A few years ago I wrote a big article about the now-defunct Volt Nightclub always intending to do a similar article for Mynt Lounge, but never really got around to it as researching a lot of things became difficult as the old Facebook pages have been deleted and I guess having a few kids now has really made it hard for me to deep-dive into things as much as I used to.
Disclaimer
Given that there is not much information available online anymore, it is difficult for me to fact-check everything easily without pestering a bunch of people who have moved on with their lives. If you need to correct me on anything or need me to remove anything, please contact me on Facebook.
I’m also intentionally referring to people by their first names or nicknames in this article so that nothing incriminating comes up in Google.
I mostly went to the Friday Night events, so most of this article will skew towards that and a lot of my understanding on what went on comes from the lens of someone who was involved in arguably the most popular but least internally-respected night of the week there.
History of Mynt Lounge Werribee
Mynt Lounge, at 185 Watton Street was where “locals get loose” from 2007 until around 2020 when COVID-19 basically killed all social gatherings in Victoria sometime in 2020.
It was a great local nightclub for the youth of Werribee, as travelling to the city was difficult and expensive. Most of the club’s lifespan was pre-Uber so it filled a strong niche for city-style clubbing without the expensive taxi trip home or having to wait for the first train in the morning. We didn’t have 24/7 trains back in the early days. It also gave us a space away from our parents and their friends who may have been at Volt, which served an older crowd.
The location had previously been The Hardware Bar, which I’d never been to but I recall it having weird statues on the roof and looking kinda cool. Before that, it had been an actual hardware shop at some point. In late 2023 it finally reopened as Studio 185 and is very, very nice looking.
Mynt Lounge Nights
For most of the time Mynt was open, it had a strong format of 4 different regular events. This seemed to mix up a bit at the end. But basically, this was the format:
Mynt Thursdays
This catered to a younger uni student crowd. I really don’t know how to describe this as I don’t think I ever actually went. It had a big focus on the local DJs and had some sort of electronic music. I feel so old and out of touch. This night never seemed to be the most popular or iconic and died off eventually with focus being put only on Fridays and Saturdays. I guess being a weeknight made it appealing to rebellious 18-year-olds in high school, who could now go out the night before class. I’m sure people got a kick out of turning up to class with a stamp on their hand and a hangover.
Mynt Thursdays made Friday mornings tough from 2007-2015.
POW! Fridays & Mischief
I’ll go into the history of these two nights in more detail later in the article as these were what I knew best. The main features of these were live bands, alternative and rock music and a big beer garden culture. These nights included bands from all over Australia and had several international bands play there as well. It felt like a regular house party with a strong group of regulars. It also ran a few non-Friday events to coincide with concert tours.
Boombox Saturdays
This is the most typical club night, with many of the big-name DJs of the time passing through regularly with big names like Ruby Rose, Dom Dolla, Will Sparks, Timmy Trumpet and the like. This was a great place to end up after a local party on Saturday nights but was more the kind of place your high school jocks would hang out at. According to one review, it had enough “tradies present to build a city apartment block in a day”. So naturally I only went a few times ever as I was not good with tools.
The Bake Sale
The night before a public holiday was a special event that could fall on any night of the week. This was typically called “The Bake Sale” which didn’t have much to do with baking but was just like a big Saturday event but promoters from all 3 regular nights promoted it or sold tickets. I believe cooking utensils were sometimes given out, or maybe people liked to bring their own. I think I went to this event once or twice.
These nights encouraged people to get down early with drink prices starting dirt cheap and going up $1 each per hour til midnight, meaning there was little reason to pre-drink before heading out.
My Involvement with Mynt Lounge
From Queens Birthday weekend 2008, when the alternative night “Mischief” first started, I was a promoter from day 1. This night was based on a previous event at Volt that Stewart used to run. He also worked at the Wyndham Youth Resource Centre, where I also volunteered where we ran the Push Start Battle of the Bands and other FReeZa events. This gave us a great pool of local talent to play each week before our headline acts.
After Stewart left, Bryce who had previously been a guitarist in Behind Crimson Eyes took over and the Fridays rebranded as POW! and I continued my involvement in both the Youth Centre and POW! and helped get lots of new bands spots at POW!
Both Mischief and the early days of POW! were very similar to Destroy All Lines’ Next! and Bang! events on Thursdays and Saturdays in Melbourne’s CBD. These were alternative clubs playing a mix of metal, hardcore, pop punk and also popular singalong party music. As it was on a Friday and not directly clashing with Next! or Bang! it meant we had some of the same DJs such as Greg and Scooter.
As a promoter, I went all in as I was a uni student initially and wasn’t on Centrelink so this was the only money I had access to at the time. I kept things weird and ironically tacky and it seemed to work. It was weird since I was never interested in nightclubs, but had a lot of friends in local bands and ended up in a career in marketing, so I guess this was a kicking-off point for me.
I’m not sure why I thought it would be so funny to make a music video to promote my list at a nightclub when my limited musical talent could have gone further focussing on something with a wider audience than anyone a few kilometres away from my house but there we go. The song was recorded in 2009 and the music video was filmed in 2010.
I would say it worked out well for me, as I have performed an extended version of it on stage about 4 times, including at the “W Factor” where I won first prize in the category of 1 entrant for “comedy”, originally part of Weerama but moved to the Wyndham Youth Resource Centre due to rain.
I got to perform it a few times at Mynt as well, complete with backing dancers like in the music video. This mostly happened during my birthday weeks.
As well as spamming people on Facebook, I was quite involved with connecting the band bookers with local bands from the Youth Resource Centre, running activities on the nights, being involved with promotional videos and contests, booking birthday drink card packages and setting up for special events.
After a year or two with Bryce at the reins, helping to bring across some bands like Mest (USA) and The Ghost Inside (USA) the Pony Club DJs who were part of the local band Masketta Fall stepped up as the main organisers. Their band went on to get signed to Sony Records and later Andrew and Tommo stepped things up with promotions and gimmicks. Both Pony Club and Andrew and Tommo’s periods included some really engaging promotional videos. Most of the best ones have been scrubbed from the internet due to music copyright.
Promoting at Mynt Lounge
A big part of Mynt’s early promotion relied more on local personalities rather than the typical social media marketing you see clubs doing today. Keep in mind this place started off when MySpace was at its peak and was probably gone by the time TikTok really took off.
I’m a bit rusty on the logistics of how it all worked and I think it changed a bit over the years, promoters had some nice perks, but I don’t think it was ultimately worthwhile for most people. Each promoter had their own open guest list. This meant that anyone could say their name at the door, rather than being pre-arranged. The promoter would earn about $2 per person who would then also save a few dollars off entry. The main organisers were paid some sort of retainer on top of our guest lists.
Mynt would only pay money to anyone who regularly got more than 10 people per week, so many people didn’t make any money off the door, but had other perks like free entry for yourself and a few friends, priority entry, participating in promotional materials and special activities on the nights plus lots of free drink cards for yourself and your friends.
I did very well at the door, earning more than the DJs or bands some weeks, which resulted in management capping how much I could make in a night, which was pretty unethical of them, but I stuck around for years anyway as it was fun and I was still making money and seeing all my friends.
Promoters were invited to regular meetings where we would brainstorm ideas, make props and decorations, make videos and do photoshoots for promotional materials.
Sometimes we got our own custom pictures for use on Facebook.
Dressing up was fun.
Promoters and anyone who was getting a birthday drink card would get a picture like this as well.
The Glory Years of POW! Fridays
I would say there were several phases of Mischief/POW! at Mynt Lounge. About 6 Phases which probably averaged about 2 years each.
- Part 1 – Mischief with Stewart at the helm.
- Part 2 – POW! Fridays with Bryce at the helm.
- Part 3 – POW! Fridays with Pony Club (Ben & Moli) at the helm.
- Part 4 – POW! Fridays with Andrew and Tommo at the helm.
- Part 5 – POW! Fridays with Phil and Luke at the helm.
- Part 6 – POW! Saturdays with some other people.
Both Stewart and Bryce brought across some great bands both nationally and internationally. Effectively putting Mynt Lounge onto the map for regional & sideshow gigs for touring artists.
Both of them helped ensure we had private buses organised for trips home from major music festivals such as Soundwave.
The years with Pony Club and then with Andrew and Tommo were probably the years that POW! had the strongest sense of community, with Mynt having hired out off-site offices such as the big mansion on Synnot Street where we filmed the now-deleted Scooby Doo promo for Halloween one year.
The years when Mynt had its own off-site offices really helped bring all the promoters together and made everyone feel like they were part of something bigger. Like a grand party planning committee.
It was cool to come by here once a week to plan and have parties.
That balcony had fake grass and deck chairs. I miss it dearly.
These periods were all great for a variety of alternative music, including metal and hardcore sets by Jayden, Davo, Mix and Dylan in the Sweatshop, as well as actual, rock and alternative music being played for a good chunk of the night.
Over time, the demand for metal and hardcore music diminished and I think it was replaced with the 80s set early on followed by some of the upcoming DJs doing their own thing. I stopped paying as much attention to the Sweatshop.
The Decline of POW! Fridays
The later years were still alright for me until Part 6, after I left and the night changed to a Saturday. I believe sometime during this period that the venue was sold to a guy who ran clubs in the city and he really screwed things up.
- Part 5 – POW! Fridays with Phil & Luke at the helm. I must have left a year or two into this.
- Part 6 – POW! Saturdays and I don’t even recall who was involved at this point.
By this point I was getting way too old to be going to nightclubs and found whilst I was still making money at the door, I was about 10 years older than people now and had very little in common with new patrons. The overall vibe of the night changed, with none of the new people involved having ever seen what the place used to be and seemed to be hell-bent on turning the Fridays, the most popular and profitable nights of the week into the less popular Thursdays and Saturdays.
I recall right after the new owner took over, they silently increased the pricing of popular items. We’d had $5 tequila shots for quite some time and as soon as the new guy was in charge he upped the price to $8 or $9 each, so the previous tradition of people shouting rounds for an easy $20-30 quickly stung a lot of people, almost doubling the price and got them offside.
I never met the new owner and he never went to any promoter meetings, which made him seem like a distant and negative force.
Mynt Lounge Controversies
“Trasher of the Week”
On either Saturday or Thursday nights, a contest called “Trasher of the Week” was introduced which encouraged silly drunk-looking photos in exchange for drink cards. From memory, most of these photos were staged as a joke but the media picked it up and crucified them for it, mixing up some of the context.
I’m actually in the video referenced in this article, it was filmed to promote becoming a POW! promoter, not to do with the other night’s promotion. I can confirm that none of us were drinking real alcohol in that video, it was filmed on a weeknight and the shots shown drinking were just red cordial and sodawater. I don’t want to say Mynt were cheapskates, but they certainly weren’t getting us drunk for free on school/work nights when filming promo videos.
Things Mynt Lounge Did Well
Packing the place out
It was quite common to see big lines out the front and for it to be packed inside as well.
I recall the beer garden and sweatshop being closed off at the start of the night to help ensure the main floor looked packed when people arrived.
I think this photo is from a Thursday or Saturday as the curtain is closed where the bands would be.
Theme Nights & Dress Up Events
The Nintendo / Video Game dress up events were fun. The promoters made the decorations at The Villa during the week. I made the big pixel art wall pieces above.
The Pirate Party theme was also a common one. Above is me in my best pirate clothes.
This Banjo Kazooie costume was great.
I don’t even remember Luke’s Game Boy costume, it must have been hard to DJ in so maybe he didn’t wear it for long.
Chris’ V can costume came out at lot in the early days.
We had some Zombie nights. I ate a lot of paint.
Free Food
We often gave out random food as a novelty, including pizza, spring rolls, cake and cheeseburgers.
Also donuts.
Fairy floss.
Vegemite on toast…
and Tommo would give out a heap of free shots around midnight each week. During the Pony Club Days, there was also “Girl on Girl Minute” which involved Katy Perry’s “I Kissed A Girl” which led to certain girls getting free wet pussy shots.
Banning Trouble Makers
I know people love to hang shit on Werribee and especially its nightlife, but overall the main owners (Adam and James) did a pretty good job at trying to keep everyone safe. I think one of the best things that they did was introduce ID-scanning technology back in 2013 or earlier. This allowed multiple venues to keep track of trouble makers and ban them across multiple venues. This resulted in numerous people being banned from not only this venue but many others, overall keeping people safer. I know a few people who got banned and it really made it hard for them when all their friends would go here without them.
Banning Drug Dealers
I recall a few people who were close to promoters and organizers who were caught by security dealing drugs and were not allowed back. This likely got them banned from other bars using the above-mentioned ID scanners as well. If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse and wants to make a positive change, click here to look at their addiction services for support and guidance.
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Iconic Drinks
The most iconic drink was the Goon Bag. I believe this was introduced in the early days as a response to the 2008 Alcopop tax which raised the price of premixed spirits, which were popular with young people. This meant the price of Vodka Cruisers in particular went up significantly. My understanding is that women typically prefer premix drinks in bottles at nightclubs as it is harder to get your drink spiked compared to an open glass. Thus Mynt Lounge introduced their Goon Bags, which I’ve never seen anything like anywhere since.
It was a snaplock bag with ice and a straw held together with a rubber band. Behind the bar was a big container with cordial, white wine and maybe vodka mixed in. I can’t remember the recipe. They were quite popular initially and stuck around for many years. It was intentionally tacky, but much cheaper than premix.
The Sweatshop often had exclusive drinks, such as Carlton Draft longnecks in a paper bag. Rekorderlig was also available for a while.
It was very hard for me to find any photos of the Teapot Cocktails they used to have. Bryce got this idea somewhere interstate and you’d get one of several available cocktails served in a white ceramic teapot plus some shot glasses. I guess these lasted until they were all broken or stolen. It would have been around 2009-2010.
Wet Pussy Shots were also a mainstay on the menu for most of the time. I believe it involves vodka, peach schnapps and cranberry juice.
Best & Worst Memories
Someone Threw a Trolley Over The Fence
One time, someone who must have been kicked out cracked the shits and threw a shopping cart over the fence. I’m so glad no one was hit by it, those are really heavy.
Someone Pooped in the Beer Garden
One time, someone I know did a poop in the beer garden for a laugh. He was quickly identified and banned for life. I think he was allowed back a few times when his band played.
Someone Threw Live Chickens Over The Fence
Someone threw some live chickens over the fence of the beer garden. They ended up living with one of the regulars for many years.
Beer Garden Nerf Gun Shooting
We’ve had Nerf Gun events, shooting photos of the promoters for drink cards.
Beer Garden Video Games
We played Super Smash Bros in the beer garden a few times on a projector.
We had Guitar Hero in the beer garden several times too.
One time, we played Super Smash Bros on the screen behind the DJ booth due to rain.
POW! Basketball Team
I believe when Ben and Moli were running it, there was a POW! basketball team which played at the Rec Centre (now Eagle Stadium). My memory of who was on the team is very hazy as I only played for them once, as I was already playing in a different team at the time. The one time I played with the POW! team was actually during a game my own team was playing, but they had enough players and POW! did not.
Some Random Posters
Random Photos of People
Photos of Bands
