Hard to know where to come down on this one. On the one hand, there’s NSW Upper House watermelon (Green on the outside, Red on the inside) Senator Lee Rhiannon, sour-faced Soviet sympathiser, enemy of good times, and commissar of the crazy cat ladies brigade. (She also, reportedly, does a mean Brezhnev impression.) The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Rhiannon’s latest class enemies are the petit bourgeois capitalist roaders who opened up a bar underneath her Surry Hills office, playing loud music that sabotages the quiet she needs to plan the revolution:
The owner of Playbar, a small live music venue in Surry Hills, said it was forced to reduce noise levels to ”about as loud as an iPhone speaker can go” by a City of Sydney Council officer after a complaint from NSW Greens senator Lee Rhiannon, whose electoral office is in the same building.
On the other hand, there’s the bar in question, whose website describes it thusly:
Bringin’ a lil bit of Melbourne style to Sydney…
Raw, street & underground…
Beats, breakin’ & musical excursion…
Turntables & graffiti…
Ales, spirits & vino…
Nestled in the once decrepit & defunkt [sic] lower west-syde of Surry Hills, a new flowering small bar district is emerging.
Excuse me? Defunkt? Ugh. The Prick begins to see the Senator’s point. Apparently the joint is “decorated with skate decks & a fresh graf collab, courtesy Beastman & Numskull”, whatever that means. In short, it’s a hipster-poseurville where six-figure graphic designers can get stupid on craft beer, listen to obscure music, and act out their badass Peter Pan fantasies. But still, it’s a business, and its owners are trying to make an honest living. Verdict: Playbar by a nose. May even have to drop by for “jazz night” and put a few bucks in the till, provided there’s plenty of bebop and Thelonius Monk covers.
Prick With A Fork 
Careful Prick, Jazz these days does not mean that 50s junkie jazz your thinking of (“straight up” I think the purists call it), but rather an amalgam of 80s acid jazz with a sprinkling of hip hop rapping over the top.
As for me even on the sunny side of 50, I’m way too young for Jazz as it was well before my time.
Still I’d rather drink at a dingy dive and blow raspberries at the Stalinists upstairs than drink at some mega pub a la Coogee style with a sea of bouncers out the front.
What is it with Sydney and their dress codes. Down here, after work we dress down to go out!
I was born well after my time, clearly. Though purchasing some aforementioned Monk on the weekend (on CD no less!) the young shopgirl nodded appreciatively at my choice. So there’s hope!
You left out the best bit about their pseudo pub, besides giving Rhiannon the shits. They serve food: “A fine collection of produce from local and a-far Cheeses, Charcuterie & Stuffed Molives”
Sorry, Surry Hills has a “Lower West-syde” [sic] now?
Why pick a side? Can’t they just flatten the whole building?