Venue Spotlight: Astral Weeks (Boorloo)

The spaces we enjoy dance, electronic, ambience, DJing and live performances more broadly, is never not changing and evolving.

Listening Bars have in recent years become some of the go-to places for people looking to step outside of the club and into a whole new world of appreciating curation and sound. Homemade sound systems, otherwise unheard of selections and artists showing off a whole other side of their collection are just a few of the perks that come with Listening Bar territory.

Astral Weeks, calling Boorloo/Perth home, is a space dedicated to providing Perth’s blossoming music scene with many such perks.

Kicking off our venue spotlight series, we spoke with one of the venue’s founders and owners, Sean O’Neill. From the early days of the venue to his read on the local scene, this conversation will leave Astral Weeks as all too tempting a pin on anyone’s Google Maps.

TO THE UNINITIATED, HOW WOULD YOU BEST DESCRIBE PERTH’S MUSIC SCENE?

SEAN: It's a strong scene, but it's just very small in terms of the venues that allow live music. Club events still happen, but there’s very particular small spots. With Perth, compared with Sydney and Melbourne, promoters are really only able to get these really cool gigs happening in small spaces. There’s no real middle ground venues that have 200ish capacities that promoters can fill, but people really make do

The Perth scene is very strong and eclectic. There’s a lack of appropriate venues/sizes for specific styles and scenes, but there’s loads of local promoters super passionate about music and who want to really help the scene thrive.

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HOW DOES THE CURRENT CLIMATE IMPACT RUNNING A VENUE?

SEAN: We try to support a bit of everything musically, but you really need a crowd to come every night, and then you also need everybody to drink. If people don’t drink, then the venue can’t survive. We’re pretty lucky in Australia because people are drinking regularly, but young people aren’t drinking as much as they used to.

I don’t think that that’s a cost of living thing as much as it’s just that young people are choosing to drink less. People are choosing to spend their money on other things, and when you’re younger people assume that you really spend your money, but I just think that they’re spending it in other ways.

If people do want to go out, they’ll find the money to have a couple of pints, but that’s something we’re always conscious of.

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WHAT DO YOU THINK SETS ASTRAL WEEKS APART FROM OTHER PERTH SPOTS?

SEAN: I think it can be very easy in a small city to be influenced by your childhood too much, and I think that’s particularly evident when you hear a lot of local DJs who play the same music. There’s nothing wrong with that because obviously that’s a scene in itself, but I think it’s important as an artist and as a venue to branch out.

You need to listen to music that’s outside of your own small scene.

For us, the bar is very eclectic in what we play. We have some really interesting electronic music, ambience, and then we also just have jazz and people who solely play jazz. We’re also opening a restaurant in the space behind the bar and that’s going to have its own point of difference too.

I UNDERSTAND THAT ASTRAL IS LAUNCHING AW RADIO. CAN YOU EXPLAIN WHERE THE INSPIRATION & NEED FOR THAT CAME FROM?

The radio station has started as a way to make a really long playlist for every night of the week in the restaurant. I’m hoping it places a real importance on music and playlists for a venue, and sets the experience of Astral apart as one where the music suits the space, and where it’s part of the environment.

Music shouldn’t feel like something separate in a space like ours in my opinion. I think it needs to be as important as everything else in the room and AW Radio is hoping to do that.

So many venues, bars and restaurants don’t take the music side seriously. Often it’s just whoever is on shift will put a playlist on and often they’re not thinking about where they are or what the space is. Music is such a big aspect of people’s experiences when they’re out.

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PICS I’VE SEEN HAVE ME VERY CURIOUS ABOUT THE VENUE’S SOUND SYSTEM. HOW IMPORTANT IS HAVING THE RIGHT SYSTEM IN THE VENUE TO YOU?

I’m definitely not an audiophile guy, or know heaps of intricate details of Hi-Fi systems, it’s never something I got highly invested in. For me, I’m interested in the way I experience the sound. I’ve been to so many listening bars in different spots in London, and have been to Tokyo four times now, and kept going back really to explore and experience more of these kinds of venues.

You’ve gotta just let your ears choose, and we were lucky enough to actually be able to listen to the exact system we were putting in the venue. It’s from a brand called Line Magnetic, and the amps are built by just two people.

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WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR FAVOURITE MEMORIES OF THE VENUE IN THE TIME YOU’VE BEEN OPEN?

It was probably just very early on being able to hear some of my favourite music come out of those speakers. Having it set up in the room before it was even open.

We rushed putting the speakers in and setting them up in the room way earlier than we should have put them in there. We got way too carried away and wanted to hear them in the room, and then with all the other bits we had to do they just got covered in dust and all kinds of shit.

Really early on when we were listening to the system in there, in the silence before it’s an actual venue, it was really cool.

The various food events we have put on since year one have also been a lot of fun and were an important way of reaching a new audience.

WHAT ARE SOME OF THE BIGGEST CHALLENGES & PAYOFFS YOU’VE HAD SINCE STARTING THE VENUE?

A lot of venue owners said to me “just don’t do it.” They told me we’d never get our money back, largely because of the amount we spent on the system. I think that’s worked in our favour though, because to Perth it felt like a really fresh thing.

I don’t think we could have done it any other way. If we were going to do it, we were going to go all out.

That’s been affirmed by most DJs emphasising how nice it is for them to be able to play the exact music that they want to at Astral. I think we’re one of the only venues that just lets people choose whatever they want.

We don’t give artists briefs, and I know that many places do. We try to be as accommodating as we can to artists with left-field taste.

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WHAT ARE YOUR HOPES FOR PERTH IN THE FUTURE?

What I hope for Perth really is that if people do love Perth and go to Melbourne, then they come back. I think that’s important for people that come from a small city.

I know that when things feel a bit boring it is important to go away, but if you do you should come back and try to make your city better. If you’re creative and you leave, you experience all sorts of things, and bringing that back to where you came from is really important I feel.

Otherwise, I think the government is responsible. We need to find a way for money to trickle down to smaller venues in order to help keep them alive. There’s been a lot of talk about small venues closing down, and then a 20,000 cap gig will sell out in 30 minutes.

It’s a tough thing to figure out but really I think there is a responsibility by the government on improving grassroots scenes, and I think the only way to do that is to ensure that money is being shared around.

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Follow Astral Weeks & AW Radio.

Jack Colquhoun is the Managing Editor of Mixmag Australia New Zealand, find him on Instagram.