INDIE music is alive and well in Ballarat, according to a burgeoning alternative record label.
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Melbourne-based label Bedroom Suck will next weekend pack mini buses full of musicians, set off from Collingwood’s iconic Tote Hotel, and shuttle them up to Ballarat.
Coming along on the indie-full ride are Totally Mild, Terrible Truths, Milk Teddy, Great Outdoors and Lehmann B Smith – meeting up with Ballarat groups Lime Lagoons and Tropical Snakes.
Joe Alexander, who runs Bedroom Suck and plays drums in Terrible Truths, said regional cities like Ballarat, Bendigo, Kyneton and Castlemaine were producing plenty of indie music feeding into Melbourne’s vibrant alternative scene.
He said next weekend’s Bedroom Suck gig would be a taste-tester of Ballarat’s scene, which he understood was vibrant.
“That’s why we’re doing this gig – I’m interested in seeing what the scene is like outside Melbourne,” he said.
“You could almost call this trip a bit of a reconnaissance mission to find out what it’s all like.
“It seems like it’s really strong. There are a lot of creative types who live outside Melbourne and commute.”
Alexander, originally from Brisbane, said he’d created Bedroom Suck for the same reason – to encourage the growth and success of the indie music scene some five years ago.
“I’ve always been a musician and growing up in Brisbane there was so much good stuff going on and so many exciting new bands but without the avenues to get the music out in the world – no-one was recording and releasing the music,” he said.
“I thought I could help and it went from there.”
These days, Alexander has been jetsetting around record label conferences such as BIGSOUND in Brisbane and Indie Week in New York.
“We’re just trying to build a culture,” he said.
He said many of the bands visiting Ballarat next weekend had shared members.
“They all belong to an interconnected scene in Melbourne. We just chuck everyone in the car together and do the whole thing so we get bang for the mile,” he said.
The Bedroom Suck road trip gig will kick off at 3pm on April 30 at The Eastern in Humffray Street North.
Tickets are $15, available from www.bedroomsuckrecords.com
