Shattered hell

Indian Ink on Paper - 420x297mm - 2014

When I quit working full time to focus on my art back in 2012, I told my best friend Blake about it on the day I told my boss. My best friend called me a few hours later telling me that he had booked and made a deposit for a gallery so we could have an exhibition. I was pretty stoked. However due to us having the organisational skills not even on par with a child sorting blocks into matching colours, the gallery actually ended up closing before we could sort everything out.

Over following years I kept meaning to put on a show of my artwork, but I suppose a mixture of being self-conscious of my work as well as being distracted by my need for money, which evolved into my need to get drunk and make friends overseas. Never being certain of when I will have money made me very cautious with what I spent it on. Unless I got heaps of work and money in which case I’d spend it all on adventures in other countries.

Early in 2016 I decided I wanted to actually have an exhibition for my artwork. It was long overdue. I want to live off of my art, but it’s kind of hard to sell something that no one knows about. I applied for a few galleries and got rejected. I don’t know how the art world works. I applied and was accepted to be a part of a group exhibition for Emerging Art Australia, it’s run by two lovely ladies who have a very welcoming attitude to artist. I also applied to exhibit some work at the Old Bar in Melbourne, which is what this flyer is for.

For the Old Bar show I felt lame just showing my own artwork, I do have a big ego, don’t get me wrong, but not the kind of ego where I want to be the focus of a whole show. I asked my friend Derek if he’d like to show some work and he was happy to, he’s a great artist and a wonderful human being. He said yes and create 3 drawings on skateboards, they were badass. Also in hindsight, during the setting up of the artwork, I’m so glad his wife and him were there and helped me put all my art up. I’m hopeless when it comes to general life skills. Fortunately I’ve had the good luck to have caring friends, and they have an abundance of life skills. Friends rule.

I also had to book 3 bands. Given how much I like music I don’t know any bands in Melbourne. I called my friend Shannon who usually plays in lots of bands and asked how many bands he’s playing in, he replied 3 but soon to be 2. Alright sweet, both of those bands are playing. One is Substance Abuse (a thrash band I had previously done artwork for) and the other is Altered Vision (a new crust band). Okay, I had 2 bands, but I was out of people to ask play, Shannon was really the only person I knew at the time who plays in bands.

Worrying that I won’t be able to find a third band Blake suggested that we just play ourselves in one of our fake bands. We have lots of fake bands. I think we originally planned on playing as ‘Blood Fight’, our noise band that consisted of Blake playing Doom 2 on a laptop hooked into a bunch of effects pedals, and me making spooky noises on a keyboard. Then the idea of playing in one of our fake bands got us a little excited so we decided to play in two of our fake bands, the other is Oni Knife, our Japanese noise d-beat punk inspired band.

Oni Knife was slightly less fake than Blood Fight. Oni Knife we actually had one band practice for. Shannon also plays in Oni Knife. It was sometime in 2015, Shannon came around to our house, Blake and Shannon worked out the guitars and drums for a song and I went to my room to write some lyrics, I’m the babe vocalist in the band. I wrote 3 songs, Blake and Shannon liked the shortest one titled ‘Knife Release’ which has about a total of 16 words, the guys said the other songs were like essays. As we were trying to figure out the vocals with the song, Blake and Shannon quickly released I have no clue how song structure works. We put the band on hold until Blake could teach me how songs work. This never happened. So Oni Knife was put into its sheath and forgotten until it was needed for my exhibition.

In the weeks leading up to the show Blake and I were respectively busy with our own lives and we kept telling each other ‘oh we should have band practice, the shows soon’ ‘we’ll just do it next week’. This resulted in us having our first band practice about 4 hours before we were meant to play. Once again we ran into the problem of me not knowing how the fuck a song works. Eventually we sorted it out, I just learned when to yell what parts of the song based on Shannon’s guitar. I also learned that yelling really hurts the throat. I also learned that Jack Daniels psychologically helps singing, but not physically. Oh we also had the problem of not having a bass player but we got my housemate Luke on bass, our plan was to teach him the song when he arrived at the bar after he finished work. I think you can see now why I said our organisational skills are less than a child’s. To be fair Luke kept asking for bass tabs leading up to the show but I just laughed, I didn’t even know how verses and choruses worked let alone tabs.

When I got to the bar we took in our equipment, all the artwork had been set up the previous day. I printed off little titles for the drawings and prices for the ones I wanted to sell, I never put them up, I was already over everything already, so I grabbed a beer, and proceeded to drink and chain smoke outside. I wasn’t conscious of it, but I was nervously talking to Derek about playing in front of people, he said something along the lines of ‘no one cares if you’re shit’. This put me at ease about everything.

Blood Fight would start the show which would lead into our one and only Oni Knife song. The plan was for Blake to play Doom 2 through pedals and make heaps of noise while Shannon and Luke did whatever on guitar and bass, and I would do my thing with the microphone. We didn’t practice any of the Blood Fight stuff and I had no clue what to do so I just kept chanting ‘Kumite’ – referencing the classic Jean Claude Van Dam movie Blood Sport. That went on for a few minutes but there was so much noise from Doom 2 that I actually didn’t realise Blake and Shannon had started playing Knife Release, I was so worried about getting the timing of the words right that I completely forgot the majority of the lyrics and proceeded to yell whatever ones I could remember. It was all over in 1 minute and 40 seconds. A friend yelled for an encore but I was already off the stage and heading to get beer. We also got a sweet band shot. I showed the writing to my Japanese friends and as far as I can tell by their expressions it makes no sense.

Shannon was chuffed with how Oni Knife went ‘why do I bother playing proper songs when I can just do that and get free beer’. Shannon was playing in all 3 bands that night, each member of a playing band for 4 free beers, so he ended up with 12 free beers, plus door money. Derek came up to me afterwards as he was leaving and said ‘I saw your band, you were shit, goodbye.’ then gave me a hug goodbye. Such a softy. Blake left shortly after to drive around delivering magazines for work, it was a very busy day for him and I owe him a huge thank you for making the day an awesome fun train wreck of good times instead of a stressful train wreck of shit not working out. Now that I look back on it, a lot of my friends took time out of their lives to help me out with the exhibition, it really makes me feel warm and fuzzy in my heart knowing how many of my friends supported me with the whole show. I’m hopeless at life skills and none of this fun would of been possible without my friends support and encouragement.

Altered Vision and Substance Abuse put on good sets, I was taking mental notes about little things like addressing the audience for future Oni Knife shows. I was pretty grateful they both played, and also grateful for all my friends that came out in support. The point of the exhibition was to be able to show my friends my artwork in real life. My drawings usually stay in my room, packed into draws or in a folio case under my bed. Most people only see them through Facebook or on my phone which doesn’t do them justice at all. It was nice having friends’ bands play to go along with the friendly intention of the show. I felt a little less like a fuck up after the exhibition. Granted I didn’t sell anything aside from 2 prints, and the artwork that people wanted to buy I didn’t want to sell. I still feel the night was a success.

I wasn’t sure what to draw for the flyer, I went through ideas with skulls and demons but I ended up settling on drawing my dog Buddy. I figured ‘fuck it, it’s my show I’m having my dog friend on the flyer’. Despite having him in my life for around a year and a half at that point in time I had never drawn him before. I did the drawing in one night after a former housemate gave me a little study helper, it probably wouldn’t of been finished without her help. He was meant to be menacingly sitting on a pile of skulls but I lacked sufficient time to draw that idea. I titled the exhibition after the Effigy song Shattered Hell.