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SUMMARY
The Chatswood Youth Song (also known as Woo Hoo (She Came On) is an unknown pop-punk song discovered and uploaded by Reddit user Chernyat in December 2019. The song was first discovered on a VHS tape as a feature track to a 1997 amateur documentary called Video Surveillance: Race Around Chatswood (also known informally as The Chatswood Youth Centre Video).
BACKGROUND & SEARCH
The song was first discovered by Reddit user Chernyat in late 2019 when she travelled to the Sydney suburb of Newtown with her sister to go thrift shopping. When checking out one of the thrift stores on the main street, Chernyat discovered a single VHS tape placed amongst a stack of DVDs in the movie section.
The VHS was stored in a commercial casing of the 1994 family comedy movie The Little Rascals. However, the tape itself was a blank BASF tape that was labelled only with a Sony branded side label with the crudely written title Chatswood Youth *Mono.
After purchasing the tape, Chernyat discovered that the VHS didn’t contain The Little Rascals movie. Instead, was a 35-minute shot on video documentary showing the goings-on of the Chatswood Youth Centre and surrounding community. Played frequently throughout the video is a pop-punk song. However, with the lack of any credit sequences or direct reference to the music placed in the video, the song is left unidentified. Chernyat was not successful in identifying the song via song identifying apps like Shazam or by typing the lyrics online.
By mid-December 2019, Chernyat posted several reddit threads addressing the search to identify the song. These posts would be companied with direct links to a crude reconstruction of the song as well as the full documentary via Google Drive.
By early 2020, the song’s search would begin to gain traction in the Lostwave Community. The song would be featured as a segment on a video by YouTuber C.W. Schultz titled 10 MORE Mysterious Songs which was published on 25th September 2020. Schultz would make a follow up segment to the song in the video Iceberg of Mysterious Songs and Lost Music published on 9th May 2022.
On 14th June 2021, the search for the song would have its own Discord channel via TheMysteriousSong server. The search would then have its own channel on the Fond My Mind channel on 29th June 2021.
Between 2021-2022, Chernyat was able to locate an Interviewer and Interviewee featured in the Documentary. Both individuals gave some context to the video’s existence. Explaining that the video was made as part of a video project hosted by the Chatswood Youth Centre. It was believed to have been organized specifically by “a male staff member”. But both people couldn’t recall who that male staff member was.
During this period, members of the discord channel confirmed that Youth Worker Harley (who was featured in the documentary) died at the age of 44 on 11th September 1998 in a motorcycle accident.
On 2nd September 2022, the New Jersey radio station WFMU 91.1 FM briefly talked about the song on their show Merrily We Roll Along with MHLee. This broadcast coverage of the song would be the first known time an excerpt of the song would be broadcasted on radio.
By 2023, the search went quiet. Finding no leads during this time. However, search activity would pick up again thanks to new leads provided by YouTuber Strange Australian. Who first contacted Chernyat via Reddit on 28th December 2023.
On 10th January, the search for the song was featured as a segment on the radio show 2SerBreakfast on 2SER 107.3 FM.
On 27th March 2024, Strange Australian would upload the video The Lost Media of Australia Iceberg Explained which would feature a segment covering the song.
On 15th April 2024, a former youth featured in the documentary reached out to Strange Australian via Facebook to provide further context to the video’s existence. He explains that the video was made as a response to a Northshore Times article that demonizes the youth of Chatswood as “Lawless Thugs and Criminals”. The aim of the video aimed to show an unfiltered look at what the Chatswood Youth were like in their everyday lives individually as well as a tightknit community. Further research by Strange Australian found two Northern Times articles published on 10th and 31st July 1997 which centered on the local youths with antagonizing language. Thus, proving the Facebook user’s claims.
On 3rd May 2024, Strange Australian would obtain the full names of the staff members who worked at the Chatswood Youth Centre in 1997-1998 via the Willoughby Library. This list would provide us with the contact details leading to John (staff member frequently seen in the documentary). John would be contacted by Strange Australian. John would respond back with further details about the video explaining that the video project may have been part of a state government funded creative arts festive known as ArtStart. Furthermore, he explained that a co-staff member with experience with video production would have helped to organize and produced the documentary directly. Despite this information, John didn’t know about the identity of the song.
On 8th July 2024, the search was covered in further detail on 2SER 107.3 FM on The Daily. The show would then play a restored variant of the song in its entirety.
From John’s information, Strange Australian and Chernyat would discover on 13th September 2024 archived webpages from the official ArtStart ’97 website listing the Video Surveillance Workshop as an official program of the festival. The website also confirmed the filming/production dates of the documentary (16th, 23rd, 29th July and 6th, 13th, 20th August 1997). Additional details on the website showed that the film production coordinator mentioned by John also worked on another ArtStart project at the same time as the video project in the Sydney council of Ku-ring-gai which is located right next to Willoughby Council where Chatswood is situated.
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This separate ArtStart program was a competition for unsigned young and local musicians to send in demo tracks which 4 to 5 bands would be picked from the entries to have their demo recorded professionally and released on a Compilation CD. The launch of the CD would coincide with a live concert hosted in mid-August at the St Ives Youth Service Centre. A Sydney Morning Herald article published on 17th July 1997 (found by Strange Australian) corroborates the existence of this Compilation CD Competition.
LEADS & THEORIES
Ku-ring-gai Compilation CD
A music compilation CD released sometime in mid-August 1997 for the ArtStart ’97 Festival as part of the Ku-ring-gai Councils initiative to the festival. A part of a competition beginning in July and entries closing on 25th July, the CD would contain 4 to 5 bands who were unsigned, band members under 21 with one member being a resident of the Ku-ring-gai Council. Music genres weren’t limited. Selected bands would have their 2 to 3 submitted demo tracks produced professionally. The launch of the album would coincide with a live concert at the St Ives Youth Service Centre.
One of the project’s coordinators also did coordination work for Chatswood’s Video Surveillance Project at the same time.
Rock the Nation Studios
An independent recording studio that was known to provide recording sessions for various ArtStart funded compilation albums. It is unknown if the studio did record sessions for ArtStart courses in Metropolitan Sydney as it’s located in the Newcastle region.
Blind Records
A now dead lead first discovered by discord user Saber when finding an archived article from “Maximum Rocknroll” in 1997 that referenced a compilation release by “Blind Records”. A Chatswood based independent record label which operated from 1994-2000. Initial interest in this lead came from the fact that the label’s headquarters was just a 15-minute walk from the Chatswood Youth Centre. Whilst various obscure and lost albums were found with the lead, many former talents signed to Blind Records confirmed that they didn’t recognize the Chatswood Youth Song.
Song 2 Theory
The Song 2 Theory derives from speculation by the Lostwave Community that the Chatswood Youth Song could have been heavily inspired by Blur’s popular rock single “Song 2”. Not only do both tracks share similar rhythmic structures, genre styles and the phrase “Woo Hoo” in their chorus but Song 2 itself was released physically on 7th April 1997. The release date of the track being 3 months prior to the commencement of the Video Surveillance Workshop.
REFERENCES
Articles
Audio
Videos
Websites
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