Support Your Local DIY at No Front Fences 2017

15 March 2017 by Sancho Murphy

Interview by Bianca Annamie


Kicking off this weekend is the three-day music and arts festival No Front Fences, presented by local legends Mulgara. Wanting to further grow the already thriving Canberran community, Mulgara saw the opportunity to pull together an event that encompasses a range of creative avenues, ensuring their ethos of inclusivity continues throughout the festival. 

Starting on Friday evening with a huge house party, the event is spread across three venues and incorporates local and interstate music acts and a range of visual arts, with Lobrow super chuffed to share the heat on Saturday night with what we love – bands and art. Sunday winds down at Macleay Farm with music, markets and a vegan brunch. 

No Front Fences has something for everyone; so we got the deets direct from the source, and learned the back story behind both Mulgara and No Front Fences, what you should check out this weekend, and why it’s increasingly important to #SUPPORTYOURLOCAL! 



Give us the background story of Mulgara:
We’ve all found the Canberra music scene inspiring. It’s hard to be part of such a vibrant, talented, and welcoming community and not want to get involved and help the scene continue to grow. It’s been a pretty organic process. We started off doing a show for Sydney emo punx Hannahband, and things have evolved from there.  We have big plans for the future and are really looking forward to seeing Mulgara grow; we’re hoping to get more into the art and zine side of things this year especially.

How did the idea for No Front Fences Festival come about?
The team putting together No Front Fences for you is Cam, Phoebe, Bene, Amy, Jim, and Dave. Putting on a festival had been a pipe dream for a while, and after gigs like Jim Dusty’s CD launch in November that got a really good response from the local community, we realised we had the support to put on something bigger. We wanted to not only support the community, but also bring in interstate bands and show them how great the Canberra music scene is, especially as it can often be overlooked by outsiders. We also wanted to use it as an opportunity to support local artists and creators, which we’ve been hoping to do for a while, so we have live art, an exhibition, and a mini DIY market alongside the music each day. Mostly we were enthused and inspired by the local music scene here and wanted to create a big event to celebrate it. 

 

 Photo cred: Dave McCarthy (Jim Dusty CD Launch at Mulgara, 2016)

Literally the first hit on Google for “No Front Fences” brings up the ABC article “Why don’t Canberra houses have front fences?” – is this part of the story behind the weekend? How does it tie back into Mulgara?
Yes! We wanted a name that was uniquely Canberran and celebrated the city. 'No Front Fences', being iconically Canberran, fit the bill. We also loved that the name tied in with the Mulgara ethos of inclusivity. We don’t want fences, we want to be open and welcoming to everyone.


No Front Fences is split over three days, encompassing a whole weekend – what inspired this unique layout?
We don’t think of the weekend festival as a unique layout, it’s common in the Punk scene and some excellent DIY festivals have used it. We were inspired by Sad By Sad West in Sydney, Poison City Weekender in Melbourne, and Till The Wheels Fall Off in Launceston. We liked that we could give each show a particular feel thanks to the different styles of the venues, the musicians and the artists we have involved.

How do the three days and venues differ from each other?
Friday night is a house show at Dave’s – it’s mostly solo acts from both Canberra and interstate. We’re really excited to have punk dad Jamie Hay joining us on the night. It’ll be a bit of a party with our signature Mulgara punch, live art by some mega talented local artists and Rather Be Dead playing their first show in two years to finish off the night.

Saturday is going to take the party to a new level. It’s at Lobrow, and the lineup is all bands so we’re hoping people will have a boogie and let loose. We’re really excited to be hosting a number of interstate artists alongside local legends like Capes and Helena Pop. We’ll also be exhibiting the work of local and interstate artists in the space.

Sunday is going to be very hang-over friendly. It’ll be a house show at Macleay Farm where we’ve been hosting gigs for the past year. Doors will be opening early with a vegan brunch and market stalls by local artists and zine-makers. We’ll have music all afternoon to ease you back to life after the weekend partying.




_____________________________________________________
Canberra, you good thing, 3 day pre-sales have SOLD OUT - but you can still get a limited number of separate event day tickets at the three different venues.

Facebook Event for more details.
Single Day pre-sales available through Brown Paper Tickets.