THE MONARCHS
@ WHAMMO!
(CLOSING DOWN DAY)
Sydney
Saturday, June 23, 2001

Whammo arose out of the sale of Waterfront Records, a development prompted by the desire of Festival/Mushroom to have a physical presence to go with their Whammo CD retail web site, itself the product of a cut, paste and rebadge job on the former Greg's Music World site (and yes, behind that site there was once a real Greg, who loved Australian music, answered e-mails personally and provided a very efficient and economic service), with some HTML thrown at Ian McFarlane's Ozrock Encyclopedia to provide a bit of ready-made content. To put it another way, Waterfront Records was the fertilizer ploughed into the soil out of which Whammo then blossomed. I won't rehash the whole Waterfront history here; if you already know it, I'd just be wasting your time and if you don't already know it, then what difference can being told now possibly make? However, if you're really keen, Craig Mathieson's dissection of the collision between alternative Oz rock and the mainstream music business in his recent book "The Sell-In" would be a reasonable place to start.

Long story short: through co-founder Frank Cotterell, Whammo/Waterfront was the last direct, personal link back to the optimistic, if sometimes naive, eighties indie scene (though John Needham keeps threatening to prove that there's still some life left in Citadel by releasing that long anticipated Angie Pepper compilation, before possibly pulling up the drawbridge for the last time). Over the past 10 years the indies have been stealthily but steadily absorbed by the cynical "real" world of music mass marketing of this glossy new millennium.

Towards the end of Waterfront's life, the stock was noticeably run down and it looked like the sparkle had gone out of it for all concerned. They'd long since stopped issuing records on their own label and many customers were waiting expectantly for the announcement of the inevitable closing down sale, this being their clarion call to descend on the shop for that one last feeding frenzy to pick the carcass clean.

Instead Frank accepted an attractive offer (at least, I certainly hope he screwed a sizeable chunk of cash out of them) to hand over the keys to the front door while staying on as manager. The shop closed without any fanfare, stayed closed for what seemed like ages while extensive renovations were supposedly being carried out inside and then reopened after about 10 weeks (or so I am assured, though it seemed longer at the time) with some of the shelving shifted around, but otherwise looking remarkably familiar on my first visit to the reinvented Whammo! (personally, I reckon a handful of the layabouts here at the bar could have done the whole thing for them over a single weekend and with Rupert M. ultimately footing the bill, financially we should have made out like Ned Kelly).

Following a strong start with plenty of local product, not just plain old commercial crap and/or JJJ-approved alternative yoof shite but the likes of Died Pretty, the Celibate Rifles and Asteroid B612 amongst others comprehensively represented, after a few months the shop seemed to stagnate once again. Rumours soon suggested that this was due to a waning of corporate interest. Of course, despite having taken the trouble to buy a store with a distinguished indie history and well earned reputation for championing less commercial music, the corporate focus was always going to be on homogenization and volume, not originality, individuality and specialist markets. Therefore a clash of cultures was always inevitable. I can't imagine the old Waterfront stocking too many copies of the Moulin Rouge soundtrack or the latest audio droppings from Scandal'us, both of which feature prominently in the "Top 5" on the main page of www.whammo.com.au as I type this.

So anyway, Saturday the 23rd of June was the very last day. The show was scheduled to start at 1:00pm, rather than the usual 3:00pm and I arrived in good time (but I'm getting pretty complacent about punctuality now) to find the shop almost stripped bare. A few stray scavengers were still hunting hopefully around amongst the skeletal remains of the cadaver, while the Barman patiently stood off to one side, evenly balanced by holding in one hand a copy of the limited edition seven-inch vinyl which Frank was personally handing out free to a select few regular customers (no, I didn't merit one, but then my turntable doesn't work, so what would I have done with it?), while in the other hand he held a Coopers Sparkling Ale. It isn't just boy scouts who go out into the world well prepared.

We stood around and exchanged the usual pleasantries that you'd expect at a wake, noting in passing that we'd nearly been up for the real thing earlier in the week when Oz Fest promoter and Headmiles supremo Ashley Thomson was carted off to hospital for a triple bypass following a heart attack and nearly checked out on the operating table, his blood supply so toxic that it choked up the life support machine and they'd had to rush in a replacement and swap them over in the middle of the operation. The good news was that the old ox has since been making astounding progress; lying in intensive care with the standard forest of tubes coming out of him in all directions, apparently he'd astonished the nurses that morning by pulling the tube out of his mouth and asking for a drink...

Time finally for the Monarchs to lay it all to rest. One time Hoodoo Guru and longtime Waterfront customer Brad Shepherd led the band through a sharp, short set. Notwithstanding the sombre nature of the event, the Monarchs rocked like it
was a party, albeit a going away party. Since all of their releases so far have been on vinyl only, I'm still not overly familiar with their oeuvre, but Brad assured us all that the album is in the can and nearly ready to be rolled out into the stores, though now there'll be one less of course.

Hopefully the album will be available in digital form as well as analogue, so I'll be able to rectify my ignorance in the not too distant future. In the meantime, I recognised the recent "2001" single, the aptly named "Loud" (supremely apt in fact), my favourite "Give It Up (For The Band)" though this time shorn of its evangelical introduction, "'69 Monaro" and "I'm On Drugs".

I can see from the setlist they were working from that they intended to finish with "Earthy", a cover which has featured regularly in their set other times when I've seen them, but in the end they left the stage without playing it and ignored all requests to return.

And then that really was it. Last one out switch off the lights, I guess. One of the premature but prescient obituaries said that Whammo stands for "Worldwide Home of Australasian Music and More Online", so there: you learn something new every day.- John McPharlin

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