Best Bars in Melbourne City

Here's the best from the ones I've been to/worked at. See here for what others think.

Name: loop
Day/Type: friday/bar
Music Style: minimal
Track:
Why?: relaxing music, nice venue, nice big screens with vj controlling images

Name: stellar bar
Day/Type: friday/bar
Music Style: deep, funky house
Track: baby fever - bryan jones
Why?: good people, good environment, good music

Name: hush bar
Day/Type: sunday/bar
Music Style: deep, funky house
Track: ECB -- Picture of You
Why?: good music, stylish venue, big balcony

Name: decorum
Day/Type: monday/bar (this was some time back though)
Music Style: hiphop, breaks, house
Track: trentmoller -- le champagne
Why?: layed back, friendly staff

Name: lustre lounge
Day/Type: saturday/bar
Music Style: chicago house
Track:
Why?: friendly owners and bar staff, top cocktails, intimate and stylish

Name: inck lounge
Day/Type: friday/bar
Music Style: (i don't work here anymore so i'm not sure, maybe house)
Track:
Why?: food/snacks till late, spacious venue, nice balcony overlooking swanston

Slipmats Missing?!

This is the third time I had to come back from a gig without playing a single track. The first time was at Bunker Lounge, where I was asked to come play some tunes and got turned back when the dude realised I wasn't female!! The second time was at Inck Lounge, because the amplifier had blown, and the third was today -- I headed over to Hush Bar and found that the slipmats were missing! Oh well, at least I get to spend some time at home on a Sunday!

Latest Purchases (from Substrata)

In my search for cheap records, I came across a limited time sale (30% off all stock) at Substrata, and bought the following for $12.50 each (on average)!

Childs, Jake - Bring It: Jay J rmx (12")
Da Sunlounge - Nite Calls (12")
Desmet & McCarthy - Disco Dust: Jason Hodges rmx (12")
Hogan, Slater & Chuck Daniels - Stay Tuned (12")
Jones, Bryan - Baby Fever: Youngman rmx (12")
Maeda, Miles - Hybrid House EP (12")
Natural Rhythm & Trap Groove - Dancefloor Jazz (12")
Town & Country - Love Could Be (12")

Compared to Waxonline and Mezabel, Substrata seemed to have a better collection of House vinyl, but the browsing options were a bit inconvenient. For one thing, they don't show a picture of the record cover until I click on the name of the album, and the music samples are only 1 minute long and are all in RealPlayer format, which I find a bit less convenient than MP3s.

Open Decks @ Hush Bar

Mike and I decided today that it would be a good idea to hold open decks at Hush Bar, as a part of Sunday Lounge. We'll have the open decks every month, or every fortnight, depending on how many people are interested. The music will have to be house and preferably loungy. Here's the flyer -- the space on the slipmat is reserved for DJ names, set times and dates!

6 Hour Set at Hush Bar!

Mike couldn't make it today so I decided to do the whole Sunday Lounge session myself. I went about 30 mins late to Hush Bar and started playing at 7.30pm and finished at 1.30am! That's the longest I've ever played. I had only one quick toilet break inbetween songs, and I had a mocktail, cherry coke and hot chocolate during the 6 hours (those glasses are big!).

The set was 100% pure house -- no cheese, which makes me a happy boy! During the set I noticed that I have only about 6.5 hours of real house music (i.e. excluding cheese) in my crate, so I think it's time I did some more shopping!

There were people till 1am, and around 25-35 people in total, but luckily I didn't get any requests this time.

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Top Search Queries

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• hush bar melbourne
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Melbourne Rhythm and Soul Closed?

I went last week to Rhythm and Soul in the city to check if they've got the UDG Starter Bags for sale, and I was shocked to see some designer clothes store instead!! My favourite record store has closed its branch in the city!! I couldn't believe it, so I went again today just to check if I was dreaming or whether it had really happened. Unfortunately, I wasn't dreaming.

So I went to Central Station in the city to see if I can do my record shopping there from now on, but they don't have a good collection of the sort of tunes I'm after, and neither does HMV (duh!). So it looks like I'm going to have to start buying records online permanently. It's definitely a cheaper way to go, but there's the disadvantage of needing to wait for records, which I can't always afford.

Oh well, I'm going to miss the place. That store had the best headphones (Senheisser HD25), some great cartridges (Ortofon Elektra), some awesome speakers and the best customer service.

Sigh.

Another Sunday Lounge Poster!

I did a mistake with my last poster for Sunday Lounge: instead of desgining and printing it as a portrait, I designed and printed it as a landscape, resulting in much frustration, waste of time and money, and much embarassment.

The reason I did a landscape poster was because I got confused after I saw the posters for the other nights advertised outside Hush Bar. They were all resized down to around 20% of the original sizes (101x75cm) and put onto one page with "Thursday", "Friday", "Saturday" etc. written on top of the respective images, and the resized images were all in landscape. Little did I know that they were not originally in landscape -- they were all cropped from the original portrait image into smaller landscape images!

So in the end I wasted $65 for the poster, but then again, I can stick it on my wall at home to keep reminding my housemates to come to Sunday Lounge!

So here's the new poster in portrait. Doesn't look as good as the landscape version I reckon.

Flyer/Poster Printing in Melbourne

The Fuji Lab and Print City in the City are the most affordable places I know of, although there are others that offer better prices for particular requirements (e.g. size). For the poster I needed to get done for advertising our Sunday Lounge sessions at Hush Bar, I couldn't find any place that charged less than $65 for a poster of size 101cm x 75cm. That's because none of the places offered printing on low quality paper (like the ones stuck on walls at train stations, back alleys and lanes), which should be cheaper.

Some other good places are (thanks to ITM):

Any Colour You Like Printing in Richmond
Galaxy Design in Moorabbin
Digital Printing Australia
glenn@printnpromote.com
http://www.whirlwindprint.net.au
http://www.oxyprint.com.au/
www.tdc3.com.au
Adprint Visual in Richmond

Best Nightclubs/Bar at the Snow

The word "Nightclub" up in the snow doesn't seem to mean the same as "Nightclub" in Melbourne. In the snow, all the "Nightclubs" I've been to are multi-purpose -- a restaurant in the morning, a coffee shop in the afternoons, a restaurant at night and sometimes a night club late at night, depending on who's playing. For example, Swindlers @ Hotham is a restaurant most of the time, and a bar at other times, but becomes a nightclub when there's some good DJs playing or when there's a good planned night happening. Same with The General @ Hotham.

Here's the best (in terms of live/dj entertainment) "Nightclubs" up in the snow:


@ Hotham

Swindlers Bar : Nice big venue, awesome views, and the best balcony I've seen. Top DJs play here, including John Course a few days after I played there last. Great sound system. This place can transform into a good nightclub if the need arises.

The General : Again a nice venue, not as big as Swindlers, but with some really really nice views of the mountains. This is where I took a picture of a pool table on a snow covered hill (see my 2004 Hotham pics). Again top DJs have played here. Great sound system.

@ DinnerPlain

DinnerPlain Hotel : More of a bar. They don't have DJ equipment so I had to take my own the last two times I played there. But, they have some good speakers, great disco lights and a nice smoke machine! Lots of pool tables around which gives it a very layed back feel.

@ Mt. Buller

Kooroora Bistro : Heard from Mt. Buller resort office that this is the best place for a party. The Mt. Buller website also says that this is the biggest "Nightclub". Kooroora always seems busy -- probably busier than all of the other places I've mentioned because (I think) Mt. Buller generally gets more people in than the other resorts.

@ Falls Creek

The Man Hotel : Kid Kenobi played there -- the #1 DJ in Australia. Can't be such a bad place then! Definitely want to give this place a go on my next visit to the snow -- which will have to be to Falls Creek!

Sunday Lounge with Guest

Sunday Lounge has Pete Gordon (a.k.a. Random_Kiwi on ITM) as guest DJ this week, who'll be playing funky breaks and house from 7-9. Will be good to hear some breaks for a change!

Large Flyer for Sunday Lounge

Here's a new flyer I made for advertising our Sunday Lounge nights on a display area outside Hush Bar. The flyer has to be of size 75 x 101 cm, which means the image in the flyer has to be of a huge resolution to be able to fit those dimensions (unless I use many smaller images). After searching morgueFile.com, I managed to find an image of a couch that looks good enough and is big enough for the flyer.