This was published 9 months ago
How do you talk a millionaire into saving a tiny Hobart record shop?
The grumpy music store owner, the eccentric museum owner – and the promise to save a treasured piece of Hobart history.
For close to 30 years, Stefan Markovitch ruled his Hobart record store, Music Without Frontiers, with curmudgeonly might. By all accounts he was an incorrigible grump with an encyclopaedic enthusiasm for music and
a memory to match. The son of postwar European migrants, he liked to educate those who wandered into the orbit of his small, cluttered and gem-packed store about the riches of music of all genres.
Leigh Carmichael (left) with Music Without Frontiers manager Mel Stewart in the Hobart store. Carmichael made a vow to do everything he could to help save it.Credit: Amy Brown
It was here, among Markovitch’s sprawling inventory of vinyl and CDs, that a young Leigh Carmichael, who would go on to create Hobart’s cosmically successful winter festival, Dark Mofo, cultivated his musical taste. At first, Markovitch had little time for a teenager with no money and a penchant for grunge. But Carmichael kept coming in and as the years passed, the relationship grew and with it, his musical palate.
“He introduced me to jazz … he got me on to Miles Davis and quite a few experimental artists as well …minimalist composers such as Nils Frahm and the guy we had at Dark Mofo last year, Max Richter,” Carmichael says. “Stefan definitely had an influence on the Dark Mofo music program, I can say that with confidence.”
Turns out, he had this effect on a lot of people. “This is something I’ve only recently learnt,” Carmichael adds. “He made us all feel very special. He had these one-on-one relationships. I thought it was just because of me and the festival, because I’d go in there and drop two or three hundred dollars at a time.”
Last year, Carmichael received a “really confronting” text message from Markovitch. “He said, ‘Can I see you in the shop tomorrow at five o’clock?’ And I knew that was bad. He would very rarely text. I went in, and he took me out the back and said, ‘My life hasn’t turned out as I’d planned.’ ”
In the era of Spotify, Apple Music and floods of free online content, we’re used to reading about small, locally owned record stores closing – think of Melbourne’s Basement Discs (now online) or Discurio, or Sydney’s Waterfront Records, which remains a record label but was once also a shop on Pitt Street, a former precinct of independent music. Music lovers grieve the passing of these bricks and mortar stores that are so much more than just shops – they are community hubs, places that help promote local musicians and bands, places of discovery and exchange, where sifting through crates of vinyl can yield thrilling finds.
Such stores are a threatened species, at risk from market forces – falling revenue, rising rents and competition from big commercial retailers such as JB Hi-Fi and online giants such as Amazon. Every year the survivors are celebrated on Record Store Day (which this year falls on April 20). Stefan Markovitch was one of the survivors, defying the trend, holding his own against the onslaught of the digital era and colossal “entertainment retailers” with their ability to offer heavy discounts. He refused to step inside these megastores, just as he resisted the digital world. He was staunchly anti-technology and documented everything in writing, reluctantly adopting a laptop at home to key in orders to record companies when they would no longer accept his handwritten sheets.
Store founders Stefan and Jenny Markovitch.Credit: Antony Markovitch
His mind was his database, on which he stored information about every item in his shop, which typically held more than 4000 vinyl records and 2500 CDs, with another 30,000 records in boxes at home and in storage. He knew where everything was in his shop, and when he was in the mood to show off, he’d recite the exact catalogue number of the record being sought. In short, he was a character.
“He never stopped working,” says Markovitch’s wife, Jenny. “He was working possibly up to 70 hours a week all his life, until the last few months when it probably came down to 50 hours a week.”
Last April, aged 73, Markovitch was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He accepted the news with characteristic stoicism, keeping the diagnosis a secret from his customers. “He only wanted to talk about music in the shop,” Jenny says.
On the day he was given his terminal diagnosis, Markovitch turned his attention to safeguarding his business. That day, he started writing a letter to David Walsh, founder of Hobart’s Museum of Old and New Art, Leigh Carmichael’s boss and the only person he thought might be able to secure the future of his beloved record store, who might have the money to buy it and keep its old-school vibe.
“He’d never met David, but he just knew that David might be interested,” Jenny says. “I said, ‘You know, if you write this as an email or even send it as a letter to David Walsh, a secretary will probably open it and throw it in the bin. It might be a better idea to approach Leigh.’ So instead of writing David a letter, Stefan sent Leigh a text message.”
Stefan and Jenny Markovitch celebrating the 50th anniversary of their first vinyl imports from London. On display: their very first customer order book. Credit: Courtesy of Stefan Markovitch
When I meet Carmichael at a cafe a few doors down from the record store, he tells me how it went. “I committed to Stefan on the spot that I would do everything that I could.”
In any other city, Music Without Frontiers would probably have gone the way of so many other record stores. But Hobart has David Walsh, a local boy from working-class Glenorchy who launched Tasmania onto the international stage in 2011 with his inimitable Museum of Old and New Art – Mona, as it’s universally known. The museum is renowned for its art and architecture as much as for the eccentricities of Walsh himself, a mathematical genius who, as has been recounted innumerable times, made his fortune by beating the odds at gambling. As well as keeping the ever-expanding Mona afloat on his gambling income, he funds two music festivals, Dark Mofo and summer’s Mona Foma.
Cities are dynamic, businesses boom and bust, streetscapes change, neighbourhoods gentrify. It’s par for the course and Hobart’s not immune, even if change occurs at a slower pace in this small capital city. So why should Walsh fork out more than $400,000 (the amount he’s rumoured to have paid) to save a little record store? It’s not even the last remaining independent music store in Hobart; others include Tommy Gun Records, Soldas Music and Suffragette Records.
Persuading Walsh was Carmichael’s challenge. “It was one of the hardest things that I’ve done at my time at Mona, because normally when I go to David I can get a yes or a no and it doesn’t really matter,” he says. “There’s disappointment with a no, but this time I had to get a yes.”
Stewart and Carmichael investigate the vinyl still in storage.Credit: Amy Brown
Carmichael knew his request would stretch Walsh’s already strained budget. “We’ll go under ourselves if we’re not careful,” he says. (Thirteen years on, Mona still runs at a loss, subsidised to the tune of many millions a year by its founder.) In the end, Carmichael begged. He went, hat in hand and hand on heart, to Mona’s CEO Patrick Kelly to make his case.
“I often say that the great thing about vinyl is that you can hug a record.”
Mel Stewart
Carmichael argued that Music Without Frontiers was a natural fit for the Hobart cultural precinct In The Hanging Garden, with its music venues and bars, which Carmichael, as director of DarkLab (the company that administers Dark Mofo and other projects), is developing with Melbourne property group Riverlee. The precinct takes up an entire city block. Music Without Frontiers is in its heart, a few doors down from the historic Odeon Theatre that Walsh and Carmichael saved from extinction, leasing it from Riverlee in 2013 for live music and other events at the inaugural Dark Mofo. (They eventually convinced Riverlee not to demolish the theatre and Walsh is now joint owner.) The record store could promote upcoming gigs at the Odeon and tie in with Mona’s Frying Pan recording studio, which is housed at the museum and incorporates the original mixing desk from Abbey Road Studios.
“I told Patrick, ‘I know this is not a great financial decision, I get that, but it’s important to the precinct and the stock has value, we’ll make it work. I can’t go to my grave having committed to Stefan and now pull out.’ ” His eyes well with tears. “I said, ‘This really, really matters. I have to find a way.’ ”
Inside Music Without Frontiers.Credit: Amy Brown
Stefan Albert Markovitch was born in Launceston in 1950, the son of a German mother and Bosnian father. He grew up in a house filled with records and the music of his parents’ heritage. One of the last stories he told Jenny before he died last October, aged 73, was that as a child his parents would wheel the radiogram into his bedroom one night a week so he could listen to brass bands, which he loved. For all that, a career in music wouldn’t do for their son – they wanted him to be a doctor. Markovitch obliged, moving to Hobart to study medicine.
He specialised in dropping out. He switched from medicine to science, then from science to art school – and dropped out of that, too (but not before meeting Jenny, a fellow art student). In 1973, he began importing records from the UK, initially to satisfy a desire for music that he and his friends could not find in Hobart. “That really was the start of the business,” Jenny says. “Last May we celebrated 50 years of Stefan selling music in Hobart by having a cup of coffee at Jackman & McRoss in Battery Point, because in 1973, that was the location of the post office where he collected his first order of vinyl imports from London.”
Illustrating the camaraderie that exists in the independent music world, Melbourne’s now departed Discurio played a significant role in launching Markovitch’s business. Markovitch was a keen customer and owners Peter and Ruth Mann nurtured his enthusiasm. “When he dropped out of art school they encouraged him to go into business and open a similar store in Hobart,” Jenny says. “They were so helpful.”
The Manns supplied Markovitch with records on consignment until his business was big enough for him to open his own accounts with record companies, and they also shared their business name. “But it had to be slightly different for legal reasons,” Jenny says, “so the shop in Hobart was called Discurio with very small letters after it – ‘ncp’ – which was Stefan’s little joke – ‘no commercial potential’.”
Discurio ncp opened in Hobart’s CBD in 1976, on the corner of Liverpool and Argyle Streets. The business thrived and Markovitch began exporting Australian records overseas, including sending AC/DC titles to Europe, the UK and Japan. He also became involved in concert promotion and in 1979 was the first to bring Nick Cave to Hobart when Cave was a young, wild-haired vocalist with post-punk band The Boys Next Door (soon to become The Birthday Party).
Selected singles and albums placed at the front counter for maximum visibility.Credit: Amy Brown
But it wasn’t all smooth sailing. The couple’s business collapsed in the early 1990s during the recession “we had to have”. They closed shop, worked in the public service and kept their passion alive by selling records at Hobart’s famed Salamanca Market. In 1996 they were back in action, opening Music Without Frontiers in Victoria Street, trading for limited hours while shuttling between their respective jobs. The shop moved to Collins Street in 1999 before relocating to its current spot in Liverpool Street in 2016.
Something as seemingly insignificant as a small record store can leave a substantial mark on the culture of a city, nudging the sensibilities of its inhabitants, expanding their horizons and setting them off on new adventures. Markovitch liked to prod his regulars: if he thought you were buying a record that was beneath your evolving musical taste, he’d refuse to sell it to you and steer you in another direction, towards something more intriguing and challenging. “He was a classic salesman,” says Carmichael. “He would always throw a couple of ideas at you just before you’d leave. He was always giving me suggestions for the festival, and I really rated his opinion. If he thought something was worth listening to, I used to give it a shot.”
Music Without Frontiers’ front window still sums up Markovitch’s catholic tastes. Albums on display range from pop – Ladies and Gentlemen … The Bangles! – to the avant-garde – a double vinyl box set of Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki’s harrowing opera The Devils of Loudun. Inside, the shop is long and narrow, with scuffed concrete and wood composite floors. Eye-catching albums are stacked in tiered stands, more in crates and boxes on the floor, and others mounted on the wall like prized artworks. A rare Ramones record has a bargain $300 price tag (Markovitch’s pricings have been kept) – it’s a World Record Club release, a company known mainly for issuing classics, not punk. CDs are lovingly displayed on shelves – Leonard Bernstein’s An American in Paris jumps out, what with the Bradley Cooper biopic Maestro vying for seven Oscars (it ended up winning none).
On the front counter, boxes marked “Stefan’s stash” include a $40 single of The Beatles’ Hits, made and distributed in Australia by E.M.I. in 1963. Side one: From Me to You and Thank You Girl; Side two: Please Please Me and Love Me Do. Markovitch’s Maria Callas poster looms large over it all – he was a massive opera fan and exposed others to the genre, including Al Robertson, owner of Hobart’s hugely popular Sonny, a tiny, 20-seat wine bar where the turntable selection is as much of a drawcard as the Italian-inspired food and drinks. Robertson moved to Hobart from Adelaide five years ago and soon became a regular at Markovitch’s store.
Al Robertson, owner of Hobart wine bar Sonny, with an LP he bought from the store.Credit: Dexter Kim
“I loved hanging out there and supporting him and his family,” Robertson says. “I bought probably 30 Duke Ellington albums from him. He would always take a long time to warm up to have a chat. The moment we really kind of became pals, and he became more interested in the records that I wanted, was when I started buying some opera. I bought Maria Callas’s live Callas at La Scala. I bought a lot of this music to listen to at home, and then I started creeping some of it into work, playing it at Sonny, and Stefan was so happy and pleased that people were listening to this music and especially in what he thought was a young, trendy kind of venue.”
Hotel California by the Eagles spins on the turntable. Music Without Frontiers’ new manager, Mel Stewart, who’s been in the job for a couple of months, follows it up with jazzman Sonny Stitt’s Now! Jenny has dropped by to bring him some handmade signs for the shop – Jazz, Rock ‘n’ Pop, World Music, Folk, Humour – written in bright, bold Texta by the Markovitch children, Antony, Helena and Sven, when they were young. The business was always a family affair. Markovitch made signs, too – he was a fan of Letraset, a rubdown lettering system which older readers will fondly remember. One of his signs reads: “Dirt Cheap – No Audition! No Holds! No Arguments!”
Stewart happily takes the colourful pile from Jenny and says he’ll put it to good use. Stewart, who was born in England, had managed record stores in Newcastle, NSW, moved to Hobart five years ago and was enjoying life at a gentler pace when Leigh Carmichael contacted him at the suggestion of a friend. “I got a phone call from Leigh asking me whether I’d like to manage a record store and my first reaction was ‘Oh, maybe’. And then he let me know that it was Stefan’s record shop and I was basically, ‘I’ll see you tomorrow’,” he says.
He had also been a regular at the store and relished the chance to become the custodian of Markovitch’s vast collection, much of which is still in unopened boxes, in storage, to be slowly introduced into the shop. “Every day that I come in, I open up a new box and I’m going, ‘Oh wow!’, ‘Oh my goodness!’ ” Stewart says. “Stefan listened to everything … His jazz collection is one of the best I’ve ever seen. We have people coming down from all the major capital cities just being blown away with his collection. His knowledge of classical music was extraordinary.”
Business, Stewart says, is booming. The resurgent interest in vinyl and all things tangible is playing its part. People of all ages are hungry for the physical, for interactions in real time and real spaces. “I often say that the great thing about vinyl is that you can hug a record. Most people walk out like this,” he says, holding an imaginary record to his chest.
While Stewart didn’t have to formally apply for the job, Carmichael sounded him out by asking about his vision for the store. “I said that I would like to carry it on in the tradition that Stefan’s always had, which is not making it flash and modern, making it very retro … because that’s what gives it its appeal … it was pretty evident that Leigh and I were on a similar path.” Jenny signed off on the sale of the store in December, taking over the negotiations her husband had started.
Carmichael says changes will be minimal and in keeping with Markovitch’s legacy. “I think buying the store without Mel as manager would have been a disaster, potentially … we had to find a Mel, and they’re not easy to find,” he says. “It feels like it was meant to be.”
In the end, Stefan Markovitch died knowing one thing had turned out as planned – Carmichael had kept his promise.
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