Off the Hip Record Store:
Bands, beer and a higgledy-piggledy approach to record selection. By Elizabeth Reale, August 2016
I went to Off the Hip record store in Flinders Lane back in Augustto see Matt’s personally curated line-up of bands for the Off the Hip once-a-month Friday band night, and the launch of the 19th edition of Munster Times.
I missed the first band, the second band bowed out but the third band was great! The Black Strypes had two super hirsute members who reminded me and Fred of a pair of Jesuses, but the Jesuses didn’t roll off the tongue well so we dubbed them the Jesii. The crowd was thick with St Kilda. Suzi Q P Dohl, all fluffy blond and feathered was gliding around, the epitome of rock chick cool.
The arrangement for getting a beer at Off the Hip was that if one buys a record, one gets a beer. I didn’t realise this at the outset and went up to the counter expecting someone to hand me a free beer. Alas. The arrangement was thus explained to me by Mick of Off the Hip. But I still managed to get a free beer… thanks Mick.
I then felt to get a record, since I was in a record shop for a free event and had been given a free beer. But what to get? I find record shops bewildering places, I have no idea what’s what. So I sought advice from various music authority figures. Steve plucked a random CD from the racks. On the cover was a naked girl smashing a guitar. A nice ordinary girl with a slightly dimply bottom. I started a ‘maybe’ pile.
I had a little think about what I’d liked on the radio recently and the Loose Tooth song Heat waves came to mind, which I’d heard on RRR during radiothon. I often find RRR painful during radiothon but was in the car and didn’t know how to change the dial. Because of that incompetence, I got to hear Loose Tooth. Finding them now became my mission.
I scoured the racks, but no cigar. I got to the rack with the Off the Hip label releases, which is next to the counter where Mick was standing. ‘How’d you go?’ he asked me. ‘Well, I’m looking for Loose Tooth’. ‘Hmmm, don’t know that one. I don’t have Loose Tooth’.
Sigh. Back to square one. I looked through the Off the Hip label rack and something with the word ‘loose’ in the title seemed to fall into my hand. Now I felt I was finally getting somewhere. I assembled a small ‘maybe’ pile, based on nothing more than cover art and album titles. Umming and ahhing between the naked girl, the CD with ‘loose’ in the title and a couple of other things, I put it to Mick, ‘So, what could you recommend me off your own label?’ He said naked girl was a US punk band with a slightly jarring sound, another thing had a sixties garage sound and the one with ‘loose’ in the title was contemporary power pop with some pretty catchy songs.
Well, the name was almost right and the description fit the bill, so that is how I came away with Rx by the Loose Pills. An apt description. Very good! And it came with a free beer too.
A fine evening was had. At the top of the stairs, Suzi slid elegantly into a taxi and transported into the cool night.
