Store.

My underfed fake Chanel wallet becomes bulimic when I play shows in record stores.

It hurls straight into the register.Honks its plastic innards clean out.

And Repressed Records is a trinket and treasure stuffed mecca for an emotionally stunted, upwardly mobile,amazonian  musical type like myself. I should of gone in wearing blinkers but if I had of done so I would not be writing this dispatch gleefully clad in a Gram Parsons and the Fallen Angels tee-shirt in a shade of navy that makes my eyes glow like cold kerosene dipped Ceylon sapphires.Oh and not to mention the 2 new royally cool Ramones rags to add to my ever growing arsenal of rock tee shirts which,by my rather foggy estimation, is hovering in the late seventies at least in terms of numbers.There was a  muy fetching Stooges number out of my price range giving me the eye as I tuned up my ever faithful old girl and inscribed the date on her chipped hide with a sharpie as I do at every show.

To know where you are going you got to know where you have been……

I had to borrow money off Miss Karen to fund my folly as it was as it was.Mortifying. She just smirked from beneath her platinum bangs and handed over the coin.Bloody buggery Blake and his dammed carols to excess and roads to wisdom and so on.Prick. Do you think he was referring to vinyl,Ozzy dolls and Elvis belt buckles? Please discuss.

Keish opened the show,a whippet thin coffee hued energy source humming with great hair and crafty lyrics.The shop,located in my much despised hamlet of Newtown began filling up with singles lesbian mothers toting their turkey baster miracles on fat government funded hips,tender young punks in brand new doc’s complete with serious eyeliner and lashings of ennui,fauxhemains as slight as the poems they craft in ironic rooms located like afterthought’s at the back of damp share houses ,nicotine stained fingers clutching at damp brown paper bags bursting with long necks of Coopers ale to dull the pain,old fans of all of our collective bands and a gaggle of my laconic and needless to say endearing awesome  and wildly talented friends.

It was packed by the time I got on stage,well ,behind the microphone in the close quarters corner anyway..Me and Blackie unintentionally both wearing tee-shirts that we had gifted upon one another.Mine a harrowing,ever able to offend black and white photo of Ron Ashton in his full Nazi get up ,a forearm locked around Iggy’s dazed and bleeding neck.(“Will you wear this cause you know I wont” he said referring to the swastika around Ron’s arm “You bet your ass I will!” I crowed and snatched it from his bemused hand) . Blackie’s tee-shirt,a weird Japanese number I picked up on one of my fund draining and patience exhausting  kamikaze shopping jags in the gunpowder scented bowels of Chinatown eons ago. It features a a smattering of “Engrish” and a cool picture of John and Yoko. Bearing late Xmas gifts for each other, I squealed with glee at  the Nick Kent book he bestowed on me and he was well chuffed with his Ramones coffee mug being the java aficionado that he is.

And then I am on stage,woefully under-practiced and ill prepared as always but maybe Gram was sending me a little sequin studded, Nudie suited  luck over from the other side.Chris,the kind eyed owner of the store, has constructed a holy place for such rag-tag worshipers as myself who still haven’t and refuse to grow up,who still talk to you based on the tee-shirt that you wear if its a band we like….what else is there to to and give in such times and places other than pray?

I closed my eyes and began.”Amazing grace” always polarizes a room especially when delivered in my broken glass voice.I could not open my eyes and it was amazing.I was crying my black liner tears,lending the occasion a little bit of Alice Copper ambiance and was as unstoppable as a freight train.I had to make light of myself in the end which in a way I kind of regret but it was necessary.It was all a bit heavy.You could have cut the air with a fucking sabre.I closed with a loaded version of my beloved Mr Cash’s “I still miss someone” and when I turned there was a picture of him and Mr Dylan behind me on the wall.You have to smile.

Thank you Elvis and G’night.

I had to bail to work before Blackie was ever half way done,spirited away by my friend Povy in his low slung VW that goes by the charming moniker of “Georgia” .”As in “On my mind?” I asked stuffing my guitar into the serape covered minimal back seat. “Yeah!” he beamed at me as I admired the recently acquired tattoo of a massive  fuck off dagger piercing his neck,collarbone to collarbone as we took off through the  sultry night Chuck Berry saturating the air all around us,sated and cocky with a post show high.

I later heard that a guy fell over and couldn’t get up towards the end of Blackie’s set “Felled by the majesty of your talents” I crowed when we spoke tonight,it being one of the rare occasions that we were both  available to do so. “Nah,I think it was…” I cut him off menacingly brokering no discussion on the matter “Felled by the majesty of your talent” I hissed and he wisely dropped it.

He is off to Tasmania at the end of this week to record and I envy him as I find myself  thinking of doing nothing but.Dave Batty,the non- violent Peter Grant of punk rock has set up some great shows for him in march with some of the slow soaked alumni of the mighty Neurosis which I cannot wait to see.While I was dealing with the dip-shits on the door post- show ,Miss Nina and big brother were letting their hair down at The Cavalera Conspiracy.

“Literally! ” said  Miss Nina as my phone call found her in the back of a car crammed with 6 other like minded pirates making their way back to the cruel and beautiful coast.”I mean,” she continued ” We both took our hair down and…” Here she paused before somberly intoning “Head-banged!” “No !” I gasped “Yes” she replied sounding both happily surprised and a little dazed by the experence “But we didn’t mosh,other peoples sweat and so on,you know.” I chuckled thinking of my brothers Howard Hughes-esqe maneuvers through the germ clad world in which we exist.

My adrenalin kept me bobbing like a high heeled buoy on the alcohol aided tides of yet another Saturday night on Williams street.The club was packed and I was busy.I stopped off in time for my traditional cranberry juice upon knocking off at 4am and then legged it to the station to make my way back to the bunker.

Pay shoved down my boot next to my knife.3 new shirts.A great show.

Heaven enough.