Elliot suspects his on-air comments – which he subsequently discovered had been heard by Customs officers stationed at Tullamarine airport while they’d been listening to triple j – were the catalyst for the infamous raid on Polyester Books just before Christmas that year. “I’d love to put in a freedom of information request and see what I could find out,” Elliot says. “If you look back at the timing of everything, it almost makes sense.”
Elliot’s interest in alternative and countercultural pop culture began in England in the late 1960s, when he immersed himself in Oz, the satirical magazine featuring Australian expatriates Richard Neville, Germaine Greer and Martin Sharp. Elliot migrated to Sydney in the early 1970s and began publishing his own countercultural zine. In a portent of what was to come a few decades later, Elliot quickly found himself the subject of obscenity charges, subsequently fleeing the country. “I ended up in South America, but that’s another story,” he laughs.
By the late 1970s, Elliot was running his own record label, Polyester Records, booking the Prince of Wales bandroom, and managing the notorious punk band I Spit On Your Gravy. When a couple of friends approached Elliot with a proposition to open a record store on Fitzroy’s distinctly uncool Brunswick St, he jumped at the opportunity.
It took a while for the business to turn a profit, (“I had other income streams, though legalities prevent me from saying too much,” Elliot laughs), but Polyester Records evolved into one of Melbourne’s premier independent record outlets. Having accumulated a wealth of obscure literature and other pop culture, including music biographies, erotica, and classic alternative texts such as The Anarchist’s Cookbook and Abbie Hoffman’s Steal This Book, Elliot (along with his then wife and business partner) saw the next logical step was to open a bookstore.
“I’d been to the United States and seen what books were available there, and the lack of those books in Australia. They’ve got their first amendment rights, and we don’t – which I found out later when I had all these books confiscated by Customs when I went to sell them,” Elliot says.
Despite receiving a visit from some OFLC officers in the 1990s, Elliot continued to push the bounds of censorship, stocking titles dealing with everything from serial killers to erotic film icons and obscure subcultural pursuits.
But all that changed around Christmas 2000 when Elliot arrived at work to find eight suited men waiting for him to open the doors to the shop. He soon discovered that they were OFLC officers dispatched to confiscate material suspected of contravening local censorship laws.
“It was a really busy retail time being just before Christmas, so when they said I could close while they went through the shop, I said I wanted to stay open.”
The day wasn’t without its memorable moments: when a customer wandered in looking for a copy of The Anarchist’s Cookbook, Elliot quickly pushed through the sale before his government interlocutors could notice. “I said, ‘Quick, take it while you can.’ ”
Elliot was eventually returned the $3,000 worth of stock seized by OFLC officers and resumed trading, now with added countercultural credibility. But by 2010 his enthusiasm for retail was starting to wane: his wife had died, and he was a single father responsible for raising two teenage children. Elliot sold the shop to Adam Emslie and moved onto other pursuits. The shop continued on under its new owner, and continued to attract regulatory attention – most notably in 2011 when Yarra Council, acting on a public complaint, demanded the removal of the A-frame sign (featuring an iconic Manga graphic) that had sat outside the shop since Elliot’s tenure.
In early 2016, faced with high rents and a difficult retail market, Emslie announced he would be closing Polyester Books for good. Despite departing from the retail sector, Elliot had continued to collect pop culture ephemera and rarities. When he heard of the shop’s impending closure, he contacted Emslie to arrange for a short-term Polyester pop up shop in which Elliot – helped out by likeminded friends such as Bruce Milne – would sell various items of his collection.
“The John Wayne Gacy serial killer painting that he did in jail is pretty interesting. You’ve got seven dwarves around the campfire, and it comes with a certificate of authenticity. People will find that quite uncomfortable and confronting. I’ve actually already sold two, and I’ve got one left.”
BY PATRICK EMERY
