Pubs & Bars: @ Newtown (52 Enmore Rd. Newtown).

I'll be honest. When I was asked to check this place out, I was totally non-plussed to be peeping a place with a name like a fucking e-mail address. It made me assumed the place was half webcafe, full of sunburnt, nubile Swedes and irritatingly-accented English chaps. It made me think the drinks menu would read 'appl3t1n1s r h3aps yum n onl1 n9n3 buck$$ lolz.' And it made me assume whoever named the place was drunk and far too enamoured with their shift key.

But despite my apprehensions at the dubious name, @ delivers in a totally non-internet-related way. It's a sister venue to the Petersham RSL, but unlike an RSL club there are few very drooling gambling addicts to be found. Instead, @ dishes up divinely comfy lounges, well-priced pints of beer and frankly awesome live entertainment.

Jackie Orszaczky plays on Tuesday nights, and you'd be hard-pressed to find better free entertainment in Sydney. When I last saw this Jackie O character I was almost tempted to dance until I remembered I was a drunk white male and decided to spare society such a sight. In a world gone made with drug-fuelled capitalist greed, it's a pleasure to see a place that sets out to support the arts, especially when the arts involves such a talented individual as that bespectacled, piccolo bass playing genius.

@'s website says the venue is 'Sexy, Atmospheric, Inspiring.' Whilst someone needs to get their fuckin' hand off it, I'm going to make the rare move of not being a total sarcastic bastard and dismissing the place just because of that wanktastic slogan. In fact, I actually hope this place is inspiring. If more venues took a leaf out of @'s book, we'd have a much healthier live music scene, and I wouldn't be forced to rely on drunken renditions of Khe Sanh in my search for in-pub entertainment. Which would be nice.

(Originally published in The Brag as part of the Under The Bar column).

Pubs & Bars: Judgement Bar (189 Oxford St. Darlinghurst).

I'm missing something here. So often I hear passionate cries of 'dude, let's hit the fuckin' Judgey!' When someone proclaims this, all those around me will whoop and holler and dance a jig, much like those hat-wearing, pantaloon-sporting gold-diggers of yesteryear when they had struck gold. So many of my mates get excited at the prospect of going to Judgement Bar, seriously.

What the fuck are you people doing? What justifiable reason is there for the Judgey to be so hot right now? It's full of gross young men wearing aesthetically inappropriate garb and quoting Swingers, not sure whether they're being ironic or just retarded. Occasionally some indie rock kids turn up to discuss whether Brodie Dalle is a sell-out or not. Sometimes, in rare moments of glory, the guitarist from some inner-city indie group will turn up for a beer. Awesome!

I concede that maybe I'm missing something. There must be some reason why so many of my fun-loving brethren adore it so. Maybe I've just gone on the wrong nights. Maybe there's a certain charm - a predictable je ne sais quoi - to hanging out at such a terrible non-event of a pub, and I'm just not getting it. Maybe there's a secret, ludicrously fun hidden room within the walls of the Judgey that everyone at the Judgey knows about except me. But I doubt it.

The whole thing confuses me, like the ending of Donnie Darko. Except Donnie Darko was good.

(Originally not published in The Brag as part of the Under The Bar column because it apparently antagonised its target market. Pssh!).

Pubs & Bars: The Town Hall Hotel (326 King St. Newtown).

Reviews are supposed to sway you. They exist to show you, the reader, what you should do with your life in a consumerist sense. Should you buy the new Hilary Duff CD? Should you order Lusty, Busty Sluts 39 from that mail order catalogue? Should you go to that embarrassment to Sydney bars, the hilariously harem-themed indictment of taste Zanzibar?

Indeed, Reviews are the guiding light in a world full of darkness and jeans that are too low.

Having said all that, there is no conceivable way I could change anybody's opinion of the Town Hall Hotel. I could berate it for its lack of aesthetic flair, I could scoff at its sometimes dubious clientele and I could express my disgust at once finding a pair of turd-stained undies in the men’s toilets. But it wouldn’t make a fucking difference, because everyone who has been to the Townie knows it’s marvelous.

There is no greater stalwart in the inner city of Sydney. The Townie is open when you want it to be, its bouncers are only occasionally cockheads and the beers are cheap. The crowd represents everything good and right about Newtown; goths worshiping Satan and drinking VB; no-hopers hell-bent on death through alcoholism; punk rockers with questionable haircuts; schizophrenics who’ll threaten to beat you then buy you a beer; nerds who masturbated over Return Of The King; and ageing rockers who pretend they don’t want to be noticed.

There’s something good and right about the Townie. There’s some unspoken bond that tells everyone there that they’re doing something good - that with every beer they drink they’re one step closer to their fellow man. They’re probably not, but the feeling is there. And sometimes feelings are all that we have. Especially when we’ve drunk too much. Amen.

(Originally published in The Brag as part of the Under The Bar column).

Pubs & Bars: Café Lounge (277 Goulburn St. Darlinghurst).

Nestled sweetly away from Oxford St. lies one of the most scandalously chilled-out bars in Sydney. It’s hidden from the hustle and bustle of the Oxford strip, bypassing all the posing and insanely tight shirts, and getting straight to the core of what you really want: a place to relax and unwind.

As you walk in to Café Lounge, you’re greeted by a bright red and yellow mural depicting palm trees. And yet it’s not kitschy or lame. It’s just cool. This mural looks down upon heaps of comfy seats located outdoors. Heating is provided for those who adore drinking al fresco (and fuck, who doesn’t?). Indoors provides the same level of comfort sans smoking and weather fluctuations.

Surprisingly for such a cool place, the crowd tends to err towards the awesome as opposed to the pretentiously wanktastical. You won’t see many trucker caps here – just nice dudes and tigers talking about the arts, music and culture. It's like the backyard of your dreams.

I was hesitant to review the place simply because I don’t really want people to know how fantastic it is. And yet, despite my elitist apprehensions, I feel a duty to inform the readers of The Brag that Café Lounge represents a high-water mark in Sydneybars. Whilst Water Bar takes the up-market prize, Café represents fulfilment of the potential that chilled-out bars have. Other chill-out bars aspire solely to garnering the support of Von Dutch-sporting spastics, but Café Lounge just wants people who want to be taken away from the oft-oppressive realities of our capitalist existence. Café Lounge yearns for people who just want to relax with their mates and take in the world. And every night of the week, Café Lounge gives these people a beautiful venue to do it.

(Originally published in The Brag as part of the Under The Bar column).

Pubs & Bars: Zanzibar (323 King St. Newtown).

Some places are just wrong, like my kitchen sink and the vast majority of Mosman. Whilst I do a good job of not visiting those places, somehow I still occasionally find myself in Zanzibar. Which is no good, because my presence and drink-buying cash only encourages this mockery of aesthetics. It’s a guilt I’ll just have to learn to deal with.

The bar’s website claims it is “an exotic oasis located in the heart of vibrant King Street”. This might be true, or it may well be one of the most insidious lies in the history of the world. The place actually looks more like a very, very cheap harem without any of the exotic Eastern beauties one would rightfully expect to see lounging at a harem. I’m fairly sure that every time I enter Zanzibar, the décor kills a part of my soul.

What the place lacks in looking acceptable to the human eye, it more than makes up for in having some of the worst bouncers in Sydney. Seriously. They roam around the bar making the punters feel awkward. They wear headsets I’m fairly sure aren't even connected to anything. And the door guys won't let people in because... well, they don't need a reason.

But wait! There are some good aspects to Zanzibar. The upstairs bit isn’t too bad in the same way serious injury isn’t that bad when compared to gruesome death. They have bar food, which tends to be just what you want when you’re at Zanzibar, and hence presumably sickeningly intoxicated. And best of all, ol’ Zanzy occasionally delivers on its promise of being open 24 hours. Of course, usually they shut around 4am because they are a pack of filthy liars.

Zanzibar is just…wrong.

(Originally published in The Brag as part of the Under The Bar column).

Music Feature: Marky Ramone

Let’s talk rock ‘n’ roll chaos theory. Let’s pretend, for a few minutes, that the members of the Ramones were butterflies. Now let’s pretend that those butterflies never flapped their wings. What kind of world do we live in? One in which thousands of new butterflies never live: the Strokes, N.E.R.D, the Dandy Warhols, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and so many more. It’s retarded (in a good way) how many bands have borrowed from the Ramones, either sonically or aesthetically.

The Ramones proved that three chords, a steady drumbeat and a whole lotta’ passion were all one needed to rock the fuck out. Marky Ramone sat behind the kit for the the New York legends, making him veritable rock royalty. This also means he has profoundly more interesting stories than the guys at the RSL who talk about greyhounds and whether imperial beats metric.

Now Marky is sharing these stories. He’s been around the world telling kids everywhere about the old days, when punk rock was pure and innocent (except for the smack habits). Now he’s hitting Australia, providing us a glimpse of what it was like to be there at the dawn of Punk Creation. He’ll be showing a video he made of his time in the Ramones, speaking about the highs and lows of his time in the band, and then playing some classic tracks with local band the Spazzys. Finally, there’ll be a Q&A session, giving rock-nerds the chance to pick some punk-brain.

The international tour has been going well. ‘Other countries have been surprised a Ramone can talk,’ says Marky. ‘They expect fumbling, mumbling, speaking in Brooklyn-like “duh, duh, duh” and all that.’ Punters have found that Marky doesn’t just talk about the Ramones. ‘It’s [also about] my time in the scene with Wayne County, Richard Hell... auditioning for the New York Dolls.’

Marky speaks in a ludicrously relaxed New York drawl. He oozes unaffected nonchalance, speaking like it wouldn’t matter whether he was on a street corner or up on stage in front of hundreds of rock-lovers. He knows he was in a classic band but he’d still have a beer with you.

And the Ramones are classic. Judy Is A Punk was awesome back in 1976 and it’s awesome now. What does Marky think of this consistent Ramones-love? ‘It’s great... You gotta’ be grateful for that. Obviously a lot of the youth are relating to us in a lot of ways, whether it’s the music, the energy, the look, the simplicity.’

Every time you slip on a pair of black Chuck Taylor’s, be thankful that those butterflies flapped their wings.

(Originally published in The Brag. Note: this was my first interview ever! And it was with a Ramone!).