Latest / HEAVY Music Interviews / From FRANKIES To DINGBATS PARTY PIT - Keeping Music Alive With JORDAN McDONALD

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From FRANKIES To DINGBATS PARTY PIT - Keeping Music Alive With JORDAN McDONALD · HEAVY Music Interviews

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Heavy Magazine. This is Jordan McDonald. I'm super thrilled to
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: be speaking with Chris here and Heavy and introducing a
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: few new concepts that are going to be flying out
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: there in the Sydney landscape in coming weeks, coming months,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: coming days. I think specifically we're speaking about Dingback's Party
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Pit today. Yeah, I mean, I've got a first for
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: hard rock and heavy metal, and especially with my entire
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: crew and community by my side, and so this is
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: one of the reasons that I started this event, and
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: so I'm really thrilled that Mark's aft asking me some
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: questions about it. So let's rock and roll. Let's go fantasy. Jordan,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: thanks for joining us this evening.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: My friend.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Thanks Jed. Great to be here, my pleasure.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: So we're here primarily to talk about your exciting new
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: Sydney monthly music adventure that ding That's Party Pit. But
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: first something, it's important that people actually know who you
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: are and how we came to this point. So let's
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: go back in time to December the eleventh. That have
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: been you. Many people might remember called Frankie's Pizza like
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: fill us in on that particular dark dark night.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: I'm glad other people remember it because I don't remember
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: much of it. I mean I'm supposed to. Yeah, A look,
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: that was ten years of my life and it was
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: ten years well spent. It was fantastic and it's one
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: of these like classic examples of the whole fake it
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: till you make it thing. I had this brilliant business
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: partner who pulled me into the mix when I was
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: selling him beers because I used to tour with bands
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: around the United States and I'd come back to Australia
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: and the closest thing to a craft beer would be
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: your Little Creatures Cooper's or whatever. But there wasn't too
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: much in the way of funky options out there, and
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: so I started distributing all of these interesting beers into
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: the country. And there was this dude who had this
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: great little venue called Shady Pine Saloon, and I'd sell
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: him a bunch of American beers, and one night he
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: pulled me aside and he was like, hey, man, I've
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: got this idea. I want to do a rock and
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: roll club. I have a space in the Sydney CBD.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: It's a totally untried and untested area for this kind
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  Speaker 1: of thing. At that point in time, everyone would go
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: to the CBD to go to work, finish work, go home.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: You just wouldn't hang out there. And he had this
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: concept to throw a gig every night of the week,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: seven days a week till four am. And he thought
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: I was a solution to it. And I didn't know
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: what the hell I was doing, but I said, yes,
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: let's do this thing. And you know, fast forward ten years,
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Frankie's Pizza had built. Its name is, you know, like
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: I guess, a bit of a trusted force in the
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: rock and roll sort of world. And December eleven or
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: whatever it was, twenty twenty two, that was exactly ten
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: years after the night that we opened the Joint. And yeah,
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: thanks for drawing me back to that occasion, dude, because
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: I had like lots of great and terrible nights in
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: that venue over the course of its history, but I'd
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: never had a night like that one. It was really weird.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: It was It was a really bittersweet. It was so strange.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: It was like a place I was really proud of
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: and I didn't want to see it get fucked up.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: But like part of that evening was that people went there.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: They were celebrating the place, but they were also kind
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: of pulling it apart while they were there, and so
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: it was a little bit strange. It was I had
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: to sort of surrender it to the people. Everybody wanted
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: a slide to the place, and they were, they were,
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: they were physically taking pieces of the venue with them,
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: and I had to turn off this protective thing inside
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: of me that it were like usually I'd be like,
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: don't take that thing off the wall or don't do
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: that thing. But on this night, it was it was like,
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: why would you stop people from taking things? Because it
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: ain't going to be here tomorrow. Let them take it.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: And so it was just it was otherworldly, man, it was.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: It was. It was a different night. It was a
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: really different night. Yeah, I've not experienced anything like it prior,
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: and I hope not to experience it again because it
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: didn't really sit right. It was strange.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: I remember at the time, mate, like everyone wanted to
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  Speaker 2: know what was next, Like with Frankie, stay the same
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: and simply move the dress? Would it be revamped elsewhere?
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: Would Southern stimuli come out? Like people really didn't know,
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: And at the time, you didn't really know yourself, did you.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: No. Look, one thing that I did know is that
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: I never wanted to do exactly that again. I'd never
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: want to replace that, replicate that, And I think if
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: if you tried, it would be like belittling what we'd built.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: You know, it was what it was. You can't repeat history.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: We just need to start fresh and try something else.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: And you know, there are plenty of fresh ideas under
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: the sun, and let's explore us. You know, Frankie's was
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: just so beautiful for what it was, and I I
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: love like talking with people about crazy shit that went
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: down in that space, but I don't want to do
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: it again. Did no sort of let's let's let's make more.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: People will be glad to know that since Straking is closed,
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: you sort of branched off into doing things with restaurant
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: and of course you're drumming, but you're coming back now
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: with Dingbat's Party pet Like it's one night a month
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: at this stage, but it's going to beat some music.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: It's going to be run by yourself, who people know
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: and love for help and out in the music industry.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: But where did the seeds for Dingbats actually start?
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: Where do they grow from? Uh? Well, I started this
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: new company and this came out of I hadn't planned
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  Speaker 1: this thing, but a bunch of characters came out of
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  Speaker 1: the mix and were like, Hey, I'm hoping to start
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: a new music venue, or I've got an existing venue
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  Speaker 1: and I want to start live music arm. But I
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: don't know how to put all of the pieces together
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: to get to that place. And I don't know much,
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: but I do know how to do that, so I can't.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: I built a business around it, and it's been it's
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: been tracking quite nicely. But there was just this one
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: occurrence that went down a couple of months ago. We're
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: a friend of mine, he's got this venue, and I
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: know the venue. I've kind of dug it for some time,
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: but I had no idea that it had this underground space,
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  Speaker 1: completely unutilized, unrealized beauty in its kind of like imperfections,
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: and it's just like this really tacky but fucking amazing,
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: subterranean red light fucking dive. And I just walked in
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: there and I just felt like all of the eighties
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: hair metal gods calling in my ear to do something.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: It was like, at the moment you walk down there,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: you hear raight round and round, just que up and
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: play nice nice, Yeah. I didn't anticipate doing a night
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: like this, but a friend of mine has this great venue.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: He's got a basement space that was not being used
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: and he just wanted to sort of bounce off me
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: with it for some ideas. And I went down there
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: and I was like, man, this is like, this is
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: like fucking Hollywood nineteen eighty seven. It was like the
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: Viper Room, And so I just thought, let's just trial
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: this one event Dingbat's Party Pit. It's going to be
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: party rock all of the you know, the soundtrack is
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: going to be upbeat, party rock, hard rock, heavy metal,
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: fucking hair metal, whatever you want to call it. We'll
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: have a good time, and we're going to throw on
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: a whole like plethora of live bands, but they're not
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: going to be bound to any one genre. It's going
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: to be, you know, the wider scope of hard rock,
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: which is kind of what I really enjoyed doing it.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: Frankie's Pizza was like mixed bills, not sticking to like
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: a grind bill, a power metal bill, you know, a
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: classic rock bill. I'd like combining all of those worlds
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: and then you get really juicy kind of mix of
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: clientele that man, we're all like minded and we all
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: get down and we all get along, and they provided
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: the bands are good. It's cool. You don't all need
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: to fit into the same you know, parameters. So that's
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: what I'm doing a thing bats and the the response
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: has been pretty fantastic so far. Everyone's like hitting me
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: up from a fire and people are traveling from all
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: over the country to come to this thing. And I'm like,
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: holy shit, I created a bit of a monster here.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: But here's the thing. This is this is the cool bit,
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: and this is the bit that took me a minute
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: to figure out, but I've figured it out now. I
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: saw this space, I thought, this is such a fucking
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: six space. I need to do something here. I'm gonna
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: I'm going to trial this rock and roll nightclub.
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: And there's not a single rock and roll nightclub exists
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: in Sydney, Australia. Right when you're on tour, the show end,
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: there's always a place to go, there's always a cherry bar,
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: you know, in Sydney.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: Since Frankie's left, there hasn't been the Cherry Bar. There
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: hasn't been the Rainbow Bar and grill. There's nothing comparable
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: in Sydney, and so That's why it was such a
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: no brainer to do this Dingbats thing. But it's only
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: a once a month and the room is so fantastic,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: and I've put the word out there and I've kind
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: of been inundated with interest from agencies and promoters and stuff,
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: and I just think there's a greater opportunity there to
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: not have it as a daily rock room. I think
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: it can be used as a ticketed two fifty to
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: three hundred cap space that's going to widen the scope
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: of what's available for touring artists passing through Sydney. And
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: it's not a function room. It feels amazing. And you
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: know when you buy a ticket to a gig and
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: you go there to see the headline act, you walk in,
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: you watch the show, you buy two drinks and you leave.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: This place is the opposite of that. You get there
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: early when the headline act comes on. It might even
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: be a deterrent to all of the debauchery that you've
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: already been getting up to, and then you know they
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: finish and you hang out another two hours. This is different, man,
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: And so this is something that I'm not going to
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: go into business since Sydney doing anything, and unless it's
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: rewriting the script a tiny bit right now, let me
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: just get this through.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: At the moment, it's a once a month music event,
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: Digbat's Party Pit, but you're looking to broaden that by
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: getting international and national touring accent on other nights. Is
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: that correct?
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's already, it's already starting. So I still
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: mean to need to name and brand the room, but
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: I'm going to be booking that room as a fresh
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: space for acts to come past and play in. And
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: once a month there will always be Dingbat's Party Pit
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: as a rock and on my club, but every other
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: night of the week we're going to be farming it
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: out to promoters. Nice.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: Then you're talking about location before. I don't know much
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: about Sidney. I believe it's in the CBD underneath the
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: arcade bar. Is that correct?
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: What do you mean you don't know much about Sydney.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: You're here every other week, dude, I don't know where
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: I'm going. I'm not over away from Benny to Venue. Yeah.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: So it's just around the corner from the old Frankie's
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: Pizza site. Sixteen O'Connell is between the main CBD district
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: and Circular Key it's very central, it's accessible by train
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: and all that bullshit. But there's been a little bit
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: of a I guess lag in time where there used
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: to be a lot of this sort of stuff going
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: on in the CBD, but now all of the live
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: music events have kind of been spread from outside of
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: the CBD and placed in suburban areas and you get
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: a whole bunch of action in Sydney in the Inner West,
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: which rules. It's like a vibrant part of Sydney, But
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: the CBD has been it's it's kind of been a
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: little bit of a drought for hard rock and heavy
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: metal for the last couple of years, and I'm hoping
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: to bring a bit of that action back. Yeah.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: Now, the opening night, the official opening party, is on Friday,
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: March seventh, which is going to feature Mannequin Desk Squad.
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: You've got Poisonous, Big Red Fire Truck, Bloody Legends and
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: the Hush, as well as those of other things like
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: Tatoo competitions, DJs. It's going to be a real party.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: But where can people find out more information about that
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: and get tickets because I'm sure it's going to sell
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: like hotcakes.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, we just put it on sale last week,
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: and yeah, it's it's it's moving, dude, And I'm I've
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: actually reduced the capacity a little bit because I'm pretty
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: sure there's going to be like a shit ton of
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: guests and VIPs and all that sort of stuff coming
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: through the room. And it's it's a three hundred capacity space,
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: but it's it's it's tight, it's up close and personal.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: It's very much got that like intimate kind of vibe
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: to it. So I don't want to oversell the thing,
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: of course. Yeah. Yeah, so I've pulled it back a
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: little bit. Yeah, man, it's it's ripping. It's on sale
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: now and you can find more information on that at
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: the Dingbats Party Pit Instagram page. Tickets are sold through
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: emosh Tics. You can probably follow a heavy link, you
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: can follow an Instagram link to Dingbats. It's it's all there,
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: and we've got a number of partners now who are
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: all giving equal push to this campaign. So Young Henry's
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: beers behind it. Jack Daniels were who I really wanted
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: to get behind it because they just speak to the
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: whole nature of the event and they're putting a national
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: camp and paign behind the whole thing. Starting next week.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: So all of my homies I'm kind of urging them
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: to get tickets now before the proposers steal all of
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: the tickets. Don't worry anyone, and I'll let you in.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: It's oh, I'm going to be working. I'm actually I'm
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: actually really looking forward to hanging out there on the
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: front line and breaking all of the rules myself.
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: Well, before we go, Bro, you mentioned this briefly before,
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: but this has all sort of come about due to
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: a new company that you've started called night Ride as well.
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: So tell us a bit more about that.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, the night Right thing came about completely auorganically.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: It was I'd worked for a whole collection of restaurants
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: and venues where I was putting in unique entertainment, and
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: that's of my thing. I don't like to rehash anything
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: that's already been done. The reason I'm here is to
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: connect venues with the artists who are going to really
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: kick ass in their space, and artists with new places
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: to play that aren't on the same tide touring circuit.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: Because there are so many great eligible spaces in Sydney
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: that just haven't been realized yet. They're there, they're you know,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: they're being used for a purpose other than what they
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: could be properly exploited for, which is bringing hard rock
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: and heavy metal into a new spot. And so that's
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: kind of that's kind of what I'm doing here, dude,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: and you know it was a bit of a risk,
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: but it's working so far.
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: But on your brother, While I'm sure I'm not the
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: only one who wishes to the world of success, but
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: you've You've done a lot for the Australian music industry
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: over the years, bro, with all your little ventures made,
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: and it's good to see back and growing bigger again.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: Thank you, brother. It was great to talk