Wow, what a journey it’s been to get here!
The Yelo Sunny Coast Music Press vision all started on a serendipitous afternoon visit to a University of the Sunshine Coast music panel event which garnered some big names in the local music industry.
It was a rushed affair, as my music student bestie dragged me along to get out of the house after one of my infamous break ups had me in a funk.
I almost threw on a Powderfinger t-shirt, but thought better of it as it was a bit on the old side, and instead chose a black tee and some jeans, still not knowing at all what I was fronting up to.
First I noticed Ian “Dicko” Dickson, who I knew from Australian Idol many moons ago, then there was multi-award winning producer Magoo, known more professionally as Dr Lachlan Goold at the UniSC campus, and then there he was – Jon from Powderfinger.
“Thank god I didn’t wear that t-shirt!!” I thought as we sat right in the front row before this panel of musical prodigies. I genuinely would have been mortified.
Afterwards, this exceptional line up took time to chat with the students and I was lucky enough to have a quick chat with both Jon and Dicko, who both seemed incredibly passionate about our local music industry.
As I left the campus that day, some of Dicko’s parting words were still ringing in my ears: “If you guys want to make the music scene here big, make it happen!”
And well, here we are.
In just a few days the idea was hatched to create a music website for the Sunshine Coast that would not only make Dicko, Jon, Magoo and their fellow panelists proud, but also our local community as a whole.
The vision was to 1/ make money to put my kids through school and feed (hello single mum life!), 2/ create the music scene of my dreams, 3/ heal the people with music.
In just a couple of weeks our socials had already garnered a few hundred followers and now with our website finally here, we hope the Sunshine Coast community will embrace Yelo and help us in building a bigger and brighter live music community scene; one which aims to keep musicians local, one which supports local venues, events and festivals, and one which will always campaign to put the Coast on the musical map of Australia.
I have since been told over and over that Yelo is exactly what our local music scene has needed for a long time (no pressure guys!), but I couldn’t agree more.
As a journalist and editor of almost 20 years (who started off at Rave Magazine in Brisbane in the 90s and dearly misses old school music street press), I knew I could do this, and that this was my job to be done.
I hope I can do you all proud.
Penny x
Got a story? Hit me up! Editor@yelo.live
Pic: Oh yeah, that’s me and my band. We’ve only just started out (yay open mic nights!). You can follow us on Instagram @wildstarlings 🙂
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