By far our most memorable and worst gig was the first one, on 23 October 1982. Billy Walsh, who was then in an early version of the Cosmic Psychos called Spring Plains, had run up all these parking fines. So my friend organised a gig to make the money back. Bass player Phil Nelson and I were just learning how to play, but he said “Let’s get a band together, we’ll get more people there.”
So that was why the band started – to play Bill Walsh’s parking fines. It was supposed to be a one-off show.
At the time, Hunters & Collectors were the coolest band in town, and I wanted a piss-take of their name – something AND something else – so my friend Tess, now my wife, goes, “How about the Painters and Dockers?” as a joke. And I said, “That’s it!” At the time, there was a royal commission into the Federated Ship Painters and Dockers Union, because some members had literally been knocking each other off.
Our singer Paulie Stewart ended up in the band at the last minute. He met Phil at the Prahran market and told him he could play trumpet. Basically, anyone we knew who said they could play anything was in. We didn’t have a drummer, so Bill played for Painters and Dockers and Spring Plains that night. He was so fucked that in one of the songs he just stopped playing – his arms were so tired he couldn’t keep up.
We played the gig at a pub called the Rising Sun in Port Melbourne. What we didn’t know was that this was where members of the actual Painters and Dockers Union used to drink. I remember my eldest brother saying to me, “You’ve got to change your name. These guys don’t fuck around, they’ll kill you!” But while we were playing, one of them walked in (the crowd parted like the Red Sea) and gave us all a beer, so then I thought, OK, we’re not gonna die.
Unfortunately, a man who lived nearby got the shits with the noise so came in with a machete and started chopping up the mixing desk because he wanted us to stop playing. Six divvy vans turned up, cut the whole street off, and the whole pub evacuated in two minutes. We were running down the street with our amplifiers trying to get out of there. It was insane.
The next morning my mate went to the pub so we could get paid. It was probably about five or six hundred bucks – enough to pay Billy’s fines – but the owner at the time said, “Oh, there’s been a bit of damage, let’s just call it even.”
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