Overview
While incest is usually looked down upon — in a Marty Mcfly, Luke and Leia, Woody Allen and co sense — the Brisbane's music scene has actually taken the idea, worked it liberally and made it all the rage. Bands are supporting each other, trading members, and even forming fresh collectives all under an umbrella locality, which has created a musical climate fuelled on collaboration over competition.
Strange Yonder is just one music management group, dabbling in events and promotion, that's found good for the bands under their wings, and the hopeful talent each holds.
"Strange Yonder is Kurt and myself," says Trent, founding member of the independent record, artist management, and event promotion label. "We do believe that James Murphy is the third member even though he has never heard of us, thought about us or even knows that we are the only two members of the James Murphy appreciation nation," he adds, with a cheeky glint is his eye.
They are a partnership who have based their management style on organic, communal means, over the Us vs. Them approach that's traumatised music scenes since the birth of bands. "Live music in our opinion is the heart and soul, blood and guts and shit and piss of the industry," he says. "It's everything that is good and great about what we do. At our core we are simply lovers of landscapes brought on by sound and try to involve ourselves at every level."
The duo's meeting and eventual collaboration can be pinpointed to one single night, an empty promise and a few illegally downloaded episodes of The Sopranos. "We originally got started by chance meeting," says Trent. "Kurt had put an event together and I didn't want to pay 10 bucks to get in, so I said I'd push the event around a bit on social media if he gave me a plus one."
The rest of the story is a little hazy, resulting in a no-show on Trent's behalf — The Sopranos long taking blame. Not long after, Trent found himself at a gig, graced in the musical presence of the duo's current lovechild, The Ottomans.
"I knew Kurt was involved with them. He was playing bass for them at the time as well as managing them, so I contacted him to book them," says Trent. What came next was their own take on creative collaboration over competition that's spawned the success of so many bands and management groups.
"In a way we were competing against each other creatively so we decided to join up in a more structured way and see if we could create a little momentum off the back of what we were both doing," he says.
Strange Yonder has since taken the reigns of western-psych rockers The Ottomans, Tsun, Silas and The Seasons, and their biggest act: long-haired, dream spinner Karl S. Williams.
"Everyone was, and still is at each other's shows supporting each other," Trent says. "When any of our acts are recording we all get together and share in the process."
On the side, Strange Yonder puts together sold out shows across the Gold Coast and Brisbane, curating single and LP launches as well as tours. Earlier this year, they hosted international rock icons The Oh Sees, with bass guitarist Petey remarking, "We haven't played a show that fucking crazy in more than two years."
Less than three years old, Strange Yonder have built a creative realm that handpicks talent, simultaneously fuels it as a collective, and emits the bi-product of a uniquely creative family, glory-filled gigs, and the sweetest of sweet tunes to match.
"All in all, what started as a hobby, born out of necessity to get involved, has grown into something that consumes time, triggers frustration, break hearts, gives boners, loses sleep, pushes boundaries, and deeply satisfies the both of us … but we wouldn't want to be anywhere else or have it any other way."