Sophie Benjamin

Award-winning Toowoomba playwright David Burton is a busy guy. Earlier this year, he launched the play April’s Fool, an account of Toowoomba teenager Kristjan Terauds’s death due to complications of illegal drug use, which was based on hours of interviews with Kristjan’s friends and family.

Now he and a group of fellow University of Southern Queensland graduates are set to launch his newest work, Furious Angels – a one-man play set in a mental institution in the 1930s.

Currently in the middle of a successful season at Metro Arts in Brisbane, Burton says the play has been “bubbling away for years” in the back of his mind, and was brought to life through a mentorship with master playwright Michael Gurr.

“In terms of the historical setting, it’s a really interesting time for mental health. In the process of recovering from the First World War, a lot of men are admitting that war has not been kind to them, so there’s this new era of compassionate mental health care that has set the tone for where we are now.

“The hospital in the play is somewhere between the two worlds, and a lot of awful stuff goes on because of that. At the same time, you’ve got Hitler on one side of the world and Gandhi on the other side with both of them on the rise, and Australia trying to find its identity in the middle of all that.

“It seemed to be to be a really interesting time to put a story in, especially one about mental health and healing. “

Burton’s civic pride for his hometown of Toowoomba is overwhelming, and he is passionate about the creative possibilities for regional artists.

“I think that with ‘cultural capitals’ like Sydney and Melbourne, people kind of glamorise them,” he explains.

“A lot of my friends who have gone come back because you’re dealing with a much bigger pond over there. There are a lot of wonderful Queensland institutions who are really interested in fostering young talent. It’s something I’ve found wonderful about this town and this state.”

The University of Southern Queensland and the Empire Theatre are two institutions in particular that Burton credits with keeping him busy, as well as creating opportunities for contemporary live theatre to be performed in southern Queensland.

“It’s our home town and we want to put on a show here that a lot of Toowoomba audiences wouldn’t get to see otherwise.”

“There’s plenty to be inspired by here.”

Written and published with additional multimedia content for ABC Southern Queensland, 12/11/2010.

We’ve survived the garage revival, the ‘80s comeback and are on the cusp of a grunge resurrection. Blues-rockers THE SNOWDROPPERS fall into none of these categories and lead singer JOHNNY WISHBONE is having an identity crisis. He tells SOPHIE BENJAMIN, “Even we get confused about what era we’re from!”

The Snowdroppers have a schtick, and it’s a good one. Taking their name from 1920s Sydney slang for cocaine addicts, they play blues rock with a touch of country while whipping the womenfolk in the audience into frenzied lust. Handsome lead singer Johnny Wishbone is mostly responsible for said frenzy, taking the stage wearing a wifebeater and suspenders, alternately screaming and crooning with not a hair on his Brylcreemed head out of place.

I’m totally sold on the image, but true to form Wishbone shatters my hopes and dreams of spending my life with a rock & roll bad boy. Not by charming me into his arms and then breaking my heart, but rather by introducing himself as Jeremy and telling me about his day spent working in a call centre. To add insult to injury, he was also incredibly friendly and polite. Curses. “Basically, we’re four middle-class white boys from the suburbs of Sydney,” he admits cheerfully. “You couldn’t find a more middle-class person than me!”

Thank goodness for the schtick then. The Snowdroppers formed a little over three years ago, combining an appreciation of a simpler time with blues chops and a healthy dose of humour. “All good music should be able to laugh at itself and that has kind of been our ethos from the start. We’re all just garage musicians that wish we could play the blues – there’s no way we can take ourselves seriously!”

The band financed the recording of their debut album Too Late To Pray from their own pocket and were intending to release and promote it in the same fashion. That was, until the major record labels came sniffing around. Wishbone is pragmatic about being a label band. “I know a lot of people that preach the DIY ethic, but if they were offered something, they wouldn’t turn it down. For me, it’s a necessary evil. I mean, ostensibly, we’re retards. If someone didn’t come and help us out, we’d be swimming in circles with one floatie on.”

It’s worked out well for them. The combination of a ten week-long national tour and their song Do The Stomp being picked up by Channel [V] as a station ID has helped put their music in the minds and ears of more people than they would’ve otherwise thought possible, something Wishbone views as a fortunate bonus rather than the point of making music. “Without a label, we would’ve just kept doing what we were doing. Would we have gotten to as many people immediately if we hadn’t signed on with someone to help us out? Probably not.”

In a last-ditch attempt to buoy my hopes of summoning the bad boy within, I ask Johnny/Jeremy if the stage persona is really all an act. “Do I really think that I am some kind of Fabio guy? I would love to think that! I’d love that kind of confidence!”

THE SNOWDROPPERS play Phats Garage in Toowoomba on Friday May 21 and the Step Inn on Saturday May 22. Their new EP DO THE STOMP is out now through Difrnt/Universal. www.myspace.com/snowdroppers

When SOPHIE BENJAMIN was given the opportunity to chat with hometown heroes DEAD LETTER CIRCUS on the set of their next video clip, she jumped at the chance (and the promise of free food). She spoke to frontman KIM BENZIE and guitarist ROB MARIC about perfectionism and the D.L.C. Sausage Machine.

“Would you like a… something?”

Dead Letter Circus’ singer Kim Benzie smiles, almost embarrassed, and gestures towards the biscuits, fruit and lollies arranged neatly on the catering table at Red Brick Studios in Newstead, where we’ve arranged to meet.

Things sure have changed since their first nerve-wracking shows in 2006 at the now-defunct Living Room in Caxton Street.

Earlier this year, their album This Is The Warning debuted at #1 on the digital charts and #2 on the ARIA charts, second only to the infamous Justin Bieber. Today’s video shoot is for Disconnect and Apply from the band’s self-titled EP, which they are releasing in the UK after selling 7, 000 copies independently in Australia since its release in 2007.

These numbers and achievements are impressive, but it’s been hard work. Notorious perfectionists, the band took the better part of two years to complete the album, pushing back deadline after deadline and canning a trip to South-By-Southwest to add the finishing touches.

“You never finish an album, you just abandon it,” says guitarist Rob Maric, wryly.

“You call time somewhere between the deadline and the feeling of, ‘I can live with this.”

“We are a perfectionistic band and part of that is sharing criticism and doing it in a way that people don’t take it as a slight on them as a person,” explains Benzie.

“We have a joke about a thing we call the D.L.C. Sausage Machine. You put the person into it feet-first and they come out the other end with no ego.”

One of the more recent victims of the D.L.C. Sausage Machine is Tasmanian digital illustrator Cameron Gray, who did the intricate album artwork. Benzie discovered Gray’s work while looking at websites on surrealist artwork, and after making email contact, set him to work creating a piece of artwork for every song on the album, in close consultation with Benzie and the rest of the band.

Maric laughs, astounded. “Can you believe, he’s a young guy who works at McDonalds, and he did it all on his 13” Macbook on his girlfriend’s kitchen table!”

The One Step tour will be the first time the band has engaged the sevices of an additional member to play the band’s music live, playing the layers of keyboards and guitars that have become integral to the band’s sound.

“We wanted to be known as a bunch of players, as opposed to a massive backing track band,” explains Benzie.

“I’m really loving it because I get to play all the original lead parts again,” Maric enthuses. “I’ve been doing these bastardised hybrid parts to fill in.”

When the conversation turns to the consequences of a punishing tour schedule, both Maric and Benzie nod thoughtfully and share their experiences with managing burnout. Benzie has ‘another life’ as a father to his young son (“I look a bit different to the other parents,” he says), and Maric takes comfort in the idea that things could be a lot less fun.

“You know that if you wanted to you could just stop and work a simple job, but we feel really privileged that we can have a career from it. It’s all just a big bonus, what we’re living right now.”

DEAD LETTER CIRCUS take their One Step tour to The Zoo on Tuesday August 17 and Wednesday August 18 (SOLD OUT). THIS IS THE WARNING is out now through Warner Music. www.deadlettercircus.com

It’s a tough life being a veteran Aussie rocker. TEX PERKINS speaks to SOPHIE BENJAMIN about whooping cough, hernias and his black cattle dog.

They don’t make front men like Tex Perkins anymore. Intelligent, humourous and strangely attractive, Perkins has class and gravitas in spades. Since his noisy entrance onto the Australian music scene with his band The Dum-Dums almost thirty years ago, Perkins has sung with orchestras, hosted television shows and fronted dozens of musical projects, most notably The Beasts Of Bourbon and The Cruel Sea. Cartoonist Bill Leak’s portrait of him won the Packing Room prize, where the gallery staff vote for their favourite paintings in the year’s Archibald entries.

“I’m an absolute veteran!” he enthuses.  “In any other career I’d have two gold watches by now.”

But this is the music business and instead of polishing his jewellery, this morning Perkins is battling an attack of whooping cough and nursing the beginnings of a hernia after having surgery for a previous injury earlier this year.

Perkins’ upcoming appearance at the Waterfront Food & Wine Festival is far removed from his adolescent punk beginnings. The event is a day of fine food and dining held at a Gold Coast outdoor arena where Perkins shares a billing with Daryl Braithwaite and MasterChef judge George Calombaris.

“Which one is George?” asks Perkins. “Is he the one with the cravat?” I describe him to Perkins, but there isn’t even the smallest flickering of recognition.

“I didn’t actually watch MasterChef. I’m not saying I chose not to, I have nothing against it, it just wasn’t part of my routine. I’m sure there will be a lot of people happy he’s there.”

There’s nothing like a hectic work schedule to interrupt your weeknight TV-watching plans and Perkins has many special projects on the boil. He’s currently playing the lead role of Johnny Cash in the Melbourne stage show The Man In Black, an all-singing all-dancing production of Cash’s life story. Having spent the first half of 2009 in a white lounge suit crooning covers with Australia’s fifth-best covers band The Ladyboyz, Perkins is keen to cut down on his dry-cleaning expenses.

“I can’t say no to Cash, especially if it’s got a Johnny in front of it. Plus, the black suit’s a lot easier to keep clean.”

It’s not much of a stretch imagining Perkins as Cash. Along with his nonchalant attitude towards both his fans and detractors, his vocal delivery owes more than a little to Cash’s wry tenor and Tex Don and Charlie’s live album was called Monday Morning Coming Down, a reference to the Cash song Sunday Morning Coming Down.

The story is mostly told by his songs, but with a small amount of narration and acting from Perkins and his co-stars. Perkins has recorded voiceovers for documentaries before, but it is Cash’s formidable collection of songs that have given him the most grief.

“I’ve found learning the shitload of lyrics for the songs to be the most challenging part, even though they’re well within my ability. Some of [Cash’s] early stuff like Hey Porter is really rhythmic and The Boy named Sue has ten verses that are all fired out very quickly, so just to get on top of that I had to do a bit of training, stay fairly sober – but that’ll change.”

I point out that Cash himself wasn’t known for staying sober during the early years of his career.

“Yeah but he was Johnny Cash. Don’t worry, I’ll be as drunk as a lord by the time I come to Brisbane.”

At this point Perkins excuses himself to have a coughing fit and resurfaces with a change of mind.

“You know what I told you before? Scratch that. I’m going into rehab next week so I’ll be completely sober.”

Um, right. My polite disbelief must be more audible then I’d anticipated.

He giggles. “Anyway, believe what you want.”

Moving right along, Perkins’ Sounds Of Spring appearance is on the back of his pun-tastically titled back catalogue collection, Songs from my Black Cattle Dog.

The release focuses more on Perkins’ song writing than the sexy showman he was in Beasts Of Bourbon and The Cruel Sea, with the bulk of the release coming from his solo work and his collaboration with Don Walker and Charlie Owen, Tex, Don and Charlie.

“You got the pun? Good on you! I was very surprised at how few people got it. I was talking to Don Walker the other day about it and I asked him if he got it. He was like ‘Yeah, it’s like depression, but Australian depression, like Winston Churchill’s black dog.’

“I did not correct him.”

Many musicians look upon best-of’s as more of a contractual obligation than a bona-fide release. Perkins is somewhere in between.

“I certainly did choose it and it was my idea, but it is very much based on the idea that it is a record company ‘thing’. It’s the end of my contract with Universal and while it fulfils a typical record company kind of function, I’m happy to do it because it gives me a chance to look back over a body of work. It’s a ‘farewell and goodnight’ sort of thing.”

Not that it’s a particularly sad farewell on his part.

“The actual role of record companies is redundant. All musicians need nowadays is a good distributor and a good publicist. Record companies have been allowed to be really wasteful and indulgent, with money going to the wrong people for shit reasons and I’m pleased to see the demise of them.”

For a man who describes his career as one of “many tentacles”, the obvious question is – where to now?

“Exactly. Many places and all sorts of things. I just don’t know what’s going to pop up next and it’s all very interesting to me. I’ve managed to do all these other things and I’m still twangin’ away at my guitar and singing songs.

“A bloke like me’s gotta do somethin’.”

(link to original)

IT’S only been open for six weeks, but in the wake of last week’s horror flash floods, the Murphys Creek Tavern has become much more than a watering hole to the local community.

It’s been transformed into the Murphys Creek Community Recovery Centre, and it’s a 24-hour hive of activity for volunteers and co-ordinators, with volunteers vacuuming up the flakes of mud being walked in by the hoardes of people.

“The doors never really shut,” says Petra Kliese, whose grandfather is tavern owner James Barns, who fought hard to open the first pub in the community in nearly a century.

A group of teenage girls sit by the door, gossiping and signing volunteers in. They say they got seven A4 pages worth of helpers yesterday and today has been almost as busy.

“The community support has been fantastic, but we are overwhelmed with volunteers,” co-ordinator Ben Lawler confirms. On leave from his job in the army where he teaches people to fly war helicopters, Mr. Lawler took over the co-ordinating job at the weekend.

“I had a mate ring me up on Friday and point out the fact that there were some great efforts going on here, but no-one was co-ordinating it,” he explained.

“Sue the pub manager was doing an awesome job on her own, but she was getting fatigued and overwhelmed.”

Mr. Lawler’s army training has been invaluable with organising a big effort with so many people. He has organised the mass of people into teams, with a local resident heading each one.

“I get to sleep really well at night, but I wake up at 3am with my mind going full speed and I can’t stop,” he said.

Ben Lawler isn’t the only person losing sleep, says midwife and registered nurse Marianne Wobcke. She’s helping her friend, Bowen therapist Heather Graham to run the first aid and massage tent in the back corner of the tavern.

“A lot of the people we’ve been working with are in a lot of shock. They’ve still got so much adrenaline in them and they’re barely breathing,” she explains.

“Just to get them to lie down, breathe a bit deeper and to place our hands on them really makes a difference with them being able to cope with this situation.”

Marianne and Heather are also treating the myriad of injuries that you’d expect from a group of people walking around in the bush, cleaning up debris.

“We’re getting a lot of cuts and abrasions and they’re festering quite quickly.”

There are also more severe medical issues being tackled at the centre.

Eliza Wilkie has been manning the phones for the past couple of days, dealing with inbound calls from concerned relatives looking for their loved ones and making outbound calls for everything from insulin for diabetics to heavy machinery needed to make local roads usable again.

“We’re getting a good response when we call businesses up and ask, but we’re not getting many offers,” said Ms Wilkie.

The community desperately needs specialist volunteers – electrical contractors, people able to deal with septic tanks, builders and demolishers.

Through all of this, a group of 30 staff members from Bunnings Warehouse in Toowoomba hand out fresh fruit, loaves of bread, water and muffins donated by Coles to hungry and thirsty volunteers, after having volunteered in the clean-up themselves.

Keri Blackburn usually does night fill at the store, but has turned her body clock around to co-ordinate the efforts, first in Murphys Creek and later on in Helidon and Gatton.

“It’s been an awesome project to work on,” she enthuses.

“We have people on our team who are missing people in the flood and have flood damaged houses themselves, but they’re still pitching in.”

Ben Lawler is equally amazed.

“It’s impossible to overstate how wonderful the locals have been. They’ll come out of this tighter as a community than they ever were before.”

Originally published with additional multimedia content at Finda Toowoomba.

Barry Bull is deflated and exhausted.
“I just want to get out of here,” he said sadly, standing in the shaky carport of his family home in Postmans Ridge.

Flood water and raw sewage washed through the bottom floor of his family’s house on January 10 as he, his wife, his adult daughters and his son-in-law cowered upstairs from the terrifying flood.

Finda first visited the Bull home  three days after the flood, when the family were cooking on a camping stove and shoveling toxic mud out of their home. Their backyard was covered with silt and rubbish. Few of their belongings were salvageable.

It’s now a month since the flood and there is some good news.

Most of the hard rubbish has been carted away and they’ve  put a fence up so their three dogs could come back to the property. The youngest, a pure-bred border collie, took out plenty of awards at the sheep dog trial at last week’s Allora agricultural show.

“My wife was thrilled,” smiled Mr Bull.

Local contractors donated materials and labour to re-tile and repaint his house and an electrician friend rigged up a double power point so the family could charge their phones and turn off the noisy diesel generators they’d been using.

“I had the local tiler ring up and tell me he was going to re-tile the house and I couldn’t choose what colour tiles I was going to get,” he said.

“A bloke rocked up at 7pm after working a full day and worked until midnight to get the job done. It was a similar story with the painters.”

A football team from Muswellbrook in New South Wales dropped off brand new whitegoods to the Bulls, and a friend of their daughter’s donated an entire lounge suite.

However, tension is beginning to show in the community as the shock wears off and the reality of the situation sinks in.

An earthmoving company from the Gold Coast came to help with the clean-up, volunteering their heavy machinery and labour to remove the wreckage of ruined houses.

“They were doing a wonderful job until the council came and chased them away,” Barry said wryly.

“The council reckoned they were taking work away from the local guys who want to get paid to do it.”

A young man walks quickly through the car port towards a demountable building on the other side of Mr Bull’s house with his head down, avoiding eye contact.

His name is John Warhurst. He has been living in a demountable building that the Department of Communities gave to him and placed in the Bull’s yard at John’s request. Mr Bull’s daughter Charlotte and John had spent hours combing paddocks and creek beds for a trace of John’s father Bruce, who was last seen by his family when he bundled them into a car and sent them to safety on the day of the disaster.

“The DNA tests identifying John’s father came back this week,” Mr Bull said quietly as John drove away.

“His mum wants to rebuild the house, but John isn’t so sure.”

Although he’s deeply grateful for all the help and generosity his family have received, Barry Bull can’t help feeling guilty.

“I feel bad having people come here to help, because I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have to be. If someone could take this off my hands I’d go now.”

Originally published with additional multimedia content at Finda Toowoomba.

IT’S this week’s viral video sensation.

An overweight school boy is taunted and punched by younger, smaller bullies before losing his temper and bodyslamming his tormentor.

Both boys received suspensions and mobile phone footage of the fight at Sydney’s Chifley College in Sydney  was online by Monday afternoon

It soon went viral, attracting thousands of comments in support of the bullied teenager, Year 10 student Casey Heynes.

Heynes’ father told Sydney’s Daily Telegraph that his son had been bullied throughout his schooling life and was worried about what will happen when he goes back to school.

“There’ll be reprisals from other kids in the school and he still has to go to school somewhere,” he said.

“He’s not a violent kid, it’s the first time he’s lashed out and I don’t want him to be victimised over that.

While the video has inspired websites, video mash-ups and countless Facebook support pages, it does raise the question – is violence against other students ever ok?

What if the violent act is provoked, or in self-defense?

It’s a hard call to make on a complex issue.

Casey Heynes’ father told the media that Casey had been brought up not to hit people and inferred that Casey’s tormentors had clearly not been raised the same way.

But Casey didn’t just hit another child – he picked him up and slammed him down on the concrete before storming off, leaving the child to limp away.

He may have endured years of taunts and abuse from his peers, but the parents of the boy he attacked would be completely justified in feeling horrified at what happened to their son, even if he did have it coming.

But this is 2011 and advances in technology mean the arena of humiliation doesn’t end at the school gates. Video can be uploaded to the internet from phones within seconds of the event happening.

If Casey had just taken this kid’s abuse, let the punches keep landing, he may have felt the whole world would be laughing at the fat kid who was too scared to fight back. He’d be right.

So yes, he could’ve kept copping the abuse, yes he could’ve walked away, but he’d been trying those tactics his whole life and they obviously just don’t work.

Casey might’ve lost his temper, but at least he might finally get some respect.

Originally published with additional multimedia content at Finda Toowoomba.

I remember how excited I was when I bought my first electric guitar. I’d saved up all the money I’d made working in my Dad’s hardware store on school holidays and purchased a blue Les Paul knock-off.

My Dad was considerably less excited.

“You’ve already got a guitar,” he grumbled, pointing to my old acoustic in the corner.

“Why do you need an electric one?”

I tried to explain that my acoustic couldn’t be plugged into an amp and cranked up in a band. It was too big and bulky for my small frame. I certainly couldn’t use it to shred out solos.

The acoustic guitar I’d been given to learn on was great for bashing out a few chords, but I wasn’t going to be able to play the instrument to its full potential if I didn’t upgrade to something better geared for it.

The National Broadband Network is like an electric guitar, with the current high-speed broadband network the old faithful acoustic.

Sure, it’s served us well for years and why bother dropping a lot of money on something new, shiny and noisy when there’s nothing wrong with our current system?

That may be true, but the NBN will serve us better, especially in rural areas.

With the network set to deliver download speeds up to 10 times faster than we experience today, the potential uses of the service are endless.

Politicians against the NBN are framing it as a faster way to download pirated media, but the same fast speeds allowing unsavory activities will also facilitate and advance live streams and web conferencing in the business and health sectors.

Think of the time and money people with chronic health problems in rural areas will save by being able to speak with their health care professionals online, as opposed to driving to a major centre and staying overnight.

Think of the educational opportunities open to people of all ages who live outside major centres.

So, don’t argue against the need for faster internet. Think of all the possibilities it could bring.

Originally published with additional multimedia content at Finda Toowoomba.
Screenshot HERE.

Published in the March 2011 issue of Triple J Magazine.