Goldie Feather and The Princes of The Universe

The press release introducing me to Goldie Feather is one of the most intriguingly uninformative I’ve ever been offered, with resultant curiosity only encouraged by a dismal abyss of any relevant information online. According to the presser, Goldie Feather (of whom I’d never heard) was won by Peats in a bidding war throughout which all the Summer festivals ‘vyed for a golden slice’. Apparently Mr. Feather (a moniker unreachable by Google, Myspace, and Wiki) has just returned home from a sell-out tour of the European Union during which he was thrown out of Amsterdam for being ‘too controversial’. And apparently his show (which surfaced zero reviews, previews or even cursory mentions online) has been panned by extreme right wing groups in the States. So. Okay. What? I’m pointed in the direction of Zac, to whom I may ask questions. I follow that direction.

“Goldie Feather is an expression of the fool archetype – he is the Great Golden Fool.” Zac is the mastermind behind ‘Recipes of the R/Evolution’, who might be more familiar as the frontman of the now dead (but always legendary) boho glam-rock Aussie band, the Hauntingly Beautiful Mousemoon. He seems to be the person who knows most about Goldie Feather – but they’ve never been sighted together in the same room, IF YOU KNOW WHAT I’M GETTING AT. When I ask him about this strangely mysterious European tour, he’s nothing but evasive. “Let’s say it was in mid-2000.” Okay. For how long? “Umm… Let’s say six months. No. Make that a year.” Okay. And what was that about being kicked out of Amsterdam? “Oh. Well. Yeah. There was a bit of trouble. Probably best that I don’t really go into it.” Aww, go on! “No, really. I’d have to speak to my people before I told you about that.”

Okay then. So that’s Goldie Feather, ‘the Great Golden Fool’ and the frontman of this huge show that’s running each night in two acts throughout Peats Ridge Festival. The show, Recipes of a R/Evolution, is presented as a sort of bohemian rock cabaret thing. In its simplest form, Goldie Feather and his backing band the Princes of the Universe are playing a straight up rock set – but with a 120-person team of thespians, dancers and performers, 300 costumes and ridiculously oversized props, there’ll be a heap more to it than that. On top of all that, they’re getting their post-modern on. “It’s not like a tent where you go to watch a show; the stage is more like a prop within the show, and the audience aren’t really an audience – they’re more people playing the role of an audience.” In order to get inside to see what’s going on, you need to audition. Outside of a general no costume/no entry policy, punters have to go through “some kind of transformation” in order to be a part of the show. In the past, the venue’s turned away over 2000 people. “You have to really prove you’re up for it.” Up for it = uninhibited = open minded = probably stoned and/or on acid and/or naked = we’ll see you there.

There’s also this: “At one point there’ll be sixty people on stage in hotpants, with two hotpants cannons (that fire hotpants), and then there’ll be a rocketship that’s five meters tall. And also there’s monkeys.” A hotpants canon, manned by a hotpants army. That is all it took. These people are crazy. You are sold.

“You can really trace this all back to the Hauntingly Beautiful Mousemoon…” Mousemoon was a legendary boho-glam collective out of Newcastle, known for their multi-faceted, experimental and immersive gigs which bordered somewhere between cabaret, glam-rock, performance art and acid-trip. “Mousemoon evolved into a few different things a few years ago. One of them was the Bohemian Love Theatre, another was Ergo B Bag, and there was also a recording studio that grew out of everything.” It’s an experimental, avant-garde, boho-glam collective that grew out of the burgeoning arts pit of Newcastle, with one peculiar entity, ‘Signor Piggy Wigg‘, behind everything from the start. “Signor Piggy Wigg presented Mousemoon’s first album years and years ago from way back then, and has sort of been presenting everything we’ve done for the last – I guess it’s been about eight or nine years now.”

This year, the group are also venturing outside the tent to take on the whole of Peats Ridge, parade-style. Part of that will involve an attempt to break a mass tooth-brushing World Record, and another part will see an eight foot tall flying unicorn being towed by a bike. An eight foot tall flying unicorn being towed by a bike. Yeah, I just wanted to type that twice – and rest assured the story behind it is as perfect as the concept itself. A year or so ago, on a friend’s recommendation, Zac went to the opening of work by an old, local artist. “It was this big, beautiful room full of these incredible little circus toys, all of them in big painted bird cages that had these little handles which you could turn, to make magical stuff happen inside. You could see all the cogs and the mechanics at work.” The sixty-or-so year old artist Robert Calendar (potentially misspelt) talked to Zac that night, mentioning his (ridiculously-wonderful-old-man-)aspiration to one day maybe possibly make these toys lifesize. Zac got his number because that’s what you do and this year, after pitching the idea for a parade to the people Peats, the number resurfaced and Zac gave it a dial. The unicorn will be massive, made of fabric with a skeleton inside with legs that gallop, wings that flap, and a naked person sitting on top. “He came around to talk about it, literally crying tears of joy about the possibility of making a life-size flying unicorn.”

So if anything else, go to this festival to try and meet the inventor of whimsy. He’ll be the one sitting in a handwoven basket eating icecream with sprinkles as he flies a multicoloured kite over a rainbow made of poetry and heartbeams. He might even let you hug him through the joyful tears of gold he’ll be crying over the flying lifesize unicorn he finally invented. Because it’s Peats and anything goes. - www.throwshapes.com

“An act of glorious copulation preceding the birth of The Great Golden Fool - Goldie Feather & the Princes of the Universe”.

Quite a mouthful but you would expect no less from its creator Zackari Watt, a fair chunk of the brains behind The Hauntingly Beautiful Mousemoon, The Lovelorn Living Party, The Great Hauntingly Beautiful Mousemoon Life, Love & Beauty Celebration Circus, Uncle Colin’s Gold Livin’ Springtime Jamboree & Signor Piggy Wigg’s Bohemian Love Theatre & many other such glorious, lofty, tongue-tangling projects.

So what is this one all about?

“I’m going to hide behind the name Goldie Feather for the next few years - The Great Golden Fool Goldie Feather”

Says Zackari,

“During this time I’m going to create a grand Boho Glam Rock Opera Cabaret Spectacular style of thing - with a set of powerfully awesome tunes backed up by a huge cast of wonderful beauties, a hotpants cannon, a 30 foot rocket ship, a wall of dancing quad stacks, a cage full of angry monkeys & a huge lit up sign that says “F*ck it, Just Love”. We’re also getting a couple of bathtubs on wheels with pirate ship sails & little monkey mermaids on them made - they’ll be a part of it too. Plus a few other little bits like that…”

“& This will all be a part of a great touring city of Kooks & Lovers all powered by bicycles & the sun & the wind.”

Says Goldie, quite seriously though appearing now a little cuckoo.

So why “An act of glorious copulation preceding the birth of …”?

“Working step-by-step towards a bunch of festival dates booked at the end of the year we have broken it down into phases, I’ve assembled a flippin’ super group & we’ve been jamming for a while plus recording an accompanying album of hits, so phase 1 is sort of the presentation & the live development of that musical aspect … we need to scoop up a bit of live response to push it on & up …”

But scaling back to a simple rock set seems impossible for the gestating Goldie Feather fool,

“We’ve also got body painted angels, hotpants bazookas, circle shows, magic & daring do, spoken word, fruits, several angered monkeys plus the great Jim Mc of Grandmaster Monk has promised to perform naked while people practice up their life drawing skills around him - you could get involved, there’ll probably be a fair bit more o’ that kind o’ stuff too - spontaneous like … come along & get your gear happenin’ a bit …”
- U/K