[caption id="attachment_10046" align="alignnone" width="550" caption="St. Helens plays The Tote, Australia Day 2007"]
[/caption] Today there are thousand of tears floating in the VBs of many a Melbourne degenerate with the announcement that The Tote, legendary venue and piss-head hangout, will be shutting its doors come the end of the weekend. Due to the venue being included in the city's new "high-risk zone" jive horseshit that hurtles the price of Liquor Licensing into the cosmos it has come time to pony-up or call it quits. The latter seemed the only viable option for nominee, Bruce Milne. The Tote's demise has seemed imminent for the last few years with the advent of being purchased by Cornerstone - a trust who's taken pubs that were musical institutions like the Punters Club and turned them into a heaping piles of overpriced shit - and last year's near disaster when the club lost its liquor license for a weekend and went as far as to tell the workers they didn't have jobs anymore. After all of these close calls and rebounds death has finally come knocking. This weekend The Tote is hosting it's last gigs with Grey Daturas, Agents Of Abhorrence and Pissbolt playing Friday, HULSTER HUSTLER on Saturday and Harlott capping it off Sunday. Stop in and pay your respects. JSIII In the next installment we'll be serving up a tribal history of The Tote and we'll be posting clips of "Tote Bands" (culled from their library) that made the place what is was; a sticky, loveable anus to squeeze into that sold grog so fresh you could've sworn it was rung from the bar mats by hand every morning before trade. Here's a clip from The Meanies to hold you animals at bay: