Prepare to you lose yourself deep in the '80s with two of Melbourne's best live bands. Turtlenecks, mullets, and aviators abound in this powerful double-bill of cheesy goodness at that stalwart of Melbourne music The Evelyn as Sex on Toast continue their month-long residency with special guests Vaudeville Smash. Both bands have huge live presences, comprising of numerous members wielding everything from trombones and flutes to the incredible talk box, banter that could charm the pants off Sarah Palin, and a filthy sense of humour that’ll keep a smile on your face all night. While these guys are hilarious, their musical prowess is not to be sniffed at. As ensembles, they are seriously tight and polished, with crisp sounds that never feel underdeveloped, technically or musically. Most importantly: you're gonna dance. Hard. These guys' jams are funky as they come, so make sure you bring a loved one, because it’s gonna get hot and sweaty up in there.
With many a wedding comedy coming out in recent years, there's a certain formula that one has come to expect: bride/groom's well-meaning friends bungle the pre-wedding bachelorette/bachelor party with too much booze/drugs/sex with strangers, and comic antics ensue. What you get instead with Bachelorette is a group of bitchy, not at all well-meaning friends, who do everything they can to ruin the possibility of their friend having the dream wedding she'd planned. Kirsten Dunst leads the pack of 'B-Faces' (the apt name the girls gave themselves in school) as Regan, followed by a tyepcast Isla Fisher as the 'slutty drunk' Katie, and Lizzy Caplan as Gena, the girl who takes drugs to escape her past. The three are invited to be bridesmaids at the wedding of their less pretty friend from school (Rebel Wilson, who seems to be relishing these roles that Hollywood's throwing her), and they spend the night before causing mayhem while lost in their own depressingly self-centered lives. No characters, other than the couple who are getting married, are sympathetic in this movie, and while there are the odd laughs, Bachelorette is far less a comedy and more of a nightmare scenario of what the nasty group of girls from highschool really gets up to. If you want the darker version of Bridesmaids and The Hangover, this is it.
Anyone with kids knows that they grow up fast but you’ve probably never seen them grow up quite this fast. Before Your Very Eyes, one of the more intriguing acts at this year’s Melbourne Festival, shows a group of children aging through their entire lives within the space of an hour. The cast of child actors play out their possible futures – as teenagers, as adults, as elderly – on a stage walled by two-way mirrors, so they play in private to each other and their own reflections, while the audience watch through the glass. Devised in collaboration between Belgian theatre company CAMPO, which has done a series of plays for adults using child performers, and convention-defying Anglo-German troupe Gob Squad, it will be as thought provoking and innovative as theatre gets. Book fast, because its brief season at the Malthouse will be gone before you know it.
Funtimes for booklovers?! Are you for realz?! Debut Mondays throws book nerds a bone with local talent reading a selection of their latest work. You’ll be plenty contented rubbing shoulders with Australia’s literary vanguard, or if you’re the shy retiring kind, just sit back and listen to the stories. No wonder Melbourne has earned the official status of a UNESCO City of Literature. The Wheeler Centre is everything a creative, thinking city needs – an arena for new ideas and conversation, a community for emerging writers and veterans. Take your pick of readings, talks, lectures and debates. For once, an Australian government is investing in its literary culture, and it’s paying off. October brings diverse writers Edwina Preston, Zane Lovitt, Jessie Cole and Robyn Dennison. This year, the event takes over the already popular basement bar café, The Moat. Call ahead for the $20 pre-event package of a meal and a glass of wine. Mondays just got more interesting. Debut Mondays are free, but booking is essential.
“This is a sink or swim album”, TZU say of their fourth studio record, Millions of Moments. With no rap in this release, the hip-hop group has expanded and explored new musical territory, which is sure to surprise from a live perspective. On the back of lead singles 'Beginning of the End' and 'Beautiful' that have garnered acclaim from critics and fans alike, TZU will be bringing their new ambitious sound all around Australia. No strangers to the touring arena, expect a showcase of new sounds and many classics on their Millions of Moments tour. TZU will be rolling into Melbourne at the Hi-Fi.
The 1989 film The 'Burbs (starring Tom Hanks) is an underrated comedy about a suburban vigilante squad protecting their leafy suburb from creepy neighbours. Attack the Block (2011) is an overrated sci-fi flick about a bunch of London thugs protecting their housing estate from super-creepy aliens. Put them together and you get The Watch: a 'rated' comedy about a suburban vigilante squad protecting their leafy suburb from super-creepy aliens. It’s not quite as funny as the former, or as creative as the latter, but still has enough tricks up its sleeve to avert the instant fail. Directed by SNL's Akiva Schaffer and co-written by Seth Rogen and Adam Goldberg, The Watch boasts an enviable team of comedy heavyweights on both sides of the camera, with Ben Stiller, Jonah Hill, Richard Ayoade, and Vince Vaughn in the lead roles. Of those, Hill is the standout as the mentally unstable, police academy dropout Franklin, while the others rarely push beyond the tried and tested: Stiller is amiable and uptight, Ayoade is polite and awkward, and Vaughn is the chirpy man's man. The plot is similarly familiar, borrowing more than it invents, but at least it does so in a way that keeps the pace steady and the laughs frequent. For a cast of this calibre, the jokes do linger too long in the gutter, but The Watch never takes itself too seriously and as a result, earns itself enough leeway as a silly yet entertaining diversion.
There's nothing like having a film's images and energy follow you as you leave the cinema and go about your day or having a specific scene creep up on you and make you laugh out loud in public. It's a special film that continues to reappear to the viewer after the credits roll, and that happened to me with Ruby Sparks. This is an impressive debut screenplay from Zoe Kazan, who also plays Ruby, and is directed by the married couple who brought us Little Miss Sunshine, Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris. With the same quirky joy to it, and many tender moments, its composition seems effortless. Ruby Sparks strikes a pitch-perfect balance between laughter, love, and heartbreak in sharing a fun, unbelievable love story. There's a lot to enjoy and have fun with in this film, starting with the plot. Calvin Weir-Fields (Paul Dano, the mute son from Little Miss Sunshine) is a literary genius, except he doesn't like being called so. Modest, introverted, and socially anxious, Calvin's literary success came at a young age. Now his writer's block is causing added stress. Until he has a dream. "You don't even get laid in your dreams, man? That's just sad," spits his older brother, Harry, played by Chris Messina, after Calvin dreams of 'just talking' to a sweet redhead. But the relationship develops as Ruby, quite literally, springs to life, appearing in Calvin's kitchen. She's in love with Calvin, and although he adores her right back, and is writing again, he also feels uneasy loving a woman he imagines. The tension between the typed page and reality starts to wreak havoc on Calvin's moral compass. Ordering Ruby to be happy, sad, clingy, or normal, he realises that to love and be with someone, you have to let them be a person themselves, not just the idealised elements of one. Dano and Kazan's performances are tender and solid, and they make an adorable couple (in real life as well as celluloid). With elements of the Pygmalion myth and traces of Stranger Than Fiction, Ruby Sparks is beguiling, heartfelt, and innocently beautiful. Its enlivened by great cinematography, including wonderful internal shots of Calvin's typewriter, dreamy underwater scenes, and crisp colours and textures, especially when we visit Calvin's mother's rainforest home. Appearances from actors such as Steve Coogan, Elliott Gould, and Antonio Banderas are the cherries in this already delicious mix of a film. https://youtube.com/watch?v=acwm-UAZ3OQ
Animal Collective released their ninth full-length album Centipede Hz on September 4, prompting Rolling Stone to note "Something this inventive should be heard by everyone." Apparently it is — I'm yet to follow an Rdio account I don't like that doesn't have the new album on high circulation, spinning its already-turbulent buzz into an addictive loop of multifarious textures and unexpectedly cohesive rhythms. And all jumbled up with the respectively gnarly and buoyant vocals of Avey Tare and Panda Bear it's still, as a good record should be, something you can hum along to with a fair degree of confidence. Visuals are another important part of the Animal Collective experience, whether it's a trippy album cover or one of their sensory overload live performances. They'll be staging one such show at this year's Big Day Out, and another at the Palace in January. Expect the unexpected, and probably lots of graphic neon T-shirts. https://youtube.com/watch?v=GxhaRgJUMl8
Lake Air is the fourth studio album to come from Sydney’s Dappled Cities. Dappled Cities have risen to prominence thanks to their brand of infectious dance-rock and their latest group of songs look to continue this trend of success. The album has received rave reviews since its release in early August and the lead single ‘Born at the Right Time’ has been a success as well. European electro-pop maestro, JAPE, will be joining the band on their national tour. JAPE’s lastest album Ocean Of Frequency recently won the Irish Album Of The Year, so you know that there will be some exceptional music on display. Be sure to get to the Corner Hotel to catch these guys - you won’t regret it.
Following the intense success of Taken, Liam Neeson is back with a vengeance in his latest flick, Taken 2. We rejoin the story, this time on holiday with retired CIA operative Bryan Mills (Neeson) with his ex-wife and daughter. The festivities are short-lived, however, when Bryan and his ex-wife (played by Famke Janssen) are taken hostage by retaliating kidnappers. A high-suspense game of cat and mouse ensues, which sees Bryan’s daughter (Maggie Grace) enlisted to help them escape. This is a must-see for fans of the first film, as well as those who are partial to guns, explosions, and Neeson one-liners. Be sure to visit a theatre near you for this highly anticipated action film that’s sure to pack a punch.
The program for this year’s Melbourne Festival is looking a little gender bendy, with international guests including “sissy bounce” MC Big Freedia and legendary transgender singer Antony Hegarty. Local avant gardesters The Rabble are getting in on the androgyny act with their take on literature’s definitive gender warp, Orlando. The story of a young rake who suddenly, without explanation or much fuss, becomes a woman has been doing people’s heads in since Virginia Woolf penned it in 1928. The Rabbles’ staging looks like it will be less a direct adaptation and more a spring-boarding from Woolf’s text into a surreal and confronting world all of its own. Emma Valente and Kate Davis, artistic directors of The Rabble, are building a reputation for twisting classic texts into bizarre new shapes, and one can expect this to be as divisive and in-your-face as theatre gets. Just as Orlando him/herself would like it.
You really have to love an exhibition that features both a pink portrait of Hitler and a collage made from a Melbourne Bitter box. Okay, you don't — but you should. Jordan Marani is a Melbourne artist who has been on the scene for a while. He is the co-founder of Hell Gallery, and his work has been exhibited at both the National Gallery of Victoria and the Tate Modern. But don't let the resume give you the wrong impression. Marani's work is much more akin to Rosenquist than Renoir. Gloriously kitsch and sometimes straight-up dirty, the works in X-Mas is a Four-Letter Word are self-aware, relatable, and more importantly — funny. Like a working man's Warhol, Marani is examining the discarded remnants of the everyday. VB stubbies and house-keys are propped up next to a haphazard portrait of Winston Churchill and some garish portrayals of TV newsreaders. The portraits of Churchill and Hitler even hail from a larger group of works cheekily titled C.H.R.I.S.T. — a series which features C.H.R.I.S.T. (Roosevelt), C.H.R.I.S.T. (Stalin), and C.H.R.I.S.T. (Christ). X-Mas is a Four-Letter Word is showing at Daine Singer till October 5, then Marani's new show Idiot as an Artist (Don't Know Don't Care Mate) will be at West Space from October 18. That only leaves 13 Marani-free days for you to spend mulling over the inherent wisdom of his artwork names. My favourites are My Head Hurts and my Beer is Flat, Wogs Play Footy too, and the eternal — DUMBSHIT.
After a stellar season at London’s iconic Bush Theatre last year, Straight is having its Australian premiere at Melbourne institution, Red Stitch. After years of marriage, Lewis and his wife Morgan are confined to their claustrophobic apartment and dreaming of starting a family. But when Lewis’ effortlessly cool friend Waldorf comes to stay, he turns the couple’s cosy life upside down, and awakens their fear of commitment. Over the course of a play punctuated by explosive one-liners, the characters push the boundaries of good taste, common sense, and intimacy. And on a drunken night out, Waldorf and Lewis make a bet — one which pushes this flirtatious romp to breaking point. Adapted by writer DC Moore from the feature film Humpday, and featuring the onstage talent of Red Stitch’s resident actors, Straight is a comedy that looks equal parts hilarious and humane — a sticky cocktail of fragile tenderness and amateur pornography.
Friends, Romans, Melburnians, lend me your ears! Liquid Architecture, the National Festival of Sound Art is here once again in a bid to transform Melbourne into a Sonic City for its 14th year. According to artists Darrin Verhagen and Matthew Sleeth, art needn't be all for the eyes, and from August 29 till September 14 you'll be able to catch their experimental soundworks at Bourke Street's West Space. Presented by Verhagen, The Audiokinetic Jukebox features compositions from himself, Robin Fox, Adam Hunt and Chris Vik, while Sleeth exhibits The Last Car Park, a self-generating sculptural installation that invites visitors to get involved. Each celebrates the aural experience, all the while exploring the relationship between city, sound, vibration and movement. So, Potatoheads, get reacquainted with your ears and leave your eyeballs behind this time around.
It’s a truth widely accepted that people like to talk about themselves. You know that tale your best mate always tells about that night at the bar, or the one about that time in the paddling pool your mum insists on regaling near strangers with? People like to talk. Bazaar Tales, a bimonthly storytelling soiree held at the Horse Bazaar, takes this universal passion and waxes lyrical with it. True stories are the order of the day and previous themes have included ‘the stupidest thing I’ve ever done’ and ‘miracles’. There is also time for audience participation, so practice that punch line and get ready to hold court. Horse Bazaar has the beverages covered for those who need a little liquid courage or are just fond of a sipper served with a side of cracking yarn. Image courtesy of www.horsebazaar.com.au
The Northcote Social Club is a live music institution — if its four walls could talk, they'd tell stories of debauchery, cheap beer and flannelette shirts. Ready to make some more of those memories, this Wednesday the back band room will play host to Endless Boogie off the back of the Boogie 7 music festival. Just like the Northcote, Endless Boogie love a good dose of rock — bands like Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs, The Masters’ Apprentices, Lobby Loyde and the Coloured Balls and X have been said to have influenced their sound. Growing up in the '70s in St Louis they took cues from punk and hard rock and audiences should expect a show that draws on these sensibilities, making for an all round rocking time. Image via northcotesocialclub.com
You may not have heard of the club-shakin', bass-droppin' record label Grizzly. Yet with the ever-growing lineup of club icons that have joined its ranks since it was kickstarted by British DJ Graeme Sinden in 2010, you may well have heard (or danced to) some of their mixes and mash-ups. This Thursday, Revolver Upstairs plays host to the Melbourne leg of Sinden's tour. Grizzly are unlike other independent labels who have found their niche in specific genres and sub-genres of dance and electronica. Instead, Sinden and his team have given themselves the ambitious task of finding, promoting and representing the sort of artists and producers that slip through the cracks that exist between musical genres and styles. According to Sinden, music makes the Grizzly cut if, and only if, it is "quality and fun bass music". We're talking tunes that are as original and unexpected as they are danceable and club-ready. And now the Grizzly boys are heading to Australia with some of their favourite artists, producers and DJs in tow. Headlining the tour is Mr Grizzly himself, Graeme Sinden, whose work with SBTRKT launched him into the club-scene stratosphere and whose collaborations with Aussie darling Elizabeth Rose have emphatically confirmed his local street cred. Joining him is fellow DJ and headliner, Brenmar, whose glossy yet rugged beats have endeared him to ravers, headbangers and pill-poppers across Europe, Japan and the US.
In early April, New York’s Lincoln Centre will play host to a retrospective of the work of Iranian director Asghar Farhadi — for the next two weeks, local audiences have the unusual chance to be ahead of inhabitants of the cultural centre of the world, courtesy of Directed by Asghar Farhadi at ACMI cinemas. Where Farhadi’s five-film long show reel is relatively small, he has received formidable international acclaim, winning awards at the Berlin International Film Festival and Moscow International Film Festival, as well as taking home a little gold friend known as Oscar in the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 2011 Academy Awards, for A Separation. Farhadi uses a deep understanding and proximity to his native culture to craft highly personal stories of familial tension, diaspora and the trouble with societal normality, as played out against the backdrop of culturally tumultuous Iran. Despite their narrative specificity, his films are globally relevant in their wider exploration of the human experience. Image from About Elly (2009), credit Hi-Gloss Entertainment.
Whether it's being part of a crowd rooting for a football team, an audience laughing in unison at a comedian's jokes, or maybe flashmobbing a train station, there's something special about communal experience. Pop Up Playground's Fresh Air Festival is all about bringing strangers together through fun, games, and complicity. A series of activities will take place around Federation Square this weekend, all based around the theme of interaction and improvisation. Some are as simple as a tent where an artwork that has been left for a lucky stranger — on the condition that they make something for the next person to come along and discover. Then there are enormous, communal games that might have you carrying out secret missions, putting out fires, or even escaping a curse. Fresh Air Fest is an anarchic, hilarious, and inclusive festival of pervasive games — you're guaranteed to leave with a new friend. Image via fedsquare.com
Last Wednesday night, C3 Contemporary Art Space opened the year with a dense group show featuring young Victorian artists. If you were looking for a common theme, you might say that urban environments are a loose thread tying the six separate exhibits together, but the show is almost too diverse to group the art under one single umbrella. The first piece on display is Marble Run 2, a fragile Rube Goldberg machine put together from objects both found and carefully constructed. While a video screen demonstrates what the contraption would look like if a marble was running through it, the actual sculpture is still and unused: an inviting piece of suspended animation that encourages closer examination. In I Thought I Was Where I Wasn't, Shannon Smiley and Helen Nodding explore scenes of urban decay in intricate detail. Drawings of machinery and dilapidation are leeched of all but texture, a bleak vision of our surroundings, but punctuated occasionally with delicately coloured paintings of wildlife growing amongst the debris. A piece with a mood that takes time to absorb, the artwork is testament to the ability to find beauty in even the most desolate environments. Moderator adds four new artists to the exhibition's already extensive list. This mini group show is the most strongly aesthetic of the six exhibits, with an emphasis on simplicity and staging that provides nice relief from the busier, realistic stylings of the works before it. A gentle sense of humour and a hint of pop-culture reference rounds out this series of sparse photographs and objects. Lauren Bamford's Field Notes collects images of displaced objects and urban snapshots, framing them in an on-the-spot, pseudo-amateurish style of photography. In the next room, Kevin Chin's Better Than Here explores similar obsessions with objects, albeit executed in a thoroughly different style — kitch, colourful oil paintings depict consumerism and disenfranchisement with a smile. The final collection, right at the back of the gallery, is the best one: Matthew Clarke's Turtle Time. A series of brashly colourful paintings that all depict turtles and windfarms, Clarke's paintings are eye-catching and fun in a way that makes them stand out entirely from the other exhibits. An environmental message lurks behind the deceptively whimsical paintings, but their strongly geometric construction means you will be spending more time enjoying the works in the moment than thinking about their motivation. These paintings are full of life and feel as if they've been painted straight from the heart. Image by Lauren Bamford.
Some really distinguished people pepper the RMIT University alumni roll call: Rove McManus, John Safran, and Jim Stynes, to name a few. None of those people are well dressed, but don't let that dissuade you from attending Alice Euphemia's launch of LEVEL TEN, the catalogue publication showcasing the work of RMIT's 2012 Fashion Design grads, because none of the aforementioned people studied fashion. Hell, they wouldn't know the beauty of a bespoke, hand-embroided, androgynous illusion sleeve if it grabbed them by the gonads. The crowd at Wednesday night's opening will be aspirational, the experimental designs of the young not yet stultified by the need to sell, sell, sell ‘dem clothes, and the drinks free flowing (disclaimer: this may not be true and if it is, it will probably only be true for the first half hour of the 6-8pm opening. Fash folk are thirsty creatures by nature). If you choke and can't put together a good enough outfit to attend, selected graduate work will be on show in the week following at Alice for your viewing pleasure.
You young pups may remember Andy Warhol as Guy Pearce's character from Factory Girl, to be held responsible for an excruciatingly endless supply of reprints of both Marilyn Monroe's likeness and a stylised can of Campbell's soup, as sold at your local home wares store or artist's market — real fancy like. Don't hold that against him. What you may not know is that in 1968 a deranged extremist feminist named Valerie Solanas shot Warhol at his famous studio, as part of a plan to tear down the patriarchal constructions of society, which she felt the voyeuristic Warhol personified. Intriguing, hey? Noel Anderson has written and directed a play about Warhol’s life and the whole assassination debacle, aptly titled Andy Warhol’s Fifteen Minutes of Fame, currently showing at La Mama Courthouse Theatre, from Wednesday through Sunday, until February 10. Buy your tickets here, watch an ambiguous YouTube video here.
In such a highly visual culture, you could be forgiven for overlooking aural art – but you really shouldn’t. Don’t be put off by the personalities on mainstream radio. There are some beautiful, carefully researched, lovingly crafted soundscapes and stories being played right now on the radio, and In The Dark showcases some of them before they even reach the air. In The Dark first began in the UK as a series of listening events that aimed to give radio the same artistic consideration as film. Can we look at radio in the same way as for film or music? Can we be as experimental and get the same funding? Can radio producers become household names? The popularity of these events suggests maybe we can. In the Dark Australia presents Hatched: A Dozen in the Dark. Twelve young, emerging radio producers from 3CR and SYN FM showcase their stories for your consideration and, hopefully, your listening pleasure.
If you've ever doodled aimlessly in class, scrawling “I'm bored” over and over again, or sketching the back of the head of whoever's in front of you, you'll know where Laith McGregor's S-O-M-E-O-N-E is coming from. The difference is this is the biggest, most intricate doodle you've ever seen at an enormous 4 x 1.5 metres. McGregor's mind-bogglingly detailed biro noodlings are supported by three ping-pong tables and stretch geometrically across a single huge page that resembles a classroom desk, enabling the viewers to wander physically around the work and zone in on any of the many detailed sections of the work. McGregor's skill with a biro is startling, carving out spiderweb-thin patterns with surgical precision, interspersed with photorealistic portraits of surreal characters. Part of the fun, though, is that McGregor's style is forever changing, sometimes filling up chunks of the work with meaningless ramblings, or copied patches of art theory — even some cartoon pals make appearances. Familiar treats that jump out from the often overwhelmingly complex tapestry of text and drawings. Next door is a more experienced Ronnie van Hout's All Said All Done. An exercise in aesthetic repetition, van Hout's use of an exclusively black and red colour scheme and recycling of the same few objects- chairs, basketballs, human heads- creates a cohesive, fascinating tableaux of uncanny imagery that inspires intense curiosity: what is the connection between a severed head regurgitating a banana and a man with a basketball for a face? Using himself as a model, van Hout makes himself variously small, big, ugly and naked through sculpture. He then places himself alongside weird sculpture creations- mostly involving human heads- that evoke horror movie monsters such as The Thing, or the gentler comedic animations of Bill Plympton. Again, van Hout makes physical interaction an important part of the work, forcing viewers to crouch and stretch to explore his artwork. Despite their differences, these works have a common sense of encouraging the viewer to explore them and discover new details. In other words: they are a lot of fun. Image shows detail from Laith McGregor's S-O-M-E-O-N-E.
More than just a bad pun, last year's Fair@Square fair trade fair attracted nearly 80,000 attendees. A celebration of all things ethical, this is vegan paradise. With ethical advice on all topics from better pizza techniques to gardening strategies, and entertainment including Wadaiko Rindo and Sol Nation, its sure to be a great day. If you're vegetarian, vegan, or just don't like wearing fur, the Fair Trade Fair has something for everyone. You can see the Living Tent, an exhibition by Fair Living which represents a non-superficial, ethical lifestyle. Bringing together technology from several designers, including living architecture and recycled furniture. You can also drop by the tackily titled Talk Tent to listen to some – you guessed it – talks on fantastic topics including ethical education, ethical financial management, sustainability in business and fashion, and advice for social entrepreneurs and enterprises. Image by Travis.
Are you Ready For the Floor? Are you itching to "do it do it do it now?' Naturally. Hot Chip want you to dance your stripy little socks off and then some. After they do Falls and Southbound Festivals, Joe Goddard, Alexis Taylor, Felix Martin, Al Doyle and Owen Clarke are coming to Melbourne with their own kind of electro pop. They almost challenge you to keep to their infectious tunes. Yeah they've got some Mercury Prize and Grammy Awards, and yeah their fifth album has received critical acclaim, triple j love to play them and they've been in the top 20s charts for ages now. But we know what you're interested in — can you dance to their stuff? Hell yeah. As The Independent says, their shows are all about "blinding lights pulse at disorientating speed in time with a fierce percussive onslaught." Yes – be afraid. But in a good way. https://youtube.com/watch?v=zd_JW73R1Wk
Under her stage name of Cat Power, US musician Chan Marshall has established herself as one of those real rarities in music nowadays — an original. Trying to categorise her music is difficult, especially as it has evolved ever since her debut in 1993. Calling it 'her take on soul' or 'her brand of indie' is unjust since nothing she makes feels try-hard — it all feels real. From the sparse, haunting melodic indie of 'Cross Bones Style' to the uplifting blues of 'Lived In Bars' to the discordant R&B of 'Cherokee', Chan is always unmistakably unique. Her 2012 release Sun is her first album of original material in over six years. With increasing onstage confidence (and her notorious onstage meltdowns a thing of the past) Chan's more striking stage presence matches her powerful voice. https://youtube.com/watch?v=PDbPrOuXq2s
Red Stitch’s last play for the year is fittingly titled Midsummer. The summer in question though is not the sunny Australian one we’re all hopefully heading into but the more dreary Edinburgh version. The play is by Scottish playwright David Greig and tells the story of a whirlwind romance between petty crook Bob and divorce lawyer Helena. The unlikely couple have a wild weekend funded by money lifted from one of Bob’s criminal bosses, spicing up this thirty-somethings looking for love comedy with a touch of crime caper. With songs by Gordon McIntyre (of Ballboy), it’s also a kind of indie folk musical. The play made waves at 2009’s Edinburgh Fringe. While a British version of it did tour to Sydney earlier this year, this one at Red Stitch is a local production, featuring Ben Prendergast and Ella Caldwell. Sounds like it will be quirky, funny and smarter than your average summer romance.
They call Los Angeles the city of angels, but most people don't find it to be that exactly. From the glamour and intrigue of Hollywood to the danger and violence of Compton, LA plays a stand-out role in the collective imagination of movie-goers, hiphop fans, and fashionistas. All of these elements are tied together in Pompeii, L.A., a stageplay by Declan Greene, winner of this year's Max Afford Playwrights' Award. Following the story of a child star's rise and fall, and the bumpy ride between, the play explores the excitement and the danger of making it big. Movie stars and drug dealers, glamour and ruin, fiction and non-fiction – the lines between them are blurred in this new show. Pompeii, L.A. is sure to continue the run of great shows at the Malthouse Theatre, home to some of Melbourne's most cutting-edge live performances.
There is something fun-sucking about the classic 'white cube' gallery space. Pristine, freshly painted walls with evenly spaced photographs or paintings or little sculptures dot the walls, everyone slowly walking clockwise around the room and spending just the right amount of time looking at each work. Occasionally, it's nice to shake it up. Smokescreen's number one priority is fun; aka excitement, interest, joy. As thousands of foam beanbag balls fill the air around you, creating an artificial snowstorm, you may wonder why every exhibition isn't this awesome. A collaboration between Elizabeth Pedler and Jeremy Eaton, Smokescreen is a place to not only release your inner child and see something fresh and fun, it's also an example of great art that will leave you wanting more.
The discrepancy between Perfume Genius' Twitter feed and his music is incredible. As Mike Hadreas he channels his often unnerving honesty into a series of vulgar 140-character trivialities about everything from fondling the f*** out of zits to applying cheapo L'Oreal BB cream. As Perfume Genius he channels it into beautifully harrowing lamentations on serious personal traumas ranging from prostitution to drug addiction. Lyrics about traumatic past experiences aren't unique, but Hadreas' ability to convey them with warmth and lucidity is something special. His second album Put Your Back N 2 It tackles some big issues, but carrying them are tender vocals, delicate piano playing and a solid understanding of basic human fears that shape us all. And at his live show you also get a sense of the other side of Hadreas — the joker who pops his zits and rags on cheap cosmetics — making it an even more genuine look into the singular musician's mind. https://youtube.com/watch?v=OOpkr8uNWpk
When we heard the Melbourne Recital Centre was turning a vacant lot in Southbank into a music festival for four weekends during summer, our ears pricked up. The Garden Party will, like the centre itself, be home to artists across countless genres and, we are hoping, many a warm summer evening. Tim and Alix Design had the giant task of taking the space behind the recital centre and making it Garden Party ready. While it started very sterile and cold, it is promising to be reminiscent of long summer days spent on tree-lined streets running through sprinklers. It's an homage to summer in the 'burbs, and that ain't bad. Each night — Friday through Sunday — will feature a number of bands and DJs from Australian and international shores. Expect indie, electro, and soul, with some of the headlining acts including The Bamboos, Van She, Art of Sleeping, Husky, Jonti, Jens Lekman, and many more. If you want to sip a tipple while you dance, there will be a bar onsite where you can buy drinks in exchange for tokens (available inside), and Soul Kitchen, Gumbo, and Yogadiction will be serving up food to the masses. The Garden Party opens Friday, January 25, with headliners The Bamboos, and they will be throwing a free Australia Day party on Saturday, January 26.
In 2007, a wave of albino murders swept across Tanzania. Their slaughter was at the command of witch doctors, who believe that albino limbs deliver prosperity and good luck. Horrified, British filmmaker Harry Freeland flew to Tanzania, where he spent spent six years following Josephat Torner, an albino who had left his family home and was travelling from village to village, risking his life to confront superstition. The resulting documentary, In the Shadow of the Sun, is just one of the films in the Human Rights Arts and Film Festival, in Melbourne from May 9-23. Screening on closing night, it will make sure this a month of movies you won't forget in a hurry. Jamie Meltzer's Informant, a portrait of fanatical humanitarian-turned-FBI bedfellow Brandon Darby, is a highlight, as is Alex Meillier's Alias Ruby Blade. It's the story of Australian activist Kirsty Sword, who left for East Timor to make documentaries and found herself working as an underground operative for the imprisoned Xanana Gusmao.
Gone are the days when we would wait with anticipation while the modem be-bopped it’s way on to the world wide web just so we could scam a free song off Napster. We'd have to time it so that we could sleep while the song was downloading and by the next morning, if the line hadn’t dropped due to a phone call, we'd burn it to a CD-R at 2x speed and shove it on our discman. If you yearn to reminisce, head to this Thursday's SmartBar: Retro Futurism event at the Melbourne Museum. Introduce yourself to one of the world’s oldest computers CSIRAC (inter what?) then fast forward and enjoy some of our newest emerging technology in 3D printing. Oh, and did I mention you can also enjoy a stiff drink while CSIRAC sings you an electronic golden oldie? Some of life's greatest joys are still not available for download.
It's not often that feminism in mainstream media and art makes us laugh. But with a large proportion of feminist opinion vocalised in response to the very serious issues of misogyny, oppressive inequality and violent crimes against women, perhaps it’s solemnity is understandable. Despite allusions to the contrary, feminism's foundations lie within irony and humour and feminist artists have long employed laughter as a tool within their work. BACKFLIP: Feminism and Humour in Contemporary Art aims to subvert ingrained stereotypes of feminism as dry, dull and run by angry women. Embracing feminism's rich (and perhaps largely unknown) legacy of wit, satire and playfulness, the exhibition is a collection of reworked and contemporary feminist art. It’s ironic, it’s absurd, and, yes, it’s funny. Curated by Laura Castagnini, along with Margaret Lawrence Gallery’s director Vikki McInnes, the exhibition aims to give feminist art largely by female artists the platform it deserves. As you enter the gallery space picket signs by New York’s Guerrilla Girls (Museums Cave into Radical Feminists, Museums Unfair to Men) highlight an amusing, but inextricable gender inequality within the art world. This harks back to Louise Lawler’s 1972/81 text and audio work, Birdcalls, also featured within the exhibition. Through parody these works combat the institutional bias that continues to inhibit the success of female artists. A convergence of artistic mediums within BACKFLIP means that something is always grasping for your attention, demanding to be looked at and considered. Single channel video provides a captivating platform for female performative work, as with Patty Chang’s 1998 Melons (At A Loss) and the more contemporary video work from Melbourne artist Hannah Raisin. The exhibition is constantly backflipping to older generations, cultures and nations. Humour that was employed by pioneering feminist artists has been reworked and reappropriated to explore the presence and experience of feminism in contemporary Australian culture. The collection sees Alice Lang’s text-based works represent feminist conversation through Gen-Y slang and Melanie Bonajo re-enact VALIE EXPORT’s iconic 1968 Genital Panic for contemporary audiences. BACKFLIP also features digital video from renowned artists such as Tracey Moffat, Mika Rottenberg and Pipilotti Rist. The representation of female relationships is played up by cultural stereotypes — be enchanted (or repulsed) by the idealisation of female friendship with a live installation of nat&ali’s Friendship Is and witness a ridiculous rivalry in the form of two robotic vacuum cleaners. Perhaps one of the most absurd works in the exhibition is the Hotham Street Ladies’ use of icing to create a large bleeding uterus in the gallery’s male toilets — crude, funny and undeniably sweet at the same time. Humour is a patriarchal game, but one that BACKFLIP uses to subvert the stereotypes of feminism to allow female voices to be heard — and laughed at. Image via Brown Council
Red Stitch Theatre's About Tommy sees the company follow their established inclination towards challenging, subversive subject matter. The translated Thor Bjorn Krebs play, directed here by Kat Hendry, transports the audience back in time to war torn 1990's Yugoslavia to explore the emotional realities faced by soldiers, both on and off the battlefield. Hendry aims to challenge her relocated viewer by telling the horror tales of wartime through the innovative use of live-action performance, intermingled with actual newsreel footage of the conflict. Within this creative, unorthodox composition, cast members Matthew Whitty, Kate Cole and Paul Henri collectively play 11 characters, compellingly conveying the maelstrom of emotions evoked in the context of conflict, particularly in the minds and hearts of UN peacekeepers who are given the impossible task of merely monitoring war rather than engaging in it. Image via Red Stitch Theatre.
Earth Hour is a symbolic action. Although there is carbon saved by turning things off, the point is the unmissable demonstration that a huge chunk of the world's population caring about the same thing at the same time. If we can manage this for Earth Hour, why not for grander environmental things? The Hour started in Sydney in 2007, and has become an international event in the years since. There are Earth Hour events in Kenya, India and Ireland these days, but you don't need to travel so far afield to find a way to join in this time around. At its simplest, all you need to do is stay home and turn off the lights. But if you'd like to have a more social darkened moment, you can head to a candlelit restaurant or one of a raft of other lights-off events. Image of Earth Hour Switch Off 2010 by Sewell / WWF.
Is there anything Mx Justin Vivian Bond can't do? In a career spanning more than 20 years, the cabaret hero has played Huck Finn as a tranny prostitute; reinterpreted the likes of Radiohead, Kate Bush, and Tracy Chapman; and written an award-winning autobiography (Tango: My Childhood, Backwards and in High Heels). Along the way, Bond has picked up an Obie Award (2001), a Bessie Award (2004), an Ethyl Eichelberger Award (2007), and a Tony nomination (2007). On a return visit to Australia in late February, Bond will present a new show: Justin Vivian Bond is Mx America. Audiences can expect songs (both originals and classics), spoken word, poetry, audio-visuals, and, of course, Bond's curious mixture of outrageous humour and fragility. Needless to say, there's also bound to be a whole lot that we can't predict!
This month Elle opens, an emotional new work from Lyric Opera of Melbourne, conducted by Pat Miller and directed by Nathan Gilkes. The legendary composer Francis Poulenc penned its music for Jean Cocteau's 1959 libretto of his 1930 play, La Voix Humaine. The one-act chamber opera consists simply of a series of conversations a woman conducts over the phone with her unseen lover. The audience eavesdrops on these, her last words to the man she loves; he's to marry another woman next day. The talk is interrupted by Paris's notoriously poor telephone service of the era, an effective metaphor for emotional disruption.
If you have seen the new single, 'Ballad of the War Machine', from Midnight Juggernauts, you might not know what to think. The throw-back, surrealist video clip had tongues wagging and mouths salivating a few weeks back for the return of the Melbourne trio, yet no one expected their return to be this covert. Like Cold War-era secrets, information on the new Midnight Juggernauts material was kept secret, as different versions of the video were distributed through blogs and discussion boards. The responses to this method of viral promotion were varied, yet the end result is a memorable experience that has only made anticipation grow in the bellies of fans. Since releasing their previous albums, Dystopia and The Crystal Axis, Midnight Juggernauts have been touring the globe before taking time off to gather inspiration for their next effort. If this lead single is anything to go by, Midnight Juggernauts will still be pushing boundaries and matching expectations. Their national tour takes in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne before the trio play at Groovin' the Moo. https://youtube.com/watch?v=VMeuC_aGuoo
‘It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.’ Although this statement may have rung true for Jane Austen circa Pride and Prejudice, her characters also got about in girdles and styled their hair like so — times have changed. A Contract of Love sees the Malthouse play host to a night of discussion and debate regarding the pros and cons of putting a ring on it, post millennium. Richard Watts (Smart Arts 3RRR) leads a debate that is bound to be fierier than your average neighbourhood domestic and coincides with the theatre's season of Dance of Death, a performance that explores one couple's experience of 25 years of wedded hell (you get less for murder). Panellists include writer and broadcaster Helen Razer (The Big Issue), the walking minority that is gay and Asian writer Benjamin Law (Gaysia, The Family Law), gay activist and Professor Dennis Altman (The End of the Homosexual?) and marriage equality campaigner Jacqui Tomlins. While the evidence is overwhelmingly negative (Britney in Vegas, Kimmy K and Kris and Carrie left at the altar), Pippa Middleton’s ass stands in strong defence of tying the knot — a reminder of the beauty that can come out of a well executed wedding. I do?
During the first two weeks of March, Melbourne will transform into a gastronomic playground showcasing the best of the city’s eateries, bars and markets with tastings, demonstrations and indefinable but delicious events, as part of the 2013 Melbourne Food and Wine Festival. Don’t be scared, the MFWF isn’t all $300 master classes and 35 course degustation dinners with world famous chefs — if your budget is feeling stressed just thinking about it, then our hip-pocket-friendly, curated buffet-style guide to the festival is for you. But get in quick as events are selling out fast. Image via melbournefoodandwine.com.au
Ganesh Versus the Third Reich is a play about the famous Hindu god, Ganesh — recently popularised by the T-shirts of a thousand faux hippie festivalgoers, teamed with a bindi — and his imagined quest to reclaim the Sanskrit swastika symbol from Nazi Germany’s Third Reich. Ganesh is the god of overcoming obstacles, and judging from the story's premise, his journey throughout director Bruce Gladwin’s performance will acutely test his ability to do so. At the same time, in a parallel universe, the cast of the Back to Back Theatre company who are to perform the piece must overcome the tribulations that accompany their attempts to tackle such contentious subject matter, with this second narrative also played out onstage. An interesting factor that is perhaps best approached head on, as it is in the play, is that all actors in the cast can be classed as "intellectually disabled". Whilst the abilities or disabilities of the actors are not explicitly a focal point, the way they sit alongside a story set amidst Word War II Germany, when the Nazis were attempting to create a "pure" race through unnatural methods of brutality, cannot be overlooked. The audience must confront both general questions of humanity, prejudice, and guilt, alongside their own motives, reactions, and motivations as participants in the part fiction, part reality of the performance. Image via backtobacktheatre.com
Tasmania has a lot to offer the world — grass-fed beef, Mary Donaldson, and, not least of all, Neil Haddon. Having exhibited his sharp lines and collaged offerings in solo exhibitions since the mid-'90s, Neil Haddon has been represented by Dianne Tanzer gallery + projects for over a decade, and his most recent exhibition is a celebration of this enduring partnership. At first glance, his latest mixed-media graphic style work, shown in Los Angeles last year, brings to mind the designs of a trendy M83 LP or the current issue of IdN magazine. One only needs to look a little closer to discover that amidst his hand-painted, collaged layers an unexpectedly sombre subject matter is being examined — the complexities of migrant dissonance and dislocation. Once you're aware of this, the pieces take on a whole new, deeper quality that transcends their aesthetic worth.
Andy Bull is the definition of a one-man show. The two outstanding singles he has released this year, Keep On Running and Baby I Am Nobody Now, are entirely self-written, self-performed and self-produced. How he is going to pull this off live is uncertain, but we know that we want to be there to see it. Andy Bull’s alt-pop stylings and intriguing vocals create songs that tread a fine line between hope and despair. With a little help from an analogue synthesiser and some catchy choruses, the results are almost cinematic in the dreamscape we get lost in. Think of a David Lynch film in musical form: dark and mysterious, but undeniably beautiful. He has been enjoying radio play on both commercial radio and Triple J this year, and has recently signed to record label Republic Records in the US (who have also signed acts such as Gotye and Lorde). In other words, he’s blowing up. Check him out at the Northcote Social Club while you still can.
PUSH is a raw, stripped-back collection of four dance works that unites the talents of Sylvie Guillem and Russell Maliphant. Guillem made the move from to contemporary dance in 2006, after carving out a reputation as one of the greatest ballerinas of the twentieth century. Maliphant is best known for his prolific work as a choreographer, so PUSH is a rare chance to see him take the stage himself. The two artists who made the show together are also joined by a third long-time collaborator Michael Hulls. Hulls' lighting design aims to highlight the interplay between physical movement and sound, adding a third dimension to the duet and three solo pieces that make up the work. Maliphant and Guillem will also be presenting a free talk as part of the Melbourne Festival’s Artists in Conversation on Friday, October 25 at 1pm.
The marriage of wine and music is one that has stood the test of time. From Bob Marley lamenting the amnesiac benefits of wine and how they ease his heartache to the image of Matt Berninger, the frontman of The National pacing the stage with a glass of red in one hand and a microphone in the other, one can't deny that wine and music have great chemistry. Cake Wines have taken advantage of this famous pairing by throwing a round of boozy bashes featuring the creme de la creme of local musical talent — as well as other art and foodie events — in Sydney. On August 8, they'll also be hitting Melbourne for a month of good times and great wine at their pop-up bar in a Fitzroy warehouse space. Catch the likes of Alpine, Hayden Calnin, Andras Fox, Tornado Wallace, Sui Zhen, D D Dumbo, Olympia as well as a special Wax'o Paradiso Record Fair. The pop-up will also host art events and talks, including a Supper Club discussion series presented by Next Wave and hosted by festival director Emily Sexton. The School of Life will be paying a visit to help all present barflies improve their conversation skills.
The Smith in Prahran, usually known for its delicate share plates, is clearing out the tables and turning the restaurant into a seafood marketplace for one night in September. An array of seafood bites will circulate the restaurant, and will go down nicely with a selection of Australian wines and a glass of French champagne or two. Think freshly shucked Oysters, panko crumbed crab cakes, kingfish sashimi and kataifi wrapped scallops, as well as seared calamari and Atlantic salmon. If you like your seafood fresh, and perhaps with a glass of wine, this one looks like it could be a lot of fun.
I could summarise Paranoia's plot. But to do so would be to compile a stock-standard litany of signposts of the corporate espionage genre: Dastardly capitalists who'll stop at nothing to retain their market share! An ambitious upstart from a working-class family who is recruited to steal secrets and quickly realises he's out of his depth! A hot love interest who our hero must lie to in order to retain his compromised position spying in the belly of the beast! Sinister henchmen who appear in little more than silhouette! Hard-edged, Matrix-style, millennial typefaces for the opening credits! The film equivalent of Getty stock images of New York's time-lapsed skyline at night! And finally, a mediocre title bluntly aimed at edginess: 'Sniper'? 'Hunted'? 'Suspect'? No, it's Paranoia! Here, the wide-eyed protagonist is Our Liam (Hemsworth), direct from Summer Bay via The Hunger Games, and our scheming tech billionaires are autopiloted by Gary Oldman (with an inexplicable Cockney accent) and Harrison Ford, who appears to be possessed by a necromancer. All of these actors are totally interchangeable — Hemsworth could be traded for Chris Pine or Ryan Reynolds, and Oldman or Ford could be any old guy with credibility for hire. Who's swindling who?! Have the tables turned? Fear not, each 'twist' is signalled from a pantomime-long distance. And remember, we're in a pro-Facebook, post-GFC era now, so we'll need just enough references to 'cutbacks' and 'socially networked devices' to make some token social commentary. But beyond the name dropping, terms like 'insider trading' are merely fuel for the generic, white-collar thriller fire. Paranoia really is so cliched and tiresome, it could be a minor work of cinemasochistic genius by Australian, Legally Blonde director Robert Luketic. No, the best thing for this sort of exercise in filmic pollution is to stealthily organise your cinema trip around a genre-based drinking game with a group of friends. Gratuitous Apple Mac product placement? Drink! Garden variety corporate-speak ("Competition breeds innovation!" "We need more R&D!")? Drink! Hey, maybe this movie's not so bad after all. Maybe the filmmakers were playing us for dupes and intend Paranoia to have a long and healthy DVD afterlife in the 'so bad it's good' category of home viewing. The tables have turned! Or have they? https://youtube.com/watch?v=kiwTRLwmm4w
Being a teenager is universally difficult, especially when it comes to confronting the grieving process for the first time. Playwright Kit Brookman's Heaven, winner of the 2012 Philip Parson’s Young Playwright’s Award, explores this innately depressing subject matter in an unexpected, comedic format. After his school friend Angela Farsworth is killed in a freak accident, Max must deal with the scary and confusing thing that is death. How does he go about it? Unable to accept what has happened, he decides to get a group of his teenage friends together to bring her back from the other side. Spend some time contemplating loss and the age old question of whether some things are best left undiscovered, all while having a laugh or two – what else can you do in the face of adversity, after all? Image via La Mama Theatre.
