Sad Is Rad - Live At The Merri Creek Tavern

More Than A Whelan

A CASTAWAY STUDIOS PRODUCTION
A live podcast recording at Merri Creek Tavern on the theme of Melancholy.
So excited to present our second live show at Merri Creek Tavern with a cavalcade of special guests.
They are in order of appearance: writer Jaymee Leyana, musician Amarina Waters, musicians Ben Mastwyk and Patrick Wilson, writer/performer Poppy Sloan, spoken word superstar Caitlin Saunders and comedian/writer Ben Pobjie.
I finished the show with a poem written especially for the event and was accompanied with live improvisation by Ben Mastwyk and Patrick Wilson.

Special thanks to my generous supporters in Castaway Studios and Luxe Country and to Merri Creek Tavern.

This is the poem I wrote especially for this event.

Sad is Rad
It's always been a comfort.
It's always been the thing to hang on to.
An emotion is better than feeling nothing at all.
It carried me through high school.
If Melancholy is the pilot, then music is the plane that transports it.
The Cure, The Smiths, Joy Division, Leonard Cohen, Sinead O'Connor, Nick Cave, Patsy Cline, Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris.
They saved my very soul.
It carried me beyond high school.
Into shitty employment.
Into working at the printing factory directly across the road.
8 hours standing at the end of a printing press, catching the output, putting it into boxes, over and over again.
Looking at words on paper, words on paper, words on paper. And thinking, hey, I could do that.
I like words, I like feelings, I like the indescribable tangibility between the two.
I could do something with this weight, this heavy heavy heart.
And I started putting my own words on paper.
Machine Gun River.
A novel I never finished about a ritualistic break up by a river bed that's being pelted with run, like machine gun fire.
It was dark and stupidly emo, like me. It was to end in blood and catastrophe, except I never finished it. So that's a least one murder I prevented from happening in the 80's.
It carried me through break ups.
And if I'm really honest.
It may have even propelled me towards breakups.
A certain yearning, towards what Kurt Cobain described as 'I miss the comfort in being sad.'
But melancholy can be dangerous too.
Melancholy can be a gateway drug.
A gateway drug to the dark side.
Where the goldness of sadness rusts.
And it's always a temptation to drift.
But if you don't.
Melancholy can be a gentle fuel.
A slow burning yellow fire.
A certain longing towards a certain desire to be okay with being alone.
And that's not always bad.
Because sometimes
Sad is rad.

Very excited to announce that the next live show of More Than A Whelan will be on Saturday 13th July, 7pm as part of the Indiepodfest 2019. You can pre-purchase tickets to the show and support the running of the festival with all sorts of rewards through their Indiepodfest 2019.