J.

J.

Australian science fiction: Venture Journal & Nuclear Realism, 1957.

Three science fiction styled pieces of poetry, prose, and fiction from Venture, the Journal of Society of Realist Writers (from the collection of the SLV); ‘Automatic Progress’ by ‘Y.S.’, ‘Meditations of the Jovial Young Historian’ by Laurence Collinson, and ‘Pioneer Stock’ by Hilary Richmond. These were all taken from the seventh issue of Venture (October 1957), published from the suitably realist base of Altona in Melbourne. The Realist Writers’ Group were a group of politically committed nonconformist writers who were responsible for establishing Overland (among other activities). Their stance could be described as largely Communist, likely socialist - see also the Realist Film Unit. 

(8 McBain Street, Altona, 1950's prefab)

The first is a poem by 'Y.S.' on ultramodern alienation and proto-cybernetic dread. The other two are dystopic/imaginative takes on Peace Movement themes. Laurence Collinson's prose piece is twisted radiation recollections while Hilary Richmond’s short story is strangely claustrophobic; a felt-like domestic death-bed drama channeled through a speculative prism of a normalised post-disaster/trauma living-scape. The interior emphasis and implied scenarios of ‘Pioneer Stock’ align closer to later styles of science fiction writing in Australia than the prevailing space opera/extraterrestrial hostility tropes otherwise in vogue in Australia at the time. Though of course Melbourne itself was associated with the major piece of nuclear realism in Nevile Shutes’ 'On The Beach'. I’ve never actually watched the movie/read the book, perhaps an aversion to Gregory Peck?

‘Automatic Progress’ by ‘Y.S.’

‘Meditations of the Jovial Young Historian’ by Laurence Collinson

‘Pioneer Stock’ by Hilary Richmond

Collision was involved in establishing student magazine Barjai in the 1940's in Brisbane and was later connected with Barrett Reid (Heide & Contemporary Art Society etc.) and the Eltham scene and Overland, further information available here and here. Richmond was a New Zealander who had migrated across the channel. There is some information on Richmond detailed by Ian Syson in Hecate in 1993 (‘The problem was finding the time’ Working class women’s writing in Australasia’ v. 19, i. 2). Syson notes;

“Her son Mark Richmond, in a letter to me dated 11 June 1993 (the first piece of biography on Hilary Richmond I have been able to obtain), revealed that she was domiciled in Australia at the time of publication. While he remembers her writing a great deal of material, including a lost manuscript of a novel, this story (My Realist Writing," Overland 7 (1956)) "is the only piece [he knows] of in print." He claims that his mother led an active life in the labour movement in both New Zealand and Australia and that "she saw her chosen vein of writing as an organic part, both product and instrument, of her political activism and ideological commitment, rather than as a conflicting impulse." Unfortunately, Hilary Richmond died an untimely death in New Zealand in 1962 after a stroke.”

 There is a slightly redacted copy of John McLaren’s ’Writing in Hope and Fear: Literature as Politics in Postwar Australia’ (Cambridge U.P., 1996) available online that chronicles the history/context of the Realist Writers’ Group for those inclined. McLaren writes that the Journal of the Realist Writers Group was incorporated into Overland in 1954 so I’m unsure if Venture was a new publication in response to political fractures between members and within parties (which ensnared Overland) or pre-dated its establishment.

INTERNATIONAL BODGIE I

J.

CRIME & PUNISHMENT 2020AD

Three week programme of low budget visions of law & disorder in the near future. 

Rarely/never screened.

Tuesday nights. 

Free entry. 

Two films per week, 7PM -> 10PM.

Venue: LongPlay (318 St Georges Road North Fitzroy 3068)

W E E K 1

Droid (1988) http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/45/Droidvideobox.jpg
Cybernator (1991) http://www.vhscollector.com/sites/default/files/vhscovers/cybernator-vista1%20(VHSCollector.com)%20.jpg

Droid was cut together from a porno rip off of Blade Runner (Cabaret Sin,1987) and takes place within a garish, neon sexdrome inhabited by bombed out cyberpunks. Defies any conventional notion of 'meaning'. Economical gesturalism at it finest. Cybernator marries tired hard-man/lone-cop tropes to a threadbare aesthetic around human/cyborg relations in the near future. The budget mis-en-scene closer to the lived future under our present regime of economic rationalism than your standard dystopia.

W E E K 2

The Comic (1985) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3htEmUIUSo
Split Second (1992) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3htEmUIUSo

The Comic is a singular work by UK director Richard Driscroll (presently in prison for massive financial fraud). Depicts the slowly crumbling reality of a murderous stand up comedian in a droll future fascist state. Atmospheric and dreamlike with strange imagery and dark ambient soundtrack. Split Second is a mid-budget, subaquatic noir set in a submerged future London. Quickly falls into a knot of half-baked cinematic cliques. Features Rutger Hauer and Kim Cattrall.

W E E K 3

Crime Zone (1989) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7X6BJfFTAac
R.O.T.O.R. (1987) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJV3qFsaozE

Crime Zone is another in a long line of police state futures. Featuring Sherilyn Fenn and David Carradine. R.O.T.O.R. is an incredibly weak and tedious mishmash of Terminator and Robocop filmed in Dallas, Texas. The core of the movie is not against autonomous robotic execution but budget cuts to the police force….?!

Modern Jazz in Ivanhoe: Studio One at Club Le Regale, 1956.

(The Argus, 18 & 14 Jan. 1956) 

I've put together all the fragments of information I've come across on Studio One, one of the early dedicated modern jazz clubs from Melbourne during the mid 50s. Established by Mike Coniston Nash & John Moore in 1956 Studio One was held on Tuesday and Sunday nights at the Club Le Regale in Ivanhoe, though I'm not clear on if Studio One managed to stay in operation beyond 1956 .Regarding the organisers I couldn't find any information on John Moore, though Mike Coniston was a young emigrant from London who was later involved in the art forgery market helping to sell fake Streeton's. A newspaper report on the fraud circle referred to him as as having once been a 'jazz entrepreneur'. While Horst Liepolt and the Jazz Centre 44 in St Kilda constituted the physical and psychic centre of modern jazz activity in Melbourne Studio One is an example of how the scope of musical activity in the period extended to a host of un(der)documented small coffee spaces, after hours clubs, art galleries and informal house shows. Beyond a passing note in Bruce Johnsons Oxford Companion to Australian Jazz (page 120 to be exact) I haven't come across any references to the club in the extant literature on the period, though Brian Brown does recall that his group "really started in a church hall in Heidelberg".

(Music Maker, April 1956)

(The Argus, 11 Sept. 1956)

I have no idea what the atmosphere of Studio One was like. Whilst the vision of the Jazz Centre 44 retrospectively presented is as a sort of casual interzone by the standards of the time (Pianist Dave Martin divided the audience of Jazz Centre 44 into three groups; "casuals who heard something strange…then there were two groups of regulars. One of these was middle class, interested in the arts generally…the third group was a bunch of very rough diamonds") I suspect the atmosphere of Studio One may have been closer to the more explicitly middle class atmosphere that characterised most of the general jazz activity in the period. Nestled away in Ivanhoe, an older, affluent outpost above the suburban expansion taking place in nearby Heidelberg, it sat quite distant from the supposed seaside sleaze and transgressive social milieu of St. Kilda. The atmosphere suggested by the advertising was of cultivated exclusivity, a specialist space. A report from The Argus notes "club cards and memberships have been planned to control the patronage". This chimes with a passing comment by Jeff Hawes, reminiscing on the Melbourne casual jazz dance scene in the period. Hawes noting that the formula for jazz clubs and dances was "…a catchy name, produce a key-ring medallion (which was the only way admission could be gained), sell the medallion membership for ten shillings or a pound, screen the patrons (no rough-necks), provide soft lighting, trendy decor, and no booze (only soft drink)"(from VJAZ #60, 2013, available here). Here membership cards were a mechanism to screen out undesirable types, presumably bodgies and rockers. On this theme of 'in' and 'out' amongst youths is a small contemporary article on how Eric Westbrook, director of the National Gallery of Victoria planned on 'dealing' with what was perceived as the undesirable patronage by Bodgies of the gallery, demarcating the borders of access. (It should be noted that for older people in 1955 the term bodgie doubled to cover the nascent middle class jazzers and the more broadly working class rockers. Smaller, specialist clubs such as Studio One could be argued to be the point at which a distinction was beginning to be made between the two in the popular imagination as the centrality of larger dance halls were side stepped.) 

(Mooma Rhythm Fiesta programme, taken with thanks from the Victorian Jazz Archive)

(The Argus, 2nd Feb. 1956)

 Studio One was host to the core of the younger musicians whom constituted the vogue vanguard of cool jazz and hard bop at the time, including Graham Morgan, Brian Brown, Keith Hounslow, and Peter Martin. They constituted the house band, the Modern Jazz Quartet/Combo. The Music Maker article notes that "opposition may come, not only from the general public, but from the local musicians themselves, some of whom may not understand, nor want to understand, these fresh, progressive improvisations in jazz music." These musicians were later closely associated with Jazz Centre 44, performing with their own individual groups. Beyond Studio One at this point Morgan and Brown were involved in the Downbeat jazz concerts staged by Bob Clemens, and their Modern Jazz Quartet had performed at the Rhythm Fiestas that were part of the early Moomba Festival. The Music Maker article also refers to "recording contracts already signed", which may be hyperbole on one hand, though Brian Brown would appear later in 1956 on Harold Blairs Australian Aboriginal Songs, playing saxophone ('roofter') and assisting in the arrangements. This was released on Score Records whom would also release Browns Australian Jazz 7" EP in 1957. 

I must also send a thanks out to the State Library of Victoria where I am presently embarking on a AGL Shaw Summer Research Fellowship. The above copy of Music Maker is photographed from their collection of periodicals, hopefully I will be able to post a further things I come across in their collection over the next month.