from the archives: Double-oh-uh: Spectre (2016)

On 24 November 2014, Sony Pictures Entertainment was hacked, revealing the bitchy machinations of the blockbuster film-making process to the general public.

Via our *top secret* connections, we have secured this exclusive look at the creative process behind the newest Bond blockbuster, Spectre.

_______________________________________________________
From: Crumpet-Thighsalot
To: REDACTED
CC: REDACTED BCC: REDACTED
RE: Minutes: SPECTRE screenwriters retreat — 27 November, 2012
_______________________________________________________

Present: “JL”, “NP”,” RW”, ”JB” (not that one), “SM”, “DC”. Stenographer: Ms Crumpet-Thighsalot

SM: Well, chaps, based on these weekend box office reports, looks like we’ll need to heave another one of these limp loads of cobblers out toot-bleeding-sweet. Be a good girl and fetch us a round of double brandies, would you, Ms Crumpet-Thighsalot?

JL: Good meeting’s a quick meeting gents, let’s get cracking. Who wants to kick this off?

NP: Thanks, JL. I think he needs to meet some women in varying states of grief and emotional distress…and give them a jolly good seeing to.

JL: Yes, I suppose that’s a given, NP. But a good place to start, nonetheless. Who are these birds he rogers? And why? Psychologically. We should really ratchet up the pathos. The darkness.

RW: How about we get someone age appropriate, say, oh, I don’t know…that Italian, Monica…Bellucci is it? Put that tired old cliché of Bond not getting his end away with ‘women of a certain age’ to bed…as it were? (tee hee)

DC: (enthused) I’m liking where this is going, lads. Let’s really show the audience he’s a 21st century bloke — a chauvinist, not a misogynist. Cracking!

(Several glasses clink)

RW: And then, once we’ve gotten all those internet bores off our collective backs, he’ll ditch her immediately and fall for a Frenchie young enough to be his daughter. We’ll need to do some press where she bangs on about her undeniable sexual chemistry with DC in the lead up to release, of course.

DC: (unintelligible)

SM: (sticking a post-it note to a whiteboard) Well, that’s that sorted then. What’s next? I suppose we should get the bloody credits sequence out of the way — they’re always a right headache.

JB: Tentacles.

SM: What’s that, JB?

JB: Tentacles. Thick, onyx tentacles slithering all over a nude Bond…and his Walther PPK. Like, really going at it, constricting, choking…

(Awkward silence)

…and of course there’re all these confused models sort of just standing about, swaying a bit, like a Robert Palmer video. But mainly Bond. Nude. And big black tentacles.

JL: We could get that Sam Smith to do the theme — a guaranteed ‘unit shifter’, as they said in my day — he’d really help the fans appreciate how good Chris Cornell’s theme song actually was, too.

SM: Alright, yes. Tentacles. Thanks for that, JB…I s’pose we can come back to that one if we’re really desperate for something. I’ll look the Smith bloke up later. Moving right along, let’s get down to brass tacks — what’s this one all about? What’s the meat of Bond 24…? After all, this is the film that’ll lead us into the historic twenty fiftieth chapter of 007 on the big screen!

NP: Best of Blighty! Top Gear! British engineering! Traditional British knee tremblers! British gadg —

SM: We’ve already secured the Heineken endorsement. Apple’s on board, too. Ms Crumpet-Thighsalot can email you the full list, if you’d like?

NP: Can we at least have an aerial night shot of the Thames with a bloody great ‘LONDON’ caption on it? Those frightful heathens in the Antipodes need all the help they can get.

SM: Consider it done.

JL: We’re really making cracking progress here, gents — at this rate, we’ll be down the Bladder & Bread-basket for kick off.

DC: Now, speaking of phones, I’ve been thinking. What’s in all the headlines, lately? Snowden. Surveillance. Privacy. Let’s inject some realpolitik into this one. What’s Bond if not relevant, ey? What’s it like when an old fashioned state-sanctioned murderer’s threatened with obsolescence by bloody nerds with drones and GPSes and what not?

NP: Bloody good point, DC — when’s a drone ever porked a supermodel on a space station? Never, that’s when!

SM: Quite.

DC: I say we crank a bit of the old Cold War nostalgia, really ask some big questions, challenge those popcorn gumming plebs…

NP: Like in The Dark Knight?

DC: (terse) I’ve not seen it.

SM: I’m liking where this is going, DC — let’s put a pin in this and flesh it out on set like usual, eh? Time’s money, eh wot? I suppose the big question we’re all dodging, here, gents, is: who’s the villain?

JL: We’ve been doing a bang up job on this front. Three camp Europeans in a row- very progressive, very challenging… To be honest, I’m stumped, lads.

JB: It’s a head scratcher, agreed.

RW: Here’s an idea…what if the last three films are all interconnected by a shadowy, heretofore unseen conspiracy masterminded by…someone related to Bond? Perhaps a secret foster brother who’s mad his dad loved 007 more?

JL: Good god, man. Genius! We can even jam a few pompous thematic references to ‘duality’ in there — lots of mirrors, f’rinstance. Psychological and what-not. The duality of man. Freud.

RW: Jolly good idea. Let’s say this vast master plan, going to ridiculous lengths to specifically target Bond, has been in place since Casino Royale. After all, those bloody Gen Ys do enjoy having everything explained to them in agonising, tedious detail.

NP: I’m feeling like Bond needs a Joker. Can this guy have a distinctive scar?

DC: …

JL: I’m thinking we see the origin of the scar, my good man.

(More glasses clinking)

SM: Well, chaps, the hour groweth late, as Steve King said — sterling bloody work, the lot of you! Let’s adjourn to the boozer — we can iron out any minor details we’ve missed — henchmen, vehicles to be exploded, locations for the how’s yer father, an actual villain — with a viewing of my Fiftieth Anniversary box set after a pint or twelve.

I must say, I do feel like this one needs an ejector seat…

[Meeting adjourned]

short: the prospect of unchecked violence

“How do you reconcile being a blunt instrument of The Establishment with oppressing your own class interests?”
It was Officer Chock Fistwell’s first day.
Chock was of average IQ for a cop, and the final question on the entry exam had confused him to the point of violence. 
The squat, coiled pink knot of rage in the all-black boiler suit had wrenched a leg off his chair and assailed his test paper, reducing the desk beneath to splinters.
The department’s personality tests indicated he fit the required profile perfectly.
Psychopath.
Chock passed on the spot and was inducted immediately. 
Officer Fistwell was assigned crowd control out at the Urtabarkkenoo orgone reserves.
A rabble of filthy art students and ferals had blockaded the train line to the port.
Chock was kinky for power. He tugged his shirtsleeve down over his thorny ARBEIT MACHT FREI tatt and rasped a callused palm over his freshly shaved skull.
Officer Fistwell strapped on his beetle-like peacekeeping carapace:
How good was this opportunity to stomp on dissent, to bring the mighty boot of The State down on the skulls of the rabble?
Of course, Chock was incapable of framing a sentence that complex – he’d passed the force language test by failing spectacularly – he just got off on the prospect of unchecked violence.
Chock strained to buckle his tactical codpiece.
He’d  drawn water cannon detail.
That wasn’t as good as being up in this coven of perverts’ grills, getting fisty and spunking hot raw capsicum spray down their throats... but it was good enough.
The force’s arrival in Urtabarkkenoo was announced by a column of police armaments rolling in behind the mounted division, all bulletproof and bristling. The rank and file, the blokes who got to mix it up mano-a-hippy, blood and broken teeth style, thudded in lock step up back.
Chock envied them.
His mood brightened, though, when he discovered that the Water Cartels’ H20 monopoly meant the cannons now pumped raw effluent.
He’d topped up at the sewage station – this was going to be fucking great.
The battalion of cops scuttled, a tide of lethal roaches.
The sun set, ugly and clotted.
Tension, begat by imminent, inevitable violence, settled.
A few hundred yards up the road was the blockaded rail junction, just past a sign that read

CRUSADER-EXCALIBUR HOLDINGS PTY LTD | TRESPASSERS WILL BE EXECUTED

The hippies were dancing, for fuck’s sake, around a glowing pile of orgone crystals stacked a storey high at the nexus of the junction. A snaking diesel freight train was stopped further north, its headlights punching dimly into the  twilight.
Commanding Officer Drongo “Shovelhead” Dutton was in the vanguard of the advancing columns of cops.
Every officer under Dutton’s command had been cloned from his curdled DNA.
As such, they all shared his propensity for undiluted Fascism.
Chock sized up the battalion from his vantage atop the cannon.
They were Legion, and they were all him. 
It was a fleeting consideration.
Chock was rigid as he trained his cannon on a green haired dirt-farmer and adjusted the pressure to “grievous bodily harm”.
The prospect of caving in some hippy skulls pulled him into sharp focus.
The raggedy crew of malnourished protesters locked in a circle around the junction were begging for 100% legal and justifiable obliteration under the laws of the state, he reckoned.Dutton unhooked his squealing loud hailer and held it up to his congenital sneer.
Feedback scraped the scene.
Chock’s trigger finger twitched, chipped teeth gritted.
Sweat stung the nicks in his zero-bladed skull.
Dutton’s monotone rumbled across the expanse.
“Crush them.”
There were 36 protesters in total – all good and very numerological. The coven had been firing up a particularly juicy Working for the approaching fash.
Orgone crystals, a spicy natural resource unique to Arcadia, weren’t just a next-gen fuel source set to power the economy into the next millennium; they also had wild supernatural properties.
The CRUSADER-EXCALIBUR mine site was, in fact, a turbocharged locus for hefty loads of mind-bending etheric energies.
An oil slick of pigs surged, thirsty for a reckoning.
Jade orgone power wreathed the coven, locked together elbow to elbow in a containment circle around the crystal haul. They chanted wordlessly and the red rock beneath them growled.
Chock Fistwell’s trigger finger seized. He felt the surge of the cannon’s pumps as toxic sludge was fed into the cannon –
The ground in front of the coven – the green-haired one  muttered  “This is going to be fucking great”  through a malicious slash of a grin – split apart, spraying an umbra of orgone jizz skyward.
The gouge in the earth’s mantle raced at the looming regiment. 
A screaming  infant could be heard from below, volume escalating rapidly.
The first line of filth seized, bewildered.
Chock’s trigger finger choked. His receding jaw slackened at the unfolding spectacle.
His inert cannon leaked a thick trickle of effluent. 
Look, we don’t do subtlety around here.
The racing void in the desert floor gaped and swallowed the middle of the frontline. Cops on the fringe tumbled in, wailing.
The shrieking intensified along with the coven’s alien chanting, almost subsuming the rending of earth.
Dutton’s panicked order to retreat was lost in the cacophony.
The void swelled, making way for the screeching thing.
Dutton’s Legion advanced, genetic programming overwhelming their urge to flee. 
They continued to tumble into the widening earthen maw, which looked precisely like a giant vulva to the police helicopter humming uselessly overhead.
We don’t do subtlety around here.
The thing beneath the earth crowned, erupted onto the surface in a shower of red dirt and chunks of cloned fascist.
It was bipedal,  fifteen feet tall.
A scorpion’s tail whipped.
Six arms  with hooked pincers snapped.
Blessed black wings folded across its armored back.
Its screeching, six eyed head, a toddler’s, was wreathed in fire.
This, then, was the first recorded earth-dimensional appearance of the BA‎BALÖN force in fifty years.
It ended satisfyingly badly for the cops.

from the archives: ALTARED CONSCIOUSNESS (2017)

DARK MOFO IS A PROVOCATIVE, ANNUAL TASMANIAN ARTS FESTIVAL WHICH TAKES PLACE AROUND THE TRADITIONAL PAGAN WINTER SOLSTICE. FOUNDED IN 2013 BY MUSEUM OF OLD AND NEW ART ENFANT TERRIBLE DAVID WALSH.

THICK, otherworldly purple fog cascades from the lobby of Pilgrim Uniting Church on a typically bitter winter evening in Launceston. An usher - made up and clad in white - stands solemn, silent sentry at the main entrance, which is crimson lit.

The steeple’s cross is a vivid red beacon.

As you approach the entryway, vague figures move in silhouette, rendered apparitions by murky atmospherics. Stepping inside, bright floodlights briefly disorient as you notice the disquieting ambient throb and hum of disjointed soundscapes pulsing from the heart of the church. There’s a whiff of something earthy -  not quite incense - infused with the mist.

Anticipation buzzes as the teeming crowd is received into the church auditorium, which is illuminated with fluorescent scarlet stalactites punctuated by frigid, strobing stalactites. Framed by a cross, a projection at the back loops a moody, black and white cloudscape. There is a stage set up here, but the audience are seated with their backs to it.

Pilgrim’s imposing Tasmanian blackwood pipe organ - erected in 1910 -  towers over the capacity crowd. There’s a reverent hush as lights dim and - after a languid theatrical pause - two shadowy figures approach.

One, shorter, reminiscent of a Victorian era footman, takes up his place at the organ. 

The other, tall and gaunt - evoking FW Murnau’s Nosferatu in the haze - approaches a strange, science-fiction contraption mounted on the altar.

Adopting a conjurer’s bearing, the robed, towering wraith coaxes an otherworldly squeal from his instrument.

The Crossing has begun.

+
“I NOTICE ON THE DARK MOFO WEBSITE THAT SEVERAL UNITING CHURCHES ARE BEING USED FOR DARK MOFO PERFORMANCES, ALMOST CERTAINLY IN CONTRAVENTION OF THEIR CONSECRATED PURPOSE. PERHAPS THE UNITING CHURCH HAVE CROSSED TO THE DARK SIDE?” LETTER, THE LAUNCESTON EXAMINER, JUNE 6 2017

“Oh, I don’t think it was everyone’s cup of tea!” laughs Hobart Scots-Memorial minister Rev Graham Sturdy.

It’s the day after the final performance of the Unconscious Collective curated Crossing project (a part of the 2017 Dark Mofo program) in Hobart, and Mr Sturdy is reflecting on the response to the previous evening’s show.

“We had some mixed reviews - but that’s art. It’s an artistic event, and that means your response is formed by your life experiences.

“We saw 400-500 people over the course of the night, with a full house of 250 for the performance itself,” Rev Sturdy said.

There was also a mixed response in Launceston.

“Quite a number of the congregation attended. I wouldn’t say everyone was necessarily thrilled with the idea - not from within the congregation - but some people who know congregation members were concerned that we were going into territory that we perhaps shouldn’t,” Pilgrim Uniting’s Rev Rod Peppiatt said.

Rev Dennis Cousens, whose ministry, as part of the Midlands Patrol, covers 18,000 square kilometres, including the Ross and Oatlands Uniting Churches, notes “interestingly, for (many) it has been an opportunity to enter a building of some historical significance, a space used as a place of worship, and which is now a place to remember with a feeling of welcome and inclusiveness.”

Sue Walker, from Launceston’s Synod office, was inspired by the Crossing experience.

“It was a different to anything I’d been to before, musically and presentation wise - the use of lights and the music connecting with them was amazing,” Ms Walker said.

”Certainly using a theremin and the electronic sound was different - it’s not really my taste in music, but I’m out to check anything new, and the performers were obviously very talented.

“It’s all about checking it out and seeing what it’s all about, isn’t it?”

+
“A CROSS IS A GEOMETRICAL FIGURE CONSISTING OF TWO LINES OR BARS, INTERSECTING EACH OTHER AT A 90° ANGLE AND DIVIDING ONE OR BOTH OF THE LINES IN HALF.”

Based in Hobart, the Unconscious Collective is a loose affiliate of artistic collaborators established by David Patman and Michelle Boyde in 2014. For Crossing, Patman - an academic and engineer- and Boyde - an artist and curator - assembled a diverse array ofartists and musicians to undertake a six-day pilgrimage from Launceston to Hobart.

Traversing 200km of the Midland Highway, the project progressively illuminated six roadside churches, starting with  Pilgrim Uniting Church in Launceston, taking in Ross and Oatlands Uniting Churches en route and climaxing with a standing room only performance at Scots-Memorial Uniting Church in Hobart. Other sites included the former Cleveland Union Chapel and St Mary’s Church of England in Kempton.

The Crossing project set out to investigate notions around pilgrimage and spiritual seeking.

“The project was inspired by car journeys in my childhood from Hobart to Launceston, along the old Midlands Highway through the various towns - Kempton, Oatlands, Ross,” says Mr Patman. “I wondered about the inhabitants and their lives, as we drove through, sometimes stopping for petrol or a snack. Something about the drive was very reflective, and it felt like a significant journey. As I got older the towns began to be bypassed by the new highway, and it seemed that maybe life was bypassing them too. 

The churches mostly remained visible, because of their size, and more recently driving the highway, I wondered about their congregations and whether the churches were able to retain their place as centres for community and spirituality, and whether that too was being passed over. I also love the neo-gothic architecture which characterises many Tasmanian churches.

The original project title was Pastoral, referring to the role of churches as caring for the flock, but Crossing also seemed appropriate because of the journey aspect of the project - crossing between places, geographically, but also from secular to spiritual. In church architectureAnd of course the sign of the cross, both in its pagan form as representing a journey into the spirit world as well as its Christian symbolism.”

Amongst those participating were Melbourne-based musician Miles Brown, lighting artist Matthew Adey and a small army of hair, clothing and olfactory artists. The opening night event in Launceston culminated in a haunting, one-off musical performance from husband and wife duo Danielle de Picciotto and Alexander Hacke, whose renowned band Einstürzende Neubauten was also on the Dark Mofo bill.

Brown, a composer and curator whose hypnotic theremin playing was the linchpin of the six performances, teamed with organist JP Shilo, who “really made the big organ sing”, according to Mr Peppiatt.

Patman and Boyde admit that “Dark Mofo events are intentionally challenging and explore darker themes,” but point out that Unconscious Collective were very aware of the need to be “respectful to the Church and its values.”

“Miles' performance alludes more to ritual, due as much to how the theremin is played by waving the hands in the air, as does his costume. As I understand it, the architecture of churches of all kinds, or interior design if you like, is meant to encourage a feeling of contact with the divine. The soaring ceilings, stained glass windows, columns and so on create a feeling of solemnity and reverence, and we wanted to work with this - to point it out - through a more mysterious and, perhaps flamboyant, performance which was sympathetic and respectful to the space, but also a bit playful.”

“Our level of trust (with Unconscious Collective) was very high,” Mr Peppiatt said. “We’ve had a really good relationship. They spent a lot of time getting to know us, including spending time in worship. Our sense was that this was something that could be done with respect.”

This view is shared by the other Uniting Church ministers involved.

“There has always been a great respect for what the building is used for and for the openness of the Uniting Church. To me the Uniting Church and the Midlands Patrol in particular have been the winners,” Mr Cousens said.

“The folk here are really impressed with the team - really enjoyed working with them. We can’t understand why other churches would take offence to it!” s Mr Sturdy said.

“Unconscious Collective were originally talking about a lighting installation. As we met up and walked around the church, it grew a bit from there. We talked about it at church council and were aware this could be a good thing and that there was a level of excitement about it. It grew from something quite low key and understated to more of an event,” Mr Peppiatt said.

“I think it works well as a part of Dark Mofo - it has the bite for it.”

+
“SIMPLY PUT, ILLUMINATION IN THE SPIRITUAL SENSE IS “TURNING ON THE LIGHT” OF UNDERSTANDING IN SOME AREA.”

 It is the afternoon after the opening Pilgrim performance, and Mr Peppiatt is contemplating the intersection between art and spirituality, as evoked by the previous evening’s event.

“Thinking back on the early years in the life of my church, in some ways I think there has been almost a restoration of what our tradition has lost in recent centuries, in engagement with art, with the spirituality of artistic expression,” he said. “I commented to Miles after the show last night that it would be very hard to see him perform and miss the fact that he was deeply engaged with and committed to music, and there’s a sense of devotion in that which is completely appropriate.

“If you take church practice as necessarily traditional Sunday morning worship, the links were probably less clear, but certainly the stuff around non-verbal culture and non-word-based based devotion hit us early in the piece. There was a recognition that a lot of this was around sound, and particularly light, which is something that Uniting Church tradition has come to late, I suppose.”

Mr Sturdy said the lighting highlighted aspects of the faith.

“There were floodlights illuminating the organ, and our only stained glass, depicting Moses and the burning bush, was lit up in Dark Mofo red,” Mr Sturdy said.

“What hit me was not necessarily the lighting - it was our Bibles, opened up at the Book of Job, lit up white in the gloom of the church.”

Frontier Services’ Rev Dennis Cousens is thrilled by the project’s execution.

“The church spaces were magnificent,” he said.

 “Oatlands was themed around water. Veiled in blue lights and enhanced by a lake recessed inside the church, the soul-searching combination of theremin and organ music accompanied a young woman in white walking across the lake. As you entered the church, the entrance foyer greeted you with a communion cup, cross, bread and the Bible beautifully displayed and draped in a sprig of gum leaves and nuts.

“Ross Uniting was themed around fire. Situated on a prominent hill - seen from a main artery highway - it glowed like a beacon welcoming travellers.

“There is a an ornate wall print of the Lord’s Prayer and the Nicene Creed at the pulpit of Ross Uniting. Miles was positioned between these prints, which were spotlit. I actually heard a person reading the Nicene Creed quietly to himself. It was a great outreach, even though those who attended may not have expected such.”

+
“A CROSSING, IN ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTURE, IS THE JUNCTION OF THE FOUR ARMS OF A CRUCIFORM (CROSS-SHAPED) CHURCH. IN A TYPICALLY ORIENTED CHURCH (ESPECIALLY OF ROMANESQUE AND GOTHIC STYLES), THE CROSSING GIVES ACCESS TO THE NAVE ON THE WEST, THE TRANSEPT ARMS ON THE NORTH AND SOUTH, AND THE CHOIR, AS THE FIRST PART OF THE CHANCEL, ON THE EAST.”

For Mr Sturdy, projects like Crossing are all about making connections within the community.

“That’s how people see it here - the main mission purpose is to engage with our community. Dark Mofo and cultural events are another part of the life of the church in the civic community, just like Carols By Candlelight, really,” he said.

Speaking via hands-free mobile phone, the rumble of his 4WD’s engine occasionally drowning him out, Mr Cousens is energised by the project’s reception.

“Crossing, embraced as it was by the church and attended by the general public and congregants - with full houses both nights - will leave a great impression on many people. The “thank you for allowing this to happen in these churches” received by wife Sally and I have been very humbling. This is the church being out there, meeting the people where they are expecting nothing in return. In God’s time much will come out of it I am sure.”

Back in Launceston, Mr Peppiatt recalls that he had two significant experiences on the day.

“One was that I led a worship service in a nursing home, a very traditional setting, down to the old version of the Lord’s Prayer, because for a whole lot of people, that’s where their stories and memories are. Then, to come straight from there to this (Crossing) was kind of a culture shock. But in each I saw profound things, of the church in community and in the life of the city.

“I’m really glad that we were willing to take a crack at it; opening the door to community, offering the church an opportunity for hospitality.”

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“HE WHO ENTERS BY WAY OF THE NORTH GATE TO WORSHIP SHALL GO OUT BY WAY OF THE SOUTH GATE.” EZEKIEL 46:9

We are standing in the middle of a dark field, illuminated by fire pits, in the tiny community of Cleveland (population 15), just outside Campbell Town on the Midland Highway.

The former Cleveland Union Hall is not a Uniting Church, but it is the smallest of the venues taking part in Crossing. Inside the hall, a woman dressed in white grinds a mortar and pestle while ambient music rumbles. An usher, clad in furs, offers egg-nog and soup to audience members.

Outside, a projection of the highway scrolls across the hall’s exterior as locals pick their way across the field, flashlights in hand. Grave markers are illuminated in the evening mist, and a pen full of sheep garners constant attention from the children in attendance. With Hermann Nitsch’s performance still on the horizon, we are relieved to be reassured that there are no nefarious plans afoot for our woolly friends.

There is a reverent, electric atmosphere in the church hall as the crowd slowly assembles. Conversations are punctuated by visible breath in the chill. Incredibly, many residents of Cleveland rarely see one another owing to the sparsely populated distances  - this is an opportunity to catch up, share stories and see “something a bit different”.

“It’s putting us back on the map!” says Peter, a bearded retiree from Melbourne who’s renovated a nearby three-storey, 19th century property with his wife, Grace, over the last decade.

Peter has just finished telling me about his snake infestation issues - apparently the Tasmanian weather is no deterrent, though he’d assumed it would be “so cold they wouldn’t bother” down here.

More than anything, these smaller Crossing events seem to be an ideal locus for community, a place to convene and relate. One suspects this is an occasions which will fuel many years of local dialogue, discussion and reflection.

“It’s been 30 years since some of these people set foot in a church. Everyone’s got at least a tiny bit of spirituality - isn’t that what we’re after?”

Originally published in Crosslight, June 2017.

always relevant: behind the scenes at an alp policy retreat

Written in 2019, never more relevant.

HOME BREWED REVIEW – POPPY GEE (BAY OF FIRES)

These novellas are part of a super cool series produced by a friend from my Brisbane writers group.

Garth Jones suspected that his Home Brewed Vampire Bullets novellas would be too transgressive, risky, and outrageous for traditional Australian publishing houses, so he began his own publishing imprint, the strikingly named Pass the Amyl Press. With a background in advertising and graphic art, he has created a literary project that is refreshingly original, often shocking, and utterly entertaining.

Action begins with blues-rock band Toxxic Shokk crammed into a Bedford van that’s limping across country NSW, heading to a remote outpost to play a support gig for a lacklustre audience. The story bursts forward, rather than unfolds, with violence, vice, profanity and vulgarity. Eventually rocker Ed Von Satan, desperate to make a comeback, teams up with a girl band to play a music festival run by a self-help cult.

Home Brewed Vampire Bullets is told through a combination of graphics, typography, illustrations, and shifting narrative perspectives in the tradition of the lurid, sensational pulp fiction novels of the early 1900s. The story is cinematic, with colourful characters and settings, and gritty interactions.

It’s rude and irreverent, and it also offers a funny, provocative commentary on Australian culture from the outback towns, to the leafy harbourside enclaves of inner Sydney, to the unhinged underground music scene in north-western Tasmania. I was especially pleased to see my hometown Launceston mentioned!

Garth Jones describes his genre as mongrel punk. The dark grungy Aussie social realism reminded me of 1990s novel Praise by Andrew McGahan. Jones pushes the boundaries of censorship with a sense of humour but also with an underlying intelligence that keeps the reader in on the joke. Think Hunter S Thompson meets Trainspotting. An added bonus is an interesting soundtrack by Half Majesty, accessed via a QR code inside the cover.

You won’t be able to buy this on Amazon as the author doesn’t want to support them so you should order direct from www.passtheamyl.com

Via Insta.

review: home brewed, vol one @ phasr mag

Review by Denver Grenell, author of Red Ruin.

Australian writer Garth Jones rips the Oz-lit scene a new one with this first volume of what promises to be a blackly comic epic of sex, drugs, rock’n’roll, cults, dodgy politicians (aren’t they all?) and er, bunyips.

A plot summary would do a disservice to Garth’s book, as it isn’t so much plot driven as character driven, and what characters they are: Ed Von Satan, the bassist (and only surviving member) for has-been rockers Tōxxik Shōkk, is a “sinewy vision in ruined double-denim” and a booze and drug-addled wastrel of the highest order.

Equally debauched singer of Switchback, Johnny Platinum rocks along to a similarly hedonistic beat. Maureen ‘Mystic Mo’ O’Grady-Thrumster, is an ex-hippie rock chick with connections to Ed, now one half of the cultish ‘The Trust’ with her husband ex journo, The Right Reverend Sancrox Thrumster.

Throw in the take-no-shit all female punk band Babalōn and conservative politician Duke “Tank” Excalibur-Crusader, the aforementioned bunyip and the scene is set for some rollicking shenanigans and a promised collision between the respective parties as they bumble and stumble their way on their quite possibly pre-ordained journeys…

Read the lot here.

pod: talking ‘the dark half’ on dave musson's constant writers pod

the mesh congress - Nightmare Fuel Magazine

The Istvans decided Br’aydin needed a competitive advantage. 

The kid was precisely 27 months old – three into daycare – when Xavier and Xanthe, co-founders of wellness app MeHub, clocked a targeted C2A.

Unbeknownst to them, it had a target demo of precisely two.

It was direct:

MAKE HIM THE FUTURE

Underneath was an animation of a child that passingly resembled Br’aydin. A halo of virtual blocks, depicting a complex chunk of quantum mechanics, floated in front of the avatar’s gawp.

Copy spoke of exclusivity, advantage, price points and reality-altering tech.

The angst of spawning a sub-optimal unit in an overcrowded market was too much for the Istvans.

Xavier stroked, summoning the wide face of Bezst Epstos, disgraced quadrilpreneur. 

This was no hard sell – the Istvans were zealots.

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