FARMER & THE OWL WELCOME ‘THE RECORD ROOM’ TO F&O FESTIVAL!

Farmer & The Owl Festival is a festival for lovers of all thing’s music, and to enhance that experience we’ll be hosting the Record Room! A sprawling space in the Salt Building within the site, dedicated to all thing’s vinyl. Get ready to deep dive, rummage, uncover, and expand your collections….  

At the heart of Farmer & The Owl festival’s name sake is an independent record label that develops and releases artists from Wollongong and its surrounds. In conjunction with the label artists (Hockey Dad, The Pinheads, TEES, Tropical Strength & Totally Unicorn) the 2019 festival has been curated to help music fans discover some of the label artists favourites from around the world. 

Independent labels run like a family, the greater independent music scene is an extension of this. With a large number of artists on the festival line up part of those indie label families, we thought it only fitting we invited some of our favourite labels from around Australia to set up stalls and play DJ sets in the Record Room across the whole day.  

Australian independent labels, Spunk, Rice Is Nice, Pieater, Hotel Motel, Bedroom Suck, Our Golden Friend and Farmer & The Owl will host stalls in the Record Room. Independent retailer Music Farmers will cover releases from artists across the line up and a specially curated selection of must have vinyl from some the world’s best indie record labels. 

To soundtrack the Record Room, we’ve invited a bunch of our favourite vinyl DJ’s to spin wax! Spunk Records, Rice Is Nice and Our Golden Friend will spin some of their favourite tunes alongside local vinyl DJ favourites Catman, Chelsea Dagger, Sultans Of Spin and Honeybear.

 

Meet the labels heading to the Record Room…….  

FARMER & THE OWL

Established to develop and release acts from Wollongong and surrounds, Farmer & The Owl has released music from Hockey Dad, Totally Unicorn, TEES, Tropical Strength, Bec Sandridge, Tumbleweed and The Pinheads. The current label artists helped curate this festival, highlighting the broad and eclectic music tastes of our label family. Farmer & Th Owl also release a compilation series called Beached Friends which focuses on discovery the next crop of great artists from the Wollongong area. 

BEDROOM SUCK RECORDS 

Bedroom Suck is a Brisbane born label that provides and avenue for independent, like-minded artists to record, release and distribute their music to a global audience. The label has worked with artists such as Blank Realm, Boomgates, Scott & Charlene’s Wedding, Terrible Truths, Lower Plenty and many more.

HOTEL MOTEL 

Hotel Motel Records is a label run out of Melbourne. The current guest registry includes Cool Sounds, Quivers, Nat Vazer, L.A. Mood, Orlean and S.M. Jenkins. There’s no rules to the genre of music on the imprint, it’s just gotta sound good while you’re wearing a bathrobe and wayfarers. 

OUR GOLDEN FRIEND 

Our Golden Friend is an independent record label and management collective from Melbourne who have a love for Australian music and Labradors, home to 808s and Greatest Hits, Chitra, Moonlover, POPPONGENE, RVG, Way Dynamic.  

PIEATER 

Winners of the 2017 Australian Independent Record Labels Association ‘Best Label’, Pieater is an expanding local collective offering record label, artist management and merchandise services; and a recently completed music studio BellBird. Home to Airling, Christopher Port, #1 Dads, Tom Snowdon, Slow  Dancer and No Mono.

RICE IS NICE 

Rice Is Nice is an independent Australian record label which aims to promote unique Australian artists. Rice Is Nice was formed in 2008 and has since signed and released the works of a number of artists, the musical genres of which vary greatly. Artists Rice Is Nice have released include Straight Arrows, Donny Benet, The Laurels, Den and Angie.

SPUNK 

Now in its twentieth year Spunk Records have licensed many of the world’s great albums for release in Australia while also establishing a local roster of quality Australian and New Zealand artists. On the international from Spunk has released music in Australia from Mac Demarco, Arcade Fire, Animal Collective, Mogwai and hundreds more while also developing local artists a local stable of artists that includes Holly Throsby, Aldous Harding, The Ocean Party as well as Farmer & The Owl Festival artists Shining Bird and Sunscreen.

MUSIC FARMERS 

Established in 2004, Music Farmers has established itself as the go to music retailer in Wollongong with an emphasis on vinyl. The Music Farmers stall at Farmer & The Owl Festival will feature vinyl from artists across the line up and in conjunction with Inertia Music a specially curated section of vinyl from some of the world’s best independent labels such as Sub Pop, Matador, Secretly Canadian, Flightless and plenty more.

You can listen to the official Farmer and The Owl Festival Spotify playlist here.

Farmer & The Owl Festival debuts this March, at its new home among the steel lined laneways and lush urban parklands of McCabe Park in the heart of Wollongong, lined with spacious lots and secluded post-industrial alcoves for music consumption and discovery!  

Farmer & The Owl is the perfect way to usher in the cool change of Autumn, with 3500 other music fans, some of your favourite artists, and a bunch you are about to discover who will become just that!   

Grab your tickets here!