15/08/2019
Working on a local project for the anniversary of the Star Hotel Riots.
🔥🎥🎸 AUSTRALIAN MUSO PRODUCING SHORT FILM ABOUT THE STAR HOTEL RIOT FOR MUSEUM 🎸🎥🔥
It’s had songs written about it and now The Star Hotel is going to be the subject of a short film to coincide with the infamous riot that happened there on September 19, 1979.
Musician, filmmaker and broadcaster Glenn Dormand (pictured left) is producing a series of shorts called Stories of our Town for the Newcastle Museum.
Mr Dormand, who is better known by his alias Chit Chat Von Loopin Stab with ARIA Platinum artists Machine Gun Fe****io (MGF), has selected the Star Hotel riot as the first story in a series.
“There’s (been) so much talk online through Lost Newcastle - which is one of my favourite Facebook sites - about the Star Hotel.” Mr Dormand said.
“I thought that I knew the story, and I started watching the comments and . . . different bits that came up, and I (thought) ‘there's probably more this story that I know’.”
Mr Dormand worked for Foxtel music program Maxx for 12 years following the demise of MGF, has been a broadcaster on the Triple M network, and co-wrote many of the group’s biggest hits.
“I think you're a sum of your experience,” Mr Dormand said.
“Everything that I've done over the last 12 years, and maybe to do with songwriting as well, is to try and capture a song or a story in either three minutes or 30-second grab before the next ad break.
“You're trying to extract the best story that's going to have the most impact, and that's what my ear has been kind of trained for.”
In addition to the stories of Mark Tinson (pictured centre) and Peter de Jong (right) Mr Dormand and cinematographer Tony Whitaker have filmed interviews with cameraman Barry Nancarrow - whose images were broadcast nationally and internationally – and others, who were there on the night.
“From there we're going to move into a bunch of other stuff: closing the BHP, the drag racing on Kooragang . . . there's a surfing community that runs parallel (to that),” he said.
“There's a whole lot of communities within our community - and subgroups and cultures - that I think we need to shine a light on.”
The Heroes will perform a final sold-out show next month at Lizottes, which coincides with the completion of the short film.
