, Cedie Janson, for Ransom Note and the phrase 'Brisbane Noise' came up - I was immediately intrigued.
As Danny provided more information about the music, the history and the people, the format of the feature began to write itself. When he mentioned "a guy who used to run a pretty influential zine called Negative Guest List" and the story of Brendon Annesley emerged, I realised this was something very important.
Of course I needed a man on the ground in Brisbane - enter Joshua Watson who became our photographer, videographer and also interviewer for the Time Machine segment. His skills and natural journalistic talent proved invaluable as well as being a key source of information. He plays in the band Sewers and Kitchen's Floor and runs the label Virtual Cool and in 2012 he produced his own unique documentary on the Brisbane Underground which is really worth checking out here.
Although the feature took a long time to come to fruition it was definitely worth it and it was a real honour to tell the story. A big thank you goes to all the interviewees who were so generous with their time and the artists who allowed us to use their music as a soundtrack: Kitchen's Floor, Thigh Master, Cedie Janson, and Breakdance the Dawn; this really brought the feature to life.
See why Brisbane’s underground music scene is like no other here.