Wave your hands, stomp your feet
Hey, stomp stomp where the surfers meet.
Yeah, yeah stomp stomp stomp those blues.
Sand is flying, dust is blowing, music flailing
So stomp, stomp, stomp those God darn blues
This way, that way, balance on the ocean waves
‘Cause we are stomping, stomp stomping what
The surfer blues, oh oh, stomping the surfer blues.
‘Yeah we’re having a party, but no loud roll’n’roll,’ Balga said to provoke Andy.
‘Don’t knock the rock,’ a painter, a long blonde haired and bearded bloke named Ian retorted into the conversation.
‘Give me folk and blues any day,’ the lad insisted.
‘Yeah, you really get that on the radio, don’t you? Go with what you can hear. When I work, I have 3UZ, the pop station on for energy,’ he sneered..
Balga shrugged and smiled a superior smile, though he was a bit jealous of the man. Ian unlike the failed Balga was a real painter and not only that he was accepted by critics such as Adrian as a talented one. The lad had tried to get an invitation to his studio to check them out for himself; but had failed. No matter, he consoled himself with the fact that he had given up art forever. Ian was one of the artists that popped in every now and again to see Leo and sometimes cooked up a meal for whoever was there quickly and efficiently. He said that if a meal took longer to cook than to eat it was time wasted. He had been a soldier and taken part in the occupation of Japan about which he had interesting stories mainly of the brothels there. Returning from the occupation, he had turned to teaching in a girl’s school and had interesting tales about teaching a class of girls. Balga like hanging in the kitchen and listening to whoever turned up to learn what was going down as Leo and his house were popular to Melbourne’s Bohemians. Another artist who came in often was the painter, Max, a Serbian who lived behind them in rooms above a shop fronting on Lygon Street. In order to earn some dough he made jewelry out of copper wire twirling the stuff in spiral designs which looked mystical and witchy. He even had painted Balga’s portrait and the lad sat through the sittings as petrified as a model. After, he had wondered if he should offer to buy it, but now it wasn’t in the bloke’s studio and he guessed he had lost the opportunity to get it.
The party was held on a Friday evening and the first to arrive were a couple of sisters, Darlene and Francis Koops of Moonee Ponds. Balga had met them in some folk club or other. They were public servants, but Commonwealth working in the green Immigration building on Spring Street. Darlene was a true find with dark hair about a pointed face in which large eyes peered through moon shaped glasses. She had a jumpy sort of personality which she disguised by speaking in a lecturing way intensely stressing words, though most of the time she really didn’t have anything to be intense about except perhaps being intense. Her much quieter sister faded away next to her leaving no memories behind. What made Balga dig them was that they actually lived in the suburb of Moonee Ponds which the standup comedian Barry Humphries recently had made known by inventing a female character supposedly living there, a cliché in cliché land. All the Bohemians dug Barry Humphries and Adrian had taken the Noongar to one of his shows where the comedian came out dressed as a woman a skit which made Balga smile. It was this that had made him befriend the sisters.
‘So what is this celebration about,’ Darlene asked staring at the lad through her dark framed spectacles with a similar butterfly shape to those worn by the Barry Humphrey character, Edna Everidge.
‘It may not be a celebration,’ Balga replied.
‘Yet you said it was,’ she replied.
‘It depends on whether you like Mao Tse Tung or not.’
‘The Chinese leader?’
‘The one and only.’
‘Why, what has he done now?’
‘Only broken the Australian communist movement into two,’ Balga replied trying to locate some feelings about whether he felt sad or happy or even indifferent about this.’
‘Oh, why and why is it something to celebrate?’
‘That’s what I’m not at all sure about. Are we are celebrating it or merely having a few drinks to fixate our minds on that question or to forget it. I don’t know,’ Balga ended morosely.
‘Well, at least I’ll celebrate. It must be a good thing, who wants to be communist anyway and they’re already in South East Asia and may soon be threatening us if we let them.’
‘Well, well, well, Edna,’ Balga retorted, ‘it may be a bad thing for Moonee Ponds, the Toorak of the eastern suburbs, but some of us would welcome a change of system.’
‘And most of us wouldn’t,’ she replied stressing each word.
Balga wasn’t about to fall into an argument with her as they were poles about in just about everything including politics so he went off to Andy who was trying to get the record player on. The switch was broken and it had to be turned on and off at the wall socket. Now Andy put on a record either his own or borrowed if not stolen as there was a second hand record shop, Norman’s which lent itself to pilfering. It certainly wasn’t something that Balga or even Andy might buy, for out came of all things Surf Music which was popular then. Andy loved music loud. He turned the volume up as high as it could go. Everyone found the skiffle like rhythm infectious and great for dancing. They began stomping away doing the Surfer dance and having a ball. And then Leo made it up the stairs. He shuffled his feet to the beat before withdrawing from the sound.
The evening continued on loudly without the sound of folk. Balga fueled the party by passing around some once apple cider he and Andy had found at a liquor shop. The proprietor let them have it cheap. It was old and sour and gave a strange sort of intoxication. No matter how much you drank, you never fell down drunk. Balga and Andy had bought up the last of the stuff about a dozen bottles which after some red wine the partygoers got down without comment.
The party was winding down and Darlene and her sister had left thinking that it was the end or Balga guessed the folks in Monee Ponds really did go to bed at an indecent time. But the party wasn’t about to end just yet. Balga opened another bottle of once cider while Andy hunted in his pockets for a plectrum. Soon the loft would be rocking; but then there was a loud banging at the bottom door. Balga went down to fling it open and receive hugs from Ross and a whoop then a handshake from the Koorie singer, Alan. They were fresh from Sydney. Ross still had the car which was parked just outside the back gate.
‘Missed you bub,’ she said and kissed him again.
‘Yeah the blues man, the blues,’ Alan grinned.
‘Come up Ross, come up Alan and have some almost cider, it’s a bit old but still, well, I don’t know,’ Balga trailed off as he had had a cup too much of the brew which was affecting his vocal chords as well as his mind of course. He wanted to get onto his guitar and play and sing some blues. ‘Come on come on, nothing to eat, but maybe later. Yeah, for sure, there’s a woman Mrs Campbell who’s always checking up on her son. We are about ready to receive a visit and she’ll bring some snacks to hide the real reason. She’s a pretty good cook anyway, so we’ll bear her presence until she finds everything’s okay.’
Andy was thumping on his guitar preparatory to launching into a rock number. ‘Hey man,’ Alan drawled, ‘hang on a moment until we moisten our throats and then we’ll do some blues. Hey, what is that there I spy. That guitar, that’s a blues guitar for sure. Got a bottle neck, nay, make you one later, now let me do some picking.’
Alan handed Balga his own guitar and took up the Resounder, hit a few notes and became one with the instrument and the blues came tumbling out. Andy never had a chance after that. He gave up the rock and began laying down chord patterns under the blue notes. The kid forgot his Eddie Cochrane and went over the top and met Sun House rocking him by muffling the treble strings of the guitar and using only the bass strings. After a break in the session, Balga got back his own guitar and sometimes played rhythm sometimes lead or exchanged roles with Alan who was really smoking. Ross clapped them on and the party went through into the dawn and beyond. They had found their groove and by broad daylight were playing as a trio.