EIGHTY-SIX

So was coming over here a band thing or just personal, whatever...

Well, I came over two years ago and had a really good time in Europe so I knew I wanted to come back anyway, and Laura was talking about coming back to do a US tour, and I realised I had enough contacts and friends that we could probably do some shows. We started playing in this band called Dragster with a woman called Deborah who played in various bands in Brisbane. One time when we were up in Brisbane on tour, her main band, Wondrous Fair, who were around for ten years and were reasonably popular in Japan and Germany, broke up while we were there and she was sort of hanging out to play with people. We jammed with her and it clicked really well so when she came down to Melbourne we did a tour and we sort of suggested to her that she come along as well, and that way we could do Eighty Six which would be a mixture of mine and Laura's songs, more sort of indie rock stuff, a lot of quirky pop stuff, and then do jazzy hardcore sort of stuff, cos I was playing in a sort of dumb and dumber hardcore band before I left. Dragster's more Deborah's stuff, which is more kind of girlie, five chord pop, vaguely in the mould of the Cannanes crossed with Heavenly songs (laughing)...which has been fun to do because most of the bands I've played in have been kind of ramshackle, weird pop, quirky bands or have been more heavy hardcore bands, so it's been really fun playing sort of pure pop, hooks galore sort of thing!

These are all bands who were on that cd.....

Yeah, well the Trianchywonchygongolo cd was a project that I kind of initiated cos I realised that at least one of the bands I was playing in was gonna be touring, and to do a single in Australia wasn't gonna cost much more to do than a cd basically, and rather than just having one band on a single we could have seven different bands doing a single's worth of music. Everyone had to put in a hundred quid, and I basically made sure all the bands I was playing in at the time were on it, as I wasn't sure who was gonna go out on tour. I also picked out some friends' bands that I liked. But yeah, basically that was the idea behind that. We gave away the first hundred at the launch in Melbourne which went really well, and all the bands got fifty copies each to do with whatever they wanted.

Can you tell us a bit more about Woozy...

Well, the magazine's something that Laura and I started in Melbourne when we first moved there. Basically, there weren't that many zines around, and the only zines covering diy territory were basically punk zines. I'm into punk and hardcore stuff, but I'm into all sorts of music, and we felt the focus was a little narrow. And also we felt that there wasn't a zine covering all the things that we liked, which is basically grass roots politics but with a sense of humour, small press comics and diy indie and punk music. So the idea was to cross all those things together, and put out a zine, publishing it all, and also to encourage other people to do things by saying it's really easy to do.

And we're up to thirteen issues now over four years so it hasn't been going too badly. We do about 500 to 750 of each issue and have a launch for each issue, and the lauch basically covers (the cost of) the magazine. So that was another thing that we wanted to prove to the magaziney people was that you don't have to do things in a really professional, money oriented way. By getting together with bands, and with a bit of organisation, you can pay for it. And also, one of the focuses of the magazine is to do at least half to all of it handwritten or typed, not using computers, to say you don't need all this fancy equipment. And yeah, the magazine's gone pretty well and is sort of keeping itself afloat now, and some of the original aims I guess aren't so important now. We were hoping to cross over the comics, music and politics which didn't really work. I mean, different people read it for the comics, or for the politics, but one good thing is that there are now a lot more zines in Melbourne anyway. It's really taken off. I mean, I wouldn't say we were wholly to credit for that, but we certainly helped to push things along a bit.

How is Woozy distributed....

Well, we usually give away a hundred in Melbourne as part of the launch, and we get distributed ourselves through our own network (Choozy), which we now are also using to do music and stuff. But we run Choozy because there's lots of little mail order type places in Australia and there's large independent distributors but there's no one covering middle ground. So we're trying to pick up stuff from small independent labels and sell ten copies, whatever. And with the magazine, we give people fifty of ours and they send us fifty of theirs. As far as overseas goes, Slab-O-Concrete usually take fifty. Different people in the States usually take fifty to a hundred. Plus we travel a lot so that helps.

And Choozy is something you and Lora started?

Choozy has been mainly Laura's pet project. After she went over to the states she made links with a number of small labels, most of which sort of promised to follow it through, so basically when she got back she decided she didn't want to do the magazine so much, she wanted to focus on distributing small diy labels' stuff, which is starting to come in more and more and has started to build up a bit. At the moment we're just operating out of one of the collective's bedrooms with just a fax machine and we're hopefully going to have a small shop in Melbourne that's gonna start selling our stuff. People are welcome to send us their stuff. We can't guarantee that we'll take it but most of our stuff we'll either do on a trade or consignment basis. So it's kind of handy for us to use our own network for musicians who are kind of too lazy to get their stuff around (laughing)...Well...they've got enough energy to record a tape, so at least they can give us their tapes and records and then we can try and trade it with people in Europe and the States. And we're also starting to do stuff with people in the Phillipines and Malaysia and get most of those people lined up with sale or return.... There's about four or five of us involved, some more involved than others. But mainly it's the people from Chapter Music, which is a fanzine. They used to do a fanzine called Salty and Delicious, and also put out tapes and records and stuff, so there's a kind of common interest there. The aim isn't particularly towards indie stuff, we wanna cover all kinds of music. The idea is to help facilitate diy stuff getting around.

What do you think of the diy scene that you've seen in the uk so far?

Oh, I think it's really good. Like the whole indie band thing's really good. I mean, the punk thing's always been there and people in Australia have been very aware of that, but people like Slampt and Fisheye are really good and I think you do quite a good network of stuff here. I don't really know how the industry works here, what people have to deal with and that. In Australia you have the grunge oriented top forty music, the competition and the scene climbing stuff. In the Melboune scene it's gotten even worse than it used to be because there's actually an opportunity for bands to make money now and because of that I think a lot of the best music in Melbourne comes out of the diy scene, because people are basically just making music for the hell of it. They're not particularly looking at their career. I mean no one's gonna complain if money comes their way but to change their sound to whatever's popular, I think that's even worse, for a band to change their sound according to britpop or whatever. At the moment there's millions of bands, what we call Shelmet bands, the Shellac crossed with Helmet thing. Australia's always been big on hard rock because it's sort of pub rock country, but there's just millions of those bands in Melbourne and they sound the closest to American bands and are the ones that get signed and get support, whereas the bands who are doing original stuff don't. I think that's kind of true here too. Mostly it's more interesting stuff, people who are a bit more out there, a bit more diverse, that come from the diy scene, because the music's the central thing to them. Unfortunately there's a lot of coolness and stuff in the diy scene too but there's no money there so you're not going to get the career wanker types!

You seem to have a lot of zines here like you do in Australia that model themselves on the NME or whatever, in a sort of lame attempt to get themselves into rock journalism But yeah, I think the scene here's really good. I'm really looking forward to playing with a lot of the bands.

You were saying the other night that you can actually put on your own gigs in Australia and make money. Like the pub pays for the PA and pays the bands, whereas over here, we usually have to pay the venues, the PA hire and the bands too...

Yeah, most pubs have a PA and most pubs at least operate on a deal where you get the door money. If you're a small band that noone really knows... I mean, say in Melbourne, you've got a few small pubs that will pretty much book anyone that isn't too sort of, disgusting! You get to play there, do a two or three pound equivalent door charge, which means at least all the bands have money to pay the mixer and maybe a little bit for petrol and you get some free beer as a minimum. And then you've got venues that are the next step up and they'll pay bands guarantees and stuff, but then it gets difficult without playing the industry game and having management and stuff, spending money on advertising. You really need to do that to make decent money.

With Woozy, most of the magazine's been paid because we put on three or four bands that we don't need to put up a guarantee for, so it works really well. Normally one or two launches pays for 750 magazines which is great. I mean, we can use our money for things like overseas trips and stuff! But yeah, it is possible to make some money. I mean, I don't know anyone who's making a living off it, it's probably more difficult in Australia because the record buying public is so small. It's probably more possible in Europe cos bands can do a couple of European tours... I mean there's a number of Australian bands that wound up moving over here...

What do you do on tour in Australia...Go to all the major cities?

Because of the distances you can only cover two or three cities in a week rather then seven over here. Normally we just organise them through friends and get the bus up to Brisbane. we've done a couple of shows in Sydney. Sydney's really difficult to get stuff because the rave scene's really big and because the Olympics are coming a lot of the pubs are shifting over to a yuppie market and stopping booking bands, so there's nowhere really for small bands to get started, whereas in the other cities there's at least one shitty pub that will give anyone a go.

In geographical terms, because the distance between cities is so great, is it difficult to fit into certain cities' scenes or is there more of a certain "Australian" taste?

I wouldn't say there was an Australian taste. In smaller cities there's always a hard rock element that never goes away, and pubs always support that cos they're the main beer drinking audiences. Then you tend to find there's one dominant sound around, like when I started there was this really big funk metal thing where every other band was playing funk metal. At the moment most of the bands are lo-fi pop, sort of Sebadoh, like if you're not into that then there's fuck all else on offer in the small cities! In Sydney, the predominant sound is the sort of fuzzy indie pop sound or the Shelmet bands, and in Brisbane the main sound is kind of lo-fi pub rock or hardcore, whereas in Melbourne, I guess Melbourne is like the capital of bands in australia at the moment. You've got loads of different kinds of music which is good. I mean, there aren't that many bands who are really great, but the advantage is that at least you can go and see a different genre of music each night.

Any Last Words?

For the next six to twelve months, if people wanna get in touch they can write care of Slab-O-Concrete, PO Box 148, Hove, BN3 3DQ, or if you wanna get in touch with Choozy, send us msuic or get a catalogue if you wanna check out what's happening in the Australian underground. Our PO box is PO Box 4434, Melbourne University, Parkville, 3052, Victoria, Australia. Send an IRC and we'll send a catalogue and whatever else we stick in the package!(Laughing)