The campaign to rescue The Black Wreath, Alice Springs' only live music hub, rolls into Frankston as part of a six-city fundraiser.
A national run of gigs to save The Black Wreath hits Frankston on 12 September, with Psycroptic headlining.
The Frankston leg stacks six bands into Singingbird Studios from 4pm, with Psycroptic joined by Nembutolik, Womb To Tomb, Uncle Geezer, Fracture and ESPMayhem. It’s one of six shows going off at the same time around the country under the Blacken Forever banner, timed to land on the closing day of The Black Wreath’s crowdfunding push.
The venue at the centre of it all opened on 11 November 2011, starting out as a backyard studio bolted together from scrap before shifting into a warehouse with rehearsal rooms, a recording setup and both indoor and outdoor stages. Its founders built it after clocking how little Mparntwe / Alice Springs offered young musicians: nowhere to record, nowhere to rehearse and barely a touring act passing through. Nothing else like it exists for 1,500km.
Blacken Forever
- Singingbird Studios, Frankston, Victoria – 12 September
- Metro Social, Sydney, New South Wales – 12 September
- The Black Wreath, Alice Springs, Northern Territory – 12 September
- Ed Castle Hotel, Adelaide, South Australia – 12 September
- Mo’s Desert Clubhouse, Gold Coast, Queensland – 12 September
- Lynott’s Lounge, Perth, Western Australia – 12 September
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The whole thing is a scramble to stop the place being sold out from under them. The crew have until the campaign closes to raise $1 million, buy it outright and park it in a trust so it can’t be flogged off again. More than $766,000 has come in already, and fewer than 300 of the 1,000 life memberships bankrolling the purchase are still on offer. They’ve said the community effort that saved Melbourne’s Tote lit the fuse for the attempt.
There’s plenty riding on it. Last year more than 400 performers from 10 countries played the site, which moonlights as a record label and has sent regional acts to the Opera House and flown international names out to Uluru. The team reckon it now props up a whole local industry, and losing it would hit the remote communities that lean on the space hardest. After 15 years, it’s still entirely DIY and volunteer run.
Blacken itself kicked off in 2013 as the country’s first heavy music campout festival, held in the natural amphitheatre at Inteye-Arrkwe / Ross River Resort. Its next stretch, the Eclipse Trilogy, drags the festival to Victoria for the first time on New Year’s Eve 2027/28, so there’s a bigger local pay-off waiting down the track.
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