Cocktails are stirred, not shaken, at Mad Poet - and for good reason.
This newly opened small bar on the western end of Newcastle's Hunter Street is all about music, conversation and making connections. Shaking a cocktail or, heaven forbid, mixing one in a blender is strictly prohibited by owner Dylan Oakes.
A noisy coffee machine? No way. Vinyl records come first at this low-key and intimate "listening bar".
Originating in Japan in the 1950s, listening bars have increased in popularity in major cities worldwide over the past five years. Some are more "hardcore" than others (in some Japanese venues speaking is frowned upon) but Mad Poet is a happy medium.
Oakes is in charge of each evening's soundtrack and has a library of close to 3000 records to choose from. He encourages people to talk to him, his staff, or other patrons about the music being played.
Are they familiar with it? Do they like it? How does it make them feel?
"My business partner Gary Seeger has a thing for Lou Reed, Velvet Underground, The Clash and Bowie, so that's on rotation, while I grew up with my dad's records, Cream and the Beatles and the Stones," Oakes says.
"But I'm also a '90s kid, I'm pushing 40 now, and I believe that was a great era for music too, so I'll throw that in the mix.
"I think we can, collectively, read the room pretty well when deciding what music to play. The other night we had Bryan Ferry going at 10pm.
"I've been throwing parties at The Family for years. That's where the idea for Mad Poet came about, actually."
Oakes was a co-owner of The Family Hotel on Hunter Street until it sold earlier this year. It was there he met Seeger and his wife Sophie, an interior designer.
"Gary works in the music industry, in music publishing, and we struck up a conversation over poetry, music and fashion - we've lived in those worlds for a very long time so we hit it off straight away," Oakes says.
"We'd put records on, drink great wine, then we started jamming and started a band called Les Poetes Pop.
"About a year-and-half-ago we started talking about opening a small bar similar to the listening bars that were happening everywhere else in the world, and over the past year I've been setting up shop."
Oakes has some interesting stories to tell. He has modelled professionally since 2009, both at home and abroad, and is currently signed to Priscilla's Model Management. He's an artist, a musician, a singer, an actor, and has two decades of experience in the hospitality and music industries. He's also the founder of the popular West Best Block Fest.
Oakes wanted the bar experience to feel like you were "coming over to my house for a dinner party ... cheese and meat, wine and music" and engaged family and friends to help piece his vision together.
"The space is only 77 square metres, including the kitchen, toilet and office," he says.
"I wanted a really deep, big, oak bar with lots of room for our charcuterie boards, so we built that ourselves.
"We've got a big ice well for our white wine, two decanters for the red wines by the glass, and a big, old-school, 1950s typewriter from England. We've also got one of the oldest beer taps in Australia, which was a gift from Adam [Hardy] at Rogue Scholar. It's from the 1920s and it used to be in a pub, The Fortune of War, built in 1828 down at The Rocks."
Oakes also enlisted the help of Gary and Sophie's daughter, Jemma, who runs a Newcastle-based business called The Boozy Spoon.
"She's a home foodie so she's making all of our dips from scratch, and we're serving The Boozy Spoon cocktails which are kind of like an alcoholic dessert, or a sorbet, with a few classics thrown in too," he explains.
"I visited a few listening bars while doing research last year and at one of them I asked why they didn't shake their cocktails, and the owner - who was a jazz musician - said he didn't want that sound to compete with the music. I got it. People take music seriously, you know?"
If Mad Poet sounds pretentious, it's not. All are welcome.
"I've been in hospitality for 20 years - it's all about service," Oakes says.
"We're a really small bar, we're here to give people an experience no matter where they come from. Come into our house and we'll make sure you have a good time.
"Two guys came in the other day and said to me 'This probably isn't for us, but we really like the vibe and we wanted a beer'. I said 'Cool, we make our own beer - West Best - with the guy around the corner, you should go check it out; it's called The Rogue Scholar, he brews my beer'.
"The following night I went to Rogue Scholar and ran into the same two guys.
"I once said to Gary, 'When we open these doors it's the public's bar, they can make of it what they want'. Anyone and everyone can come in. Make it what you will."
