(no subject)
I haven't had as nice a time out as I did last night in such a long time. I realise this account will be very dull to everyone else but I am trying an exercise in memory recollection and I need to learn to keep an eye on the details.
Visual reference: myself, Claire and Jess at a dinner party a few weeks back
Recently Claire and Jess mentioned they were going to see The Middle East on Saturday night. I was a little dubious because I hadn't heard of them before, but when I checked their myspace page I realised they were behind the really lovely, haunting songs that get repeated airplay on FBi. (Go click on that link and you'll see what I mean.) Do I want to see them, they asked. Sure, I said. We met at their friend's place and ate pizza loaded with garlic and mushrooms and artichokes and eggplant, and drank soft merlot, and were frightened by a vicious pet parrot. When we shut the door and switched off the lights its shrieks carried down the stairwell and followed us out into the street.
It was one of those nights where the weather was crisp and the streets were empty and I was in the company of sincerely nice people. You could tell, because the six of us kept shifting and changing walking partners, and there was very little awkwardness in conversation, even when I squinted and tilted my head from side to side so that the green traffic lights and sodium burn of streetlights blurred into my own private street party in my head (they still talked to me after I said that! Imagine). Katie -- the girl whose house I was at -- works at a music-advertising promotions company and is working on an Australian music cd to be handed with the Telegraph on Australia Day next year. Paul is in an up-and-coming punk band and knew the Middle East members and also apparently the entire Sydney scene: we hadn't walked more than ten metres from Katie's place when a girl whirled up and attached herself to him as a +1 (he was on the guestlist). She had a shaved head and a pinned-up flamingo dress and an erratic manner that caught me off-guard; not since the years of late high school have I come into contact with people as excitable as this girl, and there were more of them as we arrived at the venue. They all knew Paul and Jess and Claire, it was a flurry of hellos and how are yous and oh who else is comings while I stood in the eye of the social storm and marvelled.
Tommy had a purple leather jacket and one girl shrieked a lot and her boyfriend (I think?) wore a maroon crushed velvet smoking jacket. The others I didn't bother gathering their names or physical descriptions because soon I headed directly to the bar. We ordered watery G&T's and plastic cups of wine, the contents of which I proceeded to knock out of when my emphatic gestures became a little over-emphatic. Oops! At least the wine helped cut out the background noise and I could listen to the second opening act, Grand Salvo, with some semblance of concentration.
[A thought: do I give off gay vibes? I know that I am not the most observant of the bunch and when I know someone is potentially interested I generally play really dumb in the hopes I'm wrong (I only notice if it's really obvious, and generally the guys fall into this category) because a) hello, girlfriend and b) that's just too much awkward for me to resolve the issue in a mature fashion. But twice in one night I received assessing glances from patently obvious lesbian couples -- not in the stereotypical dykey garb sense, although one girl had part of her hair shaved -- you just can't ignore that kind of body language. But really, it's not as if I dress in a way that would affiliate me with any scene or subculture, and I wasn't being inappropriately affectionate with either gender as is my wont after a few drinks, I was just standing (or walking, or skipping hand in hand v excitedly) and there is nothing that makes me stand out from a crowd of good-looking well-dressed people, so the only conclusion I can draw is that there is something about me that screams HI QUEER. end thought process.]
Anyway we left the gig and hunted down a nearby pub and, after four tries, successfully entered through an open door. The beer garden was full of indie kids seeking cheap respite and (strangely or not so strangely) a party of kids in fur coats, leopard print and noses painted black. Themed party? Perhaps. After ten minutes we realised we'd have to turn back if we didn't want to miss the show, so we knocked back the drinks and took up places to the side of the stage.
At some stage Claire and I excused ourselves for the amenities, and ran/skipped down the hallway. Where the ladies sign was I was confronted by a locked door ("It's the one on your left," Claire laughed) and found, when we made to leave the bathroom, a bevy of boys yanking on the door in confusion. Helpfully we said "oh the men's bathroom is out there to your left," they said "oh no we're trying to get to the backstage" and we said, very sternly (the audacity of some fans!) "no no keep going left and you'll be fine" to which they gave us confused looks and vanished behind a curtain. It turns out they were actually band members trying to get onstage, which they did two minutes later. Oops! the second that night. Well, I was only trying to be helpful.
Anyway the show was very good, many darling cardigan-clad indie boys with scruffy beards and Townsville accents, plus one guy who looked the utter hippie who took shaking the maracas very seriously. Claire and Jess coveted the female keyboardist's hair, I tried not to get covered in spilled drinks any more than I already had been, and at the last song I called Kate and demanded she listen to an amazing rendition of 'Blood' while I shouted along. Did I mention the show was seated? Oh I knew I should have, that's what made it so much more lovely than usual shows. Stage invasions also happened but nothing serious.
lyrics to blood, finally found them!
older brother, restless soul, lie down
lie for a while with your ear against the earth
and you'll hear your sister sleep talking
say "your hair is long but not long enough to reach
home to me
but your beard
someday might be"
and she'll wake up in a cold sweat on the floor
next to a family portrait drawn when you were four
and beside a jar of two cent coins that are no good no more
she'll lay it aside
older father, weary soul, you'll drive
back to the home you made on the mountainside
with that ugly, terrible thing
those papers for divorce
and a lonely ring
a lonely ring
sit on your porch
and pluck your strings
and you'll find somebody you can blame
and you'll follow the creek that runs out into the sea
and you'll find the peace of the Lord.
grandfather, gentle soul, you'll fly
over your life once more before you die
since our grandma passed away
you've waited for forever and a day
just to die
and someday soon
you will die
it was the only woman you ever loved
that got burnt by the sun too often when she was young
and the cancer spread and it ran into her body and her blood
and there's nothing you can do about it now
http://glosoli.blogspot.com/2009/02/lyrics-to-blood-by-middle-east.html
Afterwards it took half an hour for our party to say goodbye to other friends, during the course of which we spied on the lead actor from the Black Balloon who was wearing that awkward expression where he knows he's been recognised and doesn't want any embarrassing scenes but nonetheless expects at least someone to acknowledge his presence. But no one did (our interaction: me standing in front of my friend sitting on the couch shared by his friends, so I'm blocking the way. Me: "oh sorry" and step aside, Him: "thanks" and moves past to his friends, that was my brush with b-grade celebrities for the night! But he has a charming smile) so he left looking a little disappointed.
And do you know! Even though I was growling for ice cream the moment the band left the stage until we finally left the venue, it was midnight so all the stores were closed (WOE). Instead we realised it was officially Claire's birthday, bought her a cupcake from a random all-night bakery, sang happy birthday to her in the streets (strangers joined in) and wandered back to a pub with a fireplace for one last celebratory drink. On the way there we saw construction workers blasting the big speed limit numbers onto the main road: first stencilled then spray painted then something indeterminate (we were involved in cupcakes by then) then when we came back they were fireblasting the ground, at which I took photos like a happy midnight tourist. It was quite a surreal moment.
Claire, Jess and I left the others as they prepared to go to another party - Paul was friends with the Middle East and they had something else on, but we girls are tired uni students quietly fretting about assessments and also we are enormous homebodies. Writing this all down, it sounds relatively tame for a Saturday night. I know that many who read this far will scoff at me for such an uneventful night, but I rarely go out nowadays due to a combination of assessments, apathy and antipathy towards people, so it was nice to have a group of people that I actually liked, who liked to drink, who had good taste in music, who don't mind tramping through the backstreets of the inner west and with whom I am really comfortable with the first time I meet them.
Now I have something else I have to make myself go to, because I like the friends hosting it but I no longer like large parties where I know few people comparatively speaking. Oh my, man up Cass you can do it. I feel like tea.
Visual reference: myself, Claire and Jess at a dinner party a few weeks back
Recently Claire and Jess mentioned they were going to see The Middle East on Saturday night. I was a little dubious because I hadn't heard of them before, but when I checked their myspace page I realised they were behind the really lovely, haunting songs that get repeated airplay on FBi. (Go click on that link and you'll see what I mean.) Do I want to see them, they asked. Sure, I said. We met at their friend's place and ate pizza loaded with garlic and mushrooms and artichokes and eggplant, and drank soft merlot, and were frightened by a vicious pet parrot. When we shut the door and switched off the lights its shrieks carried down the stairwell and followed us out into the street.
It was one of those nights where the weather was crisp and the streets were empty and I was in the company of sincerely nice people. You could tell, because the six of us kept shifting and changing walking partners, and there was very little awkwardness in conversation, even when I squinted and tilted my head from side to side so that the green traffic lights and sodium burn of streetlights blurred into my own private street party in my head (they still talked to me after I said that! Imagine). Katie -- the girl whose house I was at -- works at a music-advertising promotions company and is working on an Australian music cd to be handed with the Telegraph on Australia Day next year. Paul is in an up-and-coming punk band and knew the Middle East members and also apparently the entire Sydney scene: we hadn't walked more than ten metres from Katie's place when a girl whirled up and attached herself to him as a +1 (he was on the guestlist). She had a shaved head and a pinned-up flamingo dress and an erratic manner that caught me off-guard; not since the years of late high school have I come into contact with people as excitable as this girl, and there were more of them as we arrived at the venue. They all knew Paul and Jess and Claire, it was a flurry of hellos and how are yous and oh who else is comings while I stood in the eye of the social storm and marvelled.
Tommy had a purple leather jacket and one girl shrieked a lot and her boyfriend (I think?) wore a maroon crushed velvet smoking jacket. The others I didn't bother gathering their names or physical descriptions because soon I headed directly to the bar. We ordered watery G&T's and plastic cups of wine, the contents of which I proceeded to knock out of when my emphatic gestures became a little over-emphatic. Oops! At least the wine helped cut out the background noise and I could listen to the second opening act, Grand Salvo, with some semblance of concentration.
[A thought: do I give off gay vibes? I know that I am not the most observant of the bunch and when I know someone is potentially interested I generally play really dumb in the hopes I'm wrong (I only notice if it's really obvious, and generally the guys fall into this category) because a) hello, girlfriend and b) that's just too much awkward for me to resolve the issue in a mature fashion. But twice in one night I received assessing glances from patently obvious lesbian couples -- not in the stereotypical dykey garb sense, although one girl had part of her hair shaved -- you just can't ignore that kind of body language. But really, it's not as if I dress in a way that would affiliate me with any scene or subculture, and I wasn't being inappropriately affectionate with either gender as is my wont after a few drinks, I was just standing (or walking, or skipping hand in hand v excitedly) and there is nothing that makes me stand out from a crowd of good-looking well-dressed people, so the only conclusion I can draw is that there is something about me that screams HI QUEER. end thought process.]
Anyway we left the gig and hunted down a nearby pub and, after four tries, successfully entered through an open door. The beer garden was full of indie kids seeking cheap respite and (strangely or not so strangely) a party of kids in fur coats, leopard print and noses painted black. Themed party? Perhaps. After ten minutes we realised we'd have to turn back if we didn't want to miss the show, so we knocked back the drinks and took up places to the side of the stage.
At some stage Claire and I excused ourselves for the amenities, and ran/skipped down the hallway. Where the ladies sign was I was confronted by a locked door ("It's the one on your left," Claire laughed) and found, when we made to leave the bathroom, a bevy of boys yanking on the door in confusion. Helpfully we said "oh the men's bathroom is out there to your left," they said "oh no we're trying to get to the backstage" and we said, very sternly (the audacity of some fans!) "no no keep going left and you'll be fine" to which they gave us confused looks and vanished behind a curtain. It turns out they were actually band members trying to get onstage, which they did two minutes later. Oops! the second that night. Well, I was only trying to be helpful.
Anyway the show was very good, many darling cardigan-clad indie boys with scruffy beards and Townsville accents, plus one guy who looked the utter hippie who took shaking the maracas very seriously. Claire and Jess coveted the female keyboardist's hair, I tried not to get covered in spilled drinks any more than I already had been, and at the last song I called Kate and demanded she listen to an amazing rendition of 'Blood' while I shouted along. Did I mention the show was seated? Oh I knew I should have, that's what made it so much more lovely than usual shows. Stage invasions also happened but nothing serious.
lyrics to blood, finally found them!
older brother, restless soul, lie down
lie for a while with your ear against the earth
and you'll hear your sister sleep talking
say "your hair is long but not long enough to reach
home to me
but your beard
someday might be"
and she'll wake up in a cold sweat on the floor
next to a family portrait drawn when you were four
and beside a jar of two cent coins that are no good no more
she'll lay it aside
older father, weary soul, you'll drive
back to the home you made on the mountainside
with that ugly, terrible thing
those papers for divorce
and a lonely ring
a lonely ring
sit on your porch
and pluck your strings
and you'll find somebody you can blame
and you'll follow the creek that runs out into the sea
and you'll find the peace of the Lord.
grandfather, gentle soul, you'll fly
over your life once more before you die
since our grandma passed away
you've waited for forever and a day
just to die
and someday soon
you will die
it was the only woman you ever loved
that got burnt by the sun too often when she was young
and the cancer spread and it ran into her body and her blood
and there's nothing you can do about it now
http://glosoli.blogspot.com/2009/02/lyrics-to-blood-by-middle-east.html
Afterwards it took half an hour for our party to say goodbye to other friends, during the course of which we spied on the lead actor from the Black Balloon who was wearing that awkward expression where he knows he's been recognised and doesn't want any embarrassing scenes but nonetheless expects at least someone to acknowledge his presence. But no one did (our interaction: me standing in front of my friend sitting on the couch shared by his friends, so I'm blocking the way. Me: "oh sorry" and step aside, Him: "thanks" and moves past to his friends, that was my brush with b-grade celebrities for the night! But he has a charming smile) so he left looking a little disappointed.
And do you know! Even though I was growling for ice cream the moment the band left the stage until we finally left the venue, it was midnight so all the stores were closed (WOE). Instead we realised it was officially Claire's birthday, bought her a cupcake from a random all-night bakery, sang happy birthday to her in the streets (strangers joined in) and wandered back to a pub with a fireplace for one last celebratory drink. On the way there we saw construction workers blasting the big speed limit numbers onto the main road: first stencilled then spray painted then something indeterminate (we were involved in cupcakes by then) then when we came back they were fireblasting the ground, at which I took photos like a happy midnight tourist. It was quite a surreal moment.
Claire, Jess and I left the others as they prepared to go to another party - Paul was friends with the Middle East and they had something else on, but we girls are tired uni students quietly fretting about assessments and also we are enormous homebodies. Writing this all down, it sounds relatively tame for a Saturday night. I know that many who read this far will scoff at me for such an uneventful night, but I rarely go out nowadays due to a combination of assessments, apathy and antipathy towards people, so it was nice to have a group of people that I actually liked, who liked to drink, who had good taste in music, who don't mind tramping through the backstreets of the inner west and with whom I am really comfortable with the first time I meet them.
Now I have something else I have to make myself go to, because I like the friends hosting it but I no longer like large parties where I know few people comparatively speaking. Oh my, man up Cass you can do it. I feel like tea.