The year is already well underway, so I thought, as I did last year, I’d look at some different things for the year ahead. To start with though we got some very sad news for the local music community late last week with the passing of Ben Hession. There was no bigger supporter of Australian music in Wollongong than Ben. For more than three decades Ben dedicated his life to community radio, in that time he gave basically every local artist in Wollongong their first radio airplay and on-air interview. My thoughts are thoughts are with Ben's family, Vox FM crew and his many friends at this very sad time.
With Ben’s memory in mind, one of the in’s I already had down for this year is personal curation. Whether that be in the form of a radio show or playlists that have had thought put into them. People love music discovery and that has drifted further with algorithmic playlists, so I feel this year we’ll see more people tuning into their favourite radio presenter, following playlists of music fans who’s taste they trust in and checking out DJ sets with curated intention.
Sort of related to the above is the monthly record club we have been doing at La La La’s with Sultans Of Spin. Next monthly I’ll be curating one along side my friend Greg (aka Wellness Coach). We are featuring the Nirvana classic Nevermind and will play a bunch of influences on the band before the play through, while we’ll play some contemporaries at the conclusion of the album. It happens on Sunday February 8th at 3pm and entry is free!
In the label world, I’ll soon be launching two fresh imprints, both based around reissues, there will more details on them very soon. We have also been restructuring Farmer & The Owl and are now back to being a full independent label, so we hope to help get more new local music out there this year. As I showcased last week, Private Wives have just released their debut album Three Of Swords, and it is now available to stream everywhere, click on the link below.
Record Stores of the World will return this year, I’ll be heading to the USA in March to cover some stores on the east coast, somewhere I haven’t been for several years. Let me know if you have any recommendations for New York and down the east coast of the USA.
As part of the new reissue projects, one of them has a very local music focus and we’ve set up a local music history wall in the shop (see pic below). I’m also real keen to hear from people involved in the Wollongong scene, especially the the 60’s and 70’s feel free to drop me an email – jeb@musicfarmers.com
Finally in the world of the shop, I spent a lot more time behind the counter last year and plan to do the same this year. It’s great way to interact with everyone, hear about what people are loving and it is why I started a shop all those years ago. With that we have tried to expand our stock range, and I’ve been spending a lot more time on ordering music from all over the place. A great example is this drop of Japanese reissues pictured below. We’ve also noticed a renewed interest in CD’s and have been making sure we increase our range of them.
Happy 2026 and see you in the shop or on the dance floor somewhere (probably Howlin Wolf)!