We begin, oddly enough, at the beginning.
THE TWELVE DAYS OF DEAFNESS
Day One: starts well, all turns to Custard later on
UNSW Roundhouse, late February 1999
Custard, Super Furry Animals, Eskimo Joe
Posse: Trusty wingman Seedyboy, probably half the Hovel as well
The Squarehouse, the 'old' uni bar at the University of NSW, was a decrepit, disgusting, frankly unhygienic old shithole where the air hung heavy and rank with a fetid cocktail composed of the fumes of cheap vodka and the hormones of even cheaper first-years. The dance floor was about the size of a public toilet cubicle and saw a similar amount of unsanitary behaviour (case in point 'The Triscott manouevre', pioneered by the son of a former Liberal cabinet minister, which largely consisted of sidling up to a girl of interest, unzipping, slapping one's dodger across one's palm and casually inquiring 'Yer keen?') The place utterly reeked of spilt beer, stale sweat, cheap perfume and cigarette smoke. The carpet glued itself to your feet with every step with the effluent of a thousand spilt Subzeros. The place was packed with charged-up college boys desperate to get a root, or to smack some bastard’s head in if they couldn’t. The bands who played the tiny stage there looked as though they were balancing on a miniature trampoline. And the clientele… let’s just say you were guaranteed to see some bizarre and troubling sights almost any night you named. A college acquaintance of your correspondent (names changed to protect the dubious), while lining up to take a slash in the truly third-world gentlemens’ facilities, reportedly witnessed a truly mythical creature, as fabled and as feared as Nessie or the Abominable Snowman: the Trough Monster.
"What the fuck is a Trough Monster?" I queried.
"The Trough Monster," said my contact, "is a monster, which is found in a trough. Usually of the appearance of a drunken male hominid, floundering about like a pig stuck in a canoe."
My contact was a bit of a wanker.
"You mean some poor bastard who’s fallen in because he’s completely fucking off-chops?"
"Well," he mused philosophilcally, "that’s the big question, isn't it? Has he fallen in because he’s too pissed to stand up… or is just the the sort of sick fucking cunt who happens to get off on doing sidestroke in the slashers while vindictive drunk bastards piss on him?"
"You're right," I nodded, "this is Sydney after all." Then a truly horrible thought crossed my mind. "You didn’t…"
"Me? Oh Christ no," he replied, reassuringly. "I didn’t want to give him the pleasure, just in case he was there to get off."
"Jesus fucking Christ,” I commented, a suggestion which when you think about it, is if not impossible, then at least onanistic. Sin City had a dark, fucked-up underbelly that rural folks like us sometimes struggled to comprehend. "So… you just left him there?"
Old mate shrugged. "He seemed to be OK. Had his head above water…"
"He’s probably still there," quipped Another Collegian. "Wonder how long a trough monster can survive in its natural environment?"
"Fair while," I predicted. "Could probably survive a decent length of time on those little yellow urinal cakes."
The Squarehouse: square
Now, as the year turned and the campus began to party like it was 1999, largely because it was, the fetid old Squarehouse uni bar was no longer. It’d expired and gone to meet its maker, rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible: it was an ex-unibar. Next door, the UNSW Union had extensively revamped an existing larger, circular building of dubious architectural value called the Roundhouse (these guys were original hey?) and this had become the new UNSW unibar. Where there had been rancid government-issue green carpet and Post-It Note sticky walls was now stainless steel, trendy soft furnishings and polished vinyl floors that resolutely refused to stick to your feet. As fellow college survivor, intermittent flatmate and trusty wingman Seeds pointed out at the time, it'd take six months of beer spillage to give the place any character. Seeds was a good judge of character, particularly that bestowed by consumption of beer.
the roundhouse: lower case is still in vogue, trendites
Eight years in and the floor still looks shiny and non-adherent: the college pissheads of New South are clearly trying hard enough
So after the venue was suitably broken-in and beered-on during O-Week, Seeds and I showed up for the Thursday night gig of Week One, which promised a triumvirate of then-Triple J faves: Welsh outfit Super Furry Animals bookended by emerging local acts Eskimo Joe from WA and Custard from Brisvegas. Though we, like the rest of the Hovel, were Thursday night unibar semi-regulars (as it was the only night the place had any life whatsoever), and while I'd spent many an evening at many a dodgy pub venue watching mates' covers bands go around, this was probably the first gig I remember going to for the sake of the bands, rather than turning up to a uni event and having some random band play in the background. It was the beginning of a love affair with live music that continues to this day. So it's for that, primarily, that this gig makes the Twelve Days of Deafness. And for the two-dollar-fifty stubbies of Tooheys Pils which were on promotion that night. Score.
For which I blame the lack of detail when it comes to recalling the actual performances. All the acts were fairly serviceable - Eskimo Joe (in their nascent Sweater/Ruby Tuesday era) had an engagingly L-plated naivety about them, the Welsh kiddies seemingly knew what they were doing (though I can only remember one of their songs, International Language of Screaming), and Custard had a lot more familiar songs to their repertoire than I'd first imagined - and even dropped a local reference into Girls Like That Don't Go For Guys Like Us ('For I am considering... A move to Parramatta...') Of course Dave McCormack would go on to bust out arseloads of local references writing songs about how the Inner West had all the beautiful girls, but that was a few years later after Custard had turned to, um, custard. When they were about the place, they were a decent outfit. Certainly seemed that way when bellowing along with a few thousand of one's closest friends about how I got a new apartment, baby, interior colour of red... and my only friend is my stereo receeeeeva playin' my favourite song, all night long...
Actually that'd get a bit tedious after a while wouldn't it?
In subsequent postings we'll review the rest of the Twelve Days of Deafness, when we can be arsed. In the meantime, OUT.
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