If you would like a copy, please contact me at this blogspot or email m_zarro@hotmail.com. Alternatively, you can buy copies from the stockists listed below.
It’s been a while – seven years to be exact – since the last issue of Astrobabble (#15/Aquarius) and an Astrobabylon entry. At the time, I was in two minds about continuing both because their left brain treatment requires commitment – reading, researching, writing and analysing an individual’s cosmic blueprint with the limited understanding I have of the ocean that is astrology.
Placing distance between Astrobabble/Astrobabylon and myself has given me time to reflect on a few things: why I started zine and blog, what my aims were, and what I wanted readers to take away. All interesting questions that writers usually ask themselves. To that, I can answer that they are exercises in getting inside a creative’s astrological DNA, to examine what makes them exceptional. With the help of astrology, I attempt to crack the fame code, if such a thing exists, and search for the x factor that elevates luminaries like Nick Cave and David Bowie from the rest of us. I can’t say that my investigations have always been fruitful but it has been one of the most fascinating rabbit holes I’ve toppled into.
This special issue of Astrobabble is dedicated to Ollie Olsen, a legend in Melbourne’s underground music scene and a triple Piscean (Sun/Moon/Ascendant) who died in October 2024 after a long illness. It’s fitting that I return to Astrobabble with such a creative and sensitive character to unpack, given Ollie’s pivotal connection with the subject of my last issue (Michael Hutchence).
If you’d like a copy, please get in touch at this blogspot or m_zarro@hotmail.com. Alternatively, you can pick up a copy at Repressed Records and Red Eye Records in Sydney, and at The Sticky Institute in Melbourne. Below is an excerpt:
Sun, Moon and Ascendant in Pisces – the Ocean Tom Waits once called Bob Dylan ‘a planet everyone should explore’. If Dylan is the planet up for exploration, then Ollie Olsen is the ocean worthy of a deep dive.
Born with the Sun, Moon and Ascendant in Pisces, Olsen’s character was emotionally deep, overly sensitive and movingly empathetic. Drummer Peter Luscombe said of Olsen that he openly and unashamedly displayed tenderness, sometimes at inappropriate times. Olsen admitted in an interview with Jane Gazzo that he cried every day and even during movie trailers!
Pisceans are old souls, embodying the qualities of every sign of the zodiac. Pisceans are not here to seek external validation but to share their wisdom. Olsen was a mentor to many (Saturn in the tenth house). He encouraged and supported emerging artists, was generous with his comprehensive musical knowledge, and agreed to interviews or performances, usually for little or no money, to support young creatives.
Both Neptune and Jupiter are Pisces’ ruling planets. They are important in Olsen’s chart because they form a Stellium with the North Node in Scorpio in the ninth house of the higher mind, philosophy, travel, and scientific and religious pursuits. Recognising the value of a guiding belief system or philosophy is crucial with Jupiter as chart ruler in the ninth. Olsen remained open to exploring possibilities and expanding his mental horizons (usually with the use of illicit substances). For example, during the Max Q period, a particularly intense acid trip, where Olsen claimed to be 'off' for two days, became a pivotal moment in his life. He described it as having died and been reborn. It changed him completely.
The incident sparked a deep fascination with spiritual and psychic realms that stayed with him for the rest of his life.
He explored Tibetan philosophy, various Vedic texts on Samsara (the cycle of rebirth) and Maya (the idea of the external world being an illusion), and Jean Baudrillard’s philosophical treatise Simulacra and Simulation (1981), about the relationship of reality, symbols and society.
He developed a love of Norse culture and philosophy after spending four months in Norway (his father’s birthplace) with his family in 1969, as a ten-year-old. The experience was so profound that he returned to the country in his early twenties and worked in a fish factory (how Piscean). Some years later, he legally changed his birth name to Ollie Jngbert Christian to better reflect his heritage.
Favourable aspects from Jupiter to the Sun and Ascendant create what I call the ‘Santa Claus persona’- a ‘jolly’ and good-natured individual, generous and well-liked, with a positive outlook regardless of what life throws at them. You just need to cruise the many social media posts dedicated to Ollie to feel the love.
Born on the New Moon, exited at Full Moon, Ollie Jngbert Christian Olsen fulfilled his purpose and was ‘called home' on 16 October 2024 at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. He is survived by his sister Marie-Ann and his wife Jayne, who dedicated herself to his care during his final years. His extensive contribution leaves an enduring legacy in Australian music. Bless you, Ols. See you in Valhalla.
Music writer Toby Creswell once said that whatever you think of INXS’ style or music, you can’t deny the charisma of Michael Hutchence in his prime. It’s taken me nearly forty years to realise this. Slow or what? I am making up for it with the new issue of Astrobabble (#15), which is dedicated to the sexy Water Bearer and all things Aquarian. In true Aquarian fashion, Michael Hutchence was an intriguing individual who sort recognition as an underground artist of the Nick Cave variety. Having fallen short of that ambition due to his commitment to INXS and an early death (at age thirty-seven), it’s this aspect of the man I find fascinating.
Creating this issue has been an inquisitive voyage. My research confirms that all things are connected. INXS was formed in the Farriss brothers’ family home – in the garage of a house not dissimilar to my own family home, in a suburb not dissimilar to that of my adolescence - in Sydney’s north. Michael’s memorial in the grounds of the Northern Suburbs Crematorium in North Ryde is within the vicinity of my parents' house. Both Hutch and I have our Ascendant at twenty-eight degrees Capricorn. I can safely say that the similarities end there.
Since creating this issue, I have taken to visiting Michael’s memorial regularly (on the way to mum and dad’s place), bringing gifts of flowers, candles and books. Each visit is coloured by an unexpected event, such as the time I was mistaken for Michael’s step-mother, Susie Hutchence, by the crematorium’s manager. It’s the closest I’ll get to fame and fortune.
Michael's memorial at Northern Suburbs Memorial Gardens & Crematorium (author's photo)
The following is an extract from Astrobabble (#15): INXS’ 1987 album Kick marks the band’s imperial phase for which they are celebrated. The now-familiar tunes Mystify and Need You Tonight reflect the sonic template the band would use from this point onwards to generate international hit singles and platinum record sales. It deviated from Michael’s original vision of what it meant to be an artist. He reached a point where he wanted to explore other areas, glimpses of which surfaced as early as 1981 when he collaborated with Cold Chisel’s Don Walker on the raucous Speed Kills from the soundtrack to Scott Hicks’ film Freedom. By 1989, aged twenty-nine, the very Saturnian Michael Hutchence began feeling the inklings of his first (and only) Saturn Return linking into the beginnings of the major planetary aspect of Uranus conjunct Neptune in Capricorn. Michael would have experienced a profound internal shift that mirrored events in his outer world. On a global level, it was a time of revolution – the Tiananmen Square massacres, the dismantling of apartheid in South Africa, the fall of the Berlin Wall in Germany and the creation of the world wide web. The stirrings caused by this waxing aspect would have urged Hutch to revise his inner values. The paradox contained deep within him began to emerge. In Western astrology, the Return at age twenty-nine is the individual’s separation from the parental mould. By this stage, Michael was residing mostly in Hong Kong, for tax purposes, having finally severed his long-term relationship with Michele Bennett, although they remained friends until the end of his life. It became obvious to those around him that he was outgrowing the INXS family and needed a break from its sound, which had become safe and ubiquitous. Craving the space to unleash his inner-Nick Cave, the musician he always aspired to be, Hutch called underground luminary Ollie Olsen and suggested they make music together. Ollie Olsen emerged from the Little Bands scene of inner Melbourne in the late 1970s, forming, among other groups, the Young Charlatans with Rowland S Howard, later of Boys Next Door/Birthday Party fame. Olsen’s electronic unit, Whirlywirld, was revered by Richard Lowenstein who asked him to be musical director on Dogs In Space (1986), a feature-length movie set in Melbourne’s post-punk era of which both Olsen and Lowenstein were an integral part. Michael was cast in the lead role as a thinly disguised Sam Sejavka from new wave group the Ears (and later, Beargarden). The closing credits of Dogs In Space feature a song Olsen wrote for Whirlywirld – Rooms for the Memory – that Michael sang with such conviction and edge that it unnerved some members of the INXS camp: ‘… we all listened to the finished song … everyone was speechless. It really was a turning point – the band [INXS] heard what Michael could do without INXS’ – Michael’s friend, Bruce Butler
Max Q was a psychedelic-electronic-dance-rock band comprised of musicians interconnected within Melbourne underground bands like the Reals, No, and Orchestra of Skin and Bone. Michael wanted to make an alternative record and Olsen wanted to make a pop record. They met somewhere in the middle. Max Q’s only album release meshes funk, rock and industrial trance with an anti-establishment flavour. It was in keeping with Michael’s Aquarian ideals. Olsen impelled him to explore places he left dormant: ‘I got back my lust for music through Max Q. I had to realise that there are other people I can play with and there are other songs that can be written. When I sat down and did that with Max Q, it renewed it all’ – Michael Hutchence Melbourne experienced a golden period in the 1980s, producing a dynamic and eclectic music scene that embraced electronic/dance music and nightclub culture. It suited Michael’s innovative Aquarian nature. It was important for him to be accepted and respected by Melbourne’s underground: ‘He [Michael] was absolutely smitten with the Melbourne scene and the bands that came out of it … he loved the Birthday Party and early Hunters and Collectors … he maintained lifelong friendships with the people he met from that scene, including myself, Sean Kelly, Richard Lowenstein, Ollie Olsen … and eventually Nick Cave’ – former Hunters and Collectors percussionist, Greg Perano Max Q represented a special peak, professionally and personally, for Michael Hutchence. The band blitzed the 1989 Rolling Stone Australian readers and critics’ poll, Way of the World reached number eight on the singles chart, and the album peaked at number thirteen. The road already travelled and the virgin track stretching ahead intersect at the Saturn Return. Max Q could have taken Hutch down an obscure but authentic path, leading to a more radical and fulfilling life. But INXS management had other plans. Chris Murphy didn’t want his main cash cow squandering himself on these underground types, taking musical risks and having a good time doing it. He felt Michael’s creative projects outside of INXS threatened the band’s future. Murphy regulated any serious publicity for Max Q, restricting Michael from giving interviews to promote the album, and limiting single releases in the US and Japan where INXS had sizeable followings. Hutch’s frustration and anger festered. By the time INXS reassembled for the album X in 1990, the momentum was lost. It would never reach the levels of the pre-Kick era. It marked a dark phase where Michael grew increasingly bitter, bitchy and cynical (negative expression of Sun square Moon) and from which he would never return: ‘He wanted to deconstruct what he was. He wanted to be taken more seriously as an artist and he was more than INXS and more than the sex symbol image. He wanted to be more respected by critics and not seen as a fluffy pop star. Michael had a hell of a lot more to him than people realise. We were just on the cusp of something’ – Ollie Olsen
It's International Women's Day. I am paying homage to one of my all-time favourite females, Vivienne Westwood, with an extract from the latest issue of Astrobabble (#14)*. One
of the main features of Vivienne Westwood’s natal chart is the placement of the Sun (Aries),
Moon (Leo) and Rising sign (Sagittarius) in fire signs, so we expect her to make
a dramatic impact. Vanity
is a potential fault. She once boasted that she gains undivided male attention in a room full of
beautiful women. Fashion entrepreneur Gene Krell said of Westwood as punk rock catalyst in the 1970s that ‘her attitude, her
body language, her look was striking – it took your breath away’.
Vivienne Westwood photographed by Ellen von Unwerth, mid 1970s
She
is attracted to ingenuity and novelty, but may also be perverse, finding
herself at odds with the establishment and taking the law into her own hands
(Mars opposite Pluto). Westwood has shown courage against the ‘taste
dictatorship of the masses’ (her words). This is compatible with her
involvement with Malcolm McLaren and the punk movement. Fashion as a threat to
society in the form of Teddy Boys, Mods and Rockers, and the jeans/t-shirt look
of James Dean and Marlon Brando are the foundations of Westwood’s work. She created acceptance through
alternative fashion trends as these were the uniforms of society’s social
rejects. Misfits, minority groups, the unemployed and disabled felt relevant when wearing her clothes. Her designs gave women a license to dress assertively and to own
the tools of subjection, usually reserved for men, like whips, razor blades and
chains. This had not been the case with previous music cults.
Malcolm McLaren with Vivienne Westwood, 1976 (photographer unknown)
Westwood
said of Malcolm McLaren, ‘I felt there were so many doors to open, and he had
the key to all of them’. They became involved after meeting in 1965 through Westwood’s
brother, Gordon. Together
they sought new forms of expression (McLaren’s Aquarian Sun conjunct Westwood’s
Aquarian Mars). The relationship had a strong Uranian signature. Ideas were
important to them. McLaren’s Uranus trining her Midheaven signified mutual
career goals that involved nonconformity and purpose. A student at Croydon Art
School, McLaren had his finger on the pulse where contemporary culture was
concerned and enjoyed the idea of using art as a way of creating chaos (Moon
conjunct Neptune in Libra). Westwood held the technical ability to translate
his ideas into clothing (Saturn in the sixth house). So began the evolving
vision of Westwood and McLaren that was to change the cultural climate of Britain
in the 1970s, the effects of which still prevail.
Rock 'n' Roll Astrology & Rituals is a cute and
simple hand written, hand drawn zine by American zine maker and
astrology enthusiast Elizabeth Thompson. She describes it as ‘a guide to
celebrating rock 'n' roll and all the planets in our solar system’, a description
I could easily assign to Astrobabble.
Like Astrobabble, Rock 'n' Roll Astrology
& Rituals celebrates the colossal culture-shapers of our age – Jimi
Hendrix, Freddie Mercury, David Bowie, Siouxsie Sioux, Chuck Berry, Brian
Wilson and Kurt Cobain –and pairs them
with a planet whose characteristics they share:
Mercury - Jimi Hendrix
Mars - Freddy
Mercury
Earth - Billie Holiday
Jupiter - David Bowie
Venus - Siouxsie Sioux
Saturn - Chuck Berry
Neptune - Brian Wilson
Uranus - Kurt
Cobain
Pluto - Tupac
Shakur
Ceres - Patsy Cline
I particularly enjoyed the checklists for each planet/rock
star where Elizabeth invites us to do something noble in the spirit of the
planet in question. The spec for Venus/Siouxsie Sioux includes:
Reading The Changing Sea
Scape of our Times by Antonia Case in Womankind
magazine (#7, February-April 2016) prompted me to examine the
current Neptune transit and its place in the zeitgeist. More specifically, it
got me thinking about the artwork of English artist
and naturalist, Jason deCaires Taylor, the article’s intriguing subject. Jason deCaires Taylor is a British underwater sculptor
who has gained worldwide recognition as one of the first artists to integrate
contemporary art with the conservation of marine life. His artificial coral
reef installations divert tourists away from endangered natural coral reefs,
providing these systems the opportunity to regenerate.
One example is Vicissitudes. Submerged
in the Caribbean Sea in Molinere Bay, in the world’s first public underwater
sculpture park, stands a circle of Taylor’s cement figures. With defying
postures, they face outward, holding hands in an unbreakable link while algae
and other marine life slowly alter their bodies over time. Within years, these
sunken artworks will be transformed.
Taylor’s work is a commentary on humanity’s relationship with the natural world and the need for conservation,
decay and rebirth. Works such as Vicissitudes
portray how human interaction with nature can be
positive and sustainable, and that living in a symbiotic relationship with
nature is possible.
The connection to Neptune in
Pisces is discernible (to me, anyway). Planet Neptune transits the
constellation of Pisces between 2012 and 2025. Neptune is Pisces’ ruling
planet. Both are synonymous with water, especially the depths of the ocean, and
both have a comprehensive understanding that all life is interconnected.
As a gaseous
and nebulous planet, Neptune’s boundaries are elusive; we are unsure of where
the planet begins and ends. Neptune acts as one of the planetary gateways to a
consciousness that is free from the limitations of Saturn and all planets
inside Saturn’s orbital path (that is, the planets that are visible from
Earth).
Neptune symbolises the urge to dissolve a rigid sense of individuality
and separateness in order to reconnect to the underlying unity of all life,
qualities synonymous with Taylor’s work. His underwater sculptures plug into something primal - that is, the ocean as an entity too boundless
and overwhelming for us to comprehend. Once these manmade figures are
submerged, they cease to belong to the material realm. Instead, they become
part of the mystery that is the sea and, ultimately, life. One critic described Taylor’s
installations as ‘enigmatic, haunting
and colourful commentaries about our transient existence, the sacredness of the ocean
and its breathtaking power of regeneration’, but you can make up your own mind:
Neptune and Pisces rule
museums, art galleries and libraries. For Taylor, the ocean is an exhibition space and museum, embodying unlimited
room, natural lighting and infinite visitors at all times. It acts as a sacred
place to conserve and protect objects of value for posterity. Taylor bemoans
the fact that many of us don’t regard our oceans as sacred – we
don’t see the sea.
The Neptune-Pisces cycle signals
the importance of compassion and empathy. Global issues associated with Pisces
are surfacing, such as rising sea levels and growing concerns over the availability
of fresh water in parts of the world.
Both Neptune and Pisces rule art and
culture. Artists such as Jason deCaires Taylor have a role to play in
engaging people on an emotional level. On writing, he had placed approximately seven hundred underwater sculptures around the
globe, generating masses of robust marine systems.
His
largest underwater sculpture to date, Ocean
Atlas, located on the western coastline of New Providence in the Bahamas, is
a metaphor for modern times. Ocean Atlas
is burdened by the weight of the ocean pressing down on her shoulders. It symbolises
global warming and the load that will be carried by future generations if we
don’t take action.
Ambiguity, confusion and passivity are hazards to growth and
healing during a Neptune-Pisces cycle. We drift along with the ocean's current at
our peril. Only with self-actualisation do we see the sea.
