It is agreed on all sides now that the Ears, as such, have split. I am still startled and am not sure what course I shall take – perhaps I should just sit down tonight and write a story. Perhaps that would set the right forces in motion.
Tomorrow we’re playing at a place in the city called “The Boulevarde”, Friday at the Oxford Hotel with the Models. It will be their farewell and certainly ours as well.
This alcohol thing shall stop. I am resolved.
Last night, as is my Monday night habit, I went to Inflation. I saw Sue Ryan again and talked to her. She has so much faith in me it is painful. She kept saying, “I feel so inadequate …” Her friend Anne-Marie is definitely worth the time of day.
Will I persevere with music? Today Gus, Mick and I arranged random words in the Office Hotel and came up with the name Vast Blood Masons. I like it, but Mick prefers Running Teeth.
Franca was down tonight. I stayed Thursday and Friday nights up there, in The Patch. I went to a mushroom party on Friday. Hideous. Those boys especially. Terrifying. Coarse. Hills people. And fancy dress to boot - as if it wasn't enough of a nightmare already. I sat out in the car for most of the night.
Franca loves me. I can see it a mile away.
Shall I go to Nimbin with her? (She has a swathe of unspoilt land in Tuntable Falls)
Shall I go to Sydney … then Europe, perhaps … singing and writing all the way…?
PS: On the RRR charts our single reached 7 and is now at 9.
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We were crazy, letting the Ears go like that. At least, that’s my opinion with the benefit of hindsight. But the personal stuff going on between Mick and Cathy, in particular, would probably have made it impossible to continue. That Oxford gig, our last, was great.
I remember, that night in the hills, being in a car with rednecks on mushrooms. He hit something, probably a rabbit, and utterly freaked out. It was very disturbing
The Boulevarde was a place which later became Subterrain? Subterranean? Models farewell … Well that wasn’t a very successful break up, was it? As far as I know, they’re still playing.
Alcohol. Yes, alcohol. No alcohol for me these days – it would ring my glass liver like a bell.
I have a handbill from a secret Vast Blood Masons gig, which I will scan as soon as I get my scrapbook back. Andrew Till is using it for the packaging of the Beargarden CD. I wish that little cut-up session with Gus & Mick had yielded something really good, or at least something that didn’t sound like ‘beergarden’.
Mick was later to form a group called The Walking Bellies, I wonder if it was inspired by Running Teeth?
5 comments:
I was at the final Ears show and you're right, it was a very good show. You must have had (ultimately erroneous) insider information on it being the last Models show as that was not conveyed to anyone in the audience on the night.
In my recollection, Hunters and Collectors debuted at the same venue the following night, but the first three words of this sentence are probably key here.
I'm just going on what I wrote in my diary at the time re: Models, I assume I had some good reason for thinking it...
About Hunters and Collectors ... I have a vague memory that that they debuted at an Ears gig, but I might be getting confused with Dead Can Dance. It might have been an equal billing kind of affair, or they might have even been supporting us, I can't recall ... I do recall that they they were absolutely brilliant. Remember the huge vibe that surrounded them from the outset? And that song ... Da-Da Da Da Da-Da-Da ... Was it called World of Stone?
I have a note that Beargarden played with H&C, Dead Can Dance & Dorian Grey on New Years Eve 1981 at the Ballroom and that we made $475.
Great to hear from a sharer of memories.
I don't doubt the Models were going to break up, they seemed to do it every other week. Sadly, only the Ears had the courage of their convictions! And for what it's worth (not much) I believe that H&C are also rumoured to have debuted at a benefit on behalf of Missing Link after Snakefinger's heart attack. It doesn't really matter I know, Codral is making me type this stuff. Looking forward to the Beargarden reissue & Dogs in Space my 2nd favourite film ever on DVD & you continuing to write this great blog.
I remember seeing you on Countdown and thinking you were called Beergarden. It was only when I read an interview with you (probably in Countdown Magazine HA!) that you were most definitely NOT called Beergarden that I realized.
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