A New Chapter

Many great institutions start from inauspicious beginnings. Back in 1992, Guy Blackman was running a zine, Chapter 24, when he decided to collate tracks from some like-minded musical artists for a compilation, Bright Lights Small City, to coincide with the release of its fourth edition. That edition never made the light of day and the zine was discarded, yet the compilation proved to be the grounds for Chapter Music, a label that 20 years later is and has been home to the likes of Twerps, Dick Diver, Minimum Chips, Beaches and New Estate. Now residing in Melbourne, Blackman and co-founder Ben O'Connor are still astonished that they have created such a flourishing label when many compatriots have fallen by the wayside over the years.

There are a lot of familiar faces on the Chapter Music roster that were in some way involved back at its inception. It is this level of affection and admiration – that bands and artists would still want to put their art out through the label after all this time – that proves to be the highest form of validation for the duo. “Chris Gorman who drums for New Estate, he's been in a bunch of bands since we started and was on the first release we had in his previous band Mustang!, and Bek [Moore] from Clag was in contact with us from the very beginning,” Blackman states. “Clag were on the second release we ever had, a follow-up cassette to that original compilation which was a Sonic Youth tribute back in 1993. It's weird but also really nice to have people around that you've had musical relationships with for decades.”

Blackman knew from the onset that he was interested in having a career involved with promoting local music, although he had no idea where to begin. “I always saw myself as being a part of music as an aesthetic, and I always enjoyed the notion that I could know whether I would enjoy listening to something just from the label on the back of the record. I only did the cassette because I didn't want to start a record label, or at least hadn't formed the idea specifically, but as soon as that first cassette came out and people really liked it, I knew that was what I wanted to do from now on.

“We went out into the garage and pulled out a suitcase of old cassettes and went through lots of tapes,” Blackman explains. “The compilation 20 Big Ones, we took a lot of care with it. Not only did we go to older releases from earlier cassettes, we tried to find some of the unreleased stuff from those older bands. So, we were stumbling across cassettes and not having any idea what was on them. It was weird but nostalgic, looking back on what we achieved. Back in 1994, before I moved to Melbourne, I had put out a compilation called Asparagus Milkshake, and we got a track from The Cannanes, who at the time where one of my all-time hero bands. That felt like an arrival, like we could hold our heads up high. I wasn't expecting another 18 years to pass by…”

“There are these continuity moments that remain significant for us,” O'Connor continues. “It's really exciting when someone gets their first 7” or LP back from the pressing plant, or the sold-out Chapter shows that we've done at the Tote, those kinds of things.”

Chapter Music's anniversary has been a time of nostalgia for the pair as they look back at what they have achieved, but they are just as excited about what is on the horizon. “This year, we've tried to balance the nostalgic with the new,” O'Connor espouses. “There are just as many tracks on the compilation from newer Chapter bands, and we have focused on putting out a lot of new releases early next year.”

One such band are Beaches, whose bassist Alison Bolger has a long-running working relationship with Chapter. Having started out in Clag back in 1992, Bolger went on to play in Blackman's own band Sleepy Township, as well as Panel Of Judges, who put out their first single on the label in the late-'90s. Bolger maintains that Chapter have an atmosphere that draws her back to them.

“I have been involved with them for a long time now, seeing almost every band I have been in has come out through [Chapter]. They are lovely, and are working with friends who understand and appreciate each other's musical tastes. There have been so many things that have come out on Chapter that have introduced me to a whole lot of music, and [they]have helped put out things that I felt deserved to be released but wouldn't have been without them. They are friends and music lovers first, which makes such a big difference. It just feels so homely and natural.”

Such adulation certainly underpins Chapter Music's longevity, yet Blackman also espouses that it isn't always down to the warm and fuzzy approach. “I still maintain that slowly, slowly wins the race. We've never gotten ahead of ourselves and tried to get ourselves loads of cash or put out 50 records, we have just had a handful of releases each year and tried to focus on them. We've always had day jobs too; it's only been in the last couple of years where the label has gotten bigger and busier, and we can afford to confront the fact that it's taking up much more of our time. We occasionally hear or see a band where we think, 'Hmmm, they might make us heaps of money,' but they aren't bands that we really care about, so we always come back to the things that we love.”

“Ideas of community have been important to us, and the relationships we have with the people we work with are as important to us as it is to them,” O'Connor continues. “We hope to approach everything like that instead of from a financial or a self-motivated perspective. We've never put anything out from someone sending us a demo; it's always been through seeing bands live or getting a recommendation from someone we love and we'll go check them out. Australian music is going through a really incredible stage; the past few years have been as exciting as it was in the early '90s. There are more good bands in Australia than we could ever put out, and that's the exciting thing for us.”

“When we started,” concludes Blackman, “if a good band that we liked was starting out, we'd look around and there would be no one picking them up – it was up to us to help them out. Now, there are so many good bands that there's no [way] we could put out all the ones we like, and the labels that have popped up around them like RIP Society and Sensory Projects – it's a different world, and we really, really like it.”

Chapter Music's 20th Anniversary Birthday Celebrations:

Saturday 17 November - North Melbourne Town Hall, Melbourne VIC
Saturday 24 November - Goodgod Small Club, Sydney NSW

20 Big Ones is available now.