Christmas Hack
25 December 2016
Zo Damage 365 Project
Day 305/366
December was a weird month, throwing up many challenges both in finding gigs and personally. The opulence and excessiveness around the "sell" of Christmas freak me out. It spews sparkles, glitz and glamour. The gloss and greed serve to highlight the displaced, leaving me with an overwhelming sense of despair. It sucks. I actually wrote a short piece titled Ho Ho No about it, which you can read here.
Christmas Day was blistering hot with the temperature tipping 40°C. The gigs I'd planned to shoot for the day had been cancelled. I sent several other venues that had live music listed on the gig guides Facebook messages to confirm all systems go and then headed into the city on the tram searching for buskers. Come 4pm, despite walking a massive grid of Melbourne's CBD … nothing. At one point, I even asked the cops if they'd seen any buskers, which was pretty funny. Short answer. No.
After walking a couple of laps of the city, I'm thinking, "fuck this shit, it's too early for the show at The Curtin, too early to go home and too late to do much else. That's when I saw Hack sitting in the shade at the top of Bourke St Mall with his dog. Hack plays Deep Purple reinterpretations and has been busking for a long time. "How you going, in this heat?" "Aw, you know, there's stuff all people around, so I'll go soon, but someone's gotta do it, someone's gotta play the music."
Hack & Dog
Bourke St Mall
Zo Damage 2016
I killed a few hours floundering around town then made my way to the Curtin for a Soul Night they had running.
Heading home on The 86 tram I received gold! A text message from a mate, “House Party. Northcote. NOW. Band starts 15 min.” Rippa. I get off the tram, cross the road and wait for, you guessed it, another tram, arriving at the house party with 10 minutes to spare.
Thanks for the chat Hack, it was great to meet you and your dog. And yeah, someone has to do it for sure. Cheers to the Curtin for not cancelling the gig or replacing the band with DJs. and thanks to Wally for the SMS. You bloody legend!
Soul Jam
The Curtin
Zo Damage 2016
House party
Zo Damage 2016