Mark Edwards
While living in Scotland, being overseas for 4 years, he decided it was time he returned to Australia… Rather than head for his home in Perth, Mark like so many others, made his way to the tropics. Three years on and I’m sure you’ve all seen him… he’s the guy on the stilts with the space age costume and the cool laser gun… (and a sexy butt! web chick notation...)

So you’re a bit of a performer and artist and organiser…. What did you start with?
I guess playing music really – busking and then sort of working a little bit at parties – I’ve had to do all sorts of different little jobs. I started working at the Playpen through that people started to see me so I got work through Graft n’ Arts, and through another promoter in town.

I started busking in ’95 after living in London for 2 years. I’d been into music since I was about 19. I came back in '95 and started busking with a Scottish guy. We went to France together for a month there were 3 of us – this jazz group and lived as buskers and troubadours do. When I came back I got a percussive ensemble together in Perth for a year which was called ATP… Acoustic Trance Plant – we did live techno style on the street, with full gas masks and army helmets and the whole thing. We used to play with John Butler; it’d be me, Gav Shoesmith, the bass player from John Butler Trio, John Butler and Luke Reed who’s a singer song writer… We’d get together and do these big shows outside the Fremantle markets – did that for a year, that was great – did it again in Melbourne – sort of travelled a bit and ended up coming up here afterwards. After I got into busking I got into doing a bit of circus work with Toybox Circus down in Melbourne which is doing parties like Earthcore and Every Picture Tells a Story, gigs like that. I wasn’t heavily involved, more into set up and a little bit of clowning & helping – but that kinda got me into it.

How’s Europe vs. Australia for busking etc?
Europe. Europe shits on Australia. Australia’s fucked for busking. No body respects buskers. In France you’re a Troubadour and you get respect. We’d get an average of $125 for 5 songs and we could do that 3 or 4 times a day and in France you can camp out – no worries; unlike Australia where you can’t camp anywhere. In France they support it, you’re a troubadour, you get welcomed into bars, you get fed and you get a drink and you play music, where as here you’re just a dog.

Why do you think that is?
Australians are tight arses with their money, they don’t tip, there’s just no culture here, they’re just boring TV drip fed fucking idiots.

And Public Liability?
That’s only really recent; everyone was treated like a dog before public liability. Now this has made it so you have to pay to be a dog. But there’s still not many people busking in Cairns it’s a prime spot. If this was France there would be buskers everywhere. People aren’t used to it here. In Perth people would go to the Fremantle Markets to watch buskers. There would be a line up of buskers waiting to go on – you’ve got 20 minutes and there you’re off and you’d make good money. We’d make a $120 for 20 minutes – no worries. But it’s getting there, it’s increased heaps in the last 10 years, it’s acceptable but it’s still not really respected.
The council could fund buskers; they do in other cities. Adelaide Festival, the buskers get paid – They get a retainer, y’know 50 or 100 bucks and their hat. That way you know you’re going to have quality street theatre and streets full of people. That’s what should happen in Cairns.

What are you as a performer?
Ahh, a stripper, a stilt walker – roving entertainer…
I work with Light Force a lot check out light force – through Graft n’ Arts – with Lucy, Derryn, Felix and Peter, a Capo era instructor. I’ve been doing so many different things; I’ve been doing modelling, character work, and coordinating the fashion parade at the Envirofiesta

Was that something new for you?
I did it for the first time last year – In 2001 I did some performance and I made some costumes for Envirofiesta check out envirofiesta. Then last year I co-ordinated the Fashion parade and again this year. That was through Karen Kaye, she was in charge back then, and it was her little baby, the recycled fashion parade. I suggested to Karen that she have someone who specifically managed the Fashion Parade - then we got a grant for it in 2002 and again this year, now it’s evolved in to this much shinier and bigger thing.

Were you happy with it?
Yeah it was good. There were a few faults, no mistakes, everything ran pretty well – I’d say 90% how I wanted it. Mainly if we had more money to pay more people, to put more time into certain aspects of it, then we would have a better show. But considering the budget, we did really well. We’re looking for more volunteers for Envirofiesta next year. It’s a good platform to get creative and express yourself. This year we had a team of five people who were in the office all the time and we could do with an extra person really, ‘cause it’s a constantly expanding project, there are new aspects coming in each year.

Do you see yourself going any further with fashion in Cairns?
I’d like to do a regional fashion award – that would be the next step. To have a Cairns designer awards or a North Queensland fashion awards or something, that would be good. Get out of the recycled, ‘cause there’s room for it. There are a lot of designers who would love to have a big show like that you know? Leave the recycling within the Envirofiesta, it has its own vibe and it’s own following – and have a separate thing a bit more upmarket… it’s hard. Apparently it used to happen here a few years ago but it got cancelled and moved to Brisbane, that leaves us with nothing up here and there are so many designers that need to get out there. What do they do? Organise their own fashion parade? You’ve gotta have a big one and a big night. It would be nice to have a big gala, cocktail kind of event, awards, funded – we’d need to get big sponsors like L’Oreal or some one like them, some big company to give awards and money to people like Angelo and Keegan - towards new machines or materials or promotion. So these guys don’t feel they have to move overseas to achieve something, ‘cause you don’t need to. If you’ve got the promotion then you’ve got access.

Is there enough attention to local designers and the artistic community in general?
It’s getting there. I think people here don’t see how powerful they are. It’s easy to feel that they’re in a little country town, but there’s an International airport here. We could just fly to Tokyo, quicker than anybody else in Australia – fly there straight away to do a gig if we wanted to. Shit like that happens. Imagine if you had a regional fashion awards – you could transform it into something – imagine Cairns becoming fashion central!?!

So as and artist and performer is there anything you are looking towards doing in the future? Are you planning on staying here?
I’m planning on staying here – but it doesn’t completely satisfy me because – it’s so seasonal. There’s this whole big gap from November to April where there’s nothing goin’ on. We need to create work for this off season, for the locals – as far as performers and art goes. I’d like to have work all year ‘round, that’s my thing. We need to have another couple of big events say in November and February – off season events. We’re just catering for tourists here – and there’s a big tourist season, but what about the rest? The real locals. It’s hard - if you want a big crowd you have to do it at Festival Cairns time and if you want big funding you have to do it within Festival Cairns… I haven’t quite worked it out.

Is it easy to get funding?
Na it’s hard – it’s hard to get funding, it takes a lot of work. You have to spend a lot of time getting funding and chasing sponsor ship.

Anything coming up for you locally?
Festival Cairns is pretty big. We’re doing a 20 minute show on the Esplanade called Cairns Dreaming. It’s the final show of the Festival, just before the fireworks, after the street parade. I’m making the soundtrack for that, so that’s a nice little project. I can’t tell you too much but there must be about 40 or so performers involved and it’s a mystical story… near the lagoon, near the helicopter pad…. Saturday the 27th of September after the Street Parade…..

Finally, you have created something called Mixed Lollies???
Mixed Lollies is a web site I put together for local performers and artists. There isn’t anything in Cairns that I know of where people can put up a page and advertise themselves or their art work publicly. I needed that last year so I put a site together and Gabi from justpurple put it on her server and really helped us out. So I’ve done the same this year and made a page for Lucy Hart and made a page for Julie Wilson Foster and put links on for all the performers I know, I’d like to get more on there. If anybody wants to get on, check out the web site – www.mixedlollies.com and get involved.

Why Mixed Lollies?
‘Cause that’s what we all are. We’re all little sweeties, all wrapped up together, a big bunch of mixed lollies.