Why this pub with no beer is a beacon for a city thirsting for music

It was a rainy Monday night in 2003 when a young woman took the stage at a scuzzy little pub in Sydney’s Surry Hills. Her face looked familiar – was it from a tutorial at the University of NSW? Then she started to sing. Who was this? Where had she come from? And where was she going?

That performer was Sarah Blasko, one of many who got their start at the Hopetoun Hotel. I think it was a free gig, $5 at a stretch. That was typical at “the Hoey”. Blasko, of course, went on to become a multi-award-winning artist.

Surely if you get culture for free, or next to free, it’s worthless. Right?

Well, no.

The Hoey hosted regular live music from the 1980s to the late 2000s. And no-hopers like me – self-supported arty types – could afford it. So could poor kids, country kids, non-nepo babies and dreamers without banks of mum and dad. Along with the sounds came the indie, low-cost community around it – misfits of various ages and stages including students, interstate refugees (especially from Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s ’80s Brisbane), tradies, travellers and “unofficial arts grant recipients” (which meant dole recipients). Rock’n’roll was rhyming slang for the dole, after all.

The pub did pay its artists, modestly. And many, like Blasko, would go on to build huge financial and cultural capital: Paul Kelly, the Hoodoo Gurus, Beasts of Bourbon, Cathy Green, Tim Rogers, Box the Jesuit, iOTA, Decoder Ring, X, Mental as Anything, Jimmy Little, Chad Morgan, the Stiff Gins … over nearly 30 years, literally thousands of acts played the Hoey. Rock, rockabilly, country, folk, metal, dance, cabaret and the downright weird – all welcome. They spawned much bigger events; the first Big Day Out and Homebake were built on regular Hoey acts and audiences.

We were all spurred on by a low-cost street press – On The Street, The Drum Media. They were social media before the algorithms, curated by like-minded souls, all on the smell of an oily rag.

Today, the Hoey stands empty, boarded up and dusty, as unkempt as an overgrown grave. In 2009, it was shut overnight “until further notice”. Staff found out when they turned up for their next shift. Bands booked to play in the coming days, nights and weeks were left without explanation. Noise was a problem, and the owner would cite regulations requiring costly “significant works”. Notice of the Hoey’s resurrection never came.

Over the past few years, I’ve worked on a Hoey history/interview project with filmmaker/academic Gregory Ferris and amateur photographer Bryan “Cookie” Cook. Many see the abandoned Hoey as a sad reminder of what once was: a vibrant Sydney music scene. But the truth is, we are living amid a revival of live music in Sydney, so I prefer to think of this shuttered little pub as a provocation – a heritage building standing defiantly against the developer’s glare, daring anyone with a vision to have a go. If not at the Hoey, elsewhere.

The pub may be deserted, but what has struck me is its legacy: the enduring strength of the community that the Hoey left behind. Decades later, many of its artists are still making new music and gigging. I saw Tim Rogers and Lo Carmen just last weekend.

Some of the people who contributed at the Hopetoun have become leading figures in the music industry (see Millie Millgate, Music Australia’s director, who started as a Hoey booker). Importantly, it’s the old Hoey punters – still going out, still supporting live music, still sharing stories. Cookie’s still taking pictures. Keep an eye out for him at MoshPit in Erskineville or The Gasoline Pony in Marrickville.

Seventeen years on, the Hoey stands as a monument, an inspiration to take a punt on a small room near you. For every Live Nation megatour, for every Ticketek stadium filler, there are still creative communities working for, and with, basically nothing. That doesn’t mean they are worthless.

And a note to the feds: why not take some inspiration from Ireland, which has pioneered the world’s first Basic Income for the Arts, paying 2000 artists €325 ($530) a week? It has returned €1.39 to the economy for every €1 of public money invested. A little boost from the public purse might get some musos off the “rock’n’roll – rhymes with dole”. That would reward us all.

Liz Giuffre is an associate professor in media at UTS, a music journalist and the author of Spirits of the Hoey: A Love Letter to the Hopetoun Hotel.

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