Picking Up Where Chrissy Left Off

Chrissy Amphlett may be playing the great gig in the sky, but the music of the Divinyls lives on through guitarist Mark McEntee, who formed the band in 1980 along with Bjarne Ohlin and drummer Richard Harvey when he met Amphlett at a venue in Collaroy on Sydney's Northern Beaches. Divinyls have gone down as Oz music legends already, but now McEntee and his band will be giving an intimate live performance of some of the great Divinyls tracks for the launch of the Australian Guitar Legends Series.

Playing the songs he used to perform with Amphlett will be "very strange," he says. "Because the songs make you close and you think of the time you wrote them," says McEntee.

"The last chord will not be a minor one."

He has been watching the state of Sydney's music scene from faraway Perth, where he lives with his current partner. "The pubs were the life of the music scene and were the place that a band could play. It's a tragedy that the live music has died to such an extent. It needs desperately to be brought back. [Sydney] was a breeding ground for original music and performing which cannot be under estimated," he says of the effects of the lockout laws.

The event on 6 May will be launched with Big Music & The School Of Rock in partnership with Gibson Brands and Wheels & Doll Baby (the clothing label run by McEntee and his partner, fashion designer Melanie Greensmith). He will be holding a Q&A for fans to gain an insight into his songwriting process as well as take a closer look at the equipment that helps mould his sound. "I love Fender Vibroverb and [in] a TV special [1958] they honk and jump.

"When I started there was guitar lessons, and it really was up to me to stay trying to learn things, but if there was a school of rock it would have been great to get exposure to all the different factors that go into putting together a music style," McEntee says.

Apparently, guitar playing doesn't come naturally to him. "But I like going into the studio to work on new things. Playing regularly helps put ideas in your head but it has to be something new and not just running over the same things.

"I have not played my last chord yet and when that fateful day does arrive, [I hope] that the last chord will not be a minor one."