LAST DRINKS AT THE TOTE
Monday 18th January

Doug Wallen (additions by Marcus T)

In true Tote fashion, the last day and night of this much loved (and vital) venue, sped past in a sea of beers, laughs, tears, and rock bands. Twenty-six of them, to be exact. Besides the barrage of music from the band room and upstairs Cobra Bar, the front bar and beer garden were constantly laden with punters, talking, laughing, scoffing food, drinking and reflecting on the legacy of this iconic institution. Outside, passing cars honked in support and pedestrians snapped photos. (It did infact, seem like there was a flash going off every minute of the day). More than one set of parents tried to show their kids around the front bar, but they had to settle with a longing glance through the doorway. Likewise, not just the final musical send-off but the front bar itself was well and truly sold out. A farewell ceremony at noon was followed by a surprise performance by Eddy Current Suppression Ring. Punters who couldn’t get in wound up listening to the radio broadcasts elsewhere – like at the Birmingham just blocks away. A city celebrating the Tote in their own way.

MT: I heard that Eddy Current Suppression Ring - who had apparently been trying to get on the bill at the last minute, and were forced to play early due to bass player Rob Solid being unable to get out of a night shift - were playing an impromptu set around 1:30pm. Just as the car I was in was passing the Tote on pre-gig business. Crushed. Reports say that they played to about 50 people, with Brendan Suppression pacing the floor and hanging from the roof. By the time I finally arrived at a pleasantly harmonious Tote (no signs of desperate gatecrashers and hangers on just after 2pm) I had missed the much anticipated reformed Guttersnipes. Crushed x 2. I was in time though to be standing in the beer garden and having a roll of streamers thrust into my hand by some scruffy looking fellow.

DW: Following Guttersnipes and Kamikaze Trio, the aptly named eight-piece Dynamo took the stage in the band room, its joyfully seedy singer decked out in a tie-died dress shirt, green silk jacket, and matching pants. While three-part horns rocketed and harmonies swaggered, multi-coloured streamers were thrown as the day took on a celebratory note.

At the B-movie-inspired Cobra Bar, people had to squeeze in early to find a good vantage point for each band, the stage set into an alcove-like space nudged into already tight confines. The sharp, shout-y punk trio Bombshells did justice to their obvious Buzzcocks influence, the middle-aged bassist and guitarist alternating lead vocals from song to song. It was the younger drummer’s first show, and he punctuated it with repeated cowbell. Like every set of the day to an extent, this one was bitter and rebellious.

With his signature pencil mustache and all-black wardrobe – including his hat – wry rock legend Dave Graney led his quartet the Lurid Yellow Mist through a rumbling set that included ‘Bodysnatcher Blues’ from last year’s solo album, the Mist’s ‘I’m In The Future Now’ and ‘Let’s Kill God Again’, and the mid-’90s Coral Snakes classic ‘Rock ‘N’ Roll Is Where I Hide’, the latter extended to a bracing jam. Ever the entertainer, Graney addressed punters as “comrades,” pointed out the old floor and stage beneath the current ones, and declared that he and wife Clare Moore – the band’s drummer – had played the Tote over three decades. Noting the “sense of community this has shocked people into”, he closed with ‘Sellout!’, dedicated to the bureaucrats responsible for the venue’s fate.

The Dacios proved as hard-charging as ever during their Cobra Bar set, frontwoman Linda Johnston plowing ahead with her monster of a voice. The hurt in her eyes was clear as she sang ‘Monkeys Blood’, written for someone she met at the Tote. Punters stood on seats in the back and sides and knelt in the front to witness a cathartic set loaded with long, heavy, muscular entries. Johnston could later be seen dancing to many of the night’s bands, always with a glass of wine in hand. Planted at the mic, though, she roared out a wrenching sort of eulogy for an era now past.

It wasn’t the Nation Blue’s final show, contrary to rumours, but the trio channeled their own rage and sorrow over the Tote’s demise into a set every bit as scalding and scathing as the Dacios’. The band spat out vicious, blue-collar post-punk, underscored by guest screamer Brett O'Riley (Black Level Embassy, Margins) at one point. Their final song saw singer-guitarist Tom Lyngcoln whiplash away before closing the set by wedging his guitar against the ceiling and leaving it hanging there.

MT: It's not clear if Dan Kelly's Dream Band refers to the people he always wanted to play with or that it's a band bringing his ideas to life, but either way they did a bit of either upstairs at the Cobra room. Featuring Augie March's Dave Williams (drums) and Kiernan Box (keys), as welll as the Ground Components Indra Adams on bass, the quartet ran through a bunch of mosrtly new tunes in the packed envclave. While much of Kelly's always-on banter was muffled through the tiny PA, the rock was not, the set building to a guitar-widdling climax as Williams smashed along over a 5/4 backing track.

After the Deam’s set, the band room was finally getting crowded - packed - for the Onyas. Shirtless frontman Macka announced, “Here’s one of my most amazing songs, from 1995," before after playing a guitar solo behind his head. He joked of “The Last Temptation of VCAT” as the trio tore along at its burly, bleary best. Towards the bands end - during 'Beer Gut' -  his guitar strap broke. His guitar however, didn't move, positioned perkily as it was on the source of the song's title.

Complete with bristly beard, tall-brimmed hat, and Greville Records tee, seminal rock dog Spencer P. Jones prefaced his quartet the Escape Committee’s Cobra set by recalling his first time playing the Tote in 1981. Proclaiming “We’re gonna do something loud and exotic,” he opened with ‘Clementine’. His mic kept cutting out until a volunteer soundman applied some gaffer, and soon Jones was asking for requests. Several Beasts of Bourbon songs showed up from there, while a member of the Redcoats lent third guitar to two numbers. A marathon version of one Beasts tune made the set run five minutes over, but was received rapturously nonetheless.

Downstairs, Legends of Motorsport were all blown-out, hard-rock thunder and well-observed humour, although it was tough to make out the singer’s keyboard playing. Deaf Wish took over the Cobra with their slapdash sort of psychedelic hardcore, each member screaming lead vocals at some point. Amy Franz of Super Wild Horses played saxophone on one song, and when guitarist Pete Dickinson broke a string, he borrowed an axe from the Dacios. “How’s it sound out there?” asked guitarist Jensen Tjhung. “As Cobra as usual?” A soundman carried Dickinson on his shoulders into the thrilled crowd during the last song, after which the players and instruments made a satisfying, chaotic collapse.

In the band room, Beaches called up their usual deep vortex of droning rock and post-rock, while elswhere punters succumbed to beergarden sausages and front bar recollections. Fiery  duo Digger and the Pussycats wound up playing their first song twice after a punter requested it again, albeit with a faux drum solo in between. Guitarist Sam Agostino and drummer Andy Moore, both of whom met their current (some would say, lucky) girlfriends at the Tote, ran through several songs about sex, including ‘I Want To Be Your Slut’ and ‘Pick Up At Pony’, for which the owner of Melbourne’s late night institution Pony was in the audience.

The Joel Silbersher fronted Hoss played a set of throaty, old-school rock downstairs, after which, and as night fell, Tote nominee Bruce Milne gave a heartbreaking yet invigorating speech. He credited other bars and their employees for helping out during this final weekend, reminded everyone how spoiled they are by Melbourne’s public radio stations, and cited the amazing Tote staff, especially booker Amanda Palmer, who had rushed to assemble the day’s once-in-a-lifetime lineup.

While Town Bikes performed a 15-minute burlesque set downstairs, the Stabs mined lurching, splintered, flinty punk on the floor above; the trio finishing their set with frontman Brendan thrusting his guitsr into the roof. Kim Salmon’s new duo Precious Jules were appropriately grunge-y, finishing with the Scientists’ ‘We Had Love’, which Salmon said he played in that very same spot in 1981. Upstairs, Johnny Casino thundered away with catchy, boistourous, gravelly garage-rock.

Classic ’90s punks the Meanies were maybe the day’s best band, with flailing singer Link Meanie inspiring a rampant pit and crowd-surfing for ‘Never’ and an epic '10% Weird' . A quick encore brought the band’s first-ever recorded song, which Link prefaced by announcing, “The drunker you get, the better we sound.” He was later seen sprawled on a couch upstairs, sweaty, bedraggled, and still catching his breath.

The Exotics did a set a Cobra set fronted by a singer in jeweled turban and sunnies, while the Breadmakers turned the same space into an old-school R&B dance party. In the band room, a pared down Spiderbait filled in last-minute for the Cosmic Psychos, who's frontman Ross Knight, had apparently called in to say he'd "done a number" on himself on the bench press. Reduced to a guitar-drums duo without bassist Janet English, who couldn’t make it due to illness, the 20-year-old band provided a mighty shot of nostalgia without settling for just that. Kram’s vocals and drumming were definitely up to snuff, Whitt's guitar more than making up for the lack of bass. 'Scenester' was aired, guest bassist in 'Macca" from the Guttersnipes helped on 'Old Man Sam', before Wally Kempton from the Meanies – who got Spiderbait its first show at the Tote – joined in on the band’s chart-topping, though timid, version of ‘Black Betty’.

Opening with the beloved ‘Jezebel’ and closing with a cover of God’s enduring anthem ‘My Pal’ that featured God’s own Joel Sibersher (also of Hoss) singing, the Drones couldn’t have played a better-chosen set to close the Tote. (Read about the Drone's chaotic set in our indepth review of the closing moments). They couldn’t have played better, amplifying their usual gutsy might with an extra shot of frustration. There were rumours swirling all day that the owners of the Melbourne venues Bar Open and Afterdark may take over the Tote and save it from the dustbin, but no matter what happens, a defining era of the city’s iconic rock venue has come to an end.

An extraordinary vision to those inside today, as well as over the venue's storied twenty year history, The Tote will forever remain the community around which the Melbourne music scene orbits. With any luck, and with plans afoot to save it still, fingers crossed it won't be a ghost.

Doug Wallen