James Young created an icon of Melbourne rock and roll when he took over Cherry Bar, a dive bar beloved the world over for its spectacular selection of rock and roll, a firm favourite of local rock fans and touring international musicians alike. James chats to the Void about the story of Cherry Bar, the christening of AC/DC Lane, Cherry Rock and booking bands he loves. Watch the video on YouTube (above) and listen on Soundcloud (below).
Beyond regular live music and late night good times, Cherry Bar hosts Cherry Rock, an annual laneway festival that treats Melbourne to some killer bands. Last year’s lineup included Red Fang, HITS, F**k The Fitzroy Doom Scene, Beastwars and lots more. Cherry Rock also served as the stage for Melbourne heavy metal band King Parrot’s Bozo clip. We’ll be featuring these bands in upcoming episodes but this time around, meet the man that a slew of bands credit with giving them their start. Get tickets to this year’s Cherry Rock here.
King Parrot have toured the world extensively over the last few years, most recently playing dozens of shows across Europe supporting Soulfly. On their first album, they chose to shoot the clip for Bozo at Cherry Rock (the only time a band have played a song twice in a row).
Matt Young (King Parrot): “James Young is a very passionate and involved man in the music scene. He’s certainly responsible for giving my band a leg up several times over the years. We love James Young – he’s certainly a very eccentric and out-there guy but [also] just a loving guy who puts his heart on his sleeve and does great things for our music scene down in Melbourne.”
Matt Hyde (Beastwars): “James Young is a [kind of] character that the world seems to be losing. There’s not so many people like that anymore who support art and are themselves stars … who enable so many other people to make music – and he guarantees them a crowd and has a great bar and he supports them – that is rare in the modern era of rock music.”
Christina: What are the shows that have stuck in your mind [to James Young]?
James Young (Cherry Bar): We’ve had the Black Keys, the New York Dolls, Graveyard, but also at the same time you’ll have a special moment where a little local band will play. As much as I love my Rolling Stones and paying a fortune to sit a kilometre from the stage, at the end of the day you can come and see the Drunk Mums for five bucks on a Wednesday night, and if you want to, you can touch the fretboard. They actually want you to touch the fretboard, they’re very needy, the Drunk Mums.
The greatest shows of my whole life have been the intimate, close ones. You know you’re at a good venue when you feel guilty if you pull out your phone, that is the case at Cherry. If someone made the mistake of putting the iPad in the air, there’d be a mini revolution. We look after each other … but dude, that’s not on.”
Meet another legend of the Australian music scene, Bob Lee of Brisbane punk rock venue The Beetle Bar in the video below. Bob puts together the legendary Brisbane gig the Sunday Rock N Roll BBQ, always a smorghasboard of rock and roll. These people make rock music happen. We’re just lucky they exist. Support these legends and keep our music scene healthy and the shows packed – it’s worth it.
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