talk about it. The news of the day that is. It’s Friday and the sun is shining. There’s so much negativity floating around at the moment that I am doing my best to avoid it. Today I am going to post the Armchairs video which was shot decades ago at the Crystal Ballroom in St Kilda. It was an interesting time in as much as something was always happening. It seemed like everyone I knew was in band and there were plenty of places to play, almost every day of the week. I moved to St Kilda in the early 80’s. I’d have to look back through my archives to know for sure when, but I had a great ground floor apartment in Robe St, within walking distance to all the action. I probably drove everyone mad playing Southern Gospel music all night and day, but nobody ever complained.
Walking distance to every coffee and cake shop known to man. I’ve been to them all.
I even had a backyard with trees and a pond which I fabricated out of god knows what. It had gold fish in it. Yes, it was a step up from the broken down shack that I had been living in in Richmond. I liked that place, but it was time to move out. I came home from a trip up the country one weekend to find the ceiling had partially collapsed in the front room. It was a wreck, not helped at all by the decaying place next door which was inhabited by an alcoholic in the throes of dementia, who would scream out expletives and Bible verses at all hours of the day and night.
My first EP
One night I was in bed with a young lady whose name I will not mention, and Des (that was his name) started yelling. It was one o clock in the morning and I leapt out of bed, grabbed a hammer, banged on the wall and yelled as loud as I could. “YOU FUCKING FUCKING CUNT!” I said, “SHUT THE FUCK UP!!” My friend probably thought she’d been sleeping with the devil. In my rage I think I damaged the outside wall I was hitting it so hard. The guy used to drive me nuts. “I’m not bloody here!” he would yell out to nobody in particular at any time, day or night. I even wrote a song about him, Crazy Des, which was on my first EP, Schizoprenia.
Those were the days. Richmond was a funky place back then and it was handy to my job at Channel 9 just over the back fence. The TV station owned my house and all the ones in that section. My neighbors on the opposite side next door were quite benign in comparison. The first one was girl who my brother was going out with, and she was ok. When she left, my then girlfriend’s sister Lucy moved in. I didn’t have any problem with her either. One day someone threw a house brick through her window. I have no idea who did it or why, but it didn’t happen again as far as I know.
These dumpy looking places are upwards of $1mil today
The weirdest thing that happened to me while I was living there was the day I got into a car which I thought was mine and after driving away and almost into the next suburb, I realized it belonged to someone else. Against all odds someone had parked a vehicle identical to the one I had, right opposite my house. It was some kind bland looking elderly Asian shitbox to use a generic term, but my keys opened to door and my keys worked in the ignition. To this day I have no idea whose car it was.
All I know is that as I was driving along on my way to where I was going, I started to look around the interior and see things I didn’t recognize. To my horror, I realized that I was in effect, driving a stolen vehicle. I quickly took it back, located my own shitbox (exact same color, same model, same age, same amount of wear and tear…unbelievable) which wasn’t far away, and nobody was any the wiser.
Happy Friday.