Australian Penthouse story: “The High Road: Silk Road, an online marketplace like no other”, January 2012

A story for the January 2012 edition of Australian Penthouse, reproduced below in its entirety. Click the main image for a closer look (which will open a PDF in a new window), or read the article text underneath. You can click any of the below images and screenshots for a larger version, too.

The High Road
by Andrew McMillen

Silk Road is an online marketplace like no other. Totally anonymous, the website uses sophisticated encryption software and a digital currency to facilitate the worldwide sale of prohibited items, particularly illicit drugs. Australian Penthouse investigates.

“Imagine how exciting it is when you get something in the mail; even the shittiest thing, like a free sample. But in this case, you’re getting drugs that you really want to take, and get high on. It’s a compounded experience of excitement; an exponential high.”

A 24-year old man who lives in an inner-city suburb of Brisbane is describing what he felt upon opening his mailbox one day in 2011 and discovering a package containing one gram of cocaine. It was addressed to a person who does not exist. He does not know the source of the substance beyond its country of origin. This was not the first time he had purchased drugs online; his first order was for one gram of MDMA powder. That package was sent to a house that he knew was unoccupied; it took around nine days to arrive from Canada. He checked the vacant mailbox daily. “I’m still waiting for some undies off of eBay from Hong Kong,” he says. “[The MDMA] arrived way quicker than that.”

Why the alternate address in the first instance? “Because having something illicit sent in the mail seems fairly thick,” he replies. “It seems so simple; too good to be true. I wanted to put some form of buffer between myself and the order I made, as a ‘test run’.

“One day it was in there and it hadn’t been intercepted. I didn’t get immediately arrested when I took it out of the mailbox. Since I didn’t use my real name, it didn’t seem possible to get traced back to me. It still hasn’t been.”

These orders were made using a website called Silk Road. It can only be accessed after installing anonymity-enabling software called Tor. All purchases are made using Bitcoin, a currency which only exists online and whose public transaction history can be untraceable if handled correctly.

My interviewee randomly discovered online mentions of Silk Road in May 2011, and pursued the intriguing concept all the way through to installing Tor and trading Australian dollars for Bitcoin; a process he calls “semi-prohibitive” owing to the persistence and tech-knowledge required to check all the boxes before users can place an order. In four transactions, my interviewee has ordered three grams of MDMA and three grams of cocaine at a cost of “close to AUD$700”.

So what motivated him to take a chance on buying illicit substances online from a complete stranger?

“I’m interested in taking drugs casually, but I hate the process,” he says. “I don’t know any dealers. Even if I want to get weed, I don’t know anyone, so it always becomes this drawn out process of finding someone who knows someone who knows someone. It’s a real pain in the arse. Whereas this way, it’s so direct and private. I didn’t leave my room, and then nine days later there was something in the mailbox that was for me. It’s discreet and exciting. Imagine the fun of shopping on eBay, but then you can also get high.”

Visiting Silk Road for the first time, I feel a little like Alice falling down the rabbit hole. After downloading the correct Tor software bundle, I connected within five minutes. A warning appears at the bottom of the registration screen: “Be advised: This website is experimental. We do not guarantee your anonymity, protection from law enforcement in your jurisdiction, or protection from other users of this service. You and you alone are responsible for the risks associated with entering and using this website.” The site does not request any information from its users beyond a username and password; not even an email address. And then, you’re in.

The site’s bright, clean design displays images of nine items for sale; among them, ‘red joker’ ecstasy pills, one-ounce of the ‘purple kush’ cannabis strain, a $50 Australian banknote and syringes. When I first visit the site in late August 2011, one bitcoin is worth USD$11.15; a fortnight later, the exchange rate has dropped to USD$6.18 per bitcoin.

The nine ‘featured’ items change upon each page refresh. A column on the left categorises the goods for sale: ‘drugs’ is split into sub-categories like ‘dissociatives’ (11 items for sale), ‘psychedelics’ (123 items), ‘stimulants’ (65) and the most popular category, ‘cannabis’ (237). Other categories include ‘digital goods’, ‘money’, ‘XXX’, ‘weaponry’ and ‘forgeries’.

At first, it’s a little overwhelming. What Silk Road [SR] offers is the online equivalent of strolling down a dim-lit alley filled with surly guys wearing heavy trenchcoats, except that you can contemplate purchasing their goods while lounging in your underwear, without fear of being stabbed.

Each page on the site generally takes a few seconds to load, regardless of the user’s connection speed, due to an overcrowded Tor network. A page called ‘how does it work?’ describes the site as “an anonymous marketplace where you can buy and sell without revealing who you are. We protect your identity through every step of the process, from connecting to this site, to purchasing your items, to finally receiving them”. Lengthy guides for both buyers and sellers are freely available. The latter guide states that “every precaution must be taken to maintain the secrecy of the contents of your client’s package. Creatively disguise it such that a postal inspector might ignore it if it was searched or accidentally came open.”

It concludes with a ‘final note’: “Regardless of your motivations, you are a revolutionary. Your actions are bringing satisfaction to those that have been oppressed for far too long. Take pride in what you do and stand tall.”

There’s an active and boisterous SR forum community, which is hosted off-site and requires an additional registration; this process requests an email address, but a note states that it doesn’t have to be a legit address.

After poking around the site and smirking at some of the items for sale – condoms, an e-book of Neil Strauss’ pick-up artist classic The Game, military training manuals – I decide to engage with a few sellers by requesting interviews using the site’s private messaging system.

Within 10 minutes, three sellers respond enthusiastically to my request; one says, “I’ll even give you a media discount if you order.” The website’s administrator, who goes by the username Silk Road, also responds. “Sorry, we aren’t doing interviews at the moment,” he says. “Good luck.”

Of the 27 SR sellers I approach during a two-week period on the site, seven respond thoughtfully and at length to my questions. They are mostly based in the US and Canada, though one is Australian. All seven request that I don’t mention their usernames. A few prefer to conduct the interview using PGP text encryption, which adds another element of spookiness to the situation. Most of the sellers found their way to Silk Road after the site was covered online by Wired and Gawker in June 2011.

When I ask what they like about Silk Road, I’m met with a range of responses. “Being able to provide a safe and anonymous way for someone to purchase that they choose to put into their body,” says one seller. “It’s nice how it turns drug dealing into an office job, with less risk and more stable demand while interacting openly with customers,” replies another. This focus on administrative duties is echoed by another seller, who says it’s “nice to have everything so organized and centralized, it really cuts down on the time spent per order which is a huge plus when you’ve got a mountain of them to work through.”

One source remarked aloud, ‘this is the future’, upon finding the site. “The free market has provided for one of the oldest needs in human history,” they elaborate. “[SR] removes the elements of danger that exist in in-person black market arrangements, and offered anonymity for all parties involved.”

I ask what sellers don’t like about the service. One tells me, “while the majority of users are honest and trustworthy, you always have to keep your guard up. There are plenty of scammers here on SR.” Another is frustrated by the long wait between making a sale and receiving the bitcoins in their account. “It can take a while for people to finalize transactions, so the money gets stuck in escrow until the customer remembers to finalize, or it auto-finalizes after like 20 or so days.”

One seller is concerned about the silo-like nature of the site: “Having everything organized – vendor statistics easily accessible, reliance on a single server, etc – all makes any vendor, or even SR itself, a juicier target for LE [law enforcement].” An Australian seller replies, “I don’t like being out in the open. Even though I feel rather anonymous within SR, I could always make a simple mistake with my packaging or use of encryption that would give me away.”

A few of my respondents reveal that they have sold drugs in the real world. One dubs the online process “much easier” than face-to-face sales. “SR buyers have no info about me whatsoever. Whereas with a face-to-face transaction, a buyer might know my name, what I look like, the car that I drive, or the city that I live in. So if they get caught, LE goes up the food chain. Here on SR, there’s nowhere for LE to go.”

Another seller says SR is preferable because it “takes potential violence right out of the equation, and mitigates theft; you can’t exactly take someone to court for robbing you during a black-market trade, which is why there is so much violence. I prefer SR to offline, any day of the week.” One seller candidly replies, that SR is “better and cleaner. Customers are more educated and nice, and it leaves you more spare time to study, play with the kids, and clean the house. It’s telecommuting at its finest.”

None of the seven sellers I interviewed would detail how they package the illicit substances sent through the international postal system. A couple mentioned that it’s an unwritten law among SR sellers to not disclose such methods, though I learn by reading the forums that vacuum sealing is common. The young man from Brisbane who received MDMA and cocaine in the mail didn’t want to discuss the appearance of the packages he received, either.

All this illegal activity must be a rush, even if the process does become somewhat normalised due to the volume of orders that some sellers process. I have one final question. What does it feel like to sell illicit drugs over the internet to complete strangers?

One replies, “honestly, it can be quite nerve racking. I have no idea if I just sent some illegal items to LE. That’s why it’s so important for a good vendor to use all precautionary tactics to keep important info away from them. Leaving no DNA or fingerprints, and sending from an area where you don’t live. It’s not unusual for a vendor to be wearing hairnets and multiple layers of gloves while packaging the material. If there is even a one-percent chance of some identifying marks on or inside that package, it will be thrown out.”

Another says, “It’s awesome. Most of the users on Silk Road are good people, and it’s always been a pleasure providing them goods that their corrupt governments have denied them. By simply living our lives and doing what we want to do, we break the government’s iron fist. It’s pretty satisfying.”

“It feels great,” agrees another. “I get to make a positive contribution in the lives of people who otherwise wouldn’t have access to drugs, such as old folks, and people in remote locations.” The seller shares some feedback received by a buyer that they found “really touching”. The feedback reads, “I don’t want to sound all sentimental and crap but in all honesty, my friends and I have become closer and happier with ourselves and each other, thanks to you and your stuff. It’s really been a bonding experience for everyone. We aren’t really the partying type and instead like to chill and talk for hours. Thanks to you, we have shared some amazing experiences.”

The seller tells me that “getting feedback like that makes those nights spent sweating over a hot vacuum sealer seem worthwhile!”

For more on Silk Road, visit its Wikipedia page.

Mess+Noise ‘Storytellers’ article: Gotye – ‘Hearts A Mess’, February 2012

An interview for Mess+Noise. Excerpt below.

Storytellers: Gotye - ‘Hearts A Mess’

ANDREW MCMILLEN revisits our occasional “Storytellers” series, whose premise is simple: one song by one artist, discussed at length. This week it’s Gotye, the Lana Del Rey of M+N, but not for the song you might expect.

It feels a little strange to revisit what was once Gotye’s biggest hit in light of the monster that is ‘Somebody That I Used To Know’, the Melbourne-based songwriter’s 2011 collaboration with Kimbra which topped the Hottest 100 and has since clocked up more than 63-million views on YouTube since being posted last July.

Yet without that track’s runaway success, Wally de Backer might not have felt as comfortable in discussing ‘Hearts A Mess’, the third track from his 2006 album Like Drawing Blood.

When I first approached de Backer via email in May 2010 to raise the possibility of a Storytellers feature about this song, he declined, stating that, “I’ve talked about that song a lot, and I’m working on new stuff, trying not to look back at the moment.” I picked up the thread again in September 2011 and found him in a place where he seems more than happy to look back.

Between overseas trips and a 10-date Australian tour, we spoke at length over the phone about the track that charted at #77 on triple j’s Hottest 100 Of All Time countdown in 2009.

Gotye on ‘Hearts A Mess’

‘Hearts A Mess’, with apostrophe, not without, correct?
[Laughs] To be honest, I think the lack of an apostrophe was just an oversight. Which, for me – someone who’s fairly fastidious with grammar – it’s quite hilarious. It was an oversight at first, then I just decided to leave it.

Does that mean your high school English teachers are cursing your name for making such a simple mistake?
[Laughs] It’s funny. I’m actually in touch with my Year 9 high school English teacher reasonably regularly. He sends me [album] covers to sign for his friends in random places like Scotland and South Africa. He’s never mentioned that before. [Laughs]

Do you feel like you’re in a good place to reflect on this song now, after it’s been superseded by a bigger hit?
I guess so, yeah. I guess the songs are kind of related; the place in the track list on the respective records, the kind of emotional terrain, my own possible scruples while putting together this record [Like Drawing Blood], wondering whether the song ‘Hearts A Mess’ was the high watermark of what I want to achieve with my music – at least in terms of the response from people, the connection with it. So that’s been interesting to see [‘Somebody’] take off and eclipse it, from one perspective.

I believe ‘Hearts A Mess’ was two years in the making. Is that correct?
Yeah. It’s like a macro example of my whole process. It spanned the whole making of the last record.

Where do you start, with a song like that? The final product is so smooth and seemingly effortless, but I know there are so many layers going on underneath.
Well, quite specifically, I started with laboriously editing multiple snippets of Harry Belafonte’s ‘Banana Boat’ song [embedded below] into a coherent, one-bar loop of music. That was an interesting process in itself. I’ve never edited bits out of a track so extensively, to then reconstitute them into such a small amount of music; that one bar. For whatever reason, when I heard the possibility of chopping around Belafonte’s vocals to get into the backing track of that recording, and turn that into a loop to underpin a possible track … I don’t know. Right from the start, that loping groove had something for me that felt – how can I describe it? Like it had something special about it. I felt the desire to keep that specialness right to whatever the end product, whatever the song would become. That pulled me forward through the pretty extreme length of finishing the song.

It’s almost like I committed myself; in that regard, I feel like ‘Somebody That I Used To Know’ is quite similar, to a lesser extent, because the little two-note guitar lines from the Brazilian guitarist Luiz Bonfá that I sampled [in ‘Somebody’] also started that song off. It didn’t necessarily have as much of a hypnotic pull for me as that bar loop that underpins ‘Hearts A Mess’. It still felt the same thing. I was like, “This has an aura about it that I can’t quite describe, and I just need to not fuck that up. And anything I add feels like it has to enhance that and feel like it stays with that initial aura that I sense, whatever it is”. In both instances, that would lead me through to the final song.

How much live instrumentation was recorded?
For ‘Hearts A Mess’? None. Oh, not true. The shakers are played by me. [Laughs]

At what point did you begin introducing lyrics to the equation?
I can’t remember whether it was before or after I had some of the “hook” figure, like the Hammond line that’s in there. I think it might have been before. I basically had that kind of loop from the ‘Banana Boat’ song, and I had some textural things like the lofty string bits that provided a sense of the chord progression over that loop. Then I started bits of the verse, and found bits of strings that would give some of the descending chord progression the turnarounds throughout the song … There’s an interim bit in the song with the lyric, “Love ain’t fair/So there you are/My love.” I had that penned as an anti-chorus for the song. The chorus was written quite late, and I had it penned as a textural piece that just had these little drops, that functioned as anti-choruses for probably the good first six months to a year of it sitting around, as a piece.

In the second verse there’s a bit of call-and-response going on between your vocals. What was the intention there? Was that the narrator arguing with himself?
Yeah, as it usually is. Possibly even more so on tracks from the new record [Making Mirrors]. There’s kind of multi-voice conversations happening in a few songs, which I think usually represents the various internal dialogues that sometimes can go on in my head, or the discussions that you sometimes have with yourself: second-guessing yourself, playing devil’s advocate.

For the full interview, visit Mess+Noise.

The Vine live review: Roger Waters ‘The Wall Live’ in Brisbane, February 2012

A live review for The Vine. Excerpt below.

Roger Waters – ‘The Wall’ Live
Brisbane Entertainment Centre
Wednesday 1 February 2012

If rock music is, at its heart, a mad combination of theatre, escapism and expression, then The Wall Live must be the warped apex of what rock music was designed for. It has to be said that this is an absurd concept: a band playing the entirety of an album released 32 years ago, while a 12-metre-high white wall is constructed between musicians and audience. It is the product of a brilliant imagination and a breathtaking commitment to realising an absurd concept, night after night, in a series of far-flung countries over the last 18 months. To think that one man envisioned all of this, notebook in hand, is incredible. The logistics of this tour and stage coordination alone is enough to make my head spin.

Tonight marks the 125th time that this show has been performed since its debut in September 2010. It is a spectacle; an event. Something to get dressed up for; in your best Pink Floyd t-shirt, if the majority of the crowd can be used as a measure. Shortly before the show starts, when everyone’s settled in their seats, a disembodied voice instructs us to turn off the flash on our cameras, as “all you’ll see is white bricks” in the captured image. And that it’ll mess with their projections. A lonely horn plays over the PA in a darkened room. It feels like misdirection. We’re looking around, into the abyss, wondering what’s going to happen.

Then: the band hit the first chord of ‘In The Flesh?’, pink fireworks launch from the stage into the ceiling, and Roger Waters emerges with his arms held aloft like a prize fighter, soaking in the applause while his band casually work through the track. A stagehand places a thick black trenchcoat upon his shoulders, he dons black sunglasses, and says into the microphone: “So you thought you might like to go to the show? / To feel the warm thrill of confusion, that space cadet glow?” By the end of the song, rows of sparks are cutting across the top and bottom sections of the stage, seemingly showering the band in a hail of white-hot fury; flag-hoisting Nazi look-alikes are being hoisted skywards on a mechanical lift; and a fucking airplane descends from the ceiling, somewhere above the sound desk, and knocks over part of the wall while flames lick its exterior. It is the most jaw-droppingly elaborate concert introduction I’ve seen – and I saw Kanye West last week. Someone behind me jokes, “We might as well go home now.”

Waters cuts a distinctive figure on stage. Clad in all-black, wearing white sneakers and luminiscent silver hair; but for the bass regularly held in his hands, he’s pure cat burglar. He is the archetypal bassist/frontman combo, perhaps the best we’ll ever see [Waters vs McCartney? - Ed]. And all of this belongs to him. It’s difficult to avoid discussing economics when it comes to this show. We’ve all paid stupid amounts of money to be here — albeit happily. Though he’s doing three shows at this particular venue, The Wall Live is a once-off proposition.

For the full review, visit The Vine.

Mess+Noise story: Interview with Heatwave Festival founder and CEO Patrick Whyntie, January 2012

An interview for Mess+Noise. Excerpt below.

Heatwave Promoter Breaks Silence: ‘We Bit Off More Than We Could Chew’

In his first interview since his fledgling hip-hop festival came to a dramatic close last week, besieged Heatwave promoter Patrick Whyntie tells ANDREW MCMILLEN that he’s determined to prove doubters wrong. 

A festival “worse than any other failed festival in the history of Australian music” was how Tonedeaf reported on the final leg of Heatwave 2012, a national hip-hop tour that began in South Australia as a three-night camping festival on January 12 and ended in Melbourne on January 22. Between those dates, capital city shows were booked in Brisbane, Sydney, Perth and Canberra, in some of those cities’ biggest venues.

The festival debuted in January 2010 with a single South Australian show, at Abbotts Reserve, 90 kilometres south of Adelaide. Headlined by American rapper Xzibit and Australian DJ tyDi, the all-ages event was attended by an estimated 800 people.

Festival founder Patrick Whyntie – who also performs under the MC name Mastacraft – was 22 when he staged the 2010 show. His LinkedIn profile states that he has “been around the Australian entertainment industry for 10 years” and has “connections from Australia all the way to Detroit”. Whyntie had previously told the Victor Harbor Times that people were “blown away” by the first event. “There are a thousand things I can grow and build on for next year,” he said at the time, “but we had tons of security and everyone was safe.” Though there was no 2011 event, Whyntie returned to concert promotion in 2012 with a significantly ballsy move: a national hip-hop tour.

Announced some 35 days before the tour’s first date, Heatwave 2012 – featuring Kid Cudi, D12, Obie Trice, Tech N9ne, Chamillionaire and Crazy Town – was an eclectic proposition from day one. By the end of the 10-day stint, D12 had missed most of the tour due to mishandling immigration paperwork, the Perth show was cancelled via Facebook on the day of the event, and the whole thing culminated in a disastrous Melbourne leg that saw liquor licensing issues, a no-show from Chamillionaire, and Kid Cudi trashing the stage after power was cut due to reported schedule mismanagement. A couple of Facebook hate pages emerged in the wake of the Melbourne show, with punters calling for refunds and describing it as “the biggest music festival fail ever”.

Schadenfreude runs rife in the notoriously vicious live music industry, so it was unsurprising to see sections of the Australian music media taking delight in Heatwave’s perceived failures, especially following recent debacles such as Blueprint and BAM!. However, recent Flo Rida and Mos Def tour cancellations have highlighted how bringing US hip-hop artists in this country can be an exercise in hair-pulling frustration at the best of times, not to mention the difficulties faced by even seasoned promoters such as the Big Day Out’s Ken West.

In an email interview with M+N, 24-year-old festival founder and CEO Patrick Whyntie speaks for the first time about the controversial 2012 events; his regrets, the so-called media “misrepresentation”, dealing with Kid Cudi, and what he’s learned after coordinating his first national festival.

What inspired you to become a festival promoter in the first place, Patrick?
Festivals are great fun and I wanted to bring some entertainment to my local area – which has never seen anything like this.

I’m guessing that the 2010 event was a big learning experience. What did you learn?
Quite a lot: from visas, to how much fencing was required, to how to deal with on-the-spot problems. A substantial learning curve.

Who funded Heatwave 2012?
Outside investment.

Leading into your preparations for the 2012 event, were you concerned about whether or not the Australian market could support a national hip-hop festival like Heatwave?
I think if all the stars align, any genre of music can be supported. It’s always a risky business, and things need time to grow. We did go too big, too quick.

It seems to me that the festival’s main point of differentiation is its low cost. The festival’s marketing reflects this, and I saw on the event Facebook that you even taunted rival festivals about this. How did you manage to keep costs so low?
We decided to put prices extremely low – the cost of, say, one concert act – to attract more people in. We took a risk keeping them low.

Did the 2012 line-up reflect your particular musical tastes, or were you aiming to book a diverse group of bands to attract as many people as possible?
Hip-hop is obviously my fave genre, however I listen to a wide range of music. We booked a range of hip-hop – from mainstream to underground – to reach all bases.

Tell me about how you were feeling ahead of the tour’s first show, in Adelaide. Did you have all your ducks in a row? Were you happy with how the event planning and set-up went?
Costs blew out substantially and we were having battles with council and police to keep the event going. This cost quite a bit of money and time, fighting something they should have supported. The camping festival [in SA] was a huge undertaking, and in hindsight, we would preferred to have concentrated solely on this [event], and had other national promoters taken the other states.

At what point were you told that D12 had missed their flight?
D12 was an ongoing struggle to coordinate them here to Australia. There was a range of problems. We were desperately trying to negotiate them getting here for the Saturday [for the first weekend, at the SA camping event], or even the Sunday.

What happened next? Did you have a contingency plan in place, or did you have to scramble to make new plans?
Just like most major festivals, an act sometimes does miss a few dates. We moved things around, of course.

How many staff did you employ to assist with the festival?
It varied in each state. SA had well over 50 staff, and even more volunteers.

You told me via email that the Sydney and Canberra shows were “awesome”. What worked with those two shows, as opposed to the rest of the tour?
Sydney ran well both nights, though minor problems occurred. The crowd was great for Sydney, aside from a guy running on stage and quickly being removed by our security guard.

For the full interview, visit Mess+Noise.

The Vine story: Interview with Fat As Butter promoter on Flo Rida cancellation, January 2012

An interview for The Vine. Excerpt below.

Interview: Fat As Butter on Flo Rida cancellation: “Some hip-hop artists tend to disrespect Australia.”

An eleventh hour cancellation is every live music promoter’s worst nightmare. Last week, we published an interview with Mos Def’s 2011 Australian tour promoter, who also revealed – in graphic detail – the financial burdens attached to such outcomes.

Another prime example of this type of behaviour on the Australian touring circuit occurred at the 2011 Fat As Butter festival at Newcastle’s Foreshore Park, on 22 October. Headlined by Empire Of The Sun, The Living End and Illy among a line-up of 38 Australian and international acts, event promoters Mothership Music had also booked the American rapper Flo Rida (pictured, with orange) – known for such modern classics as ‘Low (feat. T-Pain)’, ‘Good Feeling’ and ‘Right Round’ – to play the main (‘Fat’) stage at 5.10pm, after The Jezabels and before Naughty By Nature. Twenty minutes before he was due, organisers received a phone call from his tour manager: Flo Rida wouldn’t be able to make it to the show. Uh oh.

The aftermath was covered in detail by FasterLouder, and event organiser Brent Lean posted the following message on the festival’s Facebook a couple of hours after the cancellation: “We’re as upset as you are. We paid Flo to appear months ago and since he’s been on his Australian tour, he’s been an absolute Tonk. He’s been in Sydney today, and he’s had a hissy fit. We did everything we absolutely could to get him here, but he wouldn’t come. We’re absolutely devastated he decided not to be a part of Fat As Butter.”

What happens next, though? What recourse does a burned Australian festival promoter have in terms of recouping the artist fee they’d paid to Flo Rida and his entourage months in advance? I connected with Mothership Music managing director – and Fat As Butter promoter – Brent Lean back in November 2011 to find out.

–

TheVine: It’s been a couple of weeks since the Flo Rida incident went down, Brent. How are you feeling about it all now?

BL: Look, we’re OK about it. We’re going about the correct processes to find out exactly what happened. We know the circumstance of what happened, but now we’re in the process of seeking the return of the [performance] fee. That’s with the agent and record company over in America. Overall it’s disappointing he didn’t appear, but we’re happy that we got the message out there so that the fans know exactly what the circumstance was. We’re just being truthful in the process.

At any point during the negotiation process did you have an inkling that this might happen?

No, not at all. We bought the show from another company that was touring him in the country. We were tracking his movements at other shows, leading in [to the festival]. We were aware of certain incidents and bits and pieces that made us wary, but they were more about when he was at the event, as opposed to whether he’d turn up. At no point did we think that he’d cancel, and not show. That was never on our radar.

You always expect that something may go wrong, and you work every contingency you can to avoid that, but at the end of the day, when the news came through that he was cancelling, that was an absolute shock. We had to go into damage control straight away, because it’s a large festival – with 38 acts appearing – so we had to work out how to fill the spot and advise the punters. We understood that they’d be very frustrated and disappointed by the announcement. We had to go into contingency plans as to how to handle that.

Will you be hesitant to book hip-hop acts in future, having had this experience with Flo Rida?

Not really. You pick and choose where they’re at. Last year we had Ice Cube headline Fat As Butter, and he was an absolute joy to deal with. Very professional; met all of his contractual obligations, we met all of ours; a hug at the end of the night and ‘great job’.

What we do find with some hip-hop artists is that they tend to disrespect Australia, I think. They tend to disrespect the audience and promoters, because effectively – and it happens quite often – they don’t stick to the terms of their contracts. They arrive here, then they’re seeking additional things on top of the contract; left, right and centre. And in some cases, strong-arming promoters into paying for additional things outside of the contract.

Now, in comparison to Australian artists? That would never happen. In the 20 years I’ve been doing [event organisation and promotion], I’ve never had a contract dispute with an Australian artist. Everyone’s up front; everyone signs a contract, everyone knows what the terms are, and each party meets those terms. I find it very disappointing that, for whatever reason, some of the American hip-hop artists can come out here and think that they can disrespect promoters, events, and the audience by, clearly, wanting additional conditions – or money, whatever it may be – outside of the signed contract. And as I said, and I don’t mind saying it: strong-arming promoters into doing that. It’s disappointing.

So without a doubt, buyer beware. All you can do is make sure your contract is watertight, and then you need the strength of your convictions to say, “Well, I’m not going to give you anything outside of that contract.” I think in the past, perhaps, [Australian] promoters have given in to the additional considerations, or whatever they’re trying to put on you, and there seems to be a threat, at times. For us personally, we just don’t stand for any of those sorts of things. If we’ve got indications through the negotiating process that anything like that is going to happen, then we’d rather not have them appear on any of our shows.

For the full interview, visit The Vine.

The Vine festival review: Big Day Out 2012, Gold Coast

A festival review for The Vine. Excerpt below.

Big Day Out 2012
Gold Coast Parklands
Sunday 22 January 2012

Twenty years into this festival’s existence and strangely, the Big Day Out has less cultural relevancy than ever before. Or so you might believe if you paid attention to the Australian music media in the months leading up to the 2012 event. Or the BDO Facebook page. There irate fans compiled a list: the line-up’s shit, all the acts are tired and stale, they booked The Living End for the 18th year in a row, they’ve been beaten to the punch by specialist festivals booking bigger and better acts, Kanye West isn’t a proper headliner – ad nauseum. No wonder festival co-founder Ken West got vocal with frustrations at such concerns.

So travelling to the Parklands today, I’m half expecting to spend the festival in a relatively empty venue. It’s a pleasant surprise to be completely wrong. This show isn’t sold out – none of the 2012 shows reached capacity, for the first time in a long time – yet it’s hard to discern much of a drop in attendance. Despite the vocal online haters, a summer in Australia without a Big Day Out to look forward to seems a sad prospect. This year’s tour needs to be excellent if the event is to survive, and it needs to start here on the Gold Coast.

Up first on the Orange Stage is Abbe May and her three offsiders, who play compact, elegant rock songs led by May’s strong voice and commanding stage presence. The Perth-based singer evokes memories of Magic Dirt’s Adalita Srsen in full-flight; boot resting on the foldback, guitar held aloft. There’s a lot to like here for rock fans, and she seems to impress a lot of newcomers today as her crowd slowly swells past triple figures. Next on the Green Stage are Stonefield, who’re running 15 minutes late due to transport issues. The four Findlay sisters are forced to swallow the embarrassment of soundchecking their own instruments before a nearly full tent. Once they start playing, though, they’re thoroughly impressive. This tour could mark the beginning of their transition into a band who deserve to be taken seriously: strong musicianship, quality songwriting and a formidable frontwoman in drummer Amy Findlay. They cover Zeppelin’s ‘Whole Lotta Love’ and it slays: the day’s first goosebump-provoking moment. Funnily, Holly – the band’s bassist, and youngest member at 13 – starts windmilling her hair during the drum solo, apropos of nothing. It’s awesome. The crowd goes wild.

On the Blue Stage, Parkway Drive outline the crossover appeal of their distinctive style of metalcore. By now, they’re essentially a mainstream act, so well-known is their image and presence. In ten years’ time, will we look back on these five Byron boys’ output as one of the defining Australian sounds? I hope so. These songs are etched onto the DNA of a generation of young hardcore fans, and they run through a solid set before a big crowd today. They’re a fine example of a band who clearly enjoy the hell out of their success; there’s nothing but smiles on show today. Singer Winston McCall struggles with the heat but keeps up with his incandescent bandmates; he even manages to catch two airborne water bottles during a single song, ‘Anasasis’. Five huge Parkway Drive-branded beach balls bounce around the D section for the duration of their set, which thoroughly satisfies.

The same can’t be said for OFWGKTA, the Los Angeles hip-hop collective. Today is the day that the Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All bubble bursts. They sound like shit live. I wrote otherwise when they visited Australia for the first time last June, but today’s performance is truly horrendous. It’s not a matter of how the show’s mixed, either: the problem can be isolated to five dudes holding microphones and using them incessantly, rather than sparingly. Each line is barked by the rappers, not rapped. As a result, the sonic nuance that the group exhibit on record is non-existent today; instead, a hodge-podge of disparate, aggressive voices over a backbeat. The crowd at the Boiler Room is huge, and they explode with joy once the five rappers and one DJ – singer Frank Ocean nowhere to be seen, apparently – show their faces. After 15 minutes of watching and attempting to listen to their set, it becomes funny to think about how bad they sound. On record, impressive. Here? Appalling. At times it sounds like they’re just rapping over an mp3; during the Tyler, The Creator track ‘Transylvania’, the group’s original lines can be clearly heard underneath their live raps. 35 minutes in, ‘Yonkers’ could be the set’s only saviour, yet it too disappoints. Tyler barely raps a word; the crowd does it for him. When he does use the mic, he’s drowned out by his bandmates barking his best lines. In a short, it’s a bomb. Which ruins the last chance that this set had of redeeming itself. The crowd leaves en masse at song’s end and I wonder why I’m still standing here.

For the full review and many more photos, visit The Vine. Above photo credit: Justin Edwards.

“In Search Of Ukrainian Summer Romance: Inside Anastasia’s Odessa Odyssey”, January 2012

In July 2011, my girlfriend and I travelled to Ukraine as guests of a dating website named Anastasia to report on one of their so-called romance tours. It was one of the strangest and coolest experiences of our lives.

What appears below is a longer version of a story that was published in the December 2011 issue of Maxim Australia. That story was entitled “European Union: Riding shotgun on a Ukrainian summer romance tour” can be read here.

All words below were written by myself, Andrew McMillen. All photos below were taken by Rachael Hall; you can click any of them to view a larger version, which will open in a new window.

If you would like to republish this story or these photos, please contact me via email or Twitter.

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In Search of Ukrainian Summer Romance: Inside Anastasia’s Odessa Odyssey
by Andrew McMillen

“This is a situation that very few men in the world have ever been in, to walk into a place where there’s no pretence about what everybody is there for.”

We’re in a seaside city called Odessa, in south Ukraine. More accurately, we’re in a stuffy basement conference room at the Continental Hotel in the city’s centre. We’re being addressed by Larry Cervantes, public relations manager of a website named Anastasia, which claims to be “the world’s leading international dating and romance tour company”. My girlfriend Rachael and I are here as guests of Anastasia to report on their Ukrainian ‘summer romance tour’.

“Beautiful women grow in certain parts of the world more than others,” Larry continues, “and you’re in one of them. Maybe six or seven thousand guys in the world have experienced what you’re going to experience: being put into a situation where you have so much choice that it’ll be mind-boggling. So be prepared, gas up, and I guarantee you’re going to have a wonderful time.”

One seasoned summer romance tourist adds, “Plan to do this a lot in the future!”, and two dozen men join him in laughter.

Larry is impressively tanned, speaks in a deep, low Californian drawl, and offered us a forceful handshake at Odessa Airport yesterday afternoon. Odessa is a strange, beautiful city; in the midst of summer, the air crackles with a dry, insistent heat that’s a pleasant change from the humidity of Brisbane. It’s home to one of the largest ports in the Black Sea basin, yet as our taxi driver threads his way through traffic sans seatbelt while yelling into his mobile phone we get the distinct impression that most buildings outside of the tourist-friendly city centre are slowly falling apart from decades of neglect.

Larry tells us that 45 men have signed on for this tour; a statement which seems strange, as over the next seven days we follow the tour, we never see more than 30 at any one time. One can only assume that their reasons for attending lie somewhere on the spectrum between searching for casual sex and lifelong commitment. Whatever the case, they’re each prepared to spend US$5,000 – including return airfares from New York’s JFK airport and local accommodation – to be here. The median age of the mostly-American tour group sits between 40 and 45. There’s one Australian: Owen, a West Australian miner in his early 40s. Most of the men are educated professionals. Many of them have at least one divorce under their belt.

The walls of the basement conference room feature tasteful oil paintings of the London Bridge and World Trade Centre. Four Anastasia reps are seated at the front of the room: Larry, William Tate – an affable American tour representative who served in the United States Marines – and two Ukrainian representatives named Olga and Anna. Before they address us, the mood is somewhat standoffish. Some of the 24 men chat quietly amongst themselves; most sit alone, eyes to the front, wondering silently what they’ve gotten themselves into. None of them give off the impression of being pick-up artists, or Neil Strauss acolytes. Just like in any high school classroom, the back row is full, but the first couple are sparse.

Eight media types line the aisle, ourselves included. Two comically large TV cameras – one from Australian 60 Minutes, the other from Sky News – scan the room. Their footage will undoubtedly be edited down to include only the most forlorn facial expressions. Over the next hour, the four Anastasia reps give their charges a rough ‘n’ ready guide to the Wild West that is Ukrainian dating. Most of the men have some familiarity with local members of Anastasia, having thoroughly combed the ladies’ profiles in search of their ideal match. Some have already set up dates through the website while they’re in town.

The company reps explore the concept of scamming – or, as euphemistically dubbed by William, “getting sushi’d” – at length. This is an apparently common situation during these kinds of tours, where a foreign man may unwittingly find himself footing the bill for an entire table’s drinks, entrees, steak, sushi; in the parlance of the overwhelmingly American entourage, ’the whole nine yards’. Local custom deigns that men invariably take care of most monetary concerns, and some of the women they’ll meet in the next week will try to exploit this to their advantage. ”You don’t want to appear cheap, or miserly,” explains Larry, “but you don’t want to appear to be foolish with money.”

Based on the witty quips a couple of the men toss in throughout the hour, it’s apparent that they’re return visitors to this region. Their knowledge sets them apart as the group’s worldly alpha males, and they seem only too happy to inhabit this role. A pair sat toward the back snigger conspiratorially over a laptop. The younger, shaggy-haired surfer-type, Derek, shows his white-haired pal Roger a photograph of a European-looking lady lying on what appears to be a hotel bed, dressed only in lingerie.

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The next day, on the bus ride to the first social, I meet a portly, genial German in his early 30s named Edward. He’s a return visitor to Anastasia’s Ukraine tours, but claims to be here more out of boredom – he had a week off from his job in Frankfurt – than any real desire to meet local women. It sounds like he’s hedging his bets in anticipation of failure. He tells me that most of these guys won’t get laid on this trip, let alone find long-term partners. “If you’re looking for a fuck trip, you should go to Germany,” he advises me via a thick accent. He politely declines my offer of a more formal interview later in the week.

We arrive at The Park Residence [pictured above], a luxury country club-style venue built featuring a central swimming pool and adjacent tennis courts. Anastasia’s photographer and videographer circle the group, madly recording away as the men stroll through a car park. It’s hot; many of the guys are dressed to impress in dark suits, which must be uncomfortable. They all head for the poolside bar, while a house music soundtrack – managed by a bored-looking dude in his 20s – washes over a crowd of women. The vast majority of them are young and stunning. So begins the group’s first six hours of socialising, Odessa-style.

The men here aren’t only outnumbered by women – perhaps four-to-one at the party’s peak – but female interpreters, too: 45 of them have been commissioned for this event alone, which means that there’s always a few extras lounging around in the shade and picking at fruit platters. Some of the tourists appear to use the trip as an excuse to become new men; performers whose egos float far, far higher than their everyday persona. Others remain trapped by their insecurities and self-esteem issues. They may be in a different country, but it’s hard to forget everything they’ve learned in their life when it comes to women, and the attraction thereof.

Though initially the mood at The Park is more high-school disco than adult social, owing to the awkwardness and segregation between the sexes, most of the guys are mingling within the hour. Larry’s initial prediction about the nature of this event rings true on two counts: the women are improbably attractive, though to be fair, they’re all members of local agencies whose clients consist entirely of beautiful women. And secondly: they all know that they’re here for the sole purpose of meeting men. Given the median age of the tour group, it’s likely that these guys won’t have been in this kind of environment – as artificial as it may be – since college keggers. Which is ironic, as many of these girls would appear to be college freshmen at best. There’s eye candy on display, sure, but when it comes to the likelihood of a middle-aged man finding both physical and intellectual stimulation in a barely-adult woman, it’s easy to slip into scepticism.

In the late afternoon, tour host Olga MCs a poolside dance-off that’s narrated entirely in Ukrainian, for the benefit of the local women. Derek is paired with a lustrous blonde, who he later tells us is a stripper. Tour guide William Owen – the West Australian miner, who is being closely filmed by 60 Minutes – and an American attorney named James battle it out over a few rounds. James is incredible shape for a 53 year-old: he pops, locks and swings his partner around like a hula hoop. He’s also a spitting image of a younger Sean Connery. Derek’s shirt is soon removed and he engages in some crude arse-grabbing and breast-motorboating with his partner [pictured below]. As far as gentlemanly conduct is concerned, he and James are oceans apart, yet together they’re the tour’s most extroverted characters. So ends the first of three socials, yet several of the men keep the party going elsewhere by arranging impromptu dates immediately afterwards. Others collect phone numbers with a view to set up dates in a few days’ time.

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Saturday’s event – in neighbouring city Kherson – is a four-hour bus ride away. The roads in south Ukraine seem to be populated with vehicles driven by sociopaths. The asphalt is falling apart; indicators are rarely used; seatbelts are never used; and no-one is willing to show the slightest compassion for their fellow drivers. It’s vehicular madness, and it’s utterly fascinating. Tour rep William notices our interest and tells us that, for Ukrainian drivers, road signs and speed limits are considered “suggestive”, not prescriptive. He’s lived here on-and-off for six years, and believes that if you have “$100 and a face”, you’ll be given a driver’s license. He replaces the brakes and tyres on his BMW yearly due to the wear and tear caused by the poor road surface. “You’ve never experienced tailgating until you’ve driven here,” he tells us. “If you can fit a credit card between your car and theirs, that’s plenty of room.”

Luckily we brought three buses on the trip to Kherson, as one breaks down halfway there; its passengers join ours. At the back of the bus, Derek reveals to the group that he met his “smoking hot” Russian ex-wife of five years on a flight from Vienna to New York immediately after an Anastasia tour, not on the tour itself. She recently left him, soon after he’d put her through medical school. Curious. Group morale is high as we pass through the city of Kherson and arrive at a club named Amigo [pictured below]. Its location is anything but central; housing commission-style flats and a couple of convenience stores are Amigo’s only neighbours.

Walking off a bus at 1pm and upstairs into a dark, hot, smoky club feels as dirty as it sounds. We’re late – the bus driver took a few wrong turns – so most of the club’s seats are already occupied by women, who sip drinks and judge every man in eyeshot. If The Park’s circumstance felt questionably artificial, this feels outright plastic. To make matters worse for the guys, the ratio today is more like 2:1. Which still betters most real-world nightclub situations, but it’s a disappointment after the quantity of women in attendance yesterday. To be fair, Kherson is home to only a third of Odessa’s million-strong population.

Spending six hours breathing in Amigo’s poisonous atmosphere is a tall ask for non-smokers like us – though, incidentally, the tour’s smokers are thrilled to discover that 12-packs here cost the equivalent of AUD$1. The strangest thing about this club is that it’s attached to a bowling alley. Apparently Ukrainians are crazy about tenpin bowling, and not in an ironic manner. To break up the monotony of watching men dance awkwardly with women half their age, Rachael and I hire a lane for an hour and throw down.

Halfway through our second round, Olga announces another dance-off. Predictably, Derek and James reappear; the former loses his shirt again, while today James is paired with a chesty 20 year-old in a green dress who appears to be having the time of her life. Alarmingly, one of the tour’s oldest – and heaviest – men is relieved of his shirt and tie by a cunning local. A topless, sweating fat man is not something I thought I’d ever witness on a Saturday afternoon in south Ukraine. 7pm rolls around, mercifully, and then it’s adios, Amigo.

There’s a striking contrast between the tour’s mood upon arrival and departure. Under the blazing sun it was all laughs and optimism; as night descends on the ride home, it’s more funereal, with a dash of crushed expectations. No-one really knows what to say. Many of the tourists opt to stare out the window, lost in thought. To complicate matters and unintentionally rub salt in the group’s wounds, one Canadian guy has picked up a woman and is bringing her back to Odessa. Other than Rachael, she’s the only female on board. James is practically beside himself with incredulity. “How did this happen?” he asks the smug dude and his date, who both appear to be in their mid-30s. “You only met today, and you’re bringing her home?”

Moments before we left the venue, Derek gave a silver dress to a woman he’d met here years ago, yet within minutes of the gift-giving she left him drunk, shirtless and dejected. As our bus begins the long trek back to Odessa, Roger won’t stop giving him shit about it. “What happened with your gal? She didn’t like the dress?” Derek says she fed him a story about having to leave due to a sick mother – which makes sense, he says, as last time they met, she bailed on him to take care of her sick father. Roger laughs like a hyena. Derek, nonplussed, passes out flat on his back, blocking the aisle with his feet. His accomplice, too, has been drinking, and he deems now an appropriate time to share his perspective on these tours.

Roger – a personal trainer from St Louis, Missouri in his early 40s – has toured Odessa with Anastasia four times. He’s the relatively introverted yin to Derek’s relentlessly provocative yang. “I come for the party; for the kick of it,” he says. This’ll probably be his last trip. “The only reason I did it this time was because whine-bag back there” – he points his thumb at his recently-divorced friend Derek – “begged me to.” In his mind, he can either spend “$5,000 to go to Florida and lay on a beach for 10 days”, or the same amount of money to do the same thing here. He’s sceptical about the long-term prospects of any relationships formed here. ”I’m not saying that guys don’t find girls, because I’ve brought two back to the States.” Neither worked out for him; one was an interpreter who was simultaneously courting both him and another guy in Texas, unbeknownst to either of them. She used Roger for the airfare to St Louis, then fled south. It was a crushing disappointment at the time, but an experience he can laugh about now.

He believes that every man on this trip will return home alone. “You ain’t gonna meet somebody and fall in love in five days.” Roger says hasn’t used the website in 11 years, but still gets weekly email notifications from the site that Ukrainian women are allegedly “trying to connect with him” – which he deletes, unread. His take on Anastasia is that it’s simply “bringing a bunch of old men a little bit of happiness. It’s money for [Anastasia], but it’s also happiness for the old guy on the computer thinking he’s writing a cute girl.” Which is not always the case: often, the girls’ interpreters answer their mail on their behalf, he says. These tours are rarely a try-before-you-buy scenario for guys seeking potential brides; Roger says he “guarantees that 95 or 96% of the guys never sleep with the girls.” He laughs and tells me that “all men are lonely old fools. You’ll get there one day.”

We pull into a petrol station for a break, which rouses Derek from his slumber. He hasn’t eaten all day, yet he selects a Stella Artois for sustenance, returns to the bus, and starts drunk-dialling every woman in his phone. Which is amusing for a while, until I realise I’m speeding through the dark Ukrainian countryside, listening to a grown man acting like a desperate and dateless teenager. It’s a dark thought, and I try to shake it immediately, but it’s stuck. If the tour’s most experienced and extroverted guy is striking out, what chance do the rest of these dudes have? My mind is filled with despair for the plight of the summer romance tour. It’s nearly midnight when we return to Odessa. The Kherson trip has been a failure, and everyone knows it – except for the Canadian guy and his date, perhaps.

The tour’s third and final social takes place on Sunday evening, and it’s going to have to be something special to recoup the team morale lost in Kherson. It’s also the guys’ last realistic opportunity to meet local women and set up dates for the remaining five days. After this, they’re essentially on their own, which is a tough place to be in an unfamiliar country. Stakes are high.

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On Sunday afternoon, we’re ushered into the same room used for orientation on Friday morning. Again the mood of the room tilts toward tension, as an overweight, greying Anastasia media rep named Walter Bodkin treats the 24 guys in attendance like naughty schoolchildren by, essentially, warning them to behave themselves tonight as there’ll be “loads of media there”. Upon our arrival in Ukraine, Larry spoke in awed tones of Walter’s presence on this trip: his 35 years of experience at US television network CBS lends heft to his professional capabilities. On Friday, Rachael and I spent nearly an hour listening to his tales and theories regarding international dating. Walter has been married twice; his most recent divorce cost him over $1 million – which he didn’t tell us, but I later discovered online.

Ostensibly, a lot is riding on this final social for Anastasia in PR terms, and they don’t want the guys to mess it up. Tonight’s centrepiece is the Miss Bikini 2011 contest, which, frankly, the Anastasia staff seem more excited about than the tourists. Walter takes an ominous tone when advising the group that “once the local guys hear that there’s a bikini show on, they’re gonna want to get inside”, and that security will be tight. Yet, walking down Odessa’s main shopping strip a few days ago, we came across several large billboards advertising all three Anastasia socials in Ukrainian. To publicly advertise what’s being portrayed – by Walter, to the tourists – as a secret event seems deceptive. Olga presents each man with an Anastasia-branded gift bag containing a white sailor cap, which the guys are asked to wear before disembarking from the bus and strolling down the main strip of the popular Arcadia Beach. It’s corny as hell, but most of them comply.

The footpath to the social venue – a beachside club named Itaka – is congested with human traffic heading in the opposite direction to our group. Someone comments on this, and Walter laughs as he tells us that “they” – Anastasia, presumably – have cleared the beach ahead of our arrival. Which sounds like it’d take considerable cash and muscle to pull off, as there are hundreds of shirtless, suntanned locals streaming past us and throwing dirty looks. It’s impressive, to some extent, that they’d do that just for a couple of dozen guys, but also questionable considering that all these people were, until a few moments ago, doing their best to snatch some sunny Sunday joy amid a challenging day-to-day life. As in any other tourism-reliant city around the world, cash is king.

The group pauses for a brief photo opportunity outside the club [above], and then we venture into the belly of the beast. We’re led down three flights of stairs and through a busy bar to the bottom level, where 22 bikini-clad models are fanning themselves and posing for photos. Like Friday’s social, it’s centred around a swimming pool; like on Friday, security are actively discouraging patrons from diving in. Opposite the impromptu stage is the ocean, which shimmers as the sun starts to dip. The cordoned-off section of water at the foot of Itaka’s real estate is eerily sparse for such an idyllic location, until I remember the fleeing crowds. Now, dozens of empty plastic sun lounges face the Black Sea [pictured below]. A stray cat paws at the sand in search of salty snacks. House music – a fixture in this part of the world, it seems – thumps soullessly from the speakers as final preparations are made for Miss Bikini 2011.

The tour group has been led into this surreal scene and left to fend for themselves. There’s a lot of standing around and gawking at the bikini girls. The wiser members of the tour fan out and begin introducing themselves to women seated poolside, interpreters in tow. The smartest guys ignore the bikini contest altogether and relocate to a second, smaller pool area to court women away from the glare and noise. The West Australian miner Owen – who, incidentally, is attending this tour for free as a guest of Anastasia – is judging the contest; so too is Walter, a British journalist from Loaded magazine, and a woman named Dasha Astafieva, who was Playboy’s 55th anniversary Playmate in January 2009.

Larry MCs the event in English; a female offsider does the same in Ukrainian. He introduces Dasha with an air of reverence, as if she discovered penicillin. Interestingly, scores of local women queue for photos with the porn star between breaks in her judging duties. Here, she has far more female fans than males, but that could also be because there are far more women in attendance. I’m watching the fawning group from behind [pictured below], when an overzealous admirer suddenly clutches her too hard and Dasha’s left breast momentarily slips out of her strapless dress. The crowd of surrounding women gasp in amazement as she quickly fixes herself, embarrassed. I’m convinced that I’m the only male in attendance who saw this happen.

We meet another Australian named Chris. He is dressed in a blue singlet, jeans, work boots, trucker cap and sunglasses, and sports ponytailed grey hair and a foot-long grey beard. He wields an explosive laugh and speaks in the broadest Australian accent imaginable. Within our first five minutes of conversation, he reveals himself to be a xenophobe and a climate change sceptic. It’s fascinating to meet an archetypal bogan in a place like this. Naturally, 60 Minutes sink their claws into him immediately, and he’s plainly thrilled by the idea of appearing on national television while holidaying in Ukraine. This is his first trip outside of Australia. He’s only paid to attend this one social; the rest of his trip was self-arranged, including his apartment on the outskirts of Odessa. I’m impressed, because organising something of this scale seems far beyond his abilities. [Pictured below, left to right: 60 Minutes reporter Michael Usher, Chris, and myself.]

The bikini contest is won by a petite blonde from neighbouring city Nikolaev named Natalia, who earns a Yamaha jetski for her trouble. Dasha then leads a performance by her pop group, Nikita [pictured below], which features another female vocalist, backup dancers, and a shirtless male DJ who does little more than press ‘play’ and show off choreographed dance moves. There’s around 50 girls in the audience. I can only see five guys from the tour in the throng. After their eight-song set – performed alternately in English and Ukrainian – the stage is broken down and a dance floor opens up in front of the bar.

By this point, Itaka could be any club anywhere in the world. Some guys pick up; some don’t. Chris hits the beer pretty hard; he’s tanked before midnight, and asks an Anastasia rep to arrange a taxi home, alone. Looking across the crowds dancing poolside or conversing with the opposite sex, it does seem quite a stretch that this is all worth it, romantically speaking. In terms of meeting new people and having new experiences – sure. Just by signing up to this thing, it’s impossible for the guys not to tick both boxes. But finding a long-term partner – let alone a casual sex partner – in Odessa seems no more likely for these men than in their hometowns, were they actively pursuing either outcome.

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With the three socials over, the rest of the week is left fairly open. Daily sightseeing tours run to nearby venues like a winery and the Odessa catacombs. They’re sparsely-attended, but interesting and worthwhile for Rachael and I; less so for the single tourists, it seems, though a couple of guys bring dates and interpreters. From an Irish bar on the main strip on Tuesday night, we spy three of the tour guys walking alongside a tall, leggy blonde. ”So many hoops to jump through to probably not get laid,” remarks the American journalist we’re drinking with.

We get to talking with a couple of the other guys about their impressions of this trip. Lee [pictured in foreground, above], 43, owns a small trucking company in western Pennsylvania. “I’ve been married three times before,” he says. “No regrets. I never wanted to be divorced once; never thought it would happen three times.” He’s been a member of Anastasia since January 2011. This is his first trip outside of the US. He’s been on several dates and is particularly keen on two women: one in Odessa, who we’ve seen him with on several occasions and seems lovely, and another in Nikolaev who has been having problems finding a babysitter for her young child in order to meet Lee again. He doesn’t think dating here is any easier than back home. “If everything was easy, why would I need to come to Odessa? If it was easy I could walk down to the local pub, and – there she is.” He advises those intending to join a tour like this to “not set your expectations so high that they’re unattainable, because then you’re going to be disappointed”, and “just be yourself. I’ve been myself since the day I landed.” It seems to be working well for him.

Like Lee, James – the 53 year-old attorney, stunning dancer, and Sean Connery lookalike – wears his heart on his sleeve. They’re both totally sincere, and make no bones about their intentions here: to find their respective soulmates. “Most of these men are here for that reason,” James believes. “We’re not looking for a good time for a week. We’ve had that back home. We’re looking for somebody we can share our life with, but we have to be attracted to them as well, on every level. Do you really think we’d come all this way if we could find it at home? We can’t!” He first visited Odessa in May 2011, and says he did everything he was told not to do – “except wander off by myself. I didn’t do that. But – did I take them shopping? Yes. Did I fail to attend the socials in full? Yes. Women took me elsewhere; they took me out of the competition. I bought girls a pair of shoes, a purse, a cell phone, a laptop… it was about a $2,000 lesson, in total. Painful, but necessary.” He wasn’t self-aware last time, but believes he is now. He’s been on several dates, and he’d been corresponding with almost all of them through Anastasia beforehand. “I genuinely want to find the person who can love me the way I want to love them,” he says. “That’s what my parents had for 59 years. I’ve seen it. It exists.”

Word spreads among the group that Roger got sushi’d big-time earlier that night; his date and interpreter took him to the tune of US$900. We also hear that the oldest guy on the tour, Richie, yesterday proposed to a local girl. We catch up with him on our final night in Odessa, and he lays it all out on the table during a two-hour conversation. Like many elderly people, he goes to great pains to describe the smallest, most insignificant details of his stories, as if to justify his continuing existence. He tells us of his three failed marriages; his six children; his careers in construction, firefighting and police investigation, and everything in between. He tells us of meeting his new fiancée, Tanya, through Anastasia in March, after dreaming of a woman who looked exactly like her and combing the website for nearly a year.

“I flew 7,000 miles – a third of the way around the world – to meet the most gorgeous woman I’ve ever met in my life,” Richie says. “She’s beautiful inside and out. Every word she said on the computer, she’s proven beyond any reasonable doubt that she is the person that she claimed to be. I love her dearly. We’re hoping that we can get her visa and passport through as quickly as possible. We’re both very excited. We both want it to happen,” he says of his intention to take her back to his home in the United States. “I’m ecstatic. I can’t even begin to tell you how much I love her. Our biggest argument is who loves whom more. If our whole life goes that way, it’ll be the best argument the world has ever seen!” At 29, Tanya is 39 years Richie’s junior. She doesn’t speak English; he doesn’t speak Ukrainian. I suspect deep down he knows the odds are against him. But what is love if not an insane leap at happiness? As we shake hands and say goodbye, I wish Richie all the best, and mean it more than I have in my whole life.

Andrew McMillen (@NiteShok) is an Australian freelance journalist.

Maxim Australia story: “European Union: Riding shotgun on a Ukrainian summer romance tour”, December 2011

A story for the December 2011 issue of Maxim Australia. Click the below image for a closer look, or read the article text underneath.

Travel: European Union

Maxim rides shotgun on the world’s premier romance tour. Truth by told, we left feeling weird and depressed.

Words by Andrew McMillen, photographs by Rachael Hall

Odessa, Ukraine

“Beautiful women grow in certain parts of the world more than others, and you’re in one of them. Maybe six or seven thousand guys in the world have experienced what you’re going to experience: Being put into a situation where you have so much choice that it’ll be mind-boggling. So be prepared, gas up, and I guarantee you’re going to have a wonderful time.”

These are the words of Larry Cervantes, public relations manager of a website named Anastasia (anastasiadate.com), which claims to be “the world’s leading international dating and romance tour company”.

My girlfriend – we met in Australia, but thanks for asking – and I are in a seaside city called Odessa, in south Ukraine, as guests of Anastasia. They invited us to check out their ‘Summer Romance Tour’ – a weeklong leap into the exotic abyss in search of love… or something like it.

The tour is centred around three “socials”, which are parties arranged by Anastasia in conjunction with local dating agencies. Really, it was a heart-warmingly wacky offer we just couldn’t refuse.

Friday

Our first social is at The Park Residence, a luxury venue with a swimming pool and tennis courts. The touring men aren’t just outnumbered by prospective partners but 45 female interpreters are also in attendance. They’re a necessity, as few Ukrainian women speak English, and none of the men (mostly Americans) speak the local tongue.

As the day begins, the atmosphere is more awkward high-school disco than adult social. But most of the guys are mingling within the hour. Larry’s initial prediction about the nature of this event rings true on two counts: The women are improbably attractive, though they are all members of local agencies whose clients consist entirely of beautiful women. And secondly: They all know they’re here for the sole purpose of meeting men.

The median age of the tour group sits between 40 and 45, so it’s likely these guys haven’t been in this kind of environment – artificial as it may be – since they last had a kegger at the frat house. It’s ironic, since many of the girls appear to be college freshmen age at best.

Sure, there’s a Willy Wonka factory’s worth of eye candy on display, but the likelihood of a “romance” blossoming between a middle-aged American man and a barely-adult Ukrainian woman? Call me the anti-Cupid but I’m a little sceptical.

Saturday

Today’s social is a four-hour bus ride away, in neighbouring city Kherson. Like the testosterone levels, group morale is high as we arrive at a club named Amigo. Unlike yesterday’s opulent surroundings, housing commission-style flats and a couple of convenience stores are Amigo’s only neighbours. As you may have guessed, there aren’t any tennis courts and swimming pools here.

Walking into a dark, hot, smoky club in the middle of nowhere at 1pm feels and smells just like it sounds. To make matters worse for the potential Romeos, the babe ratio is a measly two-to-one – around half of yesterday’s embarrassment of female riches. Still, those are better odds than most real-world nightclub situations.

Spending six hours inhaling the Amigo air is a tall ask for non-smokers. If, unlike myself and the missus, you are a smoker, I can’t recommend this place highly enough – 12 packs of gaspers here cost about a dollar.

Through the haze, Anastasia’s Ukrainian tour rep Olga leads a dance-off, wherein one of the tour’s oldest – and heaviest – men is relieved of his shirt and tie by a cunning local. A topless, sweating fat man is not something I thought I’d ever witness on a Saturday afternoon in south Ukraine. Mum always did say I was lucky, though.

In what I would call proof that a higher power exists, the 7pm finishing time draws near. Adios, Amigo. As we drive away, there’s a striking contrast between the tour’s mood upon arrival and departure. Under the blazing July sun it was all laughs and optimism, but as night falls on the ride home, there’s a distinct air of crushed expectations and the sound of hearts beginning to break. Or that could be the shonky bus suspension. Either way, there’s a noise.

Sunday

The tour’s third and final social is going to have to be something special to recoup the battering team morale took in Kherson. It’s also the group’s last realistic opportunity to meet local women and set up dates for the remainder of their stay in Odessa. If that doesn’t happen, it means being stuck with just your stockpile of cheap ciggies for company and nothing else.

Outside the venue – a beachside club named Itaka – the group pauses for a brief photo opportunity in the twilight, before venturing into the belly of the beast. We’re threaded down three flights of stairs and through a busy bar to the poolside bottom level, where 22 bikini-clad models are fanning themselves and posing for photos. It looks promising for the lads…

Tonight’s, we are here to behold the Miss Bikini 2011 contest. One of the judges is Dasha Astafieva, who was Playboy‘s 55th Anniversary Playmate in 2009. The winner is a petite blonde from neighbouring city Nikolaev named Natalia, who earns a Yamaha jet ski for her efforts. Post-ceremony, we’re treated to the musical stylings of Dasha’s pop group, Nikita. The mosh pit consists of around 50 local girls… and five tourists. After the eight-song set – performed alternately in English and Ukrainian – the stage is broken down and a dance floor emerges in front of the bar. The starter’s pistol has been fired. Party time!

Itaka could be any club anywhere in the world. Some guys pick up, some don’t. Looking across at the men clumsily dancing poolside or trying to converse with the opposite sex, it seems a bit of a stretch that it’s all worth it, romantically speaking. Finding a long-term partner – let alone a casual sex partner – in Odessa seems no more likely for these men than in their hometowns. True, you won’t be treated to a Euro pop performance or have access to dirt-cheap smokes, but if you’re looking to have a ‘Summer Romance Tour’ that’s affordable and where the women understand what you’re saying, I’d say do it domestically.

Sidebar: Love Bytes

An Odessa veteran gives us a hard dose of romantic reality

Roger – a personal trainer from St Louis, Missouri, in his early-40s – has toured Odessa with Anastasia four times. This’ll probably be his last trip. He says he only returned this time because his recently divorced friend Derek begged him to. He believes that every man on this trip will return home alone, because “you ain’t gonna meet somebody and fall in love in five days”. He hasn’t used the site in 11 years, but still gets weekly notifications from Ukrainian women trying to connect with him – which he deletes, unread.

His take on Anastasia is that it’s simply “bringing a bunch of old men a little bit of happiness. It’s money [for Anastasia], but it’s also happiness for the old guy on the computer thinking he’s writing a cute girl”. This is not always the case: often, the girls’ interpreters answer mail on their behalf. Physically, these tours are rarely a try-before-you-buy scenario for guys seeking potential brides; Roger guarantees that “95 or 96 per cent of the guys never sleep with the girls”. He laughs, saying, “All men are lonely old fools. You’ll get there one day.” Can’t wait!

For more on Anatasia and their romance tours, visit anastasiadate.com.

This 1,200 word story was edited down from a 5,000 word version, which can be read here: “In Search Of Ukrainian Summer Romance: Inside Anastasia’s Odessa Odyssey”. This link also includes many more photos, taken by Rachael Hall.

The Vine story: “My Top 10 Musical Moments of 2011″, December 2011

A list of my ten favourite music-related memories and moments from 2011 for The Vine, reproduced below in its entirety.

My Top Ten Musical Moments of 2011
by Andrew McMillen

As we hurtle towards 2012 and the holiday season, TheVine has asked our critics to give us their Top 10 best music “things” from over the past year — whatever the hell they may be and in whatever haphazard fashion they so declare. Go.

–

10. The Drones at The Hi-Fi, October 28 2011

I didn’t review this one. I went by myself. I don’t think I even spoke to anyone at this show. But over two intense hours, The Drones reinforced why they’re my favourite band. ‘I’m Here Now’, in particular, blew my mind. I think the bit where Gareth sings, “…and for the first time now, I’m looking right at you” is my favourite moment in any Drones song. Cathartic. It kinda goes without saying, but: never, ever pass up an opportunity to see The Drones live. Here’s footage from Sydney, the night after I saw them:

 

9. Les Savy Fav at Laneway Festival Brisbane

This was one of those “you had to be there” kind of shows, so I’m a little hesitant to include this on the list. But Christ, are this band incredible live! I haven’t seen one man own a room – or, in this case, a tin shed – like this before, and doubt I will again (until Les Savy Fav visit Brisbane again). Watch this video, and keep in mind that the rest of their 45 minute set was just like this:

I tried to describe it. Excerpt:

“Some bands simply have singers; guys with strong vocals that get the job done. Some have frontmen; guys who, in addition to singing, take it upon themselves to keep the crowd pumped. I’m reminded of that quote from Almost Famous, where the singer is like “You know what I do? I connect. I get people off. I look for the guy who isn’t getting off, and I make him get off”. This is entirely apt when discussing Tim Harrington of Les Savy Fav. To say that his performance sets the Inner Sanctum alight is to understate the obvious. For the next 45 minutes, he owns the room. A chubby, bearded, near-bald man with a hell of a voice and (metaphorical) balls the size of grapefruits, has – within minutes of the band taking the stage – commandeered an orange vest from TheVine’s photographer, Justin Edwards and marched through the crowd; extra-long corded microphone in hand, singing in people’s faces, rubbing himself against poles, and drinking whatever people offer him.

At times, his performance veers toward the unbelievable. Like when he grabs some silver paint from his bag of props – the dude comes prepared with all manner of costumes and supplements – and rubs it all over himself, before dropping into the front row and leaving gigantic silver handprints on the faces of the entire front row. Or when, right near the end, he marches through the crowd, picks up an orange security barrier, and has the crowd hold him aloft while he stands and sings. All the while, his gun band thrash away at their idiosyncratic style of danceable noise-punk, with barely a glance toward the mesmeric insanity of what their singer is doing. Even as it happens, it feels like one of those performances that you’ll be telling people about for years to come. Harrington redefines the boundaries of what’s possible and acceptable onstage.”

8. Nova Scotia – Nova Scotia

This fine debut was released at the start of the year, but it’s still one of 2011’s best albums. They’re an indie rock band who live in Brisbane. They’ve hardly toured outside of this city so you’ve probably never heard of them, but believe me, they’re worthy of your attention. Try this track:

Excerpt from album review: “Final track ‘The World Is Not Enough’ is the best cut they’ve put to tape. Built around an instant-classic bassline and subdued guitar licks – which must have been tough for the three guitarists – the song does an abrupt about-face at the halfway mark and becomes another thing entirely. The inclusion of brass instruments late in the piece is the final inspired decision on an album full of them.”

Buy the album on their Bandcamp.

7. Warpaint [pictured above] visiting Australia twice: Laneway Festival and Splendour In The Grass

I would be even happier if this was an annual occurrence. A fantastic band.

Laneway review excerpt: “On the Car Park Stage, four women called Warpaint prove themselves as one of the day’s highlights, soon after shouldering instruments and counting in. I spend most of the set in awe of Stella Mozgawa, whose control and power behind the drumkit is a thing of rare beauty. While all four of the LA-based band are strong instrumentalists, Mozgawa is the band’s beating, metronomic heart. She’s not a particularly flashy player, but the way she dominates her kit with an insistent, rolling flurry of notes has to be seen to be believed. Warpaint’s sound is rarely brash; they often opt for creeping subtlety in their guitar lines and vocal delivery, though there are occasional moments of raised heartbeats, as in standout ‘Undertow’. The crowd increases as their set progresses; quite possibly the result of text messages sent across the festival instructing friends to come witness this shit-hot American rock band. Highly recommended.”

Splendour review excerpt: “Under the McLennan tent, Los Angeles quartet Warpaint are the closest thing to perfect we’ve heard so far today. They write intelligent dream pop and deliver it in an effortlessly smooth style. In Sydney-born Stella Mozgawa, they’ve got one of the best rock drummers alive. It’s clear that Warpaint live, breathe and love their music. They toured with the Laneway Festival only a few months ago, but they’ll always be welcome on these shores.”

6. Witch Hats – Pleasure Syndrome

An incredible second album from one of the best rock bands in Australia. I hope I don’t have to use the phrases ‘criminally underrated’ and ‘underground’ when describing Witch Hats for much longer. Here’s a taste: ‘Hear Martin’, the first single from an album which you can – and should – buy directly from the band. Here.

5. Eddie Vedder dedicating ‘The Needle and the Damage Done’ to — the very recently deceased (at the time) — Mike Starr, at Vedder’s first show of his Australian tour, 10 March 2011

This broke me. An incredibly sad, beautiful, powerful, unforgettable moment. I had a strange feeling that something remarkable would happen at this show, which is why I brought my audio recorder along. I was right. Excerpt:

“Though Vedder’s performance – nearly two hours long, and featuring nearly two dozen songs – is thoroughly entertaining, there is a very dark moment embedded toward the end; curiously, right after ‘Betterman’, a track whose narrative shifts from depressed to optimistic across three minutes. Here’s the moment transcribed below in its entirety.

[Vedder finishes playing ‘Betterman’. Crowd cheers. A few moments later, a woman yells from the back of the room, “That was beautiful, Eddie!” Crowd cheers again.]

Vedder: Thank you very much. First night of a new tour – that’s exactly the kind of support you appreciate.

[Crowd laughs and cheers.]

Vedder: There was a, um… the first tour our group ever went on was with another band. It all seemed… I mean, it’s still new and exciting, but you have to work at ways to make it new and exciting. It was just a trip. It was just mind-blowing, starting out. I’d never actually been, like, in a band, and on tour. I’d played little shows here and there. But this was, like, the real thing. There was another band that we were with, and they had records out, and I was kind of looking at them to see how to behave. It was pretty intense. There was a guy in that group – the group was Alice In Chains, that we toured with.

[Crowd cheers.]

Vedder: The guy who played bass in that band, his name was Mike Starr. Our orbits changed a long, long time ago. We hadn’t seen him for years. He’d been going through a rough time for quite some time. Uh, yeah. I don’t know if you heard, but he’s no longer with us, as of yesterday. I’ve just been thinking about him. A lot. I don’t know what anybody could have done. It’s just really sad when life, and living life, and all that the planet and the people on it have to offer; and all that you can offer it, and them. It’s too bad when sobriety’s just not enough to keep you alive.

[Crowd applauds. Vedder begins playing ‘The Needle And The Damage Done’ by Neil Young. It's heartbreaking.]”

4. The Dandy Warhols at The Tivoli, May 31 2011

This is one of few shows I witnessed this year that I wish I could relive. Despite going to dozens of gigs and nearly every major festival that visited south-east Queensland in 2011, I find myself returning to this particular set. An unlikely Tuesday night highlight at the tail end of a national tour. Magic. Excerpt:

“What if I put it to you that The Dandy Warhols are one of the best American rock bands alive? The more I watch and listen tonight, the more plausible it seems. I didn’t walk in expecting to happen upon this realisation. It hit around halfway through, when the rest of the band left the stage—keyboardist Zia McCabe and drummer Brent ‘Fathead’ DeBoer for a toilet break, apparently—which left frontman Courtney Taylor-Taylor to unveil his “secret weapon”: a solo version of ‘Every Day Should Be A Holiday’. I doubted whether he could pull it off. The Dandys tend to work through sheer volume, I figured, not cutesy, sentimental moments better suited to stadium schlock-rockers. I was way the fuck wrong. From the first downward, loosely-strummed chord, CT-T begins singing. Right near where I’m standing—up the back of the balcony— a bunch of middle-aged men begin bouncing around, arms around shoulders, singing along at the top of their lungs. Then, what seems like the entire crowd joins him to harmonise during the chorus. Its ascending melody is irresistible; contagious. Over a thousand voices follow his trajectory: “Anytiiiii-hiiii-IIIME / Baby let’s goooo-hoooo-HOOO / EverydAAAA-AAaay-aayyyyyy / Should be a holidaaaaaay”. Which sounds fucking stupid on paper, sure, but in the flesh, it’s hair-raising. He gets to the line in the second verse – “Super cool / The Dandys rule, okay?” – and…I can’t disagree. All of a sudden, I realise I’m watching one of my favourite bands.”

3. Daring to criticise Tool’s Big Day Out sideshow in Brisbane (see here)

Even though I’ve been a hardcore Tool fan for around half of my 23 years, when I saw their Brisbane show the day after the Gold Coast BDO in January, I had forgotten just how intense their fanbase is. So when I wrote a mostly positive live review that poked fun at a few elements of their oh-so-serious concert, I was surprised at the reaction from a handful of Tool fans who took umbrage at my decision to criticise the band. It’s worth clicking the above link and reading through all 31 comments to witness the sheer blind insanity that Tool invoke in certain people, but here’s a sample of awesome eloquence:

“SHUT THE FUCK, UP AND GO BACK TO YOUR UNEDUCATED,OVER CRITICAL CORNER, WITH YOUR CD COLLECTION THAT NO DOUBT, CONSISTS OF SHIT LIKE “SOMETHING FOR KATE” “OPERATOR PLAESE” “MILLI VANILLI” “MGMT” AND THE LIKES, AND refrain from slowing down the natural evolution of mankind!”

And from the same commenter, this time sent to me via TheVine’s personal message system:

“Put your pen down, and do the world a favour…. kill yourself!!! Kind regards. Pete.”

2. Gotye feat. Kimbra – ‘Somebody That I Used To Know’

I was in Odessa, Ukraine with my girlfriend when I saw this video for the first time, soon after Gotye tweeted its release in early July. Our hotel’s shonky internet connection meant that we had to pause halfway through to let the rest of it load, but once viewed in full, the song’s power was remarkable. Even then. Incredibly, it still is, even after hearing it hundreds of times. The intertwining male and female vocal harmonies toward the end of the song still give me goosebumps, every time. Watching the pair duet at Splendour 2011 was a revelation: the crowd response was extraordinary. I knew then and there that this track would win the Hottest 100 (and wrote as much for Mess+Noise). Simply a killer tune.

1. Tyler The Creator – ‘Yonkers’

32 million YouTube views and counting, this still stands up as my favourite track of the year. Released in February seemingly out of nowhere – I hadn’t heard of Odd Future before ‘Yonkers’ – this sparse, menacing narrative sent me and many others down the rabbit hole of discovering a prolific and diverse catalogue, one self-released by a group who only just left their teens. Coupled with an instant-classic music video and verse after verse of memorable lyrical hooks, ‘Yonkers’ is a modern hip-hop masterpiece. Though nothing on Tyler’s 2011 release Goblin came close to the quality of this first single, this young writer/producer and his crew of collaborators certainly made their mark this year.

Andrew McMillen

The Australian book review: ‘Women Of Letters’, curated by Marieke Hardy and Michaela McGuire, December 2011

A book review for The Australian, reproduced below in its entirety.

Love letters for weird families and those nights best forgotten

Women of Letters: Reviving the Lost Art of Correspondence
Curated by Marieke Hardy and Michaela McGuire
Penguin, 412pp, $29.95

A fine cross-section of humanity – largely womankind – is on display in Women of Letters, a book born from a series of live letter reading and writing events “celebrating wine, women and words” in eastern capital cities in 2010.

The events were founded by writers Marieke Hardy and Michaela McGuire through their desire to “showcase brilliant female minds”, and also in the name of a good cause: all royalties from the sale of this book will go to Edgar’s Mission, an animal shelter in Victoria.

Comprising 69 authors, many of whom are well-known Australian musicians, writers and actresses, and 16 topics, Women of Letters contains many surprises, joys and profound learnings. Here are but a handful of moments that this reviewer felt most appealing:

Comedian Judith Lucy’s letter “to the night I’d rather forget” taught her “the invaluable lesson that it is never a good idea to combine alcohol with being a f . . kwit”. In a letter “to my first pin-up”, Adam Ant, former Triple J Magazine editor Jenny Valentish reflects on music journalism: “writing about tortured artists for a living, my keyboard is constantly awash with salty sentiment . . . I’m like a professional enabler for these people”. Actress Claudia Karvan and comedian Virginia Gay take a literal interpretation of “a love letter” by addressing theirs to the concept of love itself, with very different outcomes.

In a letter “to the moment it all fell apart”, musician Amanda Roff strikes on speculative fiction so absorbing that John Birmingham would give a nod of approval. “I remember lining up outside Melbourne Zoo, waiting for the army to sell the last of the meat,” she writes, taking the reader deep into her post-apocalyptic world.

This freedom of the open brief offered each writer the ability to choose how much of themselves to reveal. Many opt for brazen honesty. Singer Missy Higgins is particularly touching when writing “to my turning point”: she discusses her first experiences with depression. “I’m thankful to you, dear Turning Point, for . . . showing me that I’m not alone, that it’s OK to be sad.” In “to the letter I wish I’d written”, musician Georgia Fields asks, “Why am I still, at 27 years of age, so paralysingly terrified of what people think of me?” she writes. “Why can’t I just relax and be myself?”

The few blokes who appear in these pages generally opt for sentimentality too, especially when writing “to the woman who changed my life”.

Bob Ellis writes to his wife: “You are more than I deserved, and I less than you deserved, and this is too hard.” Rocker Tim Rogers is brutally honest in his self-assessment while writing to his ex-wife. “I wanted to thank you for what you’ve done to me. It wasn’t intended to be a love letter. But what changes someone more completely than love, and loss?”

Comedian and actor Eddie Perfect comes up with a great line while writing to his wife: “I don’t know what a family is, how to define it, other than as a collection of people who bind themselves together and get weirder and weirder until no one understands them.”

The highlights are so plentiful that I must mention a few more: Crikey editor Sophie Black writing “to my first boss” about her 1993 work experience at New Idea (“in one working week, at five dollars a day, I learnt enough to put me off journalism for the next decade”); Jennifer Byrne’s decision to read a heart-wrenching letter written in 1910 by a dying explorer on a fraught expedition to Antarctica; Noni Hazlehurst writing “to my ghosts”, which turn out to be the “gloriously impulsive, intuitive, emotional” voices in her head, and radio broadcaster Fee-B Squared writing “to my nemesis”, her bad back.

Women of Letters offers a joyous bounty of many voices, writing styles, laughs and regrets. Having read this book, I feel as though I know humans and their various conditions much better.

Andrew McMillen is a Brisbane-based freelance journalist.

This review was originally published in The Weekend Australian Review on December 31. For more on Women Of Letters, visit their website.