AAYL Geek show 2003/2011

Speaking of hecklers; I was reminded of the time of when I went to some live music and the band ended up heckling the audience. 

It was during the Geek Show tour (Fantomas, Melvins, Tomahawk) over at Metropolis in Fremantle, back in 2003. 

A little context to the night. 

At the end of the Fantomas set, the rest of the Melvins came on stage, Lombardo left, and the remaining amalgam of Melvins/Fantomas supergroup played an impromptu noise collage before Patton, Dunn exited and the Melvins kicked immediately into their set without thought for pause. Unfortunately, Buzz was sweating like a hairy beast and obviously tired and unfit, so they weren't as good as when they opened, in their love-heart adorned, black silk nighties, for Tool at the Perth Entertainment Centre in 2002. 

However, Fantomas were excellent. Not as, dare I say, rehearsed as they would become, so there was a sense of immediacy in what they did. The band was taking cues off Patton for the different parts they had to play and it was great to see them pull off the Amenaza al Mundo album. One was almost wondering if they could do it. 

(Which was not like the 2005 tour, when they barely looked at each other and the crowd was going bat-shit bonkers for it like the music was the craziest, most extreme garbage ever. I left early, because I'm an outsider damn it, and I don't like being around people who like what I care for. Also, someone stuck chewing gum inside my belt buckle when I wasn't paying attention, so it almost goes without saying that I had to piss off.) 

And then, during the Tomahawk set, Mike Patton dedicated a song to Chris Cornell of Soundgarden fame, paused, the audience all cheered, perhaps drunkenly and dumbly, and then Mike continued with "THAT FAGGOT!"

Anyway, the point to this snap (snap!) post: I used to write a blog - Angry Angry Young Lady -  (try to Google search for it! Good luck!) and I dipped into my personal archives, priceless material that it is, and found out what I wrote about the event. 

By my careful calculations, it appears the Geek Show was on a tuesday night. A TUESDAY night! Damn it bands, get your scheduling right, no wonder nobody and no-one turns up to your gigs. 

Also according to the post, it appears I was playing in a pool team. I reckon that was the first night I played competitively in a team, ever since I had a season in the first division when I was 17/18 (back in the year 1, 9, 0, oh, Oh.) But this team was in second division, which probably explains how I won the Gold Medal. I'm sure that medal is around somewhere.

Please note: This entry originally appeared in yellow, on a black background, formatted as is. Because, that's how I liked to do things in the... sincerity? stupidity?.... of youth. 

Please, please note: Laaaanguage warning. An attempt at being controversial? Say any of those rude words fifty times in a row and they lose all meaning. 

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Wednesday 10th of December

Too little to do in too much time. That's never a good combination for the weak of heart. What is terrible depressing music to me is glorious sound to the other. A few days ago I had the dress rehearsal for the pool team. Tonight was the main event. There's not much to say about how I played, besides from stating that my golden hand was in fine form. After the second round, there's five, one of the regulars was dropped and I was slotted in. The regular reacted badly. He took off the team shirt, replacing it with a more staid gray ensemble. He started to drink. He played pool with one of his friends on a table close to the competition. Songs playing over the pool hall's sound system were sung along with, featuring modified renditions of the lyrics bluntly addressing his being dropped. He hit the beer and the beer hit back. And finally the regular, now red eyed, swaying and slurred, confronted the team captain. It was slowly explained to him that he wasn't excised from the team because of his form, rather because he was overheard bad mouthing the team. The regular's retort was to plead with the captain. "Go on, hit me! Just hit me!!" The captain politely declined and sent him away. All the while my golden hand shined as the opposition were blinded by my brilliance. I don't get it man, they just played the same fast pieces over and over. There was, like, no variation at all. The drummer kept doing the same fill. And he'd just make a weird sound, then a fast blast, then another low sound. They didn't get any good guitar parts going. Like, it, like, didn't last for long. Then those other guys were boring! They tried to rock but it wasn't very interesting. It was just sludgy, and slow, and like, I don't know. Buh-oring. Oh and the last band! They were kind of good. Well to begin with, even if the sound wasn't very good. Like the music kind of bounced along, but kept repeating, so I knew where what was coming when. I didn't even have to pay attention! I could just push people around in the crowd and rub up against the good looking girls. The ugly cunts I just pushed away, pushed them into the ground under like the waves of guys rolling over. But then the singer started doing weird stuff. Like he didn't talk much, but when he would it was shit about where we lived. Something about us being free? I didn't get that. It seemed kind of rude. Over the songs he started screaming, and playing with these weird tools on his desk. And the sounds that came from the tools were screeching blips of noise, which drowned the repeating stuff the band was doing. And then! The singer called Chris Cornell a faggot! Chris Cornell! A faggot! This is when, like, the singer has his shirt open. I couldn't believe it. I had to push my way back to the bar and get a beer. This guy is singing like a love song, in Spanish or some foreign shit? How do I press up against chicks to that? Unbelievable. 

Extract from 23/24. fashion magazine/marcus graham, a mermaid and a gun

[Update: Added some more to the beginning of the extract].


Holy backflipping porpoises Batman! Has it really been eight months since the last post? Yup. Any reason for the silence? Indifference, possibly. Sure I could have done something, but all too often it feels like screaming into the empty void. 


But obviously that sensation has flown away with the mild Easterly breeze and here we are again. 


Last night, The Dirty Three played at the Astor Theatre. I last saw them play at Kings Park back in 2003. I'd have to say that it was one of my favourite concerts. Surprisingly so, as the bands I usually dig are into bashing each other, and the audience, over their crowns with a guitar head stock. 


Friday night, seven years later, and the high standard of the band's live performances had not dipped. Truly an unique band. However, something different from the King's Park performance and the Astor gig was the audience. What always struck me at the former was how the crowd were calling out requests between songs. As the event went late into the night, it became obvious that the band wouldn't be playing for much longer. So, whenever Warren Ellis introduced the next song, parts of the audience would cry out in anguish that it wasn't what they wanted to hear. The Dirty Three's audience was fanatical, such was their admiration. 


However, at the latter, I noted a very different type of audience. To put it mildly, some sections of the crowd were heckling the band. I don't understand this phenomena; especially not in this context. The band was playing well. There wasn't a bill with large selection of acts; people knew who they were coming to see. Warren Ellis was good natured in his banter. Yet, some audience members paid to turn up, tell the band they looked old, and cheer when informed they were hearing the final songs, amongst other more severe comments. And these assholes still stayed until the very end! 


They heckled, and they stayed! I really don't understand. I must be out-of-the-loop with gig attending etiquette. Now, sure, I can deal with witnessing 'the young kids' shuffle dance when Tangled Thoughts of Leaving played at the Ninja Tunes Label party. But this reaction is entirely, well, something else.


Anyway, in aid of celebrating indifference and assholes, here's something recent I've written. While I may work at the pace of a glacier; there's only one, maybe two, more chapters to write until the first draft of the manuscript is completed. And then shall begin the editing. And what a joyous occasion that will be.


Please note: Marcus Graham is a semi-famous Australian actor.


Please, please note: the following extract contains sexually transmitted, uh, sexually explicit language. 

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He didn’t want to travel with a bag full of dirty clothes. He was making use of the next couple of hours to do his washing. They were apartment bound. She methodically watched the rest of the film shorts on the AFTRS DVDs.

He stopped writing mid-sentence and listened. He sat still, absorbed.

“I’m not your mate, where the fuck do you get off calling me your mate?”

They both favoured baseball caps and hooded sweatshirts. If it weren’t for the pitch of their voices, their sex would have been androgynous.

She was sixteen and pregnant. She was scared of the dark and slept under the bed with her stuffed toy sheep and the rusted springs. When the sun went down, she would go outside and wander the suburbs. The manager of the hostel had warned her about the 6pm curfew but she ignored him. There was anywhere she wanted to be instead of the run-down halfway house.

He had problems at his last stay and had been sent here. All he could express was silence or rage. He secreted a knife on his ankle. He hated the way the manager threatened him with a return to juvenile hall. When he broke curfew, it was for a specific purpose.

The first evening he went out, she followed him.

In a back alley lane-way, not far from the youth centre, he started a fire. It wasn’t hard to do. With his Zippo he lit some kindling and in a matter of seconds the picket fence was in flames. He stood back and admired his work, transfixed, lost in the bright yellows and reds.

From the back porch someone shouted and told him to piss off. He ran.

She watched from behind the bushes, her white eyes peeking from under the cap. 

At the hostel, she couldn’t stop glancing at him. She told him that she had seen him. All he could say was “yeah, and?” She thought it was cool. He told her to shut up about it. She “wasn’t gonna” say anything about it.

The next night he lit another fire. She watched him again.

Voices woke her. From her vantage point she saw his feet. He looked down at her, the expression on his face telling her to keep quiet. The manager informed the cops that the boy hadn’t been at the hostel tonight. They heard the police leave.

He exited her room. The manager saw him and asked the boy where he’d been. He replied that he’d been in her room all night. The lie wasn’t convincing. They started shouting. He told the man to fuck off and pushed him. The man was soft. He held the man on the floor and pulled out his knife. The blade was silver and flashed a reflection of the lights above. The manager squirmed. She screamed. He wouldn’t listen and was ready to strike.

She turned, scanning the TV lounge, frantic, at a loss at what to do. In her pocket she felt it: a lighter. She struck the flint. She held the flame against the couch. The fabric caught alight. The man and boy stopped struggling. The man stood up and ran.

The boy and girl didn’t move. They watched the fire. The couch succumbed to the blaze. The fire spread to the curtains.

Their hands were very close. He brushed the back of her hand with his. They had found each other by burning down everything else left.

The screen faded to black and the credits began to roll.

“Can we watch that again?” she begged.

Sean nodded and Rachel grabbed the remote. 

By his estimation, the first stage of the washing should have been finished. He left her watching the television and exited the apartment. Room service were making their morning rounds. There was an isolated trolley in the hallway. The drawers were filled with fresh linen, neatly folded.

He thought about the disgusting bed sheets, stained in menstrual blood, which they had to sleep on.

When Sean rented out the room he had been sure to stipulate no cleaners. He couldn’t stand strangers intruding in his personal space. That no middle-aged woman on minimum wage would have to deal with Rachel’s and his mess was a small comfort to him.

He made his way to the elevator and down to the laundry. The room was empty. When his machine had finished its spin cycle, he changed over the wet clothes to the dryer. There were only just enough dollar coins.

He returned to the third level. The trolley was still in its original place. He walked by the open door. Inside, a vacuum cleaner idled as a Chinese woman shifted a piece of furniture.

He stopped and waited. The woman hadn’t left the room. When he thought she wasn’t looking he walked slowly, focusing all his efforts into stepping light. He reached out, paused, and grabbed a sheet. 

The Mermaid threatened with a revolver. Marcus Graham called her bluff. She aimed away from him and fired a round into the mirror’s reflection. Marcus startled and grudgingly dropped his pants and drawers. He waddled over to the bathtub and started masturbating.

The Mermaid leant forward. “Do you want me to help?”

“No!”

“Fine!” She reclined in the water and watched, feeling the weight of the pistol in her hand.

Marcus shut his eyes tight and groaned. She frowned.

“Are you thinking about your mother?”

“There is a process!”

He found her smoking by the window. She wore her brown woollen vest and nothing else. The blind had been opened an inch. As she watched, she blew smoke from the corner of her mouth.

“You bad boy. You bad, bad boy.”

Marcus groaned.

“Wait, wait!” The Mermaid pushed an unfertilised egg into the water and pointed. “There! There!”

He measured the lifted linen against the bed. He pulled the fabric along the width’s edge and made a discovery: what he had stolen was for a single, not the queen that they slept in. He sighed and tossed the sheet into the corner of the room, against the wardrobe.

Marcus stared into the camera, his face full of loathing and resentment. “I hope it’s a flathead!”

“The washing should be another forty minutes.”

She looked up at him. One of her legs was folded under her bottom. The vest was wide open. Her small pert breasts and sex were exposed. She arched her back and pushed her pelvis toward him.

“Eat me out?” she asked, grinning.

He spoke before she could continue.

“This is what I’m talking about: You are a terrible liar. You need to figure out how to lie.”

She sat very still at the end of the couch.

“Lying is kind of like acting. When you lie, you’re thinking one thing but saying another. I don’t mean you when I say ‘you’, I mean the royal you.”

She smirked. He motioned at the television.

“Take for example that movie we saw yesterday about the Mermaid and the gun.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Well, Marcus Graham and the girl are acting, obviously. But the characters are acting too.”

“Yeah?”

“Acting, in sense of what the character says and what they are really thinking. So, we have the Mermaid who starts out hating Marcus.

“Yeah.”

“But she doesn’t really hate him.”

“No?”

“No. She wants to be pregnant.”

“Oh.”

“But Marcus doesn’t want to have a baby with her. Neither of them is addressing that issue at the start. He’s threatening her with a gun, trying to get rid of her. She doesn’t want to leave but it doesn’t seem as if she likes him.”

He smiled in delight.

“They’re both lying.”

“Because she – ”

“I mean, it’s pretty obvious, because almost as soon as the short starts, she’s got him wanking into the bath.”

“Hah.”

“But, there’s a big moment in the film when – wait.”

He found the disc and loaded up the film.

“Here, Marcus is post-coital, she’s lying in the bath, relieved maybe? Then Marcus says: ‘Are we done?’

“Are we done?”

“We’re done,” replied the Mermaid.

“And the credits roll. But when he says that line, he doesn’t mean are they finished with impregnation. He’s asking if their relationship in general is finished.”

“Well, yeah.”

“That’s subtext. It’s when what the character is saying, taken in the sense of the underlying understanding of the plot or the story’s motifs or leitmotifs, or both, means something totally different.”

He pressed rewind.

“But watch the Mermaid’s face when he speaks.”

“Are we done?”

“We’re done,” she snapped in reply.

Rachel shook her head. “She looked sad.”

“Sad, compared to?”

“At first she looked… relieved, happy. Then her face dropped and she looked sad.”

“She was sad to hear that they were ‘done.’”

“Yeah.”

“But if she didn’t like him, why would she feel sad?”

Rachel smiled.

“Because when she was shouting at him, bribing him into impregnating her: reminding him that he knew “what she wanted”; all the time she still wanted to be with Marcus.”

He held his gaze on the screen for a moment and turned to face her.

“Pretending to do one thing when you believe something else. Sound a little like lying?”

She nodded in earnest. “That’s like, like Nicole and the Drover.”

“Like what?”

“You know, when he’s talking to her and she’s really nervous. At the campsite, when it’s dark?”

“Oh, Australia. You mean Nicole Kidman and Hugh – ”

“Yeah, him. And she’s like, talking back, and she’s really nervous and doesn’t know what to say.”

“Yeah.”

“But what she’s really saying is: ‘why don’t you fuck me!’ Even though she’s saying something else. And he knows it too, but he isn’t saying it.”

“Right.”

“It’s like when you’re going to meet up with a boy.”

“Yeah, I know all about that.”

“No it is!” she laughed. “It’s just like when you have a boy to meet in the evening. Like, you’ve arranged a date. And you know you’re going to have a sex and you have a feeling. You know, a feeling in your stomach? Like, you don’t know if you should go for a run around the block or if it’s just because you’re excited.”

“How… how does that relate to subtext?”

“I don’t know what I’m saying, I’m just trying to talk to you.”