Russell Jenkins Stoop Files

I wrote this elsewhere but wanted to share not here too:

Today I heard about the passing of Chris Bailey from the Saints. I just wanted to write about a memory I have of meeting him when I was young. (About 1983-84?) He had played a solo show at a pub in Toowoomba and after the show he was sitting on the floor and leaning back on the wall in a corridor upstairs, strumming his acoustic guitar. I sat opposite, a little way up the hallway, and we talked a bit and I asked him for his autograph. (As you should for any famed punk rocker) I’m not sure if I told him what to write and he obliged. He wrote it on an available post-it note. “To Russell and Terry, with lots of love, Chris Bailey”. He he kindly drew a little saint, and xxxx. Of course it was the sarcasm I was thrilled with. Being a nerd with little else in my life, I carried it in my wallet for a few years, until I was mugged in the early hours in Woolloongabba. I think it was the only thing in my wallet. It’s sad I don’t have the autograph now, but I guess it was a fitting end for the time. I certainly feel we all have lost something with his passing, and I’m grateful for the beer and energy his music gave me when I was young.