Matt Vaughan, nightlife promoter

Matt Vaughan is a nightlife promoter and founder of queer Australian institution, Loose Ends. 

Matt is a good friend, and kindly agreed to be my interviewee guinea pig as I was exploring the podcast's format last year. This is that conversation.

We discuss “Can You Forgive Her?" by the Pet Shop Boys, Debut by Björk, and Madonna.

You can follow Matt on Instagram here, and learn more about the Bearded Tit here.

Tracks of Our Queers is produced, presented and edited by Andy Gott, with the support of Forbes Street Studios, Sydney. A big thank you to Anthony Garvin.

You can listen to our Spotify playlist, Selections from Tracks of Our Queers, and find Aural Fixation in your favourite podcast provider. 

Transcript

Matt Vaughan
===

Andy: [00:00:00] Hello, Matt Thorn.

I reckon we're just gonna jump straight into it. You came prepared with a track, an album, and an artist. What did you pick for your track?

Matt: I chose a song by the Pet Up boys called, can You Forgive her?

1993. 

Andy: Why was it when I said. Give me a track, which has impacted your life in some ways. A queer person. Why did that track come to mind? 

Matt: A couple of reasons. It's, it's in my mind very associated with some of my earliest contact with the queer scene in Sydney. And the reason for this is that, well, firstly, I, I would just say, I mean the Petro boys are obviously a very gay band.

They've always been you. Very much associated with making kind of queer dance music, I would say, and not shying away from queer themes or queer imagery. I am a fan, but I'm, to be honest, like probably more of a casual fan. Yeah, definitely not obsessive. [00:01:00] I have certainly not bought many of their albums or anything but this particular album and this song I did go and see them live in Sydney in 90.

When I was just 18 and I ended up, well, I went to see them with one of my high school best friends, Brandon, who is a very straight man, but he had some quiet queer tasting music. And I went with him and a new friend of his Dan to see this show. He'd met Dan through his new job that he'd gotten after we all left school.

And. Developed a crush on Dan that first night that we met at the pet shop Boys show. And Dan was unfortunately also straight.

Andy: Tail as old as time,

Matt: Right? Yeah, like it's a rite of passage, right? To like, you know, fall a little bit in love with a straight man. 

Andy: Do they know, that's the question. I've always wondered what's going on in their mind.

Matt: I have no idea. I mean, to be fair, I was like deeply in the closet still at that point as well. Oh. So we go to the Petro Boy Show. It was super camp. I remember really enjoying it. But after the show we we, we decided to [00:02:00] go out to Oxford Street and I dunno whose idea this was, it wasn't mine, but I was happy to go along and we ended up in this.

Bar Club kind of space that was actually above what is now the Stonewall. But this was so long ago in 1994 that it was pre Stonewall. It wasn't, it wasn't the Stonewall yet. I dunno what it was. I can't

Andy: Pre Stonewall. In Sydney on Oxford Street, not pre riots of

Matt: York. . I'm not that old. Close.

Andy: Close. Your straight friend threw the first brick, didn't he?

Matt: Ooh, controversial. So we ended up in this gay bar on Oxford Street, and it was my first exposure to a gay. Social space actually. And it was a Friday night and it was really fantastic. And I remember it was really busy. It was quite a small space, quite intimate, but there were sort of impromptu drag shows that were happening through the night. It was the first time I ever. Or tried Poppers? . I dunno if I can say that.[00:03:00] 

Andy: we make the rules.

Matt: I just remember, you know, some guy passed the three of us, this little bottle and was like, I don't know, what is it? And he sort of coached us through and was like, okay, I like that.

And the three of the three of us, ostensibly straight boys, danced the night away in this gay bar on Oxford Street and it was really, really fun. And so, yeah, I very much associate that night with the Petro Boys and this song in part.

But then the song itself also like the lyrics of the song, are essentially about a man who is I guess wrestling with his sexuality and his girlfriend potentially has figured it out. And is. Perhaps humiliating him for it, actually. So, you know, it kind of resonates with me at that, on that level as well because I had sort of just gone into a relationship with an amazing woman actually at that point in my life too.

But I was pretty deeply confused, I think about my sexuality at that point. [00:04:00] So yeah, the song has that aspect of it. I mean, there's the lyric about talking about she sort of makes fun of him for dancing to disco and not liking rock.

You know, that speaks to me

As a child, like way you know, earliest memories, I always loved to dance. I can think back to kindergarten and uh, At lunch times, I would dance with the girls. Always, that was what I loved to do. You know, I just loved dancing.

I lo always loved music, but I loved dancing in particular. And, and there came a point like I guess in primary school when I was maybe like seven or eight or whatever, where I started to get bullied for it. And. and started to kind of have a realization that it wasn't okay, I think, to do that. And so I reigned it in and I definitely think that's had a, well, it had a lasting effect on my confidence and I kind of have reclaimed it in later years.

But definitely I had that [00:05:00] experience, which I think lots of gay kids probably. you 

Andy: almost hear in Neil's voice when he spits, she's made you a kind of laughing stock. If you think about it enough, you can tap into that shame quite easily of being laughed at for what you know to be you.

You know, the kind of things that you just innately. Enjoy and make you really happy. I find it interesting how the story of the song, like you said, is about a man, yes. Wrestling with his sexuality, but the fear, the driver of the song is that his female partner will not only find out but make a mockery of him for that.

And that's not something that I would typically. Think of when I think about people, men being in the closet. But of course it's complicated, right? And it's not as simple as someone coming out and everyone being really happy about it.

Matt: well, certainly not then. I think, I definitely hid aspects of myself through the rest of school. I think, like I became very interested in dance music through. Like [00:06:00] in high school, early nineties, like it was sort of seeping into the mainstream a little bit and that was where my ears wanted to go was dance music.

Yeah. But that was not okay. Like with the all boys school that I went to, and the only people that liked dance music actually at that school were. Well, probably the one or two other kids like me that probably turned out to be queer and , they're hesitating to use this term. But if I'm just, you know, the term that we used at the time were the wog boys.

You know, the boys that came from Lebanese or Italian families, like they were really into dance music and kind of unashamedly. So, but they got teased for it too. Cuz you know, it wasn't the domain of like the. Kind of boys that, that predominated at the school that I went to, like the, you, you had to be into rock music and grunge and stuff.

So yeah, I definitely didn't trumpet my love of dance music until much later. Yeah. So, and, and this Pet Up Boy song just really in that it's a, it's a killer lyric. Like it just really encapsulates.[00:07:00] 

Andy: First of all, I just think that story you described is amazing and the idea of you three ostensibly straight boys. Well, the fact is, you know, one closeted gay boy and two straight boys going to a pet shop boys concert in the first place is fascinating to me. I've always been fascinated by how the pet shop boys have always been so camp so flamboyant, but have always attracted a huge straight audience who have embraced them for that.

Matt: Yeah.

Andy: I wanna ask you, Have you ever felt ashamed of your interest in specifically the pet shop Boys?

Matt: Not so much the pet shop boys, but absolutely. One of the other artists that I'll probably get, well, I'm

Andy: right. Hold that thought then.

Matt: today. Yeah, okay. For sure.

Andy: Yeah. Okay.

Matt: Well, for that very reason of like, you know, there was sort of like a homophobia attached to admitting, to liking that artist.

Andy: Or I guess maybe you could flip that and say by being public about your love for a specific artist. [00:08:00] It's almost in a way like queer coding

Matt: Incriminating yourself as a Yes. Homosexual.

Andy: positive and negative, though. Yeah. Negative to those people who are homophobic, but positive to other people like you.

Matt: Yeah, yeah. Definitely. Interesting. 

Andy: Okay. So what did you pick for your album?

Matt: I chose b. Debut album? Well, a debut solo album.

Andy: Can I just say that I love how Australians say debut

Matt: instead of 

Andy: debut. 

Matt: Ah, Debut. Debut. Debut.

Andy: I love it.

Matt: debut, mate.

Andy: why did you pick this album?

Matt: Why did I pick debut? Well, I thought I, I picked it and then I was like, is this a.

Is this a queer enough album? Does this speak to queerness for me? And I think what it does is that it speaks to [00:09:00] my eternal disdain for all things popular. And Okay. I think that's how it relates to my queerness. Actually. I've thought this through. So I think that I dunno. I think that I was kind of born anti, I think that I have like this kind of thing about me that like if something is becomes popular or something is popular, I naturally become quite cynical about it.

Mm-hmm. , is that a queer thing? I don't know.

Andy: I don't know. I, I don't think it's a queer thing. I think it speaks to an interesting phenomenon, maybe in like the gatekeeping aspect of. Fandom perhaps.

Matt: Okay. That's interesting. Well, I think that actually I had some interesting thoughts about this album.

So I think that in a way, this album kind of is a symbol of my struggle to come out actually. Or at least the delay that I sort of had with coming out, cuz I did come out later, I wasn't It didn't come out until I was about 25, I think, and I had a long relationship with

Andy: well defined late, you know.

Matt: that's true. Yeah. Yeah. [00:10:00] I, well, I What was right on time?

Andy: Yeah,

Matt: absolutely. . But definitely like, you know, thinking back on this, I think one of the reasons, well one of the key reasons why I didn't come out until later was my own internalized homophobia. Mm-hmm. And part. . This was to do with things like I didn't, I didn't wanna come out because I felt like if I did come out, people would reduce me to a stereotype.

Mm-hmm. essentially. And one of those stereotypes I think was that gay people like Kylie Ook.

Andy: Guilty.

Matt: Yeah, I mean, I'm not a Kylie fan. Like I, you know, I do, you know, I like . Sorry,

Andy: I'm just gonna stop recording here, listeners. No, no. Carry on.

Matt: I mean, she seems like a lovely person and I do, you know, you know, I, you know, I do very much love certain tracks and you know, an album here or there, but I've never been like a Kylie.

Queer at all. Because I'm a Bjork queer, and I think that's the thing. And so I think, you know, I had this kind internalized homophobia thing going on where I kind of was like, you know, that I'm not, that, [00:11:00] I'm not that kind of, I'm not, I'm not gay in that way. Yeah. And so, It's funny, like in thinking about this album, choosing this album debut, I was thinking about like whether Bjork is a queer icon and I think that it's up for debate.

To me, I would say yes. But I don't know what that's really based on. I think, you know, she's obviously like a kooky fashionista and that's queer and cute. But I looked, I did, I did Google this. I Googled like is BCA queer icon and I found this funny. Thread and this person had like made a case for her being a queer icon and then this other person had commented on it basically tearing them to shreds.

And I'm just gonna read this out cuz I thought it was kind of great. And so this person has said, there is no way on this God's green Earth that Bjork is a gay icon. Many gay people don't even know who she. And if they did, I'd be surprised not to mention the fact that there is nothing in her music that would suggest gay friendly.

Her first couple of albums are certainly catchy enough for gay people, but the rest of her catalog is [00:12:00] not. She has an all acapella album for crying out loud. She's way too weird and batshit for many gay people to like her. And I just thought that's exactly it, and that's kind of why I didn't want to sort of, I guess, Come out and say, Hey, I'm gay.

Cuz I thought, you know, people like that would just write me off as like, you can only like Kylie, you can only hang out at the Stonewall. Ironic that I had an amazing night at the Stonewall the first time I encountered a gay bar. But yeah, there was still this kind of association that I was wanting to avoid because I liked things that were, you know, more interesting in inverted commerce such as Bjorks debut.

Andy: But you could have picked any Buick album. Why debut, debut, . 

Matt: Because it just, well it was one of those albums that really opened my world and my ears to sort of different musical textures. I mean, it's, you know, it's, it's. You know, [00:13:00] everyone knows that that's what she does. Yeah. And that's what she did when that, with that album.

She sort of, actually, I think, you know what I do think that that album sort of queered the landscape in terms of production of a a, a pop ish album. You know, there was just so many clever production kind of techniques on that album. And I'm actually thinking about the song that is a banger on the album, which is, there's more to life than this.

It's so fantastic. Like that's a, that's a, you know, that's a dance floor banger. But the, but the way that it's produced on the album is it totally queers that banger kind of aesthetic. So you have this like ostensibly immediate. Catchy dance floor winner. In the second verse, like all of the music drops out and she, well, firstly, the whole thing is recorded as if it's she's singing it in a bathroom.

And the second verse. Like, queer or, well, yeah, but all of [00:14:00] the instrumentation drops out and it's just the vocal and like this track that should like kill on the dance floor. You cannot play that version of the track in a club because it's so deliberately You know, not built for that. And I just think, you know, that's pretty queer.

Andy: Yes, I think so. My impression of this album has always been someone experimenting with this chocolate box of styles and possibilities, and now knowing what I do know about Bjork's career in that she was in a band with a lot of men. Before embarking on her solo career. Mm-hmm. Putting the dots together.

I can just see someone who is so eager and adventurous. They've got such a strong appetite to explore and experiment and try different things. And, you know, there's a jazz cover of a Sarah Vaughn song on there. Mm-hmm. , there's some. Amazing dance songs that we know and love today. There's remixes of those songs, so like the big time sensuality.

There's the album track and there's the remix, which I've heard both versions on dance floors and I love them both for different reasons. Yeah, [00:15:00] I love the idea that this really is a debut in its very strongest form of someone just saying, I've gotta get out there. I've got all this stuff to, to go and play with, and that's how it sounds.

Matt: Yeah, absolutely. Totally brilliant. And I just wanna say that, you know, ultimately I definitely came to terms with you know, being a different kind of gay mm-hmm. . And, and you know, the beautiful thing about that is that I discovered that there's a whole constellation of gays out there that love Bjork.

And you know,

Andy: There's even guys out there which love Bjork and Ky. You can be a

Matt: a beautiful, you can be both. 

Andy: contain 

Matt: Isn't it Wonderful Many 

Andy: people can do whatever they wanna do. Anyway. Fantastic. Thank you very much. The artist. You had [00:16:00] free reign. You could have picked any artist in the world.

Matt: Well, any, any artist that sort of speaks to my queer. Story

Andy: Who did you pick?

Matt: I chose Madonna . I mean, I'm a child of the eighties.

Yeah. I mean, it's al it's, it's almost, well, it is, it's cliche to be a gay man. Well,

Andy: you're a Madonna gay

Matt: well, I was. Okay. But that's another story.

though?

What Is that the story? No, it's not the story for today actually. Okay. But I did break up with Madonna. I chose Madonna and I'm gonna focus on a specific aspect of, I guess, Madonna's influence on my queer life. Which is to say that Madonna actually introduced me to Oxford Street in Sydney. . She took me there the first time.

in hand.

Hand in hand.

So I was a Madonna fan, like from the time that. Like a virgin came out. So I was really very little and I was a music obsessive from a really young age. And so I would get a, I, if I really liked an artist, I would get really obsessed with them and I'd need to like [00:17:00] collect everything by them and just like go really down the rabbit hole with them.

And I did that with her. And so I started like collecting a lot of her. Records and 12 inch singles and like everything I could get my hands on. And actually to, to your previous point, like I did a lot of this kind of in secret cuz it wasn't so cool to be that much of a Madonna fan. She was obviously super popular.

But I think by this stage, like, and I'm talking about like 19 90, 91 and I'm like, what am I 15? It was de, it would definitely have been signal signaling a certain gayness or queerness to my peers at that point. To have admitted to it. To, to have admitted to being as much of a fan as I actually was.

Andy: that time period is really interesting to me though, because yes, she's putting out songs like vog. And express yourself. And if that's not queer signaling, what is, but on the other side of that, she's also kind of in her [00:18:00] career's, literal imperial phase where she's untouchable, selling out stadiums, selling albums.

So to me, the idea of that kind of person being oncall is really interesting to me.

do

you mean unca? Oncall with like teenagers specifically?

Matt: Maybe like, again, like having gone to an all boys Catholic school. High school, maybe amongst my straight. Male peers. Yeah. Because again, it was like dance music essentially, and it wasn't really so Okay to be into that at that time.

Mm-hmm. Growing up where I did, you know, suburban, very white, suburban Sydney. Yeah. Just not so. Not so. Okay.

Andy: But what was she saying to you?

Matt: Well, the thing is, I, I, I just, I guess I'd loved her since I was so young, and I, and I loved dance music, so for me, like her, her trajectory like mapped my personal interests, like, you know, obviously her music was a lot popular when I was growing up, but by that stage it was kind of getting bit deeper and darker.[00:19:00] 

Deeper and deeper even . Yeah. And so what, what happened in terms of her intro, her introducing me to Oxford Street was that there were some really incredible record stores. On Ox Oxford Street

Andy: in.

Matt: peace. Rest in peace. And in fact, the, the, the key one was central station records, which was amazingly in the space that is now the Ox Oxford Art Factory, where I do my loose ends party.

So full, full circle moments. But that was a really incredible dance music record store in Sydney back then. And. They would import these kind of, you know, the 12 inch singles and stuff from Europe and the US that you couldn't get anywhere else. And I had a friend Todd, shout out to Todd if he's listening.

Who I grew up with. We lived in the same street and he was also really into Madonna and he is also a straight man and he's lots of children. So he, you know, he really is . 

Andy: Hi

Matt: kids. [00:20:00] He really was into Madonna and we used to come into the city on. The weekends and we would go to all these amazing kind of independent, cool record stores like when we were 14 and 15.

And we would like look for like these kind of Ram Madonna records that you couldn't find anywhere else. And so, yeah, Oxford Art Factory, sorry, no Central Station records, which is in Ox Oxford Art Factory on Oxford Street was what brought me to Ox Oxford Street for the first time. And I just remember, and this was like 19 90, 19 91, and Ox Oxford Street was a very, Different beast back then, like it was a beast.

And I remember just feeling it, like there was something really different about it. Obviously it was, you know, there were, there were gay people around. It was busy. It was such a world away from what the life that I knew in suburbia and it was kind of intimidating. Alluring at the same time.

Andy: Were you nervous to be seen there, to be clocked as being gay?

Matt: No, not at that young and age [00:21:00] like that was a bit too soon for me to, yeah. No, not, not so much. But I was ki I guess I was kind of excited by it. Like it had that kind of big city, inner city. . So it felt kind of cool. Yes. Yeah. And, and yeah, I remember that we'd sort of like, we'd go to these record shops and then we'd go to the McDonald's that used to be on Oxford Street up near the Stonewall.

Now, actually there used to be a little McDonald's there. And you know, we had just pocket money. That's all we had to kind of get buy on. So we'd go and get a cheeseburger or whatever. And I just really enjoyed being on that street and just kind of around that Bohemian. and very distinctly gay queer kind of ambience.

So there was that. And then the other thing that these record stores had in them were copies of the Star Observer, which was the gay newspaper. And still is,

Andy: is actually. Yes. 

Matt: it's a very different thing now than what it was back then. Back then it was like, obviously, you know, a hard copy black and white newspaper that you would pick up from like, you know, [00:22:00] outlets.

Oxford Street in gay Sydney, and I used to pick a copy of them up, kind of like under the what's the word? Where you're kind of doing something and you kind of pretend you do it for, you're doing it for one reason, but you're actually doing it surreptitious. One, my friend knew that I was picking this newspaper up, but I would say that, oh, there's probably gonna be like articles and reviews about Madonna stuff in there.

Yes. So I would pick it up for that 

Andy: I'm gonna do it for the Madonna stuff.

Matt: Yeah, but there's also, you know, obviously like lots of gay stuff in there, and so I would kind of take it home and I would hide them from. My parents and my family, but I would look through these newspapers and there was, it just was this whole world that was somehow beyond my reach or understanding really at that point.

But like was fascinating to me. These party photos and social show, social shots and like personal ads, like between, you know, men looking for. Really specific things,[00:23:00] 

and you know, flyers for parties and I don't know, it was, it was just quite magical to see that. And very sexy as well. And like back then, well the gay scene was very much centered around Ox Oxford Street and there was so many venues and so many events.

There was a big leather scene from. From what I could tell back then, the photos were quite sexy. But also it was, I guess the height of, you know, the, the AIDS crisis too. So there were like obituaries and, you know, photographs of all these men that were dying from AIDS at the time. So it was very, so far removed from my, you know, suburban Catholic school.

The reality of that life that I was living as a 14, 15 year old, 15 year old, but it was. Like a little window into another world that I didn't really know was, I guess, going to become my world. But, you know, I, I guess, you know, you feel something in your bones. So yeah, so Madonna kind of brought me to Oxford Street and brought me to those [00:24:00] cultural.

Artifacts

Andy: she led you down the rabbit hole.

Matt: Yeah. And the rest is history.

Andy: Madonna in Wonderland. I've gotta say, Matt, I really love that. It wasn't what I was expecting you to say, but it does. I, I do have to mention that my Madonna Rabbit Hole moment is connected to your relationship with Madonna in that The, the mo I, I've known and loved Madonna for most of my life, but the moment where I became a fan with the Capital F was, I was watching the, the Confessions tour on tv.

Mm-hmm. in the UK on channel four. We'll never forget it. Specifically, probably the live to tell performance where she comes upon the crucifix and I was like, what the is going on right now? Mm-hmm. And I was hooked for the whole time. And I think maybe it was like the Eroica performance, which sealed the deal.

Cause I was aware of that song and I was like, oh, so this is a person [00:25:00] who evolves their music and performs them in these whole new, exciting ways. And it's sexy and it's beautiful. And I still think to this day that the Confession tour is actually her artistic peak. But you, Matt Vaughn saw the Confessions Tour in person in New York at Madison Square Garden.

Matt: Yeah, Andy, I did. It was incredible. It was really amazing. I. But you know, yes I did. And I can say more about that. But you know that that was the second time that I saw her and the very first time that I saw her was actually the girly show here in Sydney, like Generation Pryor.

Andy: Good Day. Australia. Do you believe in love? Yeah. All of that. Love it.

Matt: So seeing the confession tour was really exciting for me cuz I was still in a relationship with her at that time and and that was obviously the first time I was seeing her in a really long time. And cuz she never came back to Australia after the girly show until I'd broken up with her and.

yeah, it was super exciting to see that show in York and yes, I agree with you. It was incredible and definitely, [00:26:00] if not the artistic peak and another artistic peak in, in her career. 

Andy: I've got one more question for you. It's more conceptual. What do you think about the idea of queer people gifting music to each other in the sense of, you know, kind of handing teaching queerness by giving music? Do you think there's something in that?

Matt: Yeah, I think so. I think that's what I do. I think one of the things that I do, I guess as a DJ and someone that plays a lot of music to a lot of queer people I think that's something.

That creates a lot of joy for people. It creates a space for people to kind of release and experience a bit of abandon. So there's that aspect to be, there's, I guess there's that aspect of being a, a DJ in the queer scene. But you know, at a personal level, [00:27:00] I know that I've always been sort of sharing music with friends and I.

to do that. And I love, I love friends sharing music with me too. I think that I, I just think there's something really intimate and lovely about sharing something that moves you in that way.

Andy: Can you think off the top of your head a song that, that you were gifted, which left an impact on you by someone who was queer?

Matt: Well, yeah, actually one of my ex's beautiful ex Hans gifted me so much music, but he gifted me gold frap, actually like before, just after felt mountain.

Before they sort of, I guess, became accessible to everyone or, you know, everyone knew about them and that was really beautiful. He lived in Belgium, still lives in Belgium. And he would send me CDs in the like, Burns of burned copies of CDs in the post and compilations actually that he would make in, in the post.

And I would always like receive them

Andy: Wow,

Matt: eagerly. Yeah. Cause that's so excited. Yeah. He had such an [00:28:00] amazing tasting music and he really opened me up to lots of different things as well. But he gifted me the gold fra felt mountain. I'd never heard of them and it was one of the most stunning things I'd heard when I played it.

So marvelous. Yeah. Yeah.

Andy: Wonderful. And just to wrap up, , when I asked you if there was a queer business or charity that you'd like to plug on tracks of our queers, you mentioned the bearded tit, which is a fabulous, incredibly overwhelmingly queer bar in Redfern, Sydney, new South Wales, Australia.

How would you describe walking into the bearded tit?

Matt: Oh. Well, I just think the, it's. We're so lucky to have it. I think it's like, it, it feels like walking in. Every time you go there, it feels like walking into family, you know? It's so, it's, it's a warm embrace. It's. So exquisitely queer and just provides a platform for so many performers. It kind of nurtures so many performers and, and new talent in our community here in Sydney and beyond.

It's completely [00:29:00] unique. One of a kind, I think that. . Yeah, long lived the bit of ti I think we're really lucky to have it.

Andy: I, I completely agree with that idea of feeling lucky and, and grateful for something in that yes, it does provide a platform for new queer artists, but it also ensures that older queer artists who have, you know, pardon the cliche, but literally paved the way in Sydney and beyond, are still given a platform and people are exposed to their art and I cannot imagine.

A single queer person from anywhere on this enormous spectrum walking into the bit of tit and feeling less than welcome?

Matt: Definitely not. No. I think it's a rare place in Sydney that has that sort of magic attached to it, but I think it does. I think Sydney, I think one of the things that Sydney's queer scene has, which is.

Kind of unique maybe to Sydney, certainly in Australia, is this intergenerational strength? I think that there are a lot of events in Sydney that have a very intergenerational aspect to them and I think that is so great cuz we have such a [00:30:00] huge queer history in this city. And I think it's.

It's important to cherish that and celebrate that and make a space for, you know, people from across different generations of queer life in Sydney to feel that they can all coexist.

Andy: Matt Vaughn, you are,

Matt: I am.

Andy: And thank you for your tracks.

Matt: Pleasure. Thanks Andy for having me.