arc11: "WHO WINS THE PRIZE?" - an interview with Ewan Finley of VIPP, Sex Tourists & Aloha Units (TEMPERED, 2015)
+++an interview with Ewan from the out-of-print TEMPERED Vol I
This 2015 interview with Ewan Finley (VIPP, Sex Tourists, Aloha Units) was very influential on my own thinking around underground music at the time, and continues to be: it’s a club! Ewan’s currently active project VIPP doesn’t feature in this interview as they did not yet exist in 2015. But since the VIPP tape was just reissued, I thought it timely to bring this back from the print archives. Here’s a short blurb written for the reissue which will stop me from repeating myself:
Let’s be honest. Even though we all support the output of those tied to the contemporary underground missive (and have filled our shelves and drawers with the cassettes they have produced,) there’s only a handful we turn back to, yes? For me, there’s probably a dozen, and the 2017 V.I.P.P tape is one of those stayers. Under the scratch, hiss and creaks of the tape’s production rests some of the most effective songwriting quirks I’ve heard in a bedroom folk release. Experiments fight for space with the measured and precise, and the lyrical turns are always unexpected. You’d be hard pressed to hear such misery as in the admission of once attending a horse riding camp (“I never got to ride.”) You’d struggle to be given an explanation of a compulsion more valid than, “because I like the touch of polyester.” And I swear to you, that a pat statement has never alluded to love and heartbreak (in equal parts) as good as the line: “all of my televisions are tuned to your favourite channel.” These recordings have stayed in my head for six years now, and have become a part of my internal soundtrack. They call back to a time when Sydney’s DIY groupings felt especially experimental and genre-agnostic, due in no small part to the arrival of V.I.P.P and songwriter Ewan Finley’s related projects of Aloha Units and Sex Tourists. That these recordings have been reissued by new label Garden Seat is great news for all who don’t have a copy on hand. I recommend reaching for this tape on the blue days and the tired days, first thing in the morning, or in the dead of the night; it has never let me down and it’s nice to be able to vouch for it.
Max: How do you find working at the Marrickville Golf Club?
Ewan: It’s a good job. We’ve never had a manager, so it’s run through a weird split between the office lady and the bar staff. With no boss there you just kind of sit around, read the paper and occasionally pour a beer. I’d say the golf club will die in five or ten years. People aren’t playing golf as much as they used to and that land is pretty valuable. They haven’t done anything to improve it either, not in the way that the [Marrickville] Bowling Club puts gigs on or anything.
Do you find it odd in Sydney that existing spaces (like a bowling club) are taking up the slack of purpose-made music venues?
Yeah I guess, I like the clubs though. It feels like there’s nowhere good or reliable to play in Sydney, or no one’s trying that hard. That’s why I listen to so much more electronic music now; it’s a totally different mindset. For someone like you or me, [listening to music] is a solitary thing you do at home to take emotion from, but at night clubs and festivals, the mindset is about the sound system, how big the sound is, and how the music caters to those systems. In this insular scene we’re in, if we were to drag a generator and a sound system to a warehouse it’d be a huge event – but that’s the stock standard trade of the electronic world. I really respect that work ethic and dedication. People in this scene are maybe more concerned about wasting their time, whereas [the electronic artists] risk the cops arriving and taking their gear all the time. I feel guilty about it sometimes; I feel like I should be trying to be proactive and put on shows, or something with substance.
Do you think that’s your responsibility though? You’re playing in a band and contributing in that way.
But that’s everyone’s attitude. Where are all the crust punks throwing away their lives to run a warehouse venue like they were ten years ago? I think about how people put on these big bush doofs with huge sound systems for no money, and then look at all the things around me and wonder why it’s so hard for other people.
Were you playing with anyone else when you self-recorded the [Aloha Units] tape?
I was playing in another band at the time, but most of those guys were disinterested in it. That was fair enough, we weren’t very good, so that just started petering out. At the time, I was at TAFE doing sound production, but [the course] was bullshit. After Cert IV, I figured I’d rather be out actually doing something than listening to this old dickhead talk. I got frustrated and annoyed at it all, so I recorded the songs I had ideas for at home.
It seems like a frustrating choice to play and record each part yourself.
I really enjoyed doing it all. I had so much free time after dropping out of TAFE. It was weird because I had no perspective on how it sounded at all. I didn’t know if it was any good, and would keep listening to it thinking it was terrible. In the end, I thought I’d just do what I could and release it.
When I first heard that you’d performed each part on that tape, it made me think about band democracies, and whether too much input can stop you from exploring something. Aloha Units sounds a lot like you were able to venture out with each part without that fear of treading on anyone’s toes.
It can be nice. In a few other bands, I’d be writing songs with other people and we wouldn’t like each other’s ideas, and that was fine. It’s totally different for Aloha Units, where I might write a selection of songs and after the demo process, everyone starts to bring in their own parts. Aloha Units are a band who can rock up to a practice space, plug into guitar amps and that’s it. Sex Tourists is totally different again. We’re very collaborative; we’re all learning to use synths on the run. It’s a weird process pressing buttons, finding time sequences and singing, carrying those notes over to the guitar. Practice with Sex Tourists is really enjoyable for that reason.
[Sex Tourists] played a set at Verge Gallery recently where the songs kept falling apart and you couldn’t get the set running smoothly. I know that would have been frustrating for you, but I found it interesting to watch. That brief moment where you landed on what you were looking for was special as a result; it was like watching a victory.
That was really annoying. We were just so shit that day: standing around with our hands full of MIDI cables. It made us realise we had to practice a lot more, but not the songs so much as the cable changes. It takes a lot more practice to actually do a set properly, whereas with Aloha Units, we can skip practice for months and just rock up and play.
How hard was trying to form a live show for Sex Tourists then? The tape received a lot of attention straight away, before you’d completely formed the band. Was that intimidating?
For Sex Tourists, Darius [Ottingnon, also the synth player in Aloha Units] and I were just fucking around with a few guitar riffs, jamming around on those first three songs, and turned it into something pretty quickly. We recorded and released the tape, then Nic [Warnock] and Repressed Records picked it up. It took off and people were asking us to play shows, which was surprising in a way: it’s always hard to judge what people will like. Of all the songs, ‘Birthday Party’ was really good for me to write personally. Being able to sing about the shitty functions at the golf club I work at – in a way, it’s a lot easier to work at functions there now.
You’ve made use of it?
Yeah, like I’ve vomited out the things that made those situations hard. It’s a nice feeling.
I feel like both of your bands have this quality of feeling triumphant and celebratory musically, while singing about upsetting events.
It probably is a more upsetting, emotional world in the songs. It’s true what you’re saying, but I guess it’s pretty hard to cry into a microphone about being happy. Not to change the subject, but it’s weird having a girlfriend after being alone for so long. It’s like I can’t sit around feeling sorry for myself anymore; it was almost easier to be able to close my windows and just mope to myself. Most of our songs are not exactly about shitty times, but always about being stuck in the same cycle of boring shit, where nothing’s really happening, friendships are disintegrating and coming back together: people are having problems. A lot of the songs are about banality, but I like to think it’s inclusive when it’s depressive, not poking fun at that. It’s a mind-fuck in a way, that a part of feeling good about myself is drawn from the fact that people like some of my bands and can relate to it and understand some of the sentiment. At the same time though, I feel weird that we might be a flavour of the month. It might just be a part of what people are into in Sydney right now, so if you take it out of that context, what is it? Nothing, really.
It resonates though, at least within a certain group of people. There’s something I often forget about Sydney: there are many different worlds of music that only live within themselves. There’s whatever we’re a part of and are interested in, the different levels of similar but completely disparately operated DIY communities, a different world of indie and folk music, and the private music colleges [JMC and AIM].
The JMC thing is especially weird. I know people who are finishing their diplomas in music performance, which is essentially a diploma in playing the guitar. Where is that going to get you? It’s sad, because maybe these kids have gone straight from high school into JMC and think, “This is the way I play music for a living: learning jazz standards,” but there’s no money anywhere. I think it’s disgusting preying on people’s dreams, all that shit is fucking bizarre. Then there are these other worlds that don’t cross over to us, this kind of safe, tasteful thing where there’s almost that acceptance of starting to age, and playing music for the fun of it.
There’s an acceptance of failure to it, but not in an emotional or strong way that feels like it’s an important or a real feeling. A band like that feels to me like they’re just saying, ‘Oh well!’
That’s why music has to have some kind of feeling for me: bands like Kitchen’s Floor, who cover such a broad range of emotions or topics—the same even with someone like Gutter Gods. If it doesn’t have anything behind it, what’s the point? I want music that’s a part of someone’s personality, not: “I’m a musician and I like music, so I want to perform in front of people.” I always feel better if I can relate to what I hear or what I’ve written.
Is that why you like Kitchen’s Floor?
I don’t think Aloha Units would exist if it wasn’t for them.
In what way?
I guess when I first heard them I was in a pretty shitty place. I was unemployed after getting back from travelling and feeling disenfranchised by the whole thing. I was living at my parent’s house with fuck-all money, drinking and smoking too much and feeling like shit. Then I heard that album and it was perfect: between Loneliness is a Dirty Mattress and the Bitter Defeat 7”. I listened to them like I used to listen to The Smiths, who were that teenage band I listened to when I was depressed. I’d go through periods where it was all I’d listen to, which is the same for me with Kitchen’s Floor now. I don’t feel like we’re indebted to them as a band, but we wouldn’t exist if I’d never heard them. I created bands before Aloha Units, but I wouldn’t have created that band.
What was it like forming Aloha Units and entering into this environment of music, with its insular community feel, rather than an open-invite, paid booker kind of environment?
For the most part, people were really welcoming and helpful to us. Sometimes though, I feel like the hierarchal order of shows is weird. Those kinds of obligations to friends seem to get in the way of putting on a good show sometimes. If a band is made up of a certain combination of people, they can get a certain level of attention, but if it’s someone people don’t know, it might get ignored or thought of as passé. It is weird, the difference of how you’re treated by people around that scene. When you can put a name to a face, you’re no longer ignored. From an outsider’s perspective, it’s totally alienating for anyone who isn’t clued into it. I’ve had people come up to me and apologise for not putting us higher up a bill or whatever, and I don’t really mind, but if you want to do something, then do it, instead of being worried by what other people might think. I suppose it’s no different to anything else in life. A music community has the same dynamics and problems as any workplace, or club, or group of friends. It’s just that it revolves around music. It’s social bullshit. Finding validation from this tiny, insular music scene – what kind of validation is that? It’s fleeting and no one gives a shit. There is this seeking of validation through some coolsie scene, and you see it all the time. A lot of our friends who come to see us now used to go to every Taipan gig when they were playing, were alienated for a while and are now coming back into it. People forget that people like that exist who don’t give a fuck about this hierarchy, but really, no one gives a fuck. I dunno, there’s a fine line between self-validation and self-loathing.
A balance where you have to believe in what you’re doing without letting it overcome you?
I definitely feel it becomes one of people’s things where they feel: “Finally people think I’m cool, people care about what I’m doing.” I guess that’s a part of that half-arsed laziness of not trying to reach out and bring in others. People should try hard to make this an inclusive thing, but I say that because I’ve been an outsider for a while. Things that are a microcosm tend be fucked as anything. The golf club is a microcosm of society and politics. There’s one guy there who worked for years in the unions, is recently retired, and a life member of the club, but he can’t get out of petty politicking. So he brings that whole attitude into the club and to the board of directors. People will form little circles, and once they’re formed, people will want their say.
Someone at work recently asked me how I can enjoy seeing the same band play the same songs every weekend, which struck me because I didn’t have a good answer for them. When I last saw Aloha Units I would have listened to the tape half a dozen times in the car during the week, and was then excited to see it at a live show that weekend…
Yeah, but also, why do people congregate in bars saying the same shit every night? Why do people bring a little ball and some clubs down to the golf course and hit it around all day? Why would you do that? Surely making music isn’t more pathetic and useless than that is, and they pay $1,000 a year for a membership to do it. Not that I think golf is any less valid than standing on a stage playing music. Sports are great, music is great, sinking piss and smoking durries is great: they’re all equally as stupid and useless. I actually find it hard dealing with the total pointlessness of music. I find it really hard grappling with the fact that, even though I enjoy it, it’s not going to do anything for my life; it’s not going to build me a future.
There’s no progression?
I guess you could say there has been for someone like Royal Headache, but even then, it’s not like Shogun [Wall, singer of Royal Headache] is going to buy a house because he sang in a rock band. I don’t know. Setting yourself up is a middle class concern. That’s the hardest thing of it sometimes: asking yourself what’s the point.
That’s something that I’ve thought about a lot: to work hard for something of no consequence can be deflating. I was looking at the crowd of a show recently when I realised how few people over a certain age were there. Maybe there was one person over forty? I felt like it was evidence of how unlikely it is that we'll do this forever.
You know when we get angry about something inconsequential, I think: “Why am I devoting energy into being pissed off about the Melbourne glam-rock revival?” How is that good for my life? Not that it’s totally pointless to care, it’s obviously not…
Well, we were only just talking about how much some music has meant to us. If Matt Kennedy [of Kitchen’s Floor] complained about how pointless his music was, you and I at least would disagree.
That’s the thing that makes it worthwhile. You can spend so much energy on what feels like nothing, but it’s not nothing. I work the bar at a golf club, I have no tertiary education, but at the same time, I could be doing a lot less.
There are people who I imagine you’d meet every day at the golf club who are in their fifties, never had much, but have never had a chance to have this creative outlet.
I guess it is a great thing to have. Like I was saying before, you can have a whole club of people who are committed to putting in the hours to hit a ball around a big open paddock with hills on it and that’s rarely questioned.
It goes back to the different levels of things around us. No one who is playing golf once a week is under the illusion that they’ll make it their living: and few people around us are under that impression either.
There are so many better ways to make money; open a plastic bag factory or something. With someone like Nic [Warnock of record label RIP Society], he could rest on his laurels and say, “I’ve done enough” – but he never does.
Maybe that’s the difference between the kind of music we’ve fallen into and those other worlds. This world doesn’t have as much of a concern to go anywhere, it’s very in the moment which is a lot of what I think makes it exciting. Do you feel sometimes though that we’re a part of a fad in the way we watch and listen to music?
Sometimes, but at least for me, having my music on a pressed piece of gasoline or whatever is a lifelong dream. I guess if you’re talking about a tape or vinyl release which is a tangible thing, versus a Soundcloud thing— it’s the equivalent of choosing to put a bit of effort into something as opposed to taking the easy way out. Both Aloha Units and Sex Tourists want to do an album soon, which is new for me. I feel like I can actually work at music now, which is sort of stressful, but at the same time: isn’t this the least stressful thing you can do? I want to do both of those LPs really well; I want them to be a statement of how I felt at this time.
I don’t think that many people have that aspiration; releasing an album is often treated as something you’re just supposed to do as a band.
I really don’t want to do a ‘meh’ album. I was really inspired by the Gutter Gods record, with its complete booklet as an insert, that kind of thing. The guy who does the Aloha and Sex Tourists artwork [Kasper Kägi] is one of the few artists around Sydney who does stuff that makes me feel something. He’s not an art school kind of guy, he’s a blacksmith by trade. I went to a gallery opening that he was a part of, and I was talking to one of the other artists who said to me, “It’s nice that he does it as a hobby.” It was so condescending. The other stuff there, talking to the people who did it, it just felt like they go to art school for the sake of it, whereas Kasper is moved to do it. I hope he’s always involved with our bands. Going all out on packaging with him is important to me.
The Gutter Gods LP is a good example of someone taking the complete opportunity of a record release. The visual side of the platform is rarely utilised and it seems like a waste to me.
It sounds like a total wank, but I want to really emotionally invest in the Aloha Units record, not just do it by the numbers. When you open something up like the Gutter Gods LP, and you play the record, you are totally in their vision of what they’re trying to do in that point. I don’t ever want to half arse it. I hate that throwaway mindset.
+++other updates___
__very quiet in regards to output! been sending myself crazy trying to finalise a novel draft around working full-time but have finally pulled through and now wait for edits. gonna scurry up a new tape/zine for paid subscribers ($50 for four zines and tapes email me to arrange!) in the meantime and will point at two bands of the underground canon, a battle of the punishers if you will…of The Fall V Dead Kennedys. tentatively titled: THIS IS OUR BRAIN ON [our idols]. will be posting out some time in april :)
__i haven’t gotten to this yet, but will be starting on a new project soon: a series of new Q&A’s for the substack with people i’ve been ~in conversation~ with over the past year or so, with the view of squeezing it all into an oral history style zine for the end of the year. i don’t really know how to do all of that but hoping that it gets us somewhere!