The two of us
PHILIP MILLAR AND DEREK ROWE
Philip Millar (puppet designer for ‘The Hobbit’ and ‘The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe’ on stage and ‘Pig’s Breakfast’ currently on Channel Nine) and Derek Rowe (composer, training and education consultant) have been friends since teacher training twenty years ago. Now they’ve evolved into working partners and written a puppet rock opera called ‘Tyrannosaurus Sex’ about male self-esteem.
PHILIP: I remember my very first meeting with Derek was on enrolment day at Rusden. We were lining up and deciding what subjects to do. Looking back I was a complete dag really but anyway not much has changed. I was making little origami things in the queue, keeping myself occupied and Derek queued in all the same queues.
He was a very exuberant and chatty sort of bloke and we ended up finding that we were in similar classes and we were interested in the same things. We went to the same sort of films and he had a very good sense of humour.
He was in most of my media classes for the next four years and we ended up spending quite a bit of time together because my girlfriend at the time was best friends with Derek’s girlfriend who is still Derek’s girlfriend. So they’ve been together for twenty years so I’ve known him for twenty years.
It’s always been wonderful watching Derek perform in some of his bands. He’s covered a huge range of genres. I don’t think he’s ever had sublime but he’s certainly had ridiculous.
The first time I heard him singing was in our art class. Our art teacher, who is dead now, loved him singing and he would sing in this room with a huge high ceiling and it sounded wonderful and he sang opera.
There was this weird turgid art rock band I can’t remember what they were called but they were a good ten years behind their time, sort of like the worst excesses of Yes and Genesis gone wrong. Derek tried to make them a bit more accessible and subsequently left the band because of musical differences.
He sent me a photo of the Japanese heavy metal band that he was in during the year he was living in Japan. They did Angels covers. Hard rock. They were called Trouser Snake.
He’s a multi-talented multi-media person. He mainly sticks to sound but he can draw and paint and I’ve never seen him sculpt but I’m sure he could if he put his hand to it.
His sense of humour is devised as much from the Warner Bros as it is from Velvet Underground. He really loves Lou Reed’s guitar playing – sloppy but intense kind of style – but he gets off on the Beatles and well-constructed pop too.
He had a very difficult relationship with his parents who never really approved of his rejection of their fairly conservative religious background. Not sure if his parents ever really acknowledged the extent of Michelle and Derek’s commitment to each other. The parents wanted the formal marriage vow things but they never did it as far as I know. They didn’t choose to do it in a public wedding ceremony kind of way. Don’t think Michelle’s mother worried much. She was happy that they were happy.
They’re the only couple I could think of from college days who are still together. They care for each other pretty deeply. They seem to support each other well.
Derek went from teaching in fairly conventional surroundings to being thrown amongst a whole range of dramas in the community school in Warrnambool. Teaching there was more about crisis management than carefully engineered lesson plans. I think he survived because he could think on his feet well, the performer in him.
Michelle and Derek designed and built their own house in the early nineties. It had a fabulous view over a little lake. Never reconciled their views about fitting into the environment with the old school old farmer across the lake who was more of the ‘if it moves shoot it and if it doesn’t chop it down’ school.
They’ve returned to city fringe warehouse living in a very stylish Yarraville spot. They did all the painting – there are big blocks of solid colours – they’ve finally managed to wall in the bedroom – had enough of everything being too open.
Derek’s one of the few people I can talk guitars to the way some people talk about cars. We both get excited about playing a pre CBS Fender Jaguar. Derek’s justifiably proud of his slightly quirky guitar collection. He’s also proud of the fact he achieved a vocal tone which his techno friend had achieved with an expensive sythesisiery gadget while Derek got a more interesting effect with a cheap microphone and shouting into it. An indication of his resourcefulness in his home studio.
Derek and I will continue to write songs and see if we can get them out to a wider audience. We share a common interest in pop-culture.
We just click well.
DEREK: I’d started going out with Michelle twenty years ago and she was living in a share house in Parkdale with her friend Michelle. And then they had another housemate Paul and they had a falling out and Paul left one day and then Philip moved into his room.
And he… he was… odd. Very nice but I remember about the second week I remember him sitting there in his room one night cutting off his own pubic hairs and sticking them on to this latex penis puppet for the horror movie he was making [The Pink Oboe Bites Back.]
It was just like, I’d never seen X-rated comics and stuff but this guy’s…
But he was so nice and we all got on so well. But then when you meet one Millar you meet at least another two or three within a couple of days and seeing Philip and Tim relate ‘cos my brother and I just don’t relate, it was just wonderful. It was just nice and very comfortable. I couldn’t wait for Tim to come round and we just did a whole bunch of guy stuff that I really like and Philip was like my first guy friend I met at college and it was really nice.
He could have turned out to be one of those guys who go to Star Trek conventions and has a fairly average life but he actually became a puppeteer. That was a very specific dream for someone to have when we were doing a teacher’s course. A lot of guys became actors but they’ll be taxi-driving actors these days. Philip’s was a very unconventional choice.
It was a real risk but it’s just great that he has a career and is held in high esteem by the theatre community. I really respect that.
That single mindedness is something I don’t have. I’m the opposite. Philip has a dream. It goes back to Timboon, when you see his bedroom the way it was as a teenager, quite clearly he had it all mapped out.
He had an interest in my music and I guess he always kept in touch in that regard. This isn’t the first show we’ve done together. At least, it’s the first show we’ve finished. Well, you don’t get every job you go for, do you.
I think he wanted to write a show and do something personal and he just asked me to tag along because he wanted T. Sex to be a musical, I think it’s as simple as that. But it’s fate. I’m only finding out now how deep the need is to get this show done. I had no idea because we were doing it when I lived in Warrnambool and he lived in Woodend looking after a new baby and we were corresponding via letters.
It was much more sort of on the surface and let’s do this and most of the time I wondered how committed Philip was and if something else came up would it go by the by and sure enough it did.
As soon as we started writing, the show changed the way we were. We were better mates before the show. It’s leapfrogged the relationship into a work relationship. When the show went on ice, our friendship did too.
I guess that’s probably maybe the thing I’d like to change about Philip is his motivation; pull your finger out and take all that belief you’ve had in terms of your career and steer it towards something that’s personal within that career. Maybe that’s taking it to the highest possible peak, win lose or draw, you’ve got all this experience, well, use it for what you actually want to do.
We just had concepts on his side and some characters, and the songs came from me and all of a sudden, probably the high point was serendipity. The fact that we both pulled out the T. Sex CD within twenty-four hours of each other, wacked it on and thought shit, this is actually too good to drop, let’s do something about it.
It’s kind of like the friendship itself, we haven’t seen each other for years, but it’s very comfortable just moving straight back into it. Now I think the work process and the friendship process are kind of in sync. Which I think bodes well.
We’re very different people interest-wise, the way our lives have turned out but I don’t think it’s an issue. We don’t talk about our differences.
I’d like to think that we could actually create an ongoing thing because essentially he writes really good lyrics and I think I write good music in response. And it’s not the kind of music I write when I’m on my own. That to me is a great strength.
Tyrannosaurus Sex can be seen (adults only) at Bar Open,
317 Brunswick Street FITZROY
during the Melbourned Comedy Festival March-April 2003