~ 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.

~ lucas aid

Though I may have crystallised my brain in the aftermath, Thursday’s show came off pretty well. Perhaps there weren’t quite enough people there to deal entirely with Steve Lucas’s chronic back, but it was fulsome nevertheless. Every time I saw him, Lucas lay entirely prone on in one of the upstairs band rooms, his voice growly with painkillers, barely lifting his head as he pursued quiet conversation with his girlfriend, the singer of Dollsquad, who like the couch on which he lay was clothed head to toe in black vinyl. How he made it up the Geidi Prime-style industrial stairs to get there, I cannot imagine.

It was good to play a grungy down-to-earth gig. Morgen and Jane were there, and Nurin and Chrissie ... but there were lots of faces who haven’t seen us yet, in this latter day incarnation. Like every one of these new Ears shows it was ridiculously enjoyable, liberating, soul-lifting ... someone in the band-room pinned a badge on me that read ‘Music is Love’. It is love indeed, despite an occasional world shattering 120K hum on stage

And we got some of the most interesting reactions. Someone, it may have been Charlie Owen, said that when he arrived, during the Ears set, his interest was piqued by what he thought was some young interesting new band - that was until he saw the grey hair. Someone else excused the Nick Cave influence in my stage movements when he realised that everyone must have moved like that back then. Someone said we sounded like Muse but without the annoying whine. Even the enigmatic ‘Donald’ said he was ‘surprised’ and that he ‘didn’t mean it as an insult’. Kerry (Simpson), who has been filling in when Cathy McQuade can’t make it down from Sydney to do vocals, also got some really good reports.

Ashton Davey, who organised the show, deserves a word too.

My head feels full of cotton wool and I’m going to give up trying to string words together. A final thanks to Simon Polinski who during these past week has finished the masters of The Ears and Beargarden material now available for download on Bandcamp. It’s a satisfying feeling, a sense of resolution, making that music available again. It’s no longer orphaned, half-forgotten. And it’s about time The Ears released an album.

Below is a picture of me 'fixing up' some vocals at Simon's place. On Thursday someone actually asked me if I use botox! People say the weirdest things.

~ wry

I’ve had a good week. My grant proposal for Ambergris (the play I’ve been battling with for a few years now) was accepted by the Victorian Arts Ministry. It’s been a long time since I’ve attempted one of these and, towards the end of the tram-ride to Brunswick for the announcements, I’d more or less convinced myself there was no way I was going to get it. As a result, when I found my name on the list (coupled with the descriptor 'Mt Waverley') I practically fainted. I couldn’t have been more excited if I’d won a Nobel Prize.

Speaking of prizes, if you’re in need of some comprehensive entertainment, watch Steve Kilbey’s acceptance speech for The Church’s induction into the Aria Hall of Fame. Quel raconteur! (I could only find it on facebook, but it must exist elsewhere)

Speaking of Mt Waverley, it’s the time of bleating baby magpies. A family of these birds has staked a place in the peppermint gum outside my study window, and their child is incorrigible. Three times I had to go out there today with a broomstick. There is also a nest of brown thornbills, smaller than sparrows, whose trills and tweets are completely charming.

I had what amounted to a panic attack in a crowded Vic Roads office today. I think I was experiencing flashbacks of jail. The guy behind the counter looked like a screw - thick-set and crewcut - and he had me utterly flustered trying to explain the identity of the person from whom I was trying to transfer ownership of my new car... It was horrible. But Polly wants to marry a mango-tree when she grows up, and I suppose that’s positive. Also, there is at least one kid at her school who is allergic to band-aids. Go figure. Additionally, on the radio, I believe I heard an advertisement for a model of car called an Autobiography. If I wasn’t dreaming, that’s got to be strong indicator of the social climate.

On Saturday night, accompanied by my exotic Japanese friend M, I went to The Old Bar to see Harry Howard and The Near Death Experience. It was raining torrentially and the atmosphere in the place was a little wanting, but they were far from. They were kind of... curious, intriguing, definitively offbeat. I couldn’t possibly think of anything with which to compare them. They were far more rhythm than melody, with a kind of weird, elusive 60’s pop influence, or something ... and though their songs were concerned with death, sickness, hate and so forth, the prevailing mood was, well, wry. But then, I guess, any band containing Harry Howard could not fail to be wry. It was also good to watch Claire Moore’s drumming. I haven’t seen her do that for an aeon.

By the way, here's the cover art for the forthcoming CD from The Ears. And yes, after a strictly commercial decision, it's called Dogs in Space.

~ the pittance

I’ve been finding it difficult getting back into a routine with these blog posts. I think, perhaps, it’s because I’ve been so focused on work lately, trying to make every hour of every day count before I have to immerse myself in my legal defence.

With regards legal matters, there’s been some good, perhaps very good news. The DPP has thankfully dropped the most severe of the charges: the one that forced the matter of The Crown vs Sam Sejavka up into the County Court, necessitated a 3-4 day trial with a jury and made the seizure of my house a distinct possibility. I don’t quite know what’s going to happen now; it’s still serious, but not quite so doom-laden. I'll find out in mid-November what the new schedule will be. [as for details of my transgressions, I think the ‘REGARDING DONATIONS’ link gives the details]

I managed, finally, pay most of my five figure legal fees (It’s a pre-paid system) though now I’m saddled with outrageous debt and am having to teach myself to survive on a pittance. Not that I haven’t been in this situation before...

Another individual in dire financial circumstances is Steve Lucas (of X) who has some kind of agonising back problem which can’t be solved without an influx of cash. On Thursday, December 2 at the Gershwin Room there a benefit. There are eight bands including The Ears so make certain to put it in your diaries.

~ exquisite corpse

For the first time in a very long time, I've sat down, picked up a guitar and written a song. I'm not sure what to blame it on. Perhaps a reduction in some of my medications ... More likely the gig I attended Saturday night at Ding Dong. I really enjoyed the simple, straight ahead style of SK and Ricky Maymi from the Brian Jonestown Massacre. And this after spending ninety minutes entirely inert on stage imitating a corpse in a show called The Real Inspector Hound. (I suffered some exquisite torture during that seemingly endless play, and learned some very dark secrets about myself.)

Since the Crystal Ballroom show, The Ears have been rehearsing fortnightly at our drummer Carl's place, and enjoying it mightily - though I expect we'd get more achieved if alcohol consumption levels were reduced just a tad.

We're generating new songs too. About four or five since our recohesion. I was a little leery about this at first, thinking of the Ears as some ancient artefact which audiences wouldn't want to see change. But I've altered my thinking. Against the odds we've become a living band again, and living bands produce new material. Also, in these latter days, wonderfully, it doesn't seem to matter what inestimable age you might reach - you just keep going till you drop.

So about this song I've written. Those creatures of the upper air, who pass through my dreams, leaving clues for plots and dialogue and melodies, have intimated strongly that its title should be Basking Shark ...

We'll breed a Basking Shark for you.

A last! A Basking Shark for you

I do worry that it might seem obscure, inaccessible, even meaningless. I know I have a tendency to alienate potential listeners, readers, what have you, with my love for the arcane, but trust me, I have integrated the basking shark into the lyrics in a way that makes good and proper sense, that may even, ultimately, tug on your heart strings.

Anyway here's a photo of Donald, Nurin and I at Ding Dong last Saturday night

~ a sacred kingfisher

Here's Cathy and I after the Ding Dong show. If I've ever had more fun on stage, I can't remember it.


First off, thanks to Amanda for getting me back to this blog. Obviously, I've fallen out of the habit of updating it, though not of writing generally - of course. Ambergris, the play I've mentioned often over time, needs just a little polishing before it's complete, and I've been working on a couple of novelettes which will soon be in need of publishing.

But first things first. I was walking Polly to rainbow guides this afternoon when I saw a flash of colour in someone's driveway. Colour and movement. Now, being somewhat of a birder, and having a pretty good knowledge of the birdlife around here, I was astounded to see an absolutely gorgeous male sacred kingfisher, flopping about on the concrete, unable to fly, presumably injured. Polly helped me capture it and we brought it home, boxed and watered it. Thankfully, it is not the kind of bird that drops dead from shock. Rather the opposite. As you'll notice from the picture, it has a reasonable amount of fight left in it.

It's presence in Mt Waverley is really quite a mystery. Polly, strangely, named it The King of Switzerland.

Next, for anyone interested in the long delayed re-release of the Beargarden album, let me raise your hopes once more. Bruce Butler and I had another meeting today. We have sworn to a schedule and both the Beargarden and Ears albums will be available well before the end of the year. Nothing will stop us this time, though they are likely to be online releases initially.

I'm just dipping my toe in the water today, so that's all for now.

~ 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.

~ the ballroom reunion #1

~ ears at ding dong club

The official I Got Drunk At The Crystal Ballroom reunion evening is now happening on Sunday May 9 at the Ding Dong Lounge in the early evening with The Pang (Rob Wellington, Adam Learner), Little Murders (eighties Mod phenomenon) & The Ears. This is as locked in as locked in can be. It’s $5 at the door and there will be pre-bookings probably costing a couple of dollars extra.

I’ll post any changes on Twitter (link in the right column somewhere) and the IGDATCB facebook site will be up to date on everything I’m sure.

All very exciting. The photos are from the last time by Carbie Warbie

~ perforated judean zombie

I won’t harp on it, but it was wonderful to be back at the football last night. A whole new season ahead, bright with potential ...

I bought both papers this morning, as I sometimes do when St Kilda has a particularly comprehensive victory - just so I can read twice as much about the game. So I can wallow like a pig in statistics, and linger on descriptions of our consummate skills.

But enough of that. It’s Easter Sunday, the Christian remodelling of the Jewish Passover, and before that a spring fertility feast dedicated to the Anglo-Saxon goddess Ēostre, from which, sayeth the venerable Bede, the word Easter derives. Others paid homage to the Babylonian Ishtar and the Chaldean Astarte (referred to in the Old Testament as ‘Ashtoreth the abomination’). The eggs are an obvious fertility symbol, as are the bunnies. What’s more, Wikipedia tells me that buns marked with a cross symbolising the four quarters of the moon were thought to have been eaten by Saxons in honour of Ēostre.

Currently, Easter celebrates the dubious claim that a man - who may in fact have been fictional - was reanimated after spending three days as a carcass, escaping his tomb to roam Jerusalem like some perforated Judean zombie. Of course this would be sensational news if it were true, but it’s not, and the reasoning behind this unlikely circumstance strains credulity even further. Resurrection - which is normally impossible - was viable in this case because the dead man was the creator of the universe. Bewilderingly, he was also the child of the creator of the universe, if I properly understand the tortuous theology....

Anyway, as a result of this non-event two thousand years ago, it took me ages getting my newspapers Almost everything that is ordinarily open of a Sunday morning was shut. As always, Easter not only inconveniences me, but makes me feel like an outcast.

There was a time when this land was spiritually homogeneous. Credulous adherents to the above mythology dominated so thoroughly that laws were actually passed preventing most things from operating on the anniversaries of Christ’s execution and putative resurrection. But those days are gone. More and more humans are questioning the rationality of such beliefs, and these humans should not be inconvenienced by the communal madness of the indoctrinated. It’s a form of discrimination, not only against atheists but against supporters of other religious brands.

On Good Friday afternoon, Andrew Park and I went seeking alcohol in Richmond. We passed about seven pubs and bottle shops on Victoria Street before we struck pay dirt. Ridiculous! Outrageous! And what was I doing in Richmond with Andrew Park, keyboard player for the miraculously resurrected Ears?

Well, we’re rehearsing again. Our haruspex has performed an augury and there may be a gig on the horizon. It could be related to a facebook group called I Got Drunk At The Crystal Ballroom - but the details are sketchy. If his prophesies hold water, I’ll shout it to the world. Ross Farnell, late of Beargarden, is on bass now and the band is sounding volcanic.

~ the proper motion of time

It was a joy to look back over certain history - rather than forward, in trepidation, with gnawing heart, towards an unknowable future. Every other time I’ve sung on stage, the experience has been weighed down, at least to some extent, by questions that just didn’t need an answer last Sunday.


How will the audience respond to our music? Will it please them? Does it please us? Is it time to make music that pleases them but which might not necessarily please us? How many people are here because of the support band? Will my pants split? Where do I rank on the ladder of cool? Are my balls visible? Am I too stoned to sing? Am I too drunk not to sing? Can I really sing at all? Can what I am doing technically be termed ‘singing’? Who can I fuck? Can Nick Cave ‘sing’? Is the crowd dense enough to dive on? Who can I fuck without alerting my girlfriend? Am I being true to myself? Who can I borrow money off? Is my father turning in his grave? Is what I’m doing ‘art’?


What will the record company think? Can I hear myself? Is the bassist having parallax error on his fretless? Why can’t I remember the lyrics? Will anyone notice? Have I actually written any lyrics? Is the solipsistic keyboardist riding a wave of his own grandeur? And my hair? Oh god! My clothes? My shoes? How fat am I exactly? Am I going to trip over a cymbal stand? Is the mike lead going to fall out? What will I say when the song’s over? What will happen if I pour beer into the foldback monitor? Is it obvious that the bassist is incompetent? Is there a polite way to tell him not to do that thing with his neck? Will we ever succeed? Are we succeeding now?


Is the drummer an amphibian? Is the guitarist going to stop playing and eat the Chinese meal steaming on top of his amp? Who can I score off in the audience? Is the keyboardist really eating an hallucinogenic omelette? Where is my beer? Why is that guy smiling at me like a self-satisfied sphinx? Does my howling sincerity come across as lame? To what extent am I completely deluded …?


I don’t know that I was ever quite so neurotic, but you get the picture. On Sunday, all that shit, it just didn’t matter – not to us, not to the audience - we were permitted to just enjoy the day, the music, the people and it was an absolute fucking pleasure that I’ll carry with me to the grave.



(photos by Brendan Young)

* 4 july 1981 saturday

Things are moving in a satisfactory manner. The casting agent, Victoria Holt, seems very impressed with me. She tells me I have some kind of mystique and has offered to find me more work in the vein of the Ovaltine ad, if I agree to have her as my personal manager. She is drawing up some kind of contract.

I’ve been a strikingly efficient being of late. The general lassitude in the group is bothering me, but we are sounding good. Six songs now, one an instrumental.

I had a dream last night in which there were seven layers of existence. I lived in the second, but found a way into the first where dwelled ‘the ennobled horses”.

Carol is completely slack. I’ll look for another house later this week. I’ll have the money.

I’ve been drinking less and feel as if it’s doing me good. Victoria Holt rang Philippa yesterday to try out for something, but she slept through the call. She was very depressed when I arrived yesterday afternoon, but we had a good night. I like Philippa, but …

I must do this. I must do this … But I’ll probably do that

*

That offer by Victoria Holt was a bit of a cusp point for me. I understood that she was quite influential in her industry, and that I might have had some kind of career there, but after I let her know that music would always be my priority, her enthusiasm waned.

Often, in these latter days, I think of myself as being a complete slackarse in my youth, but perhaps I’m a little hard on myself. From these diary entries, I seem to be quite driven, quite determined. Whether my actions conformed to my resolutions is another matter, I guess. I had my venal urges to contend with and they were truly a force to be reckoned with.

Five days out from the show now. Hair: growing. Clothes: undecided. Body: firming. Brain: whirring. Heart: tremulous.

In a dream last night there were so many people at the show that I had to use a helicopter to get to the bandroom ..

I saw Watchmen again yesterday on video …

“Every day the future looks a little bit darker, but the past, even the grimy parts of it, keep on getting brighter …

Diaries - 1981

~ 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]

~ dog related cinema

Since Sunday, I’ve been doing the bare bones, eating, taking the child to school, napping, eating again, putting the child to bed. These days. even a moderate expenditure of social energy impacts on me for many days hence. Unlike, I’m sure, powerful, well-seasoned campaigners like Nurin and Emma de Clario.

Seeing Dogs in Space afresh was a surprising pleasure. It was fast moving, it didn’t sag and, strangely, it seemed a far better film today than it did at the time. Perhaps current audiences [by that I mean me] are more accustomed to films without a strong narrative spine.

The documentary We’re Livin’ on Dog Food was utterly fascinating. It returned me to the early eighties a lot more efficiently than the fictionalisation. Footage of the freshly squeezed Ollie Olsen and Rowland Howard [then of The Young Charlatans] daubed in makeup, bursting with romantic sensibilities and dreams of glory, was just wonderful. The two were to go their different ways, one to the North of the Yarra to pursue hard-edged no-quarter-given industrial mayhem, the other South to inspire a more flamboyant generation of post-punks, including my band The Ears. The film was a box of memories as complete as anything like that could ever be expected to be. Pierre, who was sitting a few seats down from me, ought to have been interviewed. He was one of the few key figures who didn’t get sufficient mention, and the film would doubtless have benefited from his wit and his bitchiness.

Sometimes, I wonder if the medications I take are disordering the functions of my amygdalae which, I am told, are the seat of emotion. There is a section of the documentary in which I describe the circumstances surrounding the death of my girlfriend Christine. My reaction was a kind of stunned fear or horror, as if some dark uniformed figure was about to enter the theatre and call me out. Over the intervening decades, the grief I felt at the time has attenuated to a keening note on the wind. What remains is a statue of sorrow rather than the sorrow itself. They say time heals all wounds, but I wish … not so completely.

~ leap for lunch

Here's Richard Lowenstein's video of The Ears' first single

~ an ears photo album

Apparently, not everybody in the world is on facebook, so I thought I'd post some of the pictures from the 'Sails of Oblivion: The Gig' facebook page here, where the whole world can see them. They're all photos of The Ears from 1979-82. The first is from one of our very first shows before Cathy joined the band.

There are more photos on photobucket and flickr, the links to which are in the right hand column. And remember, keep spreading the news about August the 16th.

~ childen of the ear

If you know anyone whose interest might be piqued by the Sails of Oblivion gig, feel free to forward this e-bill.

And to quote original keyboardist Gus Till's reaction:

"I recall you telling me that when the name 'The Ears' was decided upon it was also unanimously accepted as bleedin' obvious that it should never ever be mentioned that under NO circumstances would a picture of an ear ever be involved with anything ever associated with aforesaid group! But in one eye and out the other, the passage time of time has nullified this once unbreachable position.

But the ear of god? I like it!!"

~ Sails of Oblivion: The Gig: press release

After 25 years, legendary Melbourne art-punks The Ears revisit the past for a once only gig on Sunday afternoon August 16 at The Corner Hotel Richmond.

Though strictly a Melbourne phenomenon in their time, The Ears gained wider notoriety as the template for Richard Lowenstein’s cult movie Dogs in Space. The lead character, played by Michael Hutchence of INXS, was closely based on Ears singer Sam Sejavka, and the song Dogs in Space was lifted from The Ears playlist.

Appearing on the same afternoon is an impressive list of eighties contemporaries.

The Church’s Steve Kilbey is coming down from Sydney. The Brian Hooper Band is playing. Also Hugo Race (True Spirit, Wreckery), Nick Barker (Reptiles, Wreckery) and David Bridie with Phil Wales (Not Drowning Waving, My Friend The Chocolate Cake). Sean Kelly (The Models) is performing with his new band.

The esoteric Ollie Olsen (Max Q, Whirlywirld) is DJ for the event and hard core comedian Greg Fleet is MC. The show is being organised by the evergreen Dolores San Miguel, renowned promoter of the Crystal Ballroom and The Exford Hotel.

Most of these artists all have their roots in the same period, and have all made an impact on the Australian stage and beyond. Sails of Oblivion presents a unique opportunity for fans not only of the performers themselves, but of the fabulous Melbourne music scene of the early eighties.

The Ears are represented by most of the original line up [Sam Sejavka, (vocals) Mick Lewis, (guitar) Carl Manuel (drums)]. Chris Walsh [The Moodists, The Fabulous Marquises, The Great Temptation] is standing in on bass and Andrew Park [deepspacemusic, Ash Wednesday's Modern Jazz] on keyboards. Original bassist/vocalist Cathy McQuade will be down from Sydney and, while not playing bass, will be reprising her vocal parts. Chanteuse Kerry Simpson will also be doing some back-ups.

The fortnight preceding Sails of Oblivion is that of the Melbourne Film Festival, during which Richard Lowenstein is celebrating the long-awaited DVD release of Dogs in Space [Aug 1], as well as We're Living on Dog Food [Aug 2], a documentary on the film and the scene surrounding it. Sails of Oblivion: The Gig will give fans of the movie the chance to see some of the truth behind the fiction.

In the column on the right are links to the Ears09 Twitter feed, the gig's facebook page, the Corner Hotel [for booking] and other stuff too.

Sails of Oblivion – Sunday August 16, 3-8pm, The Corner Hotel, Swan St, Richmond.

Contact: 94279198

~ 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.

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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.

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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