Good Music - Good Times in the 60s.

Melbourne in the 60s had a great music scene. Being a teenager at the time I saw a change in the music scene from jazz and rock ‘n’ Roll to the British beat music.

My favourite Disco in the 60s was the Biting Eye - their posters were works of art.

As a 15 year old my mother allowed me to go to my first jazz dances. They were local and I had to be home by midnight. Mum loved dancing herself - she met my father at a dance in the 40s so I guess she didn’t see any threat during her time and therefore nothing had changed over the next 2 decades. She was fairly right in her assumption. Jazz dances were very friendly places in the mid-sixties. However things did change a little in the second half of the decade

. Two more Biting Eye posters.

When the music of the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Kinks, Small Faces and the Who started to filter through to Australia, the dance venues also took on a change. Most Jazz and Rock n Roll venues were suburban Town Halls. Later as the British wave of music took over, venues for this music were in the dark alley ways of Melbourne in old warehouses. A little like the Cavern in Liverpool. With weed and LSD and the whole love-in period these warehouses for music venues sprung up throughout the CBD of Melbourne with unusual names that my mother didn’t quite get. I must admit that I didn’t quite get it either but you didn’t admit that to your parents. All that mattered was that it was different to your parents era.

I remember my very first concert - I was 17 and six of us all piled into my mates Morrie to see The Who, Small Faces and Manfred Mann on the one show. Probably cost all of $10 at the time.

Many of these Discos also had Sunday afternoon sessions - the Melbourne music scene was where many of the interstate bands would come to be noticed. The Twilights were from Adelaide, Python Lee Jackson from Brisbane and Split Enz (later Crowded House), Max Merritt and Dinah Lee from New Zealand.

BELOW: The Thumping Tum also had creative posters, probably due to their creative owners that were from the window dressing and interior display staff of the Myer Store.

This is a shot of the interior of Berties Disco - It had three levels including the basement for the bands, and a lounge area and a games room.

Anyway, back to the venues and the weird names. The Biting Eye was my first real “Disco”. They were called Discos then because between live bands, they would have a DJ spin a few Discs. None of the venues had a liquor licence and just as well as most of the patrons were probably 14 to early 20s. Occasionally you would get a wiff of a funny cigarette but due to no alcohol, the venues were pretty friendly. Venues opened at 8.00 pm and closed in time to get the last train home.

Another popular venue was the Thumping Tum. I was working at Myer doing visual displays and windows at the big department store in the city and one of the employees actually ran the Tum. Another fellow employee started a venue called the “Love In” down the road a little in Carlton. It later burnt down. Somebody probably dropped a reefer down the back of a couch.
Our Saturday night choices also included Catcher, Sebastian’s and Berties. From memory I can still count about 12 venues in the city alone. The local bands would do the circuit of the venues during the night.

It was great time, a little naive maybe but to my mind, a lot more comfortable before Pub Rock started. As we rolled into the 70s, the Pubs started to employ bands to bring in the crowds, usually 18 plus due to this being the minimum drinking age. It left a lot of the younger kids with no place to go.

I’ll always look on those years as the start of my music (and life) education. It was great to be in that era when music drastically changed from Jazz to Rock n Roll and to the British Beat scene and then psychedelic music. Oh yes, and I survived, got married, had a family and currently enjoy being both a grumpy old man and old fart by my adult boys who now play gigs around Melbourne with their band “In Tongues”

Gosh they have strange names for bands these days!!!!!!!

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