A FEW YEARS AGO, Patience Hodgson and John Patterson of the band The Grates had money for the first time in their lives. They’d just signed a publishing deal in England for their first recording, and did what sensible people do – they bought a house, a four-bedroom ’50s place in Camp Hill, Brisbane. There was one slight problem: John fell in love with it straightaway, but Patience didn’t like it. “It was a combo of the physical nature of having a house – so much to clean, and hedges on steroids,” she says, “and the commitment to ‘this place’, which seemed very suburban.”
It didn’t help that the couple hadn’t spent much time there, either because they were touring
