Matt Warren
“[Burnie] allowed you to be a bit more dreamy. There was never a feeling of being overwhelmed by a lot of people. You could be a little bit more of a loner but there was always a sense of community as well, if you needed that. There was a nice balance.”
From Cooee Cordials to Krautrock – that’s the journey Matt Warren’s artistic career has taken. Matt’s work consists of electronic media, video and music with curating and writing on the side. It began with helping his dad haul tall bottles of rainbow gold in the eighties.
Formative (2022). Imagery from his mother's personal high school (Parklands) atlas and a listing of his father's childhood telephone number
Matt’s Uncle Harvey co-owned Cooee Cordials during the golden age of North-West Tasmanian soft drink concerns. (Ulverstone had Te-Up and Smithton had Grey’s.) The factory was built in 1883 by William Jones, a retired sea captain turned entrepreneur living in a luxury two-story residence called ‘Menai’ (where the Menai Hotel is now). The factory burned down in 1905 and was rebuilt next door, where the Cadbury factory now stands, where it traded under the name ‘Rockliff Cordials.’
The company sold in 1948 and the name was changed to ‘Cooee Cordial.’ Matt’s Uncle Harvey took over in 1982, ensuring the soft drink was an integral part of any eighties childhood in Burnie. The biggest drawcard was the fact you could return bottles to the milk bar for a twenty cent refund! Cooee was ahead of the times. In 1992 the business morphed into Tassie Forest Waters, which are slightly less exciting words to yell out in the bush.
“I feel quite lucky that we had all that fizzy, sugary goodness,” Matt says.
In 2003 Matt was in Europe researching German expressionist cinema. He contacted a few musos in the Krautrock scene and ended up making a documentary attempting to define Krautrock.
Damo Suzuki, the lead singer of Can, invited Matt to stay with him in Cologne for two weeks. Matt accompanied him to the Finki Open Air festival in Finkenbach where he got to meet Jaki Liebezeit, the drummer from Can and his favourite drummer of all-time.
In the days before roaming mobile phones, Matt hit up the internet café’s daily, lining up over fifteen interviews during a German heatwave. The resulting documentary, Stoic Rhythms is available on Vimeo. Matt got to play drums for the Damo Suzuki Network when he toured to Tasmania in 2018 and 2019.
Image from making of The Conjurer at Burnie High School, 2014
Matt's Uncle Harvey owned the iconic Cooee Cordials and his Dad was a delivery driver
