Guy Blackman<PREV
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SULK live '93 Arts House Gallery
(Perth) for the opening of Caroline Hadwin's work "Psyche's
Circus." L-R: Bernard Langham, Graham Hope & Guy Blackman.
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PIG: What's the new O! cassette going to be like?
GUY: It's going to be about six or eight tracks and it's called
Scared of scary.
PIG: You appeared in the legendary zine Harvey as Syd Barrett,
how did they get you to sit there with a grumpy look on your face?
GUY: They just told me to look drugged out, and I did the best
I could.
PIG: Did you get any feedback from that?
GUY: Yeah a lot of people laughed at it, admittedly I looked like
a loser.
PIG: You look like a loser now though.
GUY: Yeah but I only look like a loser to a few people at a time
when I'm doing this sort of thing but when I'm in a magazine I look like
a loser to about three hundred people all at once.
PIG: It could be worse you could be on the cover looking like the
girl from Frente in the nude. You weren't asked to do that one?
GUY: I was asked but I denied, I thought it would be sinking a
bit low, but Danny Rogero has no scruples, he's just in it for the money
and the fame.
PIG: There was no money involved, has he gotten any fame out of
it?
GUY: Yes, fame beyond his wildest dreams.
PIG: What did you have for breakfast Guy?
GUY: Honey O's.
PIG: Did you see that report that a lot of breakfast cereals aimed
at kids have tons more sugar than they claim they do?
GUY: No.
BEC: Nutra Grain has the most sugar.
PIG: Do you know about honey O's?
GUY: Honey O's are really good because you get a free bee tattoo
inside each pack.
PIG: Can you show me your bee tattoo.
GUY: No because it didn't work, Gayle got it but it didn't work.
PIG: I'll have to go and see Gayle's bee tattoo, where did she
put it?
GUY: On her B-side.
PIG: That's a terrible joke Guy.
GUY: Right up my alley I'm afraid.
PIG: How many years did you do Steregoround?
GUY: I did it for three and a half years, a large part of my life.
Once a week for three and a half years averages out to about 300 shows
(182 actually - Ed).
PIG: Did you get any weird mail?
GUY: People used to send their undies in with letters written on
their underpants.
PIG: Did they have any good skid marks on them?
GUY: No, not that reading skid marks is all that great.
PIG: Do you have enough folic acid in your diet?
GUY: Is that the stuff you get from the lettuces?
PIG: Yes.
GUY: I had lettuce with my spinach souffle tonight, so I think
the answer to that would have to be yes.
PIG: I read a question in a zine that asked, "have you ever
had your head in a microwave?"
GUY: No.
PIG: Would you ever want to put your head in a microwave?
GUY: It depends on what sort of microwave it was.
PIG: Have you got a microwave?
GUY: Yes we do actually, it sits on top of our fridge and Gayle
puts all her wooden animals on top of it and when I close the fridge door
all the animals fall off the microwave because the fridge shakes.
PIG: Then you get tired of putting them up again, walk away and
she comes in and complains, is that right?
GUY: Yes.
PIG: I know what it's like, I put all my wooden animals on top
of my toilet and Belinda flushes it and they all fall in.
GUY: Well I think you should just deal with it Nick, find the problem
at it's roots and just rip it out. There are things within this world
which have to be done.
PIG: What is the most important thing in the world to you?
GUY: Um..Er..Um.. Nothing, I don't know.
PIG: Tell me about the history of Sulk.
GUY: Sulk first started out as a band with me and Damien Hutton
and Gordon Cairns from Jelly Head and Garden Gnomes (Now Steve - Ed) in
it. I had written one song, the first song I ever wrote was called "Maybe
love will come my way today" which was a rip off of "Heavenly
pop hit" by the Chills and I went to Hutt St where Damien and Gordon
lived and we did this one song on a tape recorder and did eight tracks
of it. Damien's girlfriend, Kylie was going on about how Damien was such
a sulk, and I said that's a good name for the band Sulk. It was at that
time of the four letter band name thing, it was kind of a parody of the
four letter word bands, because most of them were atmospheric.
PIG: It's funny but none of the four letter bands were ever called
Fuck, Shit or Dick.
GUY: None of the four letter bands are called Geronemo either.
PIG: But Geronemo hasn't got four letters in it.
GUY: Yeah maybe. Then Sulk turned into a band with me, Barbara
and Stuart who used to do Steregoround and Connor Cairns (also of Steve
& Stump Mittens - Ed) on base, I used to play keyboards and sing and
play a little bit of guitar in the second line up of Sulk, Stuart played
guitar and Jamie Hamilton who was in Wash and Benji (now in Steve) played
drums for one jam, but we only had a few jams. We didn't really do anything
and then there was a hiatus (which is a big word for a gap). I was doing
a Sonic Youth tribute tape thing and I wanted to do a Sonic Youth song
myself so I got together with Bernard Langham and we formed a band called
Sulk, he played violin and I played guitar, keyboards and recorder. We
recorded a version of Kissability by Sonic Youth. Vivien then joined the
band then Graham Hope who's in Bob's Lovechild and used to be in the Summer
Suns also joined, but he left after the second gig and so we turned into
a three piece and we've been going strong ever since.
PIG: What do you plan to do?
GUY: We want to record some of my wonderful songs soon at a studio
and put out a tape. We're going to have a picture of Gayle's mother on
the cover of the tape because it's a great picture of her from the sixties
and she looks like a sixties pop starlet.
PIG: Is she still a sixties pop starlet?
GUY: No she's a nineties divorced housewife. Gayle is actually
in Sulk now, she sings and plays the melodica, which is one of those little
keyboard things you blow into so she's the special forth member of Sulk
now.
PIG: Going back to the Sonic Youth tribute tape, you actually met
a member of Sonic Youth didn't you?
GUY: I met all the members of Sonic Youth but only one of them
was friendly to me, Steve Shelley was the one that I talked to and he
was really nice and he gave me a record from his record label. He was
kind of like Michael.J.Fox, whereas Lee Ranaldo was like Danny Devito,
Kim Gordon was just kind of polite and Thurston Moore was just cold, and
a bit too tall for my liking.
PIG: And he didn't want to listen to your tape?
GUY: No he didn't have much interest in it.
PIG: Did you actually give them a copy?
GUY: No I was meant to send them some copies but I couldn't be
bothered.
PIG: Get Stuffed Guy.
GUY: Suck my WAMI Nick (wishful thinking - Ed).
You can contact Guy at PO Box 4292, Melbourne University, Parkville, Vic. 3052