The Wollongong music scene doesn’t seem to slow down. Dedicated punters pack out homely dive bar La La La’s most nights of the week, and if Rad was still around, they’d be there too. University students scout local talent at Open Mic Nights every Tuesday, and young journalists anchor radio programmes interviewing Illawarra musicians to a cult listenership. Meanwhile, the inventory of the city’s only independent record store Music Farmers grows stronger every year.
Lingering in the background, connected in some way to almost every gig, venue, and artist in this city, is cafe-turned-music management company, Yours and Owls.
Today, they are best known for their annual music festival that has helped put Wollongong on the map. But their most important contributions to the local industry are made behind the scenes, controlling bookings for the city’s biggest venues.
In 2013, the Yours and Owls team sold their eponymous live music cafe on Kembla Street to focus on bookings and events. Five years later, they were selling 100,000 tickets and holding about 600 shows a year. Today, they secure acts for La La La’s, Waves, North Gong Hotel, Towradgi Beach Hotel, Dicey Riley’s and the UniBar, either exclusively or in a majority stake.
Yours and Owls are more vital to the Wollongong arts community than ever before. La La La’s manager Harry Phillips says they keep the city’s nightlife alive, and have always been easy to communicate with, despite the complex nature of booking acts five nights a week.
A crowd dancing at La La La’s (Samantha Quintal/Facebook)
“Over the course of the years, we’ve definitely put a lot of trust in them to ensure the night succeeds,” Mr Phillips said.
“As a venue manager, I don’t really have enough time to be securing live music five nights a week. It’s a tough job on their account.
“There’s a lot of back and forth that happens, and a lot of organisation into just a simple Wednesday night.”
Yours and Owls have been the exclusive booking partner of the Globe Lane music venue since it opened in late November 2019. When the pandemic halted live performances in the community less than six months later, Mr Phillips said the company was a lifeline for La La La’s, providing much-needed talent to assist the late-night economy.
“If we didn’t have them, I’d just be reliant on my close mates to come and get up on stage,” Mr Phillips said.
“It was a massive help from Yours and Owls to help the community within the time of struggles, but also to help us as a small business stay afloat.”
It helped prevent another devastating blow to the local scene, considering the 150-capacity Rad bar— considered by many to be Wollongong’s most iconic venue for local musicians— was shut down to make way for office buildings just a few months before La La La’s opened.
However, while venue managers have only positive things to say about the booking company, several musicians I’ve spoken to said their communication and marketing leave a lot to be desired, and that actions taken to block independent events are not in the best interests of the Wollongong community.
Artists say that individual bookers are having to deal with an unreasonable amount of local talent, making communication leading up to gigs difficult, and explaining why promotion can be inadequate.
One local producer, who wished to remain anonymous, said that marketing for his events affiliated with Yours and Owls were largely left to the artists performing, with the booking company merely there to “supply a format, and rely on the DJ promoting it.”
Despite this, he was grateful Yours and Owls would even pay a small artist like himself.
“The standard of Wollongong bookers in general can be subpar, but without companies like [Yours and Owls], we would have a pretty boring nightlife here in the Gong,” he said.
A crowd applauding at the UniBar (UOW UniBar Open Mic Showcase/Facebook)
An indie rock guitarist affiliated with the company for five years said he thought Yours and Owls were not setting young musicians up for success, making getting paid more difficult than it should be.
When he was first starting to receive gig opportunities, he told me they would offer him bar tabs as part of payment, even though his booker knew he was underage and couldn’t yet drink. However, he believes they have since stopped this practice.
According to the musician, who has also dealt with alternative booking agencies and independent venues, Yours and Owls didn’t show him how to receive payments, having to rely on an older friend to show him how to send invoices.
“They will pay you, but if you don’t know how to chase it up, you can be paid late or neglected,” he said, after claiming it once took him three months to receive his payment.
Another musician said Yours and Owls bookers would constantly push her around to different people after asking simple questions like the availability of a drum kit at her venue. In comparison, she felt smaller booking companies were more approachable and personable.
Multiple artists also spoke of their experiences being “blacklisted” by Yours and Owls, with the agency not responding to their emails for months, leaving musicians in the dark about future opportunities.
“You need to initially reach out to them, and they’ll start putting you on small shows. But maintaining that level of contact and staying on their roster is not easy,” the guitarist said.
“If you turn down opportunities once or twice, they’ll stop asking you completely. If you contact them they’ll ignore your email, unless you know someone [personally].”
Some artists felt Yours and Owls haven’t provided their bands much opportunity for growth. After several appearances at North Gong Hotel’s Sunday Sessions, one member told me she was tired of playing to small crowds at a venue lacking in atmosphere.
She was grateful for having those performance opportunities, but said “it’s not its all cracked up to be,” and that exclusivity contracts with the booking agency made it difficult to further break out into the scene.
“The contract you sign with your booker can specify that you can’t play an external gig two weeks before and after your Yours and Owls-affiliated gig. So if you get an alternative offer by another band or independent venue, you’re stuck,” she said.
Select events Yours and Owls have organised in 2024
Most artists I interviewed believed Yours and Owls have an unfair monopoly in the Wollongong music scene. Some told me their treatment of artists may be driving away local talent or at least minimising their growth.
“A lot of bands refuse to play in Wollongong because of Yours and Owls, because of how they were treated,” one guitarist said.
A booker with 20 years’ experience in the local industry told me he believed that a Wollongong without the management company would mean a far more inclusive and vibrant scene, with fresher talent, greater creative freedoms and more opportunities for growth.
“They basically have the opportunity to control where the crowd will be going at any given night of musicality in Wollongong,” he said.
“We wouldn’t be stuck with the same musicians that have been going around and around currently. There would be options for literally thousands of new performances to come on board.”
He suggested the company acted anti-competitively when they tried to block an independent music event that he tried organising with a Yours and Owls-affiliated venue. When the bookers found out, they threatened to end their contract with the venue.
Streless performing at the UniBar (UOW UniBar Open Mic Showcase/Facebook)
Of course, this is all about individual experience. The majority viewpoint from musicians was that without the company, Wollongong would have a quieter scene full of cover bands. Several artists were also enthusiastic about providing their positive stories with Yours and Owls.
Frontman of rock outfit Streless, Max Mandile, said the opportunities they have afforded his band have always involved clear communication and effective promotion.
He said that the growth of the Wollongong music scene in the past decade is attributed entirely to the Yours and Owls team taking a risk in the region.
“No one else was doing what they’re doing now. That’s why they were able to find so much success here, there was a huge gap in the market,” Mr Mandile said.
“I think they definitely do have the best interests of musicians in their hearts, especially as they’re all musicians themselves.”
Nevertheless, I was surprised at how many artists wanted to remain anonymous for this story. It seems like they may be scared that speaking out about their subpar treatment with Yours and Owls would mean receiving less opportunities to perform.
For Wollongong musicians, staying on good terms with this organisation seems vital. The consequences of being blacklisted— losing the chance to play in the region’s biggest venues— means many will choose not to speak out about their experiences with the most powerful events company in the Illawarra.
Yours and Owls did not respond to a request for comment regarding the concerns raised in this article.