1.Your Profile
I’m a tall, leggy blonde with prominent collarbones and large feet. My friends say I’m pretty in a David-Lynch-does-daytime-TV kinda way. The Commission Flats are a dapper crew of gorgeous, talented musicians whom I have the pleasure of calling my bandmates. They are, in no particular order, Oskar, Gemma, Lia, Richard and Martin.
2.Keeping Busy
For the last year we’ve been gigging. Unremittingly, unrelentingly, under the influence and unashamedly unrehearsed. This routine finetunes our live show and keeps us thin. We’ve been riding on an EP, Tall Stories, which we released in October last year but work has begun on a full ten-track album, due to be released in late August/early September. We’ve always been a working band so the idea of spending some real time in a real studio is both exciting and terrifying.
3.Best Gig Ever
The other week we played a show out in deepest, darkest suburbia. There were pokie machines on the stage and the video jukebox kept trying to collaborate with us. The crowd were mainly pensioners. Nine of them, all up. A group of dishevelled tradies were playing pool behind us in their hi-vis and offering up observations like “Fuckin’ pooftas” and “Turn it down, c**t!” The television was playing slow motion footage of a train crash. Not exactly Wembley but there was so little reason to care we played one of our best sets musically. Lesson learned; narcissism weighs you down. Let go of your vanity and you’ll take off, warts and all, straight through the plasterboard ceiling and out into the stratosphere, leaving your warm half-pint of Carlton Draught to soak into the shitty RSL carpet.
4.Current Playlist
I’ve been listening to a lot of sappy country music. I can’t help it; it’s like cheesecake for my ears. I’ve also rediscovered Jason Molina’s solo albums, particularly Magnolia Electric Co. Many of us live together and around the house we’ve been listening to I See Seaweed by The Drones at least once a day.
5.Your Ultimate Rider
Grog and plenty of it. Bottom shelf if possible. And a big, gentle woman in a soft dress to hold my head in her lap the following morning, combing my hair back and whispering in smoky, dulcet tones, “Shhhh, everything will be OK, go back to sleep now, shhhhhh.”
Skyscraper Stan And The Commission Flats are playing at Frankie’s Pizza on Sunday April 27 as a part of Southern Smoked Swillfest.
