Welcome to Beats Bus & Beats Cartel! We are Christian and Kim, a couple based on the Sunshine Coast. About 3.5 years ago we started our own original music company (Beats Cartel) to create more opportunities for original musicians and original music on the whole. Christian is a blues-rock artist in a nationally touring band called Transvaal Diamond Syndicate and I just love music and everything that comes along with it. My talent in the music making field however is only about 5 songs on the uke!

Our business focuses on original musicians and events that support those musicians. We work with artists who are wanting to make their passion their career. We work pretty darn hard to do that too. We book tours for a number of artists, manage bands, run regular original music events, book venues and run a number of small boutique music festivals. We love what we do. About 18 months ago we had the brain wave of creating a vehicle that would allow us to support original artists further afield and also expand outside of The Sunshine Coast. So, we bought a bus. A 20 seater Toyota Coaster from Victoria. We ripped out the seats and gave all of our furniture away and the three of us (Christian, myself and our 50kg German Shepherd, Amigo) moved into the bus in January 2016. We had nothing but a bed and a box for Amgio to sleep on.

In the first few months we realised that living, working and buslifing in Queensland's summer heat wasn't as peachy as we imagined it to be. However after four weeks of buslife we had installed cabinets and made our little bus more of a home. We had learnt how three souls work together in a 6 x 2 meter house on wheels, practiced a LOT of patience and love and we had begun to really enjoy everything the bus gave us. Morning beach swims, lunchtime surfs, afternoon beach swims... you get the gist. We haven't paid for camping once, we are free campers and proud of it. We are very careful to not leave a trace wherever we stay and are so blessed to wake up on some of the most beautiful beaches in the country. We have spent countless nights in hot pools of sweat wishing our fans were an air con and many nights rocked to sleep by storms and winds. We have enjoyed the conversations with many from all walks of life, have cooked dinner and shared meals with homeless and wanderers, back packers, yachties and other vanlifers. We have made life long friendships with so many of these traveling souls. We have had countless parties and close to twenty five people on the bus at once. The bus has really brought to us all kinds of interesting souls and all kinds of experiences we would never have been previously exposed to. We are so grateful for that.

Over the past 13 months we have had many ups and downs of buslife. We have some hot tips on how to make it work for you, (eg. join a 24/7 chain gym for showers etc.) Slowly but surely we have watched enough Youtube clips to figure out how to renovate the bus to the state it is in now. We have taught ourselves (with a little help from some amazing friends and Google) how to lay flooring, wiring, build cabinets, design and install signs, remove rust etc etc etc. The bus is never going to be finished, but it is now at a point where we are able to do what we first envisioned.

Our dream for the BeatsBUS was to create pop up original music events. A stage off the side of the bus, full sound production, a small guerrilla style bus stage that allows both musicians and DJs to perform their original material. We wanted to create an alternative, creative, open aired hub for original acts. We installed a pop out window, we have had the bus vinyl wrapped (with all our favourite and inspirational musicians on it!) and we have popped our first gig cherry on Australia Day to hundreds of punters. Our plan is to continue supporting original music and through our bus we are planning regular beach front guerrilla gigs, attending festivals as an alternative stage, creating small and intimate gigs, having a space for band interviews and soon we will even have our own beer taps installed for those knock off craft beers. Little by little our vision is coming to life and we are so excited.

Being mad supporters of original music, we are also supporters of local and original industry and businesses. We have tried to use independent suppliers for most of our renovations. Apart from our disco lights, most things on the bus were sourced locally or independently.

Our next gig is a guerrilla gig on the Sunshine Coast on Feb 19. We haven't announced the bands, time or location yet but we are happy to invite you along, just hit us up in a PM and we will give you the deets. We are also in the process of lining up a number of festivals and events. The BeatsBUSwill be cruising around Australia bringing the original music to you. We are also looking at doing aBeatsBUS National Tour, hitting up venues and bringing some of the best bands we know along with us for the ride.

So in a nut shell, that is kind of us. We have had an amazing year in the BeatsBUS and we will always own a bus from now on. Buslife is great, hot, but great and we are ready for the next journey that our rocking BeatsBUS is yet to bring.

FOLLOW ALONG & DANCE:

Beats Bus Instagram

Beats Cartel Aus Instagram

Beats Cartel Facebook

Pretty much, if you see the BeatsBUS rockin' original bands... come join us, we would love to meet you and hear your stories!