I haven’t really hit the pub for a while considering I worked and played in them for so long but lately I’ve been having an occasional beer and a game of pool at the Carlisle Hotel. Yeah it’s rough as guts, but I’ve been a labourer plus I grew up with crims, bogans and black fellas so I can relate with outsiders and underdogs. Hearts in the right place. But don’t push your luck.
My teenage pub days were bloody glorious and fucking hilarious. Although, unlike my mates, I had trouble getting in to clubs until I got my license because I looked half my age. My mates would vouch for me and occasionally convince the bouncer to let me in but most of the time I got knocked back. Don’t get me wrong I still got into pubs because they were on every bloody corner and the more quiet ones had laid back attitudes. But I had no problem getting in to my local.
I lived in a one and a half bedroom flat with a mate on West Coast HWY directly across from the Look Out on Scarborough Beach front over looking the ocean. It wasn’t a fancy pub. Pretty stock standard. Beer, spirits, chairs and tables, dunnies, stage and live entertainment. No TVs, coz you watched those at home laying on the couch when you’re not at the pub. It was the most popular bar in Perth and famous for its Sunday Sessions. These are the days of cheap beer and super cover bands like The Jets, Ice Tiger, The Pushrods and later Rather Large Betty who’s lead singer thought he was Michael Hutchence and would spray his hair to keep that “wet look” going on.
Friday nights our gang would push a few tables together and hog the best view of the band. We rocked out to the hits of the time and classics that weren’t considered classics yet. It got pretty wild. I often witnessed those big bouncers bouncing dudes down those solid concrete stairs hitting the ground in front of everyone lining up to get in. One evening I passed Sir Bob Geldof with his child daughter and said g’day. This was when his wife Paula Yates was bonking Michael Hutchence so I didn’t bother him, but my friend made a dickhead of herself when I told her who he was. He turned his head and gave her that unhinged look from The Wall and mumbled something scathing at her as he walked away wearing thongs, shorts and a t-shirt, in winter, on the seaside. I suppose it makes sense now. He’s from the UK.
Our flat was a classic dudes bachelor pad with an REM poster proudly Blu Tacked to the wall over the stereo and our record stack. I sold weed and laboured for brickies. My housemate worked in the Kebab shop on the strip, gamed and bonged on. This flat was like a hand me down amongst friends who moved in and out. I slept in a small room. I could just fit a double mattress on the floor in front of a large heavy wardrobe. I had a great view of the flats next door and the shopping centre. Winter is really full on living right near the beach. I’d look up in bed watching the wind and rain bend the window glass expecting to be showered in broken shards while I slept.
One night, we held a birthday party for someone. The flat was full of mates drinking and smoking weed with the stereo pumping when suddenly BANG BANG BANG! on the door. Fuck. Only cops knock like that. I had a fat bag of sticks hidden badly and everyone is off their heads. My stoned housemate opens the door to two detectives with a sledgehammer. They see what’s going on then ask for directions to the superintendents flat and then they pissed off. I was fucken stunned and relieved. We escaped jail and kept partying. The fellow who lived above us was not all there. He was an ogre of a dude with a mental disability. He’d invite himself in and say inappropriate shit. One morning we heard loud noises outside. He was rolling empty drums down the steep driveway straight into traffic on West Coast HWY. So anyway, he was at this party handing out pills which were his meds. I knocked him back but a few of our dickhead mates didn’t and ended up with lockjaw when they got home later on. I fucken laughed when I heard emergency couldn’t understand them on the phone coz their mouths were frozen shut. Next day I found out those cops busted our two mates who lived down the road, after letting us go. Not my first close call.
The Lookout extended and opened Club Atlantis aka Club A. It featured live music and vinyl DJ’s. Again nothing fancy just larger, darker with disco lighting. I saw heaps of bands play there and my band Tantrum supported the Painters and Dockers. I was a big fan so I felt pretty stoked about the whole thing happening at my local, but the bastards denied us a sound check and our guitar amp dropped out first song. I remember Paul Stewart laughing at me when I asked him what he thought of us. He was right, we were crap. They took off right after their set so we got stuck into their rider. Bit disappointing but whatever. I met him many years later backstage after a show and he signed my record, then he put his hand on my leg. I forgot he came out ages ago.
Back at the Carlisle, it's happy hour and Skimpy barmaid service from 4pm to 6pm, but these girls aren’t like the women I remember from the Karrinyup Hotel or the notorious Nookenburra Hotel Innalloo, a haven for bikers, a hang out for bogans and a home for bar flies. Completely naked mature strippers danced on pool tables and poured beers. A life size statue of a native aboriginal man holding a spear they named Neville after Kingswood Country the hit tv show at the time, was often stolen from its prominent place on the roof of the pub by drunk white fellas who’d fess up after they came to their senses and stuck it back up on the roof again.
I saw The Angels and Midnight Oil play at the Herdsman Hotel more than a few times and the unforgettable super mosh at a Weddings Parties Anything gig at the Breakwater Hotel. The Old Melbourne and The Lone Star Hotel in the city hosted alternative bands like Hunters and Collectors, Hoodoo Gurus and The Church. Blues bands were in abundance at pubs like The Vegas and Charles Hotel in North Perth who still champion live blues.
Half price VB nights at The Castle Hotel North Beach practically asked for the shit show they got handed by operating over capacity and inevitably ending the night in punch ups outside. But the Railway Hotel on Barrack St in the city was had the worst reputation for violence. I never went in or anywhere near it.
Tonight’s Jag the Joker, much like Chase the Ace, cash prize is over $8,500. One raffle ticket is chosen. The winner is given one dart to shoot the hidden Joker card and get rich quick. Mr Karaoke builds excitement and then the manager demands a bit of shush.
Intense silence, the dart’s hit a card! 3 of Spades. “Sorry folks, good luck next time.”
“Playing with the queen of hearts”…
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