Behind the Scenes of The Dream Machine Art Tour
by abby strangward, photos by doug bennett & asia taylor
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Jordan Borg’s been a name floating around my socials for a while now. So, when flyers started popping up for the Dream Machine Tour with companies, artists and bands like Alice Glascott, Doug Bennett, The Gurdies and Sucker Co. (names pretty much instantly recognisable in the Melb music & art scene), I was thrilled. A music & art tour going up the coast, stopping in towns & cities to throw events featuring various local talent at each stop? It was the dream Kyla and I had always talked about, brought to life with Jordan’s insane creative vision, and the talent of dozens of friends. Watching the whole thing unfold as it became a reality — from the first instagram captions expressing the idea, to the posters detailing each stop’s event, to the week of behind the scenes Instagram takeovers — was incredible.
Weeks later, we’ve caught up with Jordan and Alice to discuss the whole experience — everything from how the inspiration struck to how the hell they actually pulled it off. Read on for some crazy creative inspo, and an insight into the DIY ethic of some of Melbourne’s most promising young artists.
Can you tell us a bit about your youth, and where you grew up? How did you originally get into your respective forms of art?
Jordan — I was born on the Gold Coast but moved to the Sunshine Coast when I was 9 and did most of my growing up there. I went to a sport-based school that really egged on soccer, but I’ve always been heaps shit at coordination; I played AFL (Australian Football League) a few times but never really fell that hard into it. I used to just spend most of my time learning instruments and playing music. I was really keen on that but I also loved movies and cartoons. I think that’s where it all started — I always wanted to mix the two together.
I used to make shitty edits with videos I took of my mates or the beach but that’s all I could film on the coast, so I got pretty bored with it. Then, because of that, I started drawing characters and making them move in videos. I started animating them to music and always tried to find the coolest riffs I could in ’60s and ’70s classic rock songs to go with it. (Laughs) Pretty lame. After that, I just found a passion for drawing and making art. But I guess it’s always been based around my love for music and film.
Alice — My parents are really lovely creative people, and we lived in Marrickville growing up. I’m eternally grateful to have had encouraging people raise me the way they did — looking back, they were pretty out there. They’d let me do things like draw on my bedroom walls and whatever. I’ve always been interested in art as an outlet.
How did you all meet?
Alice — I first met Jordan at a group art show we were both apart of — “RAW”, at the old Sucker Co. space. I was painting a mural there the following week, and Jordan was around, so we got to know each other and ended up just chatting for ages.
Jordan — Yeah, we pretty much all met when we were curated for Jack Irvine’s “RAW” show in Melbourne last year.
So, you finished up with “The Dream Machine” tour a few weeks back now — can you tell me how the whole idea came to be? Where’d the name come from?
Jordan — I’ve always seen bands go on tour and have the funnest time. I’d always think, “Fuck yeah, well art’s kinda exactly the same as music, so why not take my shit on tour?” But even more than that I wanted to open it up for locals in every city to get involved. [I’m] not sure where the name came from; I had a show late last year before the tour and I tried to think of something cool and it just stuck. I like it though. Because it kind of is about dreams, but it also travels around in a van. Like a machine.
What was the core reason behind the tour — what were you hoping to achieve, or bring to audiences?
Jordan — I feel like art — especially in Melbourne — has always been a pretty exclusive scene. I always just made my shit back in Queensland and never cared that much. There [were] never art shows to go to, there were never any events on or people that gave a fuck (laughs). It wasn’t a huge thing. So when I came to Melbourne and I realised it was heaps big and there was this exclusive scene, I was wigging out. I wanted to make an event where artists, videographers, photographers, musicians and everybody [could] just feel welcome. Where there’s something for everyone and where art isn’t exclusive, but inclusive.
I’ve met so many insanely talented people while I’ve been here and I wanted to make an event where all of them could throw their stuff in and feel proud together. There aren’t any themes and I don’t choose or curate pieces. It’s whatever the artist is proud of; that’s what’s important to me and what’s important to the event. More than anything, though, I want it to be about the locals; giving local artists an event to show up to and a place for local punters to get around. It’s for everybody. I just love the idea of getting everyone revved up.
It’s certainly pretty different to most of the stuff out there at the moment — I feel like you don’t hear about a lot of art shows hitting the road! Was anyone sort of confused at first, or did everyone just jump straight on board?
Alice — I mean, obviously we’d heard of musicians hitting the road, so when Jordan proposed the idea there really wasn’t any confusion at all. I just remember being really excited.
Jordan — Originally I was going to go it alone and get some of my mates to drive because I don’t know how to. [I] was always going to have The Kerps on to support the music side of things, but Alice and Doug had actually contacted me keen on being a part after I started teasing it in the early days. They were fully on board from the beginning and it felt so right bringing them along because I fucking love them.
Jordan — you touched on not having these sort of events around when you were growing up yourself. Do you both find that building these creative spaces and events is important, particularly for our youth?
Alice — Yeah, so when my family relocated, the community around our new area wasn’t really one that prided itself on creativity, so I struggled in that sense, growing up in high school. I wish I’d had access to events like these, things that would have made me feel a lot more validated and excited in exploring my skills as an artist when I was younger, instead of being restricted to what we were shown in high school art class. I think seeing artists like Jordan and Doug at shows would have encouraged me to start being more experimental with art sooner.
Jordan — Absolutely, the Sunny Coast never had any events like these. I never even went to gigs before I moved to Melbourne; there wasn’t anything to go to. I used to go to Bluesfest in Byron Bay every year with my family. That was sick because I got to see so many good bands that my grandparents would always play on days [I was] at their house. I think that’s where my love for music came from. We’d always listen to MAX greatest hits of all time at my grandparent’s place on Sunday arvos, and they’d have Beavis and Butthead on VHS and me and my brother would watch it when we got the chance. I think because I didn’t have any events to go to, I turned to that stuff for influence as a kid.
You took The Dream Machine up the Southeast coast of Australia — what locations did you end up hosting in? And how did each differ?
Jordan — [Aside from the two dates in Melbourne], we ended up stopping in Woolongong, Newcastle, and Sydney for 3 shows over the weekend from Friday night to Sunday night.
The first venue was Uni Bar in Woolongong, which wasn’t our event, but we were added to a lineup for [the] Strawberry Visions event “Strawberry Boggie,” which was jam-packed with some hectic bands and artists that I loved getting around. [It] was so good to see some stuff I’d never seen before; we had nothing to do with bookings so it was like I was at a candy shop. Woolongong had much more of a uni-night, club kind of vibe. They sold out 750 tickets, so it was pretty huge.
Alice — Yeah, Wollongong was a dream, because I used to live there and got to push my art into mural painting at different venues throughout the gong. Strawberry Boogie was such a beautiful community - it felt like one big friends fest.
Jordan — So then Saturday night was Newcastle at Between the Lines gallery. The bands on this lineup were really instrumental and based a lot on funk and soul. Everyone got down to it and had a boogie. We packed the place with the best crowd of people and met so many legends. It was definitely more of a gallery vibe.
Alice — Newcastle was another familiar place growing up for me, which was so fun. Also, we were lucky enough to be joined in the show by Liz Pike and Hannah Dunn who are some out-of-this world creators. I felt so empowered as a female artist around those two women — Jordan and I still speak about how much we loved that night.
Jordan — Our last out-of-state venue was at 82A in Sydney, which was heaps off the street and kind of hidden away. Alice even had to post a video of how to get there from the street. We had this huge DIY/warehouse sort of room to work with and it was so sick piecing it together. It was the hardest one to pull off but we got there. It had much more of an underground, punk rock vibe, which I loved; it felt like the most “Dream Machine” any of our shows could get and I was so stoked on it.
Alice — And then we wrapped up where we started, back in Melbourne. I don’t think I’ll never not be enthralled by Melbourne, and how go go go that city is.
Logistically speaking, how the hell did you manage it? Getting yourselves and the art around, organising the music, drinks, etc. — how on earth do you pull off this sort of ‘art tour’ idea?
Jordan — I had the most insane help and support from the guys at Sucker Co. They got on board straight away in [the] early days and put their hands up to market-manage the tour in terms of bookings. They drove the van I hired up and down the coast and did up a schedule for us to follow. They helped out an insane amount and so much thanks has to go to them. Organising venues, artists, and musos was actually the easy bit though. Almost everyone I contacted was heaps keen on the idea and got around it which made shit just a lot easier. [I] can’t thank everyone that was on board enough. Drinks were pretty hard to score … but two venues had bars and the rest we managed to scrape up some sponsors for. Other than that, a lot of cases and wines were out of pocket. It was worth it though. As a thanks to people coming along and getting involved in what we were doing.
Alice — The art tour itself is the brain child of Jordans imagination. He brought us all together. But Ben and Aden from Sucker Co. were a blessing and a half, packing us all into a mini van with Ben behind the wheel and Aden behind a handy cam, taking us from spot to spot while we squeezed in between our collection of canvases.
Your favourite part of the whole experience?
Jordan — There were so many moments where I was like, “Far out, this is so sick,” but my favourite bit was just meeting so many legends at each venue. I haven’t traveled much of Australia, but just getting to know some amazing artists and musicians just topped it all off. [It] made me realise there’s such an awesome community out there. Made the tour so worth it. My favourite venue in NSW was Newscastle though; everyone got right into and got heaps rowdy. I loved every bit of it.
Alice — My grandma being able to come to the Sydney show and being by her side when she saw my art.
Weirdest memory?
Jordan — Some guy staying in the apartments below our Airbnb in Sydney shut off our power at the mains and threatened us with a baseball bat for talking too loud. He even started bashing the floorboards while I was talking to Airbnb on the phone about it. The cops rang me the next day and asked if I wanted to press charges but I was like, “Nah, fuck that. I don’t have time for it.” I don’t know, I thought Coogee Beach was supposed to be nice. Pretty hectic.
Alice — All of it. In the best way possible.
And, I’ve got to ask — can we expect another anytime soon?
Jordan — Yeah, we had such a good turnout. I was kind of trialing it this time to see how it would go and was so stoked with the turnouts. Now that I know people are keen on it I’m planning on doing one every year. Next year I want to cover even more of Australia. That would be sick.
