Laneway tributes to rock legends

Bursting through the bricks of the wall is a giant rock god with shoulder length curly hair singing into a microphone. To make the figure more identifiable he is wearing, unlikely for Bon Scott, an AC/DC belt buckle. This new sculpture was unveiled on Tuesday 6 March. It was widely reported around the world due to the popularity of Bon Scott’s band AC/DC; one of the best reports can be found in Stack.

Makatron, Bon Scott

Why is a twice life-size, Bon Scott should be breaking out of brick wall? Why has he got cracks in him? Why Bon Scott? when there are two aerosol tributes on the opposite wall to AC/DC’s recently deceased guitarist, Malcolm Young. We may never know the answers because I don’t think that anyone has thought beyond ‘cool idea’.

Makatron’s base relief sculpture of Bon Scott in AC/DC Lane is the Melbourne’s first commissioned public sculpture from a street artist. It might be Makatron’s first public sculpture too, as he is more famous for his 2D aerosol murals than 3D work. It is not the first sculpture of Bon Scott; there is one by Greg James standing on an amp shaped plinth at the Fremantle Fishing Boat Harbour in WA, and another holding bagpipes in Scott’s hometown of Kirriemuir in Scotland. None of these sculptures are particularly tasteful, none are nuanced nor deep but then, neither was Bon Scott.

There is plenty of good, even tasteful, intelligent and nuanced street art to see in AC/DC Lane and more was being added when I visited. Makatron is not the first street artist to install a sculptor in Melbourne; there are plenty of un-commissioned examples some can be seen my series on street art sculptures.

Lush, Malcolm Young tribute (not to be implied that I am endorsing Lush’s work as tasteful)

 

There is another Melbourne laneway tribute to a rock singer with Amphlett Lane off Little Bourke St, near Spring Street. The school uniform hanging up is a tasteful tribute to Chrissy Amphlett of the Divinyls; the stack of road-case using the door from the buildings sprinkler-booster box.  Amphlett’s stage costume of a girl’s school uniform was inspired by Angus Young’s stage costume of a boy’s school uniform.

unknown, Chrissy Amphlett tribute

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Rock Chicks @ The Arts Centre

Not a performance but an exhibition that spans a century of Australian female music performers. Although it spans a century, the first fifty years are over in an introduction and the story really starts in the 1960s with rock’n’roll.

The exhibition can be read as a history of Australian popular music with a focus on female performers. It is an exhibition of ephemeral fashion captured in countless band photographs and album sleaves; the length of hair or dresses along with the music style. There are mannequins displaying rock chic fashion; from the crocheted red dress that screams 1971 of Margaret RoadKnight to the Gallery Serpentine designed red tartan bodice and black tutu worn by Nitrocris’s Moragana Ancone.

It could also be read as documentation of sexual politics in Australian popular music. There is the politics of band structures from chanteuse, to girl bands, to rock chicks playing in mixed gender bands. What were the acceptable instruments for a woman to play – from Judith Durham’s tambourine to the grungy guitars of contemporary rock chicks? There is the representation of sexual politics in popular music and the politics of the gender image for a woman/girl performer. It is an exhibition that exposes the complexities of these gender issues rather than simplifying them. Chrissy Amphlett’s schoolgirl tunic and stockings are confusing enough without the promotional panties from Rebecca’s Empire.

I found myself interested in the fertility of rock’n’roll as a platform that allows the performers to contribute creatively to more than just the music and lyrics, for example the collaborative collages that Beaches make preparing for album covers. And that rock allows some performers to spring board into other creative work, e.g. Sara Graye from Nitocris now has a fashion label, 50ft Queenie. Obviously amateur creative work is also displayed like, Girl Monster’s decorated make up case and painted bass drum face. Or, Deborah Conway’s needlework which is good enough to make a stage costume; up close it looks a bit lumpy.

Some of the Rock Chicks posters

There is a lot to see in this exhibition however you want to read it. It is so packed with rock chick memorabilia that it continues with an exhibition of rock posters around the side of the Arts Centre.

There were just guys in the bands that I was in but my friend, Jamie Saxe, formerly of the Ergot Derivative, says that women make better drummers than men. So lets hear it for the rock chicks.