We’d planned to speak to Pedro at a better location, but George was horrendously drunk and equally dressed, making it hard to get in to anywhere for a trendy interview with one of this city’s trendy photographers.

Pedro is giving his ‘coffee’ the evil eye, waiting for it to flinch, while George harasses the waitress, demanding a dozen eggs and some milk.

It’s getting weird.

“So…” I interrupt “what kind of stuff are you working on at the moment?” it’s a stupid question, but Pedro is too distracted by his awful coffee.

He’s a fuzzy looking indie kid, immaculately dressed, with a gray cardigan hanging off one shoulder and a big, fucking camera hanging from the other – I’m so jealous of his edginess that I’m actually starting to hate him.

“This is possibly the worst coffee I’ve ever had. I’ve drunk from better looking gutters” Pedro is looking a little unsteady, the tattoo on his shutter finger shaking as he holds his ugly mug of piss.

At first, I take him to be a douche bag, another fashion wanker complaining about everything, but then I take a sip. I can’t actually remember the last time I had a coffee this bad. It’s terrible, like weak kava and foam… I suddenly lose all interest in Pedro’s photographic career and we discuss the awfulness of this shitty coffee for the next ten minutes.

At that point, George began to scream about his still-absent eggs and milk. Kicking his legs about like a misbehaving child, knocking utensils about and upsetting the late-night clientèle.

Pedro leans over the table and mutters “If you pay for this coffee, you’re a fucking idiot.”

So… we ran out of the restaurant and across Circular Quay, George’s angry yawping booming in the background.

…

Long story short?
The cafe folk called the police, George had to do a lot of running that night, Pedro and I got drunk.

Fuck interviews, here’s some of his work:

…

We missed the first band due to a nasty case of the drunks, but we caught the second band fellating the audience with their constant barrage of insincere compliments:

“You guys are great”
“Woo – you guys are hot”
“Yeah, we’re digging you guys”
“You guys are so great”
“Yeah guys, woo!”
“You guys are awesome”

A compliment or two does wonders for the ego, but a flood of fucking flattery just comes across as creepy. Like the overly-eager douche-bag that always seems to be at university parties, sucking-up to strangers and telling you about the bands he’s met.

…

Art Vs Science were the same band we saw play the same gig a few months back, playing mostly the same songs – but they were better in every fucking way. They were bigger, louder, smoother, more experimental and better dressed.

There’s been a lot of typical, tall-poppy bandwagon band-bagging when it comes to these guys… which I’m assuming is the collective moan of a thousand jaded musicians, but their gigs are fucking amazing.

They play original songs, but the crowd sings along as though it’s a covers band. They play shiny instruments, yet the crowd dances frantically as though it’s a DJ night. These guys have taken every bit of corroded brilliance from the Sydney scene and welded it together to form a shiny hotrod of noise.

And any question as to their musical skill or showmanship was pissed on at their last Oxford gig, when they lost their drummer for an hour mid-show and managed to keep the crowd screaming until the prodigal drummer returned. These guys know how to keep the audience wanting more – and I’m jealous of their charisma.

Anyway, we’d been denied a meet with the band, based on George’s poor correspondence with the management (all apologies Claire), so Rob was hanging around the side of the stage like a superbly dressed groupie, sliming his way back stage for some photos.

…

Armed with casually tipsy conviction and camera adorned with a US one dollar bill (for diffusing the flash – silly), Rob happily trod through the dressing room. The support bands were as dazzled as they were flattered when he pumped off a few courtesy shots in their direction and in a moment he was on the side of the stage.

Rob’s faltering balance convinced him to lean on a (non-existant) speaker stack behind the curtains, resulting in his gung-ho, rolling, flop-out onto the stage. After taking this opportunity to get a few close-ups of the band, Rob was promptly thrown not only from the stage, but from the venue.

Whilst we didn’t sight Rob again that evening, the morning revealed that his journey didn’t end immediately.

After purchasing a pastitsi, Rob teetered vulnerably across Taylor’s Square, through an alley-way, and directly into the fists of a large, popeye-built character. Without phone, money, keys and camera, Rob then ate his pastitsi in a hospital bed adjacent to a frail old lady whose terrified warbling created an apocalyptic ambiance for Rob’s lonely come-down.

Apparently Heart-monitors don’t do lullabys.

It began like any other SINK meeting, with a great deal of misguided creativity and too many drinks. The Walrus (George – our fat editor) wanted a photo piece on Oxford Street… it was going to be a big night for old Oxford and he wanted photos. He also explained that he had wired us $40 and told us to lock down a domain name for the website [ED: It was $50 and I’m not fat].

After meeting with George and sharing a few ales, we entered the throngs of Friday night at the impeccable hour of seven. With the hand Canon and the notepad in tow, we were ready to report on the crims and the creatives that haunt this great city. The problem was, this town is no-one’s friend at 7pm. The crowd was a bland psychedellia of black and gray as the corporate crowd lingered in all the right spots, not yet purged by enema of oddly dressed weirdos we were hunting for. The photos were posed and the people were mind-numbingly lackluster. We needed an interview with a homeless person, a model and an angry drunk… none of which were going to be around at this wretched, sterile hour of the evening.

So, we decided to tick box 2 and purchase the domain name for the new website. Though, to cure our horrific sobriety, we stopped along the way to purchase a hipflask of what appeared to be lighter fluid. We tried to return it to the bottle shop on Bourke, but those arrogant arseholes refused to accept “tastes like death” as a valid reason for a refund (the bottle was also surprisingly empty). Meanwhile, James (my photographer) was currently locked-in a heated argument with a television crew, screaming “You have no idea do you? Do you? Do you know what I am? Fuck you!” Apparently someone had the stones to ask if he was an actor… I pretended to understand and we walked away.

We purchase more booze for the walk and staggered around Surry Hills looking for an internet café that wouldn’t kick us out (which was becoming quite the running gag along the way). I have no recollection of where we actually ended-up (when we eventually went back to assess the damages, the store had been bulldozed… horrifically hinting that the whole thing may have been our conjoined dream), but wherever we were – the ethnic man behind the counter became an instant chum. He seemed pensively ignorant of our lack of sense, sobriety and social decorum – and did not mind that we puffed our pipes in the store. He simply took $2 for the use of his archaic computer and went back to singing against the songs spewing from the narrowcaster. And as we filled the convenience store with the old-age smell of pipe tobacco, we soon slipped into a familiar panic. SINK.com was taken… as was SINK.com.au. SINK.ORG.AU was available and it was the only remaining possibility on George’s list of approved domain names, but we had spent a hefty portion of the Walrus’ money on booze… making it an impossibility to actually purchase such a credible domain.

So, sliding under the justification of “A site by any other domain would still smell as sweet” – we purchased something a little south of the border – SINK.es. And like all things south of the border, they asked for no identification, no ABN and only took a tiny bit of the Walrus’ money. During this transaction, James had grown bored and began forcing our neighbouring computer’s display into a tub of water. An awful sound occurred and we exited the store with a brisk skip into the night air.

James was becoming angrier and angrier by the night’s inability to deliver him a good photo (which now had less to do with the general public and more to do with our collective drunkenness)… this rage eventually culminated with James smashing a coffee mug over my head. Blood began dripping out of my head like a stuttering pump, slipping behind my right ear and onto my shoulder. James’ rage was swiftly swapped for fear and he called St. Vincents in the hope of speaking to a nurse. She talked us through and we stymied the bleeding with a miraculous use of rags and an old, leather belt.

The nurse’s final suggestion was to pop into hospital, at which point that arsehole photographer hung up the phone. “No time for this nonsense” he blurted “we’ve got work to do!” He forced a hat on my bleeding skull and we staggered into the evening.

The photos were featureless, my notes were nonsense and we purchased a Spanish domain… Success?

Rob Scattergood.
Pictures by James Bloodworth