Farewell To The Chief: Tribute To Ballarat Icon Paddy-O

NICK ARGYRIOU pays tribute to the larger-than-life figure of Ballarat’s music scene, Patrick John O'Driscoll, who passed away suddenly on September 10, aged 39.

A Ballarat music icon departed the physical earth recently, but his spirit will live on throughout a country town whose musical culture he was integral in shaping. Patrick John O'Driscoll’s funeral at Ballarat’s St Patrick’s Cathedral on Saturday (September 17) was a sombre affair, with mourners still coming to terms with the sudden passing of the man they called “Paddy-O”.

Splitting his time between Ireland and Australia, Paddy-O settled in Ballarat in the mid-‘80s where he attended St Patrick’s College as a teenager. He had a band called The Mocking Birds who had a crack on the Melbourne scene throughout the late-’80s and ’90s, and as a talented artist he was accepted into RMIT Melbourne as a painting student.

Paddy-O was a doyen of Ballarat’s live music space. He spent his formative years in the ’90s as band booker and bar manager of Ballarat’s own version of The Punters Club or The Tote: The Bridge Mall Inn, or the “Bridgey” or “The Rat” as it was known.

Paddy-O sculpted the Bridgey’s reputation locally and with Melbourne folk, as well as championing the careers of Ballarat bands including The Fat Thing, The Boxing Tostados, Damaged, Clowns of Decadence, Pat McCabe, The Dead Salesmen, The Mavis’s, Immaculata, Epicure and The Rye Catchers. Melbourne-based musicians headed up the Western Highway with regularity every weekend. Glenn Richards and his Augie March cohorts built their brand at the Bridgey in the mid- to late-’90s, while Something For Kate, Crow, Jebediah and Matt Walker and Ashley Davies did solid time there, too. Of the offshore contingent, New Zealand’s The Datsuns made getting shitfaced and scaling the bar to rip out riffs an art form. “Blood in your undies type stuff,” as Paddy-O would always remark.

The Bridgey, which closed up shop in 2003 was never just a gig venue, it was the gig venue in Ballarat. Paddy-O was absorbed in its cigarette-stained, booze-soaked walls. It was a place where you’d find him on the door, or on both sides of the bar, working alongside lifetime mate and the man who delivered Paddy-O’s poignant eulogy, Chris Ruddick (The Rye Catchers), or leaning at the bar shootin’ the shit with “Old Eddie” or “Garth the Goth”, metal-heads, the Ballarat Uni brigade, a young muso looking for an answer, an old muso reminiscing, an out-of-towner, a backpacker looking for a room upstairs, a city slicker, and probably yourself at one point or another.

“He probably would’ve convinced the Angel of Death to play a Thursday night acoustic set at The Mallow.”

Ballarat is a vibrant musical culture now, having developed steadily through the ’80s, ’90s and into the 2000s due, in large part, to the impact, guidance and foresight of Paddy-O. He knew when to spot a hidden talent, or when to give a young Ballarat kid a go. Bands the likes of Matheson, Yard Apes, Hunting Grounds (ex-Howl), Sex Face, Wintercoats, Yacht Club DJs and Gold Fields are testament to this.

Post-Bridgey days, Paddy-O opened and managed the Karova Lounge in 2004, was a part-owner of Grainery Lane and had taken over The Mallow before leaving his post recently to concentrate on life after clubs, his battle with asthma and spending quality time with his childhood sweetheart Eliza. He died in his sleep which is unfortunate because the joker in him would’ve surely fired off a few parting barbs to the reaper about life and death. He probably would’ve convinced the Angel of Death to play a Thursday night acoustic set at The Mallow.

A patchwork of Paddy-O’s favourite tunes blasted out the church as his casket left the grounds: ‘Streams Of Whiskey’ by The Pogues lead us into the chorus of The Waterboys’ ‘Fisherman’s Blues’, ‘All I Want Is You’ by U2 and The Flaming Lips’ ‘Do You Realize??’ Shots of Jameson were served at the gravesite in salute. Every town and city needs these bodhisattva figures. Treasure their worth.

Farewell to the chief.

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Patrick John O'Driscoll is survived by his wife Eliza, parents Peter and Breda and his siblings Theresa, Eilin, Sean Donal and Diarmaid.