The metal chairs are just cranes these days. I’m riding towards them right now, along the bike path that runs parallel to the 96 light rail, linking the Crown Casino to St Kilda and Port Melbourne. These cranes connect my city to the world of global exports and imports, an economy that’s designed to be unfair. This is a thing that some people believe requires a punk attitude to set straight. But back when punk broke my brother and I didn’t care about any of that. We’d gaze out at the cranes from the St Kilda breakwater and try and hit posts with rocks. I remember being warned about needles in the sand in back then. These days after a summer storm you have to look up the bacteria levels in the bay to check if it’s safe to swim, because the rain washes coffee lids, ciggie butts and various kinds of shit and piss into the bay. The irony is that St Kilda residents––who probably produce some of the healthiest, raw organic poops in the city––can’t submerge themselves in the million-dollar views they’ve paid for. Which might be a sign that we’ll all end up splashing about in the same crap eventually (punk or no punk). But probably not."St Kilda residents, who probably produce some of the healthiest, raw organic poops in the city, can’t submerge themselves in the million-dollar views they’ve paid for. Which might be a sign that we’ll all end up splashing about in the same crap eventually."
But that’s John Encarnacao’s definition of Australian punk. The conversation has moved on from The Birthday Party and X, the skinny white dudes with guitars. These days a doom-drone band like Divide and Dissolve can make the news by pissing on national monuments. That’s punk. These days a folk-rocker named Courtney Barnett has been anointed as the new Kurt Cobain. That’s punk too. Or, at least, it’s ‘alt-rock’."The conversation has moved on from skinny white dudes with guitars. These days a doom-drone band like Divide and Dissolve can make the news by pissing on national monuments. "
At the same time, my bosses would approach developers with our city guide readership stats as proof that they knew what made Melbourne so liveable. The developers would commission them to make a fun mini-guides to the Cultural Precincts being built under the developments: we’d recommend any bars, restaurants, record stores or coffee shops in the area. In a way, if you were a lower-income content maker (which is everyone, unless you’re a wealthy hobbyist or just dressing poor) writing for a city guide, you were gentrifying yourself out of your own neighbourhood while supporting the local scenes you loved. It’s ironic, but for a generation raised on irony, it’s business as usual.The other day I listened to Calendar Days for the first time in a long time. I was sitting at the dining table with my housemate and her friend. Her friend had an eighteen month-old baby. We were all cooing because this baby was sucking on a piece of lemon. It was the first time she’d tasted something sour and she loved it. I played Calendar Days because it’s jangly and mellow, and the sun was out. There’s song at the end of Side A called “Two Year Lease,” where Steph Hughes sings about a letterbox that’s got a picture of “a cat playing cello” on it. The way she sings it you can almost see her at the windowsill with her chin resting on her forearms, breathing in the smell of an uncut front lawn, overhearing a conversation about her and the two-year lease. It’s like she doesn’t want to eavesdrop but she’s too stunned with anguish to move. At my dining room table, the baby squirmed and giggled. And I remembered how I have two jobs, and a lease, and I love where I live. But if they raise the rent I’m probably going to have to find a new home.Dick Diver never went punk. They’re too lazy-sounding for that, and their brand of apathy started to seem less and less vital after Tony Abbott took power. Courtney, on the other hand, just got bigger and bigger. She clearly realised she was excellent at rocking out. Plus she wasn’t a band from an insular scene, she was a personality who could charm Ellen Degeneres one night and shake concert halls the next. Still, I’ve always prefered her slow-build folky numbers. The biggest sway-along moment at her Melbourne show at Festival Hall was during “Depreston.” Just like “Two Year Lease”, it’s a song about the estrangement you can feel when you’ve been priced out of a neighbourhood where you’ve built an identity. The crowd joined in as she sang “if you have a spare half million/ you can knock it down and start rebuilding.” Someone in front of me even held up a lighter while they swayed. I watched the flame and thought it was a bit of an ironic throwback, because it’s not cool to smoke anymore. And you certainly can’t smoke inside a venue. I thought, I bet that guy is a clever Melbourne music fan just like me. And I bet, just like me, he found the song ironic because developers just bought Festival Hall. They’re about to “knock it down and start rebuilding”.It’s not like music fans will mourn the loss of Festy Hall too much. The sound was a bit shit and the space was awkward. If you got bad seats you’d be craning your neck around a corner to see. But it’s strange to think the place where I saw the Pixies, Smashing Pumpkins, Kings of Leon, Tame Impala, Them Crooked Vultures—only for John Paul Jones—The Strokes, and Flaming Lips is going to be demolished. Gone the way of the alt-rock monoculture.And good riddance. The only people who miss the alt-rock monoculture tend to be people with opinions staler than a Tool hoodie and bong shed. If these bands tour again they’ll have to sell out Margaret Court Arena (which they won’t) or they’ll be playing on smaller festival stages. Meanwhile, the poorly-lit corner of West Melbourne where Festival Hall once stood will house gleaming stacks of apartments. Once the apartments are up, you can bet people will open cafes and bars and restaurants and record stores and fashion stores with headless mannequins in the windows. The bars will serve a range of local and international craft beers.Once I arrive at work, I tie up my bike, swipe my ID card and and head to the GPO box sorting frames. Mai Ling is already manning the pigeon holes (she’s been sorting mail all through the night). I say hi and plug in a podcast. This week, it’s about whether or not Ashlee Simpson was overrated. Last Friday, it was an NPR program featuring Courtney Barnett. I was throwing envelopes into pigeon holes labeled ‘Births, Deaths and Marriages’, and ANZ, and Maurice Blackburn Lawyers. And I listened as people wrote into NPR telling Courtney how her music makes them feel. Listeners from over the world feel less alone when they hear her play. After the final email is read out to Courtney, a deep, folksy American voice took over and said: “The Lagunitas Brewing Company founder Tony McGee says that learning to brew craft beer took inspired amateurism: ‘ It’s like punk music. They just picked things up and they said if ‘I can make these things make noise, I can do it in rhythm and people will dance and we’ll fill up rooms with people who are as angry as we are…’ and so it was with craft brewing.’ To discover how music plays a part in more than just great beer at Lagunitas, visit lagunitas.com.”I didn’t visit lagunitas.com, and I can’t listen to Courtney much anymore. She’s just, as she says, a reflection of what we want to see. But she’s not just that. She’s also an individual with her own subjectivity. Her personal dissonance helps people feel less alone (and it sells craft beer). Once Festival Hall is demolished, lots of people in the new apartments will be happy they have easy access to craft beer. They won’t have trouble finding it because someone will create a fun mini-guide to new the cultural precinct that’s being established. And if they ask me to help, I won’t say no. I’ll finish my postie shift and ride right on over along the Docklands bike path to West Melbourne, ready as over to make some fresh content. Because I need the money. Because there’s no saying when my rent will increase, or by how much.Once the beer ad ended, I took out my headphones and went on my break. I sat with a Styrofoam cup full of Nescafe and opened a new tab on my phone to confirm my attendance at a punk show. The band I wanted to see is called Unsanitary Napkin. Their Facebook event says:"If you're a lower-income content maker writing for a city guide, you're gentrifying yourself out of your own neighbourhood while supporting the local scenes you love."
I clicked attending (safe in the knowledge it that my feed would see it and that those who, like me, mediate their lives through screens might never be able to distinguish the difference between symbolic resistance and actual resistance but know that there’s no point dwelling on it for too long because too much pondering doesn’t change shit.) Then, I put my phone back in my pocket and went back to sorting Her Majesty’s Mail. God save the Queen.Sam West is a cultural critic and editor from Melbourne. Follow him on Twitter.“Unsanitary Napkin are a furious anarcho-punk from Aotearoa New Zealand vomiting political rage like a sped-up Rudimentary Peni with the joyful energy of Devo and the anti-patriarchal vitriol of Emma Goldman. They are touring a brand new 7” called “Orgasmic Capitalism”. And are supported by UBIK and Exhaust World. Ten dollars/PWYC. All proceeds from this show will go to RISE: Refugee, Survivors and Ex-detainees. RISE is the first refugee and asylum seeker organisation in Australia to be run and governed by refugees, asylum seekers and ex-detainees. Visit riserefugee.org for more info. This event takes place on Wurundjeri land that was never ceded."