A SAVAGE GOD by JOHN EWBANK. Story by Vin M.

Melbourne 1989, 2025.

Most of the time my writing follows a predictable pattern, a familiar circuit of themes. Grief, suburbia, music, snorkelling, cycling, sport, the beach house. And then around again…Grief, suburbia, music…

This year, though, I found myself contributing to a book largely about climbing. Perilously dangerous rock-climbing. I knew nothing of the topic. A foreign world with its own language.

The connection? Music.

In 1989 I saw English-born John Ewbank perform at a club called the Troubadour, in Melbourne. His songs were sharp, witty, cheeky, bold, impassioned.  Memorable, even all these years on.

What I didn’t know back then was that before Ewbank was a musician he was a rock-climber, scaling all sorts of escarpments, especially in New South Wales.  He was possibly a rock-climbing genius. A pioneering, charismatic, cantankerous genius.

In 2012 I wrote about John Ewbank for the fledgling Stereo Stories project. (Before it was even known as Stereo Stories.)  I did not write of one of Ewbank’s songs, or even of the 1988 show at the Troubadour. I wrote about sitting in a car afterwards with John Ewbank while he played a cassette (a demo?)  of the new Bob Dylan album Oh Mercy. The opening song? ‘Most of the Time’.

Such is the modern world I was able to send the story to Ewbank and we had some brief email correspondence.

In early 2025 I received a request to reprint my little story in a book. The email was not from Ewbank, but from two climbers  – Ian Brown and Bruce Cameron – who had spent close to a decade compiling a book about their colleague.

What I hadn’t known was that Ewbank had taken his own life in 2013, in New York.

You can learn more about the book via The Australian Climbing Association (NSW).

Stereo Story 867