Fremantle duo brew up a fresh live music experience with Coffee & Lyrics series
Looking for a unique way to start your Sunday? Coffee & Lyrics is a new monthly music series that brings together acoustic musical acts with poets in a cozy cafe setting. The series will be hosted by Bill Lawrie and Claire Moodie, who are authors of the book Freo Groove and also perform together as the folk duo Sea Swallow. BRETT LEIGH DICKS caught up with the Fremantle-based duo to talk about their book and what they have brewing for their debut event, featuring The Little Lord Street Duo and Natalie D-Napoleon, at Hybrid Warehouse on Sunday, October 6.
This series is being staged and presented under the banner of your book, Freo Groove, which documents personalities from the Fremantle music scene. Can you share a bit about the book and what inspired it?
Bill: It came out in July 2018 and was a labour of love for about three years. The idea for the book came out of a night at the Hilton Bowling Club watching one of the best Chicago Blues bands in Australia, if not anywhere in the world, playing in one of the daggiest venues in the world with the stickiest carpet and the cheapest beer.
The band (The DooDaddies) featured a generation of musicians from Fremantle who had been around for the heyday of live music and had now moved to the fringes. The band featured musicians like Dave Brewer, Dave Billing, John Wilson and Yugon Chobanoff. Claire and I were there, and the idea of the book came to me, and she said, “Right, let’s do it.” The idea of the book was the collection of musicians with Fremantle and the effect of the town on musicians.
You now support local music with a monthly Sunday morning series at Hybrid Warehouse in Fremantle, pairing an acoustic musical act with a poet. What inspired the idea for Coffee & Lyrics?
Claire: Since the book has been so well received, it has always been in our minds to do something else. We thought of doing another book, but after meeting Darren here at Hybrid Warehouse we got chatting one day after which Bill and I went away and thought about perhaps showcasing what we had been talking about in the book as in Fremantle’s musical culture, but we wanted it to be a listening experience.
It’s an intimate setting, so we wanted to create an opportunity for the artist and audience where we showcase musicians from across West Australia in a setting that takes music out of the traditional setting of pubs and alcohol.
Where I come from, there’s a rich tradition of that. In the US, the east coast boasts a vibrant coffeehouse music scene, and iconic listening rooms like Largo in Los Angeles also support this style. These venues are havens for artists with your style of music. Do you think Australia is ready for something like this?
Claire: We’ve always been very particular about where we book shows. That’s not to say we don’t play in bars; we’ve had a longstanding association with Rodney’s Bait & Tackle, and playing there is always a lot of fun. But when you’re trying to get the lyrics across, which is the focus of this new event, that’s going to be easier in what you’re referring to as a listening room. I haven’t seen much of that in Western Australia. And doing it on a Sunday morning is something of a newish idea for Western Australia.
Where did the idea for the name Coffee & Lyrics come from?
Claire: It came from an event that Sea Swallow played at in Broome a few years ago. It was a café, but not so much a listening experience. We really liked the idea of Coffee & Lyrics and live music in the morning to start your day. Plenty of places have live music in the morning, even here in Fremantle, but this is going to be a little different because it’s going to be a listening thing where you can grab a coffee and immerse yourself in some wonderful live music.
