The Summer of ’82 Read online

  ‘Go and have a wander around and come back about eight-thirty,’ Lindy added.

  What a nice lady! It doesn’t surprise me that, after she left rock and roll, Lindy Morrison went on to become a social worker. I like to think we played a small role in her decision to help people for a living.

  So we left and walked around St Kilda for a while. We went to Luna Park but couldn’t afford to go on the rides. Ten years ago we would have been begging our parents to go on the Big Dipper, but tonight we were seeing The Models. We did spend a lot of time in a pinny parlour. While Noddy was playing the Playboy pinball machine a guy in a tracksuit came up and said, ‘Hey, do you want to score?’ Noddy pointed to the machine in front of him and said, ‘Nah, I’ve already got a score.’ The bloke just shook his head and wandered off. We really were innocents abroad in St Kilda.

  We went back to the Seaview Ballroom at eight-thirty and the door girl asked us for our identification. Fake ID was all the go in 1982. Most ID cards were made of paper, not plastic, so you would photocopy your brother’s birth certificate and then colour it blue for extra authenticity. Bouncers and door bitches soon got wise to this. ‘Okay,’ they’d say. ‘So you’re twenty-one and you were born on the ninth of September. What’s your star sign?’ Questions like this made underage people turn to more extreme measures: a photo booth, a laminating machine and a Stanley knife.

  I had stolen Mark’s shooting licence (why on earth did he have a shooting licence?), which had no date of birth on it. I would simply say to the bouncer, ‘You have to be over eighteen to shoot.’ I don’t know if this was true but it always worked.

  We got a good position down the front of The Go-Betweens; it turned out they were playing downstairs first, and The Models would be playing upstairs later. As I looked around I didn’t really know what was more entertaining – the band or the crowd. The Seaview Ballroom was like a safe zone for all types of subcultures. There were goths, punks, skinheads, rude boys (young men who were into ska music), new wavers, preppie-looking girls and other underage kids like us. There was no aggro because we all had one thing in common: the music.

  The Go-Betweens were great. The little guitarist and singer, who I later learnt was Grant McLennan, jumped around a lot. We were really getting into it when Noddy alerted us to something. ‘Cops!’ he yelled.

  ‘Where?’ I said, annoyed.

  ‘Coming up the stairs!’

  Sure enough, three uniformed policemen were coming up the outside stairs to the front door of the ballroom.

  ‘What do we do?’ Wookey asked in a panic. We were all underage.

  I had an instantaneous vision of how the rest of the night would go: the police would see through our fake IDs and take us to the station; then our parents would be called and three very angry dads would turn up. It would not be pretty, especially so soon after the incident with the bomb.

  ‘Run!’ Noddy shouted.

  We made for the front door but the police were already there, talking to the door girl. There was no back door so we dashed into the men’s toilets.

  ‘Should we just hide here?’ I whispered.

  ‘No,’ said Noddy. ‘They’ll come and check in here. We have to get out.’

  Suddenly the toilet door was flung open. We were done for!

  But no, it was two young-looking rude boys. They took one look at us and we all realised we were in the same boat. ‘Quick – out the window!’ one of them yelled. They stood on the cistern of the toilet and removed the glass shutters, then slid out.

  We quickly followed suit and jumped down into an alleyway. Wow, we certainly weren’t in Mitcham anymore. But we were very pissed off.

  ‘So now we don’t get to see The Models,’ Wookey complained as we walked away.

  ‘We paid our fifteen dollars and everything,’ I added. I was furious that we’d blown our money.

  ‘We might be able to see through the windows,’ Noddy suggested.

  We walked around to the front of the Seaview, where there were large bay windows. The ones into the band room were blacked out, but the ones into the bar next door weren’t. We looked in and saw something that we had never seen before. The three policemen, in full uniform, were standing at the bar and drinking pots of beer.

  ‘Fuck this,’ said Noddy. ‘I’m going back in.’

  We showed the stamps on our arms to the door girl, who didn’t even give us a second look. If the police were getting pissed in your bar, what would they care about us? The Models were awesome – or, as we said back then, ‘grouse’. Or maybe ‘ace’. (Definitely not ‘fab’.) The Models were a new wave band with great pop songs and they were yet to sell out. They had released Local and/or General and were working up to their ‘I Hear Motion’ phase, which was when they peaked.

  The Models were a perfect example of the ‘I liked your old stuff better than your new stuff’ phenomenon. So many bands started out cool and then went mainstream – or, as my older brother used to say, just a little bit too ‘nine to five’, which was the ultimate insult.

  I once tried on a very bad Coogi-style jumper in Stan Russell’s menswear shop as Mum peered at me. Going shopping with your mum for clothes when you’re fifteen has to be one of the worst possible experiences for a teenager. As Mum controlled the money, she had the ultimate say on what I wore. It wasn’t even a Coogi original but some cheap imitation. ‘It’s nice, isn’t it,’ Stan himself said. ‘Nah, it’s a bit too nine to five for me,’ I answered back. Stan and Mum just laughed at me.

  But for us, being ‘mainstream’, ‘suburban’, ‘popular’, ‘commercial’, ‘nine to five’ – all these concepts were the enemy. My mates and I loved bands like Spandau Ballet, who wore kilts and blankets and sang new wave classics like ‘To Cut a Long Story Short’. But then they released ‘True’, which became a massive hit, and the next thing you know they’re hanging out with Rod Stewart and meeting the Queen. Oh, vomit, I thought you guys were cool …

  So many bands went that way. It seemed that, sooner or later, every band I liked went all commercial and sold out on me. The Hoodoo Gurus, INXS, Midnight Oil, Mental As Anything, Duran Duran, Simple Minds – all once great indie bands that became massive and popular. Well, stuff them and their success. Thank God for bands like The Church, The Sunnyboys and The Reels, who just struggled along with no huge hits. Well, The Church had ‘Under the Milky Way’, but that was an awesome song so their credibility was intact. The Models killed their credibility in 1985 with ‘Out of Mind, Out of Sight’, which was a good song but no ‘I Hear Motion’.

  Anyway, The Models were about to do their encore when we realised we had to get out of there and catch the last train home. We knew that if we missed the 11.56 to Lilydale, we’d be stuffed.

  The final train of the night was always a freak show. It was like the last-chance nightclub, full of frustrated young people who hadn’t picked up. So they’d all sit under those stark fluoro lights and stare at each other. Every last train included the same things: a drunk teenager, an angry bloke in a ripped jumper looking for a fight, and a couple of terrified pensioners.

  A recent last-train-home experience had been quite traumatic. We had gone to see the American new wave band Devo at Festival Hall in the city. We bought our tickets at the Bass outlet and the concert started at eight p.m. We had general admission tickets so we could run down the front.

  Devo were those nerdy guys who wore red flowerpots on their heads. (Mum made us some that we wore to the concert.) Devo had that song ‘Whip It’ and many other great ones that I can’t remember. Okay, I can: ‘Girl U Want’, ‘Beautiful World’, ‘Freedom of Choice’. They had catchy songs that spoke to awkward young men. They were nerds before nerds were a thing. But they were nerds AND rock stars at the same time. They had turned their love of computers, technology and history into a huge success. They even wrote a song called ‘Through Being Cool’, a discourse that attacked the cool kids in school.

  Seeing Devo was fantastic. Sure, there were no girls ther
e, but we didn’t care; this band wore costumes and sang funny songs. We caught the last train home still on a Devo high. We sat there wearing our ‘energy domes’ and sang ‘Whip It’ over and over.

  Unfortunately for us, The Angels had been playing a gig that night at the Myer Music Bowl, and all their fans got on at Richmond Station. Now, The Angels were a great hard rock band, but their fans were … how you say, a little bit bogan. As we would’ve said back then, they were yobbos. They had mullets, Eastcoast Jeans windcheaters and tight acid-wash jeans. These young welding and plumbing apprentices from Mooroolbark would answer Doc Neeson’s lyrics ‘Am I ever going to see your face again?’ by yelling back, ‘No way, get fucked, fuck off!’

  These tough guys actually looked like a hangover from the ‘sharpie’ era. Sharpies were the gangs who terrorised the railway lines in the 1970s. They wore tight Connie cardigans, tight jeans and had haircuts that were a cross between a mullet and a skinhead. A lot of these yobbos on the train with us would have had older siblings and friends who had been sharpies. And it’s not like someone went around and told sharpies to stop being sharpies; I remember seeing them well into the 1980s.

  At Box Hill Station one time (we were going on another Scout excursion) we saw a drunken sharpie walk onto the platform. It was 1981 and this guy was dressed in the full sharpie gear – he had the cardigan, the boots and even a T-shirt that read ‘Box Hill Sharps’ in those iron-on letters. He was a walking piece of history – it was like being at Sovereign Hill. I couldn’t help myself, and with genuine excitement I yelled, ‘A sharpie! Where have you been?’

  He paused, taking in the question. ‘Prison,’ he said eventually. With that he punched the nearest Scout and we all fled onto the tracks. The police turned up and informed us that this bloke, who was enjoying his first day of freedom, had been leaving a trail of destruction all the way along the Lilydale–Belgrave line.

  Back in 1982, these Sharpie descendants didn’t like the cut of our jib. In fact, they found us quite offensive. I was wearing brogues, Levi 501s and a lemon V-neck jumper. Oh, and my Devo hat. The head yobbo sauntered over to us. He sneered as he took the sight of me in; perhaps he was overcome by what he had to work with. He started with my brogues. ‘Where’d you get your shoes from?’

  ‘Um, a shoe shop,’ I answered.

  ‘Nah, you got ’em from an op shop!’

  Wow, what an insult. Stupidly, I answered back. ‘No, it was Speeds at Box Hill Plaza.’

  He looked me in the face and then pulled back. ‘Have you got make-up on?’

  ‘No! Why would I have make-up on?’ I said, offended. But then I remembered: I did have make-up on. I had come straight from my Gang Show rehearsal and was wearing foundation and lipstick. (For those not cool enough to know, the Gang Show is a variety theatre show put on by the Girl Guides and the Boy Scouts. Yeah, I know, my coolness just keeps on growing.)

  The yobbo then picked my Devo hat off my head. ‘This would make a pretty good frisbee, I reckon.’

  Just as he was about to throw it, Evan Marinos came bursting through the carriage doors. You weren’t supposed to move between the carriages but that didn’t stop tough guys like Evan, who was the only kid in school who ‘worked out’. He actually started a weights room in a storeroom off the main gym. Luckily for me, Evan was also a Devo fan and had been at the concert. Strangely, though, he was dressed like the yobbo, so my torturer looked a little confused.

  ‘Pick on someone your own size!’ Evan said, pushing the guy across the carriage.

  ‘Watch it, mate!’ my now scared tormentor said as he got off the ground. By this point his mates were leaving the carriage and yelling, ‘Come on, Gary! We’re going!’ But the electric doors closed and poor old Gary was disorientated. He ran over and pulled the doors apart, then gave us one last look of hatred and stepped out. In his confusion, though, he had opened the doors on the wrong side of the train and fell onto the tracks. There was a crash, a lot of swearing and then some jeering and laughter, probably from his mates as the train pulled away.

  We all cheered, then Evan said in a loud voice, ‘Are we not men?’ This was a line from a Devo song.

  We hesitated, but after what he had done for us, we knew we had no choice. We answered in unison, ‘We are Devo!’

  ‘Are we not men?’ he yelled louder.

  ‘We are Devo!’ we shouted back.

  ‘Are we not men?’ Evan yelled once more.

  ‘We are Devo!’

  For once in our lives, we were the scary guys on the train.

  The last train home from The Models gig had no such drama. We were on a high: we had seen our future and it was in a band. There was no way I’d be working nine to five when I could be doing that. We got off at Mitcham and went our separate ways to walk home.

  As Noddy said goodbye, he ruined my night. ‘Aren’t you starting work tomorrow?’

  Oh, yeah – I wasn’t working nine to five, I was working seven to three. Damn.

  WORKING FOR THE WEEKEND

  Drago picked me up at six-forty-five a.m. in his brother’s yellow Celica. He didn’t have his licence yet but used to borrow his older brother’s. (Did I mention he was super-confident?) I was feeling terrible as I had consumed three stubbies of Strongbow apple cider, the drink of choice for young men who didn’t like the taste of beer. To be honest, I would have preferred a banana milkshake but they weren’t serving them at the Seaview Ballroom. Other popular choices for fey young men included a fluffy duck (advocaat and lemonade), a screwdriver (vodka and orange juice) and of course UDL cans, which, as we used to say, stood for ‘underage drinking limit’.

  Drago and I got to the tile factory and discovered that the regular factory workers were all on holiday, except for a few staff members who clearly resented being there. It was Drago, me and twenty Vietnamese guys. The Serbian manager met us and showed us the ropes, and the job was pretty straightforward. One of us had to lie in the tunnel with the jackhammer and chip away at the residue, while the other one stayed on the surface and took out all the waste. Oh, he also had to make sure the person in the tunnel didn’t die.

  I don’t know if you’ve ever used a jackhammer before, but it is not pleasant, especially when you’re lying in a tunnel and aiming it at a wall of black stuff that was hard as rock.

  I volunteered to go into the tunnel first; the thought of lying down appealed to me. I crawled in, lay down while Drago attached the jackhammer, and immediately fell asleep. What can I say, it was warm and snug. I was promptly dragged out and relegated to the surface, where I tried my best not to look at my watch every five minutes.

  Let’s not beat around the bush – this job was hell. There was a reason that on our pay packet it said ‘Heat allowance $50’ and ‘Dust allowance $50’. They admitted the job was crap and were paying us extra for the dangerous conditions. I had never really worked hard before, and this was a terrible introduction. When I eventually went down the tunnel again I just prayed. Not for my life – at that stage I would have been happy for a landslide to put me out of my misery. My prayer went something like this: ‘Please let me pass HSC … please let me pass HSC so I can go to uni.’ If someone had shown me this job at the start of Year 12 I might have studied harder.

  Drago dropped me off after work and I fell asleep on our front lawn. No wonder Mr Kent up the road drank six long-necks every night. I was comforted only by the thought that Mum was cooking a beautiful meal for dinner … maybe some curried sausages or apricot chicken. Yum. Then a shocking memory came to me: Mum and Dad had gone to Vanuatu for a week.

  My parents had a habit of going away without their children. When I was in Year 7, Dad got his payout from the air force and took Mum to America. Where they went to Disneyland. WITHOUT THEIR FOUR CHILDREN. I can still remember Dad walking through the back door with an armload of T-shirts. ‘There you go, boys, there’s Donald, there’s Mickey’ – no one wanted Mickey; he sucked – ‘there’s Goofy, Pluto …’

  ‘So, Dad, what was
Disneyland like?’ we all asked.

  ‘Oh, it was okay, but you know, it’s for kids.’

  Really, you’ve got four right here, Dad.

  The good thing when Mum and Dad went to America was that Nanna came and looked after us. She was a legend and cooked the best meals. Okay, some of her dishes were a little Depression-era, like her rabbit stew, which wasn’t our favourite, but she would finish off every meal with a baked chocolate pudding. This time, for the Vanuatu trip, my brother Mark was put in charge.

  Now, we need to talk about Mark. Mark was the classic middle child, the troubled one, our very own Jan Brady. He was what you might describe as a little bit naughty … okay, he was a lot naughty. When he was flown back early from his Year 11 trip to Central Australia for putting laxatives in the drama teacher’s drink, the principal called Mum and Dad to her office. ‘You know I think Mark just fell in with the wrong crowd,’ she began. Mum shot back straight away: ‘What do you mean? He is the wrong crowd.’

  We’re talking about a kid who was kicked out of school for setting fire to the chemistry lab while he was meant to be getting changed for his part in the school musical. Hmm … there’s young Mark in the lab, where he is supposed to be putting on his farmer’s overalls to sing ‘Oklahoma!’ … wait, the chemicals are just too tempting so it’s time for a quick experiment. Vahooom! Up in flames the lab goes.

  When the local police held an expo day at Mitcham Oval, they featured several of Mark’s homemade weapons in their display on vandalism. There, sitting on a table beside some slingshots and air rifles, were Mark’s homemade bazooka and rocket launcher. When we asked where the bazooka came from, the policeman said, ‘We confiscated it from a juvenile offender who is now serving time in a jail-type situation.’

  Nah, we said. He’s probably at home building another one.

  Mark once took Glenn and me out to the Pancake Parlour and said, ‘Order whatever you want.’ So we did – pancakes, sundaes and milkshakes (banana, of course). At the end of the meal he said, ‘Stand up,’ so we did. Then he yelled, ‘Run!’