RRR - Touch my History - Sharpies

Transcript from my interview on RRR Friday 9th July 2010

Ben Birchall: Well this morning, we touch on a peculiarly Melbourne subculture, the Sharpies with former sharpie and author of RAGE a Sharpie’s Journal, Julie Mac. Thanks for being here Julie.

Julie Mac: Thank you

Ben Birchall: Now for the completely, entirely totally uninitiated, what was a sharpie, or what is a sharpie, I suppose we should say

Julie Mac: A teenager, to start off with, and teenagers are a species of their own. Their job description is to be as revolting as possible, to be self centered, selfish and to hurt every one around them that’s close to them,

Ben Birchall: Sure

Fee B-Squared: Pretty much

Julie Mac: That’s their job description. So we were a group of teenagers and we got together and hung out in a gang and it sounds a bit sinister, but it wasn’t it was like our second family some of the kids had problems at home and they would get together and find comfort and security in the gang,

Where sharpies were unique, instead of following overseas fashions, which all of us do like sheep, we created our own. We had a lot of Mediterranean immigrants and the sharps would go to Mr Conti in Northcote or Sam’s Knitwear in Coburg and get their cardigans tailor made and custom made

Fee B-Squared: Like the connies.

Julie Mac: Yeah, the connies - with a certain amount of stripes in places, Lee and Levi jeans as well, but they would buy Staggers from Joseph Saba in Flinders Lane and also get their shoes made from Venus and Acropolis Shoes.

Fee B-Squared: And Batsanis Shoes was pretty big as well

Julie Mac: Yeah, a few different ones. I didn’t get interested in the shoes they were for boys,

Fee B-Squared: Were you wearing treads?

Julie Mac: Yeah, treads and platforms. I could run in platforms

Fee B-Squared: Yeah, you go girl!

Ben Birchall: Round about what time was this

Julie Mac: For me, I was in the thick of it in 1977-1978 but there is evidence of sharpies in 1963. Lenunig the cartoonist, I found an article where he had his corduroy coat slashed by a sharpie in west footscray in ’63 and I have met and spoken to sharpies from ’66. Most of the sharpies from my generation think it sorta petered out round about 1980 but I think part of that is we were all 18 and we were not catching trains anymore, so we were not seeing the sharpies. I have one friend that said he was in the armed forces and he helped a sharpie fight in ’89, so there were still the odd few, but they were just wearing the remnants of the old fashion, there had not been any new fashion included in it.

Ben Birchall: So having a specific kind of look. But what about the sound? Was there a lot of music involved with it as well?

Julie Mac: Definitely. The early sharpies liked the Sunbury sounds, especially Lobby Loyde and The Coloured Balls. My generation I was a little bit too young, and while I liked the music and the sharpies I hung were always playing it at parties, I really got into Rose Tattoo. As far as music is concerned I probably have to admit to being a bit more of a Countdown chick or Countdown sharpie. Friends of mine are really into music and they can talk about it for hours, I just hear a song and think I either like it or I don’t like it. Mostly Aussie music Angels, Rose Tattoo, I really like the glam rock, put a man in a pair of satin pants and put some eye shadow on him and I’m his.

Fee B-Squared: Skyhooks?

Julie Mac: Yeah, probably more Hush

Ben Birchall Bit of Les Gock

Julie Mac: Yeah, and from overseas Sweet and T-Rex.

Fee B-Squared: Yeah, of course. I should mention, because I know we’ve spoken about sharpies before. We have spoken to Tadgh and Larry Jenkins before and there is an element with the sharpies that people were frightened of and I think it would be remiss of us not to mention. But there were a lot of fights and a lot of people have bad memories of this history, but that’s not to say that wasn’t a part of the Melbourne history that shouldn’t be spoken about on a pop culture level. So what was the deal? Like, why the kind of fighting? What was that all about?

Julie Mac: A lot of the fighting was just sort of more territorial and I think when young men grow up and young women, it’s not like we have coming out ceremonies where they have balls or initiation ceremonies like they do in the tribes, and the kids don’t know what to do and they’ve got all these hormones and the boys have got all this testosterone and they just want to punch on and show their territory and try to be the alpha male.

I found that the gangs that had girls in were usually not quite as violent as the all boy gangs. That’s not to say the girls couldn’t be violent, they could just be as nasty, but there was usually a reason, like we all did look after each other within the gang. Usually you would only ever turn on someone if they rooted your boyfriend or something like that, and once one girl did, then the other girls would turn and then the boyfriends would follow along. But most of the violence I ever saw was gang against gang,

Fee B-Squared: What was the difference between skin heads and sharpies,

I am not really sure. The way I understood it, was skin heads usually wore T shirts and Lees and the runners and they had tiny little tails at the back of their head, if they had any at all. Where as the sharpies had longer tails, but I have never really been sure.

Ben Birchall I guess we haven’t talked about the hairstyles. Talk us through, what was it, if you were out looking for a really hot sharpie, what would you look for in a hot sharpie hair cut.

Julie Mac: Like David Bowies.

Ben Birchall Kinda tails?

Julie Mac: Yeah and spiky on top, but then again I responded to the short, very short top and the tails. But I hate the way they compare it to a mullet. It wasn’t, it’s different.

Fee B-Squared: Did girls have Dolly cuts?

Julie Mac: Yes, a Dolly cut was probably a sharpie but they ended up cutting it up further around the ears.


Fee B-Squared: Feathering round the ears, to show off the feather earrings.

Julie Mac: Yeah, and then the blonded tails.

Ben Birchall: Can you see any of these hairstyles of fashion styles coming back today.

Julie Mac: I did see a young man on the train the other day and he had a sharpie cut So…

Fee B-Squared: And I think that, you can certainly buy the retro connies. A lot of people are looking for them and I have certainly seen treads come up in shop windows.

Ben Birchall: What are treads exactly?

Fee B-Squared: Ah, they were, well Julie you can tell us

Julie Mac: Woven suede top, shoes, not sandals, they were open toed with buckles on the side, and they were made out of recycled actually might have been new tyres, because they still had those little pointy bits they have when you buy new tyres.

Fee B-Squared: I desperately wanted a pair and was not allowed. Under no circumstances was I allowed to have a pair of treads!

Julie Mac: See, I let my daughter have everything she wants now, so she doesn’t have that feeling. I’ve created a monster.

Ben Birchall: And Julie you’ve written a book, basically you’ve compiled your diaries from the time and got a whole bunch of old photos. What was that like putting that together?

Julie Mac: A bit scary to start off with, cos I was thinking ‘How’s it gonna be received’ and in the end I changed a bit of it and used a friend’s diary as well, just to help put the story together. It was a roller coaster, some days I’d be so excited about it, I’d be busting and the next minute I’d be waking up the next morning, thinking ‘This is crap, I can’t do it, I can’t put this out there’, but my friends were pushing me saying ‘Well, someone has to do it, to record our history and what it was like for us’, and I just went ahead with it, as I thought it would be really nice to do it from the girly point of view.

Fee B-Squared: Absolutely

Julie Mac: There is a lot out there from the boys, Thomastown Sharps have book coming out, but that will be all boys’ stories, you know, I want to talk about girls stuff.

Fee B-Squared: Well Thomastown, that was boys.

Julie Mac: Yeah, that was boys (gang). And I wanted to talk about girly stuff, like blue eye shadow and blue nail polish and satin baggies and squealing, just stuff that girls do.

Ben Birchall: Well Julie will be launching her book on Sunday at the Skinsnsharps exhibition that’s running at the moment at the Kustom Lane Gallery, 8 Luton Lane Hawthorn, so you’ll be signing and sharing some of your reminiscences?

Julie Mac: Yep, I’ll be bringing out my texta ready to graffiti.

Ben Birchall: Excellent, getting ready to break up any fights that might break out

Julie Mac: Yeah, I always loved doing that, get right in the center of it, Miss Drama Queen.

Ben Birchall: Julie Mac, thank you very much for touching the history of Sharpies this morning.

Julie Mac: Thanks guys, thanks for having me.

McXmas

Usually we have our Mc Thanksgiving one month before Christmas, but this year, with my brother Paul and his family running away from home and then me and my friend Cheryl sneaking off to Cambodia with no adult supervision, we had it today. For the last two years we have chosen to have it at an all-you-can-eat with a children's play area rather than at one of our homes.

Bev adores Christmas. During the year she collects every Christmas decoration that flashes and sings ready to transform her already cluttered loungeroom. But it's not clutter in the loungeroom, it's treasures. Elvis busts and clocks, Elvis painted on black velvet, bird clocks that start tweeting on the hour from five am and the bird show trophies and sashes. Dad makes sure he parades all his Royal Melbourne Show Rosettes. If you are in the bird/dog/cat or any other show world, Rosettes are the coveted item. Dad always sends word to mum when he wins another Rosette cos it pisses her off.

This is Bev's 2010 Christmas outfit. I should carry a digital camera with me for blogging as my mobile camera sucks. Most people cringe at daggy parents, but I celebrate it now. It took me many years and comments from old friends to appreciate how unique they are.

Stalking myself

I admit to being slack at writing my blog, I have been too busy stalking RAGE on the internet. I was a bit scared it would be like eavesdropping - 'Eavesdroppers hear no good news of themselves' but luckily the universe remembered that I am a delicate little petal and I found two lovely reviews...

HotRodLibrarian and YA Author Simmone Howell (I wonder if she is related to Thurston Howell the Third? I always wanted to be in Gilligan's Island)

Today we had McXmas with Bev, Mad, Mum, my brother David and his gorgeous family. Paul at the age of 39 has run away from home and has moved with his family to MacKay in Queensland. (How dare he! What about us?) We had all you can eat (Mum and I call it Pigpen, hose me down with chocolate mouse) at The Manhattan Hotel. I only had roast and managed to sneak three glasses of bubbles, my long suffering second husband prefers it when I don't drink. I don't do anything wrong, just flash my tits or fall over, which I also do when I am sober.

My next post will be about McXmas.