The Needle and the Damage Done Blog - Where war is declared.
27th March 2009
18th February - Where war is declared.
To COLAC
It's all about the tectonic plates in Colac. Not only is it located on the world's third largest volcanic plain (take that, Pompeii), it is also home to the world's most volcanic cappuchino. I've seen some coffees in my time, but this is the first where an entire civilisation was destroyed as the tragedy unfolded.
We're on route to Colac when Kat and I begin to plot against the hire car. Oh, sure, it's great in many ways - if you like driving a faux SUV, fearing parking, and having other drivers silently hate you. And it's not that we're ungrateful. But the damn thing won't stop beeping at us.
If you're like me and drive a car that's more than ten minutes old, you may not know that new cars react INTENSELY if you don't put your seat belt on NOW. BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP. It's like being nagged by a robot child in the oil aisle of the supermarket. There are two problems here. One, yes, we know, we're meant to strap in the second we plonk our shapely rear ends on the car seats, but, throw us a bone here, can you back off? Is it really the end of the world if we wait until we're leaving the motel carpark to put our belts on? Two, Whichever genius created this design feature neglected to factor in that we might put luggage weighing more than, I don't know, 5 grams, on one of the rear seats, thus triggering the alarm to go off incessantly while we're zipping along the highway at 100km an hour and causing me to yell ‘shuttup' many times at the dashboard (note: ineffective). The only solution appears to be to engage all the seatbelts before we load the car. We loathe this function, and Kat is determined to isolate the fuse responsible and remove it. I am supporting her in this, as it may keep me from axing our shiny RAV4 to death.
The Needle is gracing the Colac Otwey Performing Arts and Cultural Centre, which feels much more like a cinema complex than a theatre - exhibits 1 through 17 being a popcorn machine, acres of carpet in bright primary swirls of colour that induce hallucinations if looked at directly, and film posters up on every wall (yes, I'm quite the Agatha Christie, aren't I?). Plus, inside the auditorium itself, a hole as large as Iceland's economy right in the middle of the audience.
Big deal, I hear you say, and if you're watching a movie, it indeed has all the impact of a 2am lockout on binge drinking. However, when you're on stage performing in front of it, the audience doesn't have a centre, and your energy has nowhere to ‘land'. Think of it as a pair of novelty undies with no crotch. Fortunately, in every other way it's a great venue, and show is received well by 100 or so of Colac's more adventurous types. The venue staff definitely register high on Colac's ‘adventurous' register, and press several half bottles of Shiraz in our general direction after the show.
The rockin' Ruth, Jamie and Keith. Note suggestive placement of water bottle in the foreground.
Quote of the day:
Kat, upon me showing her the ‘Vultures Circle' cover of the Herald Sun, detailing the ways people are taking advantage of the vulnerable after the bush fires.
"Oh good. Just spotted themselves on the newstands have they?"
February 19th - In which we have our first walk out. Of course, when I say ‘we', I mean ‘I'...
To PORTLAND
The first in our occasional series on the shops we happen upon in our travels which use bad spelling and peculiar graphic design to attract attention.
No 1 - If ee cummings had run a manchester shop.
Portland is pretty much gorgeous. It's beachside, with a commanding view of Australia's most impressive mountain of woodchips (if by ‘impressive' you mean ‘depressing if you consider the number of trees which died here'), with whizzo playground equipment, a large tiled shell/ladyparts sculpture, and to date the best bun and op-shops on the south coast.
Me, reclining and contemplating life in the ‘ladyparts' sculpture.
A truly exceptional painting, on display in the Kopi café, generously on loan from the Germaine Greer private collection. Who amongst us has not yearned to paint a pole dancer who is actually chained to her pole? A haunting and pointed representation of the feminist dialectic, the male gaze, and the right of all women to embrace their ‘inner pole'.
It's taken us a couple of weeks, but Kat and I are finally up to op-shopping speed. I've basically given up op-shopping in Melbourne. The charity shops are no longer the rivers of gold they were in the eighties and nineties, when you could pick up a 70's leopard skin jump suit for $6. Back in the day I used to date the drummer from high camp 70's cover band the Melody Lords, and I outfitted half the group within two days - including platforms - from about 4 op-shops. Those days are long gone, and whatever slim pickings remain are completely overgrazed by a new generation of fire-twirlers and inner-suburban geeks. I certainly wouldn't say that country op-shops have great clothes, but there are still some gems to be found in the record sections.
Check out the cuffs. Mr Valentino also, according to the back of the album, has a degree in child psychology and likes to ‘tame wild owls' in his spare time. And who can go past ‘Religious Gold'? Not me, that's for sure.
And, yes, the walk-out. I get the feeling this may not be the first, now I'm away from the safe harbour of inner city Melbourne. The Portland audience is small but enthusiastic, but all the buzz in the foyer afterwards was about the middle-aged man who walked out towards the end of the show (just after I began eating a cream bun during the ‘Music Your Parents Had Sex To' section). There are several possible scenarios for the walk-out, most of which involved him needing to use the bathroom, but for the first time it seems possible that I may have offended someone. Crikey.
February 20th - Where there is another walk-out. What's the matter with these people?
To HORSHAM
On arriving at our motor lodge we are told that a wedding reception is being held in their dining room that evening, so we won't be able to eat there. Another dream bites the dust.
The Needle is on at the Wesley Performing Arts Centre, a gorgeous venue. Originally a church, the Wesley Performing Arts Centre still has the original, massive, pipe organ onstage, a wooden floor, and pew style seating. We love it and its deconsecrated ways.
The Needle has been booked to coincide with the WPAC's 10th anniversary celebrations, so the audience is chockers with Horsham's art crowd glitterati, dignitaries, and general public who've heard the show promoted on the radio. They are, to coin a phrase, bang up for it.
In my defense I'd like to say that it's only after the show I'm informed that Horsham is a very religious, High Lutheran town.
Not that it didn't go well. It did. But no question that the ‘Christian Music' section caused some of the older, well-dressed, coiffed members of the audience to stiffen in their seats like they'd been slapped with a wet haddock. Someone, according to post-show scuttlebutt, leaves. I'd thought that the ‘racism' and ‘sexism' sections of the show would be the sensitive ones in country towns, but it turns out that lampooning the worst excesses of christian music is far, far more controversial than white supremacy. Go figure.
As far as I can tell, after a heady three weeks on the road, the major difference between city and country (apart from the ready availability of somewhere to have breakfast), is the attitude to religion. In the city, phff, it's a non-issue, simply not present in any way, shape or form, until some nutjob gets airplay by giving a speech saying that western women are like uncovered cat meat, or that the Victorian bushfires are god's punishment for repealing the anti-abortion laws.
In the country, though, religion is alive and present. People in the country worship. Christians have status in country towns. It's a subtle, but important difference, and it heightens people's sensitivity to the show no end. I'm interpreting that as a good thing.
Quote of the day, from Melissa, after the show.
"It's changed my life. It was a wake up call, to be honest. I had no idea that the Black and White Minstrels were white."
February 21st - Where we discover the spirit of the seventies is alive and well.
To ECHUCA
Visited the art gallery before leaving. Yet another of Horsham's seemingly limitless supply of gorgeous and stylish heritage buildings. I get the feeling this town was built with some serious dosh.
The gallery is host to a record cover exhibition, to tie in both with the WPAC's 10th Anniversary bash, and, peripherally, my show. Spend a happy while perusing someone else's record collection - mostly of film soundtracks, including Earthquake and Towering Inferno - and then stood agog in front of the 2006 Archibald winner by Marcus Wills, The Paul Juraszek monolith (after Marcus Gheeraerts). It should be clear by now that my taste's not worth the mouth it came in, but this is one amazing painting. If you're up Horsham way, go bask in its brilliance.
Stop off an overpriced but fabulous junk shop on the road out of town. Buy four 1970's Playboy magazines, which are a remarkable time capsule back to the time when a) cigarette advertising was in full flight b) women had pubic hair (remember that?), c) political correctness was but a twinkle in Betty Friedman's eye, and d) articles ran over several pages in small type and with no pictures. One interview with Fidel Castro went for 9 pages. Given that we now live in an age where in-depth coverage means 400 words and a photo of Sam the Koala, vintage girlie mags make for salutory reading.
You've got to love a date rape cartoon....
And a 70's ad for motor oil...
Ah, Echuca. More 70's hideousness. To wit, our motel, which is 73 shades of brown, none of them bright or attractive, and about four pieces too many of ugly mismatched furniture disposed randomly around the room. Plus a really strange tiny trapdoor in the wall, perhaps intended for feeding patrons who had become inadvertantly locked inside. However, Kat and I highly recommend The Black Pudding café for breakfast.
Our gig is in Lockington, a jaunty half hour drive out of Euchuca, and a town so small that it boasts several of my favourite things - the ‘combination' store. Lockington has a hairdresser/café, a business centre/garage, a supermarket/hardware store, and - and I suspect I'll be travelling a long way before I see anything this twitchingly good again - a library/butcher.
So I'm on at the Lockington Hotel, in a sort of extra dining area/conference room, which we fall to turning into a cabaret style place of loveliness by sticking black plastic over the windows, and putting the projection screen in front of the fireplace. I'm a bit nervous about this gig - it's at 2pm in the afternoon, in a small room, for about 40 people over 50, in a really small country town, where I'm assured that Hillsong regularly attract crowds in the several hundreds. The potential for things to go horribly, horribly wrong seemed to me to be ‘high'.
Plus, in our rush of blood to the head when we found somewhere fabulous for breakfast, both Kat and I had utterly neglected to buy a cream bun for the show. There were no cream buns in Lockington. I had to fall back on a secondary bun we'd bought three days earlier and had simply neglected to throw away. I scraped the fetid cream out of the middle, sprayed in some new stuff, and worked very hard at not gagging when I ate it during the show.
But you can never tell. Had a great show, and the divine people of Lockington gave it up. Over a post-show bevvy, a couple of the audience said that they'd watched how much they laughed during the Christian section because ‘Well, we knew where the Christians were sitting, and we've got businesses in this town, you know?'. Indeed.
Jess and Betty, who sat in the front row and demanded lollies.
And Tom, the life and soul of the party, if I may be so bold...
* Read week one blog
* Read week two blog
