The Tote and men with hair - a night out with Bubblers by anya

Bubblers are the most welcoming of people. Since I am new to this city of tram tracks and rightangled roads, having moved here from sweaty, shiny forehead Sydney, my favourite bubblers – Bellmusker, Lisa Jewell and the effervescent Gretchen – took me under their wing. Following a Vietnamese meal where I accidentally threatened to poison Lisa and admiring Bell’s beautiful dress for giving her an oomph I could only envy, we strode the dark Fitzroy streets headed towards the bastion of Melbourne rock – the Tote.

I’ve only ever read of the Tote. I’ve never seen it, nor been inside it. But I could smell it coming a mile off. The scent of testosterone mixed with old beer is a dead giveaway. Suddenly there it was, as large as life, the walls covered with the smoke of thousands of cigarettes, the walls marked from lurching men and women who fell through the doors. The floors were sticky, as promised. The rub and angst of hundreds pressed against the bar.

We were in for a treat. Bell had invited me to see Brothers Grim (no, not with a double mm, just a single, and I found this out most clearly later on). She’d lured me out with the promise of raw and salty rock, a swampy blues and men with beards. Well, she wanted the beards.

Gorgeous Bell and that jawline.

Bell wasn’t kidding. We spent the evening waiting for the band to play, watching the procession of hair that marched past. There was the Spitfire pilot with his waxed moustache, and his long knitted scarf thrown artfully around his neck. There was the thickly accented young man with the sculpted sideburns and the flat cap, leaning against the tree and declaring loudly that “so maash of theees is craaap”. He ruined the illusion for Bell by belching loudly before pushing himself off the tree to stagger in to see the music. There were men with nests on their chins, thickly wadded hair where birds would roost, tightly knitted into their sleep.

And then there was James. James of the hair. James of the wild eyes and enigmatic swagger. James the lead singer of the Brothers Grim, a band who till that afternoon I never knew existed. I swear Lisa, Bell, Gretchen and Shelly went a little coy when he came up to say hello, kissing them each in turn. He offered his hand to me, saying we’d not been introduced. And we had not. I confessed that I hadn’t been out to a gig in centuries, had not heard his band, and in actual fact last weekend I’d been frocked up for the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. James took that as a challenge, and told me that he’d convince me to swagger along with everyone else.

Bell and Lisa nabbed the best spots to view the performance, and I stood with my arms on my hips – mainly to ward off wanna-be spot pinchers, but also as I was undecided about what to expect. I need not have worried. The Brothers Grim cranked it out. The swell of bodies crashed against each other, and James leant out amongst them, lassoing the audience with his voice. Bell’s contact lenses marched to the top of her head. Gretchen threw herself wildly into the music and the light. James was a snake charmer, thin hipped and bearded, his wiry frame making himself into the notes. He threw the songs as gifts out to his audience, engaging with them as if he was singing to them directly.

I had a blast. Way too many glasses of cheap red wine from behind the bar left my senses zinging, and my ears ringing. I fell into a cab laughing with Gretchen, whom I discovered lives only a street away, and with the lovely Lisa who revealed that night that she had learnt some of life’s most important lessons off Sex and The City. But then again, who hasn’t?

Thank you Bell, Gretchen, Shelley and Lisa. It was fun. I adored it. The grinding, swampy raw music of Brothers Grim is now a notch in my belt.