SAMORA SQUID - To Live by the Sword
Pictured: SAMORA SQUID
Photo by: Sean Hashtag
A Hard Act to Swallow
Written by: Tom Wilson - Sense Music Media
It’s a Thursday afternoon in July 2017. Samora Squid is on stage in Trutnov, Czech Republic, as part of the Obscene Extreme Festival, wearing Lycra pants, a studded belt and cowboy boots, wiry torso decorated with tattoos and piercings, hair a curly mop with shaved sides – a queered-up Iggy Pop. Around them are Chris Valentine, Mark Downie and Rob Pante of Tasmanian grind crew NOWYOUREFUCKED. They writhe and scream through tracks like Mad Cunt and I Facebooked Your Mum – smiling, snarling, snake-hipped. A stage-diver wearing a Halloween mask sidles up beside Samora, his pants missing, his cock waving in the breeze.
Pictured: Samora at OEF with NOWYOUREFUCKED and performing as SAMORA SQUID
Photo by: Ronny Meinders
On the phone from Hobart, they reflect on that afternoon, over three years ago. “I’ve no hesitation in saying that that was the best day of my life. That was fucking awesome. Growing up in Tassie, you don’t ever think … especially if you’re playing something as obscure and ridiculous as grindcore, [you don’t think] that you’ll ever be on a big stage through a good P.A., playing to thousands of people who are really into what you’re doing.”
As charming and funny as they were when I first met them over a decade ago – and, like me, now sober from booze and hard drugs – Samora was a natural fit to a genre that championed DIY work ethic, leftist/anarchist politics, and loose, freewheeling musical expression. “I joined at a really opportune moment, because they had just been invited to a European tour. In April 2011, we applied for some funding with Arts Tasmania – well, Dave Haley from PSYCROPTIC applied on our behalf, because he’s good at writing grants, which is why we have PSYCROPTIC … He got us a grant, and we did a month of touring. We toured around squats … a lot of it was very anarchist-focused, the spaces we were playing. They ranged from simple music collectives to actively political spaces. The places we played in Spain and France were particularly anarchist-focused. A couple of those were Basque Separatist squats – as in, you go inside, you are now leaving Spain. They have pirate radio stations in Basque, and all this stuff … We ate lots of vegan food, and did lots of amphetamines. I do remember on that tour … I did the biggest line of speed I’ve ever done in my entire life in Barcelona, and did a happy dance all night, and at 10 A.M. added two more bars to my nipples. I got nipple piercings at 10 A.M. on a squat roof – there’s video of that somewhere. From that day on, for the next couple of weeks, I wasn’t able to sleep unless I pumped myself with bongs, and wasn’t able to go onstage unless I had a line of goey [speed]. It was kind of exhausting, and I was starting to feel a bit ratty. I said to Robby [Rob Pante, bassist] “Fuck man, imagine if we were in a good band, and we had to do this all the time!” [Laughs] Thankfully we weren’t a very good band, and we didn’t have to do it all the time.”
“When I joined NOWYOUREFUCKED, I assumed that the only play we’d ever play would be the Brisbane Hotel in Hobart. It turned out we played at squats all over the world, in Europe, in Indonesia, and we got to play that huge festival. It was really awesome.”
****
Around 2003, the future Samora Squid witnessed a street performer named Johnny Vomit swallow a sword at Festivale, the annual Tasmanian arts and culture festival. Later that year, they saw The Happy Sideshow for the first time, and the fuse was lit. “That was the first time I saw a freakshow. The Happy Sideshow was all about the freak. They had a rubber man, they had a chick who made sparks with angle grinders on her crotch. They had a guy who stuck his arms in animal traps, and they had a sword swallower. I thought that was pretty cool.” At seventeen, they started researching online. “I spent all my free time Googling freakshow stuff … I’d write to lots of them, looking for advice and encouragement. I met The Happy Sideshow at the Golconda Circus Festival, and I met Captain Frodo, the rubber man of the show, and he told me about touring with the Kamikaze Freakshow, and John Kamikaze.” They started corresponding with John, who happily answered all their questions in detail, and gave them pointers for performing. During one exchange, Samora brought up their interest in attempting sword swallowing. John sent them a book – Memoirs of a Sword-Swallower, by Daniel P. Mannix. In the days before YouTube, this was their best resource for learning.
Pictured: Cirque Le Soir promo pic and Samora fitting through a tennis racquet
Photos by: Hobofopo
“I started with fingers, just trying to get to know my gag reflex, and then wire coat hangers.” They’d bend them into the approximate shape of a sword. “I was doing that for about three months, and then a mate gave me a fencing foil, which I cut and filed and taught myself to swallow. I was swallowing that for a good year.” After being told by English sword-swallower Miss Behave that sticking a fencing foil down his throat was a catastrophically shit idea (the shape is all wrong), Squid invested in a custom-made sword, and they still use it today. You can see it protruding from their gullet throughout this feature.
Their journey as a street performer began when they were abruptly let go from their dishwashing gig at a local restaurant. Samora found themself with no income, and the rent looming. “I just went out on the street. I wasn’t making great money to begin with. I was going out and swallowing swords to make fifteen bucks. [Laughs]” The grind soon paid off. “In a day, I was able to earn my rent. It was a hard day’s work. It was a lot of shows and a lot of sword swallows to four people and a dog. It wasn’t as strong as what I can do now by any means, but I’ve now been doing it longer than I’d been alive then, so that makes sense. You do something enough, it has to get better, right?” And it did. After a few months, they were earning as much as their peers with their honest jobs. “It took a couple of years of doing hundreds and hundreds of really bad street shows, and lots of open mic comedy spots, but eventually it got to the point where I could confidently turn up to any busking pitch in the world, throw down my gear, and do a show … I’ve done everything from bah mitzvahs to wakes to weddings.”
Samora’s live show is not for the squeamish. Their act includes grotesque contortions, skin piercing, and even holding a bucket of lit fireworks against their genitals. Oh, and they have a forked tongue, and can fit themself through a tennis racquet. Unsurprisingly, there is a physical toll to be paid for this art. In 2005, they were trying to swallow a curved sword when things went awry. “I fucked it up, and gave myself a scratch that came and went. I spewed up blood a little bit. Just as I was going, “Fuck, I need to go to the hospital,” it stopped. I didn’t want anyone to worry, so I didn’t say anything.” It turns out that singing in a grind band can be worse for your health than setting off fireworks around your balls. They severed a tendon at the National Hotel in Geelong. “I was off my tits drunk … I used to get naked all the time in NOWYOUREFUCKED, and I was hanging from the rafters, and I dropped into the mosh pit. I crawled my way back up to stage, did the last two songs – which took about a minute, because it was [grind] – and walked offstage, and suddenly couldn’t walk.” They would go on to do two more shows using crutches before finally going to the hospital back home in Tasmania. Another injury would befall them on stage with the Kamikaze Freakshow, during a stunt involving an angle grinder and a firework inserted into an anus. Yes, you read that correctly. Fortunately, it was just their wrist.
Pictured: Street performing in Edinburgh and onstage at OEF 2017
Photos by: Zdenek Greendeath Zelený
“I’ve been really lucky with my career. I’ve managed to bum around the world doing whatever I want, and largely because I’m prepared to do street performing. The exciting stuff is what I post on my Facebook page. I post stuff like Adelaide and Edinburgh Fringe, Melbourne Comedy Festival … I post all that, because that’s interesting, but the reality is that most of the shows that I’ve done have been on street corners. I’ve done thousands of shows at Salamanca in Hobart, but also hundreds of shows in Covent Gardens in London. In the street performing community, that’s kind of a Mecca of street performing. It’s a rite of passage. At some point, you’re supposed to go and play Covent Gardens. Watching and learning from old-school street performers, there are guys who have been doing it thirty-odd years or more who you can watch. It’s very creative in some ways. It’s a portal to a bygone era of performing. It’s that transition from traditional vaudeville performing to the modern era, and the modern incarnations of it. In 2015-16, I did a lot of performing at body modification events. That was when I got into suspension as well. I started hanging from meat hooks, and I did a bunch of performances of that. I eventually did one at a Mona Foma event a few years ago. That was a pretty exciting thing to be doing. I’m looking forward to doing more of that in the future – I need a few people for that.”
“I like to think that the reason I’ve never had corporate sponsorship is because of my integrity, but the reality is, who the fuck is going to sponsor me, you know?” They laugh. I suggest a brand name emblazoned on the sword as he pushes it down his throat – maybe the Apple logo on the hilt? “You do see freakshow performers with sponsorship deals. Not very often.”
****
One of the more bizarre experiences of Samora’s performing career was a three-month stint in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, performing at a club named Cirque Le Soir. “I have to be very careful what I say about that company, for legal reasons …” Samora starts talking very slowly, and for the first time in our interview they choose their words carefully. “I was not in possession of my passport for a while upon arriving. It was taken by people to look after it for me, which was nice of them. After signing a Non-Disclosure Agreement, three months later, I had my passport again, and was able to leave the country!”
It seems fascinating to me that a person like Samora – a queer polyamorous individual with a penchant for anarchist and far-left politics – would find themself in such a surreal, opulent but authoritarian place, when you can go to jail for having sex outside of marriage, taking photographs of people without their permission, or being drunk in public. “There were visits to the club by the members of the Dubai police, who would check our work documents and things. It was interesting. I had to cover up my nipples in the club – I wasn’t allowed to show them – and every now and again the club would get fined. There were lots of women in the show – it was mostly women in the cast – and we were all wearing bondage gear in the show, and we were doing some pretty full-on stuff onstage. Compared to some of the shit I’ve seen in my life, it was pretty tame, but for the average person, they were full-on S&M shows. Spanking and tying up and pouring wax and all the biz. All the wholesome stuff. It didn’t seem that intense [to me], because I’m used to working in fetish clubs and going to fetish clubs. I did a gig in L.A. one time where there was a chick hanging from hooks in the front of her body. She was hanging on her back, and there was someone using a vibrator on her. That was part of the entertainment at this private party. That’s the kind of shit I’ve seen in my life. So the stuff in Dubai seemed pretty tame, but even to the average person in the West, it would’ve been pretty confronting to see.”
Pictured: Samora doing suspension
Photo by: 3 Fates Media
You’ve probably got a pretty intense mental image of the club – black walls, red light, booming industrial metal. Well, forget it. “It was really strange, because the music in there was top 40 pop music, and the aesthetics of the club were what you’d expect to see in an USHER film clip.” So much for hoping for a bit of RAMMSTEIN, KMFDM or ROB ZOMBIE. “I would be doing the piercing shows on stage, sticking needles through my skin and stuff, with Justin Bieber playing in the background. “Is it too late now to say “sorry”?” It was so surreal!”
“Dubai itself is interesting. I went on a date with a woman I met on Fetlife, who was working for the U.N.. We went out for dinner to a shisha bar. The licensing for alcohol was pretty restricted. It was pretty much impossible for foreigner to get alcohol. It’s like drugs there. You can get it in the bars … You’re not allowed to be drunk in public … The sales at bottle shops are really restricted, in that state anyway. She took me for a drive, and we went on a booze-smuggling mission.” They laugh. “We went across the state line and filled her car boot up with alcohol, and drove back in some convoluted way. It was like a mission – it was a thing!”
You’d think they would be behaving themself after their experiences arriving into the country. “The most scared I’ve ever fucking been was going into Dubai … They just took apart everything in my bag. They searched every nook and cranny in my bag.” They start laughing. “They picked up one of my socks, and a couple of crumbs of hash fell out! I just had that moment in my head where I felt, “Well, this is it.” I literally thought, “Is there any way I can kill myself before we get out of this room? Is that a possibility? Is suicide an option in this scenario? Because I don’t want to go to jail for ten years in Dubai.” I later found out that possession of contraband substances in Dubai – doesn’t matter if it’s coke or weed – you get five years for that shit, man. You get life for dealing.”
One of the customs officers noticed the crumbs. “They were like, “What’s that?” I said, “Oh, it’s just dirt.” By that time, they’d already found my silicon paddle – an S&M paddle – and a couple of other pinwheel toys and shit.” What really got their attention, though, was their sword, which they use as part of their act. (It’s worth noting that their work visa listed their profession as “receptionist”, and as far as we’re aware, receptionists haven’t carried swords since the Middle Ages). Normally they can explain it away by pulling out their phone and showing them photos of performances. Dubai customs, however, weren’t so easily convinced, and they were forced to swallow the sword while they watched. “That happened about a minute before the crumbs fell out,” they explain. They credit the sword swallowing display with having distracted them enough that they didn’t look to closely at their socks.
It probably saved them a prison sentence.
****
Like many of us, Squid had the wind knocked out of them by the pandemic, but at the time of our interview they had just begun performing again, doing a gig at a festival in Launceston. They have also been able to return to their bread and butter – street performing – and they reflected on where this strange, often challenging life path has led them, from deep-throating a coat hanger in their bathroom in Tasmania to performing in Dubai. “I was teaching myself a trade, and that has supported me, and my weird bohemian lifestyle right up until the plague hit.”
Pictured: Samora offstage and on
Photo by: 3 Fates Media
“It turns out that this thing that I thought was being a rebellious teenager – running away and joining a freakshow – was one of the most responsible things I ever did.”
More from SAMORA SQUID…
Website
Contact SAMORA SQUID through their website at www.samorasquid.com
