If The Tote was a person, what would it be like?
Someone that you could catch-up with for a beer and always have plenty to talk about, lots of stories to tell. It wouldn’t matter whether you saw them every day or hadn’t caught up for a couple of years, the conversation would keep on rolling, just as the beer keeps flowing.
Tell us about your favourite experience at The Tote.
I should say meeting my lover and mother of my daughter while we were both working behind the bar four years ago. That should keep me in the good books. There’s also been so many good nights checking out bands; Breadmakers in the Cobra Bar on Teengenerate night, Dynamo doing a 1am show on Good Friday a few years back, Beasts Of Bourbon, The Sailors, Legends Of Motorsport, Six Ft Hick, Magic Dirt, The Drones, great times with mates bands like the Specimens and then there’s been some amazing internationals, like Mclusky, Black Lips, King Brothers, Dirtbombs, 5678s, Teengenerate, Soundtrack Of Our Lives and Jay Reatard.
And your least favourite?
Well I was a bartender at the Tote for a couple of years and I remember working one Xmas eve with Jerem and Drew and we drank our way through the shift and then had a lock-in playing pool until about 4am or something. I slept through all my alarms the next day, was two hours late for Xmas lunch and then couldn’t eat anything because I was vomiting it straight back up. So it wasn’t a bad experience at the Tote, but the Tote sure killed my Xmas and pissed off my family!
Apparently The Tote is haunted – who do you reckon the ghost is?
I swear that Mexican wrestling movie star Santo haunts the Cobra Bar. Or at least he did while Phillipa was working there.
If you could sink a pint with any one person in the world at The Tote, who would it be?
Tim Hemensley, no doubt. Sam and I got to know him when we were playing our very first front bar residency at The Tote about six months before he passed away and he was a great guy to have a beer with.
Who is your favourite artist sharing the bill across the month?
Probably Legends Of Motorsport. I reckon of all the bands playing, we would have shared the Tote stage with them the most, closely followed by Dynamo and Six Ft Hick. The Tassie night that Legends are playing with Little Ugly Girls and Nation Blue should be an absolute pearler.
Tell us about your upcoming gig for The Tote’s 30 th birthday.
Well we’re lucky enough to be whoring ourselves on a weekly basis in the front bar every Saturday arvo with a bunch of mates bands and our various side projects. It’s gonna be great fun and I think there’s a free BBQ on before the show each week, so Sam and I won’t go hungry or thirsty.
