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Inaugural Melbs Cricket Match

Ladies and gentlemen of Pootown, Melbourne, Australia – it’s less than a week away from the first Ashes test and all is in readiness: it’s snowing in Queensland, Perth housing prices are up 50% and The Age is putting out 36-page full-colour guides to economic forums. This fine nation is primed to the point of distraction.

But I say to you now, comrades, the Australian people are not content to watch. The Australian people are a people of great pragmatism and drive. From the trenches at Gallipoli to the banks of Euroa, what binds the citizens of this country is action.

At a time when cricketing heroics will be beamed into loungerooms, we need a way to get our hands on bats, balls and gloves. We need to hear wood rattled behind us. We need to hear inappropriate sledging about our race and our mothers. Yes. We need to play cricket.

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s less than three weeks away from the start of another fine Australian tradition. One that has brought together the spirit of rural and regional Australia with the stench of sharehouse weirdos from inner-city enclaves. One that has animated the community spirit longed for in Australia’s atomised post-post-industrial society. Ladies and gentlemen, I speak, of course, of the Meredith Music Festival.

I am proud to announce today the Inaugural Melbs Cricket Match is to be held at the 2006 Meredith Music Festival. Bringing together two of this country’s finest traditions in a sun-dappled paddock, this event will solve the age-old question first uttered by Batman from his hill:

Southside or Northside, motherfucker?

Indeed, it’s the battle to end all battles. One team of those from the well-dressed Southside will battle one team of those from the bike-riding Northside.

Instructions:

• Assemble in the Top Paddock at 1:30pm on Saturday, 9th of December. (Top Paddock is that expanse of space to your immediate left as you enter the site. It is generally empty. Should the organisers have changed the layout this year, meet here anyway and we will relocate the game.)
• Melbs will supply all necessary equipment (stumps, bat and ball[s]). Participants are permitted to bring some of their own equipment should they be so inclined: Gray-Nicolls kit bags allowed. GM bats allowed. Slazenger V100 Limited Edition (Youth) willow permitted at judges’ discretion. Boxes not permitted. Whites optional.
• This is a unisex game, open to all comers. In the name of Australia’s deeply held value of egalitarianism, we call on musicians, critics and fans to take the field.
• Those who are from the far-north (Ballarat, Adelaide, Cape York) or the far-south (Frankston, Rotorua, Launceston) may nominate for the team which is the closest fit with their psychographic and demographic profile.

Ladies and gentlemen, could you please initiate sledging in the comments box below. A cricket game is no game without some sense of rivalry (beyond the discursively constructed Southside/Northside divide we are drawing on and perpetuating in the organisation and promotion of this game).

Roofs or flats?

Update:
To acknowledge the point made by The Stayer in the comments below, we ought to have some hot track to listen to as you ponder on which side of your pants you’re willing to shine the ball for maximum outswing.

We asked Andy Cox of the Fauves to write us something a few months ago – something to coincide with the release of Nervous Flashlights, their latest album. His name never appeared on Melbs, but the album has been released – to little fanfare (it seems). These two outcomes aren’t necessarily linked.

They seem an appropriate band to include in this most parochial of posts, not because they’re a die-hard parochial band, but because throughout their career they’ve dropped unselfconscious references to Australian culture and politics. (Some of that has even been sporting – there was Ron Barassi gracing their artwork on Lazy Highways and a song called “Medium Pacer” on Thousand Yard Stare.) They also have an Australian sense of humour that never drops off into novelty rock.

The track “I’m Jim Fixx and I’m Dead Now” appeals to the sporting theme here and displays the nuanced humour of Andy Cox’s lyrics.

And while we’re here, let’s have another track. Nervous Flashlights is a return to form for the band, their most consistent outing since Lazy Highways. It’s full of subtle pop songs like this one, a Doctor concoction named “Trouble”. The number of the Doctor’s songs in tracklists has dwindled over recent years. It’s a shame. He has a great knack with a melody – both vocally and on guitar. His lyrics aren’t as strong as Coxy’s, but he sings with a sweet sincerity that makes each line echo beyond its worth on a page.