Behind a painted red, blue and yellow 1900s-era shopfront, an indie-pop band called Little Guilt is stepping on to a small stage framed with velvet curtains. They’re launching their new single to a sweaty throng of 20-somethings at Mojos Bar on a Saturday night in North Fremantle. It’s a scene reminiscent of Berlin, or perhaps even Austin: a heady blur of mullets, moustaches and midriffs, pool table flirtation, graffitied toilets and hazy conversations, surrounded by crumbling paint likely older than the punters themselves.
This fresh-faced crowd mightn’t know it, but they’re standing on hallowed turf for Western Australian music. Since the late 1960s, Mojos has been a testing ground for some of the country’s (and the world’s) most loved bands including homegrown icons Tame Impala, the Triffids, the Farriss Brothers (who later became INXS), Pond, Jebediah, Spacey Jane, John Butler, Abbe May, San Cisco and too many others to name.
