By Callum Ludwig
A new music festival is coming to the Yarra Ranges, supporting local artists and raising funds for charities, while reactivating the live music scene in the region.
Rock The Valley, a blues, rock, psych, soul, and roots music festival, will hold its first event next month in Yarra Glen hosted by music label Jamalama Music.
Ash King, who founded Jamalama Music with his wife Ashlee King (yes, they share the same name!) said it will hopefully provide an opportunity for artists and the community to reconnect and be brought back together.
“It feels as though we’ve been starved of the opportunity to engage with live audiences,” he said.
“As a performer it is one thing to create the art and it’s another thing to be able to share it.”
Ash King has spent his life living in and around the Yarra Ranges, having grown up and gone to school in Healesville and also having lived in Ferntree Gully and Mount Evelyn before moving back to Healesville.
The importance of local music is not lost on King, having met his wife at a small community gig in Mooroolbark.
“We found out the council we’re running gigs so we went to Mooroolbark Community Centre who at the time had a thing on Friday nights called Lounge Lizards,” he said.
“A friend of mine in the band brought a whole heap of his friends from Mooroolbark along and my would-be wife was one of them.”
The roster of artists is headlined by Gold Coast native, Melbourne-formed band The Delta Riggs, and other acts including Kings’s very own band Smoke Stack Rhino, Whoopie Cat, The Ugly Kings, Steph Strings, and Sunfruits among many more.
King said the roster of varying genres will complement each other well.
“We’ve chosen acts who are different in their musical style, but the energy and the feel come back to everyone dancing and having good times,” he said.
Dan Swoo from Whoopie Cat, a five-piece heavy blues band who grew up in the Yarra Ranges and started out performing in Mooroolbark and Healesville, said it’s very exciting to have the opportunity to perform live again.
“As far as a musician goes, it’s pretty much the peak,” he said
“I love having music recorded, but it’s live shows that mean everything.”
Whoopie Cat had a European tour lined up in August 2020 which was cancelled due to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic early in the year.
Swoo said festival-goers can look forward to hearing the band’s upcoming album as part of their performance in the festival.
“Our second album and the third release from us should be out hopefully in the next couple of months. We’re just in the mixing and mastering stage at the moment,” he said
“A lot of the new stuff will be on the setlist. There’ll be a lot of new music as well as all the old music.”
All ticket sales will count towards a donation to numerous children’s charities through the website Humanitix, and attendees have the option of an additional donation to Support Act, a charitable organisation delivering crisis relief services to artists, artist managers, crew, and music workers in hardship, particularly due to Covid-19.
Ash King said he admires the work Support Act does for artists struggling in ways ranging from financial to mental concerns.
“A lot of artists are part of a vulnerable group in terms of mental health in the community,” he said.
