Set Fire To My Home

ORIGINS: Pennant Hills, NSW

GENRE: Hardcore, Punk, Emo

YEARS ACTIVE: 1997-2006

 

SUMMARY: Set Fire To My Home was a Sydney-based record label run by Luke Logemann. It's origins can be traced to the Hornsby hardcore scene of the late '90s, with Logemann writing his own hardcore-focused zine (xCounter Attackx) as part of this scene. The label grew to a point where Logemann was able to move to Melbourne and work for the label Boomtown Records, which later transformed into the label UNFD.

 

ORAL HISTORY - provided by Luke Logemann in conversation with Noise Levels, 2024.

 

Background

I grew up all around Sydney - Bonnyrigg, Merrylands, Frenches Forest, Chatswood - we moved a lot and I lived with different family members. When I was about 14 we landed in Pennant Hills and that was when my music taste really started to form. Before that I either listened to cool stuff I found on the radio like Nirvana and Rage Against the Machine, or whatever my parents were into - like The Cure, The Clash, Bob Dylan kinda stuff. But when I got to Pennant Hills I met a bunch of young punk and metal kids who fast-forwarded my interest in proper underground music. 

The first local punk bands I got into were Nancy Vandal (their newsletter [The Vandals Voice] was awesome), Lawnsmell, and Gilgamesh. Then, I recall at this show in Beecroft where my friends' band played, the guys from Ceasefire were selling copies of their zine Meat and 3 Veg, which had much more hardcore content. I read those two issues back to back over and over again. It was almost overnight that we all got into bands like Pitfall, Ceasefire, Mindsnare, and Forward Defense, and it really opened up all this knowledge of the fact that fast hardcore existed in Sydney and Newcastle, which was mental for all of us. 

 

Luke Logemann's zine, Counter Attack

Zines and Shows

In 1997, I started a zine called xCounter Attackx. It was such a cool scene because you'd bring like 20 copies of your zine to a show and swap copies with other people there. Then you'd have a reason to write letters to people in other states and swap zines with them as well. I reckon I did about 5-6 issues and they are all pretty embarrassing to look back on. Just a 15-16 year old kid with a lot of opinions about the world and what was really hardcore (according to my 18 months of experience on the topic, of course). I also would put on shows at Hornsby PCYC (starting in around early 1998; the last one was in 2003). I don't recall putting on my first Hornsby show to be honest. All of them are mostly a blur apart from the last one - which was with Stockholm Syndrome and Staying At Home. I remember that one because it went really well and I decided afterwards: "This is what I want to do for a job in the future."

 

The zine kinda stopped because the world changed, I guess. Thing were more online and I also had a lot less time on my hands. Plus I was getting paid to write for Blunt Magazine and in 2005/2006 I managed a few cover stories as emo was getting massive down here - so that more or less took over my creative writing interests. 

Record Label

I had a fascination with record labels from really early on. I had this compilation called In Flight Program by Revelation Records, and it was this incredible gateway to my favourite hardcore and post-hardcore bands. Then it was Equal Vision and Bridge 9 - I couldn't believe how reliable those brands were for me in discovering music. They just seemed to get every record right. So I wanted to do that for all the cool bands in my life. 

I started Set Fire To My Home Records in 2001. I was a little older and a lot more ansgty and it became more stories, poetry, etc. I named it off a lyric by AFI on their album Black Sails in the Sunset. The first record was Nintendo Police's I Suggest We Don't Fuck Around. For the first 50 copies, we put a little saddie with weed in it saying, "I suggest you smoke this before listening. And then eat a Magnum Ego." Shortly after, it was Whatever by Worse Off, and a compilation CD of Headless Horseman music called The Millennium Rock Saga. Those were all bands from Hornsby that I was friends with. For those records, all I was doing was paying for a CD pressing and then taking CDs to shows to sell at merch desks. Maybe swapping advertisements with other zines around the place. It wasn't as much work as it became later on when I tried to take the label a bit more seriously. 

I was working full time in an office job doing IT. I basically started putting any money I didn't need for life into the label. We 'signed' Sans Chavelle and Staying At Home, which were probably my favourite bands in Sydney at the time. I didn't really know what a record label did, so I ended up booking both bands and touring with them around Australia, selling their merch, etc. Through those tours, I came across Horsell Common, who were a band from Melbourne that took off for a while there. They were the first band in my roster to crack Triple J rotation and to start doing national tours with big artists. There was a time around 2005 where I was working full time, booking all the bands on the label, writing for Blunt Magazine and DJing at alternative nightclubs. It was a really busy time and I was terrible at running it like a business. I was paying for bands recording and hiring publicists but forgetting to even take any money for their CD sales. Even when Grand Fatal blew up in 2005/2006, I was going broke because I just wasn't paying attention. But, I was having a blast and really enjoying following my dream. 

In 2005, I'd met Jaddan from Boomtown Records in Melbourne. For a while, we promoted shows for each others bands from Sydney and Melbourne. He had Behind Crimson Eyes, who were blowing up bigger than any of my bands. I think they sold like 20, 000 EPs in six months or something. In 2006 he asked me to come and work for him. So I shut down Set Fire To My Home and moved to Melbourne. Horsell Common came to Boomtown Records as well. I worked at Boomtown Records until we changed the name to UNFD in 2011, and I stayed running that label until 2023 - 17 years in total. Jaddan was more commercially-minded than I was and I was able to learn how to work in music and making a living/career out of it. 

It was my dream come true - to be able to work full time on punk/heavy music. Took me 8+ years to get that opportunity, so I dove right in.

BAND RELEASES: 

• Nintendo Police - I Suggest We Don't Fuck Around (Album) [2001]
• Worse Off - Whatever (Album) [2001]
  
• Headless Horsemen - Self-Titled (Split EP / 7" with Bjelke-Petersen Youth) [2002] 
• Headless Horsemen - The Millennium Rock Saga (Album) [2003]
• Sans Chavelle - Self-Titled (EP) [2003]
• Grand Fatal - Kick the Star (EP) [2004]
  
• Staying At Home - Reaction Heroes (Album) [2004]
• Grand Fatal - Chaser/Eraser (EP) [2005]
  
• Staying At Home - Never Take Me Alive (EP) [2005]
• Grand Fatal - Allies (Album) [2005]
  
• Horsell Common - Lost a Lot of Blood (EP) [2005]
• Horsell Common - The Birds and the Bees (Split EP with Trial Kennedy) [2006]
• Horsell Common - Satellite Wonderland (EP) [2006]
• Nintendo Police - Artificial Suns (Album) [2011]
  

SHOWS ORGANISED OR CO-ORGANISED: 

• To be confirmed
  

ZINES: Here.