At Toowoomba’s hybrid arts collective TheGRID there’s a constant state of motion; a sense of energy and purpose that fill the maze-like rooms of the upstairs building on Ruthven St.
In one room, there’s a continual whirl of activity as an art exhibition is prepped to be opened later that night. In the corridors people stop briefly to talk about where to leave boxes or if Zumba is still on the next morning.
In a day’s time, the room I’m in now will play host to a new initiative for Toowoomba: TheGRID Sound’s all ages music venue. Right now though, true to the multipurpose nature of the space, ropes that are used for circus class dangle from the ceiling, chairs are scattered around, and a stage is pushed to the side, ready for its debut.
Mark Chalmers, of TheGRID’s music subcommittee, describes how the room will be set up for tomorrow night’s show.
“The stage will be in the middle, just to prevent that thing that regularly happens at smaller gigs where the stage is down there and people come in and stay down here,” he says, gesturing to indicate the expanse of space between the door and the back of the room.
“I don’t know what it is – it’s like this invisible wall goes up. People hang out up the back and the band’s up there, for some reason they don’t want to get close to the stage. There’s like an invisible barrier until it gets more crowded. And then you’ve got no choice but to move forward, but until then everyone hangs back. No one wants to be the first to step forward.”
Creating a space where people are invited to step all the way in and feel at home is what TheGRID Sound is all about. As Mark, and co committee member Sarah Jane Edwards explained to me on the eve of TheGRID Sound’s debut [12 June], this is a venue that’s for everyone to use and appreciate.
Read on for more of my chat with Mark and Sarah Jane.
Mark Chalmers and Sarah Jane Edwards of TheGRID Sound
Can you tell me a bit about TheGRID?
Mark: It’s been going now for about three or four years. It’s been a not-for-profit incorporation for about 12 months. Basically this space now runs without the help of any grants – it covers its expenses, which is rent and utilities, through regular tenants who use the space regularly for lessons and things like art exhibition openings.
The people who put a show on pay a certain amount and they’ll run a bar to make money as well. All the money goes straight back into the not-for-profit incorporation and same with TheGRID Sound. It will make money from running a bar and the bands will make money from the cover charge. Cover charge goes to the band, the bar goes to the GRID, and everyone who works volunteers.
Was it always the plan to host a music space?
Mark: We have always hosted the occasional gig up here and there was quite often a resident band but now that it’s a not-for-profit incorporation a decision was made to stage something more regularly.
The plan at the moment is to try and do two events per month – so fortnightly events – plus any other touring acts that may contact us to perform as well.
What kind of names are you hoping to attract?
Mark: Up and coming bands. We have already got half a dozen local musicians on board and we’re hoping to get at least another half a dozen involved so that all the local bands have a bit ownership and investment in the space and want to help out and work and volunteer.
And of course people in bands in this area know people who are in bands in Brisbane and the coast so we’ll get bands from there involved from time to time, and then we may get contacted by other groups. We do have two Brisbane hip-hop bands coming and playing on Thursday [18 June] night – the first touring bands that will come through.
And so your first gig is Rock vs Metal?
Yes it’s called Rock vs Metal and there’s my band, which is the rock band called Project 62, we’re purely an original band playing all our own music. We’re playing with a band called Zenith and they’re heavy metal covers band.
And there’s guest judges. Sarah Jane who’s in Zenith, she organised the judges. I think she stacked it in her favour
It’s not really a competition so much – it’s just an idea.
Who are the judges?
Sarah Jane: I’ve got Tommy Muz, he is the lead singer of Malakyte. They supported Anthrax at the Hi Fi. He’s coming up because I wanted somebody who knows his stuff, somebody that’s a little bit of a celebrity. He supported Sepultura as well; there’s a huge following for Sepultura but they’re still underground for a lot of people. But for us, for me, it’s huge.
And then there is Grace Drummond – she sings at the Irish sometimes. I heard her doing Snuff by Slipknot. When you hear Snuff coming from the Irish you check it out! She’s great. And her partner, he’s going to come too and he’s going to dress as Jesus.
Zenith on stage opening night
Is there a prize for the rock vs metal winner?
Mark: Pride. It’s just pride
Sarah Jane: It’s just for fun. I think of it as two bands who are entirely different, I do covers, these guys do originals, we’re all friends – just coming together for Toowoomba. I mean that’s what we want.
Mark: That’s kind of what we want the space to be about. We don’t really want there to be limits on what types of music plays here and indeed we don’t even want there to be limits on the type of music for one gig.
Most gigs seem to be a rock gig, or a metal gig or a punk gig, or a hip-hop gig or whatever and – being people who are into all sorts of music – we’d be very happy to see more gigs where there’s a hip hop band and a punk band and a rock band or whatever it might be so that people who like those three types of music can all come. And hopefully you expand your crowd and people can watch different types of music that they may not usually watch and just appreciate it.
Sarah Jane: Exactly, that’s right.
Mark: People tend to be a little too close-minded about the type of music that they like. We just want people to be open to music and be willing to come and listen to a range of different genres and hopefully we can make that happen. Hopefully we can bring a range of ages to the gigs as well and that’s one of the benefits of having the gigs here, is it’s not a pub and younger people can come here.
What do you like about heavy music?
Sarah Jane: Everything! I can’t narrow it down.
I’ve been listening to Metallica since I was 11 and I’m 40 this year and I still listen to them every day; at least one song every day. If someone said ‘island: just one band’ it would have to be Metallica. Of that genre.
They were the first guys that said: “we’re not wearing spandex, you’re at the wrong gig”. There was that whole poppy glam metal, which still was good. I mean I listened to Poison, I did. And Skid Row and Stryper.
Mark: But they were just flash-in-the-pan bands really, they didn’t endure. They were as much about an image as anything else.
Sarah Jane: That’s right. It’s all about marketing. But Metallica were raw. They were: “we’re going to drink, we’re going to give you the finger if you piss us off”.
They toured solidly for two years – can you just imagine doing those songs over and over? And they’re still doing it. In that Through the Never – he still comes out and does Creeping Death with passion. And that’s what it’s about. And they just do it so well.
I suppose that’s a drawcard for our band. I’m fronting a band that’s all male songs and they’re hard; I’m singing Maiden and Slayer. Hallowed be Thy Name – that is basically rap. At the end of that song I can feel the pain from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet. It’s a hard song. And that is a message: women can do it, do it, do it.
That’s the other thing about metal too. A lot of the songs are about war, death, teenage angst, drugs, but they’re strong messages. If anyone cared to listen and read the lyrics, they’re thought provoking, they really are. “I’m a skater boi, I’ll see you later boi” – there’s no thought in that. These are real issues.
What’s the youngest age you’d recommend comes here?
Mark: I wouldn’t imagine 10 year olds and 12 year olds without their parents but you know parents want to bring their kids. And this is also a family space and the gigs are about music and not about drinking. Yes people can come and have a drink, but they can bring their family and come and watch music.
And it’s for people who are 16 or 17 years old who are like “oh geez I wish I could go and watch a band”. They used to have all ages gigs 10 or 15 years ago. I used to catch a bus to Brisbane and watch all ages gigs in the afternoon before they had the gig in the evening.
Sarah Jane: I did too.
Mark: But that doesn’t seem to happen anymore. They reckon it’s about 15 years old where you start getting passionate about types of music and really getting into music and I think those kids deserve a lot more opportunity to go and watch bands.
Sarah Jane: You hear stories of the big four [metal bands] that they would tell the story of standing there and seeing a particular band and that was the defining moment of “that’s it I’m playing guitar”.
And school is that place where you know you’re constricted. But with teachers like Mark…
Are you a teacher?
Mark: I’m a teacher.
Where do you teach?
Mark: At Mt Lofty. We’ve organised a little bit of a partnership with the school to bring kids down who want to learn how to do sound and set up PAs and stuff like that. It’s good for them to do that. There’s always a few kids that are really interested in that stuff and they want to learn how to put the PAs together but at school they don’t get a chance to mix a really good band very often.
It’s real world experience they can see what bands are trying to make it or build a following what happens.
What you want to see happen with the venue? What do you want to achieve?
Mark: We just want the venue to become a place where all ages can come, all types of music can be come and it’s just going to be about appreciation of music. It’s a community. TheGRID itself is a hybrid arts community and we want the community to be involved and we don’t want to exclude people – sometimes people can feel very excluded from the arts.
Why do you think that is?
Mark: I don’t know. Sometimes people are a bit standoffish of people who look ‘artsy’ or they look a little bit ‘scary’.
Sarah Jane: – they’ve got a ring through their lip god forbid!
Mark: Yeah they’ve got piercings or look a bit strange. We just want people to come to this venue and for it to be about the music.
And I’d like to see the band make a few. How does a band record an album? You’ve got to be able to slowly accumulate some funds. So if a band can make $100 or $200 at their gig and do it a few times then they can actually do something.
Unfortunately everybody else makes money before the band makes money. The sound guy makes money, the publican makes money and is there money left over: here you go band. What was the gig about? Who were the most important ones at the gig?
Sarah Jane: Of course we want to make money but this is more about looking after the bands. You want them to feel at home, you want them to be looked after, they have a job to do. And it’s a hard job it really is. You want them to be hydrated or have drinks or even a packet of chips.
Mark: Bands are treated very well in Toowoomba. A lot of venues don’t treat bands very well. Gone are the days when a band would play at a venue and the venue would pay them reasonably well and feed them and give them drinks. These days it’s like the venue wants the band to feel like they owe them something for providing a venue. But the band is coming and trying to bring a crowd to your venue to utilise your drinks and services and that’s been forgotten.
Sarah Jane: I think that’s happening in the bigger cities. But the places I play here are great.
So all the bands that come here, you’ll have someone that does their sound for them and someone to look after them and they can collect everything off the door?
Mark: That’s right TheGRID itself will make the money it needs to cover its rent and utilities from the bar and the band takes the door.
TheGRID Sound’s debut night attracted 50 people and saw metal crowned the winner in the Rock vs Metal debate.
To find out when the next TheGRID Sound gig is on make sure you like TheGRID on Facebook and keep an eye on The Chronicle and on posters around town.
Thanks to Mark for supplying the images of the bands from the opening night of TheGRID Sound. Featured image is Mark’s band Project 62 on opening night.
