Retro Rehash

Retro Rehash is a non-profit production company in the Blue Mountains that helps connect local artists with venues. They work largely off government grants and do everything they can to lift up musicians in the local scene, from building stage plans and press kits to engaging photographers for professional band and gig photos. Their whole thing is giving artists the tools they need to go from performing in their garage to playing local venues.

I got involved through a mutual friend. I found the owners passion for helping local musicians, many of whom were mates of mine, really endearing and wanted to help out. He'd been wanting a website for a while to support grant applications and word of mouth, but the real driving factor was his passion project, "Sounds of our Towns."

The concept was simple but effective. He curated playlists of local artists across all major streaming platforms (Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music), each one highlighting a different genre to show that no matter your taste, there was local talent making that kind of music. A graphic designer friend who runs a printing business designed posters for each playlist, which were then pinned up in public spaces and venues around the mountains. The posters directed people to the site where they could open the playlist on their platform of choice or explore the other curated collections.

The first version of the site was a fully bespoke PHP build with a custom CMS I wrote for managing all the content. It did the job initially, but as the scope of what he wanted to use the site for kept growing, it became clear it needed better bones for the future. So I rebuilt it in WordPress with Bricks Builder, giving him a much easier way to manage content himself as things expanded.

The site now hosts the playlists, information about music mentorships between established and local artists, galleries from past gigs and artist photoshoots, videos of events, and is soon expanding to include an entire local artist directory. Artists can get in touch to register interest in playing future events, and it serves as the central platform for everything Retro Rehash does.

This one's been a long-running project and it's cool to see it grow from a single initiative into something that genuinely represents the full scope of what they do for the local music community.