all photos by Josh Robinson and Chris O’Shea unless otherwise noted

Melbourne The city that does not sleep. It’s energy grabs you like wind that rushes accross a desert plane. Many sleepless night and train rides. The citty we reside in before the migration to the Other side. We see the people as the days fly by. Rushing to get that next suit tailored. Oh the life of the city that gives us our youth. We dedicate to you, this issue.

Dusk rolls in as daylight slips away, we anticipate the many delights of the night that you offer

Full of fun and riders, never quit that kid inside -Looner Park, St Killda

The great city, founded in 1835 and built around the Yarra River

A sleeping music bowl awaits the madness- Botanical Gardens, Myer Music Bowl

Cultures with many diverse lifestyles coexisting together

Toby Knox is a 32 year old musian that resides in Brunswick, Melbourne. Living the Melbourne dream, playing gigs around North Melbourne. There is a fairly definitive line drawn through Melbourne which divides the North and South of the Yarra River. The South is St Kilda, Prahan and places along the Bay. The North is Fitzroy, Collingwood, Brunswick, Northcote. Toby is definitely a self proclaimed man of the North. Embracing Melbourne’s shared housing living trend, he lives in an old vintage building that used to be a brothel in the 1950’s.

“Sharehouse living is interesting, with 7 of us living together, I guess there is potential for personality clashes, especially given those who tend to live in share houses are what you’d calle ‘alterantive’ types. But everyone in the house gets along. And with the house being as big as it is and each of the rooms being fairly large, there is more space than you’d think. So, at least, in my house, its a whole heap of fun and way less hectic than you’d imagine.”

I find it hard to believe that there isn’t some crazy stories there?

“Actually its not too crazy. We are all around 30 years old so our out-of-control party years are probably behind us. But recently I had a bunch of musicians staying with me from the Sunshine Coast, 5 plus me meant that there were 6 of us all staying in my room together, which was a little too crowded! Their last night in town we had a gig at the ‘Retreat’ in Brunswick, which was literally 3 doors down from the house. Afterwards it ended up being a large night out on the balcony making up random songs and trying our best to sound like Tom Waits, Though when one of the friends went into a housemates rooms and was told to “F**k off ’ I knew it was probably time to call it a night.”

That friend was Mitch Davis, you’ll probably hear more of him in the future; incredible songwriter.

Talking about song writing, you are in the midst of recording your first EP - Toby and the Wayne Fortune - The First Song of My House.

“Should be finished within the month. After that, who knows what we’ll do with it. Hopefully get some interest maybe head to Europe with it.”

After playing live all around the country for the past 6 years, how does it feel geting to record filallly?

“Recording music is one thing, and thats actually pretty easy, with programs like Garage Band being free on Macs, or programs like Pro Tools or Logic. I’ve been doing that for ten years in different studios in Vic, QLD and even France. But finally being able to record your music like you’ve always heard it in your head is liberating. Thats were I am now. With the guys at Press Records in Brunswick - pressmelbourne.com -I am finally understanding how to go from acoustic bedroom to studio production. Andrew Padula at Press Records is recording it. I’ve put all my ideas down in logic and I’ve being back an forth there for about a year talking about how we’re going to do it and what ideas he has. Malcolm McDowell is also on board as an engineer and he is bringing some really cool ideas on what we can do and how we can do it. Brad Knights on Drums and my brother Danny on bass are the two elements that I needed others to play. After that I’ll put down all the electric guitar/piano/cello percussion and whatever else...”

Congatulation and looking forward to hearing the finished product soon. To keep up to date with Toby’s EP have a look on this website www.pressmelbourne.com.

TOBY KNOX

Creative souls sharing a life of art and design

Provider of characters

Fire and movement melt your mornings and noons together

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Bedroom parties and laughs

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Born in 1943 Jack Charles was well and truly a child of the Stolen Generation. He spent many of his formative years in The Boy’s Homes of Melbourne which he took on with his usual carefree outlook. “It was alright by me – I was happy to assimilate. The only trouble was I wasn’t ever going to fit in. I’m fucking brown mate.” In 1971 he founded the first Aboriginal theatre company, Nindethana and has performed with the cream of Australia’s actors and directors including Geoffrey Rush, Neil Armfield, John Romeril and Tracey Moffat. His work has spanned feature films, TV series and hundreds of plays including The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, Bedevil, Ben Hall, The Marriage of Figaro and the 1972 Bastardy, the film about the life of Jack Charles, which the film title comes from. Jack was awarded the prestigious Tudawali Award at the Message Sticks Festival in 2009, honouring his lifetime contribution to Indigenous media. Today Jack can be seen riding his bike around the city and is considered a Iconic Ledgend.

Jack Charles

Melbourne Is Jammin with The Ocean Party

Pics: Marlon Platt

Pics: Marlon Platt

The Ocean Party, after a string of excellent single re-leases, their first of many full album. Their debut al-bum, The Sun Rolled Off The Hills, is a brilliant, roll-ing, laid back affair. The entire album was recorded at home by the band, mixed by Jack Farley (St Helens, Twerps, Beaches) and mastered by Casey Rice (Witch Hats, Aleks and the Ramps, Orbweavers). We shoot the Melbourne boys some questions to find out about their journey to this debut album.

Why the move to Melbourne? “We grew up in Wagga Wagga in regional NSW. Its a nice enough place but if you have a want to play music your options are limited at best.”How long has The Sun Rolled Off The Hills been in the making? “The album was written between 2009 and 2011, but was recorded in September 2011. As a first al-bum, its compiled of the songs we had been playing live, some new, some old.” What inspires you to make music? “Being human we are inspired by what is around us, other musicians as well as our environment. Alot of Ocean Party stuff is inspired by nostalgia. Being musicians isn’t about being the newest, hottest thing for us, we work on songs because we like well-writ-ten music and lyrics.”  Your music is so fitting to the bands name. How did the name come about? Were you driving down the Great Ocean Road jamming?“If only it was so romantic! No, the name has very little meaning to us, we just liked the sound of the words.” Would you say melbourne has transfromed your style since coming from Wagga?“Definitely, its hard not to absorb whats around you, and there is a lot around in Melbourne. From Wagga the best you have to draw from is triple j, and that can be less than inspiring. Although, looking back Wagga has inspired our music very much, or at least our experience of it.”  What your favorite part of Melbourne? “We’re living in Northcote at the moment and we’ve always lived in the northern suburbs. We’re pretty comfortable where we are at the moment, but there are so many places in Melbourne where you could

base yourself and get used to. In our opinion though, the Northern suburbs is where you want to be for music, good venues, good pubs, interesting people.”Do you boys have jobs? Or are you just gigging your face off and living the dream? “We work enough to get by, but we’ve certainly got a lot of time on our hands. If the dream is donkey kong country and a little cash for the occasional cask of wine, then I guess you could say we are living it.”Where do you play regularly? “We play around our area, we play The Northcote Social Club occasionally, The Gasometer, The Grace Darling, generally we play around Fitzroy and Collingwood.”What’s the plan for this debut album. Are you going to do an Australian tour then a world tour? “We just finished our album tour, we played Adelaide, Sydney, Wagga and Melbourne. We’re working on the next album at the moment, that should be out by the end of the year and so we’ll hopefully try to see a few more cities on the next tour. If anyone has any lounge-rooms to play at we’d be happy to play most places, as long as theres a carton of beer and some beds for us.”     The song writing in your songs is very elegant and there seems to be great depth to your lyrics. Do you guys all write, what’s the writing process for the band? “We all write together. Someone will bring an idea to the band and we’ll all develop it. It doesn’t really matter what we begin with, it could be very simple or something already quite developed, but as long as there is a starting point to get us into writing mode, something will happen.”

Melbourne the second largest city in Australia, has gained international recognition for its unique and diverse street art culture. During much of the 70’s and 80’s, the rebellious youth was strongly influenced by the graffiti of New York. Melbourne residents could witness the new street art from inner city suburbs to suburban railway and tram lines. In later years, the popularity of stencil art in the UK struck a spark and Melbourne embraced this art form and made it their own, creating a vast awareness of the concept of street art.

Stencil art, amongst other forms, like woodblocking, sticker art, poster art, and reverse graffiti started to appear all over the streets of Melbourne. Tags are becoming less and less popular as the Melbourne public are embracing street art as a legit art form and tagging just simply as vandalism. A strong sense of community ownership and a DIY attitude exists amongst the street artists in Melbourne, who consider themselves pioneers of progression through the awareness they create through their works.

These days, Melbourne galleries within the central business districts and inner city areas are glorifying the art form and featuring it in exhibits. However, Melbourne’s train lines still represents the main location for the graffiti, Hoiser Lane being the most famous of laneways for street art.

In this next section, take a look at of some of the impressive street art I snapped while cruising around the city one afternoon with Josh Robinson. Never a dull moment or wall in Melbourne.

Four seasons in a day and a shoe on every block

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