20 years ago a little song called I’m So Post Modern managed to finish #72 in triple j’s hottest 100. Sunday January 25 double j will replay the countdown from 12pm. It’s a half decent opportunity to revisit the making-of-directors-commentary of my mid 20s.
I’ll be speaking to Caroline Tran after my song is played.
The oddball opus was a frequent on triple j’s Super Request with Rosie Beaton. I’m So Post Modern was featured on this compilation along with Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Cows With Guns by Dana Lyons!
The video was classically collided together in the days before it was due to appear on rage by Dan Ilic and BP who were working for Channel 10’s Ronnie Johns Half Hour. It is possibly the first example of a ‘lyric video.’
The clip was initially taken down from YouTube almost immediately when Dan added ‘MTV’ as a tag (in a bid to increase eyeballs.) Viacom owned MTV and was on a rampage removing pirate content. Meanwhile, several memorable fan videos flash-mobbed into existence (which you can still catch.)
In 2003 I wanted to set the world record for longest continuous performance of Daryl Braithwaite’s The Horses while riding on a horse carousel on Melbourne Cup Day.
So I did. The record was thirty minutes.
I could have gone longer.
The plan was to go for two hours. After half an hour the bloke running the carousel said “that’s enough.”
I think some kids wanted to get on.
It was covered by Triple J and the local Canberra TV news.
Here are some notes about the event from the time:
“I had just finished my world record attempt on the civic horse carousel, the humour of which was questioned by ‘elvis’ on the riot-act.com website (are triple j the only people that find justin heazlewood funny…remember, they broke savage garden.) I was feeling a little damaged and introverted and wondering why someone with the nerves of a marshmallow soaked in chamomile tea would expose themselves to the scourer-like glare of the Canberra media and public.”
Dear Diary,
Today I blanketed the ACT media with a publicity stunt. I got in all the newspapers and on the radio. I was the ‘horsin’ around’ story on the local win news and afterwards the newsreader Peter Leonard said ‘Hmmmm’ and then threw to the weather.
And you know what diary?…in the same news edition they showed that Samuel Johnson secret life of us man riding his unicycle from Sydney to Melbourne to raise money for children’s cancer. And I said to Tim who was on the couch next to me “Oh my, here he is raising awareness for children’s cancer, and here I am raising awareness for my own gig. How shallow and self centred am I?” And Tim said “yes, but people already know about cancer.”
THE ORIGINAL MEDIA RELEASE:
WORLD RECORD ATTEMPT! FIRST AUSTRALIAN TO SING “THE HORSES” FOR AN HOUR ON MELBOURNE CUP DAY
Canberra comedian Justin Heazlewood, (Triple J’s Bedroom Philosopher) will attempt to ride into the history books on Melbourne Cup Day, by setting the world record for continuous guitar and vocal performance of Daryl Braithwaite’s ‘The Horses’ while riding on a horse merry go round.
Justin still has a taste for records, after smashing the world mark for continuous performance of John Farnham’s ‘You’re the voice’ (9 hours) for the Melbourne Comedy Festival in March this year. There, Justin sustained a severe RSI injury.
‘I was really worried it would be my voice that went, but it was my wrist, from all the strumming. Every time I moved it I could feel it creaking. I was allowed breaks in Melbourne for drinks and the toilet, but in Canberra I’m planning to go one unbroken hour. Then there’s balancing the guitar on the horse, that’s going to be risky. I’m wearing a helmet for this one.’
Justin is promoting his Canberra CD Launch, to be held at Toast, on Thursday November 6th, starting at 7pm. Special guests include Fred Smith, Jordan Best, Josh Garden, Pete Lyon with magic by Natrix.
The record attempt will take place at the Civic horse carousal. Melbourne Cup Day, Tuesday 4th November. Between 12pm and 1pm.
Justin is available for interview. His number in Sydney is 02 9559 2108. Email: [email protected] He will be in Canberra from the 31st October, contactable on 0413973101
SOME CONTEXT – HERE’S MY COLUMN ABOUT MY ‘YOU’RE THE VOICE’ WORLD RECORD STUNT EARLIER THAT YEAR…
24/4/03
F is for Farnham.
On March 24, 2003, a young man struggled his way onto a Melbourne tram with a guitar, a wire indoors clothes dryer, and a few placards.
He was attempting to break the world record for continuous performance of John Farnham’s seminal 1986 hit ‘You’re The Voice,’ as a means to promote his show in the comedy festival. In the press release he had circulated amongst the Melbourne media, the young man had said he intended to play the song for 12 hours. As one Geelong DJ had said off the air, just before he was going to interview the young man ‘fuckin’ hell, twelve hours?’
In front of Flinder’s Street train station, he set up his station, and sticky taped the placards promoting his show to the clothes dryer, and at about 10am started playing.
‘You’re the voice try and understand it. Make a noise and make it clear Woooooooooooooah. Wooooooooooooooooooooooah.’
The first two hours went slowly. The heat was bearing down, and the young man sun screened up, and put on his hat and sunnies. The more he played, the more he realized it was going to be a very long day. As he played he watched the passers by. Some walked past. Some stopped and stared. Some glanced over as they waited at the traffic lights.
But so far, no junkies had come and beat him up, as his mates had joked they would.
Over the course of the day, some interesting characters approached. An old bloke tottered up to him, watched the scene for a while, and then said ‘If Australia was invaded by Indonesia, who would you count on? You should be supporting our troops.’
Later, a blue Wilderness Society Koala came over and excitedly said she had heard the commotion being covered on Triple J, and she wanted to say well done.
Then, Channel 7 and Channel 9 news crews turned up. The young man was rather surprised. He had shot off a few emails to news networks the day before, but did not expect this. After four hours of continuous playing, the thought of promoting his show on national TV filled his heart with dynamite carrots.
Throughout the day his friends drifted in and out to give him much needed potty breaks and bottles of pineapple juice. One such mate, James, said ‘don’t take this the wrong way, but you look like a homeless person playing for a feed.’
After nine hours, the young man stopped. He’d had enough. He tried to think of a fitting conclusion to it all. Oddly, after nine hours he still needed to look at the lyrics. Someone had suggested that he was subconsciously refusing to learn them as a form of self protection.
He booted the clothes horse, with a rockfolk defiance, and thanked a few bored stragglers, still waiting on the Flinder’s street steps.
He was on the Channel seven news, as the one minute odd spot at the end…
Newsreader: (In cheeky newsreader tone) “He discovered he indeed, wasn’t the voice.’ They said he was promoting the comedy festival, but didn’t mention his show.
I CHATTED TO SYLVIE ON 2XX THE DAY AFTER THE HORSES STUNT….
BUSKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE (2003 BMA COLUMN)
I was waiting for my bus, smoking (not trying to sound cool or condone smoking…it hurt my throat, but I was so unsettled I was just sucking the stuff as some kind of cheap medicine) and guzzling pineapple juice (it’s good for your voice) when a kid of about thirteen came up and asked me for money.
‘Do you have a couple of dollars so I can get a drink?’ He said. ‘It’s really hot.’
HAW! I said in my head, like Alf would have. Remember how Alf used to go HAW!?
Maybe one dollar for the bus, or a dollar fifty for a kidney transplant, but two bucks for a drink? Geez I feel guilty enough buying one for myself. Using my Nan’s practicality, I said
‘No mate, I’m really struggling myself, but do you want some pineapple juice?’
He declined.
HAW! Said the nan in my head…he can’t be that thirsty if he’s turning down an offer of free beverages.
I even went as far as to mumble that I didn’t have any diseases, but who’d trust anyone telling them they don’t have diseases?
After watching me for a while with cat like poise, he asked me why I wasn’t busking. I didn’t really have an answer.
‘You should busk,’ he said.
‘Yeah I should,’ I sighed. Opening one of the latches.
‘You could make some money.’
‘Yeah I could.’ This was the last thing I wanted. I’d just escaped from the scorching scrutiny of a Melbourne cup day publicity stunt, and here I was being challenged on the blue steel chair on platform four.
‘Go on,’ he said. He really wanted me to busk. So I did. I opened the case, and farted around on some chords, until committing to playing Kelly the Deli Girl. Within seconds a taller youth with a cap and an optimistic air had rocked along and thrown twenty cents in. By the end of the song, he’d thrown in twelve Winnie blue’s, saying he was trying to quit.
At the end of the song, the youth was impressed and the young kid grinned at him.
‘I told him to busk,’ he said proudly.
‘Do you want to be my manager?’ I asked, and gave him a dollar fifty to get a drink.
There are business opportunities everywhere.
If you can get the capital from your confidence.
The Bedroom Philosopher CD has just reached aluminium status with 100 sales across Australia. It is now available from Impact (look under comedy) and landspeed (look under rock) for $15 or email bev on [email protected]
AND HOW DID THE GIG GO IN THE END ANYWAY MATE (Y’NOW THE ONE YOU WERE PROMOTING WITH ALL THAT ‘HORSIN’ AROUND’?)
And then I had my CD launch on the Thursday. It was good. I was having fun, until a funny girl popped out of a birthday cake in my tummy and started running around saying ‘ARE WE RUNNING ON TIME? WHY ARE PEOPLE LEAVING? DON’T LET THE NIGHT GO ON TO LATE OR EVERYONE WILL GO HOME AND NO ONE WILL STAY TO WATCH YOU>>>AAAAGH’ she was unpleasant. But I tried to control her with personal mantras and cigarettes.
Nat the magician was excellent. He did a trick where he set a bowl of cigarettes and coffee on fire, then put the lid on, then took it off and made my CD’s appear! Wow it was so magic. The support artists were most excellent. Including Fred Smith who rocked right out. And Bruce my friend did the door the whole night which was truly helpful. He even did a little graph showing the demographics of when people arrived! We got 89 people. And they bought 8 CD’s. I reckon that’s pretty good considering there was the final Kath & Kim and the opening of Matrix to compete with…how poetic…sort of.
I had fun, although I got so worked up I thought I might become totally mentally ill at some point, but I spose that’s what gets the crowds attention. I did a thing where I rolled around on the dancefloor in a breakdancing attempt, then freestyled some lyrics about what I was thinking at the time. It turned into a kind of freeverse poetry theatre experiment and I think people either liked it, or it scared them enough to have to stay.
My songs went well, but as usual the guitar stuffed up early on and I had to use another one. I was unsure of how to end the gig, so after more adlibbing than a Justin Timberlake technical difficulty, I got off the stage and skipped through the crowds singing ‘we’re off to see the wizard..’ and then I got to the door and a girl was standing there with one of my CD’s and she said she was the wizard. I asked her if she knew what happened to my mobile phone and her friend said it was probably in Cashies.
Afterwards, I got horribly negative about everything and felt like crying and wondered why I even bother to go to all this trouble, if I don’t really enjoy it…but then I took off Nan’s ski suit and Tammy told me how good the whole night was and that I was excellent and I felt better. Then we went to the Tradies and drank until a lady was vacuuming around us…whew!
In retrospect dear diary, I’m glad it happened. I always hate being the host of a party, but at least people have a good time.
US comic Sara Schaefer (a person) spoke to The Age about how solitary comedy is:
“A lot of people will say comedy is a family, comedians are family and we have each other’s backs. I’ve always found that to be such a ludicrous statement because comedy is one of the most individualistic artforms. You’re literally up there on stage, it’s just you, you’re your own CEO. Literally, many of us, including me, have our own corporations that we run and we’re president and CEO of them.”
I couldn’t help but think of a Frankie column I wrote in 2009:
“I recently held an annual general meeting in my mind and made a moving speech to myself. I vowed that all these years of self-employed work experience were paying off, and that it was more important than ever to think of my bedroom as an office, and to adopt more stringent nine-to-five hours to my creativity. We decided that the company motto of “sorry” had to go, and that we needed to hold our heads high and ignite a bonfire of pride in our hearts for the ideas farm we’d built from the ground up. The next morning I slept in, fired myself and came home drunk to find my locks changed and an ad up for my position. I reapplied, was promoted CEO and sold the company to pay back the Bank of Mum.”
In March 2003 I set the world record for the longest continuous performance of John Farnham’s ‘You’re The Voice’ outside Flinders Street Station. Is nine hours too much Farnsey or barely enough?
Anyway – I’ve written an article about the affair which includes a scarce recording of my in-depth interview with Sam Kekovich! As well as a few artefacts from the time such as the original press releases and cartoons of me performing at Bardflys at the Friend In Hand in Glebe by various punters.
On March 25, 2003 I set the world record for longest continuous performance of John Farnham’s ‘You’re The Voice.’ It was a stunt to promote my debut show in the Melbourne International Comedy Festival ‘Living on the edge…of my bed.’
How long can we look at each other Down the barrel of a gun?
To say I went all out is an understatement.
I was riding high on my previous dream year in which I’d scored my own weekly songwriting segment on Triple J’s Morning Show. Each Tuesday morning I would sit at home on my sharehouse couch in Belconnen and hear my voice coming through the radio speakers. It was a thrill and a half. With great power came great responsibility. I wasn’t the voice of my generation – but this hard-working, idealistic, witty Christian with an ocean of experience in his backpack took the whole thing very seriously.
I had to Succeed dammit. I had to be a blazing supernova achievement example for all and sundry.
My Melbourne Comedy Festival show came from a dare. My best friend Matt Kelly said “you HAVE to go in the Melbourne Comedy Festival.”
I had my doubts. I saw myself as a musician who happened to be funny. I wasn’t putting comedian on my tax return.
That said, I was impressionable and suggestible and having grown up with TV shows like Double Dare & Who Dares Wins – never one to back down from a challenge.
I decided to go in the Comedy Festival about a week before the deadline. I didn’t even have the $500 registration fee until a mysterious $650 appeared in my account from the ABC.
I remember being in Nan and Pop’s bedroom in Wynyard, Tasmania, nervously ringing the Melbourne Comedy Festival office on a cordless phone. I told them who I was and how I’d been on Triple J a bit and how did I get a show going exactly? They said I’d need a venue – but at this late stage it would be tricky. Fortunately, they’d heard that the Butterfly Club in South Melbourne had a spare time slot at 7. I rang the bloke up. He offered it to me. I took it.
I had a nine show run. I was in. I was Comedy.
Now all I needed was a show (and some jokes). But that’s another story.
Come March I realised there were hundreds of shows in the big smoke and I was some kid from Canberra who’d had a few songs on the radio. At uni, I’d started my own musicians club ‘The Harmonica Lewinski’s.’ I knew a thing or two about self-promotion. I was secretly a bit shy but in the habit of firing up and putting myself out there when it counted.
“You should do a publicity stunt” said Matt (most likely).
As a kid I’d been a fan of the Guinness Book of Records. There were always weird records for longest continuous hair cutting and longest time standing on one leg. I liked the idea of endurance performance.
In 2003 ‘You’re The Voice’ was still pretty daggy and hadn’t been honoured with iconic status in the national consciousness. Everyone was still slightly awkward after saying goodbye to Farnsey on his Last Time tour – only to have him pop back up a couple of years later with more shows.
In terms of promotion I didn’t really know what I was doing but I had a rough idea. Combined with the energy of a 22 year old fame chaser I wasn’t going to let anyone down. I wrote a press release. I bragged. I bluffed. I blew the Melbourne media landscape a big silly kiss.
I might have ordered the Australian Music Industry Directory from APRA to get the email addresses of all the media companies. In my bedroom I rocked out with a keyboard solo.
Melbourne friends tipped me off about Flinders Street Station. I didn’t care for permission or permits – the plan was to rock up with my indoor clothesline, signage, some flyers, my guitar and a generous supply of pineapple juice. I was going to takeover Melbourne, man.
My biggest concern was damaging my voice so close to the opening night of my show. Apparently pineapples held the secrets to longer lasting vocal chords.
Meanwhile, 3AK got back to me! (Y’know, 3AK….now SEN!) I was living in Sydney at the time and did a surreal phone interview at eight in the morning. The day before the stunt both Channel 9 and Channel 7 news rang to say they’d be there to cover it! My crazy lil’ operation seemed to be gathering momentum.
I rocked up to Flinders Street early on Tuesday, March 25. Being a country kid from Tassie, I was still overawed by the highway of people zinging about. All those important looking business types. Real grown-up men in suits.
I was donned in dark grey ski-suit overalls with a yellow ‘happy face’ T-shirt underneath. With the help of my uni friend James I set up my little station. Music stand, indoor clothesline, banners, and a little box sitting on top with flyers for my show.
At 9 o’clock I kicked off. All the hard stuff was out of the way. Now all I had to do was play. The best way to do something mad is barrel on in and do it. I sang for the first hour. I sang for the second hour. I scurried off for a toilet break. I sculled some pineapple juice.
By the third hour I was still relying on the printed lyrics of the song. My brain simply refused to commit them to memory.
Audience response was casual and bemused. My presence didn’t rub anyone up the wrong way. The days most memorable exchanges were with an old lady with crooked teeth who wandered up very close and yelled “ARE YOU CHRISTIAN?”
I nodded.
In the afternoon a girl from the Socialist Alliance with punky hair and scrappy attire got very excited. This was a few years before the song would be adopted as the political catch-cry it obviously is. Years later in 2007 I would help my housemates campaign for the Greens by busting ‘You’re The Voice’ out at the local polling station in Clifton Hill.
One unexpected occurrence was folks slipping money in my flyers box. ‘Ha,’ I thought, ‘they think I’m busking – when actually I’m a promotional mastermind propelling my small business forward.’ Bonus.
We can write what we want to write We gotta make ends meet, before we get much older
Sure enough, a Channel 7 cameraman appeared and captured me in my glory.
My voice was holding up fine. The unforeseen issue was with another part of my body. I didn’t know what RSI was but when I moved my wrist up and down it made a sort of creaking sensation.
In my press release I’d promised (threatened) to play for 12 hours. By 6pm I’d been going for nine hours. Momentum was starting to wane. There wasn’t as much foot traffic. My uni frenemy Toby took over watch. He wasn’t that into it.
“I reckon you’ve done enough,” he said, smirking. “We’re over at the Young & Jackson having drinks.”
Yes well, a chance to return to the normal world. I played the last D chord and ended my stunt at nine hours.
(A record which still stands, by the way).
Every now and then someone mentions they’ve been browsing my bio online and noticed this feat. They usually ask if Guinness were present at all. I tell them no, but I did reach out to them. The record is legitimised by its presence on my Wikipedia page.
They also ask if John Farnham’s people ever got in touch with me. Sadly, (or fortunately), they did not.
That night Channel 7 ran coverage as the odd spot in their bulletin. They said I was promoting the Melbourne Comedy Festival and didn’t mention my show at all.
We’re not gonna sit in silence We’re not gonna live with fear Oh, whoa.
Photo at top and graphic design on PR at bottom by Tammy Winter
Cartoons by punters at Bardflys, Friend In Hand Hotel, Glebe, 2003
Otherwise, all I can tell ya is that next month I’ll be celebrating twenty years since I set the world record for longest performance of John Fanham’s You’re The Voice outside Flinders Street Station in Melbourne! (9 hours).
The next track in my ‘stripped back catalogue’ trilogy In My Day (Nan) – Solo Version is out and about on Bandcamp / YouTube & across streaming platforms and what have you.
