The alternative alternative - By Shaun Davies - Revolver 07/05/01

Its 1230 pm on a beautiful Wednesday afternoon and Dylan Lewis is worried. Concerned. Perhaps even a little frightened. In a couple of hours, he has to meet a famous man, a man who is possibly dangerous and definately odd. "I'm getting interviewed by Bert Newton," he tells me over the phone. "What am I going to say to Bert Newton?"

Quite a conundrum, that. Anyone faced with the prospect of talking to Bert probably experiences similar feelings of confusion and dread. Still, you can't feel too sorry for Dylan - he's brought it upon himself. The former host of Recovery and The 1030 Slot recently signed up with revamped youth culture show Pepsi Live, and the moment he did, he bought into the mass marketing machine. For better or worse, he's a Channel Ten personality now, and appearances on Good Morning Australia are par for the course.

Still, Dylan's going to be an oddity in the world of commercial television. Compared to the clean cut, over-enthusiastic plastic freaks who previously fronted the Pepsi show, he's positively edgy - cynical, critical, obtuse to the point of disconnection. He's even sarcastic about his own show, referring to it at one stage as Coke Dead.

But then, that's what the producers are interested in - Dylan's got cred, and cred draws an audience. "I suppose I'm part of an attempt to make the show a little more 'alternative', he says. "But none of the stuff that's supposedly alternative is really alternative - don't get me started on that. Anyway, all music is crap. Except for my bands, The Brown Hornet and Mega Bias. We are the leaders in the underground."

Channel Ten is obviously hoping that Dylan's fans will follow him from the ABC to Pepsi Live. It's not a bad bet - It worked for Good News Week, and Dylan's admirers are certainly an adoring bunch. Take Sally. I stumbled across her homepage while I was researching this article. "I LOVE Dylan Lewis from the 1030 Slot," she tells the world from her little cyberspace niche. "I watch him every Saturday, and his show is the best. My idols are Courtney Love and Alanis and I LOVE Daniel Johns from Silverchair."

But is Dylan's accumulated kudos enough to convince cynical teens that the Pepsi show is cool? Will fans like Sally really set sail for the land of soft drink endorsement? Dylan is an icon of a youth culture that rejects commercialism, at least in a superficial way. It seems inevitable that he'll face charges of selling out.

He doesn't seem too worried by this. At least, if he is concerned, he hides it by coating his response in almost impregnable layers of irony. "Well, anyone who knows me knows that, for me, image is everything, thirst is nothing - actually that's the wrong soft drink company isn't it? But anyway, I was thinking about getting a really big calligraphy style tatto across my back that says, 'Sell Out'." Like the ones in Dude, Where's my car?

"Yeah! Like them! It'd be like, 'What does mine say?', 'Dude! What does mine say?', 'Sell Out!' Really, I don't care if people think that I'm a sell out. I mean, I don't feel like I'm selling out. I really wanted to do another show, and if I was going to do it on the ABC, I don't know how long I would've been waiting." Well, that's fair enough. But will Pepsi Live? Will working in commercial television kill the spontaneous, unpredictable spark that made Dylan's other shows work?

Remember that time the Blues Explosion wen berserk on Recovery? John Spencer ran through the audience like a maniac shouting 'THE BLUES ARE NUMBER ONE!', shoving camera men, kicking over mic stands, ogling the lens. He went way over time, and no one was game to stop him. It was as if he'd been possessed by the spirit of every showboating hoon who ever howled into a microphone.

I was so excited after seeing that, I ran into the kitchen and told my mum about it. She didn't really understand. Dylan loved that moment too. The mere mention of Spencers virtuoso performance sends him reaching for superlatives. "That was brilliant!" he exclaims. "The defining moment, the apex, of, well, everything for me. He was amazing - I had goosebumps. That's the reason that I love doing these shows. Inspiration."

Could that ever happen on Pepsi Live? Wouldn't Spencer's insanity have cut into commercial time? Would he even be asked to perform? Dylan says that he's pushing for more unusual acts, and he thinks there's a good chance that it'll happen. "The producers aren't all charty-warty or anything," he says. "They're keen to have a diverse range of people on the show. But at the same time, they don't want to alienate eighty percent of the audience. So we'll be getting some top ten bends. Not that anyone's good, since all music is crap."

It will be interesting to see how things pan out. I hope that Dylan is right. I hope that he gets the acts that he wants, and that Pepsi Live is home to plenty of John Spencer style moments. But I have to say, I'm pretty sceptical. For a start, Dylan has been given a list of things that he is not allowed to say on the show. That's to be expected, but it really doesn't bode well, as far as rock 'n roll is concerned. In fact, it will be interesting to see if Dylan can keep his mouth shut.

Will he play by the rules, climb the ladder and become this decades Molly Meldrum? Or will he have some kind of brain explosion, ignore the list of censorship and get himself thrown off the show in an exuberant punk display? "Well," he says, deadpan. "I'd like to work on a game show, but I don't think they'll let me, because I'm pierced and edgy and zany. But I will try not to get kicked off Pepsi Live. I'm making too much money. I'm rich now. I think I might invest in property. Or maybe the stock market. Do you think that's a good idea?"