Finding Eddy
Poor and drunken photography by Naz Kawakami.
I was riding down south to ‘roo country with Jack who was giving me an emphatic crash course in Australian music culture and labor laws.
‘All those guys building houses and shit can make like a half a million dollars and it’s hard as fuck to get fired. Now listen to this, it’s some of the best Australian shit: Eddy Current Suppression Ring.’ Jack flicked on a song that sounded sparse but confident. Eddy Current Suppression Ring.
I had been hearing about Eddy Current Suppression Ring - the storied and beloved rock and roll band from Melbourne formed in 2003 - for maybe a decade, the name rattling in my head. A glimpse of a track here, a New York DJ’s deep cut there - whispers of a show, rumors of an American tour - all bogus. In Jack’s van driving fast listening to some struggling accented voice sing to me about walks down memory lane, I thought about how Dougal and Rachel and Campbell and Jamie and that guy at the pub and his friend and this girl at the Mag Pie on Enmore and those three guys at the C.O.F.F.I.N doco premiere had spoken excitedly about the elusive Eddy Current playing shows in Sydney that week - how their arms became active and flamboyant in their descriptions, and how their pupils dilated at the thought of seeing ECSR play ‘Wrapped Up’ to them on one of two nights that coming weekend.
An unfortunate and reluctant American, I had only known the name like a passing stranger, but these interactions made Eddy into a friend of all of my friends whom I had never met and whom they all liked a whole lot more and had known a whole lot longer than me. I’d need to find him.
Well I looked up north
And I looked down south
And I looked to the east
And the west was the best
And I still don't know which way to go
That Saturday, I rested. Sleeping on the couch at the Monster Children office, I spent the afternoon horizontally, hydrating, resting my eyes, and preparing for what I assumed would be a lofty task: Eddy Current Suppression Ring live at The Marrickville Bowlo. At around five I put on my coolest jackets and set out on a walk from the office in Waterloo to a Thai restaurant near Hay Market. I stopped for a road beer and put on Eddy’s debut self-titled album. ‘Good bass tone’, I kept thinking to myself, taking sips from a can of Heineken and ignoring the squish in my shoes, wet from rain.
In a few hours, at the bowlo, a young woman would tell me that she flew four hours to come and see Eddy play ‘I Admit My Faults’ because ‘it fucks hard, mate,’ but on this rainy walk, I would make that discovery for myself. Something tingles in that song. There is a defensive mystique to it, rumbling and naked and honest and tangy. The chords sound almost out of control as though they’re searching for the melody in a song that is as unsure of itself as it is sincerely striving to be. It’s the sound of trying to make right despite all of the discomfort of vulnerability and the harshness of laying bare. It’s not quite like anything I had heard; reliably in line with Gang of Four’s hazardous post-punk strumming, but something else - something distantly and distinctly Australian.
Not photographed: two beers (already consumed)
My ego got the best of me.
I enjoyed the best Thai dinner I had ever eaten. Spicy pad see ew with tender strips of marinated chicken breast, crunchy Chinese broccoli and sauces of peculiar combination, accompanied by two barbecue pork skewers and cooled by two beers, a Coke, hot tea and a water - a meal made all the better with the company of my new friend, Eddy, yelling in my ears about insufficient funds and playing guitar solos that sound unprepared and perilous but precisely appropriate for the narrative of the song. Yelling in my ears, though not quite formally acquainted.
I felt full and dull, so I decided to have two more small beers at the Hay Market Tavern which Jack had taken me to post-’roo trip and which overlooked the oddity that was the street below. The tavern itself was a bit of a shithole - a gambling den with better lighting, but shithole in the way that was peculiarly appealing and redemptive. It reminded me of the shithole that I love back in Brooklyn - The Little Beaver - whose patio saw out to the intersection of Saint Nicholas and Troutman and all of the strangeness that occurred there, or the shithole in Honolulu - Smith’s Bar - that saw out to the filth of Hotel Street and its historic trappings. How funny it is that every city, every culture, every little hub has a bit of a dignified-yet-detestable bit of something - that city’s beloved imperfect little speck on the side of culture where fun and joy happen in earnest and where one can be one’s self. ‘Fuck the Opera House,’ I thought, ‘imperfectly beautiful places like these are where life really happens.’
And it makes me feel nothing more than this
And it makes me feel nothing more than this
And it makes me feel nothing more than this
And it makes me feel nothing more than this
And it makes me feel nothing more than this
After those two small beers I was appropriately drunk and decided to walk over west to The Marrickville Bowling & Recreation Club to finally meet my friend, Eddy. Dougal Gorman had secured me a ticket as well as an apartment for a good chunk of my stay in Sydney, for which I am very grateful. What a guy. I arrived outside of the club early and a queue mixed with a smoking section, so I took my headphones out and decided to eavesdrop on the collections of conversations.
The mood was positive - old friends coming together for the special occasion, fans reciting their favorite songs and memories, newlyweds suspending their honeymoon just to see their pride and joy play them some songs. As I stood alone outside listening slyly to passing conversations of punters, not one, but two people noticed me and asked if I needed a ticket, because they had a spare that they could give me for free if I wanted it, or because they worked there and would be happy to sneak me in through the service door if I wanted to, and I was struck by the kindness that an occasion like Eddy Current Suppression Ring could inspire.
One eavesdrop drew me to put my journo hat on, a discussion of rumors around Eddy Current’s vanishing and reappearing, which I asked them to explain.
‘He hates flying, so he never plays outside of Australia, or outside of the east coast if they can help it.’ explained Mathieu, aged twenty eight. ‘And they can’t really be fucked to show up anyway,’ said Sam, aged twenty seven who had driven two hours from Newcastle to attend. This story lent weight to another story I had heard about ECSR in which they turned down an offer for forty thousand dollars to play a festival in France.
‘They play all the time in pubs all around Australia but under fake names so no one knows it’s them. I heard they even wear disguises,’ attested Hugo, aged thirty four. This was the second time I had heard this rumor, Jack having told me something similar on that long van drive some days before, about how they still want to play music but don’t care about all the gravity and fame of being Eddy Current Suppression Ring.
All of the rumors and stories, true or false, made ECSR feel more like a ghost story than a band - a local legend of elusiveness and happenstance, and the locality being the country of Australia.
The stories created devotion, and that devotion was on display at the Marrickville bowlo, a bowling club founded on the 1st of April, 1905, and has since cultivated a reputation as a premiere venue for the best in cult and alternative Australian music, said to have hosted everyone from Midnight Oil to INXS, and now, Eddy Current Suppression Ring, and me.
The inside of the bowlo club was bizarre. I had expected lanes with pins and pristine wooden floors, not the 1980s mirrored interior and ramshackle staging set up, and definitely not this grassy shit outside where people were smoking cigarettes and airplanes flew low and fast and booming overhead, and where punters were strictly - strictly - prohibited from taking a step on the green.
‘The bowlo is home’, confessed Sof, aged twenty six, smiling. ‘Fuck the theatres and stadiums,’ I thought, ‘imperfectly beautiful places like these are where life really happens.’
The show was sold out well in advance, and the crowd was a delightful if surprising mix of young punks, indie heads, bracing-for-forty guys in flannel shirts and Turnstile hats, and a sprinkling of very old and haggard bowling club members who were there to drink cheap piss and play pool and could give a fuck about Eddy Current.
‘Eddy? Who the fuck’s Eddy? Is he a member?’ one club member remarked, aged roughly a hundred to a hundred and fifty.
The opening acts played qualified sets that swung between ‘a bit like The Pillows’ and ‘a bit like Brian Eno’s ambient stuff, but saxophone-d’ ; not unhappy music, actually at times quite enjoyable, but they were not being served in return by a crowd who were patiently and devotedly waiting for their old pal’s time to shine. The second opener left the stage and transition music - American late-80’s hip hop and R&B - blared from the speakers.
‘LL Cool J is really big in Australia,’ explained Sarah, aged twenty five. I do not know if that’s true, but perhaps it were true in that room.
As the crowd began to fill the dance floor and instruments began to be taken up, a man took the stage thanking people for coming. He talked about the virtue of small venues, small labels, local scenes, and showing up, and where the speech before the show is usually a vibe killer, the audience - including myself - took his words to heart.
‘How good it is that a place like the bowlo exists and that we can do something like this here; something not cynical, something not exploitative - something with a local venue and without Ticketmaster or a massive corporation or any of these parasitical things. Listen, if you’re out there and you want to start a band, start a label, start anything: fucking start it, start it today. If you don’t know how, talk to us, we will show you how.’
I could have shed a tear. How funny it is that every city, every culture, every little hub has a bit of a scene, a distaste for the bloodsuckers, and the kindness to support each other.
Suddenly and in a blur, Eddy Current Suppression Ring were on the stage playing music. The crowd swayed and moved and with precision as though it were rehearsed. It is a special fluttering feeling being a part of a crowd that knows every lyric, and at the striking of the first chord of a new song, erupt into delighted frenzy. Not to sound like a cunt, but I have gone to a lot of shows, I have seen a lot of bands, and in my old age, I have not felt compelled to join a mosh pit - especially one in which I am only now becoming acquainted with a band - but I felt a gravitational pull like a bowling ball placed on a trampoline rolling slowly at first then rushing with some imperfect recoiling to the center.
And there I was, suppressed, saying hello to Eddy.
There's no reason to take your goats
'Cause you're the warning of my bones
If you're out there 'cause of the mind
Doin' fine
I'm wrapped, wrapped up in you
I felt a sloshing and saw smiles. Dozens that felt like hundreds. It was warm, sweaty, smelly, and true in that dancing pit leaping up and grasping at those strange garden gloves. I got fucking tossed in that pit by the drummer from C.O.F.F.I.N and a teenaged-super-fan and it felt good and right and as I leapt to a song I had only fallen in love with a couple of hours earlier over a platter of Thai noodles, I felt the words spoken to me earlier: How good it is that a place like the bowlo exists and that we can do something like this here; something not cynical, something not exploitative.’
Well beyond the gruff, delightfully bashing songs, Eddy Current Suppression Ring are a perfect blend of story and rumbling fuzz; they are undeniable, and direly integral to the culture - the authentic interpersonal canon of Australian music, exuding a certain kind of magic that exists outside of the music and inhabits them as an entity to be observed, sought, admired, and held dear. They and their fans and this show are completely unpretentious - ECSR’s importance is that of a cultural staple, a point of pride, a scene unifier. They inspire kindness and dancing and joy, but more importantly, they are an occasion that inspires.
At Eddy Current Suppression Ring, a stranger will try to sneak you in through the back. At Eddy Current Suppression Ring, people become friends quickly, and you get to hear stories like, ‘this guy I was friends with when I was five went to jail for trying to murder someone. He tried to feed him to crocs but it didn’t work. Look him up he’s a gorgeous boy.’ At Eddy Current Suppression Ring, you will want to start a band, a label, a small venue; you’ll want to fuck off the big grifters, the corporate takers, the inauthentic bullshit because none of it comes close to the feeling you get when you’re in the pit watching your band with your people in your local bowlo.
‘Fuck the philharmonic, the festival headliner, Ticketmaster, parasitic profiteers of cultural rot telling me that I have to pay for a VIP experience and a limited edition souvenir popcorn box and take a selfie with my favorite chart artist in order to have a good time and make a memory,’ I thought, ‘imperfectly beautiful bands, people, places like these are where life really happens.’
Hand it to me on a platter
Gold or silver doesn't matter
We're easy as it can be
Hand it on over to me
It's how I wanna, how I wanna go
It's how I wanna, how I wanna go
How I wanna go
How I wanna go
How I wanna go