Independent Queensland music and culture

I started YELO in 2023 because I missed the way local culture used to feel.

I grew up with 90s street press: the free music magazines you’d grab at the pub with a beer on a Sunday. They were wrapped in colour front and back, with black-and-white pages inside. A little bit party out front, business everywhere else. Very gritty, a lotta bit grunge, and so easy to just pop under your arm on the way home. They were the go-to for finding out what gigs were coming to town, filled with artist features, live reviews and interviews written by local, die-hard music scene punters. There were photo galleries from the latest shows, and you’d circle the gigs you wanted to see with a nearby Keno pencil. Gigging made a place feel alive. It also gave me a creative outlet that mainstream journalism couldn’t. Going to gigs, and especially writing creatively about them, connected me with wonderful people, places and new music, while giving my ADHD-addled brain somewhere to let loose and just be me. Gigs gave me an identity, a purpose and a sense of where I belonged.

I worked my way through the ranks of community newspapers, from cadet journalist to editor, while moonlighting as a street press reviewer, covering the grungiest pockets of Brisbane’s live music scene in my mid-20s. I still remember reviewing Clare Bowditch at The Zoo all on my lonesome, swaying to “Lips Like Oranges” a couple of punters deep, with my own red-stained wine lips, thinking I’d truly made it. Other standouts were The Darkness at The Arena, still one of my all-time favourite gigs, and one memorable after-work moment at the same venue, crowd surfing in high heels while clutching my handbag (surprisingly, everything survived!). By day, I was learning how to find the story. At night, I was interviewing artists like Xavier Rudd, Butterfingers, Donovan Frankenreiter and Ben Lee, and reviewing gigs and records.

I found street press far more exhilarating than the dry traditional newsroom. In magazines like RAVE, I had room for big words, imagery, humour and whatever wild and wondrous wordsmith moments I could come up with. I could be freer and more creative than I ever was in the newsroom.

How YELO began

YELO came out of both worlds: the personality of street press and the practical local instinct to work out what is happening, who is making something interesting and where the cool shit is hiding. The actual spark came while I was singing in a local folk trio. During one champagne-fuelled rehearsal, I blurted out, “I should turn our bookings into a what’s-on calendar for the Sunshine Coast!” The trio didn’t last, but the idea did.

It began with a Sunshine Coast gig guide and grew into local stories, photography, playlists, radio and an archive of the people keeping live music moving.

Along the way, I served as secretary of the Sunshine Coast Music Industry Collective and now share local music and gig news on ABC Sunshine Coast every Tuesday.

YELO remains independently run from the Sunshine Coast, with contributions from photographers, writers, artists, venues and music people who have trusted me with their stories.

Mostly, it exists to help people look up from their phones, leave the house and remember that interesting things are happening nearby.