Originally published in Jargon, summer 2001, under the pseudonym ‘Ziggy Omar’.

The best bars in Melbourne combine kooky architecture with snappy ambience, ‘sound-of-now’ musical policies and the entertainment value of bored waiting staff. But be ever-vigilant: you and your slick posse may discover a great new place, only to return a short time later to find it has been invaded by end-of-the-working-week yuppies and suits monstrously maggoted and groping each other. News travels fast! In that case, take a deep breath, leave and chill out at KFC or somewhere.

Bars are eminently disposable and you’ll only have to wait a day or so before a new one opens, hipper and cooler than the rest. Here’s a guide to a small selection of these places, but take caution – this list is obviously not exhaustive and is far from authoritative. Actually, it’s a highly personal selection based on a variety of factors: level of intoxication of the reviewer, pretentiousness inherent in the writer at the time of reviewing, and so on. Also, some of these bars may be well off our list by the time you read this, due to the ‘creeping yuppie’ factor, which must always be taken into account.

Note: the ‘conversation’ section has been included as a barometer of a bar’s worth. As punters, it’s fun to have a drink and a chinwag, and we find our conversation is invariably shaped by the style and ambience of each place. Generally, these ‘conversation factors’ should be taken as a warning against the dangers of over-consumption.

TROIKA
Address: 106 Little Collins St.
Bar staff: Kooky.
Clientele:Slick.
Conversation factor: Sick. I was there with my friend getting well smashed. Without warning the mood turned dark as we painfully began to do each other’s heads in. He told me I played mind games and couldn’t be trusted most of the time, while I accused him of having a vicious streak bubbling unsteadily below his gentlemanly surface appearance. Such sniping was unheard of – we get along like a house on fire, normally. Stupidly we kept ordering vodka shots, the kooky bar staff regarding us with a curious admixture of pity and disbelief as we downed yet another.
Decor: Dark – this place is bathed in ‘mood’ lighting (I recall orange). On the back wall presides a Winfield Red billboard, cut up and reassembled in a funky po-mo mishmash that suggests all manner of aesthetic frippery – copies-without-originals, simulacra – and the appropriation of authentic working class cred for a new, switched-on masscult audience. Perfect for RMIT students.
Musical policy: A bit ‘ho-hum’.
Prices: VB stubby – $4.00. Vodka, lemon and lime: $5.00

TRACKS
Address: 151 Spencer St (Spencer St Station).
Bar staff: Serviceable.
Clientele: Mostly old men.
Conversation factor: Meat-and-potatoes. It’s the kind of place where you share your table with strangers, unlike some of the hipper-than-thou bars where to ask to share someone’s table is to be met with the same sour disregard as a particularly eggy fart. So anyway, some dude from Albury shares our table. He’s on his way back home and just popped in for a drink. He talks to us about his landscaping and ‘transport mural’ and note the different types of steam engines. We lament the lack of sheilas. We run out of conversation and stare into space, nervously shifting in our seats until his train is due to depart.
Decor: Seventies. Beer barn. Functional. Cool massive windows overlooking Spencer St. Huge, tacky mural depicting the evolution of transport – trams, trains, buses, horse-drawn buggies – throughout the ages.
Musical policy:Gold 101.
Prices:VB stubby – $3.00. Vodka, lemon and lime: $4.00.

MISTY
Address: 3–5 Hosier Lane.
Bar staff: Friendly.
Clientele:Slick (some suits).
Conversation factor:Bitchy. Engagingly superficial. Surprisingly, no one ever asked, ‘Can I show you my web site?’
Decor: Everything’s white. It’s a bit like the Korova Milkbar in Clockwork Orange. Around the corner is a little split-level effect with DJ booth, although I’ve never been there when a DJ’s been playing (or if I have I didn’t notice – would that make them a good or bad DJ, then?). Misty also reminded me of those bars made from frozen ice in Sweden.
Musical policy: Aural wallpaper.
Prices:VB stubby – $4.00. Vodka, lemon and lime: $5.00

FLAG ROOM
Address:It’s a secret.
Bar staff: Dapper.
Clientele: Salt-of-the-earth.
Conversation factor:Kinky. I was in the lounge area with my ‘special friend’ and, well…do you know what happens when a boy likes a girl?
Decor: There are two parts. The Flag Room itself is a lovely old oak-panelled bar area with nooks sport teams and so on. Back past the main entrance is a huge lounge area with plush, opulent couches, chandeliers, an ornate staircase and tantalising glimpses of the entrance to the adjoining hotel suites. Kicking back there, one cannot help but be swept up in the Vegas-ness of it all: it seems to inspire lewd, decadent behaviour and groping on the couch, hoochie-mama. If you’re into ‘retro’, ‘lounge’, ‘the 60s’ or any other aesthetically-distanced appreciation of a bygone area, then check it out.
Musical policy: Roger Whittaker. Fat Elvis. Tom Jones. Engelbert Humperdinck.
Prices: VB stubby – $4.50. Vodka, lemon and lime: $5.

HONKYTONKS
Address: Duckboard Place.
Bar staff:Big hair.
Clientele: Slick.
Decor: Honkytonks is a true adventure wonderland. It features lots of fake wood panelling like the bar in Travolta’s Urban Cowboy(ironically referenced, of course); a huge white grand piano to the side of a sizeable dance floor; a long, mirrored bar; a massive seating area with loads of round cushions and couches; huge, epic, panoramic windows overlooking trees, the city and the Jolimont railway yards (especially beautiful when lit up at night); a separate outdoor seating area near the entrance and off to the side, filled with lush plants, small trees and nature in general; and the best women’s toilets ever: lots of muted lights inset into the walls and floors, check-patterned tiles and a trough-cum-sink made of fibreglass, lit up from the inside so that it looks like molten lava.
Conversation factor: Cyclical. We talked of politics and art, affected with a terribly casual disdain suggesting the whole kit-and-caboodle – the system– would be oh-so-boring if it didn’t affect us so deeply on a day-to-day level.
Musical policy: Plug’s Drum ’n’ Bass for Papa played while we were there, its pointless-yet-curiously-charming pilfering of jungle motifs, mixed with Pythonesque humour, proving to be perfect for an evening of do-nothing radicalism.
Prices: VB stubby – $4.00. Vodka, lemon and lime: $5.00