THE PEOPLE

I USED TO play in this punk band named THE PEOPLE and we were playing this local festival called TOTAL FORCE STRIKE at a bowls club. I liked those gigs because there was never a stage, the band was just on the same level as the punters and everything felt right.

The agreement was that the bands could play and muck around and be idiots just so long a they bought their booze from the bowls club bar, which always had extremely competitive and agreeable prices. I must say. They had free water for everyone and all that. It was all very well organised and inclusive but I don’t think anyone felt that way hard as the organisers tried as they might. You see, the uniform for punks is kind of a thing that keeps everybody recognisable to the eyes but to the other senses everybody fell short on account of the harsh noises we all used to make.

Anyways, someone had stolen my drinks for one reason or another and I was sitting around talking on some wooden pallets that were all placed out on the bowls lawn. I don’t think anybody played bowls on that lawn at that point so the venue was trying to get their revenue up and would certainly take on money via the bar. Stalls were set up and people traded and sold records and all sorts of stuff.

Everyone wanted to talk to you after you’d played. Never about anything in particular just kind of awkward helloes and that kind of thing. I told one guy I was listening to RUSH at the time and he didn’t think I was right in the head. RUSH are a mad band.

So we were sitting on these pallets and someone said they’d studied an ARTS degree and majored in LITERATURE and it got them nowhere. I spoke out my favourite quote by Hemmingway and F Scott F, after he had died:

His talent was as natural as the pattern that was made by the dust on a butterfly's wings. At one time he understood it no more than the butterfly did and he did not know when it was brushed or marred.

I ALWAYS liked ol’ Hem. Somebody yelled out “QUOTING LITERATURE AT A PUNK GIG!?!” and I looked up at everyone wearing black in the night and saw the teeth of Bean Saily. Bean had played for famous bands like MEGADEATHCHURCH and WATER and THE TAXMAN STRIKES AGAIN and all sorts of things and I just remember his teeth looking at my in this concerned gim and it made me feel isolated in the crowd like I guess everyone does at a punk gig. It’s funny how people go to those gigs for community but reject it at the same time. Confusing stuff for upset people.

Whenever MEGADEATHCURCH would play in Brisbane the yeller for the band would berate everyone in the crowd for not knowing what a real hangover was like unless you had to get up at 5:00am the next morning to work in construction. I did work in construction and that really resonated with me because I knew the next day, which happened to be a Monday on that occasion, surely was going to hurt.

So anyways, Bean is lovely I’ve been told. I see him around still these days and he’s a real talent. He does art and tattoos people and sorts of cool shit. I notice everytime I see him that he still has that grin on his face and it’s just the way he looks. I felt bad for misjudging him in the moment on the wooden pallets because, while he might have been laughing at me at the time, it was all in good fun and I’d just misinterpreted the way he looked.