SO there we were, the entire staff of On The Street, all together down at the Excelsior Hotel, Surry Hills, the "office local", congratulating ourselves on our stand against what we felt had been an increasingly intolerable situation, regaling each other with stories of injustices perpetrated against one or other of us when it suddenly occurred to one of us to say, "Hey, you know, we're all unemployed!" AND that is how The Drum Media got started. That and the incredible loyalty of a lot of the advertisers who had got to know us, us collectively, not just as totally professional at what we did but as friends, as people committed to the whole local music scene, from the blokes that put up the posters to the local corner live music venues to the little indie bands and the great big multinational record companies who sent round their reps to see us with their latest releases every week for reviews and interviews. There must have been something in the air that week because there was rebellion brewing at Triple J around the same time. A new policy of eliminating music choice by the DJs was creating havoc and led to the sacking of 6 on-air stalwarts. It all came to a head with a huge "Save The Jays" meeting at Sydney Town Hall. Somehow, we all found ourselves there and became an addendum to the cause celebre. THE first issue of The Drum Media hit the streets ten days after our collective walkout, on September 6, 1990, with Midnight Oil gracing our cover for their Blue Sky Mining tour. Having decided we'd stick together if we could rather than disperse and try to get "real" jobs, the girl who'd been Art Director at the time mentioned a property up in Potts Point that might be okay, and the two sisters who had effectively run On The Street for the previous six years, Editor Margaret Cott and Advertising Manager Jennifer Cott, put together their savings and called on their father, Mac, who runs the Southern Highland Times, for some advice. After the session at the Excelsior, we'd all gone back to Jennifer's place and almost at once we were getting people calling up, asking what had happened and offering us fax machines, phone systems, tables, chairs, you name it. More importantly, people were telling us they'd rather advertise with us than some guy they knew nothing about. Saturday morning the office was secured in 32 Orwell Street, and Monday we were making a new music magazine. It took three weeks before we could afford to pay ourselves and look at us now - just past our 11th birthday, the market leader in the weekly free youth arts and entertainment newspaper business still, much copied but never yet beaten, as committed to the local music industry in all its manifestations as ever. IN those intervening years, we've moved to 82 Fitzroy St, Surry Hills, we've grown from 48 pages to a regular 80-plus, added regular columns on jazz, blues, hard rock & metal and the music industry itself, dealt with all manner of social issues from Aboriginal rights to marijuana legislation, skate/snowboarding to the environment, and presented the majority of the most significant concert events, from local to international, as well as being prominently involved with the likes of The Big Day Out, Vans Warped, the East Coast Blues & Roots Festival, the Great Southern Blues & Rockabilly Festival and Homebake. Our reviews and articles are regularly pillaged to enhance the press releases of acts local and international, our various regular contributors being similarly located. We've continued to champion the local live music scene and hopefully done our bit to try to keep it alive when it's looked like it was ready to implode completely, which it seems to do on a regular basis. We've tried to cover as much as we possibly could in the time allowed within each deadline, the doors always open to the lowliest and the mightiest bands, labels, managements, publicans, agents, studio owners, instrument manufacturers, computer games people, film, television and theatre companies, authors, artists of every stripe, dancers, experimentalists, dance musicmakers, adventurers, environmental groups and even the odd credible politician (come on down Natasha Stott-Despoja!). Throughout, we've tried to be as even-handed as possible, told the truth and rejected anything that smacked of bigotry, sexism or misogyny. It's been bloody hard work but it's also been incredibly fulfilling. We might end up as fish'n'chip wrapping at the end of the week but for a brief moment, we hope we've proven a useful way of understanding the things that are happening in the cultural lives of Sydneysiders young and not so young. If we've shown the way to a great experience, be it a record, a concert, a play, a film, a book or whatever, then we've achieved something. In the end, that's all we can ask. And we can only thank you - our readers and our advertisers - for continuing to help keep us the #1 street newspaper in the country. Thanks for keeping the faith.