Rock n Roll Babes from Outer Space (21 page)

‘We’re the Rock n Roll Babes from Outer Space,’ Baby announced to desultory applause, most of which came from the abductees, the Bosnia boys, Saturna, Skye and Gregory. ‘First up we’d like to do a kind of love song.’
Inadvertently she found herself looking at Jake when she said the word ‘love’. Jake looked away. What else could he do? How could he possibly look at her at a moment like that? With her sharp eyesight, Baby caught one of the girls in the corner rolling her eyes at ‘love song’.

‘Close Encounter You!’ she roared. Doll, who’d taken off her leather jacket and was wearing a black t-shirt with the sleeves ripped off, attacked the drums furiously. The muscles in her lithe arms flexed and rippled. Lati swooped in on the bass, dipping her shoulders and shaking her head from side to side with the beat. Baby came in on her guitar. The song was fast, furious, and yet instantly memorable.

I had a dream

about a hill

about a boy

about a girl

you weren’t there

in the light

you weren’t there

on the hill

I want you in my vision

I want you in my night

I wanna

close encounter you

By the second verse, the cat girls had put down their zines, jumped into the space in front of the stage and were throwing themselves bodily into the music. The crusties had wrestled their dreads out of their eyes and the serious drinkers at the bar focussed bloodshot orbs in the
direction of the small stage. By the time they launched into their second song, ‘Space Dogs’, the pool players had abandoned their game. Even Ozone managed to haul himself up off the floor and was leaning on the wall by the bar, an expression of awe on his face.

On stage, the three girls exchanged animated glances. It was working! Then, bizarrely, just as they started their third song, the pub began to empty out, leaving only Jake and the twins, Saturna and Skye, and the faithful abductees. Jake felt himself break into a cold sweat, as though it were his own band dying on stage. Torquil and Tristram fidgeted in unison. They couldn’t understand it. The Babes were fucken brilliant. The energy was pulsing off the stage in great waves, they played like they’d been at it for years, they were sex in motion, and the songs had hard rocking cred and excellent hooks. Why was everyone running away?

The answer came by the start of the fourth song. Every single person who had run off now reappeared, dragging in tow entourages of friends, flatmates, colleagues, case workers, even complete strangers they’d run into on the street. On King Street, cafes were emptying, and other pubs and clubs deserted as the intense gravitational pull of the babes’ alien charisma sucked half the population of Newtown into the Sando. Soon, the pub was so packed out that the walls were beginning to bend under the pressure.

Wham! Bam! ‘And how are
you
today, Ma’am?’ Baby yelled out to the newcomers as she introduced the next song, ‘Astroturf’. If the babes were
cooking
—hot as—the punters were broiling and baking and steaming. Those lucky enough to get a view didn’t care if they were turning into dimsum. If they ended their lives the following morning on a wheeled trolley somewhere in Chinatown,
it would have been worth it. One person, then another, then another, clambered onto the bar to dance until there was no space to rest a beer. Others hung from the rafters, shimmied up the columns, perched on the pokies and pinball machines.

There was Doll, arms a blur, head banging, choppin’ out on the toms, sending the beat straight into people’s feet. Ladi swayed and dipped infectiously over her bass, teasing amazingly complex rhythms out of those four simple strings. Baby, for her part, and her part was major, was 1000-watt electric ladyland. The punters up the front could have sworn they saw sparks streaming out from her antennae. Her guitar was a magic wand. She was a caterwauling Janis Joplin one minute, a soulful PJ Harvey the next, a riot grrrrl and a pop queen, with the hell-raising outrageousness of a Courtney Love thrown in for good measure. She was a red hot chili pepper, a smashing pumpkin, a delicious bowl of pearl jam, an entire, blooming one-woman soundgarden.

I wanna fold you in my bionic arms

Wanna smother you with space-girl charms

Wanna switch on all of your alarms

Comet karma, Earthling of my dreams.

Those who couldn’t squeeze inside pushed their faces against the window panes. It became so wild out there that the police were called to clear King Street for traffic. The coppers ended up leading an impromptu dance party on the pavement that leached down several side streets.

‘Who
are
these girls?’ was the question on every pair of lips.

Jake’s elation at their success was tinged with foreboding.
He’d be in for some pretty stiff competition on the Baby front before long.

The last song of their set, ’In the Sexual Experimentation Chamber (Anything Goes, Everything Cums)’ went down like
cunnilingus.
YUM
! screamed the punters.
YUM!
‘We’re the Rock n Roll Babes from Outer Space,’ declared an elated Baby, soaking up the cheers and applause like a solar cell taking in rays. ‘Thank you very much. Bosnia will be on after a short break.’

‘More!’ screamed the punters. ‘More!’ The pub shook with the stomping of boots and clapping of hands. ‘More! More!’

Baby looked over at Jake questioningly. He shrugged assent. On the one hand, it was fantastic. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen a support band besieged for an encore. On the other hand, it was a hard act to follow, and he had to follow it. The Babes finished up with a cover of the Stones’ ‘2000 Light Years from Home’.

Bosnia opened with their crowd-pleaser, ‘Away with the Paxies’, a song voicing sympathy for a family of welfare recipients that the government and media had picked on for refusing to take mind-deadening jobs requiring ugly haircuts and the wearing of spewsome uniforms. The family had become national heroes for a significant portion of the population. All of Newtown, for instance. The crowd was so thoroughly warmed up by the Babes that it gave Bosnia the best reception the band had ever received. Baby, Doll and Lati, besieged by fans, tried to do the right thing and at least look like they were listening to Bosnia. It wasn’t easy.

After it was all over, Henry came over and solemnly shook the hand of each of the girls. ‘It was an honour,’ he mumbled, turning and exiting with dignity.

When Greg finally turned on the lights and shooed the
last drinkers out of the pub, the two bands, dazed by the success of the evening, packed up and lugged out in near silence. Jake and Baby dismantled the stage—a ritual for bands playing the Sando—and were hanging round the bar waiting to get paid.

‘Well,’ said Jake. ‘Well, well.’ It had been quite a night.

Torq and Trist, who’d been packing up the van with Doll, wandered back inside. ‘Where’s Lati?’ asked Baby. ‘Isn’t she with you?’

‘She’s moved on,’ said Torq mournfully.

‘To bigger and better things,’ added Tristram pathetically.

‘To triplets,’ Doll clarified, ‘with a fast car.’

‘No way,’ Jake stifled a laugh.

‘Way,’ said Torquil.

‘Definitely way,’ confirmed Tristram. ‘She even persuaded them to let her drive. Laid down a strip of rubber several metres long. Unbelievable.’

‘That’s how we know it was a fast car.’

Doll sniggered. Baby looked worried. Like Baby, Lati had been banned from driving for life on Nufon.

‘What a gal,’ sighed Doll.

Greg handed over the $200 the bands had been promised and then an extra $150 bonus. ‘That’s for packing it out, guys,’ he said, looking at the girls.

‘Kyoool,’ Jake exhaled, starting to divide up the money. He stopped. He put $100 in one pile on the bar, and $250 in another, which he pushed towards Doll and Baby. ‘You earned the bonus.’

Doll looked at Baby. ‘We wouldn’t have been here if it weren’t for you.’ They pushed it back.

Torquil and Tristram held their breath. ‘Let’s go halves then,’ Jake said reasonably. ‘And our shout for drinks at
Sleepers. “We’ll do cocktails. You’ll love the marguerita glasses.’

On a deserted road outside of Wollongong, a police siren whoopwhooped out of nowhere. Blue and red flashed in the rearview. ‘Shit!’ chorused the triplets. ‘Stop the car, Lati,’ said Bob or Rod or Rob.

Lati shrugged and applied the brakes. The car went into a dramatic spin. Jerking hard on the wheel of the police car, Sgt Alvin Pepa just managed to avoid crashing into them. When all bodies in motion finally came to a rest, the triplets had turned green as an Alpha Centaurian’s toenails, Lati let loose a scale or two of wild xylophonic laughter and Sgt Pepa stormtrooped over with one hand on his gun.

‘Wanna suck my cock?’ Lati greeted him.

‘Better get a lawyer, son,’ he exploded at her.

‘I know that song,’ Lati chirped, still exhilarated by her little joyride. ‘Cruel Sea, yeah?’

‘Licence and registration.’

‘Who do you think you are—God?’ Sassy
as.

Sgt Pepa was losing patience fast. ‘Out of the car.’ He waved his gun at her by way of emphasis. ‘Put your hands in the air.’

‘I know that one too. silverchair.’ Lati blew him a kiss. ‘Just kidding. Doan go off yer crumpet.’ Of all the babes, Lati was quickest with the local lingo. Ignoring the desperate, triplicated signals of caution emanating from her fellow travellers, she grinned at Sgt Pepa, a big, juicy, magic, knock-them-Earthlings-dead alien grin.

Sgt Pepa blinked. His anger drained out of him quicker
than you could say ‘Lonely Hearts Club Band’. In its place he felt himself filling with love and peace. Lati was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen in his life, more beautiful even than Lily the dental hygienist who’d given him his first sexual experience, in the chair, when he was fourteen, more beautiful than his wife’s sister in her red suspender belt and stockings, more beautiful even than Guy Pierce in
Priscilla.
He struggled to keep his mind on the job. He looked at the registration. ‘Uh, you’re only registered to, oh, that’s this year,’ he faltered. Pepa struggled to remember what he was supposed to be doing. ‘Guess that’s all in order then.’ He sank to his knees.

‘How’d you do that?’ whispered Rod or Rob or Bob admiringly, stepping out of the car for a better look.

Lati ignored the question. ‘Eat me,’ she commanded, addressing Sgt Pepa and spreading herself out for delectation on the bonnet of the car. The car glowed, imperceptibly at first, but with a brighter and brighter light. Small welts erupted in the duco where it came in contact with Lati’s skin. Lati was
hot.
The sight of Sgt Pepa in his cute little Earthling uniform, on his adorable big Earthling knees, had already been enough to excite the formation between her legs—more or less—of something for him to eat. To the triplets, she remonstrated, ‘Don’t go away. You’re next. And pass me an E, will you?’

‘Allow me,’ said Sgt Pepa gallantly, retrieving one from his shirt pocket as he shuffled forward on his knees across the bitumen. ‘We, uh, carried out a bit of a raid earlier this evening. Good stuff, I believe. Very pure.’

‘How many pairs of handcuffs do you have, sir?’ asked Bob or Rob or Rod. Sgt Pepa looked over as though seeing them for the first time. Three identical young men with lean muscular builds, randomly chopped hair dyed
platinum blonde, big blue eyes, red bow lips like those of angels—or, Lati thought with a smile, Cherubim—stretched over clean white teeth.

‘Enough to go around,’ replied the policeman suggestively.

‘Around what?’ chorused Rob and Bob and Rod with a mischievous twinkle in their eyes, taking the suggestion.

Lati didn’t make it back to the saucer for three days.

Your faithful revewer had a bit of truble waking up on Sunday morning, evening, whatever, and got to the Sando just as the chicks from Rock n Roll Babes from Other Space (dig the antennas, girls!) were halfway threw their set. Someone at the bar told me they came from the Planet Newfon, but maybe he just said Planet Newtown. Newtown’s sort of a plant unto itself, yeah? But getting back to the Babes, where have they been all my lyfe? Their sound is all-woman and taught and connected right to people’s heads with killer hooks. My predicktion: these babes are going to go astrological.

I have to add, they’re acid for the eyes. Oh, Baby Baby if you’ll pardon the pun. Ladee’s a Hole nuther thing entirely, yeah, that girl’s definitely the Oz answer to the Courtney question. And Doll—love that snarl! Not that looks should be a factor in girls Becoming rock stars or anything. But I’ve never seen such sexual energy mulching off a single stage, male or female, and I’ve seen Paige and Plant (only kidding). Seriously, the Babes connect in a big way.

Bosnia’s amp blewe in the middle of their fourth song, but they were riding on the excellent vibes which the Babes had filled the room and no one seemed to mind much. The rhythm twins were in fine fourm, and lead man Jake was fully in tent, which was good to see him into the music like that because sometimes it’s like he seems almost too likeadaisacle or something. Oh shit, Bosnia’s the lead band and I shoulda given them more space but sorry, guys, I’m outta room. Catch ya next time.

Des Blight,
On the Drum