The Queen’s Birthday long weekend used to mean one thing – Wintersun. A great event not to be missed held along the foreshore of Coolangatta. A chance to soak up the sun’s rays and warm ourselves from the crisp winter seaside breezes shopping (drinking) and dancing up a storm. Unfortnately Wintersun is no more, but the Coolangatta community wanted to keep the vibe of the event happening and therefore created the Cooly Rocks On festival. Sadly, these days the event leaves about as much to be desired as its name.



The old grey mare she ain’t what she used to be. Although, this year I saw a glimmer of hope with the Beatnik Blowout. Originally we hadn’t planned on going down to Cooly at all, but once the fliers for the Beatnik Blowout started circulating, we figured we’d better go down for just one day to take a look. After all, we had A LOT of friends who were contributing some great art pieces. No to mention, legendary low brow artist The Pizz was over from the USA as a special guest. After being lucky enough to have breakfast with The Pizz upon his arrival in Brisbane on the Wednesday morning, the luck continued with a positively outstanding day weather-wise on Saturday.

We joined up with some friends who had an apartment down there for the weekend and spent the day checking out the Beatnik Blowout, enjoying beers on the balcony of the apartment, having fish and chips by the water, sneaking back up to the apartment for more beers, strolling along in the sunshine marvelling at all the great cars aaaand…back up to the apartment for more beers. It certainly was a fantastic way to break up the day and we had a great time.

If it wasn’t for me needing to save my pennies for my upcoming US trip, I could have spent a fortune at the Beatnik Blowout! Some of my favourite pieces were a black velvet print by Matt Black featuring Suicide’s ‘Zombie’, a sheet of metal expertly airbrushed with a kick ass Frankenstein, an awesome Picasso-inspired beatnik painting by Woz and a rare vinyl illustrated by The Pizz – just to name a few. Still, I did shout myself a couple of little trinkets including this cool zombie finger key chain and this beatnik bongos key chain mad by Kamakazi and custom pinstriped by Scotty Makin.

Black Lagoon Designs - seriously, how amazing is this!?

It was a really fun day and we returned home thinking the weekend couldn’t get any better. Except, IT DID! Not only did we end up booking 5 days in Japan in December for what could possibly be the last ever Mooneyes, but on Monday The Pizz cooked us all his famous fish tacos!! Too cool for school, aside from being a phenomenal artist this guy is also a fantastic cook! Watching him work, he sure knows his way around the kitchen and we now know some great places around the US where we can get the best fish tacos. I can’t wait to try a baja fish taco!

It was an awesome weekend and one that’s sure to stick with us for a long time. Don’t be sad if you didn’t make it to the Beatnik Blowout – there are some Beatnik events happening this Friday 13 at both Vision Skin Tattoo at Lawnton and True Love Tattoo at Sherwood. Woz is doing $30 Friday 13 flash with some stalls and even a pin up photo booth with the lovely Phill Kustom and Mez is doing $13 tattoos + $7 tip with a bunch of Friday 13 flash as well as cuts by Johnny Voodoos Barbershop and rum by Sailor Jerry!

So get along and support your local Beatniks!