Noise Notes — On Tour with Phlegm and the Mu-Mesons in 1994
In 1995 I was part of an art collective in inner-city Sydney. We published a fanzine called Gar Gah Gag. In the second volume of it (we created three) was my disjointed recollections of spending a week in Melbourne in 1994 on tour with noise gods Phlegm and the Mu-Mesons. Both bands challenged everything I had thought up to the time about what is music.
The Mu-Mesons were an avant garde performance group that brought the concept of free expression to new levels for Australian audiences. I saw them perform many times in the early to mid-1990s. You can get some idea of what they were like from the documentary “Love and Anarchy — The Wild Wild World Of Jaimie Leonarder”.
Phlegm were a more refined musical force, but one that relied on intense sonic immersion of anyone who witnessed them. Back in the early 90s in Sydney, Australia there was a relatively small but very active noise scene (the Dual Plover label emerged out of the same scene), centred on a group of musicians who put on gigs in various pubs and clubs in the more run down parts of town (I remember a pub in Ultimo, the AJA Journos Club near Central Station, and a bar in Kings Cross that was or may have be a strip joint, as well as many shows at the Harbourside Brasserie). A leading light in this scene was the band Phlegm.
Phlegm was made up of Oren Ambarchi, Robbie Avenaim and Nik Kamvissis, who stunned us all with their DaDa noise intensity and brilliant improvisations. Ambarchi and Avenaim started the ‘What is Music Festival’, which “was established in 1994 and is now the largest festival of its kind in Australia and is among the largest in the world. It presents over 100 Australian musicians alongside and in collaboration with prominent international artists in a variety of venues throughout the Sydney and Melbourne.” Ambarchi said in an interview in 2004 that they wanted to present:
“really high-brow and low-brow stuff.…We didn’t really differentiate…we just threw them together. In the beginning there was more of a [pressing] reason because there were so few gigs in Sydney for experimental artists…We were interested in digging people out of the woodwork…presenting work that was really important but that no one knew about.”
Phlegm released 3 albums (Mr Hoo-ha… Poppin and Milking in 1997 and a live album in 1995) and 2 singles, one of which is a split with the mighty Mu-Mesons. Oren Ambarchi has gone on since then to becoming an international figure in avant garde music. There is a stream (no pun intended) of Mr Hoo Ha Visits the Non-Stop Pissing Circus, released in 1994 on Dr Jim’s Records here: https://youtu.be/ka49K-PozuQ
Below is a scan of the fanzine article about the week I spent with both the Mu-Mesons and Phlegm on the road in 1994. The adventure began in Sydney, meeting at the Mu-Mesons archive, getting in the bus, then driving around to find the members of the Mesons. We then hit the road to Melbourne, stopping for food, puff and petrol, and any UFO activity we detected (happened twice). The following week was an experience I will never forget.
