STOCKIST SPOTLIGHT - MUSIC FARMERS

Music Farmers is a household name for anyone who has spent more than 20 minutes in Wollongong. Since 2004, the independent record store has been providing the Gong with new releases, reissues, second-hand vinyls, rarities, old and new CD’s, music literature, tapes, band merch and more. Now co-owned by Jeb Taylor and Nick Irwin, the shop is frequented by music lovers from all across the Illawarra and beyond—not only to browse the expansive collection, but for in-store gigs, events and signings from awesome Australian and International Artists. Not to mention, the store is staffed by a bunch of music-obsessed legends, who each have their own wealth of knowledge of and experience in the scene, and are always happy to talk records with ‘ya.

Jeb’s love of tangible music has led him to all corners of the world, yet you can still catch him spinning discs at local whisk(e)y bar Howlin’ Wolf as part of the Sultans of Spin most Saturday evenings. We were lucky enough to chat to Jeb—who is truly a friend to all—about Music Farmers, and his record label Farmer & The Owl.

You can find Wanderer Magazine Issue 8: Perspective on Music Farmers’ shelves. Just put 228 Keira St, Wollongong into your preferred navigational system.

WANDERER: Can you please introduce yourself?

JEB: I’m Jeb and I co-own a record store called Music Farmers, co-own a record label called Farmer & The Owl that releases music from artists such as Hockey Dad, Bad//Dreems, Moaning Lisa, TOWNS, Tumbleweed and more. I also DJ around town regularly and do some other music biz things.

Can you tell us about Music Farmers and how it all began?

Music Farmers sort of began by accident. When I was in high school, I was playing in bands, I became one of the people in the band that would book shows and organise things so I became fairly connected with the local music scene before I could even legally go to the pub. Straight out of school I started managing a friend’s band and booking/promoting some shows. I started realising I was more into that side of things so gradually got away from playing in bands. There was a time when my friend and old band mate Simon (who I originally started Music Farmers with) and I were looking for an office space, as I was doing venue booking, management and running a very small label, while he was doing graphic design. We found a tiny shop in Central Chambers that could double as a shop space/office. We both had no retail experience and very little money but thought we should start a little shop as it was something we both wanted to do at some point and the space was a good way to test it out. From there it just grew organically, we learnt from mistakes and just plugged away for a few years. Simon got a job in London so he moved over there, at that point I moved the shop to our second location in a shared space with some like-minded businesses that also included a gallery space run by another Simon who now runs Crown among other things, so we co-ran that space for a while. At a point in that space, Nick (who I currently own the shop with) bought in and I guess it became more of a proper full-time shop from that point, then we moved to this current Keira Street location ten years ago now.

Where did you get the name Music Farmers from?

Some of my friends and myself always would have business names kicking around, we had that one for a couple of years before the shop opened, Simon had come up with that, and when we decided to do the shop, we just thought it was a name that suited music retail well.

What services do you provide?

The shop specialises in selling vinyl but we also have turntables, books, cds, posters, merch, ect. We host some instore gigs and signings in the store as well. The building also acts as a home base for the other things I do, so on the label side of things that is varied, and with DJ stuff we coordinate a small team of DJ’s playing regular spots around town.

Have you always been passionate about music?

I came into music early in life. There would usually be music on at home (like classic hits radio or something), then some of the other neighbourhood kids were a few years older than me so they’d start to show me music and I realised there was a whole world of other music out there that doesn’t exist on the radio or tv. From there I’ve just been about music discovery, and it hasn’t stopped. It’s become pretty much my whole life, with relationships, friendships, travel, work, ect. all forming out of it. So it’s definitely been a case of a passion for music becoming my life.

What’s something that might surprise us about the store?

It's been going for twenty years! Lots of people seem surprised by that when they come and ask how long we’ve been open for. It surprises me to some extent as well, as most of the time I still feel not too different to that younger naïve self that first opened the shop. Aside from that I think also the fact we stock a wide range of music, indie record shops can be niche especially in bigger cities, but we definitely cover everyone, you can get the latest pop release right through to a wild black metal record.

Do you have any exciting plans for 2025?

I feel more excited for the year ahead than I have for a while. The last few years have obviously been fairly challenging for any sort of creative business, but I do see plenty of signs for optimism for the year ahead. The shop has Record Store Day coming up and there will be other signings and instores across the year. In the label world, with Farmer & The Owl, we really want to get back to our roots and support more local artists, and we’re launching a new distro imprint to help with that. I’ve also had some reissue projects on the backburner for the last few years that will see releases at some point this year as I think it's important to make as much good music from the past available to new generations.