~ the ears, the lyrebird, april fifteen

The Lyrebird Lounge is a tiny place, a shop front, but its size possibly had a bit to do with how wonderful the atmosphere became. Andrew had to sit on a couch with keyboard resting on his lap. I had to vocalise over an antique Galaga console. It was reminiscent of the old Exford Hotel, or perhaps the 475 Club from days of yore.

These latter-day shows by The Ears - without intending to overblow our personal trumpets - have, as they say, been pumping. And seething. And surging. If I didn’t have these accursed Hep C drugs in my system, sponging up my native energy before I’ve even generated it, I think I’d be inclined to put a good deal more time into the band. It’s fun to be a strange, thirty-year old, resuscitated, anachronistic musical artefact with a tightening death-grip on life. But you try bellowing to an audience for an hour with the twin, lead-filled panniers of interferon and ribavirin depending from your shoulders. Mind you, that’s just me; the rest of the band were steaming, and my work - if you could call something so thoroughly enjoyable ‘work’ - was probably okay, despite my reduced physical state. Mick’s girlfriend recorded most of the songs on a handheld gadget, and we watched the results today. Pretty amusing stuff. And all very exciting. I’ll edit some down and upload it to You Tube, if I’m able. And we’ll try to get some more shows organised. Hopefully, we’ll be playing at the Day at the Green in August - but I have the taste. I want something sooner.

I should also mention Josh Lord’s acidic, political, canvas-slash-poster-art which was on show a few doors down at The Bower. Very street. Very punk. Very distinctive voice. And the wonderful Ovals too, who also played at The Lyrebird. A bevy of courteous and bearded young men with a profound interest in the progressive rock of last century. They rang bells, tickled memories from my early teens; echoes of songs I couldn’t possibly have identified after the passage of so much time. Shades of King Crimson, Procul Harem, Mid Pink Floyd, ELP ... Gus, if you’re reading this, take note. There is simply so much music, so many styles, genres, attitudes ... not all can emerge from the vaults at once, to live again, but in observing The Ovals I was delighted to find this particular musical school resurrected and (naturally) given a new coat of paint.

~ the eve of the ballroom reunion

When the Ears played at The Corner last year, I spent the majority of the time either on my knees or flat on my back. The gig after that I resorted to an on-stage oxygen bottle. Tomorrow evening, which I am looking forward to exceedingly, I hope to vastly increase the time I spend on my feet. I’ve gotten into some sort of routine with my swimming, so my wind is better, my voice is louder and my legs are strong. Relatively speaking.

The vibe on this thing is extraordinary. Every man and his dog seems to know about it. And it’s a truly novel experience watching the discussions unfold ahead of time on the facebook events page ... and perhaps elsewhere, for all I know. Issues left unresolved a quarter of a century ago have resurfaced. There’s been bitterness, vitriol and sweet love. Old wounds have been reopened and cruelly salted.

Sociologically, it’s just so interesting.

A loose clique of friends and associates with similar interests, beholden to a similar fashion sense [mostly involving the colour black] and drawn to certain venues where its needs were most adequately served, dissolves over the decades into the greater cloud of humanity and is gone.

Then, much much later - like a male salmon releasing his milt into the stream - a package of memetic signals is released into society.

These signals are clues - gestural, semantic, mnemonic, perhaps even pheremonal - and intuitively, instinctively, the former members of the clique take note and respond - with the massive assistance of the tool that is facebook.

At once they precipitate from the population. From the suburbs they come, from colonies in the bush, from renovated terrace houses in places that used to be cool, and gather for a few precious hours,

Briefly, the old scene - wearier, less pert, less lissom, less nubile, more sluggish, flabbier, the heroin in their blood superseded by prescription medications - is born anew and briefly blossoms, before once again - like a shooting star in the heavens - it fades away.

How’s that for an analysis? I defy you for a better one!

I know it’ll make it a long evening, but I do advise getting there reasonably early for tickets. Our manager Dolores suspects that it may be a sellout and from the extent of interest I’m inclined to agree. I’ve even learnt that the person who heard mention of the Ears on Gold 104 was not, in fact, hallucinating.

The Ears rehearsed last night, by the way, and are champing at the bit. Cathy is down from Sydney with at least two outfits from which to choose. Nothing’s gone wrong with my voice. Mick is damn serious about it. Ross is just a fantastic bass player and is fundamentally conjoined with Carl. There’s something satisfying about watching experienced old ones do it just right. Our keyboardist, Andrew ‘Terence’ Park, is being tracked by the Parkes Observatory as he passes through the Kuiper Belt.

We don’t play often these days, so it feels like we’ve got to make it count. Strangely, we’re going to attempt a new song. It’s provisionally called ‘energumen'. Here are some of the lyrics ...

“I ate a golden egg! I ate a golden egg!”

Oh and the name-tag idea ... functional, ironic, stupid and monumentally off key, just my kettle of fish. Surrender your vanities at the door, my dark haughty emaciated brooding beloved.

~ why must we grow old?

I couldn't resist reposting these Ears photos which appeared on facebook the other day. That's me above, not Iggy Pop, and down below is Mick. The band is ready to peak on Sunday night, by the way.

~ images from sails of oblivion - the gig

Some fabulous shots from Sunday at the Corner by Andrew McDougall. These ones are mainly of me, apparently, with pictures of Sean's Kelly's cameo and sword swallower Baroness Micha at the end. Andrew's Flickr album is here, and includes excellent photos of Hugo Race, Brian Hooper, Steve Kilbey, Nick Barker and all the sainted souls to who I am so thoroughly indebted so for helping me out. Not forgetting, of course, Dolores San Miguel, David Bridie, Chris Walsh, Andrew Park, Simon Polinski, Mark Gason, Mick Lewis, Cathy McQuade, Kerri Simpson, Carl Manuell, Bryan Colechin, Angus Hooper, Osker, Jo, Michaelangelo, Snicket The Wonder Dog and any performers I've forgotten and every last living soul who came on the day. Eternal gratitude.

~ okay, it’s two pm.

Okay, it’s two pm.
Jenny is asleep.
Polly is asleep.
Our house,
In the near-nether regions of the city
is somnolent, it’s true …
at peace …

Only the clickety-clacks,
The clackety-clicks,
The whirring,
The juddering
And purrings of my mind,
Sustaining …
Like a moebius note
From the lunatic guitar
of my friend and colleague Mick Lewis
who did such a very
very
good job last night indeed.

My busy old head
Won’t stop
Discharging,
Like ... an abominating
Red spasm
From the cricket in its nighthole;
Recharging and discharging
Like the Grand Capacitor of our Bi-valved Overlords
At every point
On the vast psychotropic spectrum
Of unalloyed animal excitation.

Off hand,
I can’t think of a gig,
(At which I’ve had the privilege to sing),
Which came close to last night.
Never had a better crowd.
A better band
Never such vibes.
It’s glorious what can burst
What can erupt like a toothed alien embryon ...

When the room
is so completely on your side.

~ the nodus of august sixteen

Life is spiralling down to the nodus of August sixteen. I’m not nervous, I’m just worried that something will go wrong … But then … the tea-leaves have oriented themselves auspiciously thus far. (I look a bit dangerous in the photo, I know; it's an automatic band-photo expression)

I’ve become reacquainted with just how hard grungy rehearsal rooms can be on the voice. One has to sing or else scream at full volume to be even vaguely heard against the sonic wall of the band. It’s hard for an instrument of mere flesh to match the output of dedicated noise-making artefacts like drum-kits and Marshall amps, even with the help of a PA. I’m pretty husky after yesterday’s practice. I’m going to have to take it very easy. No nasty cigarettes. Plenty of fresh air and exercise. We’re having a last rehearsal on Friday night; I’d should be careful not to blow my fragile old voice box.

Then, there’s the question of facing an audience. There are elements of caricature and all that, but it’s not like playing a part in a play. It’s me on stage. I bear the same name as I do in real life. Perhaps, I should just attempt to replicate the very different me that fronted The Ears two and a half decades ago, with a few modifications for the sake of dignity … and the depredations of age. It just feels a little odd. Thankfully my fellow band-members have been very understanding of my attempts to rediscover my rock-star persona in the rehearsal room.

With me in the photos are Mick Lewis [guitar] x2 and Carl Manuell [drums]

~ we're livin' on dog food - trailer

Richard Lowenstein has just released the trailer for 'We're Livin' On Dog Food' - his doco about the early eighties scene in Melbourne and, of course, the events surrounding the making of Dogs in Space.

It's showing on August 2 at the Melbourne Film Festival. This is its facebook event page and here's the trailer:

~ give me sagging insects

Suddenly, just when I thought my life was sufficiently hectic, things have ramped up a notch. Of course, the blame sits squarely upon the Gig of Oblivion … or Sails of Oblivion – The Gig … or whatever we choose to call it

The Ears had their first rehearsal yesterday. First rehearsal in two and a half decades. Not the full band. Just Mick Lewis and I from the original group and Chris Walsh (ex Moodists, Fabulous Marquises) who’s playing bass in the absence of Cathy McQuade. (Like keyboardist Gus Till, who lives in Bali, the tyranny of distance prevents her participation.]

We spent the afternoon dredging through the deep past. Sparking memories of all shades. Voicing words written by my nineteen year old self, for the first time in so long, was a trip in itself.

Drink from the dirty nipple
Milk that’s designed to cripple
Here in the brimming crater ….

Chris mentioned to Mick Harvey (ex Bad Seeds) that we were doing a reformation and his reply was ‘Brick Woman’.

Sadly, we’ve decided to draw the line at performing ‘Brick Woman’. But we are doing Sagging Insects, the first song Mick and I ever wrote.

Give me sagging insects
Got those sagging insects
You’re my sagging insect

I have to say, it’s all so very, very exciting.

ps. You should see the link to the Twitter feed on the right somewhere

~ the resurrection of dogs in space

A few days ago, Mick Lewis and I delivered ourselves into the hands of Richard Lowenstein at his studio in St. Kilda.

For a long time now, Richard has been labouring over the DVD release of his Melbourne cult movie. (You know the one. It stars the sadly missed Michael Hutchence playing a character with distinct similarities to the writer of this blog in his tumultuous youth.) I’m not certain what the delay has been, but it appears that the long awaited release is near.

Mick and I were member of The Ears, the band whose story was used as the basis of the film. We lived, with all the others, in that ratty, shambolic, dangerous, vigorous household of ancient Richmond.

Rather than simply putting a restored copy of the film on a disc, Richard seems to be assembling a comprehensive document of the era itself, collecting a great amount of material in various media to include as extras: photos, posters, all that; some footage from the set of the film, (including my acerbic interview with Michael Hutchence). There are old Ears film clips too, plus the interviews he’s currently doing with a mix of surviving stalwarts from the early Eighties scene. These include other Ears members Tim McLaughlan and Chuck Meo (who played himself in the movie), legendary Birthday Party guitarist Rowland Howard, Ollie Olsen and Dolores San Miguel, promoter of the famous Exford Hotel.

Mick and I must have spoken with Richard for two hours. Sometimes it’s nice to have permission to be nostalgic. I enjoyed dredging back through that time. Despite our courageous dedication to drunken partying and general intoxication, a surprising number of recollections survive. Much of what we recounted sounded, in retrospect, like some scatterbrained, completely arbitrary art project, though it was certainly never intended as such. Magically, bleating lambs appeared overnight in bedrooms. Rattling gumball machines were dragged through the dead of night. Sombre dialogues were held with patient eight-foot roosters on busy Wattletree Rd. After speed-fuelled Space Invader marathons the pixelated aliens would march remorselessly across the inside of our eyelids as we threshed in our beds. Once I spent hours on my hands and knees crawling around someone’s house, entirely disoriented, desperately trying to stand up after injecting a vial of liquid phenergan which someone had appeared with ...

Through the interview, Richard didn’t concentrate strictly on the events which inspired the film, but attempted to steer things towards the broader context of the time.

When you’re young, everything is exciting, that’s a given. If you’re out there doing things, making the scene, it’s easy to feel like you’re the centre of the world, the cynosure. It may feel like it’s the first time in the history of the Earth that such fantastic new sounds have been heard, but really all that’s in play is the arrogance and naïveté of youth.

I have always suspected that the claims made by contributors to the early eighties scene in Melbourne have been overly subjective, and that, however brilliant it all seemed at the time, it was still more or less the same thing which every generation goes through. As for myself, I’ve always been reticent to suggest that I was part of something particularly unique.

But, after the interview. After listening to Rowland, Dolores and all the rest, I began to suspect that there might really have been a special something about the scene back then.

Twenty five years ago, it was a smaller, greyer, far more conservative city. There were no street cafes. Restaurants rarely had bars and you could count on two hands the number of 24 hour establishments. You’d be hassled for wearing hats in pubs and chastised by war veterans for wearing second hand medals on the tram. You could get beaten up as a poofter for wearing anything even remotely peculiar. The only alternative scenes were the sluggish festering hippies in Carlton and Fitzroy, a gaggle of Maori drag-queens in Fitzroy St, and the tribes of skinheads and sharpies in Holmesglen and Bayswater. Musical offerings included pub rock, more pub rock and maybe a bit of flaccid folk rock.

Into this dead zone stepped a new generation inspired by the punk movement in London, New York and Detroit. But it was not just the music. Because the city was smaller, because it was so disobliging of strangeness, there was a tendency for the weirdos to find each other and congregate for safety. The David Bowie queue portrayed in Dogs in Space was one catalyst for this. It was there that Mick and I and the rest of the Ears discovered a host of like minded souls who became our friends, collaborators and fans.

An example I like to use involves the freakish hair colours most of us sported to varying degrees. In the Melbourne of 1980, if you caught sight of someone across the street with dyed purple hair, the odds were you’d know them. The scene was that small. Today, well, you wouldn’t bother looking twice.

So all the alternative types were tossed together by circumstance: the hardcore punks, the industrial experimenters, the new wave pop exponents, even mods - along with visual artists, designers, artists and writers. And it became a melting pot. Today, Melbourne is large enough to support many distinct scenes, but then there was really only one, and the vibe, looking back, was singular.

*

There was a tragedy during the period described by Dogs in Space which was to fuel the central drama of the film. It was over this issue that Richard and I were to fall out. Readers of this blog, specifically the transcriptions of my early eighties diaries, will know I’m referring to the overdose death of my lover Christine.

Though I’d been involved with Dogs in Space and had encouraged it, I hadn’t taken careful notice of certain plot elements. It wasn’t until I saw a rough cut that I realised that the film appeared to show the ‘Sam’ character introducing the ‘Anna’ character to smack. I was aghast. Though the film is fiction, it conforms largely to the facts of real life, and on this sensitive point, it jarred badly with the truth. I was horrified to think that anyone might think I was responsible, even indirectly, for Christine’s death.

I responded in the media with as much vitriol as I could muster. ‘Sam Mad About Dogs,’ is one headline I recall. In one interview I was quoted as saying ‘The film appears to be suggesting that if you take heroin you can go to heaven with Michael Hutchence’. Contemplating litigation at one point, I even found myself in lawyer’s office [but not for long after he discovered I had no money].

Indeed, it wasn’t until Troy’s memorial a year or so ago that Richard and I buried the hatchet. It was mostly down to me, as the aggrieved party, and I was relieved to end the acrimony. During last week’s interview, the subject of Christine’s death was raised and we discussed it like gentlemen. Richard had always thought that the dichotomy between fact and fiction was clear, but way back, when my emotions were still tender, I just didn’t believe the public would be able to make such distinctions. To some extent I was probably right, but it was all so long ago… Thankfully, we can be friends again at last, and Richard, all in all, is not a bad friend to have.

*

Addendum July 21 - The 'Dogs in Space' re-release premieres at the Melbourne Film Festival on August 1; the related doco 'We're Living on Dog Food' on August 2. The Ears reformation gig is on August 16 at The Corner hotel: Keep informed on Twitter

Ears photo album

* 2 June 1981 Tuesday 9.00pm

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.


*

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?

~ the wad

It came to me at the bottom of a cold dark well. I would write a fantasy novel. In fact three, a trilogy, something as surreal and rabelaisian as China Mieville, but which would sell like Terry Pratchett.

A month later and I haven’t yet got bored of the idea. In fact it’s going rather well. Slow, but well. I can’t imagine how I will ever complete it, but I’m not letting that get in the way. I’m going to send some finished chapters around the place and get some reaction, then I’ll either bite the bullet and write the whole thing, or do something else.

The novel is set in two interconnected worlds: Nonesuch, dominated by a planet-girdling forest called (at this stage) The Weald, and Telesium, the spirit world, accessible by Séance, by the herb sleither, and by rites of the shrouded Velleity. So far, I’ve spent most of the time building the universe, naming the plants and animals, the seasons, the rules of Nature, the history of human civilisation … making a map, the all-important map. Though, as is my way, I still waste time with intricate, richly textured details that may never see the light of print, I have been uncharacteristically strict with myself. I have a believable world, three or four chapters in draft and one polished off.

At present I’m worried about the name of the male protagonist, Lamarc. It’s not bad, but it’s not of the rank of, say, Alsace, his father, or Teasel, his mother, or Tetany, the evil queen. If you’ve got any suggestions? The victim of the recent light plane crash in Moorabbin had a beautiful name: Akash Ananth. Either would be better than Lamarc, I think. But I’m not sure. Perhaps too sub-continental …

Anyway, here’s a snippet ... Unknowingly drawn by the mysterious discorporate entity Almathea, the child Lamarc is venturing perilously into the phantasmagoric Weald …

*

Deeper in the wildness, in close musty pockets where the sun scarcely penetrated, he had observed a very curious and poorly understood creature - or perhaps part of creature, or perhaps plant - known as the wad. It was a cube roughly the size of a human head, composed of a moist translucent meat-like substance, veined with something blackish that could be seen to flow and packed with pebble-sized organelles in pale shades of red, blue and grey. Behaviourally, the wad was elementary. It fell; unexpectedly and from on high - from no visible resting place or eyrie, seeming to materialize in mid-air. It would slap into the earth, scattering leaves and mulch, then proceed to decay in natural order, offering its stored minerals and energy to the Weald. No doubt the wad could kill, if one was caught beneath it, but to Lamarc’s knowledge no one had yet had such tremendous bad luck.

The wad was a very strange thing, but it was a useful reminder that everything to do with the Weald was fundamentally strange. If Lamarc was ever in danger of acclimatising to the outlandishness of life in the forest, the wad was always there to pull him up. A queer thing in its essence. No apparent rhyme or reason. Brute strangeness.

In these congested areas, he could feel the Weald in everything. It transfused from soil to air, from leaf to root to thallus, from rain to tongue; everything swollen and heated with the workings of the ecome.

*

Some other news … The re-release of the Beargarden album All That Fall is looming. The delay has been my fault. I’ve insisted on writing liner notes that contain a potted history of the band, and since I’ve been hiding under a rock until recently, nothing has got done. Now I’m working again and the biography is almost ready. It’s long and full of dirt.

We’ve been spurred to action by word of movement regarding the long awaited Dogs in Space DVD release. We want to release an Ears album around the same time, but, according to our schedule, we can’t do that until the Beargarden is done and dusted.

Apparently, commentary tracks are being prepared for the DVD, so Mick Lewis (Ears guitarist) and I have decided to our services to R. Lowenstein. We’re so excited about it, we may do it whether it’s included or not.

* 23 May 1981 Saturday 7.00pm

These are troublesome times. My group has very little hope of surviving them. I may leave and go with Franka to Northern NSW, where I will again pursue my writing

I’ve been to Macedon twice and taken mushrooms in this last week. The second time we had a serious car accident. I would imagine this is why I am so utterly confused as to my wants and needs.

Storm paid for a night at the Hilton, where we became hopelessly drunk. I boffed Franka in the heated swimming pool sometime that morning. It was good.

Terry has been busted for drugs. Carl is being too stupid for me to bear. People like Mark Gason are depressing me more with their criticism. Mick has no conception of the correct course to take and his assured but reckless statements muddle things further. Cathy, I think, will be chucked out. Gus is becoming my good friend,

Our single came into the RRR charts at 28, Canberra at 19. we’ve had bad reviews for our live performances. Good for the single.

In the next three weeks we are making a last ditch effort to improve. If we don’t make it, we bust.

I am reassessing my life. Should I continue with the group? If I don’t, I shall lose a lot, the easy lubrication of my social life for instance… Has the time come to retire into writing? Something inside me is telling me it has…

There’s no reason why I should make anything of my life, but I may as well try, at least for interest’s sake. In this respect, pride is my greatest asset and my greatest enemy.


*

Sound like this band’s tearing itself apart, doesn’t it? I think I was in love with the romance of self-destruction … I wonder how much Christine’s death, coming when it did, played a part?

The mushroom trips to Macedon are very tasty tales which I will save for another occasion. Some very wild stuff was involved

I remember consciously always using the word ‘group’ instead of ‘band’. ‘Group’ was groovier. Later, ‘band’ became groovier. ‘Boffed’ was a good word. I’m pretty sure it’s fallen out of usage now. The verb ‘to pork’ was just coming into fashion.

Diary of 1981 - index

* 23 April 1981 Thursday 12.30am

After spending most of the day drinking with Pierre, I spent most of the evening drinking with Pierre. He has a vital, but diseased and cynical attitude to life. Through those many hours I shared with him, he must have described in detail at least twenty of his most memorable fucks. There is much to be said for his way of life. I wish I were capable of allowing myself such wanton shallowness.

I don’t think I even like Cathy D--- any more – perhaps because I associate her with Pierre and his bunch of cronies – perhaps because I’ve just lost faith.

I think it’s better to be alone and lonely rather than to be intimate with fools. I drank a bottle of whiskey with old Mick Lewis later that night

I slept with Tobsha on Monday night. We were celibate. She’s a dominant kind of girl. Lovely in many ways, but just not my type.

My voice is better now. It’s exciting to be able to sing again.

I am hating too many people now… or else I am feeling nothing for them… not caring – not at all –their lives seem so bleak and desolate… it depresses me – I keep looking to their deaths, or their old age. It is just one of those times; I cannot keep all those brutal facts of life out of my mind.

It’s to do with fear, you know – feeling so cold towards them …


*

I’ve mentioned the remarkable Pierre Voltaire before. He was a charismatic rake with a charming manner and with a goatish sexuality. To be succinct, a devil. At this time or very soon after he would be singing with The Fabulous Marquises, a pretty cool group which also boasted the talents of Ed Clayton-Jones, [who was later to play for The Wreckery and, briefly, the Bad Seeds].

I recall that night with Tobsha vividly. It was a clean, very white, very comfortable bed in a small room. There was definitely some form of attraction there, but nothing ever happened - I think, in a way, we were polar opposites. And I know I was intimidated by her sexual predation.

Mick Lewis reminded me of something amusing the other day. At some point around this time, [it may even appear later in the diary,] The Crystal Ballroom hosted a battle of the bands, with the voting done by the audience. The Ears took first place and the Serious Young Insects came second. First prize was a record contract with Laurie Richards and second was a crate of cider. There was no way we were going to get into a legal situation with Laurie [as Mick tells it] so we negotiated with the SYI to swap. In those days of short term goals, pennilessness and the necessity of immediate gratification, a crate of cider was magnificent recompense.

Diary of 1981 - index

* 25 March 1981 thurs 2.30pm

I’m Sam Sejavka. I’m a writer and a singer. I’m twenty years old, but in one week’s time I’ll be twenty-one. Allow me to briefly describe my life up to this point.

Half way through my HSC year at St Kevin’s College, I left home and school and took a flat in St Kilda. I was seventeen. Shortly after that, suffering from nervous tension, I spent some weeks in a private psychiatric hospital. Though I never returned to school, I did sit my exams and managed to do pretty well, particularly in English.

I lived a reckless life in St Kilda, spending time with the basest of the creatures who abide there. I wrote all this time, though the results were dubious. I was young and over-stimulated by my new found freedom. I was seeing a girl called Irene, but broke up with her around the turn of the year …

I was evicted for general rowdiness and spent a week or so wandering in St Kilda, staying at hotels. I was undergoing another personality crisis, but this time it was not quite as severe.

I took up a new flat in Armadale and attended university, which I loathed. After two or three months I left, again undergoing a kind of crisis. I had done not a skerrick of work in this time. I found myself completely uninspired.

I moved to Sydney, found a flat in Kings Cross and wrote. I viewed myself as something like the protagonist from Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London - but under a shadow of inexperience and pretension the work I did was pretty well unreadable. [Woe the day I first read William Burroughs]

I made no friends there. I never went out. I became a lonely bum, trying to live his twisted idea of a dream. I must say though that I was brave. I’ve never had quite the same attitude to food since I found myself starving up in Sydney. At times I would go to a nearby homeless shelter to partake of the disgusting food they served there.

Eventually, I could stand it no longer and returned to Melbourne. I rented a house with George in Richmond and lived there six months, leading a wasteful sort of life. We had trouble with hoodlums in that place and left suddenly with the house in a wreck. Though I pined for female company, George and I enjoyed ourselves concocting and realising all manner of eccentric schemes.

I left for a new flat in Armadale. I was determined to write as diligently as I could - and I did for while, but it was forced, meaningless stuff.

Inspired by William Burroughs, and much to alarm of my parents, I joined The Church of Scientology Though my involvement was pretty marginal, [probably because I had no money,] it still remains omne of the stupidest things I’ve ever done.

In September, for five days, I camped out for David Bowie tickets. This was to be a turning point. I was introduced to heroin and LSD, though I’d had my fair share of other drugs previously. I made many friends and by the time of the next queue – this time for actual seating – I could almost have been described as gregarious. I spent those three weeks stoned in as many ways as it is possible to be. This is where the idea of the band was born.

The night of the concert, my basement flat flooded and I could no longer live there [I’d forgotten to turn on the pump]. I moved home and around the turn of the year, The Ears began to practise. In January 1979, I went to a science-fiction writer’s workshop in Sydney where, among others, I met George Turner and a young Lucy Sussex.

I moved into a house with Mick Lewis and Tim McLaughlan [keyboards] and The Ears developed. We played for the first time in February. I returned to Melbourne Uni and could stand it this time only because I found a girl, Elise Valmorbida, with whom I fell madly in love. But I was far too immature to make something like that work and the relationship had decayed to nothing by the end of the year.

The group was playing regularly now. I rented another flat in Armadale, where I decided to once more quit university. Soon after, I moved to a house in Richmond with Mick and Richard Lowenstein. I was a night bird, going out as much as possible and living a life of debauchery. They were the days of the Champion Hotel. The end of the year came and I had frittered it agreeably away. It was 1980, I was nineteen. I was in a group and things were fine in a twisted sort of way.

I stayed in Richmond till March, then moved to Elwood, to the flat where I began this diary. I turned twenty. Our first single was released. I pursued girls. We got a manager, then a different manager. I went to parties. And in August I met Christine.

There followed the most rewarding period of my life thus far. I was not prolific, I was not together, I was just unreasonably happy. We slept together almost every night. I was totally, without qualification, in love. And love was what was most important.

Soon after I met Christine, my father died. But that just healed with time. Then on the twentieth of March, Christine overdosed.

And now it’s the twenty fifth of March; I’m sitting out the front of Milton St, watching some placid old people mulling over the detritus of their lives. Mine is a pain equalled only by the pleasure that it echoes.


*

As you can imagine, this was a hellish period for me. I was wracked with grief and life seemed drained of all value – so forgive me if the above entry has a rather sententious tone.

It was interesting to read though. A lot of memories sparked. A lot of things forgotten.

After Christine’s death I woke in Troy’s flat next door with no memory whatsoever of the night before. It was barely daylight. I had a terrible sense of impending doom, but my mind was too foggy to work out why. I found my way to the front door; I could see Peter Walsh walking up the path from the back yard where he’d lain unconscious all night. He looked like a zombie. I caught his eye, but there was no reaction. I tried to open the door, but it was locked. I couldn’t think how to open it. I made my way back to the bed and again fell unconscious.

I awoke several hours later in full realisation that something had gone terribly wrong. I looked around frantically and saw Craig McGee in the doorway. Where’s Christine, I asked? She’s dead, he said.

Craig took me to his and Laura’s house, where I slept on the floor for a few days, before going home to my mother’s and doing the same for a fortnight. The heroin, fresh from Thailand, had been unreasonably strong and I took a long time recovering. I’ll never forget that pain and desolation. The last image I had of Christine was slapping her face, trying to wake her. It was just a flash in my memory of that night

To make matters worse, not long after, I began to receive a certain amount of police harassment. This was due to Christine’s father being the head of the police union, and her brother a member. In reflection, it was bound to happen. A fellow named Colin, a keyboard player who I think once burnt down someone’s garage, had been round to Milton St. The police had stopped him, hassled him severely. He said he had the strong impression that they were looking for someone with bright red hair, but not him. [I had bright red hair]. Then, after a gig at the Crystal Ballroom, a couple of cops pulled me into a corner and threatened to kill me if they heard of my further involvement with drugs. I wish I’d taken them more seriously.

Christine’s father, though, was understanding. He called me to the Harding family home and talked to me, not with anger but compassion. The family was less understanding towards the hapless Craig Elrick, who was a reckless spirit, doomed to forever get himself and others into strife …

* 25 February 1981 9.30pm

Apologies to Mick Lewis, Ears guitarist & co-founder, over this one.

*

My entries are slipping further apart now. I hope this journal doesn’t die.

I’ve just made my way out of an infernal depression. It was probably born from tiredness and compounded by irritation at [Mick] Lewis. Gus has done this comic-book detective style piece of artwork for the record cover [Scarecrow]. Mick seemed to like it. I simply hated it. I would prefer our artwork to be artier, more along Birthday Party lines.

We printed many posters and I organised Lyn Nicholson to put them up.

What’s more, Cathy’s back. We went to the Seaview [Crystal Ballroom] last night. She stayed the night with me and Christine.

Our song Green Food For a Queen is coming along nicely. The future of my other song looks depressing. Our first full band rehearsal was terrific fun.

I turned up at the Birthday Party’s film clip shoot at the Hawthorn Tip. There were fires burning in a pit bordered by a murky lake, which in turn was bordered by a great sandstone cliff. Bubbles of methane spurted from the surface of the lake, gallows and crucifixes were set up on mounds. I watched for hours until finally – on heroin and booze – I decided I wanted to swim in the lake. I stripped and Troy covered me in body paint. I made my way out to a bathtub, in which they filmed me, as I danced…

The whole thing seemed like a cheap version of Ashes to Ashes.

I’m getting very nervous about March 6th, the date of our first gig. The Serious Young Insects got picked out by “Sting” from Police for their record label – it makes me sick with jealousy.

christine & I

*

The sentence in italics is paraphrased – the most sense I could extract from a very strange mess of words. I recall my anger at Gus’s record cover – it was entirely naff and I was determined to at least match the wonderful graphics coming from the Birthday Party camp. The fact that it was even being considered infuriated me….

Lyn Nicholson was queen of the Melbourne poster mafia. I worked for her for a time, but because I was solo and didn’t have a car, it was a nightmare. On my second or third night, I was nabbed by the cops, charged and later convicted. To this day, this bill posting crime still pops up if I get pulled over, or questioned or whatever. I think it’s the only actual conviction on my not-so-brief rap sheet.

The film clip was of course Nick The Stripper, directed by The Rich Kids [Paul Goldman & Evan English]. That film about Frank Sinatra’s tour of Australia – The Night We Called it a Day – is the last work of Paul's of which I am aware.

Nick The Stripper on YouTube

I recall Nick Cave saying something caustic about the tribe of extras in rabbit suits etc - but it did turn out to be a bit of a classic, didn’t it?

It was a filthy night, and the occasion of my most unsanitary injection ever – squatting on the putrid ground of the dump, by the light of one of their witch-fires… Simone was with me. Yet I wonder, where did the gear come from?

To my great chagrin, the bathtub dance never made it into the clip. Apparently, I was too far away for it to be effective … I should just have been thankful that I did not die from tetanus, or hepatitis…

Diary of 1981 - index

~ the piñata will not build itself

For those of you interested in the progress of my piñata - here's the straight word

After hearing an extraordinary number of horror stories, I decided to blaze my own trail to organised children's party violence. So many unlucky revelers, old and young, have been deeply frustrated by indestructible piñatae.

First, the children try. The line cycles twice, thrice. Then the adults lend a hand. Then better weapons are chosen. Then the piñata falls to the ground and an exasperated mob gathers around the pig, donkey, love-heart - or, in ancient times, an image of the rain god Tlaloc - and beat the living bejesus out of it.

Yet even then there may be no satisfaction.

I warn you now: commercially acquired piñatae are a risk. And over-enthusiastic home papier-mâché artists can, unbeknownst to themselves, be paving the way for disappointment. I, however, am building an exemplar of the ancient Aztec art.

From the outset, we thought a single-balloon form was too common, and decided to make it a double. But what could double spheres represent? Someone suggested a pair of tits. The kids would love it, I know - but there will be unknown parents at the party and people can be embarrassed by the mildest things. If we moved to a tri-spherical form, we could have an insect - head/thorax/abdomen - but to me this seemed like overkill, [and too much work.] Then came the suggestion of a spider. They do have a thorax, but it's sort of integrated with the abdomen, and so the idea was adopted - until the question of legs came into play ...

To cut an interminable story short, Polly's piñata will resemble a bullant from a parallel universe.

To establish the correct level of whacking-resistance, we have brought the spheres into the house - so they do not acquire moisture from the atmosphere and become soft. If this does not work, I may use a little vinegar in order to degrade the paper. [An idea borrowed from the cryptex in The Da Vinci Code, [if it works for papyrus, it should work for newspaper, non?]]

We narrowly avoided the trap of putting unwrapped sweets inside. [When they fall, they fall on germy ground.] Today, Jenny brought home an alluring selection of lollies - and an abundant one. There are few things worse, I would guess, than a miserly piñata.

The party will be in the park a few doors down. Several weeks ago we identified a perfect branch from which to hang the piñata. Last week, the council came and chopped it off. There is another useable branch, but it borders a six foot drop into thick blackberries. On this point we still need help. I shall integrate a new harness into the design, as the weight of confectionary has changed the centre of gravity, but there is still nothing to hang it from. Ideas? Anyone? If ever you feel like commenting, now is the time.

The final issue is the thwacker. Mick Lewis suggested a long pole with a sharpened scythe on the end, [but then he also advocated the use of 2-stroke petrol]. It needs to be something kids can use. A cricket bat...? I have one of those things you open/close high windows with... Someone else suggested the legs be detachable thwackers... a great design idea, but the image of six over-stimulated five year olds thronging around something and beating it to a pulp suggests a level of sophistication which I'd like to think our civilisation has transcended.

Anyway, here is a photo of what I have achieved so far. In a week, you will see these same elements transformed into a bona fide wonder.

[this post dedicated to Marc Raszewski]

* 10 february 1981.

Over the course of my life, I have kept diaries. Sometimes in beautifully bound journals with marbled endpapers, sometimes on butcher’s paper. I start them, stop them, and start them again. Most I have preserved, and all, to my [almost] certain belief, have been read by no eyes save my own.

From time to time, I will include them in this blog. I’ll edit them as little as necessary, and provide an epilogue to put them in context.

I will begin 26 years ago. I am 20 years of age and in love.

*

February 10 1981.

It's nine in the morning; I am tired and disinclined to leave my bed. Christine has recently departed for her job. She is a nurse. I am contemplating what I can do with my day - perhaps paint? My bathroom's gaudy colour scheme is almost complete ... Perhaps I’ll call my mother and go shopping with her.

I am obsessed, to a degree, with my flat. I think that somewhere, deep down, I believe my mental and social state will improve as it improves. As Dick Hamer furnishes Victoria with Olympic bids, Art Centres and underground rail loops, so I will furnish my rooms.

Most likely I'll ring Lewis [Mick] and arrange a band practice, but first I shall certainly lie in bed and finish Deus Irae [by Dick & Zelazny]. Existentialists believe we may infer our states from our actions. Mine must be a ghastly and dissipated state indeed; unrelated actions leading to no common goal, executed with no conviction. But then, 'What takes place in love is beyond good and evil' And I am certainly in love. More intensely and more bewilderingly than ever before.

It has initiated some confusing changes in me. I am now a victim of such frustrating emotions as jealousy & masculine pride. [Not since my times with Margaret Waldron in the sandpit, have I felt driven to shield a girl from danger] Christine [Harding] is actually Margaret’s cousin and knew her well. Margaret is recently married. [She couldn’t have been more than twenty]

I more or less live with Christine at the moment - a new experience which has thrilled me, but also caused me to doubt. It's been so long since August 30, 1980 - almost 6 months have passed. So, thenceforth this shall be known as my longest and most important relationship…

… I have been contemplating writing a story, perhaps this diary is my way of getting round to it... But Terry has bookings already for after Cathy's return, and we're mixing down our tape on Thursday - things will start rolling again soon.

Last night I cooked a meal and my hands still smell of curry. I do things like this for Christine. My manners, my personal habits, are becoming vastly more sophisticated.

The day before yesterday, I came home sweating, and cleaned the whole flat in anticipation of Christine’s return from work. As I cleaned the fireplace, I continually glanced over my shoulder, hoping she would not come till I was finished

Where is the old scrambled, confused, palpitating Sam? He is still there, I think. Only he is happy.

But he’s neglecting his god-given gifts.

*

I can actually remember how good I felt the day I wrote that. And I am still trying to make women happy by doing housework. It is a technique that has rarely failed me.

The flat was in Milton St, Elwood. I moved there from the Berry St house immortalized in Dogs in Space. A friend, Leigh Hooper had been the previous tenant

Leigh was in with the Turkish Book Club who imported Turkish language books with the centres cut out and filled with heroin. One time, someone on the Turkish end mixed the gear with something brown that became a silty gloop when mixed with water. Strictly speaking, it was uninjectable, but that stopped no one. It became known as The Mud. For a time, peoples arms were covered with hideous weeping sores, Leigh’s more so than anyone’s. She appeared to have advanced leprosy. [Those interested in strangely adulterated drugs, click here.]

Anyway, the flat was on the ground floor of a once magnificent mansion. It was in pretty bad shape and the odour of Elwood Canal emanated from the sink, but I loved it. A gay couple lived at the back, and Troy was my immediate neighbour. Troy, I will speak of again, and soon. [He has recently perished from AIDS]. A warlock lived in the mansion next door and his crow could often be seen, perched at the front of our drive.

The band referred to is The Ears. Cathy McQuade was the bass-player. Terry Rogers, the manager. The fireplace had beautiful green art deco tiles. All gone



Diary of 1981 - index