NOVEMBER MINI ZINE 0.4
November is here & if you’ve been living under a rock you might be surprised to know that Gong Crawl is happening on Saturday the 22nd of November. With that news, I would like you to stop what you're doing right now & do whatever it takes to remember this information. Write it on your hand, pop it in your calendar, say it out loud five times. Saturday 22nd of November I will be attending Gong Crawl. Okay now we can move on...
Last month was huge. There was a bit on, so much so that it feels like we blinked & it’s suddenly November. We launched our ninth print issue of Wanderer Magazine, WHICH WAY NOW & we had a big party at our beloved warehouse in Bellambi (sadly our last magazine launch party to be had in that building) where we showed the Illawarra what we’d been working on for the last few months— all tangible, real & in print. On the night there was art on display, Issue 9 extremely hot off the press as we just made the deadline the night before & of course to soundtrack the night we had everyone’s favourite Novocastrians dust & our local faves Chimers. The event sold out & we had such a fun night, it couldn’t have been better, so thank you so much to everyone that came! All I can say to those that couldn’t make it because they forgot to buy tickets... try & remember next time xoxo. On that note, whilst I’m here just thought I’d make a little announcement from something I’ve noticed with doing events. The last minute ticket buying especially in DIY venue spaces makes it so scary to put on events because you never know if its actually gonna sell. If it sells earlier it gives more time for the event makers to prepare better. So if there’s something you wanna go to this month — turn to the back of this zine and you’ll see a QR code you can scan to see all the events we have mentioned AND the links to RSVP or buy your tickets to support the scene especially here in the Illawarra! We hope this zine helps you with getting that info as it’s our main intention with it.
Speaking of, we are so happy to have supplied you with another issue our 4th release! We hope you’ve been liking these are much as we are enjoying putting them together. This issue is our first special edition for the integral Gong Crawl, where we interviewed one of the organisers Daniel Breda on the motivation behind creating Gong Crawl, his connection to the Illawarra & its community, as well as some of his favourite picks from the one day festival (which is on Saturday the 22nd of November–remember). It’s where we get to run/crawl around Wollongong, jumping from venue to venue to bare witness to some of the most amazing established & emerging bands in the country, & what makes it even better is you can get into every gig at every venue for FREE! We recommend you RSVP (we’ll have all the info for that in the QR code), prepare your stops & practice your crawling. If you haven’t already seen, we will have a bit of a step by step guide for you that will be on our socials & website soon. It’s gonna be a fun day. We’ve also got a little venue guide over the page to start preparing yourself. From seeing the venue guide & many discussions around the Wanderer studio table, we’ll likely be jumping from La’s to Society City to VanQ & back again, with pit stops at Dicey’s & honestly everywhere in between—don’t worry, we’ve been training. Personally, I’m most excited about seeing Garage Sale. I’m rinsing their new album Any Day Now like crazy. I’m also keen to see Twine who I’ve yet to see play live. Actually, as I keep looking at it, I’m excited about ALL of the line up: Bimbo, Sesame Girl, Pictures with Yuki... Cool Jumper?! It’s going to be a busy busy day.
As for the rest of the month, I’m going to be talking on a panel for Music NSW along with Luke Player & Lisa Diebold of Soft Power Studio & host Reece Grogan of Yeah Rad. We’ll be chatting about why merch matters & how to make it work for you. Lewis & Emma have been appointed to host a local music trivia on the evening as well, so we might see you there!
And with that, we hope to see you on the streets of the crawl this November! We hope you enjoy this month’s zine & you find yourself something to go to! You can also buy a copy of our new issue nine via the QR code if you like :) We offer pick up from the studio too so if you’re local you don’t have to pay for shipping. And be sure to grab tickets to the rest of the amazing events!
If you want your event to be featured for November send an email to:
lewis@wanderer-magazine.com
WOLLON-GUIDE
WEEKLY
MONDAY Ryan’s 2-4-1 meals, Ciro's $20 pizza night
TUESDAY Trivia @ La's, $10 burger night at Papi's, $5 Tacos @ Bar Cabron
WEDNESDAY North Gong Shnitty Night, Wing Night at Gringa
THURSDAY Joker Poker @ Principle Brewing, Free Live Jazz @ The Servo
FRIDAY TBH Friday’s Free Live Music
SATURDAY Free Live Music at RGBM and Dicey's Saturdays
SUNDAY RGBM Free Live Music
NOV 1: LA LA LA'S 6TH BDAY
Russell W + Tropical Strength at Franks Wild Years
NOV 2: Screening of Tracy Moffat's 'beDevil' at Wollongong Art Gallery
NOV 6: Leila at Society City
NOV 7: ZEKE at The Servo
Raging Harmony' Exhibition Opening at Clifton School of Arts
NOV 8: Slowly Slowly at UOW Unibar
Jack Dylan & The Villains at Franks Wild Years
‘SUPER’ Club Servo X Washing Machine Disco Club.
NOV 9: Scattered Order at Franks Wild Years
NOV 12: Powder Blue at La La La's
NOV 13: Cosmic Psychos at UOW Unibar
NOV 14: Sun Run+World Sick at Society City
Crescendo25 Artist Book Award Opening Night at Clifton School of Arts
NOV 15: Tyne James Organ at UOW Unibar
NOV 16: Salty at La La La's
NOV 19: Chelsea Daghita at La La La's
NOV 20: Wollongong Zine Club @ VanQ
NOV 21: Guy Blackman Band at Frank's Wild Years
NOV 22: GONG CRAWL 2025
Surf Swap Market at The Servo
NOV 23: ILLAWARRA EDIBLE GARDEN TRAIL 22-23 NOV
NOV 26: Benchwarmers - 'up to bat' at La La La’s
NOV 27: Music NSW Panel at Nebula, Bellambi
NOV 28: 'Discessus' Exhibition Opening at VanQ
NOV 29: Denim on Her, Tallulah at Dicey Riley's
Thirroul Music Festival at Anita's Theatre
NOV 30: GRXCE at La La La's
INTERVIEW WITH DAN BREDA OF SPEED DRIVE INC AND MANY OTHERS
This November, the much-loved Gong Crawl returns to Wollongong—a city-wide takeover of live music, art, and parties, spilling across 14 venues, all free for punters to enjoy. Since 2022, the Gong Crawl has grown bigger, better and louder with each year, fueling our town’s vibrant music scene that thrives in its individuality. Behind a lot of it lies Dan Breda, well known as the lovable lunatic at the helm of Hoon, a talented artist and sits in the driving seat of Speed Drive Inc. Here, Breda talks with hearty humour and candour about the city’s creative community—the highs, lows and chaos in between of making it all happen.
Who are you, what part of the Illlawarra are you from and what do you do?
My name is Daniel, I grew up in Woonona. I make music in the band Hoon, I make visual arts and I book the Gong Crawl.
Many know you from Hoon, others for your art or the Gong Crawl. How do you fit all these hats on your one head?
Hahah, They’re all the same hat! It’s all interconnected really.. Ideally I would paint and sing all the time, that’d be good. The booking is fun too but in a different way. I don’t really enjoy booking shows, I enjoy the outcome. If I could only have the outcome that'd be the best thing but I enjoy all the creative parts of it. I like listening to new music and putting acts together. I like painting and looking at art. I don't enjoy making grant applications or typing emails, but it’s just a necessary thing you have to do. The more art you want to make, the more of that stuff you have to do and weaves into it .. then all of a sudden you spend 90% of your time emailing people ahah.
How did Speed Drive first come to life?
Because of The Gong Crawl. The first two festivals were from individual artist funding. In order to make the event bigger we needed more money and to get bigger grants you need to be an organisation… so we made one. Like, you could auspice a grant which basically means getting a cosign from a company. After looking into what it involves, it made more sense just to start an organisation because it's really not that complex. There are obligations to abide by to be registered or whatever but they're not that grand. You have to have a meeting once a year and you gotta keep your records, all stuff you do already because of the Internet - all your data generally is stored already. It would've been harder to manage something like this when everything was on paper… The hardest thing is taxes which is something I don’t really worry about haha.
Hoon’s video for “Australian Dream” showcases some recognisable parts of the Illawarra — How do you think Wollongong’s location influences the scene here?
Well, lately a lot of people want to move here because it’s beautiful and it's slightly cheaper than Sydney, or very slightly now. In the last few years, Thirroul and the northern suburbs are growing like crazy. So when people move here, that creates a different kind of music in itself. Wollongong being a desirable place to live has made creative people move here and that impacts the music. The uni has an impact obviously, lots of younger kids moving here and starting bands. When I was growing up, the people that played music were just punks and music was more subculture than pop culture. I think in the 90’s there was a lot of good stuff, the Tumbleweed and Rukus generation, then in the early 2000’s there’s a bit of a gap.. Then the Rad Bar era, which had a lot of crazy good music, mostly garage and surf rock. Obviously surf rock is a product of the location, too. But now people know what Wollongong is and they want to live here, the influence is beyond the location.
The Gong Crawl is a great mix of established, emerging and youth artists.. Can you tell me one of each that I should see at Gong Crawl this year?
My favourite band playing is The Vasco Era—my favourite Australian band ever. I would say they’re established and emerging because they were established in the late 2000’s and.. quit haha. They’ve just put out a new record though. Straight Arrows, they're one of the primary reasons this festival exists. When Hoon put out the Australian Dream record, we wanted to do something special and play three shows in one day because, at King St Crawl, I saw Straight Arrows play three shows in one day. When push came to shove, I realised it was pretty selfish to do at Gong Crawl so we didn't end up doing it but they were one of the first inspirations of the festival.
Mudrat is an emerging artist that is blowing up crazy. He just did a powerful rap on Triple J which is very pro-Palestine, basically an open letter to ABC on the ABC about their inaction in documenting or writing about Palestine. He makes sick rap but plays live with a band. If you haven't seen Twine, I would go and watch them. If you already love Twine, I’ve programmed the set times to suit you. You can watch Sesame Girl at La’s then watch Twine and Garage Sale at VanQ after.
Youdideverythingyoucould, they’re probably the youngest band on the whole bill. They look sixteen but the guy has a voice like he’s been chewing gravel for 20 years. I saw them and they were doing the classic emo hardcore thing where they sing without a mic, and you can hear this bass player perfectly. It was brutal. Sigourney, they’re young too. The guitarist volunteered at one of our All of Us festivals at the Youth Centre, so pretty sick to have him on…
This is the third annual Gong Crawl, but in years past we’ve seen Hoon Fest and all-ages All of Us… What do you like about these bigger mini-fest events?
They’re bigger… hahah. Hoon Fest was fun. It had exactly what this has: visual arts, DJ’s and bands except it cost to get in and it was at the uni. Gong Crawl is essentially Hoon Fest but free and heaps better. After that we did All of Us a couple times, which was really good but very difficult because of all the red tape the council put on the youth centre. We did some shows in the shipping container in the mall across from the church… I mean, it is bigger, you can make a bigger impact, have more bands, make more people happy — get weird shit like Triple J posting the festival when there’s bands like Sigourney on there. That’s mad. It’s funny and cool, it affects more people. If it wasn't for Gong Crawl getting bigger I wouldn't be here talking to you ahah. I would've still come to the party the other night though.