What better way for a Brisbane music industry legend like Paul Curtis to mark 60 laps around the sun than by throwing an epic birthday bash?
And who better to help him celebrate than the bands he's worked with over the years: Regurgitator (playing their seminal album 'Unit'), Custard, The Fauves, Front End Loader, The Stress Of Leisure and Ben Ely's Mungo Fungo."The thing I've known and done since the late '80s is put on shows, so I just put a show together," Paul says.
"I'll invite a sh.t-tonne of people and put on some huge bar tab for the hell of it and find myself standing more in the shadows than being interested in being celebrated in a personal manner, because I feel a bit awkward about that anyway."
Named after one of Paul's favourite albums by Gang Of Four, '60 Years Of Damaged Goods' is more than just a birthday party.
It's a grand acknowledgement of everything Paul has achieved as a band manager, tour promoter and content producer for more than 30 years. Operating under the handle Consume and his label Valve Records, Paul has played a pivotal role in the Brisbane music scene.
For his own sake, Paul only has simple expectations for how he wants the night to play out. "Just like a gig," he laughs, "everyone playing sets.
"There's nothing I can project that it's special in any way, other than it's a bunch of great bands playing that I have a variety of degrees of connection to.
"The one thing that is really obvious, which is something I share as well, is they all have strains of obtuse and ironic humour to them, which reflects and is parallel to my thinking and attitude and so forth.
"The only one that doesn't is Ben's new band Mungo Fungo, which is more like a psych thing, but the rest of them all have that sort of self-deprecatory, skewed take on the world around them and the music industry.
"I think that pretty well sums up the whole situation; it sums up me, it sums up my entire attitude personally in regard to the shape and nature of the music industry."
An artist at heart, Paul has straddled the prickly nexus of business and art throughout his career. Coming from a visual art background, Paul says he often struggled with the commercial aspects of the entertainment industry, which tends to favour profit over integrity.
"I've pretty well learned how to deal with it now," he says, "but the conflict that exists between commerce and art, and how commerce essentially, ultimately, more often than not compresses creativity just purely for its own sole outcome.
"All it cares about is product and the outcome being profit. For some people they don't question it and say 'yeah, but that's what it's all about'. This [show] is all representative of that.
"Ultimately, I've set up a situation of self-indulgence as some sort of personal acknowledgement to myself more than anything because I've been around for six decades and I'm more astounded by that fact than anything."
Paul Curtis' '60 Years Of Damaged Goods' birthday bash takes place at Felons Barrel Hall (Brisbane) 29 July.
60 Years Of Damaged Goods Line-up
RegurgitatorCustard
The Fauves
Front End Loader
The Stress Of Leisure
Ben Ely's Mungo Fungo
