This weekend we had to say goodbye to an old friend. Like most of Melbourne I was shocked on Thursday to read that The Tote hotel would be closing its doors for the last time. Publican Bruce Milne put out a press release stating he could no longer afford to operate under the new liquor licensing requirements, nor could he afford the legal costs to contest these conditions. The Tote has been classified as a 'high risk' venue along with busy city nightclubs. Which is complete crap, because no one ever went to The Tote for any purpose other than to see some bands, hang out with like-minded people and soak up the atmosphere. There's a very comprehensive interview with Bruce on Mess+Noise in which he articulately lays out all the problems faced by The Tote, so I won't cover that here again. Instead I want to tell you some of my memories of The Tote.
I began learning guitar when I was 16 at Rock 'n' Roll High School on Easey St. in Collingwood. Only a couple of blocks away, The Tote was like home ground for us, hosting any number of RnRHS nights, giving many of us our first chance to play at a real venue. I first played there in 1999 with my first band Altered. Sure I was underage at the time, but my parents came along, so it was all cool. We were supporting our friends Matramuta for a gig celebrating their drummer Bridget's birthday. They were the coolest people I knew, and The Tote was the coolest place I'd ever been. We even got reviewed in Beat!
16 year old me.
Altered on stage at The Tote.
Matramuta.
Matramuta on stage at The Tote.Rock n Roll High closed down a year or two after that, but The Tote remained our spiritual home ground. Almost every time I've been there I've run into members of Matramuta, Tuff Muff, Hecate/Litany, Tirany, Aspasia, Resistica and more. Even the odd member of Altered on some nights.
Throughout the years The Tote remained the coolest place I've ever been to. I've seen so many of my favourite bands there including True Radical Miracle, Mach Pelican, Baseball, The Assassination Collective, Bird Blobs, theredsunband, Jihad Against America, Crayon Fields, The Mad Feeling, The Toot Toot Toots, Ouch My Face, Grey Daturas and so many more that I've forgotten due to the mists of time and/or drinking too much. I've seen and done all sorts of crazy things in the front bar from building pyramids out of the glasses of stockpiled drinks bought in the last minutes of 'crusty hour', to people dancing on the pool table, to dogs hiding under it on quiet afternoons, to Tim Rogers face-planting off the couch while too drunk to stand, to always having an unexpected friend to run into.
A few years and a few bands later I played my first ever headline show at The Tote. I was in a band called Sinatra's Eyes and it was the biggest gig we'd done to date. Friday night headline at The Tote. Awesome. It was the first time we were ever called back for an encore too. Having played all our polished songs in the main set we came back on with a new song that none of us knew very well yet. Needless to say it was a glorious mess, but no-one cared. Much like The Tote itself.
The last time I played The Tote is still one of my favourite gigs ever. It was with Sinatra's Eyes again, in what turned out to be one of our final gigs (we didn't know that at the time, but we broke up a few gigs later). It was Australia Day eve, we'd recently released an EP and just got back from our first trip interstate, there was a party mood throughout the venue and we were supporting The Five Venoms, who were always a shitload of fun. It was the first time I ever fell off a stage while playing, but it's also the most fun I've ever had.
On the speaker stack, right before I jumped.
Landed on my ass, but at least I finished the song.
I went down to The Tote on Friday hoping to see the last ever Grey Daturas gig. But word had gotten around about the impending closure and by the time I arrived the gig had sold out. So instead I joined the hundreds of people in the front bar and squashed in for a beer with friends (fittingly this included members of Matramuta, Resistica and The Mad Feeling).On Sunday I went down hoping to get in but there were even more people, so instead I joined the street party/liquor license protest out in the street. I took a few photos while I was there:
The line at 5pm
Bruce Speaks.Monday night was last drinks at The Tote. I was lucky enough to get a ticket and headed down in the early afternoon to say goodbye to my favourite pub. An amazing lineup of bands representing The Tote's history was put together at the last minute by band booker Amanda Palmer and the night was equal parts awesome and terrible. So many great performances to celebrate The Tote and remind us why it was amazing, and so hard to believe it's gone. I only have one good arm at the moment (I fractured my shoulder on Christmas day), and I was drinking, and I only had a phone camera to take pictures with, so excuse the poor quality of some of these shots, but I was determined to capture and share as much of The Tote's final hours as I could.
Bathroom wall graffiti.
Kamikaze Trio. (Well, part of.)
Lineup. (Amended at the last minute due to an injury in The Cosmic Psychos. Spiderbait stepped in).
Bombshells.
Rain in the beer garden.
Dave Graney & The Lurid Yellow Mist.
The Nation Blue.
Dan Kelly's Dream Band.
Note on the window.
Onyas. (Now that's a man gut!)
Crowd photo 1.
Legends of Motorsport.
Beaches have a lovely collection of guitars...
and pedals.
Lance from Gembrook tells us some stories of his days working at The Tote, including the 'Taste of Lance'.
Digger & The Pussycats are two funny guys.
Spencer P. Jones joins Digger & The Pussycats for the chorus of 'You Drive Like a Cunt".
Bruce.
Bruce & Amanda.
The Stabs.
Stabs guitar in the roof of the Cobra Bar.
Down the stairs.
Precious Jules (aka Kim Salmon).
Punters in the front bar. The carpet has always been sticky, but by this stage it was hard to pull your feet up off it.
The famous jukebox.
Tote sling.
The Meanies.
Spiderbait (2/3rds of anyway.)
Crowd photo 2 + Can Bar.
The Drones.
The Drones are joined by Joel Silbersher (GOD, Hoss) for a rendition of "My Pal", the final song ever played at The Tote.
Crowd Shot 3.
An empty stage.
Meanwhile in the front bar someone programed in an hour of Slayer.
The bar.
Bar Staff say goodbye.
The history.
Final drink at The Tote.
Goodbye my friend.
Postscript: the combined RRR/3CR/PBS broadcast of The Tote's final hours can be found in the 3RRR archives. A video and fantastic article about the significance of My Pal as the last song can be found here. And as if things weren't bad enough, The Arthouse (the first pub I ever played a gig at, a month or two before I played The Tote) has now announced that it will close it's doors next year for much the same reasons. Head on over to Tonedeaf and sign the petition on behalf of Fair Go 4 Live Music so we can stop this before it gets any worse!
