The Maine Piano Guerrillas are coming to Castlemaine Fringe 2025!
The Maine Piano Guerrillas are out and about!
During Castlemaine Fringe 2025 (21 March-6 April), The Coolroom at the Northern Arts Hotel are joining forces with an underground piano movement to put donated upright pianos in prominent locations around town to encourage a new movement targeting the spontaneous mellifluous, mesmerising and melodious machinations of music in public places.
The Program will open on Friday 21 March with a launch of a piano music melange at the Northern Arts Hotel and end with a public perfectly played piano concert at The Coolroom on Sunday 6 April. In between, we will perpetuate piano mayhem!
So do you have an upright piano sitting in the corner gathering dust that could be put to better use?
Do you have a public location which has a suitable uncover area – in Castlemaine, Campbells Creek, Chewton, Newstead, Taradale, that could be enhanced by the addition of a public piano.
Can you help us set move and install pianos? Or have good ideas to offer us?
Are you a community musician, choir, or small group that would love to be part of our planned and or spontaneous program?
We will be holding a gathering on Wednesday 5 November at 5.30pm at the Northern Arts Hotel to confirm the formation of Maine Piano Guerrillas Inc and to discuss progress of this underground arts movement.
Email Paul Ryan at pianoguerrillas@gmail.com or contact him on 0408 128 222.
We are very pleased to announce that The Coolroom has received a grant under the 10,000 Gigs: The Victorian Gig Fund which will support 20 gigs over the next nine months in the The Coolroom. s over the next few months we have already announced that will recieve this support includes Jesse Lawrance Music, Sally Ford and the Idiomatics, Hetty Kate Trio, Peter and the Wolves, and lots more to come.
The first round of 10,000 Gigs: The Victorian Gig Fund will fund 144 venues to stage paid gigs by local artists. Venues awarded grants include iconic Melbourne venues such as The Tote, The Jazzlab, Mamma Chen’s and Laundry, regional venues like Ballarat’s Volta, Barwon Heads Hotel and Theatre Royal, Taproom and The Coolroom in Castlemaine, along with suburban venues including Narre Warren’s District 14.
We are also very pleased to announce we have been short listed for Music Victoria 2024 Awards Nominee: Best Regional Venue/ Presenter (Over 50 Gigs). This nomination is recognition, we believe, for the tireless work our venue has done to create a program that connects our regional audience with the best in small venue acts possible in our active listening venue.
We have embraced music from a range of genres from jazz to experimental, from country to blues, world music and singer songwriter, nurturing both local talent and some of the best of Melbourne and touring acts from elsewhere, whilst providing a venue for new work, album launches and regular income for musicians.
To Thank The Room
Duration: September-October 2024
Sold out for Sun 22 Sept. Second screening Sun 29 Sept, 2.30pm. New screening Mon 23 Sept, 6pm.
TO THANK THE ROOM Winner Best Melbourne Documentary at the Melbourne Documentary Film Festival 2024.
‘So few films try to capture everyday life… I enjoyed it so much. Just beautiful‘ – John Flaus – Australian screen and broadcasting legend.
Sessions expected to sell out, so please book early!
Maggie Fooke set up the 10 room Brooklyn Arts Hotel in downtown Fitzroy as a guest accommodation for ‘artists and lovers of the arts of all kinds – including conversation, activism and philosophy’ to stay, when visiting Melbourne.It was rather a well-kept secret, but Maggie and Brooklyn clocked up 25,000 guests stays over 13 years of operation – many of those return visits. In late 2019, Maggie emailed her regulars that she had reached the decision to sell the building and close the hotel. And that there would be a film. Join in and help me document Brooklyn’s last 100 days, she wrote. TO THANK THE ROOM is that film:
Documenting the courageous and compelling Maggie Fooke, along with her soft-voiced housekeeper Helen MacKay and Maggie’s feisty also-arts-focussed daughter Aphrodite through the final days of this beloved and ‘quirky’ institution. Maggie joins others in filming ad hoc, engages guests in conversation and the filmmaking process and we the audience are alongside her intimately as she, in her original wild way, is determined – at any cost – to enjoy and share her creation to the last drop.
Length: 77 minutes. 20m Q&A post-film.
Feature Documentary Directed By Belinda Lloyd. Featuring: Maggie Fooke, Helen Mackay, Aphrodite Feros-Fooke, and Bajjah [the dog] Executive Producer: Maggie Fooke, Editor: Larry Lawson Original Score By Emily-Rose Sarkov A KIND WORLD FILMS PRODUCTION
Sunday 22 and 29 September| Doors Open at 2pm | Screening 2.30pm | Show also Monday 23 September at 6pm
Castlemaine Jazz Festival once again comes to The Coolroom at the Northern Arts Hotel. We are just one venue with38 bands performing in the 6 venues – Theatre Royal, Castlemaine Bowling Club, Phee Broadway Theatre, Coolroom at the Northern Arts Hotel and this year two nights at the Boomtown Winery.
You can wander from venue to venue at your leisure and enjoy some beautiful Jazz this Kings birthday weekend (June), or you can stay at just one! The Program at The Coolroom at the Northern Arts Hotel includes some current favourites and some new to the venue.
Saturday 8 June | 12-10pm 12.00noon Steamboat Whistlers [T]
1.20 pm The Django Fretts [T]
2.40pm Rebecca Barnard [T]
4.00pm TMT (Tamara Murphy Trio) [C]
5.20pm Meg Corson & Cam Scott [M]
6.40pm Nigel Maclean [C]
8.00pm Hargreaves Jazz Quartet [M]
9.20pm Stat [C]
Sunday 9 June | 12-8pm 12noon Ben Nieuwkerk’s Strange Awakening [C]
1.20pm The Anticlinal Fold [C]
2.40pm The Bird Conference [C]
4.00pm Kind Of Blue Trio [M]
5.20pm. The Clunk Orchestra [F] [cancelled]
6.40pm Maggie Jackson NYJazz Trio [M]
The Sentimental Bloke [1919] will be presented in-cinema with a music score by Jen Anderson, which is performed live by Jen Anderson & TheLarrikins [Dave Evans and Dan Warner]. The film, an icon of Australian silent film, is based upon the best-selling verses of C.J. Dennis. It humorously tells the heart-warming story of Bill – the Sentimental Bloke – and his sweetheart Doreen
“The pièce de résistance of Australian feature film-making from the silent era” The Guardian
About the Film
The film is the digitally restored version which incorporates new footage found in the vaults of the George Eastman House (Rochester, New York), and restored with the vibrant colours of the original tinting and toning. Director. Raymond Longford was one of the Australian silent era’s most prolific and successful film directors.
An adaptation of C.J. Dennis’ verse narrative of life set on the backstreets of inner Melbourne in the 1910s, The Sentimental Bloke is a tale of redemption, depicting the social rehabilitation, courtship and marriage of the titular ‘Bloke’, Bill (Arthur Tauchert) to his sweetheart, Doreen (Lottie Lyell). Lyell, an international star of the Australian silent era and a filmmaker in her own right, co-wrote and edited the film with Longford, her partner and key creative collaborator until her premature death in 1925, from tuberculosis. Lyell was 35.
For the film, Longford and Lyell relocated the setting from Melbourne to Sydney, shooting on location in Woolloomooloo, which then enjoyed a well-earned reputation as a tough inner-city neighbourhood, as well as at Manly Beach and the Hornsby Valley (the orchard scene). Longford’s direction – Longford was himself an actor before becoming a director – elicited a remarkable naturalness from his talented cast, which also featured Gilbert Emery in the role of Ginger Mick.
A hit when it opened at Melbourne Town Hall on the 4th of October 1919, The Sentimental Bloke broke domestic box office records and screened to packed houses for some years. It subsequently disappeared without trace once ‘the talkies’ took over until the 1950s when it was rediscovered in a film library in NewYork!.
*The Digitally remastered versions is presented courtesy of the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia.
Jen Anderson and The Larrikans
About The Band Jen Anderson Jen has earned an international reputation as a composer and improvising violinist. With a strong classical training background and many years of professional performance improvising with numerous bands, she has also composed music for film, television, theatre and dance.
Jen has enjoyed national success with her score and live performance of string quartet music to the silent film ‘Pandora’s Box’, and further national and international success with her score for the silent film ‘The Sentimental Bloke’. Jen and her band the Larrikins accompanied the screening of the film at several prestigious screen events including the London International Film Festival (UK), Pordenone Silent Film Festival (Italy), Telluride Film Festival (Colorado USA), Tokyo Film Festival (Japan) and Chungmuro Film Festival (Seoul, Korea).
As a composer for film and television her many credits include Ablaze (documentary feature film, 2021) The Show Must Go On (documentary 2019), Hunt Angels (documentary feature film) The Goddess of 1967, Simone de Beauvoir’s Babies (ABC television mini-series), and the silent movies Pandora’s Box and The Sentimental Bloke.
The Larrikins Dave Evans Dave Evans is one of Melbourne’s most acclaimed musicians, widely recognised for his mastery of all musical genres. He performs regularly in Northern Europe and has performed and recorded with The Band Who Knew Too Much,Bric-a-brac, and Jen Anderson & The Larrikins. Dave Evans has performed across Australia in mainstream theatre shows and avant-garde works. He played the featured accordionist in the stage musical Warhorse. His interpretations of tango on the accordion bring his jazz improvisation skills to the fore as well as showing an authentic understanding rarely heard outside native Argentina.
Dan Warner Dan Warner is a songwriter from Melbourne, Australia. In the 80s and 90s, Dan sang and played rhythm guitar in several local bands including The Warner Brothers, Overnight Jones, Dan & Al and The Largest Living Things. Dan now plays with his band The Night Parrots featuring Marcel Borrack, Clio Renner, Nathan Farrelly, Adam Simmons and Ash Davies. Dan has contributed to The Sentimental Bloke project as one half of The Larrikans with Dave Evans.
A biunial magic lantern built from mahogany and brass in the nineteenth century by Newton & Co.
Article from Castlemaine Mail Feb 2024
Some of the most intense experiences to be had at the turn of the last century were produced by the magic lantern apparatus as people sat together, shoulder to shoulder, in the dark.Head to the Coolroom at the Northern Arts Hotel this February as Crank Williams, Patsy Decline and Martyn Jolly work their magic, reconjuring the same sensations and emotions felt by Australian audiences over a hundred years ago.
Colours will swirl and twist in the dark, stories of heartache, despair and desire will be vividly rendered on the screen.They will be performing a series of authentic, original chro- matropes — optical devices where a handle and a cog spin concentrically patterned discs of glass in opposite directions to generate psychedelic pulses of pure colour sensation.
They will also be performing a series of ‘dissolving views’, where hand-coloured squares of glass made from ‘life models’ photographed against painted backdrops, are dissolved oneinto another to illustrate a story or a song.
Crank Williams will be performing vocals; reel-to-reel tape recorder from the 1960’s with its original magnetic heads, a heavily used RCA 1/4 inch tape recorder from the late 1960’s; 1951 National Chicagoan six string lap steel guitar; Hagstrom six string hollow body electric guitar; and a1965 fender tube reverb tank.Patsy Decline will be performing vocals; and playing a Moog theremin (a modern-day model of a classic instrument de- signed by Leon Theremin in the 1920’s).
Martyn Jolly uses slides from the 1800s and early 1900s including; the Lights of London Town, and hand-tinted life models magic lantern slides, to recreate the magic experienced by audiences more than 100 years ago.
7.30pm, Saturday, February 10 and 2.30pm Sunday, Febru- ary 11 at the Coolroom- Northern Arts Hotel 359 Barker Street Castlemaine.
Tickets: $20/$15 or $55/$45 for a share package (two tickets plus bottle wine).
Seating is limited so bookings are essential – events.humanitix.com/magic-lantern-show.
Castlemaine Safe Space Raffle
Duration: 26 November 2023
Big shout out to over 60 amazing businesses who have donated goods and vouchers to our three big raffle baskets. Over $1600 in value!Fundraising is part of theIt’s Almost Christmas Spectacular Fundraising Concert on Sunday 26 November from 5pm-7pm. All money raised goes to Castlemaine Safe Space. Two will be drawn at the event and one will be drawn on 17th December at our final event for 2023. @followers
And here is the list! Aolita, Art Supplies Castlemaine, Bakers Delight, Beehave, Blackbird Cafe, BMS Mower Service, Boomtown, Bubble & Squeak Pet store, Castlemaine Floristry, Castlemaine FRESH, Castlemaine Noodle, Castlemaine Office Supplies, Central Wine Store, Chapmans Picture Framing, Clifford’s Quality Cuts, Computers Sales & repairs, Desa Shoes, Extremity, Fasom Plumbing, Green Green Goes the Grocer, Hip Pocket workwear, Home Timber & Hardware, Hot Variety, IGA Supermarket, Ivy & Grace, JM Leech Jewellers, Little General Kids, Love Shack, Lyall Eales Store McShanags Pie Shop, Maine Second-hand, Maine Shoes & Accessories, MAXI Supermarket, McKenzie Davey Amcal Chemist , Mensland, Merchants of Mostyn, Midland Pet Supplies, Miss Maisie, Moxie Café, Mulberrys, Nem Viet, News Lotto, ONI Streetwear, Origini Cafe, Pet Stock, Pyrenees Premium Meats, Ritchies, Saint Florian Café, Shoestring Market, Stocks Gifts & Gallery, Stoneman’s Book Room, Taste Of the Orient, Terry White Pharmacy, The Corner Store, The Cumberland Hotel, The Moon-Massage, The Tea Dispensary, Theatre Royal, Togs Place, Travellers Choice,Tribe, WILD Food & Wine.
Thanks to staff member Claire Perry [left in photo with Safe Space member Rose] for her hard work in getting such an amazing groups of donations together.
TimeOut Melbourne Magazine Feature
Duration: May 2023
The best natural wonders to find inBendigo, Castlemaine and surrounds
Less than two hours from Melbourne, Victoria’s beautiful goldfields region has stunning landscapes as well as a wealth of history, culture and great eats.
By Matthew Kennedy in association with Visit Victoria and Bendigo Regional Tourism Friday 5 May 2023Northern Arts Hotel | Photographs: Carmen Zammit
STAY
Experience high art on the hilltop at Northern Arts Hotel
Castlemaine has long been celebrated for its commitment to the arts, and the Northern Arts Hotel is no exception. While rooms here are warm, charming and steeped in history, it’s the atmosphere that made us fall in love with this hotel – owned and operated by Maggie Fooke, whose now-closed Brooklyn Arts Hotel was a Fitzroy institution. Arriving on a Saturday afternoon, we catch the tail end of a poetry reading & workshop (sorry for the interruption, guys!). After ducking out for dinner, we join the locals in the main room for some slow jazz and wine by the fire. It’s great to see Maggie’s dedication to the arts is as strong as ever with such a diverse roster of salons, screenings, talks & performances.
