The Avalanches

We did a sound check during the day before our first show at St Jerome’s. We’d only been there at night and hadn’t seen it in its daytime glory… and it was a sight to behold. There were power leads lying in the water/beer/piss-filled drains, the unisex toilet’s tap had stopped working, I think even one of the cubicles was missing a door, there was graffiti everywhere — it was kinda awesome. 

So we set our up turntables on the massive Myer air conditioning unit, which was the makeshift DJ bench and then started noticing there was this incredible, intermittent stench every few minutes. We couldn’t figure out where it was coming from and I remember nearly throwing up it was so bad. Eventually we lifted up the plywood we were standing on and realised it was covering an open drain at the back of Myer, and every time a Myer customer flushed one of the stores (many) toilets we were getting hit by the stench through this drain.

Another time it was raining and I was getting zapped every time I touched the DJ mixer. The power to the DJ booth was snaking across the concrete on the open ground and sparking in the rain. When we followed the cable it led us into the crazy catacombs at the back of the Myer complex, to where Jerome was ‘borrowing’ the electricity.  

The gigs themselves were pretty mental. The place was so beyond packed it was ridiculous. Getting to the toilets was near impossible, as was getting to the bar (which Jerome fixed by setting up a makeshift bar by the back wall), but the vibe was always really good and people seemed to have heaps of fun, and so did we.

We loved it there, St Jerome’s was an awesome place, and Jerome is an awesome dude. We had some amazing and intimate DJ gigs there and we miss it very much.