Politics: The End Of A Year.

I’ve spent most of this week hideously drunk on brandy and stuffed full of Christmas pudding, so I’m in no mood to write about anything topical or relevant. Instead, I’ll cop out and count down the top 4 – hey, space is limited - stories of 2004:

4. Chechens Take Russians Hostage, Spaniards Are Murdered.

The tyranny of distance that Australia lives with is also a favour. It means we’re removed from much of the madness of the world, where history has dictated that so many countries, regions and peoples must kill each other in the name of their faith, be it religious, ideological, or both. For all the hullabaloo made about it, we haven't had to worry about terrorism much. The one time it happened, it happened in overseas, in Bali.

Indeed. But every time we saw footage of those Russian schoolchildren, permanently scarred emotionally more than physically, or those Spanish trains disintegrated, we couldn’t help but wonder if one day we’ll have to deal with the madness of the world on our own turf.

3. The US Elections

No election has been more closely covered and scrutinised by the media than the John Kerry Vs. George W. Bush battle. In hindsight, it seems laughable to think Kerry ever had a chance. George W. Bush was a brutal, stupid, hyper-Christian thug – how many times was it written, said or sung? – but nothing was going to sway the American people. Despite the deaths of soldiers, the deaths of civilians, problems with intelligence, national lies and international deceit, Bush had it in the bag.

2. The Australian Election

When we cast our collective vote on October 9^th, we gave John Howard a handshake and a pat on the back. We told him that he can lie, cheat, steal and lie some more, as long as he beefs up our wallets now and then. We gave him permission to degrade our health system. We delivered him carte blanche to ensure thousands of Australians will never be able to afford to attend university. We spoke loudly, as a nation, and said that we were fine with the way things were, and nothing needs to change. And the Labor party sat idly by, twiddling their thumbs, humming delightful Benny Goodman tunes.

1. The Redfern Riots

No one should have been surprised when the streets of Redfern were filled with anger, frustration and terrible violence. The fires and madness of that warm February night came as a result of a boy killed in incredibly dubious circumstances. But it wasn’t just that. With every bottle hurled, The Block was raging against all the institutions responsible for fucking up the Aboriginal people for the last 200 years. Every vicious slur thrown at the Redfern police force represented an answer to the systematic abuse of Australia’s Indigenous community. When the train station began to burn, it was a response to decades of genuinely disgusting treatment of Aboriginal people by police and government, who continue to receive official sanction to murder black people and steal their children.

It wasn't that articulate, of course - pure anger and frustration rarely is.

The Redfern riots were a very bad thing. But they were also a wake up call to an Australia that still refuses to recognise just how ugly things really are, and how much uglier things are going to get.

(Originally published in The Brag in the Fear & Loathing column).

Album Review: U2 - How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb.

There’s something wrong with U2. It’s not Bono’s holier-than-thou wankery. It’s not The Edge’s laughably pretentious moniker. And it’s not the fact they’ve most recently appeared in iPod commercial.

No. The problem is that they always promise more than they deliver; they’re never honest with us; they always seem to come up a little short. They write songs called Sunday Bloody Sunday and albums entitled How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, but their music completely lacks the manic, genuine political passion of Rage Against The Machine , Billy Bragg or Bob Dylan. They release almost-epic numbers singles like Beautiful Day and then back them up with hackneyed populist embarrassments like Stuck In A Moment You Can’t Get Out Of. They sound a little like their early '80s counterparts Echo & The Bunnymen and New Order, but they have no edge – pardon the awful pun. They have Brian Eno – master producer, brilliant musician, possible genius – at the producer’s desk, but they don’t seem to do much with him.

That’s what frustrates me about U2. If they just came out and admitted that they’re a bloody brilliant singles band and not much more, I’d probably adore them. This is a band that has delivered genuinely triumphant pop-rock gems like Elevation, With Or Without You, The Sweetest Thing and One. They can write singles that deliver both accessibility and depth, a rare combination in the music world. But whenever I hear their albums, it feels like they should be doing more than they are.

In that way, How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb is a fairly typical U2 album. The sound is a little different – this is a straight-up rock and pop album, without any of the worldly frills of previous efforts – but the template remains much the same. And promises go unfulfilled.

First single and album opener Vertigo is splendid. It’s everything a single should be. Opening with four taps of Larry Mullen Jnr’s drumsticks, the track runs straight at you and punches you in the gut. It’s a visceral pop gem, with liberal serves of distortion and jam-packed with hooks. When Bono says ‘one, two, three, fourteen’ in awful Spanish – either a reference to which albums Steve Lillywhite has produced in, or Bono’s inability to count properly, depending on who you ask – it kicks off one of the more on-point releases of ‘04.

Unfortunately, none of the remaining songs come close to Vertigo. Which isn’t to say they’re bad. Miracle Drug sounds like With Or Without You with crappier lyrics, but it’s still a charmer. Crumbs From Your Table may be a pseudo-existential wank with gobbledegook lyrics, but the typically excellent fretwork from The Edge makes it all worthwhile. City Of Blinding Lights does what U2 do best: dynamics and sing-a-long choruses and almost-epic bridges. Love And Peace Or Else will no doubt be a single, and with good reason. No, the problem with the album isn’t what it is, but what it could have been.

It’s called How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb. The cover design – with fat red lines and a pitch black background – screams military. There’s a track on the album called Love And Peace Or Else. And yet the album is notably introspective. It’s about relationships and life at home. We live in a world full of madness, violence and war, and yet Bono seems completely unwilling to have a crack at a genuine political song. For a man who is supposedly so passionate about the plight of others – hey, he sang on Bob Geldof's Do They Even Know It’s Christmas? with Simon Le Bon, Beorge George, et al – his inability to deal with the big issues is notable. Love And Peace Or Else sounds like an excitingly oblique and vicious threat, but the song itself – with it’s refrain of, I kid you not, ‘where is the love?’ – comes off as a meek request by a man too afraid to go out on a limb that might alienate listeners.

Almost every song on the album is filled with references to ‘you.’ When an album is called How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, you’d think these references might be a little threatening or taunting or, well, interesting. No dice. When Bono says 'you,' he's referring to... well, it doesn't really matter. It just sounds nice.

But, hey, you deal. The album is still good. If you ignore the fact that U2 could clearly do more with their talents than they do, How To Dismantle… is a great effort. Few albums boast a single as strong as Vertigo, and the album doesn’t tire on repeat listens. As a stocking filler, it’s not half bad, and as a testament to the strength of a band who’ve been around longer than I’ve been alive, it’s impressive. But as a lyrically interesting or musically innovative album, it’s not going to set the world on fire.

(Originally published at fasterlouder.com.au).

(Photo: Bono and The Edge, a few minutes after setting the world for Most Bagels Eaten By Pseudonym-Using Rockstars In An Hour).

Classic Album: Karma County - Last Stop Heavenly Heights.

There is only one album that is inextricably tied to my memories. Last Stop Heavenly Heights is that album. Listening to it instantly takes me back to where I first heard it, years ago, in the luscious countryside of Northern NSW.

I’d seen Karma County on the sadly departed Recovery one Saturday morning. I was still in high school then, often spinning Frenzal Rhomb’s Not So Tough Now and TISM's Machiavelli & The Four Seasons, and moshing to whatever punk act happened to perform at underage shows. Karma County were an incredible breath of fresh air on Recovery, a show so focused on alterna-indie-rock-whatever bands. Karma County played Postcard – I think – and it was too fucking cool. Three guys in suits - I think - playing beautiful, pared-down, worldly pop.

I’d forgotten about their performance until a few months later when I was visiting Byron Bay. My parents and I were on a road trip to Kyogle, a beautiful part of northern New South Wales where the only noises that disturb you are the cows or the small streams that flow through the valleys.

I was flicking through albums in a Byron record store and I happened upon Last Stop. I remembered how impressed I was by their Recovery performance, and figured the album couldn’t be too bad for only $20. I bought it, glad that I had a new CD to listen to in the house – or more accurately, shack – my parents and I were staying in.

In an old four-wheel drive, we drove up to Kyogle, driving up a winding dirt road and trying to avoid hitting the cows who seemed to stand deliberately in our way. It was a long drive – the brakes on the old car weren’t the best, and as such the roads had to be tackled slowly and surely to prevent an unfortunate roll down a grassy hill.

Finally we stopped the four-wheeler nearby the shack, which was half-way up a hill, hidden away behind hundreds of trees. Getting up there meant crossing a stream and walking up through rough bush. My parents and I jumped over stones to avoid getting our feet wet in the stream, but of course are shoes became saturated.

The shack half-way up the hill was… interesting. Built by hand by a family friend, it was constructed with old wood, banged together with rusty nails. Bits of wall were missing, tarpaulin strung up to stop the wind and the rain getting in. There were benches for food preparation, an old gas stove and – thankfully – an old CD player.

We spent a week or so in that shack, rueing the justifiable lack of modern amenities but predictably mind-fucked by the beauty of the country. A short walk to the top of the hill let you see for miles: rolling hills and old trees swaying in the wind. Our nearest neighbour was an hours drive away.

It seemed to rain every night. Drops would start to fall on the tin roof a few hours after sunset, lulling you into the kind of divine relaxation that only a stay in the country can afford. After each big storm, you’d wake up to see all the plants rejuvenated, fresh with a glowing green hue. Under a grey sky I’d walk to the top of the hill that the shack was on and lie on the dirt and grass, looking up at the grey sky.

It was amazing. And all the while, Karma County’s Last Stop Heavenly Heights played. As soon as I heard the bass line on the opening track, I Took Your Name In Vain, I could tell I’d chosen the perfect album for this perfect place. Michael Galeazzi’s acoustic bass notes dropped their way down a scale, richly-textured, spreading through the track like a vine. When I’d listen to the album on dark nights, his perfect plucking would blend in with the rain, his double bass reverberating like the water on the roof.

Stuart Eadie’s drums had the same effect. His brushed cymbals – especially on the evocative The Water Moves - would mix with the water running its way down the hill, joining unknown streams and secret rivers. Brendan Gallagher's guitars, tuned to open D, seemed effortlessly slow-handed. They lulled and cooed, seeming to interact with the trees that swayed in the autumn winds. And his voice was so deep, especially on the title track, that he seemed to be the brother of the loud thunder which would strike, warning the valleys of the impending rains. He sang with the kind of sad sincerity you hear on old, fuzzy blues records from the '30s.

With every listen, the album seemed to be more and more natural, like it had always existed and it had just taken Gallagher, Eadie and Galeazzi to crystallise it. The sounds felt like they had lay dormant in the earth and were only now being brought to fruition by the heavy rains of Northern NSW. The album was slow and methodical, like the land I was living in. Sometimes it would explode like a crack of lightning – the bluesy solo in That Man Was A Knife for example – but then it would resume its previous existence, seemingly only enriched by the disturbance, like the wild grass that would grow stronger and thicker after a deluge.

Like the birds calling, the dew on the grass in the mornings, the stones covered in moss and the water in the streams pushing its way to…wherever, Last Stop Heavenly Heights became part of the landscape of Kyogle. Somehow it perfectly emulated the movements and sounds and smells and sights of the extraordinary Australian landscape.

Gallagher’s lyrics told of broken hearts and suburban dreams, but the music remained firmly planted in the countryside. When Gallagher sang ‘her dark hair is the sea / and I’m a failing ship / all faith goes overboard / as my heart runs aground’ his voice sounded like he was the only person who would or could ever walk on the musical landscape of East Meets South. The album just seemed right.

Surreally, the music became the landscape. The album transformed into the countryside around it. And every time I listen to the album – and I often do – I feel like I’m sitting in the rain at the top of a hill, looking down on a wet country side, the water dripping from my hair to the ground, little drops of water running down my face, my shirt dampening before I take it off to feel the dirt on my back as I lay.

Even the album’s title seemed to preternaturally understand how seamlessly its sounds would blend into this landscape… Kyogle was Last Stop Heavenly Heights. It was the end of the line, where everything is right and good and there’s no need to go on.

Every time I listen to it, I can see the grey skies above me, the axe propped up against the house and every river stone I walked on. I can hear the flapping of the tarpaulin as the wind screams and the birds singing as the sun rises over the damp valley. And I can smell the damp wood and the indefinable sweetness of the country. The album is everything you could hope for an album to be and more. It is life, death, birth, hope, sadness, love, betrayal. It’s Last Stop Heavenly Heights, my favourite album of all time.

(Originally published at fasterlouder.com.au).

Politics: Flies And Happy Ignorance: The Canberra Experience.

I flew down to Canberra this week. On a muggy Monday morning, I boarded the same Qantas flight as Greens senator Kerry Nettle, Liberal minister – and genuine enemy of education - Brendan Nelson and leftie nerd Labor MP Tanya Plibersek.

Of course, their collective presence was just a happy coincidence. It was far too ugly an early morning to really get into any political contemplation, so they were soon forgotten. Plus, I was reading a Rolling Stone article on Jenna Jameson, and gosh, she does have big boobs doesn’t she?

I digress. Canberra is a notoriously mediocre city, and with good reason. In the summers, hordes of angry, sticky flies come over the border with the sole intention – it seems – of sticking in your eyeballs and relaxing in your mouth. The sun beats down mercilessly, and respite can only be found in the malls that occasionally infiltrate the largely natural landscape.

I wasn’t there for pleasure, and I wasn’t there for politics. But the place is inextricably bound to the dirty game, and with good reason – there’s not much else to do but ruminate on political machinations.

And ruminate I did. In the backs of chauffeured cars and lying in my hotel, I had all the time in the world to think about the political landscape in Australia. And the more I thought about it, the more morose I become. How very predictable.

Things aren’t getting any better, and it pains me having to wait so impatiently for the time when people realise they’re getting screwed by their leaders. Why, I thought to myself while lying on my bed in the Country Comfort, can’t everyone in Australia have the same idealistic, quasi-naïve hopes, dreams and values that all my favourite people have? Why can’t we all just vote Labor? And why can’t Labor give us a reason to all vote Labor?

Canberra is a bad place to think, because once you start it’s tough to stop. That’s the curse of a boring town. That’s why many country folk are – often surprisingly – deeply introspective. They can spend days where it’s just them and this wide, brown country, thinking about where they’ve been and where they’re going.

I didn’t come up with any searing political insights while lying under the air conditioner in my boxers. No surprises there. I was, however, briefly overcome by an urge to storm parliament house, screaming my liberal politics – and strings of degrading obscenities - into a megaphone. Or maybe I could dye my hair grey, sport some fat sideburns and roll around the leafy grounds surrounding parliament chanting ‘crash through or crash’ like some idiot savant drunk on political rhetoric.

No. Instead I flicked over to the news and saw Afghanistan and Iraq now free – or some ludicrously propagandistic palaver - and everyone happy and good times rolling all night long. It was a happy news day; there was no one jumping from buildings or monks self-immolating or mothers drowning their babies or students being viciously beaten by police. At least, none of that was being reported, so things seemed okie dokie.

And in Canberra, things often do seem okie dokie. Despite being the practical centre of the Australian political world, the high mountains make you feel like you’re cut off from all the terrible ills of the world. Which is nice. So I switched the channel over and watched Buffy. Good.

(Originally published in The Brag in the Fear & Loathing column).

Politics: How To Sell Out: The Labor Lesson.

Labor is selling out, if indeed they have anything to sell. They’re backing the Liberal party’s move to ensure that workers at small businesses can be fired without a reason. They’re supporting Liberal moves to cut tariffs, ensuring that Australian businesses face even stiffer competition from slave labour overseas. They’re doing away with core election promises like Medicare Gold and job protection for Tasmanian loggers. They’re losing the private school ‘hit list.’

Of course, the party was due for some shake ups after their slaughter at the polls, but their policy changes are predictably directionless, in keeping with the tradition of a party in love with in-fighting and retarded squabbling.

If the Labor party is going to win the next election, it will do so by providing a legitimate alternative. They can just hope that the economic cycle deals the Liberals a vicious blow, forcing people to think with their hearts, not their wallets. And when that time comes – and it will – Labor should be there ready and willing with sound policies across the board. Appeasing cash-loving geeks who aspire to be fatcats does the party no favours.

Backing Liberal industrial relations and trade policies represents a huge ‘fuck you’ to the unions and working people that Labor occasionally pretends to represent. It’s just not cricket. The key to Labor’s success lies in the hearts and minds of working people everywhere – and the vast majority of Australians are indeed working-class, whether they like it or not. Why try to appeal to big-money conservatives? You’re never going to win them over, so give up. Make people realise that they need what the Labor party can offer them.

It’s not going to happen. Labor is intent on fighting by Liberal rules. That’s their number one problem. They seem resigned to the fact that every fight is going to be played in Howard’s arena. And then they’re surprised when they get their arses beaten like scrawny, malnourished dogs? C’mon!

The Labor party needs to go on the attack. It needs to set the media agenda. It needs to show the Australian people why they were wrong to vote for Howard, and show them why the Labor party is right.

The Tasmanian forest hubbub was a mistake, no doubt about that. It was a tokenistic concession to a Greens party justifiably fishing for whatever influence they can get. It made the Labor party look like a pack of spineless nerds who’ll bow to pressure at the drop of a hat.

But why drop Medicare Gold and the private school ‘hit list?’ There will come a time when the Australian people realise that they need adequate health care and decent education. And if the economic cycle is anything to go by, that time is coming soon. Interest rates will rise, and the aspirational middle-class who voted Howard in will realise their abhorrent mistake. And when that time comes, where will they turn? If the Labor party continues on as it is, they’ll see a pack of economic rationalist back-flippers who can’t focus on something for more than a month.

What the Labor party needs now is the brains to focus, and the balls to follow through.

(Originally published in The Brag in the Fear & Loathing column).

Album Review: Tonjip - Nice Guys?

From the press release accompanying the Nice Guys? EP: ‘This next chapter in the Tonjip story again sees the band steering well clear of current musical trends, choosing instead to continue the unrelenting search for that sound which defines them as a collective, setting them apart from the gamut of industry types and scene-sters.’

C’mon! Press releases are notoriously packed with wank, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Nice Guys? is a fun EP, loaded with heavy, pounding drums and melodic pop. The guitars are distorted, there are some simple vocal harmonies, the vocals are pleasant and the choruses have got some good hooks. But Tonjip aren’t reinventing the fuckin’ wheel, and their sound hardly sets them apart from the ‘industry types and scenesters’ that their PR team so mockingly decry.

But then, they didn’t write their press release did they? I shouldn’t hold a bit of wankery against them, especially when they’re not responsible for it, right?

Right. So I won’t. Either way though, Brisbane four-piece Tonjip aren’t doing anything too exciting here. There are flashes of intrigue like Selection Criteria, a weary, faded, reverb-heavy number with subdued vocals. It’s a slow, grounded track that unfortunately never elevates, refusing to move from first gear to second. Regardless, it’s nice enough.

Dow Jones’ Locker shows off the band’s ability to frustrate. Opening with a plaintive harmonica, and some clean, finger-picked guitar drenched in reverb, it’s a genuinely stunning way to start a track… ‘the ocean seemed to serene’ coos lead vocalist Phil Usher. Things are just about to take off and… it ends. At 1:50, it’s a wasted opportunity - a beautiful track that again, never takes off.

The radio-friendly pop-rock of the title track, Nice Guys?, and album closer Coolite – which apparently made its way to number 3 on the Triple J Net 50 – are entertaining efforts. Coolite especially is a surging, rocking, bass-heavy single, packed with more hooks than one song should be able to handle. There just isn't anything that sets Tonjip apart from the crowd. It’s only almost two minutes into Coolite that you’re really engaged, when Usher lets off a high pitched wail that makes you think you’re about to get your head thoroughly rocked the fuck out. But - again - it doesn’t happen.

Most of Nice Guys? is satisfactory. It just never gets to that special space where the music takes over and starts to punch you in the gut ‘til you admit just how thoroughly you’re being rocked out. But it does get close. File in: Bands To Watch.

(Originally published at fasterlouder.com.au).

Politics: The Labor Party's Balls.

The Labor party has spent the last few months analysing and deconstructing their embarrassing defeat. Now, the executive has issued 50 recommendations for the party, supposedly highlighting what they did wrong, and what they need to do right.

One of the key changes the executive recommended – which has been accepted – is that leaders should sign performance contracts. These will be written agreements listing key areas in which a candidate must perform adequately in. If they don’t perform they’ll receive… counselling.

Awesome work Labor! Just in case there wasn’t enough in-fighting and squabbling within the party, they’ve now added yet another in-house bureaucratic hurdle. The executive seems to think it’ll bolster both ministerial and public faith in the candidates. They’re wrong. Such a contract serves only to make the party look like a pack of pathetic, underachieving simpletons who can only perform when they’ve got a contract hanging over their head.

If you want to boost the performance of shadow ministers, you could try formulating policies that the entire party is proud of, and willing to fight for. As it is, the party continues to suffer with ambiguous relationships with unions and ambiguous policies.

And it doesn’t help that Mark Latham’s big head has predictably eased its way towards the chopping block. He’s an arrogant man, and some key Labor ministers and members think he suffers from being so inaccessible. He’s cut from the Keating mode – he’s confident, but is he a little too confident?

No. He’s just right. He may be a welfare-hating economic rationalist with a rampant disdain for the working classes, but he’s also done an impressive job of establishing himself as leader. With only 9 odd months to work with, he managed to caress his way into the minds of Australian punters everywhere, whether they like it or not.

Labor’s terrible problems at the polls wasn’t Latham’s fault. It was the fault of a party that lacked focus and direction.

Evil, sleazy, moustache-sporting Latino villains in films are typically fond of talking about their cajones, and other people’s lack thereof. And that’s what Labor needs – the Australian equivalent of a Latino villain; someone who’s got the cajones to lay policy out on the table and stand by it, and the insatiable desire to point out the testicular inadequacies of their opponents. In short, the Labor party needs balls.

It’s small comfort then that some of the recommendations of the executive address this need. They found that election advertising was ‘far too polite,’ and they’re right. Whilst the Liberal swine went on the attack, embarrassing Latham by noting his sub-standard record as Liverpool mayor and portraying him as a retarded Learner opposition leader, the Labor punks… well, can anybody remember their ads?

They need an advertising contract that will focus on what the Liberal party will do wrong, while only briefly addressing what they have done wrong. The Australian people know that John Howard is a treacherous, lying little weasel and they don’t care. What they do care about is the possibility that they might lose cash. Labor should find weaknesses in the Liberal parties supposedly bulletproof economic policy and exploit them. They should even succumb to lies and deceit if they can get away with it. They need to get vicious. They need the cajones, amigo.

(Originally published in The Brag in the Fear & Loathing column).

(Photo: Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs, Kevin Rudd, who once tried to learn the Charleston but failed).

Politics: The Liberal Mandate: Nice Work Australia.

Well, parliament is back in session. The pollies have flown down to Canberra, ready to see what the Liberal government – high on the heady delights of a national ‘mandate’ – has in store for them.

Last Tuesday, Governor-General Michael Jeffery outlined the Liberals’ priorities. The full sale of Telstra was up there, as well as the abolition of unfair dismissal laws. Oh, and of course, the ubiquitous war on terrorism.

The Telstra sale has been a government priority for a while now. Back when they didn’t hold the power in the Senate, all those months ago, the Libs tried to pass a full sale more than once, like twisted perverts attempting to spike the national drink. Despite the opposition of Nationals leader John Anderson – the deputy prime minister – John Howard is hellbent on pawing Telstra off to the highest bidder. And with good economic reason. Number-crunching business geeks are saying that if the government’s majority stake in the communications giant is approved by the Senate – and clearly it will be – the float will raise around $30 billion dollars. That’s a lot of cash. The business community – apart from communications competitors like Optus – are no doubt stoned with delight at the prospect of that kind of cash floating around.

But predictably, and justifiably, most Liberal non-supporters are against the deal. Full privatisation assures that regional and rural punters won’t get close to the level of service they should expect. A private business has no reason to fund enterprises that won’t make a profit, and as such, more isolated areas in Australia – and much of Australia is isolated - are pretty much assured that they won’t see full broadband coverage any time soon, assuming they even have a working phone line now.

But then, the isolated ruralist vote for the Coalition was pretty bloody high, so maybe the bastards asked for everything they’re about to get, right?

The abolition of unfair dismissal laws is a real problem. It represents the logical conclusion to a battle the Liberals have been waging on workers for years. We’ve seen the increased casualisation of the workforce, which ensures people don’t have job security, which ensures the economy can’t grow effectively as people don’t feel secure enough in their unprotected jobs to fork out big wads of cash. We’ve seen Australian Workplace Agreements, which were brought in solely to lessen the strength of Australian unions and increase the power of the employer over the employee. Now we’re seeing unfair dismissal laws annulled for small businesses.

This could have a devastating effect on huge numbers of workers, who are now opened up to the possibility of being sacked without reason or recompense. The danger is that small businesses will no longer have to answer to anyone. Whilst the theory behind the abolition is sound enough – that small coffee shops shouldn’t face the same stringent workplace regulations as multi-national businesses – the end result is a weakening of the rights of Australian workers. The trade off isn’t worth it. Sharan Burrow from the Australian Council of Trade Unions has said the legislation is ‘…basically a licence for bullying and harassment in the workplace that will not create one extra job,’ and she’s not wrong.

And as for that other Liberal priority, the war on terrorism? Uh, I think we know how well that's going...

(Originally published in The Brag in the Fear & Loathing column. Written while drunk on justifiable Liberal-hating passion).

(Photo: Liberal man Joe Hockey, who has never played ice hockey).

Music Feature: Deja Voodoo.

There’s a fine history of bands that have come from television shows. There’s the Monkees and… well, I can’t think of any others. But now, Deja Voodoo can join that fine company.

They’re a four-piece that sprung from the dubious well that is Back Of The Y, a hit New Zealand show that involves sketches, satire and personal injury. The Brag sat down with guitarist/vocalist Matt Heath and bassist/vocalist Chris Stapp for some beverages and a chat at the Clare Hotel in Sydney.

How did Back Of The Y come about? ‘We wanted to make a show which is kind of like The Young Ones and The Goodies, and all the shows we used to watch as kids,’ says Chris. ‘We’re pretty high on really shit jokes. You could argue a lot of it’s really weak. A lot of it’s people slipping on banana peels – all the comedy standards. People getting hurt’s a big one, of course.’

‘It’s shot on Handycams, and the crew is just a bunch of our mates. There’s a lot of stunts and stuff,’ continues Chris. But despite the dodginess of the production values – or perhaps because of that – the show has scored itself a legion of dedicated fans. The show has ‘a pretty huge following over there,’ says Matt. ‘New Zealand television has had nothing like that ever, so they almost get nationalistic about it.’

Deja Voodoo were originally the house band on the show that most of the band members perform in, produce and write for. ‘We needed a band on the TV show, so it looked like Letterman,’ says Matt. ‘So we formed a band just to mime.’ But then, slowly but surely, the band developed into a full blown rock ‘n’ roll force, independent of Back Of The Y. ‘The band on the TV show is, like, three dudes dressed stupidly, miming to a 15 second tune. [But] one thing we’ve done in the last year and half is get really good at playing.’

What kind of fans do they get? ‘We call them Backies. They seem to be mainly teenage boys. We go down well at university gigs,’ says Matt. He tells of a show in Lincoln University in Dunedin. ‘It’s a farmer’s university. I’ve never seen uglier people in my life. They were all in-bred. Our audience was just the lowest of humanity. One guy wore a ribcage of meat on his head. One girl was standing behind him eating raw meat off a stick…’ He laughs. ‘Lovely people though.’

How hard was it to convince the Backies that the band could justify the leap from television mentalists to on-stage rock ‘n’ rollers? ‘The really hardcore Backie fans would’ve been just as happy if we were really shit,’ says Matt. ‘In fact, they thought it was selling out when we got really good.’ Chris continues: ‘We used to be mighty shit. We’d be quite hopeless [performing live], and we’ve have to give up half-way between songs. But we’ve kind of got our shit together now.’

Matt tells me that ‘the more bogan the audience is, the better we go down.’ But it’s not just carnivorous retards and bogans who love the band. They’ve come to be loved because of their Sabbath-esque rock ‘n’ roll and electrically awesome live shows.

They’ve released the first single from their album Brown Sabbath, called Beers. It’s been described by mates I’ve asked as both retarded and fun. Matt’s happy with that description. ‘There’s a thin line between retarded and awesome.’

Deja Voodoo are definitely awesome, and certainly retarded. Their album Brown Sabbath is out now through Liberation Music. Look out for an Aussie tour soon.

(Originally published in The Brag).

Politics: Tony Abbott: An Objectively Grave Matter.

‘An objectively grave matter has been reduced to a question of the mother's convenience …Even those who think that abortion is a woman's right should surely be troubled by the fact that 100,000 Australian women choose to destroy their unborn babies every year…’

And with those words spoken at Adelaide University, Federal Health Minister Tony Abbott ignited a debate that many had assumed had already been won by the pro-choice side many years ago. Sure, his figures are way off (Medicare claims for abortion actually went down by 3654 to 72,554 from ’01-02 to 02-’03), but his Catholic moralising has successfully put the abortion debate back on the map.

Terribly, abortion is legal only in South Australia, where it was decriminalised in 1969. In all other states, abortion remains a criminal offence. However, no prosecutions are on record in any state, and the procedure is federally-funded by Medicare. Hence, abortion is practically legal, albeit not judicially.

And thankfully, on a state level, it should remain practically legal, as it is a state matter. All the states and territories boast Labor premiers, and the Labor party is a pro-choice party, as leader Mark Latham thankfully emphasised recently: ‘You've got to respect the right of women to make a choice and you've got to respect the fact that they get expert medical advice from their doctors ‘

The danger inherent in Abbott’s misogynist comments is that – with the full Liberal control of the Senate – the party can legislate its morals by restricting funding to what is essentially a ‘criminal act.’ By abolishing funding for the procedure through Medicare, Abbott and the Liberal party have the potential to restrict abortions to only those who can pay for the procedure from their own wallets.

Do ‘pro-lifers’ like Abbott have a point, morally? Absolutely. Abortion, for most, is a fundamentally shocking act. It clearly offends our sensibilities, and with good reason. As ‘pro-life’ advocates are all too keen to point out, in late-term cases (which are quite rare), abortion does involve dismemberment of the foetus to allow removal. And yes, the deliberate termination of the life of a potential human is confronting. There’s no argument that the procedure is a difficult one for many to come to terms with.

But despite the moral qualms, legal, fully-funded access to the procedure is essential. You may not support the procedure itself, but the support must be there for women having access to act.

It is abhorrent that so many powerful men think it their right to discuss the moral and legal implications of what is essentially a women’s right. To deny women the right to a legal, fully-funded abortion is tantamount to pushing the problem into the back alleys of Australia, leaving the poor and working-class to find solutions to their unwanted pregnancies without the necessary aide of medical professionals.

Abbott can have his fundamentalist Catholic views if he wishes, but he should keep them to himself. The vast majority of Australians support the right to abortion, and to have a the Federal Health Minister openly question that belief in a speech peppered with fallacy after fallacy is a disgrace, and an unsurprising indictment of the moral ineptitude of the Howard government. Abbott has been renowned as a misogynist – and homophobe, for what it’s worth – since his days at Sydney University. What is an ‘objectively grave’ matter is that he’s administering the federal health system.

(Originally published in The Brag in the Fear & Loathing column).

(Minister for Health, Tony Abbott, who is eligible for welfare benefits based solely on ear size).

Film: The Festival Express.

The Festival Express comes to town. It's 1970, the Summer Of Love is long gone, and Janis Joplin, The Band, The Grateful Dead and Buddy Guy are touring Canada, getting drunk and having fun. You up for the ride?

The Festival Express was a train taking rock ‘n’ roll greats around Canada in 1970, so that they could play a number of festivals. The Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, The Band, The Flying Burrito Brothers and many more toured around the country, living together, partying together and jamming together. This film documents six days of rock harmony, in which so many elements that made the late 60s music scene so great come together to form one beautiful whole.

It’s an eerie film, in the best way. So many of the greats depicted here are long departed, now rendered alive and moving in this film. There’s Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead, all scruffy beard and dorky glasses, jamming with mates and occasionally pausing to play the classic tale of the Altamont disaster, New Speedway Boogie. There’s Janis Joplin, the passionate blues great, who betrays just a little bit of awkward self-loathing… but then sings Cry, Baby like her life depended on it, which it probably did in many ways (she was to die just months later at age 27, the victim of a heroin overdose).

The concert footage is fantastic, expertly filmed and edited. The sound is superb. But it’s the old footage of the bands on the train, ludicrously drunk for the most part, that is so special. All the rock ‘n’ roll legends are shown as completely human, swapping their stories and hugging each other. We see a group of musicians still recovering from the brutal slaying of the hopes and dreams they built up over the Summer Of Love, coming together to mourn the passing of the 60s and the beginning of the 70s.

This doco does everything right. As a period film, it captures the mood perfectly. Much of the film is packed with vicious brawls and angry young people, taking any excuse to bash a cop, not wanting to pay for anything. Outside of the train, there’s a sense of loathing and foreboding, as many experience the death of the American dream. But inside the train, the spirit and freedom of the late 60s lives on. And it’s that spirit which makes the film so awesome – the togetherness with your fellow man, the oneness with nature, and the willingness to share whatever you have.

As a concert film, it's near perfect, suffering only slightly because you leave the film wanting even more footage. As a road trip movie - albeit on a railroad - it's fantastic, a journey to the heart of the American dream that Hunter Thompson searched for years later in Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas.

For anybody with an appreciation of ludicrously good music – and when you see The Band play Nazareth, you’ll know your appreciation is justified – this is a must-see. Make a night out of it… check out the film, and head home to a big record collection, put on The Band, light up a joint and go back to a time when the music meant everything.

(Originally published at inthemix.com.au).

Politics: The Big One: The US Elections.

‘If you try to predict this thing, you're a moron’

– Jim Axelrod, CBS News

At the time of writing, millions of US voters are lining up to cast their votes. Voter turn out is expected to be absolutely huge, with predictions of up to 121 million punters – or 60 percent of eligible voters - taking to the booths. It seems this election will see the highest turnout since 1960, when pro-Civil Rights hornbag John F. Kennedy beat renowned sleazebag Richard Nixon.

Clearly, people are worried about where the US – and hence, unfortunately, the world – is heading. When 60 per cent of Americans brave rain, snow and cold Autumn winds to exercise their democratic right, you know that there must be something important about the election result. And there is: although Kerry’s ideologies are traditionally conservative, if Bush wins it will represent a vote of confidence in a man internationally renowned as an horrific exemplar of everything wrong with cultural imperialism and moralist puritanism. Clearly I don’t need to go into why – Michael Moore and most Sydney University arts student have done that for me.

US presidential races have always had a huge effect on international politics – just ask any Cuban who was around 50 years ago. But it’s rare that international consensus is met and every country agrees that this election could set the tone for world politics for the next four years. Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper had this to say: ‘

Perhaps a national election in another country has never before been followed with so much intensity, participation and partiality. The decision between Bush and Kerry can be defined as the first global election, in which 130 million voters in the USA function as a planetary parliament and elect deputies on our behalf to represent six billion men and women.’

But can the US function adequately as a planetary parliament? A team of international election observers is wary of that, especially after the roguish thievery seen under the Florida sun in 2000. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe has sent over its vigilant, United Nations-backed corps to oversee what many are prediction will be an election steeped in controversy and corruption.

It’s hard to imagine the kind of manipulation that goes on in the US, where many partisan punks think it acceptable to deny their countrymen the right to vote... especially if they're black. Most of them are Republicans, but that should surprise no one – if all the black people in America voted, George W. Bush would be beaten so brutally that his blood would stain the white marble of the White House for years to come.

Hopefully we’ll have a clear winner by the time this article goes to print. And hopefully that clear winner isn’t Bush.

(Originally published in The Brag in the Fear & Loathing column).

(Photo: John Kerry, who secretly uses non-Heinz ketchup on his french fries and then feels guilty about it later).

Politics: The Internet Makes You Stupid.

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Politics: The Killing Moon.

Unfortunately for everyone who still harbours murderous desires towards the ideologies of Howard and his compadres, the incendiary passions that were ignited before October 9^th seem to be fizzling out. People – bar Labor members - are forgetting how angry the election result made them, and they’re getting on with their everyday business. Just as John Howard himself seems keen on doing.

At the time of writing, Howard is in Indonesia, shaking hands and smiling his goofy smile in photo opportunities with President-elect Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. Whilst he’s in the throes international relations in South East Asia, the Labor party continues to predictably crumble.

Lindsay Tanner, Labor’s communication spokesman, is the latest to move from the shadow cabinet to the shadows of the backbench. Tanner is the latest in a series of frontbench deserters who have cited uncertainty with the direction the party is going. Anyone even vaguely familiar with the brutal machinations of the Labor knows there’s no doubt more to the story. Whenever Labor heads roll – and they often do – you can be sure that the axe came down as a result of embarrassing in-fighting.

Labor suffers from these problems after every election loss. It suffers because it is a party perpetually trying to find an equilibrium between its traditional working-class ethos and its aspiration-loving new school. It is also a party trying to find a way to successfully incorporate its union heritage into the demanding global economics of 2005. Unlike the Liberals – who can always rely on strong economic management mixed with a little bit of ‘traditional values’ and xenophobia – Labor is always trying to come to terms with what the party is and what it should become.

The Labor party will still be reeling from its loss in a year. They must now rely on savvy frontbenchers like Kevin Rudd, Stephen Smith and Julia Gillard to remain confident and ride out the ugly times.

Until those ugly times cease, the Labor party may just have to rely on that anonymous graffiti writer delivering on his maniacal promise.

(Originally published in The Brag in the Fear & Loathing column. I've since been informed that the graffiti writer in question is in fact a woman).

Politics: Fat Wallets And Weak Hearts: The Post-Election Malaise.

Well, gosh golly darn it, the Liberals are back. Now, post-election, it seems laughable that most pundits - myself included - were predicting an incredibly tight race. Now we know that Latham and his Labor boys were beaten so brutally that it’ll be a wonder if they can keep from self-imploding over the next three years. This will be an incredibly ugly three years for the Labor party, as they realise they have to rethink things; health, education and the workplace are out, economic management is in.

The party, whether the signs show publicly or not, will be in turmoil. You can only get your collective arse whipped by the Australia people for so long before it starts to really sting. There will clearly be casualties, and there will obviously be horrible in-fighting. Just a couple of days after the election result, bespectacled left-wing stalwart – and Labor’s leader in the Senate since ’96 - John Faulker placed his head on the chopping block, admitting that he was partly responsible for Labor’s loss. The presumption is that he was partly behind the Tasmanian forestry policy which explicitly represented an alliance with the Greens (an alliance that most election analysts are saying may have cost Labor many of their votes). The fact that the man has clearly delivered for the Labor party for eight years has been ignored. After all, as Echo & The Bunnymen sang, heads will roll.

Labor members, and ex-members, will spend the next few weeks randomly placing blame on anything they can. We’ve had excuses from anonymous ex-Labor members, ex-Beazley Chief Of Staff Michael Costello, backbencher Graham Edwards, and many more. Here are some of the reasons they’ve claimed for Labor’s loss: Latham’s leadership (or lack thereof) and inability to gain the confidence of the Australian people, Labor’s lack of economic policy, the predominance of the Union movement in the party dictating policy, the deifying of Gough Whitlam, the perceived mediocrity of Shadow Ministers Kevin Rudd, Martin Ferguson, Kim Beazley, et al. The list goes on. Everyone’s up for having a crack, and if they keep it up Labor will go most of the way to securing another terrible loss in 2007. The party is clearly – and unsurprisingly – lacking the one thing they need right now: confidence.

Lack of confidence isn’t exclusive to Labor members: many Australians are feeling its wretched effects. For the 4.6 out of 10 Australians who voted for the Coalition, there are 5.4 who didn’t, and they’d all be well within their rights to shed tears into their pillows every night for the next three years. Australia – as a nation – is going to be severely damaged by Howard’s fourth term, and much of the damage will be irreversible. Much has been made of the Liberals scoring control of the Senate, and with good reason; Howard has effectively been given carte blanche to go buckwild with policy-making. The full sale of Telstra, media and marketplace deregulation, etc. are all go’ers. Howard says he won’t abuse the power, but that’s not hard to pick as a terrible, albeit necessary, lie. Our one hope is that the damage Howard will wreak on our nation will make people vote differently in ’07.

Now, with the election behind us and the results known, Australia faces some tough questions about where we’re going and what kind of country we want to be. Unfortunately, most of the answers seem like they’ll be based around the idea that any lies, half-truths and terrible deceits are acceptable as long as there’s the vague possibility of our wallets getting a bit fatter. We haven’t grasped yet, as a country, that a fat wallet won’t help you if your heart is weak.

(Originally published in The Brag in the Fear & Loathing column).

Politics: Biting The Bullet: The Prediction.

The problem with political jokes is they get elected.
– The famous-just-for-this-quote Henry Cate, VII.

By the time this goes to print, the election will have been decided. Either Latham or Howard will have been emblazoned on the cover of the paper, and champagne bottles will have been popped at someone’s party headquarter. If Howard scored a victory, there will already have been tears in the street and angered claims that ‘I’m moving to New Zealand.’ If Latham chalked up a win, there will have been armies of excited youths dancing in the streets, drunk on hope, eager to see if Big Mark will deliver on his promises.

As I write this on a sunny Thursday morning, two days before the big day, the election is clearly too close to call. Not even the big name election pundits have the confidence to come out and openly declare who will come home with the gold come Saturday night. Thankfully, I’m not a big name election pundit, so I’m happy to have a crack at a prediction: I think Howard will have been declared prime minister by the time you read this.

Christ, I hope I’m wrong. I hope that you’re scoffing at me. I hope that I’m laughably off the mark. I hope Howard was beaten red raw by a battalion of voters who’ve had enough. I hope he was belittled at the polls, shown up to be the despicable embarrassment to Australia that he is.

But for whatever reason – perhaps the effectiveness of Howard’s scare tactics or his viscerally effective ad campaign – the chilling ghost of political fear is tapping me on the shoulder, and he’s whispering in my ear that Howard will be with us for a few more years. I’m not the only one who can feel themselves – and Australia – surging towards a terrible malaise.

Things under Latham won’t be that much better. At a recent Press Gallery lunch he promised he wouldn’t rush into things a la Hawke or Whitlam. He’d take things slow. No matter how long it takes him, the fact is he doesn’t have the genuine working-class sensibilities and respect for the average ‘Aussie battler’ to really want to change things. He’ll beat those on welfare until they work. He’ll claim to reward aspiration, but then brutally punish those who are unsuccessful in their bids at economic success. Next to Howard, he’s brilliant, but he’s not going to take Australia where most forward-thinking lovers of equality and genuine decency want it to go.

But I’ve said it many times before: he’s not John Howard. I’m not sure I’ll be able to handle living under the man again. The problem isn’t so much that people voted for Howard – although that is a problem. The real problem is that a vote for Howard represents confidence in the direction Australia is going. If Howard is our prime minister as you read this, it means that a huge proportion of your fellow Australians believe we’re on the right track. It means many of your uncles, aunties, friends, sisters, brothers and lovers thought it wise to elect a man who clearly and explicitly expresses a love for the interests solely of the rich and political. A man who has done nothing to help Australia, bar deliver tax cuts now and then to appease the cash-loving.

The thought is a terrible one. But if I’m wrong, and Howard has been run out of Canberra with the burning crosses of democracy, I’ll be drinking right now. I will be cheers-ing to Howard being beaten brutally with the baseball bats of equality and rightness. I will have a little more faith in my fellow countrymen.

But if I’m right, and that dirty little swine is in office again, what does that say about Australia?

(Originally published in The Brag).

Rookie: Michelle St. Anne.

Upcoming at the Tap Gallery in Darlinghurst is a production attractively and enigmatically entitled The Intimacies Of Women. Produced by the Living Room Theatre group, it has been a collaborative effort between the actors and artistic director / actor Michelle St. Anne, who tells us about Intimacies and how she got into theatre.

Tell us about The Intimacies Of Women. How was it created?

Intimacies is a beautiful work set in a displaced restaurant with a group of women trying to find comfort and resolution in a surreal and coded world. They travel through their dreams constantly being dragged back by the domestic world, trying to find resolution. Women dream, compartmentalise, and document their lives and world and it is this that I attempt to capture. It was created through a group of experiments dealing with my obsessions.

The Living Room theatre website says the company aims to present the dichotomy of beauty and suffering. What do beauty and suffering mean to you and how do they interact with each other?

Wow, I guess I’m interested in the beauty in suffering and the suffering in beauty and that pivotal point. Beauty to me is Film Noir, is Prague in winter, is a cat sleeping on a doona in the spring sun. Suffering is the film going haywire, is a dining table in Prague that is empty with children all around it, is the memory of the cat which was killed last week. I guess suffering for me gives a certain comfort or reality check whereas beauty can lift us out of the domestic and into the epic. Into the fabulous world of dreams.

How did the Living Room theatre group get started?

I come from an acting background with a passion for the classics. Unfortunately most directors and producers found it difficult to cast me as a Juliet or Irina or even a Miss Julie [because] I’m a short Indian person! I soon started collaborating for small works and found I had a great passion for it.

Sick of doing ethnic specific work and inspired [by] the work of companies like Sydney Front and Entr’act - I saw my first penis in their production of Ostraka - I realised this [the theatre] is where I wanted to be – not necessarily naked!

I was waiting for the bus outside the Strand Arcade and all of a sudden I thought of how much I missed my sleep. How much I enjoyed it. So it was here where the first seed [to start the Living Room Theatre] started to germinate. I formed a small ensemble and we worked together for 9 months before we opened in March 2001. The work was well received because it was “different”…

Was there a moment when you realised you were really into the theatre?

The moment came in Mrs Spalding’s dance routine to Fame where I felt a lot taller than the four foot fuck-all ten that I was. Years later, after performing at the Asian Open House at Belvoir St., people came to me and asked if I was the girl in the show “cause you looked a whole lot bigger on stage”. So maybe it’s just that theatre gives me height. Although I am itching to make a film. Sometimes I think what I want to create in theatre is better served by film or maybe I just need to bit of funding so I can afford my clever dreams!

(Originally published in The Brag in the Rookie column).

Politics: The Lesser Of Two Evils.

Unsurprisingly, Mark Latham looks to garner the majority of his votes this year more for what he isn’t than for what he is. Very few seem to genuinely like the man. Some consider him a vicious thug hellbent on beating taxi drivers for sick fun, smoking cones and rooting chicks. Some consider him a flip-flopping spastic who seemingly constructs policy by throwing a few darts at a board with random traditionalist Labor policies tacked on to it. But most define him by one simple point: he is not John Winston Howard.

Many an Australian punter – and pretty much every left-leaning young hipster who has ever written for street press – considers it a ludicrous affront to everything good and right about the country we live in that John Howard could possibly win yet another election. For the last month, and leading up until October 9^th, Latham has been lauded willy-nilly. This column has proclaimed his education policy one of the best Labor policies in 30 years. It has propped his health funding plans and defended his economic policies. But the Latham love is predominantly based on the unfortunate reality that he represents – say it with me now – the ‘lesser of two evils.’ Oh, the sweet and sour taste of two-party democracy.

But is voting for the lesser of two evils a valid plan? Is simply voting for anyone but John Howard an acceptable stand to place your ideological hat? The Australian Spartacists, for one, don’t think so. Indeed, in their hearts and minds, communism and Marxism lives on. They’re a ludicrously well-informed bunch, with an outrageous knowledge of history, economics and the ways in which power is constructed. However, unlike most informed left-wing groups, they’re taking the stance that voting for Latham isn’t acceptable, regardless of who he isn’t. In the latest issue of Australian Spartacist they make this viewpoint clear:

With over 22 percent of the population officially living in poverty, the sick and disabled unable to afford medicines or care, repression against trade unionists, Aborigines and immigrants confronting cop raids and the Australian military assisting in the bloody occupation of Iraq, it is understandable that many want to see the end of the hated Howard regime. However, whichever major party wins the upcoming federal elections, it will mean continued attacks on the working people and oppressed in the interests of the profit-hungry capitalist rulers.

‘Latham’s Australian Labor Party, a very right-wing bourgeois workers party, is committed to delivering more of the same racist reaction, strong state militarism and cuts to social welfare programs as the Liberal/National Coalition. We Trotskyists of the Spartacist League say there is (to our knowledge) no party standing in these elections that offers workers the opportunity to vote for their own class interests, however crudely, against their class enemy, the capitalist rulers. We say no vote to the racist, anti-working-class ALP!

Their argument against the Latham vote goes on, citing Latham’s support of increased border security and military focus on South East Asia as examples of his party’s right-wing inclinations, especially with noted military-lover Kim Beazley as shadow defence minister. Latham has also – terribly – shown a lack of concrete support for gay marriages, a move that has rightfully angered the ever-indignant Greens.

The point is this: Latham isn’t John Howard, and that’s fantastic. It’s hard not to instantly like anyone who isn’t that despicable punk. But Latham shouldn’t be lauded simply for offering an alternative to the current prime minister. If you choose to vote for Labor, you should know who you’re voting for, not just who you’re voting against.

(Originally published in The Brag in the Fear & Loathing column).

Pubs & Bars: The Marquee (128 Pyrmont Bridge Rd. Camperdown)

Hang on dudes, what the fuck? Did I miss a memo? Was there some sort of meeting? When did Sydney decide to have such an awesome live music scene? Just a few months I ago I remember people whinging to me about how terrible the music scene was. I’d meet old, long-haired blokes on trains who’d tell me that ‘it’s never really been the same since Nick Cave played at Alexandria back in ’79.’ People in bands would say ‘I can’t get a gig anywhere! Live music is dead!’ Tim Freedman wrote Blow Up The Pokies and it was totally on point.

But now Sydney’s live music scene has gone fucking nuts. I have no idea how I missed it happening, but I’m glad it did. One of the reasons Sydney’s scene is so hot right now is that there are some great bloody venues: The Annandale, The Lansdowne, The Excelsior, The Gaelic Club, The Metro, The Harp, The Cat & Fiddle, @ Newtown, et al.

Now you can add the Marquee to the list. Jesus christ wearing a trucker hat, this place is awesome. Awesome interior? Check! Awesome sound? Check! Awesome location? Check! Awesome bands? Check! Cheap drinks? Uh…four out of five ain’t bad.

The Marquee is dark, with a few splashes of red lighting across the walls. There’s a pool table up the back, and a whole bunch of separate seating areas for the punter who doesn’t want to brave the mosh. The bar is large, meaning you don’t have to bash people mercilessly just to buy a schooie. There’s heaps of space. If they’d let me, I reckon I’d go to the Marquee just to roll around on the carpet.

It looks nice, it sounds nice, it feels nice. It’s the Marquee. Rock.

(Originally published in The Brag as part of the Hot Joints column).