Ron Rude Portrait 3XY OR I DIE to Play Melbourne, May 30 - June 3

Type Faster Productions has announced 3XY OR I DIE!, A portrait of Ron Rude 1978-81...now with a dash of 2012, will play in Melbourne from Wednesday May 30 – Sunday June 3 at the Gasometer Hotel (upstairs), 484 Smith St, Collingwood.

He is the first man to stage a hunger strike in the name of rock'n'roll because 3XY wouldn't play him. He is a Melbourne pioneer in the art of home recording and releasing independent albums. He once chained himself to Molly Meldrum's fence. He introduced the now famous soundtrack artist and Dead Can Dance frontwoman Lisa Gerrard, to the possibilities of reverb. Who is he? He's Ron Rude - Belgrave's public nuisance No. 1 - and his exploits and adventures are back on stage!

Written by award winning playwright Kieran Carroll, 3XY OR I DIE! won Best Original Production Melbourne Fringe Festival in 2002. This new version, directed by Ross Daniels (Spontaneous Broadway, Punked, The Transposed Man – Best Comedy Adelaide Fringe 2011), adds a dash of 2012 with Rude talking about friends he's lost on the way (Rowland S Howard and Paul Hester) and why ex-private schoolboys in the late 70s took the hardest St Kilda drugs around while he watched on: documenting, recording and keeping a day job.

Starring Mark E Lawrence (City Homicide, Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, Rush) as Ron Rude with a fabulous band of Melbourne indie musicians playing Rude's greatest misses from the era. 3XY OR I DIE! is both a poignant and hilarious expose of artistic ambition from a remote space, of kicking hard against conservative 70s Melbourne and about being gun-ho in the boulevard of rock's broken dreams.

All shows are at 8PM, except Sunday 6PM. Tickets are ?$20/$15 on the door. Bookings: 03 9773 1210.

Photo Credit: Reynard Carlson.