The Vanishing Acts Almanac, an A-Z handbook about the ones who were pushed off the 1980's music stage. A time inhabited by hundreds of flesh and blood bands that lost their way. Destroying suburban bungalows. Making music. Occasionally having their stomachs pumped. Gigging every night. Across the city.

 Lunatics. Virtuosos. Repeat offenders. Original musicians representing a wide range of styles.

 Inventing styles...

  …Following a late night gig in 2012, I was fortunate enough to be handed a folder by a friend from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (Department of Forensic Musicology). Inside was a document titled The Vanishing Acts Almanac. The author of this work, a live music eccentric on the Melbourne circuit not sighted since the late 1980’s, is (or was) Pembroke “Pemmy” O’Hear. A tall man who sought no company and despised the saxophone, he was also known around town as “Phantom Pemmy” and “Pemmy the Dead.”

 Pemmy’s car was found abandoned at the Todd Road Exit service station at the entry to the West Gate Bridge in 2009. His car was unlocked. The words “Never adjust your heart” cut into the steering wheel.

 The Vanishing Acts Almanac manuscript was left on the back seat.

 Of course this is all potentially unmitigated bullshit. But when is the truth ever guaranteed? Watched the news lately?

 The Vanishing Acts Almanac reveals a meticulously fabricated alphabet of band bios. An underground history of a forgotten Melbourne music scene in the 80s. Those musicians who glowed fleetingly at the callous precipice of fame, the maddeningly ordinary bands that were never going to make it, and the bat shit crazies that should have been locked away before they tried.

 Who were these intriguing musicians Pemmy documented while popular history consigned them to obscurity, and what became of them? And what of Pemmy O’Hear? Did he jump off the West Gate Bridge in 2009, or was he really spotted at the Narwee ‘Battle of the Bands’ south of Sydney as recently as 2013?

 The Vanishing Acts Almanac is a book designed with the potential to be a transmedia work. Fact and fiction are loaded into the narrative and deception is encouraged. But the publication of the almanac is the linchpin before I take it to film producers. I have been writing this book for four years. It is intended to be subversive, satirical and to allow modern audiences to engage with the treachery of the project. To be entertained by the sweet-sounding dreamscape of nostalgia.

 I wholeheartedly believe in this project.

 Because it is funny as all fuck.


Olde Smiddy


Pembroke "Pemmy" O'Hear

Rewards

• I intend to self publish 500-750 copies of the book. [$2,500 approx.]
• A website for The Vanishing Acts Almanac for purchase of physical copies, including Paypal services. [$800-$1200]
• ISBN and miscellaneous expenditure. [$500]
• The book will require professional scanning for transfer into e-book format. [$500}
• Further costs include payments for publicising the book on social media, final art work, a book launch, marketing, and crowdfunding % and fees. [$1000]
• The remainder will afford a writer like myself the permission of a short period of time for final editing, proofing, distribution,  and any "You didn't expect that did you?" scenarios.

I hope to publish in the first half of 2016. Ideally, April/May.

Self published, what can go wrong? What?