There aren't many past institutions on the Sunshine Coast that deserve a monument erected to honour their contribution. The Time Machine is one of them. It blazed hard for 7(!) years and was eventually crushed under the boot of personal tragedy and the ruthless churn of the real estate market. While it lasted, the Time Machine was more than a record shop – it was a centre for all sorts of creative activity and thrived outside of commercial soullessness and the captivity of arts funding.

We cornered Bart to ask some questions about this era and the rise and fall of the Time Machine. You can say hi to Bart for yourself at the Bad Habit Market Day on 29 June, and you'll get a rare chance to sift through the remains of the Time Machine. Bart will have a table, selling off a stash of leftover stock – come and have a dig through the crates of a local legend.

BAD HABIT: Hey Bart, how's it going? Thanks for doing this interview. I wanted to ask how you became involved in the Time machine? What were you doing beforehand? What made you want to run a record shop in rural Queensland?

BART: It kind of happened by chance. Ben, Dan and I were all living in Brisbane together at the time. Ben and Dan were both working jobs they didn't like, while I was taking a break from plumbing and having a "Centrelink gap year" to bum and make art. My mate at the time, who is now my wife actually, read that the Time Machine was for sale as the owner Shane had passed away, and she told me about it. We all made a trip up the coast for the day and popped in to the shop. Wolf and Jenny were some of his mates who were helping to keep the shop running for Shane's family. We got talking and asked how much they were selling the business for and were shocked at how cheap it was. We talked about it all the way back to Bris, then decided later that night to try and come up with some money and buy it.  

While we were all into music and pop culture, taking on the store was a real dream come true for me. I had started collecting records in early high school – I bought my first records from Lee at Backbeat Records when he was at the Big Top in Maroochydore. I struck up a great friendship with Lee, he introduced me to so much music I never would have found on my own. I was a bit nervous when we did buy the shop, as Lee had recently moved his store to Nambour and I wasn't sure about how he would feel with new competition. But when he found out it was us, he was incredibly supportive and really helped us out and gave us some knowledge on how to run the place, as we had no idea what we were doing.

BH: How did the handover of the shop go? Was it what you expected?

Wolf, Shane's mate, stuck around and helped us out with the transition, and honestly he never left. He would look after the shop when we were out finding new stock and helped us out the whole time we were there. We couldn't really afford to pay him, so he was basically a volunteer and muscle (ex navy biker named Wolfgang Hellwig) but he became a really great mate and is one of the things we miss most about the Time Machine.

One thing we inherited unexpectedly with the shop was a homeless woman downstairs. She had taken over the kitchen and filled it floor to ceiling with garbage bags filled with clothes and whatever else she had collected over the years. Shane was a super kind and giving person and wanted to help whoever he could, so he gave her a safe place to live. We didn't feel great about it, but it wasn't something we could really take on and we had to ask her to move out, mainly because we needed to access the kitchen. Just one of the notable surprises we uncovered in the catacombs underneath the Time Machine. 

BH: Did you change much about the way it was run? What was the hardest part? I can remember a few years before you guys took it over, it was a goldmine for cheap records. And was sort of off the radar of the record collector circuit.

B: I think one reason the shop was so cheap was the size and the amount of work that place needed to take it over and have an understanding of what was actually in the shop. If you ever visited back then, you would know, two levels with piles upon piles of bits and pieces. Some of the shop had some order to it but most of it was pure chaos, which added to the fun of the place.

We didn't realise until we had already bought the shop that a lot of the stock, particularly the records, were under consignment and were taken out by the time we got possession, so I guess we started fresh. So it was a big priority for us to clean it up, work out what we had and make the place our own. Although this did annoy a lot of people saying we 'ruined' the place, but you can't run a shop when you don't even know what you have. It was a pretty big transition and we had to quickly learn how to stand up for ourselves and not get ripped off.

BH: Speaking from experience, record shops tend to attract a fair share of oddball customers. Can you tell us about some of the more unusual regulars that would come into the Time Machine?

One of the strangest customers we ever had was a guy called Big Al. Friendly as hell but would come in spurting all sorts of stories about the Illuminati, the devil, reincarnations etc. He was basically A Beautiful Mind kind of character. He would come in a few times a week, have a bit of a shop and a rant, and would explain to us what it all meant through his mind. At one point, someone sold us a nazi flag that looked like it'd been home made. It came to us as part of a larger collection and we were shocked when we unfolded it. Of course we couldn't display or sell this thing. But we told Big Al about it and he bought it straight away. Dan would have big chats with him, and when we heard he was sick, Dan went to visit him to check he was ok and he saw he was using the flag as a bedspread. Sadly Big Al passed away a few years into the shop. But he's up there as one of our most interesting customers.

Another customer told us how he tried to pay for a prostitute with stamps, as they're legal tender. Another came in who was a furry – he showed us this fresh tattoo he'd just got on his back, which was two cats having sex over his whole back and the words 'fuck like animals' across his shoulders. The list goes on. 

BH: You guys made the place much more of a social centre, allowing other businesses to set up and run out of the space and putting on shows etc. That management of "creative" types and people on the fringes of society can be a challenge. Can you talk about how that all ran, some challenges, triumphs, crazy stories etc?

B: Running the shop was hard at times but a total blast. So many strange and awesome people walked through the doors selling all sorts of strange shit. We weren't just a record store, we sold pretty much anything we considered cool. We also ended up helping a bunch of people we had met through the shop and they ended up setting up their own stores – Urban Fiction Comics, Mr Beesly's Vintage, Sugarcane Skateboards, Villain Espresso, Spin Clothing and Fat Dog.  

Once we had the shop cleaned up and functioning well, we started getting creative and incorporating other interests we had into the place. Ben was an amazing artist and wanted to use the shop as his own canvas and also help support other artists. He would encourage other young people to display their works for sale, make and sell zines and stickers, all without taking any commission. It was also Ben who pushed the idea of turning the space downstairs into a music venue. We had two big rooms downstairs that opened up into the carpark. They weren't being used, so we started putting on shows in this long windowless room we named the Big Bedroom.  We ended up getting a small name for ourselves as the next stop after Brisbane to play a show. The gigs were very laid back, cheap entry, BYO and all ages.  Growing up on the coast myself there was never anything to do, so it was cool to be able to offer something like that to young kids, and to watch them go on and start their own bands was awesome.  

The gigs are all a bit of a blur – we weren't the most responsible business owners. Things would get a bit out of hand, like the lead singer of The Benny's badly cutting his foot on a broken bottle and having to play his gig sitting down with his foot propped up. Or Dan being too wasted and playing around with cables and accidentally pulling someone's whole sequencer onto the ground mid set (might've also been the night he passed out in/on the toilet and we had to smash a window to see if he was ok. Dan was our sound guy for every gig though and aside from that one time, he did a great job while Ben and I were basically just having a good time and neglecting to take door money. 

BH: I know the last period of the shop was really characterised by tragedy and despair. I'm not really sure how to ask about the decline of Time Machine in an appropriate way, so if this sounds insensitive, I'm sincerely sorry, and if it's too much that's totally fine, but I did want to ask about the winding down of the Time Machine. How did that go, what was the aftermath? Would you ever do a shop again?

B: The Time Machine lasted around seven years for us before we started to loose momentum. We got robbed and raided and dealing with Nambour locals often got us down. Losing Ben made it very hard to keep the place functioning, although we did try. He was a huge driver of the gigs and booking bands. His ability to connect and empathise with people was a huge benefit for the business and the community. He really helped so many young people by being able to talk with them without any judgement. Losing him felt like the soul of the shop had gone. It stopped being fun for Dan and I, although I'd love to have a shop again. Being in a shop and talking to people about things I'm interested in really changed me. I'm an introvert so forcing myself to talk with people was a huge deal for me and it's really helped me. So yeah, I do miss it.

BH: What are you doing now? If you could go back what would you change? Is brick and mortar dead? Do you think World War 3 will happen in our lifetime?

B: I feel like brick and mortar stores are so important to have around, places where you can talk to like-minded people, share stories and knowledge and have that feeling of community. But it doesn't come easy and they need your support. Towards the end of the shop, it was getting hard to pay the bills and we were getting a bit burnt out. I was starting a family and needed more coming in. It was very sad to say goodbye to the place but we had a good run, made some good memories and hopefully made a little mark on Nambour's history.  If I could do it all again, I would – but I'd definitely change a few things, maybe actually keep a float in the till for starters. 

BH: Thanks for answering these questions. Is there anything final you'd like to say about the legacy of the Time Machine?

B: I'm proud of what we did and what we achieved. We had no idea what we were doing. Brought zero skills into the business but we lasted seven years and made something that people still talk about so yeah, I'm proud of that. Beers, bongs and trauma are hard on the memory, so I appreciate you asking the questions and thinking back about Time Machine. I would do it all again.

Don't miss the Bad Habit Market Day on Sunday 29 June 29 at The Old Ambulance Station and Black Box Theatre in Nambour.

• Market opens: 9 am
• Live music starts: 12.30 pm

Location: The Old Ambulance Station & Black Box Theatre, Nambour
Tickets: Free entry for the market (9 AM–12:30 PM), ticketed entry for live music
Bands: Entrapment, Dominant Hand (NSW), Flail, Vipersnatch, Deathrow, Brawlist, Whoroboros, Lobotomy Girl, XNCHOODSX (NSW), No Harm, Not Telling, Freya Wilcox and The Howl, Psychlone, Lavender Threat.
No BYO!

More info and tickets: humanitix.com/nambour-fest-june-29th-old-ambulance-station-black-box-theatre

Read more Bad Habit interviews

Watch the short doco To Own a Time Machine by Dodgy Crew Films.