McCrystal is giving rock a polish

Sometimes you need merely to ask – and you shall receive. Screen media tutor by day, now music archiver by night Tyrone McCrystal rocked up to a gig in Dapto last year with his camera and a vision to document Wollongong’s thriving music scene.

“I reached out to the band and said 'I've just got this new camera. Do you mind if I come down and film you guys just to try it out?' They said 'sure.' And that night, I got the bug for recording live music,” Tyrone says.

Tyrone has since formed a small production team, involving his former ITEC student Joel Simpson, and friends Tyler Radford, Jovan Sekulovski and Mark Lenzo, who runs sound and lighting at Society City.

"I wouldn't be where I am without them. They give up their time to help me do this. We don't get paid so when they're free, they'll come out and help me,” Tyrone says.

"It's gotten to the point now where people are actually asking – saying ‘we're playing this venue. Can you come record it?"

Since November last year, Tyrone and his non-for-profit crew has filmed more than 150 gigs at almost every venue in Wollongong over the past eight months. They provide professional mixing and multi-cam recordings, edited with colour grading and effects.

He and the crew can be found at venues such as Society City, La La La’s, The Vault or Towradgi Beach Hotel multiple nights a week. They’ve strived to deliver the best quality possible free of charge for up-and-comers and standout bands such as Tumbleweed and Private Wives alike.

“We usually turn up during soundcheck, because it gives us some leeway. The last thing you want to do is rock up to a gig with all your camera gear about 10 minutes before the set actually starts - and then you go to the soundie and you're like, 'Hey, by the way, I want to record through the desk’. That takes some time,” Tyrone says.

"I'll have one big stationary camera pointed directly at the band that will record the whole set, and then I have a couple of little roaming cameras that I'll move around the venue - trying to get different angles. I only record maybe two to four songs with those and then I'll edit those and put that online,"

"We’ll send it all to the band, and they can do whatever they want with it. They can use it to promote themselves or the venue. The rest of the footage of the set captured from the big camera, I'll send them that as well."

Tyrone’s passion project is starting to open up new avenues for music content. He was recently invited to film behind-the-scenes while Sydney psych rock band Robot God recorded new music.

"Long story short, about a month ago, they called me out of the blue saying 'hey, we're laying down some new tracks in the studio in Sydney. Do you want to come and document it?',” Tyrone says.

"Stuff like that makes me happy, knowing that people appreciate what we're doing,”

"There's a lot of bands who really do appreciate what we're doing, to a point where they're starting to reach out and say, 'Hey, do you mind if we slip you a couple bucks and you can shoot us a music video?”

Tyrone is no stranger to applying his filmmaker skills to the success of local bands. Over the past few years, Rage has featured his animated music videos for Wollongong band The Leftards. He hopes that his new video work will help up and coming bands find their feet in the industry.

“There's a whole, vast variety of young talent coming into the Wollongong music scene, like bands fresh out of high school. This helps to give them a voice and push them further,” Tyrone says.

“There's also a lot of bands from the old days that are slowly disappearing, and this is a good way to capture them… because back in the 90s when they were in their prime, there wasn't much going on in terms of filming.”

Tyrone has been a lover of local music since his teenage years. Having moved to Tarrawanna at 17, he snuck into gigs and began compiling an archive of Wollongong music memorabilia that dates back to the 1960s.

"Whenever I'll rock up to a venue and film the band, they'll either shout me a couple beers or give me some merch, and they'll go towards the collection,” he says.

Tyrone’s collection of t-shirts, posters, vinyls and other merchandise has been displayed at Project Contemporary Artspace as part of the Coal Coast Record Fair, Music Farmers Wollongong and at ITEC more recently.

Bands can contact Tyrone to have their shows filmed.

“If someone's got a gig coming up that they want filmed, I'll be there. I'll do it.”

The Wollongong Music Archive posts footage on YouTube; follow Tyrone on Instagram (@tyrone_mccrystal).