Club 77 is the kind of dive I dream about. Strobe lights in the men's toilets, fluorescent picture of a naked woman spray-painted onto the wall. There is illegal indoor smoking, a Death Star mural, a faux stuffed tiger head behind the bar and a door bitch that has been watching re-runs of original Degrassi Junior High. The women's toilets are decorated with pink spray-paintings of razor blades and naked women on motorcycles. The main problem is the absence of either sticky or bouncy floors. I guess they must hose the bloody joint with a fire hose. Even the vending machine is lit with a red light.
Whores (Chris Colla from Atrocities, some guy I only know as Big Al and Sarah) climbed onto the low stage. Sarah looked damn beautiful under those lights drumming loose and raw like a slow motion roller coaster. This small band was, at times, extraordinary. Chris and Sarah came offstage, came over to sit with Spencer and me, they seemed short and like their ordinary selves. For a moment or two their music had made them large. I'll go out of my way to see them again though it could be difficult to track the trio down. Sarah tells me they might play under a different name each gig. They'll alway be Whores to me.
Psychonanny and The Babyshakers swear they aren't a rockabilly band but they were doing a grand impression of one, they could use more than one kind of drumbeat. Sonia has the kind of voice worth listening to, she's the opposite of a bombshell or what happens after the bomb has gone off. If I could figure out a way to be like her then I'd do it in a flash. You should have seen her up there, cigarette hanging low in the corner of one lip, tambourine rising and falling when she felt like it with an enviable amount of indolence. The not-Simon guitarist has a habit of muddying up the sound, someone give that man a slide, some pedals and the instructions to not play the same thing as Simon at the same time. One song, a slow song was grand until suddenly it transformed into yet another rockabilly song, I'm not sure why they did that. But Jesus they can roll when they get going with that sound that shakes your shoes until you're on your feet and shaking with your shoulders dropped back and knees bent in a stiff-legged forgotten dance from before Elvis.
Earlier I stepped aside so Anthony from Damnbuilders could take his shot, he stalked round the table aiming at balls and smoking cigarettes. Half the girls in Sydney, my side of Sydney not the shiny and terrible side, are developing a thing for him. I've seen him around and idly wondered how he managed to wear that kind of hat with that kind of beard without looking like a serial killer. Spencer and I were talking about him on the way back to Newtown. Spencer kept saying "Is it the beard? Is that what they like?". Someone said he once punched a man for calling him Grizzly Adams, I'd call him Grizzly Adams if I ever got the chance but I'd hang on round his neck really tightly until his urge to punch subsides. Damnbuilders opened with Batman, not Prince but Adam West, followed by what happens when you play Deep Purple in slow motion. After that who the hell knows what that was, I didn't mind it but things definitely took a turn for the what in the hell when Anthony shifted from guitar to keyboard, a sort of dance thing, greatly appreciated by the wall of Indie Kids obscuring my view.
Two known associates of Freddie Mercury Guy played overly loud obsurely chosen tracks between bands, sitting in the dj booth looking like extras from the 1970's. I walked through a dense wall of marijuana smoke in the women's toilets, Sonia nearly got stuck in a cubicle and a Goth who calls himself a death rocker danced like it was 1952.
Showing posts with label Freddie Mercury Guy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Freddie Mercury Guy. Show all posts
In Z Block's final hour a man spilled red soda into my shoes
Spencer finished art, last night. He did it with guitars, two drummers, an occasional accordion and the raising of his right arm but right now I’m in Penrith RSL watching a big band. The women are dancing together, men all dead.
I avoided Z Block for a while, a year or two, feeling that it belonged to all the things I left behind when the great tide moved me East and away from this RSL with big band afternoons, shopping malls and heat haze. I came back for the last hurrah, the night the University of Western Sydney shut its art school doors.
Most of the time I think of Western Sydney in the frame of mind I reserve for being stung by bees, undergoing chemotherapy or being pulled out to sea in a rip but I have to tell you this big band is very good.
Z Block is a rat maze warehouse with toilets and one kind of ceiling higher than ladders. Whole glass walls fold and raise like sails with insides worse than weather like, greenhouse, submarine, Western Sydney maybe that’s why they’re shutting it down.
It is important to note that the trombone section just spelled out a giant letter ‘E’ using four trombones, this made the audience clap.
I cut beats with tennis balls in some sort of miniature satellite dish, the balls tracked by cameras, projected onto walls and generating sounds. I drank wine from a popular interactive fountain, saw brains floating in tanks, stood on a platform wearing headphones and a vest heavier than lead. I walked in spirals through diaphanous curtains, a jelly fish forest and the space where once there was a giant walk through vagina. Student art is always precisely what it should be but this is isn’t about the art its about the artists.
We all went, all except Boli who was tired from Jazzercise, the long haul west to where we first came across each other, in Z Block, O Building or the Swamp Bar or on the hills in Werro. The catering at the last ever Grad Show defied the temptation to go out with a bang and instead supplied us with baskets of sandwiches and two bath tubs full of beer. The big band is now playing Jump by Van Halen.
The woman who fell out the window with Spencer, Mona and Mr Hunter made some noises. Freddie Mercury Guy took to the stage with his band Numea, he was breaking for cigarettes in the middle of his set, rolling on the floor and screaming like Damo Suzuki.
It is difficult to define the feeling of a university exhaling, memory confined to memory.
I might have been eight years old when they opened the University of Western Sydney. My father took us, my brother and I, to the grand opening. There were free balloons, sausage sandwiches and the biggest library I had ever seen. Dad stood above us on the big set of stairs with the light looming behind him. He told us about the necessity of this university, the great hope for the future, access to education for everyone no matter where you live. He talked about the tyranny of distance and explained the concept of elitism then looked up at the ceilings with a kind of reverence muttering about brutalist architecture. I stood three steps down clutching my balloon and staring about with a sort of wonder.
Fourteen years later I walked down those same set of steps and took my place in the queue outside the co-op bookshop, clutching my first ever compulsory book list, a small sense of hope and a free balloon. Nine years after that I stood there holding half a sandwich, a free can of beer and a mobile phone.
The problem is that this university is mine, I belong to it. I have belonged to it since that day on the stairs but it is very difficult to define the feeling of a university exhaling. At the end of the night a man pulled down the folding glass wall, the lights went off and there was nothing left to do but leave.
(article about shutting down Z Block)
I avoided Z Block for a while, a year or two, feeling that it belonged to all the things I left behind when the great tide moved me East and away from this RSL with big band afternoons, shopping malls and heat haze. I came back for the last hurrah, the night the University of Western Sydney shut its art school doors.
Most of the time I think of Western Sydney in the frame of mind I reserve for being stung by bees, undergoing chemotherapy or being pulled out to sea in a rip but I have to tell you this big band is very good.
Z Block is a rat maze warehouse with toilets and one kind of ceiling higher than ladders. Whole glass walls fold and raise like sails with insides worse than weather like, greenhouse, submarine, Western Sydney maybe that’s why they’re shutting it down.
It is important to note that the trombone section just spelled out a giant letter ‘E’ using four trombones, this made the audience clap.
I cut beats with tennis balls in some sort of miniature satellite dish, the balls tracked by cameras, projected onto walls and generating sounds. I drank wine from a popular interactive fountain, saw brains floating in tanks, stood on a platform wearing headphones and a vest heavier than lead. I walked in spirals through diaphanous curtains, a jelly fish forest and the space where once there was a giant walk through vagina. Student art is always precisely what it should be but this is isn’t about the art its about the artists.
We all went, all except Boli who was tired from Jazzercise, the long haul west to where we first came across each other, in Z Block, O Building or the Swamp Bar or on the hills in Werro. The catering at the last ever Grad Show defied the temptation to go out with a bang and instead supplied us with baskets of sandwiches and two bath tubs full of beer. The big band is now playing Jump by Van Halen.
The woman who fell out the window with Spencer, Mona and Mr Hunter made some noises. Freddie Mercury Guy took to the stage with his band Numea, he was breaking for cigarettes in the middle of his set, rolling on the floor and screaming like Damo Suzuki.
It is difficult to define the feeling of a university exhaling, memory confined to memory.
I might have been eight years old when they opened the University of Western Sydney. My father took us, my brother and I, to the grand opening. There were free balloons, sausage sandwiches and the biggest library I had ever seen. Dad stood above us on the big set of stairs with the light looming behind him. He told us about the necessity of this university, the great hope for the future, access to education for everyone no matter where you live. He talked about the tyranny of distance and explained the concept of elitism then looked up at the ceilings with a kind of reverence muttering about brutalist architecture. I stood three steps down clutching my balloon and staring about with a sort of wonder.
Fourteen years later I walked down those same set of steps and took my place in the queue outside the co-op bookshop, clutching my first ever compulsory book list, a small sense of hope and a free balloon. Nine years after that I stood there holding half a sandwich, a free can of beer and a mobile phone.
The problem is that this university is mine, I belong to it. I have belonged to it since that day on the stairs but it is very difficult to define the feeling of a university exhaling. At the end of the night a man pulled down the folding glass wall, the lights went off and there was nothing left to do but leave.
(article about shutting down Z Block)
Station Lady, Jacket Man and Freddie Mercury Guy
Freddie Mercury Guy is an everywhere man. I'm not sure if its his striking resemblance to Freddie Mercury, the way he suddenly appeared and was everywhere all at once or if its something else entirely. I see him all the time, no matter where I am. He's practically omnipotent. He induces in me such a state of excitement that I have inadvertently invented a "I can see Freddie Mercury Guy dance". Spencer and Superman have developed almost identical responses to my dance, they stand perfectly still and say the word "spaz" slowly and clearly, Spencer, unlike Superman, will sometimes have his hands in his pockets.
Most people I know are well acquainted with Freddie Mercury Guy so I have taken to doing my dance, saying "Its Freddie Mercury Guy" then running away to avoid having to attempt to speak in a rational manner. I suspect that this may eventually prove trying for people other than me.
Most people I know are well acquainted with Freddie Mercury Guy so I have taken to doing my dance, saying "Its Freddie Mercury Guy" then running away to avoid having to attempt to speak in a rational manner. I suspect that this may eventually prove trying for people other than me.
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