Space Jams Has Taken Off!
Ahead of Space Jams’ West Coast Tour this April, founder Josh Morphett chats to The Note about the festival’s vibe, its online origins and how sometimes the best ideas come from the smallest initiatives
Image by @coenmiller
Not many music festivals can say they thrived during COVID-19. Josh Morphett started Space Jams in 2020, a live-streamed event looking to fill the void when the pandemic shut down venues and festivals. Today, Space Jams has moved from online to in-person, collecting multiple awards for its mini-festivals, regional tours and overnight music events.
Josh is speaking with The Note two weeks before hitting the road with Space Jams’ West Coast Tour this April. It’ll be the festival’s tenth event in three years, and will feature acts like Dojo Rise, Hey Harriett, James Moor, Hartway and DJ Wanmore.
“The line-up is what I pride myself on. I haven’t given myself heaps of prep time, but it’s coming together nicely,” Josh chuckles.
Kicking off in Myponga, the roving festival starts with an ‘unplugged’ showcase at Valley of Yore Café. Josh says the venue provides the perfect atmosphere for acts to perform acoustic versions of their songs. “I’m looking forward to local punk band, Lickity Split. They’re doing a stripped-back set of their skater-punk [songs],” he says. The following weekend, the tour bus – packed with four bands and their equipment – will head west, making pit stops in Ceduna, Port Kenny and Port Lincoln. “It’s only a 12-seater bus”, says Josh. “It’ll be tight, but we’ll squeeze,”.
Space Jams has been flying the flag for the local scene since the start of the pandemic, helping connect listeners with SA artists while providing musicians with a space
to play. An artist himself, Josh began asking some of his mates to join him on a series of online gigs while the music industry hit pause in late March 2020.
Bands were keen, and Josh’s request resulted in a mammoth ten-hour live-steamed session. More than 25 artists joined the inaugural Space Jams line-up, with Leaky Makeup, Bitchspawn and Urban Youth amongst those performing sets live from their living rooms, hallways and bedrooms.
Hundreds of people tuned in to watch.
But the overnight success of Space Jams wasn’t what surprised Josh most. Rather, it was how artists chose to stage the at-home shows.
“If you give creatives the space to be creative, [they will]. It’s natural,” he says. Leaky Makeup artist, JP, performed a roving set throughout his home, even singing a song
in his kitchen as his housemate did the dishes in the background. Synth-jazz trio, Eraser Description, live-streamed their gig clad in hazmat suits in a dimly lit hallway.
When punters returned to pubs, Space Jams hosted a series of sold-out mini-festivals at Jive. Despite seating being mandatory, people showed up with an appetite for live music. “It was funny to have a room full of people still [pumping] their fists in the air and going off while seated,” Josh says. “It was wholesome.”
The next phase of Space Jams evolution was a South Coast tour in 2021, where touring bands visited regional destinations like Goolwa, Mount Gambier and Streaky Bay, wrapping with a two-stage finale at Adelaide UniBar. In 2022, Josh combined his love of camping and music in a two-day event in Robe before hosting an overnight festival at Alma’s Hen in Inman Valley last October.
Next, he plans to host an annual event at the Fleurieu Peninsula site while curating tours around SA’s backyard. “Regional areas in South Australia go off! They’re such an underutilised place for musicians to travel.”
In three years, Josh turned the small idea he had while jamming at home into a successful music festival, collecting back-to-back SA Music Awards for his Space Jams efforts. He says his pathway into the festival space is ‘unorthodox’, but he couldn’t be prouder of the community he’s created. “Space Jams seems to attract really good people. My only goal is to make a good vibe festival – I think I’ve ticked that box.”
Space Jams West Coast Tour takes place from April 9–16. Tickets are on sale now.
