Читать книгу Nine Parts Water, One Part Sand - Douglas Galbraith - Страница 14

1975 arrived for Kim with career plans undetermined and an identity still in formation. The Whitlam Government’s fast-moving agenda of social reform and political miscalculations paraded towards the Dismissal. But while the social landscape in the Eastern States was twisting and shouting, Perth was still slow dancing to a more conservative tune.

Perth was really just a big country town and, like many country towns, reflected a white bread, mainstream culture with little diversity. The counter culture was corralled into an out of the way cinema, and music was dominated by ‘Top 40’ cover bands playing in suburban beer barns like the Scarborough Beach Hotel.

It was from this claustrophobic atmosphere that Kim escaped to the Art Faculty of the Western Australian Institute of Technology. ‘I was thinking that by the time I get to art school it’s all going to happen; free love, drugs, action, rock and roll. I imagined the whole Woodstock thing would be there in the art faculty.’ He pictured holing up in a garret somewhere, walls splashed with paint, surrounded by a community of artists, and started his tertiary studies enthusiastically.

Kim’s natural skills refined under the tuition of teacher Henry Hall — a skinny, aging, chain-smoking hipster in the mould of Keith Richards. ‘I learned to draw properly then; I got my drawing chops down. Drawing was easy, they stuck a nude model in front of you … and you’d draw it.’ But the students were older than Kim, rundown hippies who had already been ’round the block. The vibe was like this isn’t for you, it’s a burned-out scene … They weren’t trying ideas other than the ones they already had.’

Outside art class, however, a troupe of likeminded accomplices had emerged, and Kim spent the year exploring Perth’s nocturnal life. One night, his high school friend Ken Seymour introduced him to fellow student and keyboard player Dave Faulkner. Kim recognised Dave’s sensibility straight away, ‘and it became clear that maybe we should have a jam’.

Dave Faulkner would go on to be one of Australia’s most successful musicians, selling hundreds of thousands of albums and his songs on constant radio play. But in 1975, he was just ‘Dave Flick’ and still working out his angle. Dave had gathered a strange conglomeration of players that loosely resembled a band, including Neil Fernandes, a laid-back guitarist with a beautiful voice who would, the following year, respond to Kim’s punk call to arms. Into this mix arrived Kim Salmon. Epic art rock paroxysms, ‘prog’ explorations and blues jams followed, but it was the increasingly alcoholic drummer’s suggestion to play atonal noise over an unlikely 7/4 beat that stuck in Kim’s head.

Dave adorned the combo with the name Moulin Rouge. ‘Nobody said anything, giving Dave carte blanche to be the boss you see. He was a keyboard player. He also played a little guitar but not that well. The embarrassing thing was you’d be playing and he’d say, “oh your B string’s slightly sharp” and you’d tune it and he’d say “yeah but now your A’s out” — it was off-putting! Even in those days he must have had an amazing ear, everything sounded ugly to him.’ The band never got off the ground. Practice in the faculty rehearsal room at midday would blend into drinks at the uni tavern, ‘and by 6 o’clock I’d be in the garden in fisticuffs with the bass player.’

In the wake of Moulin Rouge, Dave suggested joining a blues band. Perth was awash with stylised, holier-than-thou blues bands like The Elks, Beagle Boys or Duck Soup. The other choice was carbon copy, white-washed cover bands. Playing Beatles songs to huge crowds in awful beer barns was big business, and Neil Fernandes recalls stories of people earning house deposits from playing covers.

Kim was over it. ‘God it was an awful time. Everything seemed to compound the idea that I wasn’t meant for this world.’ Hanging out with Ken, Dave and Neil was fun, but when Friday night came around and Dave rang up to say ‘We’re going out tonight,’ the horizon opened up only as far as the Broadway Tavern to watch the Elks play more blues. Kim Salmon again was searching for something to happen.

‘I’d done a year of art school but I still knew nothing. It seemed like art school was standing around drawing nudes while John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’ was playing on a crappy turntable all day. So after a year, I dropped out.’