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Irregular Writings

July 2013

  • Dave Graney

I did a show at the Butterfly Club in June. It’s a small theatre showroom that used to inhabit a Victorian house in South Melbourne and has now flown into town where it has landed inside a narrow four storey building that fronts onto Collins Street between Swanston and Elizabeth. Incredibly, the rent is cheaper in the new address! There are several bars across several levels. A bit of a carnival fantasy world, all sense of direction is lost as soon as you enter the building. The building is full of all sorts of bric-a-brac – books and stuffed animals and old 78 record players, as well as board games and posters of everybody from Schwarzenegger to George V. A great joint.

My show was an experiment in early opening. A 6pm start and I was greatly heartened by the public’s appreciation of the idea. Big, sophisticated cities need early entertainment options! Screw all that dumb diehard rock’n’roll bullshit! Go to a show and then walk outside at 8pm to decide what to do next? A game of squash? Whyever not? A sauna? Yes please! Dinner and a late movie? Thought you’d never ask!

The club is still a bit of a secret to people who tread the familiar paths to established venues which operate at regular times. During my run there I espied a performer of interest to me who was coming down from Sydney to do a rare Melbourne show. It was Mic Conway who, decades ago, entered the straying public consciousness as the long haired but deep voiced singer of The Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band. A true troupe of freakish brothers from the wilder depths and shores of underground Melbourne music and performance. They crossed boundaries and all manner of manners as to what an act could be doing and saying. Not that I ever saw them perform – just a mere glimpse of them destroying the joint that was the TV show Countdown one Sunday evening.

I once read a book about the legendary star Louise Brooks and she talked about how it was a shame no film ever really captured the comic genius of W.C. Fields because they didn’t show his whole body. She had worked with him a lot on the stage and said he was comic in the totality of his movement. His face and his voice were funny but the whole package was the best. He moved funny.

Mic Conway has this. He came out with his accompanist, Rob “Daddy Long Legs” Long, on electric guitar and began the show. He used no microphone – his voice is classic, rich and deep and sonorous. His clothes are perfectly dusty and the collar all skew-whiff and drunk. A cummerbund, a funny hat to begin. His side of the stage was like a shop and he kept diving into the pile of props and bags to bring out another marvel. We laughed from beginning to end. He does magic tricks and tells the corniest of gags and lays it all out with the ease and timing of an absolute confidence man.

He played a parlour sized steel guitar with Hawaiian dancers painted on the back and a ukulele. He put a harmonica rack around his neck which included a kazoo, several whistles, a couple of bird calls, and a jug as well as the harmonica. No turn was unstoned.

Mic drew on songs from Bing Crosby’s early repertoire, Tom Lehrer and Marlene Dietrich. He touched on songs from his Matchbox past with “My Canary Has Circles Under His Eyes”, explaining it was a song from the twenties when people gave marijuana to their pet birds!

The whole show was a display of skills in every area. Then there was the innate charisma and persona of the performer. It has struck me several times, seeing a player in front of a crowd where they have a sense of him or her in their minds before a word is uttered or a note is played. The performer is already there, walking across their minds. He had us moving with him from the beginning.

Mic moved through all these songs and changes. He has an easy smile and world weary, hooded eyes. A light, knowing touch on every note. No heavy trips here. Sometimes he looked like the oldest entertainer in vaudeville, other times, he was a timeless hero from the youth of the known world. He was there with all this stuff before AC/DC and before Cold Chisel. Probably playing in the same joints. He seriously has the blues. I mean that as the highest compliment. He seemed surprised but delighted this hammy stuff still worked. He liked it!, nobody else was supposed to! He smiled easily, like Nick Cave, from a long way away.

He played the room in a supersized, classic, pre-electric mode. If you ever see him posterized as to an upcoming visit – see him!

@davegraney

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