A steady brood of punk tragic birds of a feather flocked together at Roma Street Parklands on 25th, October, the Punters revelled in the Zed50, fifty years of 4ZZZ Radio celebrations, under the watchful eye of the park’s many resident Bin Chickens. The event featured some of the station’s classic stalwarts and fresh new acts, each reflecting the ethos of the brightest neon light in Australian community radio. One act on the bill I consider to be the most punkest experience I have ever seen is the Sydney duo Party Dozen.
Kirsty Tickle (saxophone and vox) and Jonathan Boulete (drums) of Party Dozen roll around the world in a lightly packed configuration with sax, boiler suits, and these driving dirty beats. They don’t need no stinking strings to cause their own brand of chaos! Despite such minimalist approach, this pumped-up duo hit like a full strength caffeinated punk orchestra, emitting enough oomph to make you party well over twelve times harder than any other band.
I have badgered the duo pre-set at Roma Street, even coat-hangering in some special guests during the interview to discuss several of the most heinous Crimes in Australia.
Kirsty: Heyyy! Hell yeah I get that, that’s a good pun!
Jon: Hi!
1. Straight out the gates with your new track Mad Rooter, who are the top tier Mad Rooters in Aus music? When I say, Mad Rooter I don’t mean it as a vulgarity of sexual prowess, I mean in an Aussie term of endearment: Who are the sickest cunts out there!?
Kirsty: Gareth Liddiard is a Mad Rooter.
Jon: I reckon Warren is a Mad Rooter as well, Warren Ellis.
Kirsty: Kate Dillon from Full Flower Moon Band is a mad rooter.
OB: AYYY! She is the maddest Mad Rooter!
Jon: Who else? There are a lot… There are so many, too many to list.
Kirsty: So many, so, so many.
(Kirsty’s husband John-Henry Pajak from Polish Club joins in the conversation)
John-Henry: Me? What about me?
Jon: Hey… you? Yeah, alright. John-Henry is a bit of a Mad Rooter.
(Fist pumps and big smiles from John-Henry!)
2. The Coup De Gronk film clip is my favourite Guy Ritchie movie of all time. When do we get a Netflix mini-series for the back story on this?
Kirsty: Ha-ha-ha-ha!
Jon: Ha-ha! Yeah.
John-Henry: Guy De Ritchie!
OB: Guy De Ritchie! Ha-Ha! John-Henry is laying down the puns this time. (John-Henry refers to me as the puns guy based on our Polish Club interview)
Kirsty: That would be ahhh… that would be sick! We’d love to score that.
Jon: We would one hundred percent do that, but once you start talking about the budget of what these films and stuff cost, it’s so much easier to make our dumb music than it is to make these dumb films.
Kirsty: It‘s true.
OB: It’s not dumb music! And the Coup De Gronk film clip draws up Beastie Boys – Sabotage film clip infamy. It’s extraordinary!
Jon: Oh wow!
Kirsty: We actually made that with a couple of people in Sydney, they are called Verses, and they are awesome. Verses are Tania and Jason; they are Mad Rooters!
Jon: Yeah, yeah, they are Mad Rooters, Verses.
OB: Shout outs to Verses in Sydney.
3. Kirsty’s originally from Toowoomba, a place that gave the world the likes of Weiss Bars and Lamingtons. Jono is a Sydney boy. What can Sydney say that they’ve made which rivals that level of cultural iconism? And would you be trading this at Jon’s International Marketplace?
Kirsty (regarding the Lamington): Allegedly…
Jon: Is that true?
Kirsty: Apparently!
John-Henry: Prove it!
OB: Jono, what can Sydney offer?
Jon (sarcastically): I don’t think there is much there.
Kirsty: Wait though, he actually grew up in Glenrowan, home of the famous Ned Kelly shootout.
Jon: True, that’s where they caught him. There’s like a two storey tall statue of Ned Kelly there. My primary school was around the corner from that. We used to pray to his statue every day.
OB: I took my very young sons (at the time) on the tour there. When we came home we watched the Health Ledger Ned Kelly movie and it traumatised them!
Kirsty: Ha-ha-ha!
Jon: Yeah, that doesn’t seem like a good kids movie! Start them young, I guess.
OB: Well, what things would be sold at Jon’s International Market in Glenrowan?
Jon: Hmmm… old Tupperware, drugs, like expired drugs…
Kirsty: He is talking about pharmaceuticals.
Jon: And illicit!
OB: Track three is Money and the Drugs?
Kirsty: Ha-ha!
Jon: Anything that you don’t think you need, but might, it’s going to be there.
OB: Like odd socks, bottle caps, out of date software, that kind of stuff?
Jon: Yeah. It’s like a universal shop, and everything is in there, but I am the only one that knows where it all is.
Kirsty: It’s like a shit shop.
Jon: It’s a Shit Shack.
Kirsty: A SHIT SHACK! That’s good.
4. Talking about all things QLD, 4ZZZ is such a tastemaker for punk culture. Who are you most pumped to see play today? And what does community radio mean to you?
Kirsty: I am most pumped to see The Saints because I’ve never seen The Saints before (for context Kirsty is wearing a The Saints t-shirt). I’ve actually played some gigs with Ed Kueper when I was a young lass, during my Brisbane years. But he would definitely not remember that. I am really excited to play today and to see The Saints play.
Jon: Yeah, that’s… the same. 4ZZZ in Brisbane only 50 years later! It’s the real cherry on the cake. Both of them 4ZZZ and The Saints kind of emerged around the same time with each other. It fuelled punk rock in Australia, in the world maybe, so it’s pretty special.
OB: I have got goosebumps just from hearing you both say that. This is the strength of community radio.
Kirsty: We looooove community radio, we don’t get the same level of support from non-community radio and we are very ok with that, because community radio is so much better. It’s the lifeblood of all of our music scenes. It is so interesting that the programming is just sooo good. And yeah, where would we be without it?
5. If we could have a combination of the Sydney rock holy trinity of: Arse, Polish Club, and Party Dozen, what would the name of this collective be? And what song would you cover to capture the essence of it?
John-Henry: We are not in that scene. We are not allowed… (Kirsty laughs). Every interview I always say ‘My favourite band in the world is Party Dozen, it’s so cool’. And they never say that theirs is Polish Club! So, how is this ever going to work?!
Kirsty: I think I just lost some wife points ha-ha-ha!
John-Henry: You could call it, ahhh Polish Arse Dozen?
Jon: Polish Arse Party?
John-Henry: Yeah, Polish Arse Party!
Kirsty: The P-A-P’s! PAPS.
John-Henry: The P.A.P Smears.
Kirsty: The P.A.P Smears! That’s a good one. (There was much discussion between the group on this name)
OB: And what song would a good cover song for this band be to perform?
Jon: It would be like two separate songs, mashed up together
John-Henry: Like that song Who Farted. Do you know that song? (He sings in a character voice: “WHOOOO FAAARTED!”)
(Note: At this stage Simon Ridley from DZ Deathrays is present in the group, and shares admiration for John-Henry’s song choice. Research tells me this maybe the 1995 song by The Vaughans – Who Farted.)
Simon: Classic song! Who Farted! Ha-ha. Yeah ha-ha!
Jon: All mashed up with another song though.
OB: I was also thinking the band name The Mad Rooters would be a good name?
John-Henry: The name we came up with was pretty good, with all the bands as a combined acronym. The P.A.P Smears.
Kirsty: The P.A.P smears. Yep.
John-Henry: Jono and The P.A.P Smears.
Kirsty: What? NO! Kirsty and The P.A.P Smears. Ha-ha-ha! (all laughing)
John-Henry: We gotta do it!
OB: Well, that’s it! Thank you so much, that was so much fun, and good luck on another European tour starting next week. I better let you set up and line check for your set.
Kirsty: Thank you so much!
Jon: Thank you!
After a ripping set from Party Dozen, I watched punk history unfold before me as The Saints put that Big Fat Cherry Finale Jono spoke about earlier on the birthday cake of the ZED50 celebration, belting out the unofficial theme song of Brisbane: Stranded. I shared this premium moment next to my personal hero David James Young, with Kirsty a row behind me. I could see an elated Jono watching from the side of the stage. The money shot happened when Kaleb Collings from Bubblegum Haircut crowd surfed (with his arm in a sling and above a concrete surface) as he was supported by every punk in Brisbane, as if to say in unison: “We’ve got another fifty years ahead of us together”.
Fifty cheers for 4ZZZ, and thank you for being everything in our community!
I’d like to thank Branko Cosic (4ZZZ superstar, Tape//Off and Total Pace member) for taking the photo of me with Party Dozen for the article. I’d los like to thank both Lachlan Niel (@lnielpics) and FFO Zine (@ffozine) for all the action shots.
If you missed out on the Zed50 party that was all parties with Party Dozen, you can catch them at the Fortitude Valley Music Hall supporting King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard on 7th of December.
You can listen to more Party Dozen below: