Sydney Punk: Low Life

In the second of a four-part series profiling current Sydney punk bands, MAX EASTON tackles two-thirds of the elusive Low Life – Mitch Tolman and Cristian O’Sullivan; Greg Alfaro wasn’t present – a band whose members “don’t tend to go to many shows, sometimes not even their own.”

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] Cristian leans on the booth and asks if I want a Coopers Pale or a Sparkling. It’s a Tuesday night at The Midnight Special, a small bar in Enmore that Cristian owns and runs. Across from me, Mitch pours another cider over a glass of ice cubes. I decide I’ll save on the extra 0.4 standard drinks per bottle and opt for the Pale. A couple of hours later, Cristian whacks a bottle of tequila on the table with authority, so I guess he had me beat anyway. Cristian sidles in next to Mitch, and I’m looking at two-thirds of Low Life stuffed into a booth that’s four paces from both the bar and the urinal of one of the nicest bars in Newtown. It’s been a while since I’ve seen any iteration of Low Life together, as the current members of Low Life don’t tend to go to many shows – sometimes not even their own.

“You know what’s really good?” Mitch says. “Having someone in the band who has kids. You can get out of shows so easy. No one’s gonna argue when you say Greg’s kid choked on a bit of Lego.”

“Low Life is not a main-focus type of band,” Cristian says. “We’ve all got other things going on.”

“It’s not meant to be a drag. There are so many other things that are miserable and punishing in life.”

“We didn’t speak for three months,” Mitch continues. “But we didn’t have any issues with each other. Greg’s a Dad, Cristian’s got this bar, I have one day off a week: it’s hard to get shit done. It’s supposed to be a recreational thing; it’s not meant to be a drag, you know? There are so many other things that are miserable and punishing in life.”

Low Life has a thematic obsession with the undesirable parts of Sydney that are swept under the carpet. Ferociously ugly scenarios are spat over a mire of groaning guitar and bass, straddling a line between aggressively condemning an aesthetic and, in some way representing it. The songs that have appeared on their self-titled tape and Sydney Darbs 7” are about racists, junkies, pedophiles and hypocrites, and they’re horrifying primarily because they’re delivered with such conviction. Much of the tape in particular reminds me of the suburban youths I grew up with, the cultural subset who seemed to mysteriously appear with tightly fitted white cups, smokes behind the ears and striped polo shirts.

“When I grew up in the early 2000s there were no lads,” Mitch says. “I guess they were there, but I don’t know if ‘lad’ was a thing. Culturally it was always there, but aesthetically the whole vibe just changed. It’s a weird transition that’s obviously a European-influenced thing.”

“But look at this guy,” Cristian says.

We stare at Mitch, who wears a buttoned-up sports polo under a baggy hooded jacket. He laughs.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] “It’s a fine line when you’re taking the piss,” Cristian continues, “until you eventually cross over. If you listen to the tape and think of the whole lad thing, lyrically and musically you can hear the influence, and that’s what I loved about it when I first heard it. It made me laugh, that yeah, it’s taking the piss but, I mean, listen to it. I love that aspect and I think that’s what’s very Australian about it; it’s a beautiful thing.”

The aesthetic of Sydney punk is coated in an unwillingness or inability to get caught up in the burdens of society, an evolution from the energised battle against it that imbues punk’s history. Low Life’s point of difference lies in their sordid character studies and disgusted manifestos, representing a sinister reflection of society’s flaws rather than existential distractions or violent rebellion. While Low Life have occasionally dabbled with the slacker vibe (see online rarity ‘No Ambition’: “Why choose this rubbish life?/What other plans do I have?”), their opinion on bands who limit themselves to that is nothing but antagonistic.

“It’s very stylised here,” Cristian says. “With Sydney bands, using the term punk rock is just absurd at the moment. There’s nothing desperate or fierce.”

“I don’t even know what it is or who would be involved, but nothing’s tough, you know?” Mitch adds. “And nothing is honest. There’s a bit of a stigma to punk especially, where the whole mentality and idea of it is more than what the music is and it’s the element of honesty that bands are missing.”

“I don’t think a bunch of kids with fringes and ironic T-shirts playing Flying Nun songs at the Old Fitz is punk.”

“Yeah, I don’t give a shit what music you want to play, as long as it’s honest,” says Cristian. “We’re obviously the kind of band where it’s hard for us to lie. I have these fat fingers and play what I can, Mitch has that thing where it sounds like he’s plugged into a seagull’s arse, what else do we do? But then you have bands who have listened to Killed by Death once when they were 15 and decide to play in this band, or listen to the Flying Nun catalogue and decide they’ll play in that band. There are lots of creative people who do lots of creative things here, and there’s a very small group of people who play shows together, but if you look at punk rock as a terminology? I’m not convinced that’s really going on. I don’t think that a bunch of kids with fringes and ironic T-shirts playing Flying Nun songs at the Old Fitz is punk.”

“It’s self-entitled shit and it makes me want to snap all their faces in,” Mitch says. “Just the lack of integrity, not the people, the whole idea of it; I fucking hate it.”

In the time since 2011’s Sydney Darbs 7”, Low Life have written and recorded two LPs worth of material that are almost ready for release. Their first record on Negative Guest List was halted last year following the passing of their close friend and label head Brendon Annesley, while the second lies in wait for the one that came before it.

“A lot of time has passed since we did it,” Mitch says. “The good thing about Brendan was that he ran [NGL] like a fascist; he told us exactly when something had to be out. It’s hard now, because the more time you’ve spent on something, the more jaded and detached you get from it.”

“I love how you say ‘The more time you’ve spent on it’ as though we’ve been perfecting it all this time,” Cristian continues. “Brendan’s passing has definitely made Low Life even slacker. He was really good. But it’s not like we’re being perfectionists; we’ve just had a lot on. Greg went to Chile, Mitch was at school, I opened this bar. But the new Low Life Stuff? Oh my god.”

“It’s like it’s been pushed so far that we don’t know what’s actually happening.”

“It’s actually crazy,” Mitch says. “It’s almost like it’s been pushed so far that we don’t know what’s actually happening. I love it. The second album stuff, everything that’s been done has somehow been perfectly executed. The next one will be exactly what Low Life has set out to do from the start.”

“Me and Shogun [from Royal Headache] got wasted here last night when the bar was closed,” Cristian says. “I played him these four songs with a mix that Mitch didn’t approve of and said, ‘Tell me what you think.’ And Shogun’s just losing it. You know that thing he does: he’s storming up and down the length of the bar going, ‘What do you hate about it?’ And I’m complaining about the drums or something and he says, ‘You can’t be like that, just put it out.’ Which is a bit rich coming from him!”

“We want the record to be real high-def and sound real slick,” Mitch says. “But we’re really incompetent, so it ends up being this middle point where we go, ‘Well, that will do.’ At the moment, it’s pretty much a combination of absolutely everything. And I’m interested in seeing if people like it, or just screw up their face and go, ‘That is horrendous.’”

“Realistically, all we need to do is redo Mitch’s vocals and the album is ready,” says Cristian.

“No, no, John [Duncan, who records and engineers Low Life] and I have come to a conclusion,” counters Mitch. “We’re gonna stick with the vocals. John was trying to convince me that it was the best we can do.”

“See, here’s the bit where you get to see who runs shit in this band,” Cristian says to me before looking back at Mitch with sympathy. “We’re not sticking with the vocals. I can guarantee by the way you ate that chocolate sundae after your take, that it was not the best you can do. You can do better. You’re doing a lot better in life now.”

A silence falls over the table and we laugh to cover it. It’s around this time that Cristian fetches the bottle of tequila, and around this time that I switch off the tape recorder.

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Low Life’s sold-out ‘Sydney Darbs’ is still available digitally. Hear a few more songs here and check out their Tumblr, last updated in October 2012.

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