At the time I was managing the musical career of Sydney based singer and songwriter Danielle Spencer. Danielle was, and is, a great artist and one whose music transcends the bland, ordinary and mass popular. She writes complex and detailed songs and records them with subtlety and taste.

She’s not the normal type of artist that gets invited to sing the national anthem at a sporting event – that’s usually reserved for Australian Idol contestants!

 But that’s exactly what had happened that year. Danielle, of course, also has another life as the wife of a famous actor and as such qualifies as what some like to term as ‘a celebrity’. Celebrities who are able to sing do get invited to sing the national anthem at sporting events.

 We had been to the track on the Friday prior to the event and all seemed to be in order from a technical viewpoint. Vince Pizzinga, Danielle’s producer and erstwhile live sound engineer had been over the technical details and it was all quite straightforward, as you would expect with a live vocal being performed to a recorded backing track. Danielle would have an in-ear monitor device that allowed her to hear the backing track without any delay or echo.

Danielle had posed for a photo on the eve of the event with Helenus, the Derby favorite, trained by Leon Corstens. That photo appeared on the front page of the Herald Sun on the morning of the Derby and it was actually quite pleasing that the newspaper managed to refer to Danielle in her own right and for once didn’t need to mention her famous partner.

Put this nice bit of publicity together along with a live crowd of over 100,000 people and a television audience in the millions and we had a pretty exciting day in store.

It had been determined that Danielle would have access to to the female jockeys room, prior to her performance in the mounting yard. The female jockeys room wasn’t going to be used that day as there were no female jockeys riding on the card. This was in the time before the likes of Clare Lindop and Michelle Payne were trusted in Group 1 races, a situation that seems to have now changed.

However when we went to enter the room we were told in firm terms that ‘female jockeys room’ meant ‘no men’. Vince and I were left outside while Danielle was joined by my partner Amy, who was going to have to help thread the monitor leads through Danielle’s dress leading to her vital earpiece. Amy was no sound engineer and she was a bit concerned that she would do something wrong, even though I’m sure Vince would have the opportunity to check the connections before Danielle stepped up to sing the anthem.

Another eccentric twist was thrown in the preparations when leading trainer Gai Waterhouse arrived at the door of the room. We were later told that Gai liked to use the female jockeys room as her sanctuary on race days and tended to treat it as her private office. Sensing this, I approached her as she went to enter the room and quickly explained that Danielle and Amy were in ‘her’ room, as Danielle needed to hook up her ‘microphone leads’ before she say the national anthem before the race. I’m not exactly sure what Gai’s reply was but it was not too different to her post-race interviews – enthusiastic, colourful and not all that easy to follow. Along with her companion, who I now realise was leading racehorse syndicator Denise Martin, Gai entered the room and proceeded to entertain Danielle and Amy with her million-words-a-minute repartee. I don’t think this was quite what Danielle was expecting as she prepared to sing before her biggest ever live audience!

As Danielle and Amy and Gai and Denise all started to leave the room simultaneously Vince and I met them at the door. Gai turned around to Amy (yes, Amy not Danielle) and issued her last minute instructions. “Well, sing like a nightingale then, my dear!”

The look on Amy’s face was priceless and I seem to remember Dani got the giggles.

It may have actually helped to calm the nerves, well for everyone but Amy who was having visions of singing in front of 100,000 people!

Danielle sang beautifully, the response was wonderful and Helenus went on to win the Derby by the narrowest of margins. And Gai Waterhouse still remains Gai Waterhouse - one of the biggest characters of the Australian turf.

Now for those who have forgotten Warrant were among the best or worst of the hair metal bands of the 80’s, depending how you looked at it.

They were signed in the wake of Appetite For Destruction in an era when big hair, a swag of tattoo’s (do tattoo’s come in ‘swags’?) and a couple of half decent big metal anthems, ideally including a ballad, were all you needed to get a record contract.

At the time of this story Warrant were flying. Their album Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinkin’ Rich had been a reasonable hit, but then the follow-up Cherry Pie had broken them in a big way. That was largely based on the title track, a mischievous commercial rock song that was promoted with a cheeky video that featured a voluptuous blonde and various strategically located pies.

Warrant were on the Sony label in Australia as was former Bangles lead singer Susanna Hoffs and Sony’s Victorian office had a comfort level with bringing their visiting overseas artists into the South Yarra Saloon. As regular readers of this section might recall, the Saloon was a venue of which I was a proud part owner.

So it came to pass that one mid week evening both Warrant and Susanna where guests of the Saloon for dinner and drinks. Well, Susanna came for dinner – Jani and his bandmates were there for the drinks. It was a riotous gathering from the outset and Susanna fairly quickly opted out leaving the metal heads to their own devices.

As was frequently the case at the Saloon, the pool tables were the centre of attention and somehow Jani and I became partners in doubles pool. We were good, I was a fair player to begin with and Jani had clearly, absolutely done the mis-spent youth thing and we started off well.

Now something needs to be established right at the start. We were nothing short of pole-axed. The drinks were flowing, the pool games were being played and as the night wore on it was difficult to keep track of who we were playing, whether we were stripes or solids and even what day it was.

Somewhere along the way we had instigated a policy of $50 per corner, which meant that each match was worth $100 to the winning team. This did two things – it meant that a big audience started to gather as our winning streak started and grew and secondly it made every team we beat kinda irate because we were winning their money whilst barely able to stand up. Jani wasn’t exactly humble in victory either.

Oh, there was possibly another reason for the big audience. Not only was I playing with a drunken, loud, slightly obnoxious rock star I’ve neglected to mention that he was accompanied by his girlfriend. You guessed it – none other than the “Cherry Pie” girl, whose name was Bobbie Brown. Now Bobbie was no shrinking violet, she was a former Louisiana beauty pageant winner who had immersed herself in the world of hair metal – a combination that was never going to put her on the path to a career in nuclear physics. Even though the Saloon was known for hosting its fair representation of the fairer gender Bobbie was guaranteed to be an audience favorite.

As the night wore on and our winnings piled up the details start to get vaguer. However I do remember one particular moment. Bobbie accosted me at one point while Jani was clearly the table and announced, “You’re Jani’s best friend in Australia”.

Upon reflection, at that moment in time it was probably true – I was also most probably Jani’s only friend in Australia.

But obviously that status, however dubiously attained, meant something to Bobbie.

“Because your Jani’s best friend in Australia, you have to come to our wedding”, she added.

OK.

I seem to remember establishing that the happy event was scheduled to take place a few months later in Los Angeles and that it promised to be one of the most obscenely tasteless gatherings of hair-rock royalty that could be imagined. It sounded, well, like a lot of fun actually.

The invitation was repeated several times as the night went on and when Bobbie advised Jani of the addition to their guest list he either didn’t comprehend or didn’t seem to care.

It looked like I was going to Jani and Bobbie’s wedding.

Weird.

Eventually all good things must come to an end and somehow the record company people managed to pour Jani, Bobbie and co into a Tarago and send them home to the hotel. I managed to pour myself into a cab and stumble into bed with a handful of fifties in my pocket.

The next night was the official album launch/media party/piss up for the band – as opposed to the unofficial event from the night before. I didn’t feel like another drink but in deference to my new best friend I thought I had better make an appearance. The party was at the Grainstore Tavern in King St.

I arrived a little late and when I did I was attacked by Sony state manager Peter Caswell. Cas was generally unflappable and had pretty much seen and done it all, but he was in a bit of a state.

“Mate, thank god you are here”, he said (pre-dating the tv show of the same name by about 20 years). “You’ve got to help me”.

In turned out that Jani didn’t like the party and was trying to leave. Apparently he wanted to go to the Saloon, play pool, drink, play pool, drink and “see all my friends there”.

This didn’t exactly suit Sony which had gathered the media and music retailers at one venue only to find the lead singer of the band wanted to be at another venue.

Cas’s idea was that I should go and talk to him, convince him that he should stay at least long enough to shake some hands, pose for some photos and listen to some speeches and then he would be free to accompany me back to my venue for another night of brutal drinking and pool.
The only problem was that I felt like I had been beaten over the head with a pool cue.

Duty called though.

I was ushered over to Jani and Bobbie and he quickly declared he was leaving with me. It looked for a moment that my arrival was going to have completely the opposite effect to that desired. Rather than convincing him to stay he saw me as his direct ticket out of there.

I managed to talk him into staying long enough to do his record company bidding. I vaguely remember saying something about the Saloon not getting going until later and he may as well take the path of least resistance. Whatever I said worked but I did  find myself in the bizarre situation of actually being on stage with Jani and Bobbie as they were introduced to crowd and have him refer to me as his “Aussie mate” in his thank you speech.

It was all a little bit strange.

We did go back to the Saloon but the magic was gone. We obviously played pool better when drunk than hungover and when push came to shove we simply weren’t capable of another night on the turps like the one before. Bobbie did make sure she had all my details for the official wedding invitation before she left.

Of course the invitation never did arrive.

Jani and Bobbie got married (without me!) but by 1994 they were divorced. Apparently Bobbie is currently working on writing a book called Serial Rock Dater: Sex, Drugs, and Cherry Pie. She was a nice girl.

Jani made another album with Warrant and went on to make a solo album and have a couple more marriages before he started having some major alcohol issues.

This came to a head in recent years.

Earlier this year Jani Lane pled no contest to DUI stemming from his most recent arrest back in May — and has been ordered to serve 120 days in jail. In addition, Lane will lose his license for three years and will have to complete a 30-month alcohol-education program.

Jani is scheduled to surrender on July 27.

LAPD arrested Lane in Woodland Hills, California on May 9 after the black Infiniti sedan he was driving allegedly hit a parked car.

Reprtedly Lane blew more than twice the legal limit of .08 when officers gave him a breathalyzer test at the police station.

Back in February 2010, a warrant was issued for Jani Lane after he failed to show up to two court appearances connected to his 2009 DUI conviction.

Lane was scheduled to appear in court on February 23 to show the judge he’s completed his alcohol classes and community service — but he never showed.

The court date was rescheduled for February 24… but Lane missed that one as well.

It’s a shame to see what’s happened to him. Obviously he was far from the greatest rock n’ roller I got to meet and the whole Jani and Bobbie scene was  as stupid as it was funny, but I reckon that underneath all the show and heavy metal posturing he was a good bloke. I hope he’s able to get it together before he becomes another victim.

Well, kind of sharing the stage.

My first ever interview wasn’t even with a musician.

When The Cure (not the band, but a cool name for a student political ticket) swept to power in the Monash University student elections I found myself part of a loose alliance of interests left running the student newspaper, Lots Wife. I hadn’t really planned on this I thus I had no real idea what my role would be.

I was obviously interested in music and I tended to spend more time in the record shop than the lecture theatre but the idea of writing about music hadn’t really occurred to me. Somehow I stumbled upon an idea of writing a series of articles about jobs that existed in the music industry when you weren’t a musician.

In retrospect that idea probably had a bit to do with the fact that my only attempt at playing music (lessons on an electronic organ) had ended in absolute failure. I was hopeless.

I thought an interesting place to start with my series (brilliantly entitled And The Beat Goes On) was to interview a music journalist. Call it student irony, if you will.

The unfortunate soul that I thrust myself upon was a Sydney music journalist named Stuart Coupe. I was a regular reader of Stuart’s articles and I was most impressed by the fact that he had been flown to America to see Bruce Springsteen in concert. That seemed like my kinda job. This Stuart Coupe guy must have some serious clout.

I got in touch with Stuart and he agreed to be interviewed – he must have been struck by the turning of the tables that that represented! Either that or I was the first person that had ever asked.

Stuart was going to be in Melbourne that week as a band he managed had scored the support spot on an international tour. The band he managed was Hoodoo Gurus. We arranged that I would come to the venue where the concert was (the Melbourne Sports and Entertainment Centre – better known as the old Olympic Pool). I would find Stuart and once his band had finished soundcheck we would find a quite spot and he would subject himself to my incisive questioning about his career choice.

Sound easy enough.

It started to go wrong when I arrived at the venue (with my little red tape recorder and my detailed list of questions) only to find the doors shut. Fortunately I was a regular in them parts with big connections. My Mum worked part time in the offices of Victorian Athletics which was located in the grandstand of Olympic Park which backed on to the old swimming pool.

Thus I entered the precinct via the athletics track. I was inside the fenced off area but I still wasn’t inside the actual building. There were a lot of doors but none that were open. I tried all of them, until at last I hit paydirt.

I opened the only unlocked door and behind it was….a corridor. What followed was a one man (well… boy) re-enactment of the Cleveland scene from Spinal Tap. I followed any number of dark corridors, long passages, open doors and curtained off areas but I didn’t really seem to be getting anywhere.

I could hear music though, familiar music and it wasn’t Hoodoo Gurus. This actually made me more nervous because I thought I was running late and had probably missed Hoodoo Gurus and thus Stuart. I wasn’t aware of the fact that the support act actually didn’t start soundcheck until after the headliner had finished. Who knew?

Surely I’d find someone soon that I could ask about the whereabouts of the manager of the support band.

Finally I climbed some stairs, opened a door and pushed aside another black curtain.

I found myself about five metres away looking at a man with a guitar strumming the chords to a song I knew very well.

Lou Reed was looking back at me.

I was on stage. Lou Reed was playing Sweet Jayne and he was looking straight at me.

He wasn’t smiling.

Also not smiling was a very large, very black and very intimidating man. He was not smiling and he was approaching me.

“You are not supposed to be here”, he said in a voice that would have struck fear into a much larger and braver man than I.

He was also correct.

As he gently (well as gently as a man with the size and demeanour of a grizzly bear) escorted me back from whence I came I tried to explain that my mission was neither to assassinate the singer nor record his soundcheck on my little red tape player. Fortunately he believed me.

Even more fortunately he believed my story about being a writer from a student newspaper being at the venue to interview the manager of the support band about his other career as a music journalist.

Either he believed me or took pity on me.

He directed me to the foyer, told me to stay put and told me he would find Stuart and direct him my way. I agreed. A gonzo journalist I was not.

Of course the story ends with Stuart appearing, me conducting a genuinely interesting interview and ending up doing probably a thousand more interviews over the course of the next couple of decades.

Stuart remains a good friend and colleague until today. He still writes, manages and has a very cool record label called Laughing Outlaw. I don’t think I’ve ever actually told him this story.

Hoodoo Gurus went on to be one of Australia’s greatest rock bands and they continue to release great new albums as recently as last month. I’ll probably see them again in concert next week.

Of course Lou Reed is still Lou Reed.

And I was on stage with him.

Every now and then though an interview leads to something more interesting and memorable. Such was the case when I sat down to interview Jon Bon Jovi.

I was an unashamed Bon Jovi fan. Their early big, bombastic stadium rock albums had been a guilty pleasure but I thought they had grown out of the poodle hair and spandex stage quickly and with a fair amount of dignity. By the time their Keep The Faith album had been released I actually thought they were a band of some substance.

It helped that they were a band from New Jersey. Whilst they were still a long way from Bruce Springsteen in my personal music pantheon they had seemed to have matured into a solid outfit who had a fair degree of integrity to go with their multi-platinum status. They still had an eye to the commercial charts but a song like Dry County had proved they were capable of more than just MTV hits. It seemed to me that they had embraced the heartland roots of the New Jersey music scene that had been the province of Springsteen and others like Miami Steve Van Zandt and Southside Johnny Lyon.

The interview started really well and it was clear that Jon really appreciated my recognition of his growth as an artist, and in particular my knowledge of the Jersey music scene and the influence that it had had on him. I think it helped that we were almost exactly the same age, having been born only a few months apart and hence having a similar set of musical contemporaries. The interview was more like a conversation between two blokes with a lot of interests in common than the traditional stilted interviewer/interviewee dynamic.

We chatted for as long as we had and then a little more and eventually the record company rep had to call a halt to proceedings.

“So what do you do for fun around here?” asked Jon as I was packing up my tape recorder.

“What are you looking for”, I asked. “If you are looking for a place to have a drink, I actually own a bar that I reckon you might like”.

“Really?”, Jon quickly replied. “Does this bar have a band playing tonight by any chance?”

“Sure does”, I responded. “It’s just a covers band but they are pretty good”

“Do you have a card or something with the address of the bar?” he asked.

I produced a card and gave it too him. “Are you staying at the Como?”, I asked. “Cos, if you are the bar is about five minutes from your front door”.

“I think that is the name of the hotel” he replied. “Well, maybe we will see you tonight”.

I went back to the newspaper office comfortable in the knowledge that I had a great interview on tape. As for the likelihood of Jon turning up at the Saloon, well lets just say I wasn’t planning my night around it.

Thursday night was my night at the Saloon and it was a night I always enjoyed. The band was good fun. They were called All The Young Dudes and featured a couple of good blokes in Chris Doheny and Sean McVitty. They played some good commercial rock tracks and never failed to put the crowd in a happy mood. It was a reliable night and slightly less intense than Fridays and Saturdays. I had a group of regulars that were unique to my Thursday and it was my favourite night of the week.

It was a reasonably busy night and I arrived around 8pm. Not long after this I was told there was a phone call for me from a man named Patrick Prendergast. Pat was a security guy, an Australian, who I knew had been working with Bon Jovi for several years. Even as I got the message I wasn’t too excited. Pat was a good guy and one of the best security people in the business  and he might simply be calling to let me know that Jon had made different plans for the night.

The news was better than that.

“Jon and Richie are thinking of coming down there tonight”, said Pat. “So what have you got going on?”

I told him about the band, gave him an idea of the sort of crowd we had in and which security we had working that night. The Saloon’s security had a good reputation in the business and this would be an important factor to Pat. The ability to trust the venue security to run a tight ship was always a consideration to the personal security of celebrities. Pat would have been well aware of the Saloon’s reputation as a secure haven for visiting stars.

“Sounds good” he responded. “They are having dinner right now, so plans might change after they have eaten, but Jon seemed pretty keen to get out for a while. I’ll call you again in about an hour.”

I told security what was on the cards and advised the bar staff to keep an eagle eye on the phone and to let me know the moment Pat called back.

It wasn’t till around ten that Pat called back. He didn’t waste any time in relying his news.

“We’re on our way”, he explained. “We’ll be there in about 10 minutes”

“OK”, I responded. “Do you want me to cordon off an area in the restaurant?”. This was often the way we dealt with celebrities at the Saloon, not so much to isolate them from the patrons but to confine the excitement to a limited area and ensure the rest of the venue operated as normally as possible.

“Don’t worry about that’ replied Pat. “The only area we are gonna need is the stage. The whole band is coming and they want to play. We basically want to come in and get straight on stage”.

Now things were going to get interesting.

I quickly alerted security to the impending arrival and organised the car parking area out the front to be vacated. I then jumped behind the back bar which was adjacent to the stage and motioned to Chris Doheny.

“Mate, trust me on this one “, I began. “We’re gonna cut the set short tonight. When I signal to you, finish the song you playing as soon as you can and get off”.

Understandably Chris was a little taken aback. “What have we done wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing mate, just trust me.”

It seemed like only a couple of minutes later and the band arrived. Expertly guided through the crowd they quickly congregated behind the bar. Chris and the band quickly vacated and he smiled at me as he did.

“Good support act”, he laughed.

Initially Jon and Richie Sambora took the stage and jammed on an old blues tune. Their drummer Tico Torres at in while keyboardist David Bryan stayed behind the bar enjoying the hospitality. Tour promoter Michael Gudinski was also around.

They did four or five songs including an acoustic version of their hit Blaze of Glory and the crowd were loving it. This was before the days of everyone having a mobile phone and the line at our public phone was about ten deep with people spreading the word.

At one stage Jon turned to me behind the bar and asked “Do you mind if we do one more?”.

I could only wave back in a “go right ahead” motion.

“We’d like to thank Andrew for letting us play in his bar. This one’s for him”, he announced before playing Wanted Dead or Alive.

Letting him play? Letting him? – like I was gonna stop that from happening!

After finishing Jon and the band hung out for only a few minutes before being hustled into the waiting van. As he was leaving Jon back tracked a few metres and approached me.

“I hope that was OK”, he said. “We had a great time, thanks for having us. And thanks for a cool interview today. I knew your bar was going to be a cool place. See you soon.

Um, no problem Jon, no problem at all!

But back in the mid eighties lawn bowls was still definitely the province of grumpy retirees and stern matrons in white uniforms.

It certainly wasn’t the favoured activity of touring alternative rockers.

Concrete Blonde weren’t your normal alternative rockers.

I had been a fan of the LA band since their debut single True. I’d reviewed it in glowing terms for In Press, played it on my weekly guest spot on the Triple R Breakfasters show and generally saw myself as a champion for the band in this country. When their album of the same name was released I was all over it and when the band was announced to be making a tour of Australia I was aquiver with anticipation.

Now these were the days when I was partial to a Wild Turkey & Coke at any opportunity and thus it wasn’t that surprising to find me holding up the bar at Inflation on a Monday night late one summer. Inflation, for those who came in late, was  a King St nightclub back before ‘King St nightclub’ was an euphemism for ‘titty bar’. Inflation actually had a “rock’ night on a Monday night in those days and I was a regular bar prop. It was important to support ‘rock’ nights, especially on Mondays.

Being a hospitable kind of music scenester/rock journo I had no hesitation introducing myself to Concrete Blonde drummer Harry Rushokoff when he wandered into Inflation unannounced one Monday night. Harry, to his eternal credit, was an ideal bloke to be hospitable to and one thing led to another and a huge night on the piss ensued. There were others involved in our little early week gathering of course but I’ve forgotten exactly who they were and who they might now be married to.

Anyways me and my new best mate Harry decided to call it a night sometime just before the next day but only after agreeing to meet again that afternoon to continue where we had left off.

I picked up Harry at his hotel in StKilda mid afternoon the next day with the intentions of getting back on the turps but instead found that he had his bandmates Johnette Napolitano and Jim Mankey with him.  Now getting on the piss with the drummer was one thing but meeting Johnette and Jim elevated the event to another more esoteric level.

Johnette was, in my mind, a ‘star’ – albeit in the so-called “alternative” universe. She was smart, sexy, dangerous and ridiculously cool. She knew Michael Stipe. He had named their band. Jim Mankey was a minor legend. He had played with Leon Russell, he had been a member of Sparks. Suddenly my coolness credentials had been increased dramatically.

With all due respect to drummers.

Harry had apparently given me a good report because Jim and Johnette were quite willing to devote the afternoon to my abbreviated tour of Melbourne. The tour was going to start in Greville St, Prahran.

Driving from StKilda to Prahran with all three members of Concrete Blonde in my car I had that feeling that many record company promo people have described. “What if I crash the car and kill the whole band?”

I didn’t.

We got to Greville St, wandered through the thrift shops, Greville Records and similar establishments that gave Greville St its flavour before it became too gentrified. Our wandering took us down a side street and towards the Prahran Bowls Club.

I didn’t give it a second thought but all three band members got the giggles. It took me a few seconds to realise that they were laughing at the geriatric bowlers in their whites rolling the bowls up and down the green.

I quickly ascertained that they had never seen lawn bowls before.

Apparently America isn’t big on lawn bowls and the sight of a large number of Prahran pensioners, in white uniforms, little hats and comfortable shoes, earnestly pursuing their sport was a new one for Concrete Blonde.

I don’t think the Prahran bowlers had seen the likes of Concrete Blonde that often. Harry was swarthy, heavily tattooed and vaguely militarist in appearance. Jim was hippie-like all the way down to his mane of straight waist length hair and tie-dye t-shirt, Johnette had that American gothic look going with lots of black lace, heavy eyes and silver jewellery.

It wasn’t  long until the two cultures collided.

Lead by Harry the band was drawn towards the bowlers and after pausing long enough to get my approval that the bowlers weren’t somehow off limits, they marched through the gate of the bowling club.

Actually “marched” wasn’t the right word – it actually seemed like the band were a bit intimidated by the bowlers.

We were approached by an old fella who was clearly the head bouncer. After explaining to him that my friends were “Americans” who had never seen bowls before he responded by explaining that the days competition was almost complete and if we wanted to hang around he would personally give us a demonstration and even let us on the green to send a few down.

And that’s exactly what happened. After following orders and removing our shoes we spent the next hour or so being instructed in the finer points of bias, run of the green and the position of the kitty, by our new mate. He was joined by several other members, including some little old ladies, who were also interested in observing the wild beasts in action.
Everyone got on swimmingly. And why wouldn’t they? The band members clearly recognised the slight absurdity of the situation but I presume the bowlers did too.

They stopped short of exchanging numbers and leaving names on the guest list but it was a great way to spent some time.

Later that night when Concrete Blonde were ripping it up on stage at the Central Club the Prahran pensioners were probably home in bed. But that didn’t stop Johnette from dedicating a song, without any explanation, to the “lawn bowlers in Greville St”.

So if you have been wondering what she meant by that for the last 20 or so years, now you know.

The review was of the Kiss song Shout It Out Loud.

It was way back in Form 2, so I was about 12 or 13 years old. The Form 2 English teacher at Murrumbeena High School (which incidentally is no longer there, and has become a housing estate) was Miss Warwar. She was known to be a tough, no-nonsense teacher whose classes were not to be taken lightly.

She did have her positive side though. Appearances can be deceiving and apparently Miss Warwar was a bit of a groover. This led to her setting us an assignment intended to test our English comprehension.

The task was to select our current favourite pop or rock song and analyse its lyrics. Then we had to write a report about our interpretation and present it to the class.

Little did I know at the time but this was going to be the first of probably ten thousand songs I would listen to, analyse and report on.

I was a big Kiss fan at the time (come to think of it I’m still a big Kiss fan!). I had discovered the band via their video for Rock N’ Roll All Nite and from there I had bought the Kiss Alive album before working my way back to Dressed to Kill, the self titled Kiss album and Hotter Than Hell.

By the time Destroyer came out I was pretty sure I was Australia’s pre-eminent Kiss expert – I was certain I was the best informed Kiss fan in Miss Warwar’s Form 2 Murrumbeena High School English class.

The song I chose was the first single from Destroyer – Shout It Out Loud. In retrospect it was an obvious first single – it was thematically almost identical to their big hit Rock N’ Roll All Nite and it had the same style of massed anthemic chorus.

History probably judges songs like God Of Thunder, Detroit Rock City and King Of The Night Time World as superior to Shout It Out Loud, but for me, as an impressionable 13 year old, Shout It Out Loud was my youth rebellion anthem.

I didn’t actually write a report – that would have been too much like homework – instead I was ready to give  a verbal report. When Miss Warwar asked for volunteers to go first I was quick to put up my hand. I was proud of  being a Kiss fan and I was already confident about my ability to string a few words together on music related matters.

I had it all well planned. I’d analysed the song in depth and came to the monumental conclusion that it was about a bunch of kids who were being exhorted to rebel against authority and express their rebellion by having a loud party. Deep stuff.

The problem came when I was describing what the kids were doing, how they were coping with their version of suburban boredom. I was rolling along nicely until I had to make a snap decision between saying they were “fooling around” and they were “mucking around”.

I chose both and loud and clear I announced to the class that the kids were out “fucking around”.

You could have heard a pin drop.

I quickly gathered myself and blubbered on until the end of my review, hoping that perhaps I’d been the only one to notice my gaffe. No such luck. Miss Warwar looked at me and said “I hope you are pleased with yourself”, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

“I’m sorry”, I replied. “It just slipped out”

Her response was to assign me 100 lines “I must not swear in class”.

I wonder if Hunter S Thompson started this way?

Kiss would continue to make some unexpected appearances in the story of my life, but not in this chapter.

But for some reason I just don’t get it.

Call me a heathen if you must.

My affliction regarding jazz  has been a long term situation and in my early years as a writer it would have never crossed my mind to have interviewed a jazz artist.

Thus I was a little surprised when I got the call from Kaz Cooke, the then editor of the The Age  Weekender – the precursor to what is now known as EG,  asking me if I wanted to interview a jazz saxophonist named Branford Marsalis. Actually it was more like begging than asking. Apparently the interview had had a chequered history and The Age had been guilty of messing up the arrangements for the interview on more than one occasion. Apparently the papers regular jazz writer had come down with a major virus and had blown out the interview at the last minute. The Age didn’t have a reserve jazz writer sitting on the bench and in what really must have been a case of scraping the bottom of the barrel, Caz had turned to me – the snotty nosed indie rock writer – to fill the breach.

I was a lowly paid articled clerk at the time and the fee I received for every story I had published in The Age just about matched my weekly salary and for that reason alone I was willing to take just about any assignment thrown at me. But this throw was a definite curve ball. I was deeply unequipped to do the interview and to make matters worse I had only an hour or so to prepare. But Caz was clearly in a tight corner and she was my editor and thus the gate keeper of my journalistic ambitions. I took the assignment.

Reading through the one page bio that Caz faxed over I realised that I had one reference point that I could relate too. Branford was part of the band that Sting had assembled to make his Dream of The Blue Turtles album. As a fan of the punky reggae sound of  the early albums of The Police I was less enthused by his foray into jazz-pop but at least it gave me a few questions to ask Marsalis. Beyond this I quickly gleaned that he was regarded with mixed feelings by the jazz community – some saw him as a young prodigy who was going to take jazz into a new and exciting era whereas others thought he was an overly derivative upstart who was  leading the genre into dangerous, dare we say it “commercial” waters. It sounded to me like a juxtaposition of arguments that occurred just about every time a new young and exciting player arrived on the scene but again it provided me with a bunch of questions (which I assumed Marsalis had probably been asked many times before but that wasn’t going to stop me asking again!). Branford had a brother Wynton who was equally highly regarded

The interview was conducted on the phone and it went smoothly enough. Branford was friendly and easy to talk to and if he felt like my questions were a little uneducated he certainly didn’t let me know it. Essentially I was satisfied with the job I did on short notice and I felt I had plenty of  material to use to write my article.

I wrote the article that afternoon (when I probably should have been attending to some small legal matters) and submitted it to Caz immediately. It appeared in the paper the very next day. I looked like everyone was happy.

I was a little surprised then when early the next week the long suffering  receptionist at the law firm buzzed me to say I had a call from “some guy named Bradford Marsala (sic)” My immediate thought was “how did I offend him”. I needn’t have worried. Branford had arrived in Melbourne and had been given a copy of  the Age article and was calling to complement me and thank me for my work. This was the first time that this had actually happened to me and my first reaction was to think that these jazz guys had a lot more class than the rockers I had been exposed to!

We had a pleasant chat about Melbourne and all the normal things that touring musicians had to content with – hotels, schedules and where to got good food in the new town. Branford concluded that the best idea would be for me to select a restaurant and call by his hotel that evening and we would grab a quick bite prior to his show with Sting at Festival Hall.

That sounded like fun to me so at around six o’clock I arrived in the lobby of the hotel in Exhibition St. Realizing that time was tight we quickly adjourned to nearby Chinatown and selected a restaurant from the myriad of chooses available. I realized that we were definitely on a deadline when Branford actually bought his saxaphone to the restaurant.  Conversation was easy – we chatted like two old friends mainly about his home and family and his tour with Sting and the reaction it was getting from the jazz purists. I think he actually appreciated the fact that I wasn’t a hard core jazz enthusiast and that he wasn’t obliged to either defend or dissect his musical journey to me.

Time was getting away from us and I suggested that maybe we should head back to the hotel so that Branford could meet up with the band and make his way to the venue. However he had other ideas. Leaving the restaurant Branford headed straight into one of those old pinball parlours that used to feature in that area. I was a bit of a pinball nut myself so I didn’t object but I have to admit I thought it was a little surreal to be hanging out in a sleazy pinball parlour with one of the worlds rising jazz stars when it was fast approaching showtime for his gig with Sting – at that time one of the biggest artists in the world.

We knocked off a few quick games and I noticed how focussed Branford was on the game. Like me he found playing pinball a very focussing and concentrated activity and it turns out it was an ideal way for him to get his game face on for the gig. So focussed was he that he almost forgot to pick up his sax case from the floor next to the pinball machine. I imagine that would have been a hard one to explain to Sting if we hadn’t realised we were missing something prior to getting in the cab to our way across town to Festival Hall. “You see Mr Sting, we left the sax players saxaphone in a pinball parlour on Exhibition St. I don’t suppose you could delay the show while we go back and look for it?”

Arriving at the old House of Stouch, I directed Branford to the stage door and it was only a matter of minutes later when he was on stage with Sting and I was located in the prime position on side of stage behind the monitor engineer.

I know people that would have killed for my position. I have to admit it was a very impressive show and I was more interested in my new friends skill than the proximity of the frontman.

At the conclusion of the show I expected to say a quick farewell to Branford and make my way home. Again he had other plans. My jazz education was about to take a quantum leap. Apparently Branford and another member of Stings band, pianist Kenny Kirkland had arranged with a couple of Melbourne’s best jazz players to do a real jazz show at a small Melbourne jazz club late that night. Apparently Melbourne’s jazz crowd was abuzz with the news – in those circles it was almost like the equivalent of Mick Jaggers ‘secret” show at The Corner or Princes show at The Palace.

Again I played ‘sax roadie’ and away we went again in another cab to the next gig.

The room was packed and Branford and his fellow jazz players played long into the night to a rapturous response.  I must admit I really started to appreciate the sheer brilliance of the musicianship on display. Eventually the show finished and after a quick chat to thank Branford on a great night I made my way home. Some of us (well one of us) had to go and be a good little lawyer the next day!

I stayed in touch with Branford for a few years after that. He returned to Australia a couple of times and we did a couple more interviews. I’ve got a couple of his signed albums at home still – and although they don’t get played a lot I’m proud to have them in my collection. I never really did take my appreciation of jazz too much further than that night at the small jazz club but time allowed me to appreciate how fortunate I had been to spend that night in the company of Branford.

It probably hit home a couple of years later when I was at a party in Sydney and found myself talking to a serious young jazz fan. I mentioned that I had met, interviewed and dined with Branford Marsalis and the reaction was almost bizarre. This guy actually wanted to shake my hand just so he could touch a hand that had shaken that of the jazz icon. I had never had that occur before and I found it quite strange and slightly disturbing.

I haven’t seen Branford in more than a decade now and I never told him that story but I think he would have found it a little disturbing too.

Fleetwood Mac was just enormous and their Rockarena show at Calder in Melbourne was one of the biggest shows seen in Australia. I didn’t get to go to the show – I was deemed a little too young and although my mate Phil Brammer had tickets I wasn’t able to convince my mum that I should be allowed to go. Subsequently the Rumours album and its follow up Tusk got plenty of airplay in my study room and  Stevie, with her flowing lace and apparent vulnerability kept a place close to my teenage heart.

When she released her solo album Belladonna I remember playing it in full on the Monash Uni radio station and giving an earnest summary of each track – even though it wasn’t exactly the coolest thing to be promoting on the indie/alternative obsessed campus radio.

Even as Stevie became more and more a drug casualty and her music became increasingly predictable – or perhaps it was simply that my tastes continued to broaden – I still managed to maintain my loyalty and thus when the opportunity came up to interview Stevie for her Australian tour I jumped at it. Unfortunately the interview was a phoner from Sydney but even with this limitation I was still excited to be talking to  an artist who I retained and great deal of affection for.

I had done my homework. I had read in a previous interview that one of Stevie’s favorite book s was a novel by Taylor Caldwell called Ceremony of The Innocent. There was a particular quote from the novel that the previous interview had referenced that talked about the protagonist of the novel being protected from the evil ways of the world in order to maintain her innocence. I started the interview by reminding Stevie of that book and that quote and asking her about her struggle to maintain the dreamlike state of innocence that informed her songs through all the trials and tribulations that the Fleetwood Mac circus had generated.

It was the right question. Immediately the interview took on a remarkable intimacy. So many interviews just seem to follow a formula with the artist giving rote answers to questions that they have answered hundreds of time before. This interview took a number of different turns and Stevie genuinely seemed intrigued by the directions we were going and this in turn allowed me to throw away the list of questions I had prepared and just go with a conversational approach.

The  interview flowed really well – so well in fact that when the publicist jumped on the line to tell me to wind it up Stevie actually demanded that I be given extra time.  The conversation continued and when I bought up the subject of the sacrifices she had made in pursuit of her career I got an unexpected response.

Stevie actually started crying as she described her regret that she would not have children. The tears were really flowing and what surprised me most was the fact that she claimed that this was the first time she had actually talked about this.

Now I’m not kidding myself here. It is well documented that Stevie had a serious cocaine problem and I have no doubt that her emotional reactions to our conversation probably had a lot to do with her use of the drug. There’s nothing more common among heavy coke users than emotional peaks and troughs. Nevertheless it was slightly overwhelming to have one of the biggest rock identities in the world sobbing to me about her deepest regrets.

Not surprisingly the publicist again interrupted and demanded that the interview finish. It suddenly occurred to me that if the publicist didn’t understand what had happened it could have serious repercussions for me. I would become known as the journalist whose interview had reduced Stevie Nicks to tears. I wouldn’t be offered to many more top level interviews with that reputation.

Fortunately Stevie came to my rescue : “I want to thank you for the most beautiful interview”, she gushed. “That was one of the best interviews I’ve ever done and I hope to meet you one day”.

Nice.

That day came sooner than expected.

The next week Stevie’s concert tour landed in Melbourne and it coincided with a Melbourne show for Cyndi Lauper who was one of the biggest stars in the world at that time.

Molly Meldrum frequently had parties at his home in Richmond and at that stage I was pretty much a regular at any such event, whether it be for the StKilda football team, the Australian cricketers or just about any touring rock star that needed to be entertained. The simultaneous arrival of Stevie and Cyndi in town was ample reason for Molly to throw a party which he dubbed the “Three Queens Party”.

There was actually significantly more than three queens in attendance and as usual the place was hopping. I wonder how Mollys neighbours coped in those days such was the regularity and volume of these parties but I guess they had become conditioned to it.

The details of the party are like so many others at that time – largely sent to a hazy part of my memory where faces and places and conversations seem to merge into one blurry melange. But I do remember meeting Stevie. Nor surprisingly, even though it was a private party, Stevie had an entourage consisting of  her guitarist Waddy Wachtel (you will recall him as the long and fizzy haired dude who played on or produced half the albums coming out of L.A. at the time) and a number of big black security guys. The thing I remember most was the fact that Stevie was as blind as a bat – and I do refer to her eyesight and not her state of intoxication (although the latter was just as easily possible!). She needed to be walked through the room tottering around on her platforms boots and in a seeming state of confusion.
I was determined though to meet her , having made the connection on the phone. Somehow I managed to slip under the guard of the security guys long enough to start chatting to Waddy and at that point my music journo training allowed me to strike up a conversation that was sufficiently knowledgeable and flattering about his career that it maintained his interest. As a general rule sidemen in the bands of major stars like nothing better than to talk about their other projects so as to give the impression that their gig with the major star was just something they were doing while they were waiting for their own genius to be recognised. Waddy was a genuinely nice fella and had had a pretty remarkable career in his own right (until it was derailed a few years later by a major personality flaw) but he was certainly not an exception to the rule.

Somehow in my conversation with him I managed to mention that I had done a fantastic interview with Stevie on the phone recently and how I would really like to meet her. Waddy was happy to oblige.

Upon being introduced I thanked her for the interview to which she appeared fairly disinterested until I reminded her of our conversation about Ceremony Of The Innocent. Suddenly her mood changed completely and she grabbed my arm while gushing about the great interview, how grateful she was to meet me, how much she loved that book etc etc. I seemed a really had struck a chord with the interview.

I cant remember all the details of the conversation now but I do recall feeling pretty happy with myself. Eventually we were interrupted by someone making a speech or falling in the pool or just falling over (as was typical of Mollys parties) and before long Stevie was being shuffled off to her waiting limo. As she was leaving though she made a point of finding me to say goodbye and Waddy came over as well to give me his address in LA and to tell me to look him up if ever I was in his town.

Stevie wasn’t the biggest star I ever interviewed and she certainly wasn’t my favorite artist of all time (even though I was a genuine fan of her music and her persona) but I have to admit that the interview with her and her response to it remains one of my best memories from my music writer years.

In Press – that was nine years of my life I’ll never get back.

How can I distil nine years of owning and operating InPress into a couple of thousand words and even attempt to do justice to the hazy, distant and yet strangely immediate set of memories I have of that time? I feel like I’m living in an episode of Cold Case.

InPress was an intrepid undertaking that I never dreamt would have lasted 1000 editions. I think I was around 25 or 26 when I started InPress  from a shared shop front office in Clarendon St, South Melbourne – an office where it was published for the entire nine years of my custodianship of the title. In retrospect I was quite young to launch such a speculative business but at the time it seemed a logical step.

InPress began, as so many good (and some very bad) ideas do, as a drunken conversation in a nightclub. I was working in music publishing and as a sideline was plying a modest trade as a freelance music writer for The Age and music publications of the day like RAM and Smash Hits. I was also the first, and initially only, feature writer for Melbourne’s first street press publication Beat.

Beat was almost a year old and struggling for life. Its publisher Rob Furst was yet to realise that he was actually on to something potentially lucrative and was juggling Beat with other business interests in fashion and club promotions. He had installed a young Melbourne Uni arts student Rowena Webber as his second or maybe third editor in that first year. I think it was before the Superannuation Guarantee legislation had kicked in. Rob actually gave Rowena the job when she walked in off the street looking for work experience and then he handed her the keys and promptly left for an overseas trip. While he was away the wheels fell off the jalopy several times and Rowena turned to me for advice. Out of a sense of respect for Rob’s enterprise in starting the business I did what I could to right the ship and to mix a metaphor.

The fact that Rowena was very attractive and single only had a little bit to do with my willingness to pitch in at her time of need. OK, it had a lot to do with it.

Remarkably a brief and decidedly clumsy affair ensued and even more remarkably when that relationship inevitably faltered a strong friendship emerged. In truth there was a few months of rather messy confusion between the two styles of relationship but, hey, this was the era when Razor was open on Friday nights and we all know that that venue confused a lot of relationships.

On one night out at The Metro, I drunkenly declared to Rowena that her considerable talents were wasted working for Rob and she drunkenly declared that she could create a much better street press publication if she was freed from the budget constraints that Rob imposed. Apparently Rob was tight with a dollar. Who would have guessed? Our solution was that we would start our own magazine in opposition to Beat.

Have another drink.

Somehow it still seemed like a good idea in the morning.

A couple of months of secret planning led to the formation of a company, Red Rocks Publications (named after the Colorado natural ampitheatre where many a great concert was held). The name was intended to show that we were in the media business not the music business, such were our noble intentions.  InPress was started with one second hand computer, a leased bromide camera and furniture salvaged from thrift stores. Oh, and a $20000 unsecured overdraft.  There were rumours at the time that the business was secretly funded by concert promoter Paul Dainty or a well known Queensland businessman who I had worked with in a mercifully brief prior career as a lawyer. Neither rumour was true. Unfortunately.

We initially had one employee, but what an employee he was! A young bloke named Michael Parisi was our first advertising salesman. Of course history now records Michael as one of Australia’s leading A&R gurus and one of the most influential figures in the Australian music business. But he wasn’t always that way and I have the photos that prove it.

Rowena left Beat on a Thursday and on the following Wednesday the first edition of InPress arrived on the streets- all 24 pages of it. Apparently Rob was not thrilled.  Our first edition actually featured on national television when Molly Meldrum held up the magazine in the Melodrama segment of Hey Hey. It didn’t matter that the front cover mis-spelt the names of the subjects of all three feature stories.  It also didn’t matter that Richard Wilkins was on the front cover although I wont even attempt to explain the convoluted logic that lead to that quirk of history.

Despite theses dubious beginnings it seemed we had struck a chord, found a niche and woken a sleeping giant.. From our second week both InPress and Beat began to grow rapidly. Our arrival stung Rob into action and the street press war had begun. Every potential advertiser in the Melbourne inner city was soon targeted and over the next few months both titles doubled in size, then tripled. By starting Inpress, Rowena and I had inadvertently started not just a publication but a whole industry. Rob Furst should be very grateful. I’m not sure he was all that ecstatic at the time.

Before long I found I was spending more time at the InPress office than at the office of the music publishing company I was being paid to work for and inevitably I found myself in the InPress bunker full time. I spent the next eight years there. People have received shorter sentences for serious crimes.

Soon the mainstream media started to take notice of the so called ‘street press phenomenon’ and The Age wrote a long feature in the Saturday magazine where Rob and I traded claims and accusations about dodgy circulation figures and editorial integrity.

For years Rob and I were cast as arch enemies on the streets of Melbourne but the fact is I think we both realised that the existence of the other was the stimulus that we needed to keep going in what was genuinely a difficult business. We actually got on reasonably well when we crossed paths – usually at 3am in the back office of some nightclub. Street press was an intense business and we obviously both felt it was necessary to visit our best customers establishments and keep our nose to the grindstone.

The next few years are actually a bit of a blur – InPress came out fifty-one and sometimes fifty-two weeks a year and this was in the era prior to desktop publishing, email and digital cameras. Mobile phones were still the size of housebricks, and Andrew Mast and Jeff Jenkins were street press writers. A guy named Fred Negro was doing a comic strip called Pub. Ask your parents Virginia, it was a very long time ago.

There’s so much I remember about the early days of InPress – the ridiculous deadlines, the constant financial pressure, the free tickets and CD’s and guest lists, the advertisers who didn’t pay and the amazing interviews I got to do with bands and artists whose music I loved.

But probably the thing I am most proud of is the extraordinary list of people that passed through the doors of InPress and who went one to make their mark in the Australian media and entertainment worlds. Apart from Michael Parisi I’m able to take some pride in the achievements of the likes of Frank Varrasso, Tim Janes and David Vodicka in the music business and  Myf Warhurst, Jeff Jenkins, Leigh Paatch, Fiona Scott Norman, Chris Johnson, Peter Bain Hogg and Rahni Sadler in the media. Then there’s people like James Young, Stuart Gibson, James Hewison and Karyn Lovegrove in the broader business and arts world. Karyn wrote an art galleries column in the first few editions of InPress and now owns one of Los Angeles coolest art galleries herself. And that list is just the tip of the iceberg, there are so many others who probably have just as big a right to be mentioned but the play-off music has started. I’m thinking of big personalities like Jason Evans, Darren Fishman and Runjan Wiiay who in their own ways have contributed to the fabric of Melbourne.  Most of these fine folks were going to make their mark anyway and I’m certainly not to blame for their success but I’d like to think that their time at InPress provided some of the manure that feed their fungi.

Rowena and I sold InPress in the late 90’s. By then Rowena had her first child and was completely over the weekly grind. I had discovered a young singer-songwriter busking on Acland St and had secured her a record deal in New York. I was wondering how I was going to manage that commute when along came a Western Australian with a cheque book.

I occasionally pick up InPress today and its clear to me its found itself in good hands. That makes me happy. Technology has improved the quality of the artwork and design. There’s probably a lot less stress and physical injury involved in putting the pages together now that scalpels are no longer used and there’s probably less typos due to spell check and the absence of handwritten copy. But a lot of things stay the same. I’m writing this on a tight deadline for one. I was reading the live reviews page  the other day and was struck by the passion and intensity of the writer as she urgently dissected the performance of some band I’d never heard of in a venue that I’d never been to. She was writing like her subject matter actually mattered.

It does matter.

In Melbourne InPress matters and every writer submitting their first live review might end up as the next Michael Parisi or Myf Warhurst. Hopefully that wont deter them too much. And even if they don’t reach the heights of the best of the InPress alumni there is something important about getting the opportunity to have your work actually printed and distributed – even in the era of blogging and user generated content. That isn’t why InPress exists but it’s a very healthy by-product.

For those who like happy endings you will be pleased to know that Rowena and I have ended up in a happy and loving relationship – to our great relief this relationship is not with each other. I got a Christmas card today from her and her husband and family and she is doing really well. I’m the godfather to her second child and we still get on famously. That is probably as big a miracle as InPress lasting 1000 editions. My congratulations to all concerned with both events.

Skid Row was the quintessential late 80’s hard rock band. They were formed in 1986 in New Jersey around guitarists and songwriters Dave “the Snake” Sabo and Rachel Bolan. Sabo was a mate of Jon Bon Jovi and it wasn’t long before Bon Jovi had arranged for them to be managed by Bon Jovi managers Doc and Scott McGhee. It wasn’t hard for McGhee to get them a record deal and by 1989 they had released a self-titled debut album on Atlantic and were on tour with Bon Jovi. That album went on to sell over 4 million copies and by 1990 Skid Row were second only to Guns N’ Roses in the pantheon of hard rock/hair metal.

History tends to lump them in with bands like Warrant and Cinderella but Skid Row actually had a bit more substance. Black Flag they were not but maybe these boys from Jersey had a bit more punk than hairspray in their pedigree. With a photogenic lead singer in the classically named Sebastian Bach, the requisite allocation of leather and tattoos and a shitload of hair, Skid Row pretty much were the prototype that could not have helped but be successful at that time.

In my guise as the publisher and major music writer for InPress magazine I could pretty much pick and choose which interviews I did. Most of the hard rock and metal bands fell into my portfolio for a couple of reasons – firstly I actually liked some of their music, something that some of the cooler indie kids amongst our stable of fledgling writers found incomprehensible and secondly because I found most of those bands very easy to interview. There are not a lot of hidden agendas in cock rock. Ask the question, get the predictable response, throw in a couple of “dudes” and bobs your uncle you’ve got your article. Admittedly its not high art but anyone claiming that interviewing rock musicians is an art form is a wanker.

Anyway it was my turn to get on the phone and interview Skid Row. This time however I did have an element of personal experience to bring to the set of colour by number questions.

I had been involved in a strange relationship with a woman named Christiane. Now Christiane was a fiery one. She was an exotic Mauritian beauty, whose look oscillated somewhere between 70’s punk and Brazilian gypsy. She looked like Bianca Jagger had she been seeing Joe Strummer rather than Mick Jagger. Chris marched to the beat of a different drum. She lived alone in a ramshackle old house in Hawthorn, she never really had a normal job at that time, she survived on very little money and her interests ranged from social philosophy and art to cheap alcohol and pot. She was a wonderful and fascinating individual.

Our relationship was a strange one to say the least. It had lasted around a year and yet I never really felt like we were “going out”. I was hardly good ‘boyfriend material” at the time, living a fairly self-indulgent lifestyle myself, but I think that probably suited Fire Woman (as my friends had nicknamed her) just fine. She wasn’t the “one half of a happy couple” kind of girl.

The relationship staggered onward disgracefully, a minefield of mind games, distrust and occasional lust but beneath all that laid a reasonably solid basis of respect for each other’s choices. Secretly I think Chris admired my entrepreneurial streak as I admired her independent mindedness. Eventually my sheer self-indulgence bought us completely undone but I still think of her fondly and hope that wherever she is now that the fire still burns.  (Update: I unexpectedly ran into Christiane today (Aug 2010) – she’s doing really well and has three of the most gorgeous children you could imagine. I’m happy for her)

At the time of the Skid Row interview Chris was doing something remarkable, at least in my eyes. She was working in social services as a live-in “house-mum” for a group of wayward teenagers at a place called Gordon Homes in Cheltenham. I’m not sure exactly how the job had come about but it was daunting to say the least. I was filled with admiration for her doing this job and in a way it was the time when we were closest. I would often be her back up. These kids weren’t “under privileged”. They were one step away from confinement, many were violent, and most were known to the police. It may not be politically correct to call them “bad” but they sure as hell weren’t the poster children for suburban contentment.

When one of the kids failed to return to the home I would get a call in the middle of the night to come and “mind the shop” while Chris went out looking for the absentee. There were frequent drug and alcohol problems, fights, sexual encounters and other psychological and physical issues. Looking back,  the fact that someone with as minimal qualifications as Chris had at the time, was left alone in charge of this group with someone with no qualifications and legal status such as myself as her only support was an indictment on the system. Whatever “system” it was.

I was also her release valve at that time. On the rare occasions that she got time off she would want to let her hair down and release the pent up pressure of her overwhelming responsibilities. “Letting hair down” was an area I specialised in. I also spent a lot of time at the home simply hanging out and keeping Chris company in what was a frequently depressing environment. It also meant I got to know some of the kids as well as they would let you know them.

In came as no surprise to me that the kids were metal fans. The girls were into Bon Jovi and Poison, the guys were more into Metallica and Guns N’ Roses. The band that they universally liked was Skid Row.

Skid Row had two big songs that resonated with these kids. 18 And Life was a big power ballad about a kid who committed murder and at the age 18 got life imprisonment. Youth Gone Wild was more of an anthem and a celebration of street culture but the undercurrent was that both songs were two sides of the same coin. The kids in Youth Gone Wild could easily become the kid in 18 and Life with one mistake. The kids at Gordon Home completely identified with these two songs.

So armed with my youth social studies field trip research data I embarked on the interview with Dave “The Snake” Sabo with more than the usual perfunctory set of questions. Dave didn’t let me down. He was a great guy and when I told him about the kids at Gordon Home and their identification with his songs he seemed genuinely interested. I explained about Chris and he seemed as impressed as I was with her work. Here was a guy who really understood and appreciated that his band had struck a chord with the audience and he truly seemed to identify with the disaffected youth that had become his fanbase.

The interview went really well – except when it was interrupted briefly when some other dude jumped picked up another phone on Snakes end and started cracking comments like “don’t believe a word he says, he’s full of shit”. Snake found the interloper pretty funny and I asked him which band member it was having fun.

“Ah, he’s not in my band”, he replied. “I’ll give you a clue. His initials are JBJ”.

That was gonna be a good story to tell the kids at Gordon Homes.

The purpose of the interview was to publicize Skid Rows upcoming Australian tour and as we signed off Snake reminded me, “So make sure you bring Chris to the show, man. I’d love to meet her. She sounds really cool”. I promised I would.

A couple of weeks later the concert date had rolled around and due to some good planning we had managed to wrangle Chris the night off. The band had two shows scheduled, the first at Festival Hall on Saturday night and then a second show at The Palace on Sunday night. Chris wasn’t a massive fan but any escape was going to be welcomed and she was ready to get out amongst the metalheads. The show was pretty good in a loud, bombastic, 80’s metal kinda way and after the show we were admitted to the backstage area of Festival Hall. Its not he most salubrious of locations and Chris was pretty keen to head out somewhere and get a drink or three on her night off but I insisted that we wait around long enough to say ‘hey” to Snake.

Eventually we were introduced and in turn I explained to Snake that Chris was “the lady that works with the Youth Gone Wild kids”. He immediately remembered our interview and made the connection. Either that or he just thought that she was a babe. He was a rockstar after all. Either way he had a bunch of questions about the kids, where they came from, why they were in the home, what kind of problems Chris faced with them. She explained that the biggest problem was their lack of self-esteem. She pointed out that to some of the kids the 18 and Life outcome was almost aspirational, a badge of honour.

Eventually Dave was hustled away to meet some other backstage hangers-on and Chris and I prepared to take our leave. Just before we did I was stopped by one of the entourage who introduced himself as the tour manager. “I’ve been talking to Dave and he wants to do something for the kids you work with” he explained. “How far away is the home maybe we can get him to visit the kids? Can you call me in the morning and we’ll work on the details.”

After a fairly subdued night out – Chris’s usually phenomenal staying power was at a low ebb these days – I dropped her back at the home with a promise I would ring the tour manager and see what he had in mind. I warned her not to mention anything to the kids as experience suggested that what sounded like a good idea in the band room after the show when talking to a fiery beauty from Mauritius didn’t always seem like a good idea the next morning!

I did dutifully call however and the news was mixed. Yes Dave wanted to meet the kids, but no there was no hope of him getting to the home. He had had a big night and this combined with record company commitments and soundcheck for the show meant that his day was full.

“How many kids live at this home?” asked the Tour Manager.

“About ten”, I replied.

“Oh that’s OK then”, he responded. “If you can get them to soundcheck, then Dave will meet them there”.

It was easier said than done. There are certain protocols about the kids leaving the home en masse, let alone the thought of them going to a licensed venue. And then there was the issue of transport. The home had a small bus but it wasn’t really big enough to fit all the kids plus Chris and I at once.

The only solution was to hire a bigger bus, which I offered to do. I arranged with Chris to have the kids ready at 4pm and we agreed it was worth the risk of the consequences for her bending the rules.

When I arrived to pick up the kids I was shocked by the group waiting. It seems the kids had taken it upon themselves to invite a “plus one”. Each!

There was no thought of telling them to lose their mates. See this went deeper than some extra kids wanting to go see the band. This was the opportunity for the kids from the home to momentarily be the cool kids in the neighbourhood. The perennial losers, the misfits were suddenly holding the aces. This wasn’t a charity handout but more an opportunity for them to gain some status in their limited universe. The plus ones in a way were as important as the kids themselves.

We loaded them onto the bus. Chris drove and I stood up and gave the kids a lecture in the language they best understood.

“ So I don’t want anyone fucking up OK?”, I began. “The band is doing soundcheck which means they are working. This is their job. Get it. When we get there I want you to go right to be back of the room and don’t move a fucking inch. Don’t go near the stage, don’t go near the bars, don’t get in the way. Don’t fuckin’ embarrass me or you’ll all be out of there so fast your arses will catch fire”.

I had no idea whether they would listen.

I had called ahead to The Palace and warned the venue operator Geoff Howard what to expect. It was quite possible that the TM hadn’t told him what was happening and the last thing I wanted was a problem getting the kids in. Geoff as always was a complete gentleman and extremely helpful. We arranged parking for the bus and a system to get the kids into the building without causing havoc with the fans that had gathered. I couldn’t rely on the Gordon kids being humble about their good fortune and I thought it wouldn’t be good to provoke the ire of the bands fans.

With my warning ringing in their ears we entered the main room at The Palace.

The kids were unlike I had ever seen them before. Reserved to the point of being timid they filed in and stood at the back of the room like a bunch of cornered sheep.

I was approached by a crew member and I explained that these were the kids from the home that Snake had invited.

“Cool”, he replied. “We know that. The band will be back soon”

“Back?” I asked.

“Yeah, they only needed a short check tonight. We’re done. But chill dude, Snake’s got something planned for you”

There were a couple of crew guys on stage but as no band. One by one the band filtered on and you could sense and almost disbelief in the group of kids. Finally Seb Bach strode onto the stage looking every inch the rock star.

After a couple of standard “check, check” into the mike, he looked up and saw the kids.

“What the fuck are you dudes doin’ down the back”, he bellowed.

Immediately I thought “oh shit, nobodies told him about the kids”

“Get the fuck down the front where you belong”, he roared with a big shit-eating grin on his face.

The kids looked towards me with a questioning look on their faces. They had remembered my warning.

“Do what the man says”, I laughed.

For the next twenty minutes or so Skid Row treated those twenty kids to their own private stadium rock show. They must have played Youth Gone Wild and 18 and Life two hundred times in the preceding year but that didn’t stop them delivering both songs and a few more. The kids loved it. Baz played up to the crowd of twenty and if it were twenty thousand and between songs he and Snake chatted to the kids.

After about six songs Bach did the traditional sweep of hands and he and the band vacated the stage.

“OK kids, round up, lets go”, I commanded over their excited chatter. Obediently we started heading for the door.

“Hey”, where ya goin’ called a voice from behind us. It was Snake. “Come back here”.

Snake perched on the side of the stage and the kids gathered round.

“I got some shit for ya”, he said as the started handing out guitar picks and drumsticks.

“So you kids are fuck-ups”, he asked although it was more like a statement. “That’s cool. I was a fuck-up too”.

I’ve heard a few “rock n’roll saved my life” stories over the years but few flowed with such sincerity as the one that Snake told those kids. I can’t now remember all the details but in essence what he was saying was that he was a young punk himself, the 18 and Life kid waiting to happen. The only thing that saved him from ending up in jail or dead was being in a band.

The kids hung on every expletive laced sentence and I swear his story had more impact on these kids than a phalanx of well meaning social workers.

They asked him lots of questions and he took time with every one. As they were talking I was motioned over by the tour manager.

“So how many kids you got here” he asked.

“Um, twenty I think”, I replied. “Word kinda got around”.

The TM departed and returned a couple of minutes later with twenty Skid Row t-shirts. “Make sure they all get one of these”, he said.

By this time Dave and the kids were winding up. With a couple more high fives and hugs our visit was over.

On the way home in the bus the kids were strangely quiet and reflective. It was as though the adrenalin of the occasion had actually worn them out rather than fired them up.

Back at Gordon Home the kids dispersed across the house and Chris was able to wind down as well. We had done a good thing. Eventually I was ready to leave – of course I was due back at The Palace sans entourage for the real Skid Row show that night.

As I was leaving a little bloke who was one of Chris’s favourites, but a young fella who had always been disturbingly angry at the world emerged from his room and sidled up to me.

“Where you going”, he asked.

I wasn’t game to tell him I was going back for another dose.

“Just heading home”, I replied.

“ Oh right”, he began. “Man, that was so cool what you did today. No one gives a shit about us and we never get cool shit happen to us. So, um, thanks.”

The little bloke stuck out his paw.

I took his hand and shook it. Nothing else was necessary.

“Well have a good time then.” A smile crept across his face. “And don’t get too pissed with that Snake dude. He’ll fuck you right up”.

Christiane worked at Gordon Homes for a few more months until it just got too hard and emotionally draining for her.

The kids all eventually went their separate ways and hopefully took with them a little of the self respect that Snake had tried to instil in them in their brief meeting.

I did cross paths with Snake again in 2000. We were backstage at a Kiss concert in Austin, Tx. But that is another story…