I don’t know where to start this. I’m tired, and have big feelings, so instead of thinking about writing this, I’ll just type without thinking and see how we go. Sorry. Changes, eh. Hate’m.

I’m progressive, in theory, I love change, on paper, and have no reasonable or logical arguments against it. Change takes us forward, allows us to try some new things, improve, learn from mistakes… In that sense, I can absolutely rationalise it, but deep within sits a little sad goblin who feels safe and happier when things stay the same.

I don’t just not enjoy moving house, death or people moving away, or, say, places that I love disappearing for whatever really good reason.

Remember the Kings Arms?

I used to love working at the Kings Arms. We fell in love there, we’d chat and laugh and hear great music, even longer chats in the ladies’ bathroom, sending musicians away from the door so they wouldn’t let everyone in for free, ha, the loudest gigs ever, the mozzie bites from the garden bar, the Act voting young neighbour that always wanted to convince us that he was very cool and a hit with the ladies, Steve, Sajjad, Guru or whoever else was on security duties, the team the team the team, the tiny green room, the fence climbers and their injuries, yikes, occasionally, really great food, life modelling there, awkward, one too many apple juice with either frangelico or zubrowka, or playing on that legendary stage myself, and remember that one time when someone got a knee in the forehead from fucking arsehole musician who really only cared about herself. SIGH. The friends we made.

I still find it hard to cycle past that ugly building that sits on its site these days. And Lucha, let’s not go there. All of my love for all of Lucha. That still stings, too!

Venues come and go, and with some, it’s sort of meh. Took me ages to notice the Dogs Bollix was gone. The Thirsty Dog was fun, but had not only weird owners at times, but also really weird regulars. Always had to watch my back there.

Some venues you WISH were gone, ha, let’s not go there. If you know, you know.

The Wine Cellar

Someone asked me if I could remember my first time visiting the Wine Cellar, and I genuinely couldn’t. There were a few contenders for those first gigs, but it’s all a bit of a blur. I remember so many shows, so many special shows of people who are now no longer there, or who are now playing much bigger venues across the globe.

The photo I used for this post is the first photo I’ve ever taken there, but I can’t tell what date that was. A long time ago.

I remember a lot of Vitamin S shows, watching mesmerised. My brain needed them at the time, the randomness, the unpredictability. Would someone play teacups in lieu of percussion, would someone dangle from the ceiling, wearing a pilot’s helmet? I’ve always loved everything about Vitamin S, and wish I had more time to go regularly.

I’ve been at the Wine Cellar probably more often than any other bar or venue in my entire life, and not just for work, but also for the joy of just being there, the probably company of possible new friends, the vibes, and Rohan.

It’s sort of like knowing a certain wall of a certain spot so well that you know every piece of it, all of it, but its taste, if that makes sense. I’m a smeller and I’m a taster, and have licked a lot of weird things to see what they’d taste like, but those walls, nope.

Remember when one night, at a Gunslingers Ball gig, a rat ran up towards us, and it turned out we found a tame rat in the bowels of St Kevins, which I kept safe in the drawer of the door desk, and after work, I took her home where she slept in my drawer for a couple of days before I bought her a cage and kept her safe until I found someone who I felt needed her at the time? Greta, the rat. She was a good lil rat! Marlene wasn’t pleased.

All of those Tiny Ruins shows, Amelia Fazerdaze, Nadia Reid – people who went on to do so well for themselves later, but I remember those early, tiny shows that people would later claim that they had been to. But so had I, and my memory is a bit of a freak and remembers very strange facts, like who went to which gig 15 years ago. People would always enjoy claiming they had been to these shows, but really, it was wishful thinking on their part. Sorry. I’d never dob you in, but you and me, we know. ❤️

Me, I played music! I signed boobs afterwards, I experimentally asked for a man groupie once and got one! I made them laugh, and shambled my way through my sets, terrified every time, when there are so many pro musicians around me all the time, and ME and my bad strumming. What a time! I played songs written about my bad heartbreak with the men those songs were about watching from the audience, and they didn’t know it was them. To me, mortifying. Cringe. Like you wouldn’t believe.

When I first got back into doing the door, I got paid $13/h, and man did I look after those doors. You could assault me, twist my arm behind my back, strangle me, but if your name wasn’t on that list, you would have to pay to get in. How often did I hear “Oh I just want to show the room to my friend real quick!”. “Can I just have a quick look to see if my friend is inside?”. “What, $5?! I don’t even know the band! Can I just see if I like them? I’ll pay promise!”. And of course, always much-loved: “So, where are you from?”, the perpetual favourite!

And that takes me to, well, there are of course good people at venues, many many good people at many awesome venues, but no one is like Rohan, who you feel really cares about it all, encourages and teaches and hypes and helps. That’s the stuff a lot of people, probably the majority, would never get to experience.

And when you really care, that can take away something from yourself, in a way. I’d know because I really care, too, regardless of you knowing that I care, if you appreciate it, like that I care, or even like me – doesn’t even matter. I care.

It gives, and it takes.

There’s something reassuring about knowing there was a place with someone else who also really cared, and who I felt also always really cared – and cares – about me, and there are not that many people like that on all accounts. Who cares about anyone any more out there, you sometimes wonder.

I think for many of us nerds, that was a place of a ton of people with similar interests, general attitudes on various stuffs, insecurities, and ha, where you trying to sneak in, to not pay $10 meant someone might not eat for a couple of days, so if you felt I was (or am) taking doing the door seriously, well, I do because that’s huge

Anyways, I could keep going, but won’t. I said to Dan earlier, well I said something like, that sometimes you’re in a place, and you see the ghosts of your memories, when so-and-so stood in THAT spot and said t h a t thing. When the place itself is gone, there are only the memories in your head.