A couple of things.

Well, that Community Cup was fun.

That's me telling off a photographer, for snapping me while I was asking that homeless guy for a cigarette. And I got to see my old mate Phil Bryant (of the Corpsegrinders) dressed as a woman. And the right team won, too- the RRR/PBS Megahertz got up by one point.
Also- I have recently been asked to get involved with a new blog hub thing, you gonna get it. So (most) of what goes up here will also be found there, alongside a bunch of other folks' stuff. Mostly music based, mostly Australian. It's a cool idea, and there are no ads or fine print. If you have a blog, drop them a line.

An ache I can't shake.

Well, I'm still recovering from Boogie, almost a week later. Great weather, 30 or so bands, a 1000 or so beers. Highlights included ECSR, Puta Madre, and Dan Auerbach's surprise Sunday set. Box Wars and a bottomless margarita were just the icing on the cake. It sold me- I'll be back next year for sure.
Anyway, to business.
One of my favorite haunts, the Old Bar, is celebrating shit again on Friday:

That's pretty damn good value, actually.
I can't find out much about this "Afternoon In St. Kilda" thing, not even a decent .jpeg of the flier, but it looks interesting:

The line up includes GUT, Tim Rogers, the Crack Whores Dave Larkin and Smoke Machine- Dave Last's latest carcrash of an outfit. $50 gets you beers, drinks and BBQ from 3.00pm til it runs out, and it's all for a good cause.
This one's even harder to read, but I suspect that's deliberate:

The Gruntled, still Australia's best avant-medieval improvised drone noise psychedelic combo after five years of making music influenced by Syd Barrett, medieval songs about drinking, love and death, Can, Neu!, The Misunderstood and The Electric Prunes, are playing a few shows in Fitzroy, Melbourne next week.
If you've never heard them, you may want to check out the samples available at that link there before heading off to the Birmingham on Saturday. Just sayin'.

Sacredsexstkilda

The Sacred Cowboys blow back into their spiritual home, St. Kilda for a one-off in the Greyhound back room, with support from the Exotics and the Frowning Clouds This is pretty much a must-see. If you never saw this band in their early 80s heyday you missed a real experience, some of which can be captured on their double CD “Nailed to the Cross”, just out on Savage Beat, with excellent liner notes.

Fans will be reunited with memories of their compelling combination of mesmerizing lyrics and swirling wall of sound guitars which saw them quickly become one of the hottest alternative bands on the scene back in the day, and a
major drawcard especially in hometown Melbourne and Sydney (where they found kindred spirits like The Scientists).
Something of a post-punk supergroup (with members drawn from the original line-up of Models and Suicide Records group The Negatives), The Sacred Cowboys gained instant notoriety when they appeared in '82, thanks to frontman Garry Gray's chainsaw wielding antics on stage. They played a wild, dangerous and completely unique brand of rockn'roll inspired by the artists whose material they covered, including SUICIDE, ALAN VEGA, CAPTAIN BEEFHEART, CRAMPS, VELVET UNDERGROUND, CREEDENCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL and ALEX CHILTON.
A reconstituted Sacred Cowboys line-up will be playing a showcase of special Victorian gigs during their Australian tour in April/May 2008. Featuring founding members GARRY GRAY and MARK FERRIE with PENNY IKINGER on guitar, and the band's second phase 'Trouble From Providence' rhythm section of NICK RISCHBIETH and STEPHAN FIDOCK.

More St. Kilda shenanigans tomorrow night- Elbow Room launch their stage version of seminal dirty book “Venus In Furs” at Theatreworks in Acland St.

Venus In Furs inspired the diagnosis of a whole new category of sexual perversion. Since the 1800s, masochism has largely shrugged off its unsavoury reputation, attaining a kind of underground ‘glamour’. Today it has well and truly been embraced by the mainstream, its ubiquity obvious in the burgeoning popularity of all forms of fetishistic entertainment, particularly the recent resurgence of burlesque. In revisiting the original text, Elbow Room brings to the stage the source of an entire genre of sexual gratification and entertainment in a timely reminder of the continuing influence of Sacher-Masoch’s novel.

My 1970 edition of this is illustrated:

But not in as saucy a manner as you may expect, and it is still as dull a read as ever, regardless. What can be done with it onstage remains to be seen.

Note- if I could have been bothered I’d have put a segue in between those two, about the Sacred Cowboys playing “Run Run Run” live or something. But I didn't. Sorry.

Rock 'n' Roll Outlaws photo exhibition

Rock n Roll Outlaws is a photographic exhibition featuring live images of some of the most rebellious & outrageous performers in this land; wild childs, rock icons & legends.

Featuring work from Liz Reed, Jo Richards, Gary Hallenan, Tracey McLaren, Andrew MacColl, Paul Jones, Victor Joubert, Heather Venn, Ben Swinnerton, Melynda and Nicole Cleary.


This is running at Brightspace in St. Kilda from 7th-16th February. On Sunday 10th February, there will be live performances at the gallery between 2.00 and 6.00 pm, by Kim Volkman, Penny Ikinger, Lookout Mountain and Gary Hallenan & Co.

Brian Hooper pic by Liz Reed, Chrissy Amphlett by Heather Venn

Greyhound to go gay?

I've heard some rumours recently that the Greyhound Hotel , arguably St. Kilda's last surviving real rock venue, is to be transformed into a full time gay bay in the next couple of months.
This annoys and saddens me on a couple of levels. Historically, St. Kilda was always something of a gay hub- who remembers those drag queen photos that used to line the staircase at the Prince Of Wales?- and still hosts the Gay Pride march each year. However, the centre of gay culture in Melbourne seems to have cemented itself fairly firmly a couple of kilometers away, in Prahran. Up there, The Market Hotel, where I once saw bands like Little Murders, International Exiles & the Nicest People , has been a gay bar for years now.
The drag show in the back room of the Greyhound has peacefully co-existed with the rock & roll in the front bar for years. I just can't see how the place will survive as a full time gay venue though- those long term customers who prop up the bar each day will go elsewhere, for a start, and the location is, as I say, outside the gay district. Where will the bands be able to play now?
And why do we need segregated bars these days anyway?
It seems to be a bad decision on a few different levels, and I hope the rumours turn out to be false. The 24 hour kebab shop/garage across the road is being demolished soon (where will the Carlisle St. working girls get their 3.00am dim sims & cans of Coke?) and if the gay thing doesn't fly, I can see the 'Hound being converted into apartments in the next year or two.