On a cold, dirty corner of elizabeth and queensbury there lies an old friend on life-support. Wracked with an incurable disease, the doctor has proclaimed that there is little we can do, that it's time to call the family around and enjoy the last weeks and remember the good things.
My old friend is The Arthouse.
The disease, greed and stupidity of the landlord.
And the family is every punk left in Melbourne who has been to a show, tripped up the stairs to the garden, lost at pool to some sharking tiny girl in eyeliner, danced like an idiot to the interim music (somehow they can read my mind and know every back catalogue punk album I love), scrawled graffiti on the toilet walls and drank too many beers to remember.
The Arty will close its doors for the last time on April 30, and in true style they are going out kicking and screaming. They, and I, will be found smiling when we die here, we wanna burn our eyes out on the sun (guess the reference!). If you do not have tickets to this last show, SHAME, but get along to the bar and take a look at the lineup for this last month. Frenzal is back, Bodyjar (!!), Mid Youth Crisis, The Nation Blue, Antiskeptic, A Death in the Family, Paper Arms, Lungs... and HBLOCK101!! Everyone who has loved the Arty is here to see it out.
Including the mighty English folk-punk, Frank Turner, who played to a sold out crowd this Wednesday just gone. Jet-set, jet-lagged but not jaded, Mr Turner had just flown in from Berlin and wasn't going to lie down just yet.
No stranger to the Arty, Frank brought a warm and genuine set to the eager crowd.. who knew the words, knew when to shout and knew when to play the air harmonica. The latest tour is in support of his newest release, England Keep my Bones (the name taken from a Shakespeare play that FT freely admits he has never read...ha), which is his fourth album in as many years. Purveyor of songs about love, life and the road.. FT is the wandering minstrel of the new millenium, with a mileage card and drinking habit.
Highlights included a Weakerthans cover ("Do you like the weakerthans? Of course you do, you have ears"), new song I Still Believe and of course old favourites Ballad for my friends, journey of the magi and the real damage.
Its simple, acoustic and mostly about girls. But Turner never pretends to be anything else, and his cock-eyed optimism and drive is infectious in its genuine and beautiful nature. You can't help but get swept up in the honest tunes where he admits his faults, but doesn't hide them, and just asks you to love him anyway.
And I do Frank. I do.
Frank Turner - Photosynthesis by Hunchblog
So please friends, get along to the Arty soon. I will be there, a lot, if not for a show just for the people there and the cheap beer on tap. Support those who have kept a scene alive even though MTV forgot it existed after the 90s.
Long live the (corner of) queen(sbury st).
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