What's On in VIC

News from VIC.

December 2011

by Christine Bitomsky

The weather is warming up and we are starting to get busy with the festival season. A time for outdoor events, Halloween parties, spring racing, cup day dances, car shows and of course Christmas parties. It will again be a time to toss-up whether to go to Christmas parties or rock n roll dances....

Our Vivien of Holloway reproduction vintage clothing is selling well, not just on the rock’n’roll scene but for Debs, Valedictory Dinners/dances, spring racing, weddings, and to many singers/entertainers and just people who love the look of the ‘40s and ‘50s.

Here in Victoria we’ve been blessed with a huge number of events and shows to go to and recently I’ve been to a few of the Mondo Entertainment productions. Leo Capuana has been putting together some Elvis dinner/dance shows that would rival Las Vegas...The first one I attended had Damien Mullin and Mike Tsama with Vegas Showgirls at a fabulous venue The Westend Market Hotel in Sunshine. The last one was Damien Mullin with Marcus Jackson at the Yarraville Club – definitely a great night out for Elvis fans.

During October it was truly exciting to have some overseas visitors.  Along with my friends Denise and Neil we managed to persuade two very special people from Europe’s rockabilly scene to grace our shores, Jerry Chatabox from the UK and Miss Maryanne from Holland. Jerry runs the Rockabilly Rave and the Hillbilly Hayride in England, two huge events which draw musicians and fans from all over the world including Victoria.  Miss Maryanne sings with a Dutch band called the Ragtime Ramblers and has a very authentic style with outfits to match. Maryanne was backed by the Pat Capocci Combo whom she had played with before at the Rave and who compliment her very well.

Not to encroach on the NSW column, I’d just like to mention our fabulous weekend at Chromefest at The Entrance. What a fantastic event! We took a trade stand there with our range of ‘50s clothing for the weekend from Friday to Sunday. The weekend was packed with things to do, shopping, bands, dance classes, the beach, kids activities, and we couldn’t have asked for better weather, it was just perfect, sun, sand, hot rods and rock’n’roll. There were so many people, heaps of show cars and everyone was happy and friendly. It almost seems greedy to hope for the same next year but we’ll definitely be going and I’m sure we’ll come up with a way we can help and become more involved next year.

The Royal Derby had its mega 12 band day run by DJ Ashley which went off well; not sure if he’s game to do it again but he still has live bands there every Sunday arvo from 4pm.

I know we seem to have spent most of the past month out of Victoria as we shot over to Adelaide again for their week long rock’n’roll and rockabilly festival. We missed the first Friday night but attended the Dia De Los Meurtos (Day of the Dead) Mexican style festival run by George & Leah Cushnie at the Whiteline Transport Depot. There were 6 bands, two DJ’s and plenty of people making it a great success. I’d recommend it for next year if you haven’t been yet and there’s no shortage of accommodation in the wonderful city of Adelaide.

The next day was The Rockabilly Jamboree which also had 5 or 6 bands and a mixed audience. For the rest of the week you could see bands every night, it kept us so busy, finishing with the Adelaide Rock n Roll Club’s ‘That’ll Be The Day’ Festival on the Sunday. We had to go home on the Monday for a rest.

On the younger music scene here in Victoria I’ve been promoting an original psychobilly band of the ‘80s from Germany called Mad Sin who toured Australia and came to Melbourne on the 11 November. Psychobilly came about when rockabilly merged with punk rock in the 1980s, giving birth to bands that appealed to the younger generation such as The Meteors, Frenzy, Frantic Flintstones, Batmobile and Restless – and to think I thought it was just a fad, I can’t believe they’re nearly ALL still going! Does music EVER go out of fashion?

Until next time

Christine
ARRAS Member 2095

Email: JLIB_HTML_CLOAKING
Web: www.vivienofholloway.com
www.facebook.com/christine.bitomsky

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