Being a young person who hangs out with other young people a lot, I'm not often privy to the conservative, secular opinions of those a generation or two older than me. So I really giggled when I shared the story with those other young people, about one dude (Ozzie) flipping out about Holy Fuck's name online. I mean, hasn't he read Romeo & Juliet? Names aside, Holy Fuck out of Toronto are a band whose music lives up to the gasping expletive in their name. The pouncing electronic waves that spill from the cascading leads and cables of their equipment through any sound system are mind-absorbingly fun — as is hearing and watching them perform live. Lucky for Sydney then that they're playing at Beck's Festival Bar! The FBi night will also feature Melbourne's jaggered post-rock trio My Disco and FBi djs Lexi Savvides and Monk Fly.
Calling a show hip hop theatre is as provocative as it is accurately descriptive. Hip hop's genes carry a lot of thoughts on race, on class, on legal systems, greed, corruption, sex, violence — all of the pulsing darkness that forms the cross-rhythms of Western society. But there's another side to hip hop: poetry both hopeful and cynical, with a playfulness that is sharper than a knife when it comes to potentially changing someone's life. Jonzi D, the UK's premier hip hop theatre director/writer/producer/performer, has arrived in Sydney in time to mix his British hip hop tastes with a localised, Australian talent pool. The result is East London West Sydney, a project that aims to deconstruct stereotypes about "the dodgy parts of town" as well as hip hop itself. What you find in hip hop theatre, in East London West Sydney, is not low brow. It's intelligent, sexy and virtuosic: there are moments of poetic truth that ring harmoniously with Shakespeare and a rigorous engagement with the audience that echoes Brecht. And it's fun. No matter how serious a world we live in, it is through joy and laughter that we'll ultimately get by. Image by Irven Lewis
After food and water, shelter is a vital necessity for the most basic standard of life. But where would life be if we all lived in functional, concrete cubes? Shelter is not a home; rather, it is the idiosyncrasies of colour, style, location and personalities that gives a roof and four walls a sense of being something greater than a base requirement. Along with religion, the idea of home is a major cause of war. Sydney artists Matt Prest and Clare Britton are inviting audiences to enter their oppressive and fluid not-home — a space of shifting walls that steer and drag their inhabitants like cattle. Somewhere in the belly of this fractal shelter, a young couple strive to find a home for themselves. Claustrophobes are advised not to attend, but for all others this is a great opportunity to explore a theatrical world that will literally grab you on a physical level. Image by James Brown. https://youtube.com/watch?v=4IsCbwuuIRE
It seems the New York Metropolitan Opera has caught wind of what those clever fellows over at the British National Theatre have been up to; they've launched their own live, high-definition screenings of productions for the delight of international audiences. As with London, New York has too pesky a time difference for Sydneysiders to see the shows live, but instead you can while away an afternoon at the Chauvel, the Hayden Orpheum or the Dendy Opera Quays for Ambroise Thomas's lauded adaptation of Hamlet. Inspired by Shakespeare's classic tragedy, Thomas's 1868 opera is best known for extending Ophelia's descent into madness in a gripping scene celebrated in operatic circles for centuries. https://youtube.com/watch?v=w_ivQ7gHvq4
I remember seeing the Drones at the Hoey (R.I.P.), years back. I didn't know who the hell they were and a friend of mine took me along. I was floored. They were so loud and brutal, but they still had hooks and melodies in their songs that beautifully intertwined with the gnarled and twisted guitars. They seemed to exist on their own, exuding a sound and ideal that was very dark and un-Australian (like other expats the Birthday Party), while somehow remaining affable and sharply humorous, very Australian. Gareth Liddiard has been at the helm of the band all along, and it feels like their music is an extension of his person: at once brooding and moody, but also wryly charismatic and funny. These traits become clearer when you see his solo sets, and he's sneaking a few in while the Drones take time off. He strips back the walls of distortion and heavy rhythm section, so you can hear the intricate melodies and succinct, poignant lyrics that often reveal this dark sense of humour. His previous solo outings have allowed him to delve into the back catalogue of the band's work, pulling out some of the quieter tunes that they don't often play live. Also, to add enticement, Jed Kurzel from the Mess Hall will be whipping out his acoustic for some quieter ditties. https://youtube.com/watch?v=uN1bFLpGjPQ
Twins Tegan and Sara were born several hours apart in 1980 in Alberta, Canada. Fifteen years later they began playing guitar and writing songs as 'Sara and Tegan'. They later switched to 'Tegan and Sara' because it was easier to pronounce. (Imagine if the Olson twins had decided on 'Ashley and Mary-Kate'? Would the world as we know it be backwards?) They were scouted by Sir Neil Young himself in 2000 and signed to his label Vapor Records. In a world that seems pretty stark of talented twin-stars, Tegan and Sara are a doppelganger treat. Together they create music that spans indie-pop, rock and folk, writing catchy songs about various topics including crying like an alligator and being stuck in hell. The combination of the sisters’ mirrored voices makes for playful harmonies that kiss your ears, but sometimes you can’t help but wish they possessed a bit more twin ‘tude. And like many twins, they wear matching outfits (mainly stripes). As well as playing at the sold out Groovin’ the Moo festival, the girls will be playing a sideshow on May 7 at Luna Park’s Big Top, supported by indie-folk hip-hopster Astronautalis and Sydney darlings the Jezabels. An evening worth attending if you fancy doubling up on some Sydney Harbour sightseeing by night.
Jean-Pierre Jeunet's uniquely irreverent brand of quirk always makes for a fun trip to the cinema. Known for capturing his zany characters in a gorgeous, idealised, French film reality, Jeunet is probably most famous for introducing the world to Audrey Tautou in Amélie. Micmacs sees Jeunet and his long time collaborator Guillaume Laurant assemble yet another weird and wonderful crew of misfits. After losing his father to a landmine and almost losing his life to an errant bullet, Bazil (Danny Boon) is living a hard knock life. Jobless, homeless and with a bullet still rattling around in his brain that could kill him at any moment, Bazil busks for bread until he is taken in by a motley crew of scavengers, with variously strange talents. Together they take on the arms manufacturers responsible by exploiting their curious peccadilloes to hilarious ends. Micmacs is an endearing ensemble led by Boon's pitch-perfect performance as the gormless everyman prone to bizarre flights of fancy. Citing Toy Story as a reference, Jeunet's characters clearly come from that heightened, indeed cartoonish sensibility that is fantastically at odds with the politics of weapons manufacturing. The result will work for those happy to sign up for an amusingly lo-fi fable that turns society's trash into a cinematic treasure. https://youtube.com/watch?v=nQxgopUPOwU
If you've been wandering around the city lately, you may well have come across a rather disarming busker. That would be Mike Rosenberg, aka Passenger, a particularly talented Pom who has spent the summer tirelessly lugging his guitar, amp and albums up and down the East Coast like the journeymen troubadours of old. Between the UK, Australia and America his travels have also seen him performing at V Festival, SXSW, Peats Ridge and on tour with Lior. Peddling beautiful melodies, a strikingly earnest voice and some of the most elegantly rendered lyrics, Rosenberg has converted many a passerby. Stripped back and compellingly honest, there's echoes of Neil Young in his talent, which over the course of the summer has drawn ever more fans to his gigs, all as eager to hear his keening songs about lost love as they are ready to chuckle at his wry wit. 'Caravan', 'The Last Unicorn' and 'I See Love' and are crowd favourites from Passenger's second album Wide Eyes Blind Love, and will no doubt make the setlist of his final gig before Rosenberg trades Sydney's beaches for his hometown, Brighton. https://youtube.com/watch?v=SfpKLd3gmyg
Regina Spektor manages to tread the line between indie-quirk and mainstream pop. She does it with sheer songwriting prowess and musicality, her lyrics never obvious, but full of literary and musical references and delivered with a voice that's comfortable being angelic and earnest as well as soaring operatic heights and diving into rambunctious cabaret choruses. Since signing with Sire Records (a Warner Records imprint) she has settled into a more middle of the road and palatable style for her last two albums, 2009's Far and 2006 breakthrough Begin To Hope, leaving behind the self-referential Jewish quirkiness and neurosis of earlier albums like Soviet Kitsch. She's now found Top 40 chart success around the world, enjoyed major TV appearances and big film placements, and is even scoring an upcoming Broadway musical. We love her here in Aus, Triple J caning her songs and also playing her wonderful rendition of Lennon's Real Love to death. Her live performances are virtuosic but still very human, with her wry wit and affable nature winning crowds over with ease. Both Opera House shows are close to sold out, but seats around the side and behind the stage are still available if you're keen. https://youtube.com/watch?v=-pxRXP3w-sQ
For a few more months, the history of the Rocks starts in Newcastle. Renew Newcastle (a now-DIY project that grew under the auspices of Not-Quite-Art-fronter Marcus Westbury) took empty shopfronts and buildings in Newcastle and filled them with interesting art and strange shopping. Parramatta Council got into the idea with Pop-Up Parramatta, and now the idea settled near the CBD into a few choice shacks in the Rocks. The Rocks Pop Up Project has been going for a bit already, but a few months in you'll find it has a few new ideas in season for your delectation. A lot of the current action centres around the Red Room Company, who have set up what really is an underground den of poetry under 77 George Street in the form of its Club House. An installation by their new artist in residence will be in situ: The Forensic Heart is about loss and drawn from poems by Emily Bitto and Emily Simpson. Artist Donna Page will be hauting the space weekends. Gaffa's Pop-Up, meanwhile, is restaging Tim Andrew's blood-soaked Big Deal, along with his Horseradish-like Thousand Yard Stare. Image by Tim Andrew.
Naeem Rana and Nusra Qureshi are both artists of Pakistani birth who have adapted traditional forms of representation to depict their contemporary experience of the world. Having migrated to Australia in 2001, Rana and Qureshi have continued to practice Urdu calligraphy and Mughal miniature painting, and for this exhibition combine them with sculpture and digital photography in a reflection on (in)visibility and adopted spaces. Qureshi's calligraphy is recontextualised within advertising and pop culture and digital media, and Rana has transformed the scope and the scale of the works she creates using techniques for miniatures. This exhibition offers insights on several levels: into Pakistani art, history and development, and on how the ancient and contemporary can be synthesised. There's also a point being made about how Australian culture has responded to and influenced Rana and Qureshi as people and as artists, perhaps suggesting that they've garnered more recognition as the latter than the former.
The simple things are the hard bits. Jamie Adkins does some easy looking stuff on stage, but the audience falls around with laughter. It's not that what Adkins does isn't difficult. In fact, the things that he does are usually pretty hard. Using ladders as stilts, popping stage-balls out his mouth, walking the slack rope (like a tight-rope, but not so steady) and contact juggling, Adkins works on staple circus tricks and on the audience's expectations. In Circus Incognitus he plays someone with something to say on the tip of his tongue, the action of the show coming as he tries to take his idea from tip to talking. Adkins has done Cirque du Soleil and the lesser-known (here) Cirque Éloize, having left his native San Diego for the more circus-friendly Montreal. With his early circus expriences drawn from his street performances, he likes to pull his audience into his act. The Studio's wide design and ample cabaret-style table-seating will no doubt provide him here with scores of easy volunteers. Nonetheless, don't let his forward approach dissuade you. Though child-friendly, his clowning is anything but juvenile.
Written between 1914-1916 under the sway of a revival in astrology, Gustav Holst's The Planets gives (or shall we say channels?) a mood for each planet in the Solar System (excluding Earth of course, which in astrology offers no cosmic force). In a seven-movement orchestral suite Holst attempted to characterise each planet - its particular rhythm, melody and emotional disposition - so as to provide a complete composition of our psychological relationship with them. If you're a fan of the infamous music in Star Wars (composed by John Williams), Holst covered this galactic territory first; big rising surges of sound, drifting spatial ambience, heroic drama and, inevitably, some impending doom. The Planets: A Journey in HD brings together Holst's astrological characters and marries them with recent high-definition footage from NASA probes and the Hubble Telescope. Directed by filmmaker Duncan Copp, this audio-visual spectacle is probably worth some eye-and-ear-time. Recommended reading following the event: Carl Sagan.
This year's Celebrity Theatresports is embracing all things Spanish. It combines the talents of its more-famous guests with the skills of some Theatresports regulars, the regulars more versed in the event's everyday diet of improvisation and humour. The show promises to touch on the highs and lows of Spanish culture, while taking you on a tour of the highs and lows of comedy as well. Modern Spain is a nuanced collection of regions, alternately collaborating and jostling with the State for autonomy. At Celebrity Theatresports, Peter Fitzsimmons will bring the sense of Castillian decorum, Rockwiz host Julia Zemiro some breezy Valencian style, Monica Trapaga looks to be a nation of Catalan cool and Adam Spencer may be the evening's Basque Country — spouting intelligent and ground-breaking ideas, in a venerable language few outsiders can understand. If this federation of talent isn't enough, comedians Claire Hooper and the Umbilical Brothers will also be on hand. As if that's not enough the show raises money for the charity CanTeen, which helps young people keep a handle on their youth while dealing with cancer. Will this be a nation united? No one will know until the night.
Documentary film, reckon Antenna founders David Rokach and Alejandra Canales, is a robust and awesome genre. As such they've lined up a selection of documentary films long and short, by directors emerging and established, and put them together in a four-day celebration and investigation of this mode of filmmaking and what it can tell us about our world and our lives. This is the first time the festival has run, and it's the first Australian film festival to let non-fiction take the front seat in all its creepy, quirky, devastatingly revelatory and endearingly weird glory. It's also hosting the inaugural Walkley Documentary Award , which is kind of an exciting thing to exist, and has a dedicated Young People Program in the interactive Doc_Next program, a move toward engagement with the bright young things that seems honestly set to work with and learn from the different ways in which a new generation understands and makes media. We are all documenting all the time now, in ways that are ever more readily mass-communicable, and this festival is both a state of the nation on what documentary is and does now and a space for consideration of what it can be and do in the future. https://youtube.com/watch?v=wJ_Icrwu30Y
For someone born in 1989 Tom Ballard has done pretty well for himself so far. He's been the youngest ever recipient of the best newcomer award at the Melbourne Comedy Festival. He's toured the world doing comedy. And you might recognise his name from the Triple J Breakfast duo, Tom and Alex. So for someone who has only been around since 1989, what does he have to riff on? Plenty it seems, as his shows have continued to draw in large crowds and big laughs since he started. Another Australian law school student/lawyer turned comedian, it seems there is plenty to joke about among the torts and precedents of Australian law. You might not think there's a lot to say if you've only been around for 21 years but think of all those hilarious stories of hijinks as you started uni, and entertained audiences in Edinburgh and Montreal, and when you co-hosted a national breakfast radio program? Or maybe that's just Tom. In an intimate audience in Downstairs Belvoir, this is the opportunity to get up close and personal with Australia's favourite young comedian.
Searching for the Sydney underground art scene can be hard. You can follow a trail of shuttered windows and discharged glasses from weekly gallery openings; pore through a list of local ARIs (Artist Run Initiatives — galleries run by artists themselves), or eavesdrop among the likely, art-loving explorers of Sydney's many outdoor art festivals. But even so, it can be hard to land underground on purpose. Luckily, newly-coined ARI Alaska Projects is making it easy for you. Putting into action its plan to bring good art to unused places, it's opening its new gallery beneath the streets of Sydney in a disused carpark underneath Kings Cross, giving you the chance to get underground in both ways at Lorem Ipsum. Lorem Ipsum is named after the classic placeholder text used in typesetting. Like its namesake, this show is staking out the artspace Alaska will be using for a series of shows laid out to bleed well into the new year. Artists featured at this first sunken show will turn up in later shows as the gallery's lifecycle rolls on, and the space-staking roll call includes Primavera's Jess Olivieri, domestic image guru Samuel Hodge and the multitalented Siouxzi Mernagh. So whether you like subterranean shows, or just art in carparks, Alaska Projects is all over it for you. Lorem Ipsum launches Wednesday October 5 at 6pm, and after that is open 6-10pm Thursday and Friday, 1-6pm Saturday and Sunday.
What do you get when acclaimed novelist husband and wife team Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida try their collective hand at a semi-autobiographical screenplay about impending parenthood? A very writerly, willfully quirky road-trip, plied with many a double entendre and clear thematic goals. It’s also rather funny, with The Office staple John Krasinski and Saturday Night Live player Maya Rudolph joined by fellow comedic talent including of an off the rails Allison Janney and Earth-Mother par excellence Maggie Gyllenhaal. Of course each character represents a certain parenting ‘style,’ while our hapless pair come to realise home is where the heart is. Awww. Director Sam Mendes (American Beauty) continues his fascination with the American family, though this trip is mercifully less grueling than his journey down Revolutionary Road. Away We Go uncovers a few eloquent truths about partnership and parenthood, if you can wade through the quirk. https://youtube.com/watch?v=Hp_ZwQH2nfI https://youtube.com/watch?v=jlZLICwe3P0 https://youtube.com/watch?v=eGbcqMP0LRI https://youtube.com/watch?v=pin_yjP88Ck
The world of Public Bunnies begins and ends in a grim, black room furnished with old pianos and suspended garments. In this place outside of time, given form by the throaty dirge of unseen monks, twenty young performers collapse one after the other and are stripped down to their black underwear. Once unclothed, they are reborn into a dream state where bodies meld and flow into one another; they have become a true community, united in form as well as agenda.Community is the underlying theme of Public Bunnies, though this is a simple reading of the fascinating world created by the 2009 imPACT ensemble. Under the direction of stage visionary Michal Imielski, the ensemble succeeds in building a small village for its audience to explore - complete with a hospital, a water treatment plant and an underwear mine. Scattered throughout this pocket dimension are a host of quirky and haunting characters who spill across one another to develop a very organic, exciting space.This is a wonderful experiment in adventure theatre, giving audiences the chance to explore a well-realised world that does not fall into the danger of cringe-worthy "audience participation". Public Bunnies is also generous with its audience; as far as Imielski is concerned, there is no single interpretation to this production, so audiences are free to create their own story for the residents of this strange land.https://youtube.com/watch?v=fPcya4M7nfc
Google 'Young Blood' and the first thing to come up is some kind of Skin Care product. Icky, right? The Young Blood Designers Market is less ewww and more yeoowww! thanks to hot-to-trot trinkets, tidbits, and utensils, straight from the drawing pads of talented young designers. Past participants include the quirkily named High Tea with Mrs Woo (are we invited?), the bowerbird aesthetic of Felicity Gleeson, ghost & lola jewellery, Artisan Markets' favourites Rebound Books plus many more. And ok, so things are actually made first. But you get the gist. Hopefully you'll find something superior to plasma eye-peels. If not, take to the craft table yourself and make your own custom tea towel for a gold-coin donation.
Patrick Wolf doesn't bite. Hard. When he does, you'll find it very hard to bring yourself away from the multi-talented muso, especially when at one of his shows gig you'll get more glitter, spandex and garishly glam costumes than at a Britney concert. In Sydney to play music from his latest album, The Bachelor, the British Wolf and his Bowie-esque stylings are matched by an etheral voice and plenty of originality to inspire you to more lupine behaviour.
Since the grey wolf (the first known domesticated dog) was tamed and taken inside around 7000 BC, our pets require regular walks outside not only for their pleasure but for their intelligence - the variety of smells, the negotiation of territory and the possibility of an unpredictable context is necessary for brain stimulation and development. Much the same could be said for the musicians that occupy our headphones, radios, and televisions, for while these are safe places they may, after a while, become a little stale, stagnant and predictable. Shoot The Player, a Sydney-based DIY film project, would most likely agree. Their films capture both national and international musicians playing in unexpected places to unexpected audiences: Sarah Blasko in a tattoo parlour, Beach House at Tamarama, or Jack Ladder at the dog track are just a few locations where impromptu music has been exposed to the elements. Always a one-take video and never to be repeated, Shoot The Player position themselves as public art facilitators interacting with the wider environment through the performance of music. CarriageWorks will host over 100+ films by the group in an interactive and explorative installation. I haven't checked with the venue but if you have a pet maybe you should take it. Shoot The Player: Sydney + Music on Film opens at CarriageWorks on January 7 from 7pm, with drinks and special guests Holly Throsby and Washington. On January 23 at 11am there will also be free discussions with Shoot The Player filmmakers. Image: Beachouse at Tamarama. Photo by Jefferton James. https://youtube.com/watch?v=M5IUOe1yFjA
After two years hiding their light under their bushel baskets, gorgeous indie boys The Paper Scissors are once again letting their light shine. Last month they released a new song called Howl and since then have been touring the country performing songs from their forthcoming (yet to be titled) album. To celebrate their latest single T-T-Time, The Paper Scissors are playing a gig this Saturday night at Leichhardt's iconic and historic the Bald Faced Stag with Brisbane group The Boat People. If you can't make this show, they are also supporting Akron/Family on the 12th of December at the Annandale and are on the line up for the Peat's Ridge Festival.
Were I your mother I'd have only one piece of advice: do not enter the world of stand-up comedy. It is a scientifically-proven fact that the audience wants the comic to fail, because most humans are both sadistic and terrified of their own shortcomings. But what if the comic also wanted to fail? Would the cruel audience find it funny if failure, strangely, meant success? Enter Brown Council, performance artists-turned-comedians (or vice-versa) and Big Show, their latest project at Locksmith Gallery. Manifesting as conical-capped Dunces, this quartet beats the notion of entertainment into grim submission, pushing the comedic drive to its limits in an endurance performance of escalating violence. Prepare to laugh, then cry, and finally realise how much of a jerk you are for wanting to torture fellow humans like this.From 3pm on Saturday December 19 Locksmith are holding a Big Show Closing Party / Christmas Shindig in the gallery.
When you possess a singing voice as endearing (and idiosynchratic) as the ringleader of Kes Band, Karl Scullins, it seems almost criminal to release an instrumental record. And yet, the orchestration of Kes Band II, the eponymous group's second album, is so beautiful, you forget to miss it. Luckily for Sydney, it's being launched this Friday evening at Spectrum.A kind of musical grouping based in Melbourne, the numbers making up Kes Band fluctuate as much as the direction of their sound. For this record, the band was comprised of a number of musicians, all adding their own element to what is shaping up to be the dreamiest album of the year. It's the kind of LP that wanders all over you, up and down the hall and back again, over and over. The more traditional folk rock/ sea shanty take on the first record Kes Band is there but feels more malleable this time, swaying and swooning out of a darker, more ethereal place that makes sense when critics place them in the same parentheses as The Dirty Three.Catch them live before they whittle down to a three piece that intends to make a "party" record next year (and make sure you see them then, too). Supporting acts on Friday are The Icypoles from Melbourne and Ela Stiles from Songs. Tickets available now.Image: Lewis Boyes
The names of Del Kathryn Barton’s solo shows make her sound like some sort of Australian Miranda July. You could say “an artistic Miranda July,†but Miranda July makes art now – so anyone can be an artist, but not everyone can be a Del Kathryn Barton. The Sydney-based painter is as diverse as she is prolific, going from winning the Archibald to collaborating with Romance Was Born (or the other way around, if you prefer). She is as likely to be interviewed by Oyster as she is Art & Australia. Her works make the same impact with an excess of colour as they do with a lack of it.Barton’s subjects are at once all-knowing and innocent, with spindly limbs and eyebrows that frame moon faces and magic hair. When she deviates from painting people, the results are vaguely recognizable creatures with six breasts and floppy ears. Her latest exhibition is ‘the stars eat your body’ – a series of portraits in Barton’s distinctive style. While some faces peer out with misted eyes, others look directly at you with a penetrating stare. Del Kathryn Barton’s work is mesmeric to look at, but perhaps unsuitable if you are afraid of having your gaze returned. Image courtesy of Del Kathryn Barton & Kaliman Gallery
31-year-old comedian and musician Isy Suttie is probably best known for playing the overtly sexual I.T. misfit, Dobby, on the UK sitcom Peepshow. (If you haven’t seen it already I urge you to check it out – it’s brilliant)She’s coming down to Sydney as part of Sydney Festival to bring us her one woman show Love Lost in the British Retail Industry. It’s a comedic exploration into working class British life. Suttie plays a myriad of different characters who’s stories all intersect at a supermarket. She also plays songs. She’s only been writing shows for a few years and she’s already been compared to old-school British geniuses such as Alan Bennett and Victoria Wood.With all that musical talent, intellectual working class angst and dry British wit I imagine Suttie's show will be like a theatrical version of Pulp's Common People. Remember when Jarvis rode around in a giant shopping trolley mocking the British class struggle with all that Cockney anger and retro camp? Well hopefully this will be just like that, but all contained within a one-woman tour-de-force. Imagine!
"Songs is the Greatest Album I Have Heard This Year...and quite possibly this decade. Not that music is a competition, you understand. Ten stars. A hundred stars. A shimmering, cascading universe-full."And so begins noted music critic Everett True's recent review of the album that is being launched this Thursday at Oxford Art Factory. I'm inclined to agree with him.A four-piece based in Sydney, Songs are an usual pop band. When they first began to play shows they already felt tight and familiar. There was no growing up in public, as if they had emerged from the practice space fully formed and ready to wow. Combining elements of New Zealand pop (in particular, The Clean), and Brisbane's The Go-Betweens, with a more sprawling, city sound, Songs feel like a band you've always known but catch you delightedly off-guard with every new listen. This record is a long time coming and it couldn't be any better.Songs launch their self-titled debut album (hard to believe this is a debut) with supports from Panel of Judges and Lost Animal.To win one of three double passes to the Songs album launch this Thursday, email your name and address to hello@concreteplayground.com.au with 'Songs' in the subject line.https://youtube.com/watch?v=wuMyAou4JCE
There is a growing trend in Australian music. I will call it the rising of the thinking-person's-singer-songwriter. Catchy, I know. I'm talking Blasko, Washington, Paul Dempsey's solo stuff, Holly Throsby, and then some bands like The Panics, Oh Mercy etc. Artists that aren't afraid to write soft rock, or smart folk with slick, yet quirky production. Whitley is one of these characters. People that know his tunes will attest to the fact that the 22 year old Melburnian is a great writer and an affable and charismatic performer. He debuted with 2007's Submarine — a lovely, introspective acoustic based album. He has made a great move and expanded his sonic approach on his new album Go Forth Find Mammoth, incorporating some electronic elements and diverse but simple instrumentation. The record is always pushing the melodies and arrangements, with lyrics right at the front. A great performer with some thicker, slightly more 'rocked up' songs, Whitley is sure to put on a great show at the OAF, which still retains some intimacy for a decent sized venue. The Brunettes and Deep Sea Arcade open.
I want. I Want. I WANT! and I spend too much time looking in the mirror (and to be honest, at my reflection in shop windows). Ooh so painful to admit.There's something of the narcissist in me, I guess.It is true, as Jason Smith tells us in the catalogue essay for Michael Zavros' upcoming exhibition at GrantPirrie, that "none of us are immune to the lure of beautiful things and degrees of covetousness", and also that "wanting to look good, and wishing to enjoy the benefits of being desirable, are not in themselves irrational desires". It is only when covetousness and vanity begin to define the self that problems arise. Calling in the fox is partly Zavros' response to his own observation of "an ennui pervading consumer markets: a disaffected desire that actually loses touch with the beautiful". Predominately concerned with ideas of male beauty and flawlessness, Calling in the fox is nevertheless a critique of the pitfalls of contemporary culture. Zavros uses oil paint, charcoal and spray paint to fashion recoded images of baroque architecture (Echo, Zavros' largest painting to date recaptures Versailles' Hall of Mirrors), advertising and fitness equipment. These labour intensive paintings homaging artistic and cultural achievement are accompanied by austere bronzes, trophies of the hunt to which the exhibition's title makes reference.The trouble is, Zavros' works are so beautiful, their aesthetic so gloriously now, that upon seeing them covetousness is sure to overflow.Image: Signature Scent, oil on canvas, 2009, courtesy the artist and Grantpirrie.
Vampire Weekend's new album Contra is currently perched at #2 on the ARIAs. To celebrate, the boys from Brooklyn will be gracing us with their prepster presence once again, this time to headline the Groovin' The Moo festival. National sideshow dates have been announced and tickets go on sale Thursday 18th February at noon. Bring your cousins. To save the heaving Enmore floors, the second show on Thursday 13 May has been upgraded to the Hordern. https://youtube.com/watch?v=JlgNFwoApec
A number of Sydney art spaces have been inserting an exhibition of works by emerging artists into their programming of late. It's good. Got to keep the blood fresh. Stills Gallery is getting doubly fresh, kicking off a fresh new year with a group show of four fresh photo-media artists whose work considers 'the enigmatic auras of photographs and objects'. Max Creasy constructs still-life images by casting objects in plaster, hand painting and then photographing them. Emidio Puglielli's works display both sides of the photograph at once and become objects in themselves. Naomi White highlights the de-motivating atmosphere of workplaces in both subversive and frank ways, and Roberta Thornley's works on the anxiety surrounding the search for perfection and happiness are described as painterly and cinematic. Image: Constructed Form (glass), 2009, Max Creasy
Perhaps you're not the parade type. Maybe you're not into public displays of affection and/or glitter coated abdominals. Perhaps you're more like me and happier to sit, eyes agog in a darkened cinema for a few hours. The annual Sydney Mardi Gras festival is all about being out and proud and loud and fabulous, but you can still be out and proud indoors, if that's what you're into. Though many say size doesn't matter (who are they kidding?!), the Mardi Gras Film Festival, presented by QueerScreen grows in length, variety, and err, girth. Meaning more for your team, more for my team, more for any old team that likes popcorn and a choctop/bottom. This year, the festival's supersized cup runneth over with new features, classics, shorts and special events. One special event (listed as a feature but oh well) is Robert "veg vamp" Pattinson donning a moustache (and little else?) as Salvador Dali in Little Ashes. Another is Light Gradient from Germany, a film with a synopsis that includes the phrase "restorative nude swimming", and the recent Norwegian trip back to 1989 The Man Who Loved Ynge that promises to feature "synthpop and communal showers." For all the ladies, independent, there's a lot to choose from too. There's a queer take on Thelma and Louise called Drool (say no more) from the USA, To Faro from Germany about a girl who likes boys who falls for a boy who was born a girl but (sounds like a Blur lyric) is now a Latino hunk called Miguel. The one I'm hanging out for however is the recent American film by E.E. Cassidy We Are The Mods (pictured), focussing on tomboy Sadie's LA arrival and navigating of the mod scene by way of falling for a beautiful girl named Nico. The trailer makes it look like a coming of age, queer(er) take on Blow-Up. Credit where its due comes in the form of a few classics. The closing night of the film is An Englishman in New York, John Hurt's film about Quentin Crisp, the man who has a quip for every occasion. Then there's the real piece de resistance of the festival: a screening of the incredible 1990 documentary Paris is Burning, an extraordinarily up-close portrait of the African American "vogue-off" Harlem Ballroom scene. For full program details and tickets, visit the official website.
Object Gallery is reinvigorating the sustainable design/eco-friendly/carbon neutral debate just when it was starting to sound like a whole lot of codswallop - I mean what a life-cycle; from being the preserve of tree-hugging, odorous hippies, it gathered some genuinely concerned folk and then quickly moved on to the realms of fad and ridiculously over-marketed gibberish. State. Respond. Exploring sustainable design. is a provocative new exhibition drawing together five outstanding design studios from NSW. In a clever move, curator Brian Parkes asked the designers to respond not only to role that design can play in affecting positive change but also to the role that it has/is playing in creating environmental and social problems. The five studios involved cover furniture design (Schamburg+Alvisse), textile design (Bird Textile), graphic design (one8one7), multi-media (Digital Eskimo) and architecture (LAVA). An exhibition that includes a studio producing textiles using water-based dyes and solar power as well as an architecture firm that designed the Michael Schumacher World Champion Tower in Abu Dhabi (not yet completed), is sure to get some brain juices flowing. Expect provocative written statements as well as images and examples of real and speculative projects. An interactive micro-site dedicated to the exhibition will be launched in conjunction on the Object Gallery website.
Since the 1970s Gilbert & George have been historicized and celebrated for their unique conservatism of sensible suits and haircuts, narcissistic propaganda and exhibitionist libido. Combining English sobriety, an admiration for Margaret Thatcher and the intimacy of their own relationship, they championed what has now become easy to swallow but hard to digest for the contemporary art enthusiast: there is no boundary between art and life, and therefore, the activity of the artist is subsequently art. More than most, it seems as though the duo dedicate themselves to this cause – making habit aesthetic and turning English manners, ironically, into an entertaining spectacle. This free talk at COFA is guaranteed to please some and prod others - more information here. To mark the close of the Kaldor Public Art Projects retrospective at the AGNSW, there will also be a free Gilbert & George film program followed by the artists signing limited edition Valentine's Day cards and partaking in a public discussion with Edmund Capon - more information here. https://youtube.com/watch?v=-Hfg7qlGd-A
The oracle that is The Oxford Art Factory has decided they can predict the future and have picked a few bands that they are shooting forth into the stratosphere. The lineup goes like this- Parades, The Laurels, Cabins, Bearhug, Joysticks, Georgia Fair and Sticky Fingers. It is a huge, free (yeah that's right free) night of music. You might have heard bits and pieces of some of these bands, they have all had at least a few spins on FBi Radio. Parades are doing well to exist out of the shadow of one of their members Jonathan Boulet who just released his lovely debut record, which critics have been wetting themselves over. The band extend on his sound, with layers of vocals and nice melodic structures but add more electronic tinges to the mix. Cabins make smokey blues tinged rock. They are about to embark on a massive tour with The Mess Hall. There are so many bands playing that I might as well stop here and just say, GO! You'd be a fool not to.
I'm not sure if you are aware of this, but Sydney has a very healthy noise scene. Our pretty harbour city is home to some of the finest purveyors of all things fucked up and scuzzy. Music that is often alarming and surprisingly beautiful. Of course, one of the problems with live music in Sydney is that venues keep closing - and one of the arteries of Sydney's noise scene, Serial Space, has just shut down its live music because of council issues. So it is great that the coolest barber shop in Sydney, Sedition, has put up it's chair for the Difficult Music Festival, with music happening every night in January. This particular night sees Dale Gorfinkel, Ben Byrne and Ivan Lisyak take to the airwaves in the shoe box sized space. Gorfinkel builds crazy instruments that are somehow automated and play themselves. Byrne is a musicologist and performer who has graced stages at countless festivals. Besides being a producer and drummer in The Paper Scissors, Ivan Lisyak is a noise artist who experiments with guitar pedals and feedback and sometimes smashes heads off with disgustingly noisey-shoegazey laptop sonics. It will live up to it's name, so take some earplugs and an open mind.
Throughout the Sydney Festival period, Belvoir Downstairs will play host to a mixed bag of comical stories and performances. Just like the man in the lolly shop, this program has something for everyone and, for the musically inclined, your sweetie of choice happens to be The Fabulous Frances Faye in Australia. Written and performed by Nick Christo, a champion of Australia's cabaret scene, Frances Faye is the tale of the eponymous cabaret heroine as she springs from 1920s speakeasys through to mainstage spectacles with our own Peter Allen. Though his pipes alone are worthy of the watch, Christo's transformation into the smokey US icon is the orange zing within this jazz Sherbie.
On their own website, Antony of Antony and the Johnsons writes why he dedicated their most recent album The Crying Light to the dancer Kazuo Ohno. "In performance I watched him cast a circle of light upon the stage, and step into that circle, and reveal the dreams and reveries of his heart. He seemed to dance in the eye of something mysterious and creative; with every gesture he embodied the child and the feminine divine." Interesting you see, as I'd describe an Antony concert pretty much the same way. It's fitting that the folks behind Sydney Opera House's Adventures 2010 series would curate a show such as this. Their live shows are curiously performative, at times so emotional they seem poised to dip into eye-roll territory and then Antony will stop and tell a bit of a joke, or start batting a strand of a lovely wig out of his moonish, pleasant face. On record his voice is beautiful, but live it knocks the wind out of you. Following shows at the Sydney Festival in 2005 and a run of sell-out concerts at the State Theatre in 2006, Antony & the Johnsons return for two shows, playing with a 41-piece orchestra.
Writer/director Rodrigo Garcia (Nine Lives) challenges the intractable bond between mother and child in a compelling triptych of regret and redemption. With tour-de-force performances from Annette Bening, Naomi Watts and Kerry Washington, Garcia teases out the trials and tribulations of adoption and the profound and prevailing consequences for all. After being forced to give up her daughter of a teenage pregnancy, Karen (Bening) is a broken woman. Blunt and bristly, her unlikable personality belies a desperate loneliness and unspoken grief, which slowly, painstakingly begins to heal when she meets Paco (Jimmy Smits). Elizabeth (Watts) is her biological daughter, and, although the two have never met, Elizabeth shares her mother's assertive character, which manifests in a steely professionalism and a dominating nature that sees her coolly seduce both her boss (Samuel L. Jackson) and her next door neighbour (Marc Blucas). Meanwhile, Lucy (Washington) is desperate to adopt a baby and must navigate all manner of doubts to fulfill this yearning need. It is a tribute to Garcia's talents and casting that this dense, multi-narrative story plays out so clearly and affectingly. Watts and Bening are absolutely electric in their complimentary roles, and although Washington's character is comparatively less nuanced, she still brings depth and humanity to what could easily have devolved into a caricature of a hysterical, barren woman. Although some of the writing is a bit earnest and a few subplots unnecessary, Mother and Child is a powerful parable that uses the most primal of bonds to uncover the aching abyss of regret and the fundamental human need for connection. https://youtube.com/watch?v=rFH9P7W8MO0
The creators of Shrek seem to have a thing against short dudes. The first film was dominated by the very small Lord Farquaad, the second saw the vertically challenged King as the devious deceptor, the third focused on Shrek's fears about the pitter patter of little ogre feet arriving and with this, the fourth (and final?) Shrek, that tiny trickster Rumpelstiltskin is the, ahem, big baddie of the day. They really subscribe to the theory of short man syndrome. So, life is good in the land of Far Far Away. The kids are happy, the wife is happy and there are enough play dates with the local half donkey/half dragon kids to keep everyone amused. But Shrek is starting to feel that his old bachelor days of roaming around scaring villagers are too far behind him, and he makes a misguided wish to return to the good ogre days. Enter prankster Rumpelstiltskin. There's not a lot here that most viewers wouldn't have predicted from the get-go, but in a way that's very similar to the nursery rhymes and fairy tales that the film parodies. The added boon with this film is, of course, that you will get some neat glasses when you go in. Yes, this is Shrek in all of his three-dimensional glory. While so many blockbusters are making the switch to 3D with very little added benefit to the experience, for the kids and some of the adults, too, Shrek in 3D is a sight to behold. Horses race out over the audience and Shrek's wide girth pokes its way out of the screen, which just goes to make everything that little bit more exciting. It is just as well, really, because if one more thing comes and threatens Shrek and Fiona's love then I will personally recommend a trial separation for everybody's sakes. Really, come on; way to whip a horse. There are a few giggles, and undeniably the soundtrack to a Shrek film is always a boot-scooting hoot. And to be perfectly honest, I wouldn't recommend anyone not see this film. But to the makers I will say this: you're done. No more, thank you. You've mined the Grimm Brothers and Mother Goose collections well; there ain't no more oil down that well. Time to close the book and say they all lived happily ever after. As will I.
Real-life exes Vincent Lindon (Welcome) and Sandrine Kiberlain (Après vous...) generate some serious chemistry in Stéphane Brizé's heart-rending tale of star-crossed lovers. Jean (Lindon) is a small-town builder, affectionate father, loving husband and dutiful son, whose modest life is profoundly interrupted when he meets his son's schoolteacher, the eponymous Véronique Chambon (Kiberlain). Somewhat of a drifter, she hails from Paris but seems content to move from school to school each academic year. Perhaps it is this freedom as much as her understated beauty that attracts Jean, for soon the two are deeply, unspeakably, in love. The genius of this film is its simplicity. In adapting Eric Holder's novel, writer/director Brizé sees silence or sparse dialogue accompany most scenes, which instead rely on the minute manoeuvres of body language and furtive looks to portray the turbulent emotional landscape. The film therefore leans totally on its two leads, who are both effortlessly able to capture the audience's hearts through their nuanced, tender performances. Poignant without wallowing in angst, Mademoiselle Chambon is a master class in subtly and restraint, in a beautifully drawn portrait of love and liability. https://youtube.com/watch?v=qQaHBs5EloY
I often wish I'd done more Latin. Anyone who had could explain much more elegantly that the name of this show refers to being roughed up by turbulence and is a term for a newly classified kind of cloud, and they would also be able to talk knowledgeably about the bones of the creatures displayed in the gallery here rather than just mumbling "osseo-blar-blar-whoa-that's-BIG". Huynh's new series - all ominous and with the subconscious looming through the wet-and-dry finished charcoal and gesso illustrations - will be brooded over by an elephant and a whale skeleton as well as by arty types on the one night the works will be on display. The images on display are urban in stylistic vocabulary and dreamy by virtue of their familiar unreality: everything is recognisable, but something is a little off, with a vague sense of threat coming through the impossible spaces and proportions of the scenes and their disengaged, childlike inhabitants. There's an allusive, pre-conscious feel to the symbolism here that is very well served by being put in the Skeleton Gallery context of explicable monstrum and scary storms.
This Argentinean gem comes to Australia with a modicum of celebrity, having won the Best Foreign Film Oscar over such favourites as The White Ribbon and A Prophet. And while this makes for an interesting post-cinema debate, so does the film itself, for writer/director Juan José Campanella presents Eduardo Sacheri's novel as an enticing, gorgeously rendered memory, one that lingers long after the credits roll. The story oscillates between 1999 and 1974, as retired criminal court investigator Benjamin Esposito (Ricardo Darín) looks back over his career in an attempt to novelise the case that effectively ruined it all. Seeking counsel from his former colleague and unrequited love, Irene Hastings (Soledad Villamil), the two stir up some sleeping dogs as they piece together their memories of a hideous rape/murder case that they never once discussed in the intervening 25 years. Darín and Villamil compellingly straddle the two eras, filling in the decades with more than just good make up, while cinematographer Félix Monti conjures a stunningly subjective atmosphere with his evocative framing and focus. Indeed, Monti's superlative photography in a football stadium scene is alone worthy of its own review. Though the titular metaphor becomes a bit laboured at times, The Secret in Their Eyes (El secreto de sus ojos) has such emotional and visual depth that it's nigh impossible not to get swept up in Esposito's epic tale. Dryly humourous, impossibly tense and achingly ardent in turn, Campanella's journey down memory lane makes for unforgettable cinema. https://youtube.com/watch?v=0cNd1OIp808
Although reincarnation seems appealing if you were to you come back as, say, a lion, it's perhaps slightly less so when you consider that you might end up a cockroach. This is the story of Animal Kingdom: a pitiful tale of someone who had the misfortune to end up where no-one deserves to be. Our cockroach here is J (James Frecheville), a pubescent and generally unappealing young man. When his heroin-addict mother dies, the only person he can think to call is his grandmother, Smurf (Jacki Weaver), the grand dame of an underworld family. Drawn by default into a life of criminality, J quickly becomes caught up in a showdown between corrupt cops and his not-so-innocent relations. Forced to recognise his status as a little fish in a huge pond by a mustachioed senior cop — aka Guy Pearce looking straight off the set of Crime Investigation Australia — J makes tough decisions in order to survive. James Frecheville is chillingly convincing portraying J's naive, blase acceptance and cleverly resists presenting the character in a more complex, empathetic light than is necessary. The cinematography and the soundtrack to this film are exceptional, working with the slow pace of the film's beginning to make this 'not just another Aussie crime drama'. Beyond the halfway mark, however, the film begins to fall into the same traps: while tension still runs high, a strange combination of too cinematic and too 'real' makes the plot slightly unconvincing. Nevertheless, Animal Kingdom is an unusually stylish crime flick. https://youtube.com/watch?v=R5BsYRmMfus
Were it not for the fact that I was completely hypnotised by Jim Jarmusch's Limits of Control in the cinema last year, I would have raced out at some point to check who was responsible for the incredible soundtrack: Boris. In an issue of British experimental music magazine Wire, Jarmusch offered, "what's really remarkable is when they play live they're in the mode, in a way, of jazz musicians, not structurally or musically, but the way they listen to what the others are doing and build on it. Each time they play something it's obviously different, every time." That's how they approach recordings too, each album since their inception in 1992 exploring new territory but often with a base in drone. Appearing in Sydney as part of the Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed-curated Vivid festival, Boris are a three-piece from Japan who extend avant-garde noise to incorporate metal and ambient sludge. They frequently collaborate with bands similar in energy, such as Merzbow and Sunn O))), who they toured Australia with just a few years ago, stunning fans into reverent exclamations post show. If the fact that Reed and Anderson handpicked them to play isn't quite enough to move you, Jarmusch and Pavement have also chosen them to play separate ATP festivals. https://youtube.com/watch?v=eHyx5XDYn_E
I'm not quite sure that I'd be ethically comfortable with slaves of my own, but I think I could overlook these concerns if my slaves were pianos. They seem big and strong enough to do the heavy jobs, and it would be nice to have an occasional sonata around the house. So perhaps I need a reminder that pianos should not be subject to human whim, that they should be respected, admired and sometimes just left alone. In Slave Pianos, an innocent piano is found guilty of treachery and sentenced to execution by hanging. In this absurdly allegorical narrative, the piano is ripped from its pianist, deported and brutally executed. This performance piece will end as an exhibition and memorial to the piano's memory, titled Penalogical Pianology: The Timbers of Justice, in which both the gallows and the deceased piano will operate mechanically as musical instruments. A fun and fascinating avant-garde approach to colonialism. Image by Andrius Lipšys.
King Khan & BBQ Show is not a cooking show. King Khan is the Berlin-based, Canadian rocker that just messed with our heads for Falls Festival with his soul band King Khan & the Shrines. While he and the Shrines do melodic, garage/rhythm and blues party jams — like the Animals and Sam Cooke getting sweaty and disregarding any of their technique — this project is much more punk. The 'BBQ Show' bit of King Khan & BBQ show is in fact a man, not a cooking implement or method. This man, BBQ Show (Mark Sultan to his mum) played with Khan in a band called the Spaceshits. King Khan was then known as Blacksnake, and BBQ has had more pseudonyms than you could poke a stick at — Needles, Krebs, Von Needles, Skutch, Creepy, Bridge Mixture, etc. Confused? Yeah me too. So when King Khan and BBQ Show get together, besides being unsure of how to address each other, they make straight-ahead punk with dashes of soul, obtuse and weird lyrics and more messed-up stage antics than you could imagine; their band the Spaceshits were banned from playing live in their hometown or Montreal, and recently the duo were jailed while on tour in the US. I'm not sure about Lou and Laurie letting them unleash their show on the Opera House as part of Vivid Live. https://youtube.com/watch?v=WNAknZVzBRM
Most of you will be familiar with Melbourne's rag-tag, country/hippy sensation Wagons, led by none other than Henry 'Wagons' Krips. And for those of you who aren't: they play alt-country tunes, taking heed of Lee Hazlewood, Johnny Cash and Dylan — then adding a dash of theatrics and more people than you could drunkenly count on stage. They made friends and became fans of Tennessee trio Those Darlins, inviting them to tour 'Straya for the first time hand-in-hand on the East Coast Stampede Tour. The three young women that make up Those Darlins shred out a brand of very lo-fi country, almost punk-rock in its simplicity and in its outlook. They sing of feminine empowerment, shoot guns, drink whiskey and tear clubs apart with their attitudes and riotous live shows. Both bands have just wowed South by Southwest in Texas. The ladies have been drumming up hype and showered with kudos throughout the US, showing up on lots of 'bands to watch' type-a lists and touring with cool cats including Dan Auerbach (The Black Keys), Dr. Dog and King Khan (which, by the look of the photos was pretty crazy). It should be a pretty fun evening of both types of music — Country and Western — with a bit of punk thrown in.
When I was younger, circuses were a terrifying experience. They were loud, dusty tent hells filled with shitting, roaring animals and clowns who grinned while they attempted to assault you with balloons. At some point between then and now, trends and public opinion have changed, causing circuses to clean up their act for the benefit of animals and audiences everywhere. Circa is the result: a new kind of circus that showcases the virtuoso abilities of very strong, flexible humans. No more excited elephant turds. No more lecherous maniacs with painted faces. And now, after four years of successful international tours, this Brisbane-based company has compiled their best acts into a degustation of artistic circus for the most unlikely of marquees, the Opera House.
