Melbourne’s beloved Public Bar has had a bit of a facelift… or maybe a face… down? It’s hard to say. According to new owner Shane Hilton, the newly renamed Last Chance Rock & Roll Bar is “probably the worst rock & roll bar in the world”.

However, he admits, “considering that rock & roll is what we do it’s probably a good thing”. And it’s a good thing The Last Chance Rock & Roll Bar has opened in Melbourne, because Hilton’s vision for the bar has everything to do with serving the local scene.

“I was running a little publication called Rock & Roll Magazine and I realised that I was going to make fuck all money doing that so I started thinking about what could fund my suicidal mission of actually printing a real magazine about local bands without going broke in a couple of months,” he tells Tone Deaf.

“Then the Public Bar came on the market. I thought to myself, ‘Self, maybe you could make a bit of cash for all those out of control printing costs by slinging piss in a live music venue?’ It just seemed a natural fit.”

“So hopefully the people will start getting in here and we can get Rock & Roll Magazine going again to support all the awesome bands we have kicking around the sticky carpets of Australia.” Hilton said his venue will be inspired by the small-town pubs he grew up in.

“But I’m also a filthy punk rocker that’s obsessed with all sorts of local music so it’s going to be a real fucking clash of cultures in here. For example we’ve started a fishing club called the Rock & Roll Anglers Club that will hold a meat and veg raffle every Friday and Saturday night.”

“All the money we make from the raffles will go towards getting records pressed and released for local bands. It’s just a part of giving back to the bands that keep venues like ours running. Fucked if I know if we will do any real fishing but we will fish for records.”

“We just want to have a whole heap of very different and very good bands up on our stage and to give the kids just getting started a shot as well.”

“But it’s just other little changes like making sure that we play a lot more local bands’ albums on a daily basis through the PA so the people coming here can listen to it and think, ‘Fuck, I should pick that up from the record store or go to one of these guys’ gigs.'”

“There’s a lot of good shit right here in our backyard. If the radio stations, that aren’t community radio, are going to ignore them then we should pull up our own socks and start playing them instead of just bitching about it.”

Best of all, Hilton’s venue has a very late liquor license, which means you can turn your great night into an awesome morning. “That makes us the Last Chance to have a good time without resorting to some yuppie meat market masquerading as a place to enjoy yourself,” Hilton tells us.

“We’re open until 7am on Friday and Saturday nights and the kitchen is serving souvlakis, golden syrup dumplings, and a whole heap of fried goodies until 3.30am in the morning so it’s probably your Last Chance to get a decent feed after midnight as well.”

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“Then we open again at 9am for a breakfast that will be a little bit more satisfying than the one you get over at the Queen Vic Markets. It’s just good hangover cure food with a whole of rock & roll music blasting through the speakers.”

“We were going to run right through but we thought we’d better clean the toilets before people came in to consume their breakfast. So there’s that and all the fucking awesome bands that will be playing here earlier on in the evening.”

Asked about his ambitions for what’s “probably the worst rock & roll bar in the world” in 2016, he told us, “If we can help out local bands and the Australian independent music scene by being a supportive spoke on the wheel and not going broke while doing it I will be very happy.”

“We just want to have a whole heap of very different and very good bands up on our stage and to give the kids just getting started a shot as well. If we can keep Rock & Roll Magazine going and growing I will be even more pleased. That’s pretty much what we’re all about.”

“With any luck we will be able to pull it all off and have a good time doing it.” For more information about The Last Chance and news on upcoming gigs and events, head on over to the venue’s official Facebook page.

Photo by Daniel Oh

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