BMA Mag 354 Aug 18 2010

JOHN MARSDEN’S CLASSIC SERIES HITS THE BIG SCREEN

om www.bmamag.c

SARAH BLASKO London calling #3 54 AU G1 8

soulfly !

Maximum power

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be mindful

A rainbow solves all my problems. # 3 5 4 A U G 1 8 Fax: 02 6257 4361 Mail: PO Box 713 Civic Square, ACT 2608 Publisher Allan Sko Scott Layne

harmonies for the heart

General Manager & Advertising Manager Allan Sko T: 02 6257 4360 E: advertising@bmamag.com Editor Julia Winterflood T: 02 6257 4456 E: editorial@bmamag.com Accounts Manager Ashish Doshi T: 02 6247 4816 E: accounts@bmamag.com Super Sub Editor Katy Hall Graphic Design Natalie Runko Exhibitionist Editor Naomi Milthorpe E: exhibitionist@bmamag.com Film Editor Mark Russell Principal Photographers (The Flashbulb Posse) Andrew Mayo Nick Brightman NEXT ISSUE 355 OUT SEPT 1 EDITORIAL DEADLINE AUG 23 ADVERTISING DEADLINE AUG 26 Published by Radar Media Pty Ltd ABN 76 097 301 730 BMA is independently owned and published.

Opinions expressed in BMA are not necessarily those of the editor, publisher or staff.

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The lineup for the National Campus Band Competition ACT Final has been announced. It’s all happening at Transit Bar on Thursday August 26, and running times are as follows: Starfish Hill are kicking off the night at 6pm, followed by Flight or Fall at 6.30pm, Fun Machine have the 7pm slot, followed by The Very at 7.30pm, then it’s Steady the Fall at 8pm, The Naddiks at 8.30pm, Velvette at 9pm and last but not least Pleased to Jive You at 9.30pm. Phoar, that’s a tonne of top notch ACT bands, so be sure to head on down to cheer on your faves.

A double bill to warm your heart right down to your toes is hitting The Front on Friday August 20. Brass’ere is a seven-piece brass ensemble featuring trumpets, trombones, baritone sax, tuba and drums.

They play a mix of original funk, jazz and rock, and are joined by Courtney Stark on vocals. Lady Grey blend elements of folk and popular traditions to create a scrumptious, accessible and fun sound using voice, guitar, keys, double bass, trumpets, clarinets, flute, glockenspiel and drums. It’s music to dance, laugh, sing or relax to whilst enjoying a pot of tea.

tuneful timor On Friday August 20, ANU Bar will host Tunes for Timor, featuring Fun Machine, Ah! Pandita, DJ D. Wils and more.

All proceeds from the concert will be going towards the Oaktree Foundation’s Youth Livelihoods Program in Timor Leste, the fundamental goal of which is to ensure that East Timorese youth have the ability to generate their own income and participate actively in their respective communities. Doors open at 8pm. Tickets are $15, available on the door.

gold nuggets Beloved Canberra punk band Buttnugget have been punking out since ‘93, and they’re having a fundraiser gig to press some albums in memory of Trevor Nation on Saturday August 28 at The Basement. Bladder Spasms will be joining them.

They’ve been playing since the ‘80s with the original lineup, now with young Jack Lusty from Eye Gouge and All in Brawl playing bass for them too. The Dunhill Blues are also along for the ride, as well as Rotten Opera. $10 at the door, kicking off at 9pm.

stone the iphones Hell bent on shaking things up at Stonefest this year, The Frontier Touring Company, in association with UC LIVE!, have just released a free Stonefest iPhone app, which features music and videos from the Stonefest artists. Users are able to check out artist info, stream tracks, purchase tickets, connect to Stonefest’s social pages and receive the latest news about the festival and its artists all in one place.

Download for naught now.

falling for you A ticket to The Falls Festival in either Lorne or Marion Bay is one of the most sought after tickets in town, and it is without doubt one of these tickets guarantees you one of the best New Year’s of your life.

Here’s who’ll be lighting up The Falls stage in 2010: Interpol, The National, Public Enemy (performing Fear of a Black Planet in full!), Klaxons, The Rapture, Cold War Kids, Sleigh Bells, Hot Hot Heat and dozens more, while on the local front there’s Angus and Julia Stone, The Living End, Paul Kelly, Tame Impala, Children Collide and yep, you guessed it, a helluva lot more than we’ve room to list here.

Tickets go on sale to the general public on Thursday September 9. Head to www.fallsfestival. com.au for all the info.

show them your shakespeare Shakespeare and teenagers have a lot in common. They are both immersed in everyday dramas about love, jealousy, sibling rivalry and family feuds. They both coin new sayings and words.

interpol

campus it up

The ACT Health Department and Mental Health Organisations in the ACT are holding a music, arts and film festival in Garema Place on Saturday November 20.

Expressions of interest from bands, singers, stand ups, circus performers, poets, performance artists, classical musicians and choirs etc are now open. Shoot an email to kate.wells@bcsact.com.au or call 02 6264 0232 for more info.

Shakespeare thought life was a stage, and teenagers act like they’re on one. With this in mind Optus and Bell Shakespeare are launching the Make A Scene competition again in 2010, challenging students across Australia to show the Shakespeare in their everyday lives. Students are invited to select a Shakespeare quote and express it their own way.

Make A Scene is run online, and students can submit their interpretation in any medium they choose - be it a drawing, photograph, illustration, animation, or movie - as long as it is submitted electronically as a still image or movie file.

There are big cash prizes going, so head to www.optus.com.au/ makeascene to get involved.

Entries close Friday October 1.

FROM THE BOSSMAN I’m all man, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

I have to remind myself of this every now and again. And no, not like that. Jeez, no class you people.

Not long ago, I had the divine cinematic pleasure of watching Toy Story 3. Learning of this fact before attending the screening, and having recently watched it herself, my mother-in-law proffered to the girl and I, “Bring a box of tissues with you; it’s a bit of a sad one.”

“Ha! Bless your little stressed-elastic socks,” I said to her, lovingly knocking the side of her chin with a soft fist, and flicking my mane away from my eyes in a gesture bristling with testosterone. “For I am Man, and Men do not secrete fluid from their eyes.” At this point I upturned my depleted pipe and, using my pullover clad sleeve as a fulcrum, emptied my ash onto the carpet. Then I crushed a beer can on my head, and unleashed a heroically wet fart, insisting everyone take a good, long nasal draught of it. All man.

Now you have the keen, cold eyes of an intelligent person, so I won’t waste your time with any further journalistic dawdling… A few hours later, there was Toy Story mainstay Andy contemplating the big symbolic handover of his beloved Woody doll, and with it his childhood, and there was I, darting my hot eyeballs to the roof of the cinema and gnashing my teeth feverishly into my bottom lip in a vain attempt to distract the small reservoir of tears that had pooled at the base of my eyes from making a break for the forest of whiskers on my chin.

YOU PISSED ME OFF! Has someone yanked yer chain recently? Well send an email to editorial@bmamag.com and have your sweet vengeance.

And for the love of God, keep it brief! [All entries contain original spellings] To the lycra enveloped cyclists who are too “cool” to use a bell before they sail past me you Piss me off! Do you think bells are gay? You couldn’t be more gay if you were being fucked in the bottom wearing your grandmothers wedding dress whilst singing the soundtrack from Yentl you cockspanking chromeplated knobgobblers. I know you have passed me because you stink of Pantene and Smug you leave in you wake. You may think that the impression you create is “We are Gods, grovel before us you badly dressed flabby puss bucket”, but if I were king of the world I would reinterpret that as “I have very healthy organs, please harvest them, and if possible, put my liver into the body of a 47 year old star trek fan who has devoted his life to drinking a lake of beer and believes that there is much good work still to be done”. When a truck or car crashes into a group of cyclists it is not an accident, this is Gods hand taking control of the vehicle and trying to prove there is a god exists. Well, God, if you do exist then you are not doing such a great job, up the body count and I will happily worship at a church of your choice. You piss me off, Die now.

I survived that particular one – no tears, all man – and was able to palm off the whole experience with typical conjectural guff such as “Hot in there, eh? My eyes are all prickly,” and “It’s too dark in there; I went for my popcorn and accidentally thrust my fingers into my eyes”. And at least I was with the wife – such utterly non-manly sensitivity can actually score some needed brownie points around the homestead (to distract from the pipe ash on the carpet, for instance). The fact my lower lip was bleeding heavily didn’t help though.

A worse occasion was watching Pixar’s Up with my younger brother. O yes, the younger sibling. Next to a buck’s party with the Canberra Raiders, the younger sibling is one of the last people you want seeing hot tears snaking a path of shame down your reddened cheeks. But o no. Pixar only had to go and put in those heartstring plucking montage sequence, and old blubberguts here was cranking like a rusty sprinkler.

Yup, there’s a lot of pressure out there for the overly emotional man to suck it up – the cinema can turn into a dungeon of shame, a smile from a baby can result in paroxysms of tears, and woe betide you lock eyes with one of the kittens in the pet shop on your way to the post office. Emotional landmines are set to erupt everywhere. The only way past it is to ball all this emotion into a cave of repression, and let it manifest itself in the healthy mode of cracking loud obscene jokes during emotional bits in film, giving smiling babies a well positioned V-sign, and meeting a kitten’s loving eyes with a firm boot in the kisser.

Bile and venom. All man.

ALLAN SKO - allan@bmamag.com

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another thing…

By the time I got off the train and walked the shortish distance from Paddington to Hampstead, nine o’clock had come and gone.

The significance of this was that The Morning Line had started.

TML was Channel Four’s Saturday Morning Racing digest, watched by hundreds of thousand of punters. I was desperate to get to a bookies before they mentioned Katy Nowaitee’s chances in the Cambridgeshire, possibly slashing the price about her into the process. Too late. They’d already featured the race when I trotted into Ladbroke’s, resulting in our brave little heroine shortening already from 18 to 16/1. I had another fifty on her to win, doubling my investment at a stroke. Although I’m not one for counting my winnings before a race has been run, I allowed myself a little calculation, just to be on the safe side if I needed to get in and out of the bookies in a hurry later. Six weeks at a fiver a week at 50/1?

Fifteen hundred and thirty pounds. Another couple at thirty threes?

Eighty six quid. And finally 50 sovs at 16/1? Another eight hundred and fifty sheets. Oh yes – if the little girl rode a good race, the best part of two and a half grand would be making my pockets bulge on the way home after work.

Much like its Australian counterpart, the English racing public loves a battler. Katy fitted the bill perfectly; she was little, she was brave and she had the heart of a lion, and as I spent the day absent mindedly settling bets and paying out on races I had no interest in, I saw our heroine’s price contract hourly. With two minutes to go to the off it seemed like the whole of the nation had taken the plunge on Katy, and as she took her place in the starting stalls she was ready to go off as third favourite at the shockingly short price of 6/1.

The Cambridgeshire had the biggest field of any race run in England that year – 35 runners- and the Kate-ster was drawn in stall 35, miles away from the pace, and, perhaps more worryingly, a long way away from the two joint favourites: Nooshman and Bound for Pleasure.

Many experts thought Katy would have to track across to join the pack – remember she’d made a name for battling through traffic to win her races - but jockey John Reid was confident that if he did that he’d give the favs a five length start, a start Katy wouldn’t be able to reel in.

They were off.

About halfway through Katy was one of only four or five racing on her side of the track. On the other side, Bound for Pleasure was already in trouble, but Nooshman hit the front at about the same time as Katy took up the pace on the far side. By now I was out from behind my desk, cheering the little filly to the line, bemused punters in the shop staring at me as I became almost apoplectic as she strained to reach the line first. The angle of the cameras at the finishing line made it almost impossible to tell who had won. We had to wait…

Of course she won. She won by one and a half lengths. Marlow erupted and headed down to collect its winnings. So many people had backed her in the town that the bookmakers had to close down for the day at four in the afternoon because there wasn’t enough money to pay out all the lucky punters brandishing their winning tickets. Now that’s a result… scott adams thirtyyearsofrnr@hotmail.com

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WHO: Fun Machine, Joe Oppenheimer and Tom Piano WHAT: A veritable smorgasbord of local talent WHEN: Friday August 20 WHERE: The Pot Belly,

Belconnen and surrounds take heed! Blowing away the standard trio of dips is a local gig combination that’s bound to have your tastebuds baffled but no doubt thrilled by the end of it. The affable mischief makers and known-in-these-parts gang Fun Machine (BYO headbands) will be joined by the magnificent wandering minstrel Joe Oppenheimer and the kookiest man behind the keys, Tom Piano, for a night of music that’ll make your ears shower you in praise.

The gig kicks off at 9pm and is freer than City News. Check out www.myspace.com/joeoppenheimer and www.myspace.com/ morefunmachine for a taster of what you’re in for.

WHO: Anarchist Duck WHAT: Quacktastic tunes WHEN: Saturday August 28 WHERE: The Front Café and Gallery

Okay, so people are always referring to ‘it’. You’ve got ‘it’, ‘it’s’ not going to happen. I don’t even know what ‘it’ is, but according to Gold Coast band Anarchist Duck, Canberra has it. For the uninitiated, Anarchist Duck are a ridiculous mix of funk, reggae, rock and rhymes and dance moves you almost forgot about. For anyone familiar with their work, well, you don’t even need to read this, just check the date and make sure you get there on time. Head to www. myspace.com/anarchistduck for a listen and get there early as it’s likely to fill out pretty quickly.

WHO: Deep Sea Arcade WHAT: Pyramid meets Party By Jake WHEN: Saturday August 28 WHERE: Transit Bar

On the day of writing this, I wish it was the day of this gig. When there’s nothing but grey skied gloom filling your view, a little surf pop-rock-shazam-psych-lo-fi-whatever-the-kids-are-calling-itthese-days would be nice. In the currently oversaturated market, Deep Sea Arcade are doing a pretty smashing job of creating their own little niche in a giant wading pool that is Australian music. The night starts at 8pm with support from This Vacant Field and Party

by Jake DJs, and entry is $5. Check out songs Don’t Be Sorry and Lonely in Your Arms to see why they’re the perfect headliner for this sure to be excellent event.

WHO: Justin Carter WHAT: Winter Warming Tour WHEN: Thursday August 19 WHERE: Transit Bar

After a smashing set in June, coastal bluesman Justin Carter and his right hand man Johnny Rollins are returning to Canberra as part of their east coast Winter Warming tour to deliver some more of their delectable mixture of surf rock, soul and grungy blues. With fans from the driest of deserts and wettest of wetlands, the duo are slowly but surely carving out quite the name for themselves as ones to watch. The night kicks off at 9pm with local songstress Ashleigh Mannix in support. Tickets are $10 on the door. For more info check out www.justincartermusic.com .

WHO: Rubix Cuba WHAT: Seven piece ska attack WHEN: Saturday August 28 WHERE: Phoenix Bar

I don’t know about you guys, but as a child I hated the Rubik’s cube. Its unmanageable twists and colour matching threw my sweet temperament out the window; the cube along with it. But thankfully, ska met the Rubik’s cube, got turned on its head and a band got spat out at the end of it. Rubix Cuba are fresh from the studio and on the road to tour their new album With Life. Like many other ska bands, they’re filled with crazy antics, catchy tunes and a wild live show, so if you like ska a little, you’ll like Rubix Cuba a lot.

WHO:You WHAT: Delights of the anime world WHEN: September 2 – 15 WHERE: Dendy Cinemas

As someone who hardly even understands the general outline of what anime is, let alone who the kings and queens of the industry are, I have to admit even I find this press release exciting. Madman invites you to experience the visual splendour, unadulterated joy and eye-popping thrills of anime on the big screen for Reel Anime 2010. Featuring a hand-picked selection of animated feature films from Japan, Reel Anime 2010 is a wholly different kind of event, with each film showcasing the best that the new wave of anime has to offer. Tickets can be booked online, and for more info head to www.madman.com.au/reelanime .

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JULIA WINTERFLOOD John Marsden’s Tomorrow series is without doubt the best Australian youth fiction series ever written. The seven titles have sold over 2.5 million copies and have been translated into seven languages.

Marsden has won every major writing award in Australia for young people’s fiction as well as many international accolades. He has twice been named among the Best Books of the Year by the American Library Association, has won the Grand Jury Prize as Austria’s Most Popular Writer for Teenagers, and in Germany the coveted Buxtehuder Bulle, an award given biennially for the best young person’s book in the world for the preceding two years.

It seems almost every young person in this country who read books in the ‘90s loved the Tomorrow series with passion bordering on fanaticism. For those who didn’t have the pleasure however, (and if that’s you, I implore you to head to your nearest book shop or library to change that, stat), TOMORROW, WHEN THE WAR BEGAN follows the journey of eight young Australians whose lives are suddenly and violently upended by a war that no one saw coming. It is nail biting stuff, and just as pertinent today as it was John would be the when released in ‘93. hardest person to

please, and he loved it. And he’s not someone who just says things to be nice. He says what’s on his mind

When I met Marsden at his writing camp in 2003, he spoke at length about his strong resistance to having the series adapted for screen. Wanting it left alone to be able to stand by itself, he turned down at least 130 film companies. When I mention this to 20-year-old Melbournian Christopher Pang, who plays softly spoken and intensely brooding Lee Takkam, he immediately shoots back, “Well that’s because he’d never been approached by Stuart Beattie.”

Director Stuart Beattie wrote Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Collateral, 3:10 to Yuma and more recently Australia.

TWTWB is his directorial debut, and one can only imagine what kind of magic he would’ve had to have pulled out of his hat in order to change Marsden’s mind. An underlying commitment to and deep love of the book and its characters would have been key, naturally, and this shines in the film. So much so that Marsden has expressed not only approval, but delight.

“I’m so happy John was so pleased with it and only had good things to say about it. Because I mean really, John would be the hardest person to please, and he loved it. And he’s not someone who just says things to be nice. He says what’s on his mind. He’s a very intelligent guy. But for him to say such good things about the film means a lot for all of us,” Pang enthuses.

Marsden’s love of the film is unsurprising, for it is a brilliant adaptation. The casting is excellent; nineteen-year-old Caitlin Stasey captures the perfect balance of intelligence, stubbornness and strength that is integral to lead character Ellie Linton, and she looks as at home using a chainsaw as she does an AK-47. Homer, played by Greek god Deniz Akdeniz, is buff, arrogant and completely lovable, Ashleigh Cummings is tremendously affecting in her portrayal of devoutly religious Robyn, and Rachel Hurd-Wood brings grace and humility to the role of Corrie. Phoebe Tonkin as the seemingly precious yet ultimately resilient Fi is pretty close to perfect, as is Lincoln Lewis as the initially morally questionable Kevin, and Andrew Ryan pulls off the apathetic stoner role of Chris convincingly.

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Last but not least there’s Lee; easily the most complex character in the book. Says Pang, “[Stuart Beattie and I] talked about it a lot when we developed the characters, because he is a hard character. He is complex, and a lot happens in his head and through his expression and his eyes rather than his words. He doesn’t say that much. I think he says about three words in the first half of the film. But more is said through the unsaid.”

The chemistry and camaraderie between the young actors is evidently genuine. Says Pang, “It was eight young people just… chillin’. Obviously when the cameras were on we were professional and we were working but in our down time we would just relax and muck around. Everyone got along really well.”

In addition to the casting and performances, the numerous action sequences are thrilling. I had to keep reminding myself, ‘you know what happens, you know they get out of here alive, so calm down and stop covering your eyes!’ (I’ll admit I’m not really the action film type). Producer Andrew Mason’s (The Matrix trilogy) great deal of experience in big budget productions and visual effects shows; the explosions are jaw-droppingly awesome, the chase scenes edge-ofyour-seat exhilarating. The cinematography is also superb; the aerial shots of country NSW are truly breathtaking. “Having that Australian outback really brought it forward as an Australian story,” says Pang.

Throw in tracks by the cream of our crop; Powderfinger, The Cruel Sea, Missy Higgins and The Temper Trap and you’ve got yourself a cracker of an Aussie action flick.

Apart from one bemusing scene, the film is as faithful to the book as much as a 100 minute film could be. “Stuart knew this when he was writing it. We have to make it great, just to be fair to the readers,” muses Pang. “There is a responsibility to be faithful to the book, and do justice to it so the film’s equally as great. And judging by the response from fans of the book, that’s really worked.” And will the rest of the six in the series get the same treatment? “At the moment, there’s nothing official. If everyone loves the film, if everyone raves about it, and there’s a lot of support behind it, then hopefully we’ll get some more happening.”

Upon their return to Hell, Ellie asks Corrie if the book she’s reading, Miles Franklin’s My Brilliant Career, is any good. “I’ve seen the film,” offers Ellie. “It’s not as good as the book,” replies Corrie. “No,” quips Ellie, “they never are.” This wry self-reflexivity reveals Beattie knew the film could never match the book, but I sure am glad he tried.

Tomorrow, When the War Began opens in cinemas nationally on Thursday September 2.

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ALL AGES I am almost certain, at this point in time, that all the forces of the universe are collaborating; with no priority higher than making August the mightiest bore that us underage Canberrans have endured in years. On top of the lack of in the past few weeks, we have also copped the potent additive that is the weather; we can’t even go outside anymore! Yes, now in the dead of winter now, we have hit the point at which your heater becomes your best friend, your highest desire of a day is to return to your newly found lifestyle as a lonely bed-bound hermit and your only company is the rustling sound of the fluffy doona that engulfs you.

Despite the odd god send of a gig, you can expect that this routine will proceed until September, when at least the music scene is expected to kick off once again. But for the next few weeks, it is just you, your blankie and a perfect excuse to go into hibernation for a while.

The only information that I have to offer for the remainder of August (unfortunately the month in which I would usually intend on celebrating my birth with a good gig or two), is concerning the East Coast Blazin’ Tour. Melbourne progressive post-hardcore kings House vs. Hurricane and pop punk Sydney quartet Heroes for Hire, have had a change of plans. They have relocated to the Tuggeranong Youth Centre, rather than the Weston Creek Community Centre as has been advertised. The date on the other hand remains Saturday August 21, giving you no need to rethink your schedule. Not to mention, the local support acts for this event have finally been announced! Sharing the stage with House vs. Hurricane and Heroes for Hire will be Atlantis Awaits, this being their first gig since the successful launch of their debut EP, as well as punk hardcore five-piece Something Must Break.

Tickets can be purchased from Moshtix for only $15 (+bf) and are sold at the doors upon opening at 2pm.

Who better to create the spark that will turn the all ages music scene back into the raging fire that it should be, than sky rocketing duo Angus and Julia Stone coming to town on Wednesday September 1.

The Sydney pair have given Australian folk/alternative music a new name among the public. They will be passing through Canberra to do a performance at Llewellyn Hall as part of their September Australian tour. The popular siblings have already sold out shows in Sydney, Melbourne, Cairns, Townsville, Newcastle, Meeniyan and Canberra too will soon be on that list. You can get your tickets quickly from Ticketek for $56.20 (+bf), but they won’t last long.

I apologise for the lack of information I was able to provide in this issue. But I can assure you that the next issue, out Wednesday September 1, will be jam packed full of events to make up for the last few weeks. Until then, take any given opportunity to step out of your house and enjoy a moment of sunshine (that is if the sun can grow some nads and step out from behind the clouds). But if not, I’m afraid all we can do is sit tight, explore every inch of our warm houses and play a damn board game or something!

NAOMI FROST allagescolumn@gmail.com

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LOCALITY

On Friday July 30 the ACT Department of Disability, Health and Community Housing shut down McGregor Hall one month before it was scheduled for closure. A fundraiser for the ACT Women’s Legal Centre which was planned for that day had to be relocated to Corroboree Park Hall in Ainslie; a place where Jon Stanhope had admitted “young, emerging, noisy bands are wanting to practise or to play and issues were created there as a result”. The CMC’s benefit for Vorn Doolette, an ex-Canberra musician who was recently involved in a serious car accident, was relocated to DNA Dance Studios in Gorman House. The CMC’s second birthday bash, which was to double as McGregor’s final curtain call, had to be canned completely.

McGregor was closed because a routine inspection by DHCS on July 30 uncovered “low risk” asbestos sheeting. Subsequent tests were conducted, and on August 5 CMC’s Nigel McCrae received correspondence from DHCS stating that “although the results of air quality testing are positive, recommendations by the Environmental Protection Agency, Worksafe and ACT Health indicate the work required to make the building safe could not be completed prior to the transfer of the property.” Can anyone else see why this smacks of beaurocracy? As McCrae espoused, “there’s no health hazard as such, but said non-existent health hazard would require too much remedial action to allow reopening within the month. Go figure.”

The fact that the National Trust believes McGregor Hall has “strong historical significance” has also been completely ignored. As savemcgregorhall.org.au states: “The building is all that remains of the Turner Workers Hostel. In the period after WWII the federal government initiated an expansive building program that established much of what is now known as the inner north and south of Canberra. To cope with the massive influx of construction workers and tradesmen seven hostels were quickly built and these hostels accommodated up to two and a half thousand workers. Turner Hostel was the last such hostel. All of the former hostels have been demolished. The building that includes McGregor Hall is the last and only standing example of the type of structure that housed the men who built a significant part of post war Canberra.” So not only is McGregor Hall historically significant, it also holds strong social significance relating to the migration history of the ACT. On Friday August 6 Stateline aired a report on McGregor, during which Canberran author and historian Alan Foskett said, “I, as a historian, would feel it is important to have some sort of recognition of the fact that it is a final remnant of an important part of our history.”

Said CMC’s David Howe during the report, “Having it appraised and assessed as having historical value is probably the only thing that will save it. The battle’s not lost. The building’s still standing. While it’s still standing I believe there’s still hope.” A nomination has been lodged with the ACT Heritage Council and a recommendation is expected this month.

You can view the full Stateline report on the BMA website.

JULIA WINTERFLOOD julia@bmamag.com

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DANCE THE DROP After little more than a year gracing the pages of BMA, it is time for me to inscribe you adieu. In this short space of time I have seen niche nights by Effigy and Party By Jake come to the fore and sadly have seen the end of an era as Pang! bid sayonara to Lot 33. My Drop compatriot Tim Galvin will once again take full control of the reins, so you are left in experienced hands.

Looks like Friday August 20 will be one of the busiest nights of the year for Canberra dance fans with three major drawcards on the calendar. First up, young trance prodigy TyDi will be rolling into town with the Ministry of Sound Trance Nation tour. Another favourite MaRlo, formally Liquid M, is also headlining. TyDi has recently after being named Best Breakthrough DJ at the World Music Conference. Up against such stellar names as Boys Noize, Gui Boratto and DJ Chuckie, TyDi took home the honour and was presented the award by none other than Foreshore headliner,Tiesto.

Pang! have settled in very nicely on their Northbourne strip digs and on Friday August 20 are opening the doors of Meche to present Huoratron (Fin) with the Trashbags posse from Sydney. The Trashbag crew first came to fruition in the mid-naughties following the popularity of industrial electro and have established themselves as promotion heavyweights. In line with the Trashbag sound Huoratron’s recent Prevenge EP is a lesson in heavy, crunchy, loud dance. The Trashbags DJs Redial, Nadisko and Obey are all making the journey down from Sydney too.

Southside clubbing is also receiving a facelift on Friday August 20 as UK breaks maestro Lee Combs is headlining at The Maram in Erindale. The evening is sticking to its garage theme with the Rideckulous DJs, Fourthstate and Shift Business rounding out the lineup. Finally onto another night of the week, Sam Scratch is returning to Academy with his infamous turntable technique with him on Saturday August 21. His last set at the Bundah Street venue was technically stunning, so make sure you check it out if you have any legs left after the three massive Friday gigs.

The very debonair Click to Click Producer Sessions are back for their third instalment on Sunday August 22 at Knightsbridge. The intimate gathering is shaping up as a fantastic opportunity for budding and established producers to showcase their wares in a friendly environment. If you missed Fourthstate’s journey from wistful prog to dubstep a few weeks ago he is back, for what is sure to be another solid performance, alongside Amplidyne, Daniel Jones, Nu-Leaf and Biggie. Best of all this gig is free! Dance and indie punters cannot escape the buzz surrounding Sydney duo Flight Facilities. Crave You feat. Giselle has been amongst the most requested tracks on triple j this year, and has even attracted attention from international disco superstars Aeroplane. Party By Jake are inviting the duo to Transit Bar on Friday September 3 for one helluva Heartbeat party.

Farewell!

STAKY staceymanson@gmail.com

myspace.com/pangnight

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DREAM A LITTLE DREAM OF ME

PAQING A PUNCH

LYNTON SHEEHAN

tim galvin

‘What a funny thing to dream of,’ I think to myself. ‘I mean dragons of all things! What exactly do these dragon dreams look like?’ There’s a lot of confusing questions to be answered around this. But, talking to organisers of the DRAGON DREAMING FESTIVAL, it seems they have a pretty good idea of exactly what dragon flavoured dreams look, taste and smell like and how to make it accessible to everyone.

The Dragon Dreaming Festival, now entering its third year, is fast becoming one of Australia’s biggest multi-day music, outdoor arts and lifestyle festivals. The festival has grown significantly with each year, with people now travelling from every state in Australia to attend, and this year is no different.

It’s true to say that if PAQMAN had affected us as kids, we’d all be running around in dark rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive music. With tongue now firmly planted in cheek, I welcome one half of the electronic duo Hayden Quinn onto the page, who explains why the ex-Canberran is now sporting a nifty (Melbourne) tag beside their moniker.

Held over the October long weekend, Three stages (Friday 1 – Monday 4) get ready for set across over 100 artists from around the the forest will nation and a whole lot more. Four showcase a days of electronic and live music, diverse range of four days of walking through a talents that defy market village sampling clothes, jewellery and food, even four days description

of attending workshops, talks and activities. And that’s just during the day time…

Not to quit while ahead, there’s also a night time cinema, fire twirling performances, roving entertainers and some of Australia’s well known and up and coming installation artists. There is literally more going on here than you can poke a stick at (and being set in Kowen Forest there are a lot of sticks for poking). Organisers have just announced the first of what’s set to be many artists playing at the event. Three stages set across the forest will showcase a diverse range of talents that defy description by genre. This event will showcase live and electronic music from right across Australia, from chilled beats to pounding dance music and everything in between, so prepare to discover some amazing new music in a relaxed bush setting.

On top of all of the great things happening front of house a heap of time has been put in to ensure that fun can be had without damaging local flora and fauna. The site will be full of information about how to reduce your waste, reuse your stuff and recycle all the things you no longer need. This approach ensures that we leave the environment as pristine as we found it and is crucial to sustainability. Waste management is just one of the topics you can learn about though; other workshops include juggling, fire twirling, bush tucker, sand sculpting and more.

Last but not least Dragon Dreaming is a family friendly event. There will be a kids play area set up and activities running throughout the day including fairy wing making, creative play, face painting and much, much more. And when it comes to finding out what these mystical dragons of the promised land look, feel and taste like, well, I guess you’ll just have to head along and find out for yourself.

Tickets for Dragon Dreaming, October 1 to 4, are now available from www. dragondreaming.net or Loom Exotic Threads in Baileys Arcade, Civic.

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“Really, we aren’t too fussed” he says with a laugh. “Melbourne is a much more exciting place to be living. It’s culturally much more interesting, especially over our side of town. Footscray is buzzing with interesting people and cultures, and the food! But, we are very much looking forward to coming back to Canberra; it’s always a heap of fun seeing friends and family.”

The duo bounded onto the scene several years ago after winning a DJ competition and quickly generated more buzz than Disney’s doll factory after the release of Toy Story. “Jaytech was judging it [the competition] so it was really nice to receive positive feedback from him at such a young age. I think we were like 16 or something” says Quinn.

We don’t make ‘dance music’, we make electronic music

Known for their mature and somewhat eclectic sets, the duo’s electronic epiphany was realised in their early teens. While class mates were still being lulled by top 40 auto tune, they had moved on to classic Fatboy Slim and Chemical Brothers records.

“I think the deal was that because we got into that ‘commercial shit’ really early, we were also on an earlier route to expanding those horizons. In 2001, James and I would go out every weekend, to Sanity or Revolution CD and even though we had no money, we would pick out about 20 CDs, take them up to the counter and inform the poor 17 year old girl behind the counter that we would very much like to listen to these to decide if we would buy them. We never did.”

As soon as they realised it was probably cheaper to make music themselves, the duo began fiddling with Ableton and finding their ‘sound’, which Quinn explains is still hard to generalise. “We have always stressed we don’t make ‘dance music’, we make electronic music, and are inspired by so many different genres. The goal is never to make a track that ‘goes off on a big system’, but to make interesting music that you can listen to over and over again” he says.

“I think we enjoy ourselves most when mistakes are made” he says.

“If you see James giving me an earnest smile, it means he’s just done something the two of us find hilarious, but probably sounds unbelievably confronting on the dancefloor.” Quinn also warns “We have a noise fetish and aren’t afraid to drop out into incohesive loud noise every now and then; it’s nice to hear our machinery making noises.”

Catch Paqman as part of Ug Beats on Saturday September 4, at Floriade Night Fest on Friday September 24, and on Saturday September 25 at the all ages Digbyfest at the Woden Youthie with Pleased to Jive You and Astrochem.

E X H I B I T I O N I S T

After extensive negotiations, months of promising highs and debilitating lows, M16’s fate was saved by the opportunity to utilise the Blaxland Centre in Griffith. Following a modest refurbishment the former school is a perfect fit.

SWEET SIXTEEN YOLANDE NORRIS It’s opening week at the new M16 ARTSPACE, and stress is hanging in the air. The drill is whirring in the gallery, while workmen scurry about, putting the finishing touches on the building before Friday’s grand opening.

M16 Director Joseph Falsone and Exhibition Manager Janice Kuczkowski are worn thin, having been plowing through 60-hour weeks to get to this point. Though exhausted their passion for this grass-roots organisation is still intact, and Falsone drops everything to tour me around the new facilities. “It’s nice,” he beams “after 25 years, people are coming in saying ‘this is the space we always dreamed of’.”

It was 25 years ago that M16 Artspace was known as Leichardt Street Studios in Kingston; part of a bustling group of arts organisations in the area, in what was a boom time for visual art in Canberra. The name change came following relocation to a warehouse at number 16 Mildura Street in Fyshwick. There, tucked away in this industrial setting, M16 flourished, with 35 artist studios and three gallery spaces showing one of the most diverse and exciting program of exhibitions in town.

It wasn’t glamorous however. Hot in summer, cold in winter and off the beaten track, the going could get pretty tough. “It wasn’t the most comfortable or attractive,” Falsone laughs, about the space he spent his first years as Director. “It was hard to get your head around what was there”.

In 2007, with the sale of the property pending, tenancy at Mildura Street was no longer viable. So began a long hard road for Falsone, as he sought government assistance to relocate the M16 family.

The conversion includes the implementation of three slick gallery spaces: a vast main gallery, a dark space for multimedia work and projections, and a smaller project space. Community art classes are an integral part of M16’s program, with over 700 children, adults and people with special needs participating on any given week, so four practical workshop spaces have also been included in the new layout. Most enviable are the 28 artist studios, large, airy and home to a list of tenants that reads as an illustrious who’s who of the Canberra art scene.

Natural light floods through high windows looking out onto the leafy suburb. “Isn’t it unbelievable?” Falsone says, taking in the view. “The contrast is really startling. Everything was dark and dusty, and here it’s so clean and open. Now what we do is much more visible.”

That openness is especially important to Falsone, as the new layout encourages dialogue between tenants. “The sense of community and level of interaction has already changed. Because of the way the old M16 was set up the artists never interacted with each other. Now people are meeting each other who never met before.”

While the majority of tenants are emerging artists and recent graduates there are also a number of more senior artists in their midst. Falsone is quick to point out the number of nationally and internationally renowned artists who have been involved with M16 over the years, and a selection of these are the focus of the first exhibition at the new space.

The show, Audible Surface, features artists such as Kensuke Todo and Derek O’Connor and is being co-curated by Helen Maxwell, Canberra art world figure of note. Maxwell has been familiar with M16 since the early days, having shared the facilities at the old Leichardt Street complex while running her Australian Girls Own Gallery.

“With Helen doing the inaugural show things have really come full circle,” Falsone notes. “With a space like this we can continue to grow the program.

“Next year is going to be really interesting – we’ve got some surprises we’re still working on.”

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SWEET SIXTEEN CONTINUED One of the greatest achievements of the new facility is the balance it has found between being a hard-working, functional space while also drastically improving M16’s accessibility and presentability. Falsone and the M16 tenants had a lot of input into the refurbishment design process – meaning the gallery spaces and studios are as user-friendly as possible. “It made it easy that M16 is an organisation that knows what it’s doing and has a clear idea of what its needs are.”

While the dream has been partly realised, Falsone is well aware the hard work is by no means over. M16 have only secured a lease on the building for the next five years, and there is barely enough money to pay one full-time staff member.

The relocation project itself was done on a shoestring budget – its reappropriation of disused buildings and materials is a great example of sustainability and innovation in comparison with similar multi-million dollar projects.

For an organisation whose funding grossly falls short of the mark existence is never going to be easy, but then the arts have always survived on tireless enthusiasm and the smell of an oily rag. If it wasn’t for the dedication and determination of Falsone and his small team this year may have seen M16 closed for good. Instead, it’s re-asserted itself as one of the most important centres for art in Canberra, finally in a home that does justice to the plethora of talent it produces and presents.

Derek O’Connor, Canberra. #1, oil on canvas. Image (viewed horizontally) courtesy of the artist

M16 Artspace is now open at 21 Blaxland Crescent, Griffith.

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Davis in film noir flicks, or the scantily clad seductresses who pouted from the cover of the cheap pulp magazines of the ‘20s and ‘30s. The fiction of femme fatales is full of glitz and glam, but the reality is nowhere near as glossy. “The best part of the exhibit is the contrast between what we see in popular culture - the Jessica Rabbit type - compared to what the reality is,” explains National Archives Education Officer Rhonda King. “The reality is grim and gritty. Sometimes it was glamorous but there was a lot of emotional, and even physical abuse in the lives of these women. We can see that in the real life images of Matilda ‘Tilly’ Devine and Kate Leigh.”

SEE THE WAY SHE WALKS, HEAR THE WAY SHE TALKS Emma Gibson On now at the National Archives, FEMME FATAL provides a gritty look at our women criminals in the early 20th century - women who were arrested for poisoning their husbands, prostitution, assault and dealing cocaine. It’s not a big exhibition, but it’s packed with intriguing artefacts, including confiscated weapons, original criminal records and a Darlinghurst Gaol jacket sewn by female inmates around 1845. You can see original photographs, pulp magazines that were banned in Australia because of their lurid illustrations and racy descriptions, and a show reel of film noir classics.

The surprising thing about the exhibition is that not all these women were the black widow types portrayed by screen sirens like Bette

Looking at their mugshots at the exhibition, the women seem worn, dreary, devoid of stilettos and red lipstick. The infamous Tilly Devine, who was a beauty with a peaches and cream complexion at 16, looks middle aged at 25. “These reals queens of the underworld were both always vying to be the queen. They went to great extremes to make that happen, even through razor gangs, where they would slash their enemies’ faces. Darlinghurst got the nickname of Razorhurst because this was so prolific. You see, they could get put into jail if they were found with a concealed firearm, but not with a cutthroat razor.”

With 70 convictions to her name by her 25th birthday, Devine served time in prison for a razor attack. After her release, Devine went on to run 18 bordellos, through a legal loophole that didn’t preclude a woman profiting through such endeavours. Her obituary read: “a vicious, grasping, high-priestess of savagery, obscenity and whoredom... one of the most frightening creatures spewed up by the razor gangs, a wretched woman.” Just one of the fascinating stories of the exhibition.

Femme Fatal is at the National Archives until September 12. To hear the scandalous stories you won’t see in the exhibition, guided tours run from 2-2.30 pm every Thursday until the exhibition closes. Entry is free.

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BANGARRA DANCE THEATRE KATHERINE QUINn Q&A with Daniel Riley McKinley What was it like growing up as a dancer in Canberra? What inspired you to begin dancing? I did most of my contemporary dance training at QL2 Centre for Youth Dance. I was a part of Quantum Leap for six years. Being in that creative environment that they produce for young dancers is what convinced me that dance was a legitimate career, and it’s really where the fire within me ignited to pursue dance.

In what ways does the performance depict a distinctly Wiradjuri experience? The fact that I am a Wiradjuri man, and Michael is a Wiradjuri man makes it a Wiradjuri experience. We both share the same views on things like the demonisation of black beliefs by white settlers. And a lot of the research I did into the images was from a Wiradjuri perspective, like what the feather image means.

Is it also representational of a wider indigenous and/or Australian experience? Absolutely. The work isn’t just aimed at a certain audience. Everyone who sees it will hopefully takeaway something different from it. I’ve tried to create a piece of dance that everyone can connect to and understand, not just the indigenous audience. And to introduce Michael and his images to the dance audience.

What challenges did you face in creating of earth and sky? There were daily challenges in terms of choreography and staging. Figuring out how to fit this piece of choreography in that small amount of counts, what do I cut, what do I leave? Then the next day I would come back and started second guessing my own decisions. And all the creative challenges in terms of, does it read the way it should? Is my idea and message translating? Am I being true to Michael’s images and vision?

This is your debut choreographic work with Bangarra - how was the experience of choreographing different to your previous experiences of rehearsing and performing? Performing and choreographing are completely different experiences. […] The hardest thing to begin with for me was straight away jumping over to the choreographer/director bench. […] But we are a close knit family and get along really well, so if someone wants to put their hand up to take over creatively, everyone is open to that.

What makes of earth and sky different to other Bangarra performances? It gives the audience a real teaser and look into the future of the company. They won’t necessarily recognise the movement quality and style. I’m bringing something fresh into the company because I am so young and have come from a different background, and Frances is developing as an artist and choreographer with every work she makes, so it’s nice to present something new and fresh but something that still contains that energy and spirit of Bangarra and what we stand for as an Indigenous dance company.

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Bangarra Dance Theatre performs of earth and sky at The Playhouse, CTC, on September 3 and 4.

ARTISTPROFILE: barb barnett

What do you do? Having moved away from performing over the past few years, I’ve found more opportunities to direct and dramaturg.

When did you get into it? I was a Canberra Youth Theatre kid! My first professional show was in 1999.

Who or what influences you as an artist? Poor Theatre. I’m a collaborator by nature, so creatives who are capable of profound artistic insight, inspiration and revelation, yet are also skilled communicators float my boat.

What’s your biggest achievement so far? The show I produced and performed in five years ago, all-mother, has huge personal significance. My proudest achievement as a director is trickier to isolate.

What are your plans for the future? To continue directing and dramaturgy.

What makes you laugh? People. Animals. No. Yes… People + animals.

What pisses you off? Ignorance.

What’s your opinion of the local scene? Every year I add another set or lighting design, performer or production to my ‘this made me smile’ list. Heaps of talented, dedicated types in Canberra; artists need to continue to be courageous and collaborate!

What are your upcoming performances? I am currently directing the touring season of Boho Interactive’s True Logic of the Future, which moves to Sydney for a one-week season at The Powerhouse Museum next Thursday August 19 for a performance season from August 21 - 28. www.powerhousemuseum.com/whatson/ .

Contact information: barb.barnett.serious.theatre@gmail.com .

UNINHIBITED There’s been a phrase rolling around in my brain for a couple of weeks now: to everything there is a season. (And yes, it’s generally followed by sixties-era folk singers warbling TURN TURN TURN. I defy you not to get it stuck in your head.) It started because I’ve been directing a play whose theme turns, in part, on the change between youth and maturity – the eternal, inexorable, and utterly natural cycle best symbolised by the changing of the seasons.

The significance of that idea didn’t hit me until quite recently, as a couple of things happened at once: my house was infested with mould and a girl at my work quit. Pretty innocuous events, you say.

But they set in motion a chain of events which have suddenly caused my life to shudder into a new place.

One: the mould. Having rented for what seems like an age, and having only recently moved into my first cohabitation situation, and being anally retentive, I was cleaning the other day and discovered our flat rotting from the bottom up. I have to say that it’s pretty hard to shriek and gag simultaneously, but that’s what happened when I found the black spread a-sprouting below my bed, a sound followed by our swift departure from the infected place.

The creeping decay of our rental property caused me to take stock – I began to think that, after several years of lining the pockets of realty investors to pay for the privilege of living in their crummy shitboxes, I’d rather own my own crummy shitbox. At least then I could firebomb the place if it gets mouldy. This is an extremely grown up notion.

Two: the resignation. It’s meant that I’ve had to step up to the plate and, after several years of being a student and working a panoply of part time jobs, I’ve had to condense. From beginning the year with six jobs (surely too many?), I’ve whittled my work down to two.

What has this to do with symbolic change, you ask? Well, it’s all about growth – not just mould either, but growth in terms of maturing, and coming to a new, inescapable stage in life.

To cut rather lengthily to the chase: this will be the final Uninhibited, and my final issue as editor of Exhibitionist. And it’s not just because, with my newfound old fogeyness, I can no longer find the vim to drag finger to keyboard in the dispiriting task of squashing ideas into words that only vaguely approximate one’s meaning.

Quite the opposite. It’s just that it’s time for new things.

It’s been a giddy ride as Exhibitionist editor – a fortnightly rollercoaster through the arts local, national and international – shared, luckily, with a group of wonderful writers. I am, and will be, eternally grateful to the Exhi team for their dedication and goldencadenced writing. Similarly, working with the brilliant and beautiful Julia Winterflood as Ed-Extraordinaire, and the humourous cheek of our awesome bossman Allan Sko, has been a joy.

When you pick up the next issue of Exhi, it’ll be an issue steered by the new and improved Exhibitionist-in-Chief Yolande Norris. Under Yolande’s exceptional hand, Exhibitionist will continue to provide high-quality arts coverage for Canberra, with a special focus on local arts events and work by emerging practitioners – and if this is you, you should let us know! If you have upcoming events or news about your organisation, please let her know at exhibitionist@bmamag.com .

all-mother

Finally: many, deep thanks to you, dear reader. It’s been delightful.

NAOMI MILTHORPE naomi@bmamag.com

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bit PARTS WHO: Bardolaters, students, wastrels and NUTS WHAT: Love’s Labour’s Lost WHEN: August 26 – 28 @ 7.30pm WHERE: ANU Arts Centre Mainstage It’s fitting that this issue so easily chimes in with one final opportunity for shameless self-promotion: on Thursday August 26, departing Exhibitionist editor Naomi Milthorpe (that’s me) opens the doors on her (my) latest theatre project, a production in conjunction with NUTS of Shakespeare’s least-performed plays, Love’s Labour’s Lost. It’s fitting that the performance itself is largely cast with students, as study is mostly what the play deals with (and more importantly, the things you do when you’re meant to be studying: partying and picking up chicks). With design notes drawn from the great dandy bohemians of bygone years (Sebastian Flyte!

Bob Dylan! Courtney Taylor-Taylor!) and original music by Andrew Holmes (lyrics by one Bill S.), it’s sure to be at least moderately entertaining. Pick up your $15/$10 tickets at the door.

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WHO: The ‘British Edith Piaf’, Barb Jungr WHAT: The New American Songbook WHEN: Tuesday September 7 & Wednesday September 8 @ 8pm WHERE: The Street Theatre Experience Barb Jungr’s extraordinary musical stylings with The New American Songbook. With rave reviews internationally, Barb Jungr is renowned for combining her unique vocals with radical, minimal arrangements and interpretations. Her acclaimed recordings and live performances have brought her to the world stage and revealed her to be one of Europe’s most exciting singers.

Check out www.thestreet.org.au or www.barbjungr.co.uk for more info. Tickets $45/$35.

WHO: CCAS and artist Julian Laffan WHAT: Retroactivity Book Launch and Exhibition WHEN: ‘Til Saturday August 21 WHERE: CCAS Gorman House After a very successful series of exhibitions conceived and curated by local artist Julian Laffan – Retroactive I, II and III, it seemed only fitting that history be committed to the page. The project ran over three years and each installment saw a selection of emerging artists paired with more established and well known practitioners to develop collaborative artworks. Retroactivity will see the launch of a book on the opening night documenting the Retroactive series, as well as a selection of artworks featured in the publication, in-situ.

The slick catalogue can be purchased from Canberra Contemporary Art Space.

WHO: ANU Za Kabuki WHAT: Topknot Bunshichi WHEN: September 3 and 4 WHERE: The Street Theatre The ANU Za Kabuki group has held a live on-stage kabuki (Japanese traditional play) for over 30 consecutive years. Most of the ANU Za Kabuki members are ANU students studying Japanese or Japan-related courses and Japanese international and exchange students. This year Za Kabuki are performing Topknot Bunshichi, a comedy surrounding the two seemingly contrasting personalities: gambling addict Chobei and diligent young man Bunshichi. One day, Chobei witnesses an incident concerning Bunshichi, and this triggers a whole series of important events for not only themselves but also those around them. Featuring cross-dressing, music and extravagant fun, it’s a winner for gambling neophytes and kimonolovers across the territory. More information can be obtained if you call The Street on 6247 1223.

WHO: Mythooperaphiles WHAT: Dido & Aeneas WHEN: August 27-29 WHERE: The Street Theatre Their love story has gripped Western imaginations for two millennia - a hero for a queen and a queen for a hero. Now, the ANU School of Music and The Street Theatre bring their mythic tale of duty, desire, loyalty and love to the stage with the brilliant English Baroque composer Henry Purcell’s great opera, Dido & Aeneas.

The production, directed by Caroline Stacey, features hip-hop artist William Tran, a cast of over forty opera/voice students from the ANU School of Music, and a chamber ensemble of nine string musicians led by Geoffrey Lancaster on harpsichord who will use baroque bows and authentic technique. RADICAL. 6247 1223 for tix.

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WHO: You and your mates WHAT: ACT Health orgs WHEN: Saturday November 20 WHERE: Garema Place The ACT Health Department and Mental Health Organisations in the ACT are holding a music, arts and film festival to celebrate recovery in mental health. To do this, they are having a concert in Garema Place from 5.30-10pm on Saturday November 20 and are asking for Expressions of Interest from local performers, including bands, singers, standup comedians, circus performers, poets, performance artists, guitarists, classical musicians, choirs etc. No payment for performances except the applause and adulation of the crowd!

Email kate.wells@bcsact.com.au to request an expression of interest form.

LEEDING THE WAY

FLYING HIGH

TIM GALVIN

STAKY

LEE COOMBS is like an urban volcano. For years he lays dormant, bubbling away under the crust of his Orlando studio, and only once in a while will he release a puff of steam here or a rumble there. But it’s just to remind the townspeople that he is still here, still hungry. He is never forgotten.

The enigmatic voice of Giselle Rosselli has many a female resonating with her melancholy lyrics: “Why can’t you want me like the other boys do? They stare at me while I stare at you.” The simple yet touching vocals overlay a saxified rhythm and together they have ensured the FLIGHT FACILITIES’ first solo effort is at the top of everyone’s download list. “I found her in a bar actually,” laughs Hugo.

“Well I was introduced to her by a friend of a friend and we stayed in touch. She is really talented; they are her lyrics and I think the guy is pretty aware now that it’s about him.”

Just when we least expect it, when our lives appear calm and invulnerable, he explodes back onto the scene with a cataclysmic eruption, this time around shooting out a lava-hot artist album full of tech house and break beat, cordially named Light and Dark.

“I wanted it to be a proper album, I wanted people to be able to go back and appreciate it a few years down the track” says the UK native. “What I didn’t want to do is put out an up-to-the-minute to ng goi are We album that dates really quickly. start releasing I think I have been able to a bunch of produce the complete opposite brand new with this album,” he admits proudly.

underground breaks soon

His past few years have been defined by a change of scenery, as Coombs deserted the bleak surrounds of England and made his way to the endless American summer that awaited in Florida. Here, Coombs has cultivated a deep appreciation for an entirely new way of living. “It’s very tropical here.

It’s a great place to be and the sunshine helps a bit with inspiration, but I guess when I was back in the UK with the weather being so bad all the time it really forced you to stay inside in the studio so it was also good in a way,” he admits with a laugh.

Away from his home life, Coombs’ American experience has been ruled by a deep connection with the city of San Francisco, the artist choosing the bay area as his regular haunt for club gigs.

“It’s such a vibey place,” he says. “I just love going there. I love the attitude and the spark of it; it’s just different to anywhere else. You can find everything that is good in that city, whatever styles of music you like; that’s why I keep going back.”

When not living on the road, which Coombs admits is rare these days, he spends most of his down time in a new studio where he is currently reinventing his most famous incarnation as a break beat icon, exciting news for us older fans.

“The strange thing with that is that there are a lot of kids out there now who have never heard that stuff before so my finest moment to date is completely irrelevant to them,” he laughs. “I have been inspired to get back into it recently. A bunch of us got together and decided that there is going to be a bit of a revival so we are going to start releasing a bunch of brand new underground breaks soon.” Just when you think the eruption has finished…

Lee Coombs will be playing at The Maram on Friday August 20. Tickets are available through Moshtix $10 + bf or $20 on the door.

For the uninitiated, Flight Facilities are a new disco duo from Sydney who have shot to fame with the release of their premier single Crave You. Hugo Gruzman, aka U-Go-B, and Jimmy-2-Sox are the facilities behind the flight and poached their namesake from Hugo’s granddad’s company.

The pair have been remixing the likes of Bag Raiders, Toecutter and Sneaky Soundsystem, but it was a chance encounter with Giselle that pushed them into the limelight.

Being family didn’t mean we automatically made the cut

The duo originally started out doing remixes for prominent Aussie label Bang Gang 12” after Jimmy cashed in on a family relation with top dog Gus Da Hoodrat, but Jimmy quickly admits “being family didn’t mean we automatically made the cut. We had to prove ourselves musically too.” Which the duo soon did as big internationals started to take notice. “The guys from Aeroplane put us on one of their mix tapes,” beams Jimmy. “I got a message from Jaime [Doom] about it. They are like our idols so it was pretty cool.

I met Stefen [Fasano] when he was in Australia and we partied, and then he contacted me on Facebook and it has just gone from there.”

After touring around Australia, including a huge nod on the Splendour lineup, the duo has just concluded their first foreign stopover in Japan. “We played in Osaka to a 500 person venue, it was really cool because we played a techno set,” says Hugo. “In Tokyo we played a straight disco party at this place called Le Baron de Paris. The owners also own the Paris Social Club so we knew it had a good reputation. It was great because there was already some recognition there from being part of the Bang Gang Label.”

Jimmy and Hugo’s Australian jaunt has resumed and will finally make its way to Canberra for Party By Jake’s Heartbeat on Friday September 3. The pair are enthusiastic about their DJ set, describing it as a great opportunity to showcase new production. “We are working on some new disco stuff which is more upbeat,” says Jimmy.

“We have worked with Louis Austen who did the vocals for our remix of the Bag Raiders’ Turbo Love.” Sounds like an all round night of showcasing for both Canberrans and the formidable duo – and one not to miss at that.

Check out Flight Facilities when they headline Party By Jake’s Heartbeat at Transit Bar on Friday September 3.

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ALL SHE WANTS JOSH BROWN A j Award, two ARIA awards, chart success and critical acclaim; SARAH BLASKO has had it all. Well, everything except international recognition, that is. It could only have been a matter of time before the enchanting Sydney-based singer outgrew the pond that is the Australian music scene and decided to tentatively dip her big toe into untested international waters. Blasko has undergone a sea change in the last year as she attempts to conquer the European market and it is from her new home in London that she chats with me about relocating to the UK, special edition albums and our mutual love of Joanna Newsom.

Having said that, diehard fans fear not – the lady hasn’t skipped town for good. Come October, Blasko is set to return to our shores to play a string of dates nationwide. To coincide with the tour, a new edition of As Day Follows Night has been released; this time with a bonus live disc of songs performed over two nights at The Forum in Melbourne late last year.

“We thought it would be great to have a record of one of the nights,” Blasko explains. “It was a nice thought for me because I’ve never actually released anything live before and I’ve wanted to for a while.”

Blasko reveals the move to London has been on the cards for quite some time, but the opportunity only recently presented itself when her stellar third album, As Day Follows Night, was picked up by English record label Dramatico for widespread distribution across Europe.

Avid collectors will note this is not the first time a special edition of As Day Follows Night has been released. An earlier package contained a collection of special artwork cards that revealed an amazing assortment of vibrant colours when brushed with water. Was this innovative and charming idea a ploy to encourage the bit torrent generation to fork out for a physical copy of the album?

“It’s such a weird feeling starting over in all of these different countries,” Blasko says, on the subject of rebuilding her profile from scratch. “There’s so much ground to cover. It’s been really fun but quite a learning experience at the same time.”

Rather than view the experience as a laborious task, Blasko manages to put a positive spin on the situation. “It’s quite refreshing because nobody knows who you are or anything about you. I’ve always lived in Sydney and it was just time to live somewhere different and have a different experience.”

28

“I think that the record label probably feels that way,” Blasko replies matter-of-factly. “I don’t; I feel pretty happy with an album just standing on its own but then at the same time I’m always a sucker for the special edition of something. I just bought Joanna Newsom’s new album today and it was a special edition version.”

I frantically try to maintain my composure as one of my favourite Australian female artists casually namedrops one of my favourite American female artists and continues, “I try to think about what I would like if I was really into someone’s music and to me, having a really limited edition thing is just an exciting concept.”

The move to London seems to have provided the perfect tonic for Blasko; to have a change of scenery which, in turn, has helped her gain a fresh perspective. When asked

It’s quite refreshing because nobody knows who you are or anything about you whether living in another country has made her nostalgic and long for home, she replies bluntly “not really, no. It just really felt like it was time for me to move and the thing is, with being able to play music in Australia, I’ve got opportunities to keep going back, so it’s not like I’m not going to be home for years or anything.” Thank god for that.

Sarah Blasko will be at The Playhouse on Saturday October 30 and Monday November 1. Tickets are still available through the Canberra Theatre for the second show.

I don’t think I should have to be like a little jukebox

UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN josh brown Lawrence Greenwood, the charming young man who is the driving force behind Melbourne-based acoustic indie-folk outfit WHITLEY, has decided to call it a day, much to the horror and dismay of his adoring fans. Greenwood has been struggling with the decision for a while now; caught between his desire to follow his calling to create and perform music whilst simultaneously not wanting to perpetuate what is in his mind a deeply flawed and money hungry music industry. Greenwood took some time to speak with me amidst the final Whitley tour about how he managed to come to terms with such a momentous decision. “Basically there’s just a whole lot of bullshit in the music industry and I’m not really happy with how it all works,” Greenwood states, fairly bluntly. “I have to, for my own sanity, choose between being a musician who busts and tours his ass off to help a system support itself or figure out a way around or out of that system the best way that I can.”

released now that she is an independent artist. He politely stops me, saying, “I’ve got to make it clear – I don’t actually have the shits with my label. It just happens that the system that they are working in is something that I’m beginning to not agree with.”

Admittedly, prior to this discussion with Greenwood, I couldn’t for the life of me understand the logic behind his decision. The timing of it seemed highly questionable – with two stellar, heartfelt albums under his belt and a solid fan base in tow, why throw it all away?

However as he speaks it becomes clear this is not a decision he has made lightly. A man of his integrity and ideals clearly does not fit the mould the music industry wishes to place upon his shoulders.

But does this spell the end of Lawrence Greenwood as a recording artist? Not quite. “I’m definitely not quitting music entirely. I don’t think I really could,” he says. Whitley fans can only hope that following this self-imposed break, Greenwood can somehow find a happy medium between the artistic creation and business ends of the music industry.

Catch Whitley at his final ever Canberra show at The Maram on Wednesday August 18 with Seagull in support. Tickets are $20 via Moshtix.

He goes on to say, “I don’t think I should have to be like a little jukebox, to keep playing and just do one more show or one more tour and management companies, meanwhile, are all walking away with tens of thousands of dollars, smacking their lips and feeling pretty good about themselves.

In a nutshell – I don’t want to have to perform art in a way that is catering to other people or making concessions.”

Trying to be helpful, I suggest that perhaps Greenwood could follow the example of Amanda Palmer, singer and pianist in punk-cabaret duo The Dresden Dolls, who after years of bashing heads with her record label, Roadrunner, is relishing the freedom of having full control over when and how her music is

29

BETWEEN TO WORLDS

RETURN OF THE MAC

peter krbavac

travis heinrich

With his band Spartak on hiatus while drummer Evan Dorrian is based in the UK, local sound artist SHOEB AHMAD has been turning his attention to a number of other projects. One of these is Whirlwind Lullabies, an installation based around a collection of field recordings he had made in his parents’ homeland, Bangladesh, over the past six years. Though Shoeb was born in Australia, he has been a frequent visitor to Bangladesh. He remembers these early childhood visits to his father’s village as something of an adventure.

“It was definitely a different world,” Shoeb says. “When I went there they didn’t have electricity, instead they had hurricane lamps and that was pretty bizarre, but these days they’ve brought electricity into the area.”

Horse Macgyver - VOID [Independent]

When you go into the middle of nowhere there’s still a lot of life

These pastoral scenes stand in stark contrast to the buzzing metropolis that is the capital, Dhaka. “You get off a plane and there are hoards of people looking through the windows seeing who’s coming,” Shoeb explains.

“There’re masses of people, noise, car noise, train noise - the traffic barely moves but somehow there’s still a lot of engine noise construction work. It’s a city that’s densely populated; everyone from all parts of Bangladesh move to Dhaka. All the poor people live in slums and next to the slums there are these massive high-rise apartments, so the class divide is so extremely visible. But then you go outside Dhaka and it’s pretty tranquil, peaceful. You think ‘How the hell did Dhaka become this mess?’”

With Whirlwind Lullabies, Shoeb aims to capture something of the disparity between the town and the country. The installation comprises four layered, half-hour pieces running on a loop, presenting different sonic textures. “The natural melody or the natural rhythm of things,” he says. The recordings were made on dictaphone, giving them a lo-fi quality in line with Shoeb’s musical forays. Recordings range from a traditional band playing in a village or a bus ride bursting with the chatter of passengers and Bollywood tunes on the stereo to the near silence of the Chittagong Hill tracks.

“When you go into the middle of nowhere there’s still a lot of life,” Shoeb says. “It’s a really fertile place so there are birds and insects that you don’t really hear in the city.” These recordings are coupled with slideshows of photos from the area “that are both really stark, visual, but also really blurred and hallucinogenic. “[The installation] is one of those things that I really wanted to do when I started doing field recordings,” Shoeb says. “I just thought Bangladesh has got to be highly inspiring for sound because there’s just so much going on.”

Whirlwind Lullabies runs until Saturday August 21 at the Canberra Contemporary Art Space, Gorman House. Entry is free. Shoeb, Sean Baxter (Melbourne) and Orbits perform solo improv sets on Friday August 20 from 7.30pm Entry is $10/$8 for CCAS members.

30

DIY is a term that holds special meaning for Canberra musicians and fans, as it seems to have become our cultural necessity. This is a direct response to our town’s geographically languished position in the tug-o-war between Sydney and Melbourne. Previously expected to journey to the big smoke for innovation; we brought the mountain to Mohammed instead. HORSE MACGYVER, (previously named ///▲▲▲\\\ - a moniker with no phonetic pronunciation, although many have tried) is the brainchild of local artist Tim Dwyer. The confusion around his literally symbolic name led him to being named VOID by critics/internet vultures, and it’s seemed to have stuck as it’s now the name of his most recent and by far most poignant release to date.

Dwyer’s previous work has been lazily pigeonholed as ‘drag’ or ‘witch haus’ – two new fad generalisations better left ignored. Thankfully however, VOID continues along Dwyer’s independent line of making original music - all whilst retaining a sense of accessibility, which is no easy task.

Tangibly, VOID is kitsch. Like many recent Canberran releases, the medium of choice is cassette, with Dwyer’s disheveling artwork cocooning the sky blue frame. It’s worth mentioning that each and every copy has been hand dubbed by Dwyer himself.

The eight tracks are deeply synthetic and grimy, elongated over stretches of what could be considered super-slow-mo drum ’n’ bass with a heavy pop element. It has inklings of breakcore influence shining through too, like it’s held together by string and will fall apart at any moment. Spooky, grueling and quite frankly hypnotising, the beats Dwyer has chosen to use don’t gallop at you; they creep and leer like a sinister magic trick. It doesn’t crescendo, but tricks you into thinking it does - like a shepherd tone. His tracks most noticeably peak with the addition of a voice or horn, such as Trollweed, which implements what sounds like a panflute, played over a VHS tape of an ‘80s factory line action movie staring Dolph Ludgren. Occasionally his heavily processed voice is used and is surprisingly melodic - which adds greatly to the DIY aesthetic.

Spit Shine shows his use of unclean, lo-fi pop inspiration the best.

Explaining it is not easy. Drunken kung foo sitar with beats made by a snail? Add eight-bit video gaming in there, as well as Boyz in the Hood and you’re about as close as an explanation can get. All in all it’s the bee’s knees.

On further explorations, VOID offers loads of different things.

Tracks that sounds like Golden Eye 64 – drunken keyboard bends, howling vocals and the echoing thumps of well made car commercials. It’s truly an ordeal to get through, but one that you dust your Walkman off for and listen to again and again; it gets better with every listen. DIY like this may not feel at first that it obtains any frills, but they’re there, so just listen. You’ll get the frills in your own time.

VOID is available now on dreamdamage.com .

group. As such, Andre admits that it can be difficult to separate the band from the rest of their lives. “We do sometimes have to make a point not to talk about the band and just have ‘us’ time,” he says.

“Unfortunately being together and playing music is only a tiny part of [being in the band]. It is our lives completely, but we’re happy enough for it to be like that.” wanted

She

KHANCOBAN STAKY ‘Never meet your heroes’ goes the old saying. Andre Hooke, frontman of Melbourne indie-folksters KHANCOBAN, threw all that out the window when he wrangled the support for his musical hero, revered US singer-songwriter Vic Chestnutt, on the man’s 2009 Australian tour. “It was completely daunting,” Andre recalls.

“We went out for dinner the night before the first show and saw him from afar - I almost fell over I was so nervous. There was some cool moments when we just got to hang out backstage. Victoria Williams was touring with him, those two are old friends so just to hang out and be a part of that was awesome.”

Chestnutt even had some choice words of approval for his devotee.

“He said in his southern-American accent “y’all real good” so that was really nice. Victoria Williams apparently said that I had a really nice voice but she wanted to know which language I was speaking,” he chuckles.

Khancoban was formed in 2004 by Andre and his wife, drummer Jemima, and over the years the pair have remained the core of the

to know which In the next couple of years after forming, language I was the pair picked up a couple of extra speaking bandmates as well as a deal with Half a Cow Records, run by former Canberra boy Nic Dalton – a veteran of Sneeze, Godstar, The Lemonheads, Ratcat and The Hummingbirds. “Apparently Nic didn’t really get [our demo] at first and put it aside as a ‘maybe’,” Andre says, “but came back to it and really loved it.”

The band released their self-titled debut and follow-up Limbs May Fall on Half a Cow, but are now working on a full-length for Melbourne label Departed Sounds. The five-piece are settling into a more relaxed recording process for release number three. “We’re taking a year to record it here and there,” Andre says. “In the past we’ve gone into the studio and recorded things really quickly and this time we’re purposely taking it really slowly.”

The band’s trip to the US last year has undoubtedly informed the direction of the new material: during the trip, Andre pulled a Dylanstyle betrayal of his folk roots and purchased an electric guitar. “I’d always played acoustic guitar up until that point,” Andre says. “Now I just play electric guitar live, so it was a bit of a watershed moment in some ways.”

Khancoban launch their new single This Block on Saturday September 4 at The Front Cafe and Gallery in Lyneham, with supports Ruby for Lucy and Nic Dalton. From 8pm, $6 entry.

31

THE REALNESS The last few weeks I’ve been taking a pretty deep journey into the debut LP Only Mountain from LA based beat-maker Take. Out on the Alpha Pup label, the album is really on another level in terms of sound and ideas – with one foot floating happily inside a sort of psychedelic, otherworldly pressurised funk and the other firmly planted in sundrenched LA hip-hop. Insanely beautiful, utterly engaging and wholly original, Take’s sound is completely infectious. With each listen you’ll find something new to adore and admire. Only Mountain is a real achievement in future soul music. If you dig Dam-Funk, Flying Lotus, J.Dilla type steez then this is for you! Amazing music.

Also on the future funk vibe is the debut LP from Spanish-Trinidadian artist Oriol. His LP Night & Day arrives on the always reliable Planet Mu label and is chock full of spacey jazz boogie and soulful broken beats. A positive vibe permeates throughout and there’s an effortless feel to the rare grooves that Oriol serves up. Cannot wait to bump this when I head to Europe for some sun and surf. Part Herbie Hancock, part Hudson Mohawke – this is another quality LP in an already stellar year for forward thinking broken beat music.

We all know that dubstep has grown exponentially in popularity over the past few years and one of the genres pioneers Skream has now arrived with his sophomore album amidst crazed media hype for the genre. Skream straddles both the pop infused styles of the genre (especially with his Magnetic Man group alongside Benga and Artwork) alongside deeper chin stroke moments through his work with D Bridge and Instra:Mental. Fact: Skream is one of the scenes first real crossover superstars. Outside The Box is out now through Tempa and will certainly do no harm to the current wave of dubstep crossover especially with its more breaky, ravey moments. Purists should take heed but there’s still a few heavy bassweight moments that should please old school dub heads. Whatever your tastes there is no denying that Skream is an impeccable producer and Outside The Box is a lot of fun. The album features collabs with Murs, La Roux and heaps of others.

Another LP I’m looking forward to absorbing more on my o/s trip Aug/Sep is Sheffield’s The Black Dog’s Music For Real Airports.

A response to the Brian Eno concept album of a similar name, the album is a soundscape field recording meditations on the experience of being ‘in and around’ airports. Sounds wanky but it’s actually really dope. Ambient tunes wash into deeper post-techno beat driven efforts in a real made for headphone ‘on location’ experience. It’s a cohesive record of beautiful music and one that could transport you into that transient limbo airport vibe no matter where you are. An ambitious, challenging and rewarding listening experience and one that I 100% recommend.

In a strange move, one of my favourite producers Squarepusher has left the confines of his label Warp for a one-off EP release on the Ed Banger label. Due late August, Cryptic Motion is an unexpected pairing of artist and label, but one that should herald some fascinating sounds. Ed Banger and Warp recently held a party last year in Paris that showcased HudMo and Clark alongside Mr Oizo and Sebastian and as a label, Ed Banger, has reportedly been inspired by Warp for many years. The EP from Squarepusher will feature a new production and a remix by Mr Oizo – both tunes are available to stream on Soundcloud.

ROSHAMBO roshambizzle@yahoo.com.au

32

HORROR STORY PALIMAH PANICHIT Australian hip-hop act HORRORSHOW are fiercely collected and unapologetic. “We’re not really the dudes that are just that good at rapping and being fly that we can just talk to you about how mad we are. We kinda have to fall back on actually wanting talk to you about some shit, bring up some issues I guess.”

The Sydney duo (beat maker Adit and wordsmith Solo) proved on their recently released debut Inside Story, their keen ability to turn a phrase through oft twistingly poignant narratives and drop punchy one-liners on top of silkily sublime and varied beats, causing Australia to go mad with desire.

We’re not really the dudes that are just that good at rapping and being fly

They, along with the incredibly sharp Thundamentals, were chosen to support legends A Tribe Called Quest at Hordern Pavilion for their first Australian shows ever; not the lightest of tasks.

Even on the prospect of playing with ATCQ, Solo refuses to lose focus; “you just kinda take it as it comes. We haven’t done the gig yet, so I’m not really tripping out too hard, but I’m sure that once I get off that stage and they’re chilling, playing Can I Kick It or Bonita Applebum then I’ll have a moment of crossing that one off my list.”

Their upcoming Walk You Home tour is hotly anticipated, including a show at the ANU Bar that Solo insists is long overdue. “We’ve been trying to find a way to go down there for a while. The shows we’ve had in Canberra have been dope, and we’re just looking forward to getting back to ANU and seeing how things are going in Canberra and how much love there is for Horrorshow.”

On cyphers and freestyling with other MCs, Solo is a little bit less sure, saying “I understand how important all of that is, being an MC, kinda cutting your teeth and all that, but it’s just not the way we chose to come up. We chose very much to just keep our music to ourselves. It was almost a secret until it came out, then we looked at doing shows.

“It’s something I’d like to do more of… it’s always fun to have a freestyle. One thing we haven’t done that much of is collaborations, that’s something we’d definitely want to do more of; make some songs with the artists that we’ve grown up looking up to.”

For their tour, Solo is enthusiastic about talking about changing it up.

“We wanna put together a brand new set for the Walk You Home tour, obviously still playing a lot of the same songs, but we wanna change shit up, do some new stuff and change up the structure of it all.”

“I wanna start doing some a capella, just working in some new material into the live show. We just wanna make sure that it’s interesting for the good people of Australia; so everyone can have a good time.”

Horrorshow will be playing at the ANU Bar on Saturday September 4 from 8pm. Tickets are available through Oztix for $19 +bf or on the door.

33

METALISE Deadlines are funny things. I normally struggle, at best, to meet our usual deadlines here at BMA, but managing to scrape in on time for the last issue, I noted my scepticism of either Slayer or Iron Maiden being a part of Soundwave 2011. An early deadline had me one day late on delivery, and about one day early from a text message from a spy in camp Slayer that reads as follows “Secret squirrel: Slayer and HOF on Soundwave, not 100% but pretty likely”. I considered calling our hard working editor to stop press, but it wasn’t definite, so I chuckled and forgot about it (I would have done it! - Ed.).

A week later and a day after the last issue hit our pavements, I was playing in Sydney and talking to the promoter and new label manager for Macabre. He lives and works in Australia and casually announced to me over a pie “oh dude, Soundwave is nuts next year.”

(Chomp chomp). “Iron Maiden headlining, Slayer, Primus, Queens (of the Stoneage), Melvins, it’s gonna be crazy.” (Chomp chomp).

“High On Fire?” I asked. (Chomp chomp). “Yeah, them too.” Then I told him what I wrote in the last column. He said I was a dickhead and on that much we could agree.

Fast forward to Thursday night and a leaked phone camera image of the double page Soundwave ad hit Aussie interweb forums like the plague. “With more to be announced” at the bottom of the page it read. “Good god” was the title of the email I sent around to friends with responses ranging from “F$%k festivals, sideshows” to all out gibberish excitement.

Irrespective of your tastes, inarguably, the Soundwave 2011 line up represents a huge step up in quality for the heavy music fan that would normally need to travel to Europe for such a bill. It’s pretty nuts. Of the responses I got, many who attended this year’s chapter were reluctant about going again, and spoke in fear of attending the festival after roasting in the sun. I asked another Soundwave connection about the two main issues people had: “parking and heat.” But the Soundwave camp have responded, “blame the RTA for the parking situation and we’ve spent 250K hiring shade cloth for next year.” I might have to attend a festival, good god.

Iron Maiden have already announced side shows across the country, with tickets on sale now for their Thursday February 24 show in Sydney. It’s going to be an insanely expensive six months.

Death Metal At The Maram III hits (no surprise) The Maram in Erindale on Saturday September 4, for the grand price of FREE! You get four brutal sets from Victorian act Insidious Torture, NSW’s Mass Burial as well as locals’ Tortured and Point 17. Doors open at 8pm for this over 18s show.

Zeni Geva played one of the heaviest gigs the ANU Bar ever hosted back in the ‘90s and I was stoked to see them announced back in for an Aussie tour in September. Japan’s long serving purveyors of extreme avant garde are playing at the Bald Faced Stag in Sydney on Thursday September 23 as a part of the Sydney Fringe Festival. The tour is presented by the perpetual Heathen Skulls promotions folks.

Acid King has confirmed for Doomfest this year and there’s talk of a gig scheduled for Thursday October 7 at The Basement with Pod People, I Exist and another band on the cards, yet to be confirmed.

JOSH NIXON doomtildeath@hotmail.com

34

FLYING SOULO STEPHEN SAMARA Max Cavalera is no stranger to the thrash and death metal music spotlight. Thanks to his involvement in bands such as Sepultura, Nailbomb and SOULFLY, over the last 25 years, the Brazilian native has brought the tribal ferocity of his homeland into his music to create a fusion fit for any headbanger better than anyone else of his time.

“My favourite time for music was the late 1980s and early ‘90s, with the thrash and death metal scenes,” says Cavalera. “There’s a lot of energy in that music and that’s why I like to play it.” Not surprisingly Cavalera admits “I also like Brazilian and tribal stuff that started with Roots [Sepultura’s 1996 album] and continues with Soulfly. It’s a combination of all that. I also like some of the new thrash revival bands like Municipal Waste and Warbringer, because they have that same energy.”

I can’t wait to be there to give you all a great night of heavy metal!

Unlike many others, Sepultura survived the grunge and nu-metal trends in the mid ‘90s, and Cavalera, though no longer with the band, has continued his musical career with Soulfly to this day. “We survived. We’re still here. To me that’s important because a lot of bands didn’t make it, a lot of people broke up and the fact that I came out and Soulfly became successful is a huge thing to me.”

Having toured with the likes Slayer, In Flames, Black Sabbath, and, most recently Iron Maiden, Cavalera has had the opportunity to meet and work with some of his heroes. He recalls when Sepultura played with the Ramones in Brazil: “There was between five and ten thousand people there. It was huge. I got to watch this legendary band every night, in my hometown. Sometimes I’d look over to the side of the stage and see them standing there watching us play, and in their leather jackets they looked like they’d come straight from an album cover.”

Musically, Max Cavalera has retained his aggressive riffing and vocals from the Sepultura days and applied them to Soulfly, creating something that evokes both nostalgia and sets the bar high for modern metal bands. “My style of riffing is very similar,” he says. “It’s become a little bit more technical since we got Marc [Rizzo] in the band, because he can do some amazing things on the guitar and we take advantage of that. So we have some killer guitar solos.”

Omen, the latest offering from Soulfly, is a clear indicator of Cavalera’s musical spectrum. “I’m influenced by a lot of hardcore, and that’s evident on the new album. From the very start it’s very in your face and hardcore.” It’s been a long four years since Soulfly’s last Australian tour, and Cavalera seems keen to be back. “We’re really excited. We’re ready to deliver. I still play some old Sepultura stuff, but mostly Soulfly stuff. I can’t wait to be there to give you all a great night of heavy metal!”

Soulfly will be playing at the ANU Bar on Saturday September 11. Tickets available through Ticketek.

35

the word

BLACKBOX

on games Final Fight/Magic Sword (Capcom) / RunKeeper (FitnessKeeper Inc.) Platform: PSN, XBLA / iPhone, Android Rating: If you’re bored / Try the free edition Length: 1-2hrs / N/A

I should be reviewing Scott Pilgrim right now, but as always us insignificant Australians have been shafted. Released inexplicably two days after the American debut, we only had enough time to beat one of Ramona’s evil ex-boyfriends before deadline.

Alas I turn my attention to the warm-up acts - two of the classics that set the scene for Scott’s side-scrolling action; Final Fight and Magic Sword. From the authentic arcade machine framing to the RAM checks at the start, both games are faithful copies of the brilliant originals (ignoring the overbearing achievement system).

Immediately transported back to my adolescent days, pumping quarters into the AMF arcade machines, it was great fun to relive the memories.

Now, don’t start thinking that I’m going to rant on about how these games represent the pinnacle of game design. In the same way that any modern FPS beats Goldeneye, (with the possible exception of Metro2033), these games provide a timely reminder of how far we’ve come. By today’s standards they just don’t stack up, but then they’re not there to. So whilst one could be forgiven for thinking that $8.45 is a little pricey for a trip down nostalgia lane, given you’re still getting a solid hour or two worth of entertainment, why the hell not? *** Whilst this one ain’t technically a game, the Canberra Fun Run is just over the horizon. Taking into consideration the anticipated number of competitors, as well as the average fitness levels of BMA’s readership (oi, I’m sure they’re a fit lot! - Ed.), there should be at least seven people interested in this review, so let’s plough on.

With the Apple app store recently hitting over 200,000 applications, 5,000 of which are devoted to health and fitness, it’s not surprising that there’s more than one offering to help monitor your workouts.

From my experience though, the best is RunKeeper. Focusing on simplicity, you can start and stop workouts, view a map of where you’ve travelled and for those of you keen enough to get the full edition (which is worth doing if you’re wishing to hone your speeds), you also get regular verbal progress updates. Once you want to start looking at your overall progress, that’s where the website comes in.

It’s sleek and functional, allowing you to not only access your data, but that of your buddies.

The system really helps to motivate your fitness and what’s more, unless you’re a fitness freak requiring more features, it’s also free.

So my advice is join the fun run, grab this app and start running fatty.

TORBEN SKO

36

The monster that ate Canberra is about to make another appearance. Although this time it’s not pink and will be followed by more cameras and mobile TV recording units than anyone has ever seen. Yep, that’s right, the election road show is about to roll into town. And if you’re not a big enough political geek to stand in line on a Canbrrrr-a winter night to get into the National Tally Room, the expanded digital networks have plenty of coverage for you.

If you want your coverage with a bit of the everyman edge served up with a smattering of political commentary, try Election 2010: Australia Decides (WIN, Sat Aug 21, 5pm) with Karl Stefanovic, Lisa Wilkinson and Laurie Oakes (and hopefully not Mark Latham). Your Call 2010 (Prime, Sat Aug 21, 6.30pm) continues the same theme with Sunrise all-stars Kochie, Mel and Mark Riley.

Over at Auntie, the election is pretty much the only show in town and you can see the whole thing in HD, complete with the Antony Green whip around the seats with the simulcast of Federal Election 2010 (ABC1, Sat Aug 21, 6pm). SBS are leaving things until closer to the result with World News Australia Election Special (SBS1, Sat Aug 21, 8.30pm) and over at Southern Cross Ten they’re starting early with National Election Special (SCTEN, Sat Aug 21, 5.30pm), followed by the only light look at things with The Election Project (SCTEN, Sat Aug 21, 6pm) and then (predictably) Southern Cross Ten bows out and takes viewers to AFL (SCTEN, Sat Aug 21, 6.30pm) to be exact.

The big change from last election is the choice for those who just want to wake up in the morning (or next week) and see who won.

Apart from the HD channels, the networks have left their secondary airwaves clear of political palaver. The best of the rest includes Once Upon a Time in the West (ABC2, Sat Aug 21, 8.30pm), Blast From the Past (Go!, Sat Aug 21, 6pm) and Wedding Crashers (Go!, Sat Aug 21, 8.30pm).

If you’ve always wanted to be a TV star and travel around the world, well here’s your chance! Applications for The Amazing Race Australia www.au.tv.yahoo.com/the-amazing-race are now open, but will close Monday, September 6, so hurry. If you’re really desperate to be on telly, and you can’t sing, juggle or travel, there’s a new dating show on Prime. Apply here if you must: www. datingshowgranadamedia.com.au but Blackbox recommends The Amazing Race Australia – people you like are more likely to watch.

Offspring (SCTEN, Sun, 8.30pm) is the latest offering from Secret Life of Us, Love My Way and Rush creator John Edwards. Sure, there’s not a lot of action but it is witty and insightful and worth a watch.

Some favourites return to screens in the next few week too – Breaking Bad (ABC2, Fri Sep 3, 9.30pm), The IT Crowd (ABC1, Fri, 10.15pm) and, following the post-election end of Yes We Canberra (ABC1, Wed Aug 25, 9.30pm), United States of Tara (ABC1, Wed Sep 1, 9.30pm) returns to screens.

Docos to look out for include Visions of the Future (ABC1, Thu Aug 26, 8.30pm), The Music Instinct: Science and Song (ABC1, Thu Aug 26, 9.35pm) and Daredevils: The Flying Car (ABC2, Wed Aug 25, 8.30pm). Don’t forget to watch the new season of Heston’s Feasts (SBS1, Thu Aug 24, 8.30pm) which begins with recreating Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Oompa Loompas and chocolate waterfalls here we come.

TRACY HEFFERNAN tracyheffernan@bigpond.com

37

the word

on albums

Bone Face Prison [Independent]

album of the issue arcade fire the suburbs [emi]

After their universally acclaimed debut Funeral and its contentious follow-up Neon Bible, fans and critics speculated endlessly the direction that Montreal’s baroque pop septet would take on their third album. To the surprise of many, the group has not gone back to basics, nor have they tried to build on the epic, complex arrangements that characterised the highlights of their first two albums. Instead, The Suburbs is, initially, rather unassuming.

Against a restrained spectrum of indie pop songwriting, Win Butler’s lyrics are less poetic and less aggressive, but infinitely more relatable.

In contrast to the escapism of Funeral and the brazen, accusatory tone of Neon Bible, The Suburbs, like its eponym, is ultimately more engaging because its thematic reference points are firmly rooted in the day-to-day world its listeners live in. The arrangements are well considered and not too busy, but manage nonetheless to evoke a broader assortment of emotions than their previous work, encapsulating beautifully the world of urban sprawl in all its sterile, nostalgic, bitter-sweet glory.

The Suburbs could easily have ended up as sentimental fluff, but instead may be the group’s crowning achievement thus far.

BEN HERMANN

38

The demise of Ohana in 2008 left a gaping hole in the Australian post-hardcore scene. Ohana announced a split only a few months after releasing their critically acclaimed sophomore LP Dead Beat. Neil Thomason at Head Gap recorded Dead Beat and this year he recorded Bone’s second EP Face Prison.

Making the move from Perth to Melbourne this year, Bone could well be the band to fill Ohana’s shoes. Bone draw on the tone of ‘90s noise rockers Shellac and The Jesus Lizard and elements of mathletes Battles and Oxes.

Ants and Billy Ray Cyrus Collosus are the stand out tracks on the EP as they have the strongest motifs often built on distorted bass lines with a punk swagger. The distorted yelling from Jonathon Shub is not without melody and though his lyrics are effectively inaudible, it is their abstract quality that avoids some of the awkward angsty lyrics that befell Ohana and Refused before them. Some of the angular guitar melodies recall At The Drive In though Bone avoid ATDI’s chaos in favour of a seething restraint that incorporates silences that hit as hard as the riff before it.

On Double Pen and McClane, Bone hint at metal guitar riffs and obvious rhythms that sometimes seem a little dated.

Though on the whole, Face Prison is an EP that offers moments of brilliance and a glimpse of a band on the verge of something great.

JOSH BECKER

Eminem Recovery [Interscope/Shady Records] Recovery is a statement. A statement of what is really up to the listener; for me it’s all about vindication. One thing you realise on the first listen of Recovery is that everything that has happened in his whole career has happened for a reason: experience.

After being disappointed by the direction of The Eminem Show and Encore and only slightly reignited by Relapse, true fans of the trailer park troubadour have finally been served a decorous dish in the form of his new album.

Although some might say the use of several different producers on the record takes away the ‘album’ feel and makes it sound more like a collection of songs, I think it works as an advantage. Tracks like 25 to Life, Spaceman, Going Through Changes and Cinderella Man are just brilliant. Recovery is Slim Shady at his most relistenable; this is a rap album with character more than a pop chart album laced with street poetry. The real strength of this album lies in the combination of catchy choruses, the variety of flows and the consistently unbelievable rhymes.

I can say without a shadow of a doubt that the lyrical delivery on Recovery is the best I have ever heard, and I am a huge hip-hop fan. Recovery is raw, honest and complete. This is Eminem throwing his critics the microphone and saying ‘tell these people something they don’t know about me’.

TIM GALVIN

Issa Sign of Angels [Frontiers/Riot] From the moment album opener Angels Crying explodes from the speakers to the last dying notes of closer Fallen Angel (and no, not every song here has an angelic theme), you will be captivated. Norwegian chanteuse Issa is the possessor of a frankly gargantuan set of pipes, and, with the aid of a stellar set of Euro metal sidemen (including a bassist going by the spectacular moniker of Nobby Noberg, as well as Helloween’s Uli Kursch on timekeeping duties) she has come up with quite simply the best collection of AOR tunes sung by a lady since Cher’s self titled 1987 album. First single I’m Alive is almost perfect; the sort of rousing anthem one of the Scandinavian countries usually throw into Eurovision, whilst the spine tingling Give Me a Sign is the kind of stuff that, if recorded by Miley Cyrus, would sell by the bucketload.

If it were possible, the ante is upped still further by the spectacular River of Love, Issa’s voice propelling the song to heights of aural nirvana rarely heard in these times of lowered expectation, Peter Huss’s guitar solo setting the whole thing up for a key change that’ll have you out of your recliner, singing along and punching the air whether you like it or not; make no mistake – if you like this melodic hard rock/AOR style of musical exposition, YOU WILL NOT, REPEAT NOT, hear any better this year. Perfect.

SCOTT ADAMS

singled out

with Dave Ruby Howe

Stone Temple Pilots Stone Temple Pilots [Atlantic] It’s easy to pity Stone Temple Pilots. Rarely has a band been dismissed so lightly and attracted such undue scorn from perceived allegiances.

They were cabin hopping grunge wannabes, cashing in on the gloom rock glory days. Rubbish.

Stone Temple Pilots were revivalists in love with rocks golden teenage era - Bowie, Led Zep, The Stooges and Stones.

That they found an audience in the early to mid nineties is mere happenstance.

1996’s Tiny Music… proved they could pull off hook-laden scuzzy garage rock and dreamy psych-pop barely raising a sweat. But the backlash was on and the band spluttered to dissolution, creatively nimble but commercially a spent force.

Of course Scott Wieland being a massive junkie didn’t exactly help. And so – as per script – the late oughts reformation is upon us.

Stone Temple Pilots is their first album together in nearly a decade but where there should be a sense of urgency – to justify existence – there’s a lazy reliance on old tricks; a lucky dip of influences, a dash of flair, some melodic crunch and a frustrating sense missing the target. As usual, Dean DeLeo is beyond reproach, an undervalued and innovative riff machine who appears to have been listening to a lot of Aerosmith lately. But even whilst coasting Stone Temple Pilots are intriguing – a band lost in time, not really belonging anywhere in particular, making music purely because it feels good.

JUSTIN HOOK

Trentemøller Into the Great Wide Yonder [Into My Room] The Dutchman has produced a soundtrack for some sort of psychedelic wander through a musical landscape, taking us from the smallest of beats laid with orchestra to heavy guitars painted with haunting vocals, and just a couple of big beats for turning the hell up. The music is so genius and organic in its composition that it could be a concept album, sometimes melodramatic, sometimes minimalist. He begins with interesting simplicity with steel guitars and dreamy vocals through the first few tracks, before a cracking club tune with violins called Shades of Marble and a peak at Silver Surfer, Ghost Rider Go!!! which steers the album into the industrial before smoothing back into the sweet, soft pianos and whispering singers.

Step Into the Great Wide Yonder departs massively from Trentemøller’s first album. The genius bugger fooled us, which is fine, because you become surprised every time the track number ticks over. Every sound plays a part to incite certain feelings which can be rather sinister, such as Marie Fisker’s vocal appearance in Sycamore Feeling, or playful, like with Neverglade. You could easily sit back and just enjoy the beauty in the background, but I recommend closing your eyes and listening intently. It’s the only way you can really break down all the remarkable sounds hidden behind one another and truly comprehend what you’re hearing. This album is completely bizarre, amazing in every way, and you will fall in love at many points. danika nayna

Various Brazilian Guitar Fuzz Bananas: Tropicalia Psychedelic Masterpieces 1967-1976 [World Psychedelic Funk Classics] The gritty rock ‘n’ roll of the so-labelled ‘British Invasion’ bands of the early 1960s like The Rolling Stones and The Animals hit Brazil sometime later that decade, and when combined with the emergent psychedelic wonders of the Tropicalia scene that fused the much loved bossa nova beat with melodic and lyric adventurousness, musical fireworks were the inevitable consequence. American garage bands of the mid 1960s poured a sizeable amount of oversexed adolescence onto many sonic nuggets, but those Brazilians also picked up a thing or two.

If I was looking to engage a beautiful girl in a slow dance with anticipated fun stuff to come, I might fast forward to Ele Seculo XX, track 11 on this super appealing compilation of Brazilian psychedelic rock. According to the liner notes, this song is a major rarity released in 1969 from the exotically titled group Com Os Falcoes Reais and serves the dual purpose of setting a desirable mood, and offering a transformed Latin American sound that was conceived in a harsh climate courtesy of a mono-culture loving dictatorship that ruled Brazil from 1964. Although facing imprisonment, exile and possibly worse, the Brazilian Tropicalia garage-rockers deserve much respect for not only planting a middle finger firmly in the face of an oppressive authority, but also coming up with some first rate psychedelia that would get a dance dufus like myself blissing out under multi-coloured strobe lights. dan bigna

Duck Sauce Barbra Streisand [etcetc] The near six-month wait for this track hasn’t diminished its impact on arrival in the slightest. Just like aNYway ruled the clubs last year, Duck Sauce will once again be smashed through speakers everywhere with Barbra Streisand and its infectious loops of disco-house loveliness.

Gonzales - I Am Europe [Boys Noize Records] Gonzales has always been a master of oddball awesomeness but I Am Europe may be a whole new level for the piano man. It’s got bonkers lines like “I’m a dog shit ashtray”, it’s part of the soundtrack for Gonzales’ own feature film about chess battling brothers, Ivory Tower, it sounds like a long-lost montage jam for Rocky IV and it’s produced by Boys Noize. It may sound insane but I assure it’s genius.

Midnight Juggernauts Lifeblood Flow [SiberiaRecords/Inertia] An early stand-out from the band’s latest epic The Crystal Axis, Lifeblood Flow finds Midnight Juggernauts in a slightly poppy mood not seen since something like Shadows with its instantly sing-along chorus, wavey space synths and rumbling bassline. Expect to hear this one a lot as summer creeps in.

Train - If It’s Love [Sony] Train make brain-destroyingly simple songs. Therefore, I’ll make this as simple as possible.

Train, you suck. Seeya.

39

the word

on films

WITH MARK RUSSELL

Somewhere during the wave of Inception hype, I overheard a conversation where the inevitable too-cool superiority crept in. Someone declared with a sneer that they hated the film because it was “sooooo predictable”. Really?

Ignore my general love for Inception (and cowardice in writing a response here) but really? Why do people feel that this is the way in which every film should be judged?

The first thing to be worked out with every cinematic offering is to find its place on the twist scale from rom-com to “oh my God it’s M Knight”?

How ‘bout you go sit in a corner and think about The Happening?

quote of the issue

Omar’s co-worker: “They said it was Jihadi. They said they had footage of him blowing up a crow.

But that’s not Jihadi, blowing up crows. Is it Omar?” Omar: “Nah, it’s a cultural thing. At that wedding I went to, we bazooka’d an ostrich.”

Four Lions

The Expendables I really wanted to like this film.

Like, a lot. It was meant to be a throwback to every balls-tothe-wall, strap-yourself-in-and‘ooh’-at-the-pretty-fireballs movie I’d spent my pocket money on as a kid. Sly Stallone was giving us a great chance to relive the glory of the eighties to mid-nineties action stars, while working in the guys who almost inherited the crown, like Jet Li and Jason Statham.

But unfortunately, this stinks to high heaven of the funsucking Hollywood machine.

The Expendables’s plot isn’t manufactured around awesome set-pieces; instead it’s manufactured around awesome egos and contractual obligations. The core cast fights for rights to the cheesy lines and camera-time.

Unfortunately, this kind of dialogue only works if there’s a ‘straight man’ character.

Without that, they all just sound like they’re unable to hold a normal conversation.

It’s a frustrating two hours as the inept script tries desperately to find an emotional core in every character. Naturally, none of these end up being fulfilled to a satisfying level. The filmmakers should’ve taken a leaf out of the Statham-vehicle Transporter series – don’t overthink it, we’ll go with you, we promise.

There’s a couple of good fight scenes and a helluva lot of explosions but this excursion seems to be very lacking in the fun factor. mark russell

40

scott pilgrim vS the world Lofty expectations.

Satisfyingly met.

Bryan Lee O’Malley’s beloved comic series is a knowing and humourous homage to computer game and hipster culture, which sees our hero pit himself against seven evil exes in order to win the heart of dream girl Ramona Flowers.

There were three crucial elements to this film that, if done right, would make it one of the year’s best. The writing – I am pleased to report this is a sharp and largely faithful adaptation, replete with quickfire wit ‘n’ quips and solid story structure. Michael Cera – let the Arrested Development star do what he does best and we’ll be happy; shyness, nuance, understated intelligence, perfect comedic timing. Check, check, check and ooooooo boy howdy check.

The third, and arguably most crucial… Edgar Wright. Edgar bloody Wright. The man with the golden touch, from TV series Spaced to cinematic ventures Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, has got all Midas on our ass once again. Wright’s trademark vivacious visual humour is perfect for a comic book adaptation, capturing the blistering pace and action excitement adroitly. Add to this a brilliant performance from Jason Schwartzman as the ultimate evil ex, Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s smouldering turn as Ramona, and perennial scenestealer Kieran “Why don’t I act more?” Culkin as Pilgrim’s gay flatmate Wallace, and you have the year’s most entertaining and hilarious film to date. allan sko

four lions Four Lions is a breath of fresh air, even if it comes as an inhaled wince preceded by “Can they really say that?” It’s perhaps the darkest comedy to ever attempt a mainstream audience. From frame one of this parody on suicide bombers, it refuses to pull its punches.

The movie has some of the funniest dialogue captured on film. This is hardly surprising, as Christopher Morris’ first major feature was bound to carry a huge weight of expectation. His work in British television has produced some of the great modern comedy and Four Lions delivers with a boom.

Omar (Riz Ahmed) is a jihadist with a dream. His crew of like-minded screw-ups are desperate to strike a blow for the cause, though they’re a little lacking in direction. As the wheels fall off in more and more entertaining ways, Omar’s grip on true north slips further and further away.

This film is handled incredibly delicately. It balances the darkest aspects of the theme perfectly, taking things far enough to do them justice but always reigning it in before it gets out of hand. Things do fall down ever so slightly plotwise towards the end, but the laughter continues running non-stop. Anyone willing to set their eyebrows to a permanent raise, will love this stuff. mark russell

the word on dvds

In The Loop [Madman]

CLASH OF THE TITANS [Warner BROS]

cop out [Warner BROS]

In The Loop is a film in which a lot of swearing happens.

Almost universally, the mouth of Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi) is responsible. Tucker is the highly strung, aggressive Director of Communications for an unnamed British PM, who cuts a swathe of verbal destruction through gaffeplagued ministers, departmental staff, lowly public servants and anyone else unfortunate enough to cross his path. No one is spared from his extreme alpha male bullying. In full flight it’s a wonder to behold; almost operatic.

Malcolm Tucker first cracked skulls in the BBC’s superb Yes Minister update The Thick of It. His is one of the few characters to make the transition to the big screen version, although In The Loop is not strictly a continuation, more a launching pad. And speaking of launching pads, the spectre of an invasion of the Middle East looms. Intelligence has been doctored, allegedly.

Ministers are making complete prats of themselves on national radio; bad publicity and dissent in the ranks runs rife, and so comes Tucker’s job to fix things, finding his way to Washington where competing departments and agencies are bouncing up against each other. Soon enough the case for war is lost in a fog of lies, deceit, mismanagement and petty personal vendettas. Sound familiar? It’s high farce, satire and Politics 101, all in one big swearing, sweating ball. Despite universally compelling performances from an eclectic cast including James Gandolfini (The Sopranos), David Rasche (Sledge Hammer) and Anna Chlumsky (My Girl and My Girl 2) something elemental gets lost in translation; a certain British forlorn weariness and foot-shuffling despair the Atlantic Ocean wipes clean. In The Loop succeeds by sending you back to the source document, because I watched the first three series of The Thick of It in quick succession soon after and it was still utterly brilliant. Essential viewing, if not an essential movie.

Now fuck off.

One doesn’t exactly have to be an Oracle, a fortune-teller from Greek mythology, to realise before watching the film that Clash of the Titans is anything but epic.

When cop films collided with buddy flicks sometime back in the late ‘70s, early ‘80s, the results could be phenomenal.

The premise was simple; uptight, clock watching rule-abiding desk cop clashes with freewheeling gun-happy loose-haired maverick cop.

Explosions, car chases, car crashes, arguments and copious amounts of broken glass ensued. It was stupid, big budget, no brain VHS-era fun.

Eventually audiences tired of simplistic morality and so they teamed Tom Hanks up with a slobbering dog. Soon after it was left to Steven Segal to carry the flame for the ailing genre into the new millennium and last time I checked he was a puffy faced low talker in search of a career. Take that for what it’s worth.

justin hook

The film, directed by Louis Leterrier, follows the story of Perseus (Sam Worthington, with an incredibly distracting accent of no identifiable nationality), the mortal son of Zeus (Liam Neeson). To save the life of the beautiful princess Andromeda (Alexa Davalos), and stop the spread of evil minions from the Underworld across Earth, Perseus must battle Voldemort. Err, I mean, Hades (Ralph Fiennes). Along the way he is helped by a group of Greek soldiers with no individual personalities, who fall prey to various monsters with alarming alacrity.

Clash of the Titans is little more than a series of unexciting action sequences strung together by an uninteresting plot, and lead by some undistinguished voiceover narration. Of course, clichéd dialogue and crummy plots are what audiences have come to expect from action movies in this modern era, even if the films themselves are set BC. The real Achilles heel of this film, unfortunately, is that it doesn’t give much else. The CGI is dull, creating a range of ever more ridiculous monsters that fail to frighten. The action sequences are badly paced and, let’s face it, boring. For a film featuring gods, blood and guts, Clash doesn’t provide much visual interest.

The fact that there aren’t any special features on this DVD, aside from a reel of deleted scenes, should tell you something. Though why anyone would want to watch more of this film than they had to, is beyond me. Clash of the Titans is to movies what Hades was to the rest of the Greek God family: kind of an embarrassment. mellisa wellham

And so, 20 odd years later we have Kevin Smith breathing life into the genre with Cop Out. Is it homage? Maybe. Is it a comedy?

Allegedly. Is it ironic? Look, it’s really hard to tell anymore with Kevin Smith. As a lapsed enfant terrible, Smith has entered that phase in his career where it’s not exactly clear what he is doing. Bruce Willis is the perfect actor to skewer a hard-nailed, stereotypical cop – but it’s arguable he was more successful with this sort of wink-wink irony in Die Hard 4. On the other side of the equation Tracey Morgan ramps up his tits-out, manic clown routine to variable effect. In the right context Morgan can be charming – in the way Ol’ Dirty Bastard was charming rushing the stage at the Grammy’s all those years ago – but here, the lack of chemistry between the two leads hurts Morgan more than Willis; Morgan needs a foil – and Willis looks bored.

Sadly, there is a half decent film hidden somewhere in the midst of limp storyboarding and twaddling dialogue. But it’s not one of Smith’s better moments.

JUSTIN HOOK

41

the word

Karoshi/Ah! Pandita/From The South Transit Bar Thursday August 5

on gigs

It’s always a proud moment when a local band releases something new. But when they manage to tame the competition between our constant over-arching older sister-like city Sydney, it’s even better.

Throwing down the weapons and extending the hand of musical friendship to one another, Karoshi and Ah! Pandita have doubled the sentiment, by releasing a self-titled split 7”, featuring both artists on one superbly designed vinyl EP. Although gigs at Transit are often a hit-and-miss affair, this night was definitely one of the hits. Perhaps even in my Top 20, dare I say it.

The night started with locals, From The South, who provided a bluesy set of folk music to open the night. Their vocal harmonies were swooney, and enticed a few moderately inebriated folks to dance their way around the empty floor. The band played a tight set, and mastered the twangy guitar sound well. Although at times one song seemed to run right into the next, the mellow set was the perfect opening to the evening.

By the time Ah! Pandita were ready to grace the stage, the bar had filled out a fair bit. Not so much that I couldn’t hustle my way to the front, though, with dancing shoes at the ready. Ah! Pandita is comprised of three of the loveliest ladies this town has to offer, who each bring their own unique talents to the stage. Using a combination of drums (Yvonne Lam), guitar (Gemma Nourse) and keyboard/synth (Laura Volfolski), they produce the kind of indie pop that makes the crowd unable to keep still, while simultaneously falling in love with the entire band at once.

The girls played all of their crowd favourites, and entertained us with some banter between songs. By the time they played their final song for the evening, Kenny, to calls of “fuck Kenny!” and “kill Kenny!” from the crowd, there was no doubting that this Canberra band is on the rise.

My only criticism is that the set felt a bit short, and there was no exciting new material debuted – I knew every song they played, having seen them only twice before this year.

After a brief break, during which people stormed to the merch stand to purchase their copy of the single, it was time for Karoshi to take the stage. Comprised of two lads, David Jackson on drums and Beres Jackson on keys/synth, this band knows how to lay down the sweet music.

The set was a sweaty, steamy mess of dancing bodies, swaying to the sound of what can only be described as carnal tunes. For a band of only two members, Karoshi manage to produce music that is as polished as it is energetic, with a big sound and an awesome stage presence.

I managed to nab myself a copy of the split single, and have to say that both bands are equally as impressive on vinyl as they are live.

Although the sound quality isn’t perfect, the packaging more than makes up for it, with delightful, artistic covers and, to top things off, a link to digital downloads in the sleeve as well.

A lot of the time it’s either the album or the live show that blows you away, and often one can shadow the other significantly. But rarely are there bands that blow you away with both and make you want a constant stream of more.

PHOTOS: PATRICK POLIS

I left Transit knowing that now I can replay what was an awesome night of music whenever I want – in the comfort of my own home, which is always quite exciting.

ZOYA PATEL

42

GIG GUIDE August 18 - August 21 wednesday AUGUST 18 Arts Whirlwind Lullabies

A sound installation inspired by the sound and sights of Bangladesh. ‘Til Aug 21.

CANBERRA CONTEMPORARY ART SPACE - GORMAN HOUSE

National Youth Self Portrait Prize 2010

Encourages young people to embrace self portraiture and its expressive possibilities. ‘Til Sept 12.

NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY

Present Tense

Big Score

Free live music at Canberra’s warmest watering hole.

THE PHOENIX PUB

Whitley

On his last ever tour. Yep, the young pup is quitting the music biz! $17+bf.

8pm.

THE MARAM, ERINDALE CENTRE

The Bedroom Philosopher

With The Awkwardstra in tow. O, and The Boat People. Shazam!

ANU BAR AND REFECTORY

Something Different Trivia Night Free, 7.30pm.

Dance

Nice Shoes

Faux Real

HIPPO LOUNGE

KNIGHTSBRIDGE PENTHOUSE

Karaoke

9pm ‘til 11pm followed by DJ Pete till 5am.

CUBE NIGHTCLUB

Soul. Be in it.

Carat Gold, Dial One, Buick, Ravs.

TRINITY BAR

Dusty Groves

Retroactivity

TRANSIT BAR

Domus Adultus

CANBERRA CONTEMPORARY ART SPACE - GORMAN HOUSE

Jakulpa laju kartyinpa Bringing a Message Presented by Chapman Gallery in association with Martumili Artists. ‘Til August 19.

CHAPMAN GALLERY

Conjunction

An exhibition of new work by ceramicists Debra Boyd-Goggin and Chris Harman. ‘Til Sept 25.

Feat. Green Fashion Parade, Q&A Panel, stalls and more.

ANU BAR AND REFECTORY

THE FRONT CAFE AND GALLERY

Jason Recliner, Corner Stone and Lady Grey.

THE PHOENIX PUB

Chicago Charlie 9pm-midnight.

KING O’MALLEY’S, CIVIC

friday AUGUST 20

Reflection

Greenfaces: Tom Gleeson

Jerzy Michalski Recent Paintings

The first large exhibition ever to explore the captivating art made in Southeast Asia. ‘Til Oct 31.

NATIONAL GALLERY OF AUSTRALIA

Live Action for Muckaty Fundraiser

No uranium, no weapons, no waste for a nuclear free future. Music, BBQ, films and performances. 5pm.

THE FRONT CAFE AND GALLERY

Live Shoeb Ahmad

With Sean Baxter. 7.30pm. $10/$8.

CANBERRA CONTEMPORARY ART SPACE - GORMAN HOUSE

Brass’ere and Lady Grey

TRANSIT BAR

Arts

Life, Death and Magic

BAR 32

ANU DRILL HALL GALLERY

On the Winter Warming tour with Ashleigh Mannix. 9pm, $10.

ARC CINEMA, NATIONAL FILM & SOUND ARCHIVE

CANBERRA CONTEMPORARY ARTS SPACE - MANUKA

Canberra’s weekly alternative party. DJs spin indie, rock, electro, grunge, punk.

Free before 10.30.

Something Like This

Collected works from the Central Desert. ‘Til Sept 26.

CRAFT ACT

Joint Pus Flux

THE MARAM, ERINDALE CENTRE

Gooch’s Utopia

ANU BAR AND REFECTORY

An exhibition in miniature by AnnaMaria Sviatko. ‘Til Sept 25.

An exhibition by Dionisia Salas Hammer, Liang Xia Luscombe and Fiona Little.

‘Til Aug 22.

Lee Coombs

Justin Carter

Arts

Viagro

Final screening! 2pm.

CRAFT ACT

TRANSIT BAR

Lady Grey blend elements of folk to create a scrumptious, accessible and fun sound. 8pm, $7.

Call of the Small

An installation of glass and mixed media incorporating mechanised components by Simon Maberley.

‘80s retro.

With Activate Jetpack, Variodivers and ZZG.

thursday AUGUST 19

Arc: Love, Lust and Lies (2010, M)

CRAFT ACT

Cheese

REV

Chris Haskett

Trivia @ Transit

Canberra Sustainable Careers Expo

MECHE

Live Guitarist in the mighty Rollins Band.

8pm, $5.

Book launch documenting Julian Laffan’s Retroactive series. 6pm. ‘Til August 21.

With Trashbag Posse DJs, Redial, Nadisko and Obey.

HIPPO LOUNGE

CANBERRA SERVICES CLUB, MANUKA

And the legendary $5 night.

Huoratron

With Fourthstate, Shifty Business and Rideckulous DJs. $10+bf. $20 on the door. 9pm.

With Jemist.

An imagined grammar of portraiture in the digital age. ‘Til Aug 22.

NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY

With Bucky.

Tickets from Canberra Ticketing or greenfaces.com .

CANBERRA IRISH CLUB

Arc: Hong Kong Cinema: New Heroes

Fire of Conscience (2010, 18+). 7pm.

ARC CINEMA, NATIONAL FILM & SOUND ARCHIVE

The Will to Freedom

Journey towards understanding and freedom in a scarred world. ‘Til Aug 22.

THE STREET THEATRE

Wendy Fairclough: Commonalities

Fairclough’s glass making reflects her original training in sculpture and printmaking. ‘Til Sept 26 ANU DRILL HALL GALLERY

Exhibition takes Michalski’s deft technique and insight from the metropolis to the interior.

CHAPMAN GALLERY

Comedy Erection 2010

Stand-up comedy night.

THE HUSH LOUNGE, PHILLIP

THE FRONT CAFE AND GALLERY

10pm-2am.

KING O’MALLEY’S, CIVIC

Rob Mac Project

HOLY GRAIL, KINGSTON

Deb Downes with Stuart Warner CASINO CANBERRA

Humanimals

With The Heroines, Tonight Alright, The Flat Earth Confederacy.

THE BASEMENT

Fun Machine

With the wonderful wandering minstrel Joe Oppenheimer and the kookiest man behind the keys, Tom Piano. From 9pm, and free! Free as a bird!

THE potbelly

saturday AUGUST 21

Dance

Arts

MOS Trance Nation Tour

Arc: Bingo, Bridesmaids and Braces (1988, M)

TyDi and Marlo.

ACADEMY NIGHTCLUB

D’Opus

KNIGHTSBRIDGE PENTHOUSE

Foreplay Friday

9pm ‘til 5am with DJs Matt and Pete.

CUBE NIGHTCLUB

Directed by Gillian Armstrong. 2pm.

ARC CINEMA, NATIONAL FILM & SOUND ARCHIVE

Arc: Alain Delon

Double bill! Plein Soleil at 4.30pm and The Samurai at 7pm.

ARC CINEMA, NATIONAL FILM & SOUND ARCHIVE

43

GIG GUIDE Aug 21 - Aug 27 Get Your Facts Right

sunday AUGUST 22

How science can help you write your next book. www.actwriters.org.au.

10am.

Arts

Dance

Arc: Hong Kong Cinema: New Heroes

ACT WRITERS CENTRE

Shunji

KNIGHTSBRIDGE PENTHOUSE

Sam Scratch

Something Different Meditation Classes

Buddhist meditation classes every Monday, drop-in any week. Class fee $14. Call 9387 7717.

WESLEY MUSIC CENTRE

Vengeance (2008, MA15+). 4.30pm.

ARC CINEMA, NATIONAL FILM & SOUND ARCHIVE

something different

10pm ‘til 5am with DJs Matt and Pete.

Cube Sunday

TNT: Karaoke Dynamite

DJ Angel

CUBE NIGHTCLUB

TRANSIT BAR

Candy Cube

CUBE NIGHTCLUB

10pm ‘til late with DJ TJ.

HIPPO LOUNGE

Live

Live

Click to Click #3 Producer Sessions

Our Last Enemy CD Launch

With Sobrusion, Inside The Exterior, 1 Shot Kill, Friend or Enemy, Na Maza and more.

THE BASEMENT

Lloyd Allison-Young

KNIGHTSBRIDGE PENTHOUSE

Karismakats

ANU ARTS CENTRE

Dance 9pm ‘til 11pm followed by DJ Pete till 5am.

CUBE NIGHTCLUB

Jemist

KNIGHTSBRIDGE PENTHOUSE

Open up your pipes to win big.

Mingle Intimates

DJ Cheese and friends.

Trivia Night

HIPPO LOUNGE

HOLY GRAIL, KINGSTON

Support our local electronic music producers in the cosy settings of Knightsbridge. Free, 4pm.

Witty wordplay and romantic tomfoolery in one of Shakespeare’s least performed plays. Tix $15/$10

Karaoke

tuesday AUGUST 24

Dance

ACADEMY NIGHTCLUB

Love’s Labour’s Lost

wednesday AUGUST 25

Live The Bridge Between and Band 7-10pm.

Arts

NATIONAL PRESS CLUB, BARTON

Robbie Manzano

A songwriter from the heart of Tuggeranong is sharing his music for the very first time. 7.30pm.

National Campus Band Competition

Eight bands battle it out for supreme glory! First band kicks off at 6pm.

Launching his debut album Of Detritus & Departures. 6pm, $5.

1pm, free.

Mother and Son

Free live music at Canberra’s warmest watering hole.

Enjoy a Coopers, a coffee and a few chocolate coated army men from 4.30pm, $6.

JW Sparrow and The Miner Birds

East Coast Blazin Tour

The Bridge Between Duo

THE PHOENIX PUB

Leanne Melmoth

ALL BAR NUN

Hippo Live

HIPPO LOUNGE

KING O’MALLEY’S, CIVIC

THE FRONT CAFE AND GALLERY

THE PHOENIX PUB

CANBERRA IRISH CLUB

The Fuelers

THE FRONT CAFE AND GALLERY

With House vs Hurricane and Heroes for Hire.

4-7pm.

Oscar

With special guest Mama Kin. Tix through Ticketek.

TUGGERANONG ARTS CENTRE

10.30pm-2.30am.

The Cat Empire

THE FRONT CAFE AND GALLERY

TRANSIT BAR

BigStrongBrute

The solo project of Brisbane musician Paul Donoughue. 7.30pm, $5.

Launch their new tape, with Killing Birds in support.

THE FRONT CAFE AND GALLERY

9pm-midnight.

friday AUGUST 27

Something Different

KING O’MALLEY’S, CIVIC

ANU BAR AND REFECTORY

Trivia @ Transit Bar / $5 Night

Arts

M-Phazes Good Gracious Album Launch

Something Different

Trivia Night

Slow Time

TRANSIT BAR

Irish Jam Session

CANBERRA SERVICES CLUB, MANUKA

Come and have a fiddle from 5pm.

With Muph, Dialectrix and Mantra.

David Christopher

With Julianne Cowley, Pete Akhurst and Jane Sage.

KING O’MALLEY’S, CIVIC

monday AUGUST 23

POT BELLY BAR

Annie and the Armadillos Trio CASINO CANBERRA

Breaking Orbit

With Atlantis Awaits, Escape Syndrome, Steady the Fall.

Arts Hospitality Night TRANSIT BAR

TRANSIT BAR

Free, 7.30pm.

CANBERRA CONTEMPORARY ART SPACE - GORMAN HOUSE

thursday AUGUST 26

Dido and Aeneas

Arts Arc: Smokes and Lollies (u/c 15+)

Along with Fourteen’s Good, Eighteen’s Better. 2pm.

ANU BAR AND REFECTORY

Live

ARC CINEMA, NATIONAL FILM & SOUND ARCHIVE

Something Different

4 x Solo Experimental Electronic Musicians

Tickets from Canberra Ticketing or greenfaces.com .

Mooseheads Snow Jam

Dress up party. Sexy snow bunny and board buddy. Ugh. Massive giveaways.

Yeah.

MOOSEHEADS PUB

Paul Heslin + Reuben Ingall + R----- K------- + NO? A diverse range of musical styles. 8pm, $5.

THE FRONT CAFE AND GALLERY

Greenfaces: Glenn Robbins

A heart-rending opera by Henry Purcell.

Cost: $30/$20 conc. Bookings 6247 1223.

THE STREET THEATRE

Love’s Labour’s Lost

Witty wordplay and romantic tomfoolery in one of Shakespeare’s least performed plays. Tix $15/$10 ANU ARTS CENTRE

Comedy

CANBERRA IRISH CLUB

Arc: Hong Kong Cinema: New Heroes

Love in a Puff (2010, MA15+). 7pm.

ARC CINEMA, NATIONAL FILM & SOUND ARCHIVE

OUT sept 1

Exhibition by Simon Scheurle. Opening 6pm. Continues ‘til October 2.

Kitty Flanagan

Charming and Alarming! Tickets: 6275 2700.

THE PLAYHOUSE

john butler trio bliss n eso ben kweller dead letter circus ...and more!

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GIG GUIDE Aug 27 - Sept 1 Open Mic Comedy

Enjoy open mic comedy at the lost couch home. To try it with a mic, email paddyhornby@hotmail.com.

THE FRONT CAFE AND GALLERY

Dance Rewind Fridays

Get your monthly fix of funk and retro.

ACADEMY NIGHTCLUB

Purple Sneakers DJs

Feat. Benlucid, Architect DJs, Fantomatique, Princi, Toki Doki and Celebrity Sex Tape.

TRANSIT BAR

saturday AUGUST 28

Arts

dance

Dido and Aeneas

Sundays in August: Khaled Sabsabi

TRANSIT BAR

A heart-rending opera by Henry Purcell.

Cost: $30/$20conc. Bookings 6247 1223.

THE STREET THEATRE

Love’s Labour’s Lost

Witty wordplay and romantic tomfoolery in one of Shakespeare’s least performed plays. Tix $15/$10 ANU ARTS CENTRE

Comedy

Foreplay Friday

Kitty Flanagan

9pm ‘til 5am with DJs Matt and Pete.

CUBE NIGHTCLUB

REV

Canberra’s weekly alternative party. DJs spin indie, rock, electro, grunge, punk.

Free before 10.30.

BAR 32

The Crunch

With Mark Nicholls.

HIPPO LOUNGE

Purple Sneakers

Indie madness with Benlucid, Architect DJs, Fantomatique, Princi, Toki Doki and more. Free.

TRANSIT BAR

Live Local, Live and Loud

Dawn Theory ,Them As Well, Army Of Ignorance and Voss. 9pm, $10.

THE BASEMENT

Charming and Alarming! Tickets: 6275 2700.

The Amosa Brothers.

HIPPO LOUNGE

Nathan Frost

KNIGHTSBRIDGE PENTHOUSE

Chris Fraser

ACADEMY NIGHTCLUB

Candy Cube

10pm ‘til 5am with DJs Matt and Pete.

CUBE NIGHTCLUB

Live The Bridge Between Trio

ARC CINEMA, NATIONAL FILM & SOUND ARCHIVE

10pm ‘til late with DJ TJ. CUBE NIGHTCLUB

Live The Bridge Between and Band 1-4pm.

SOUTHERN CROSS CLUB

HarmonY

12 notes, 40 fingers, four minds, three continents, a piquant stew of musical ingredients. 4pm.

THE FRONT CAFE AND GALLERY

Den Hanrahan

Learn to swing with Jumptown! No experience or partner necessary!

6.30pm, $14.

GRIFFITH COMMUNITY HALL

TNT: Karaoke Dynamite

Open up your pipes to win big.

TRANSIT BAR

Trivia Night

HOLY GRAIL, KINGSTON

wednesday september 1 comedy Civic Pub Comedy

Featuring Amelia Jane Hunter. 8pm, $10.

CIVIC PUB

Live Hippo Live

HIPPO LOUNGE

Free live music at Canberra’s warmest watering hole.

Cash Savage and The Last Drinks

THE PHOENIX PUB

THE BASEMENT

Something Different

THE PHOENIX PUB

Jumptown Swing - Lindy Hop/ Swing

These guys always bring the funk. Not to be missed, so get in quick!

Rubix Cuba

Crazy antics, catchy tunes and a wild live show.

THE PHOENIX PUB

CASINO CANBERRA

Special K

Something Different

KING O’MALLEY’S, CIVIC

Traverse Poetry Slam: Science

With Hellbringer, Na Maza and Rampage. $10, 8pm.

Get your set squares and chemistry kits ready - they want to hear your finest haikus on hydrogen!

1976, M. 2pm.

Jumptown Swing - Lindy Hop/ Swing

THE FRONT CAFE AND GALLERY

THE FRONT CAFE AND GALLERY

KarismaKatz Duo

Arc: Mr Klein

something different

The Dunhill Blues

CASINO CANBERRA

Brew Guitar Duo

ALLIANCE FRANÇAISE

THE STREET THEATRE

tuesday AUGUST 31

Den Hanrahan is back after a long wait with the new album Black Swamp Road.

7.30pm.

Anarchist Duck

A special concert of music and composition inspired by French masterpieces of Monet and Degas.

A heart-rending opera by Henry Purcell.

Cost: $30/$20conc. Bookings 6247 1223.

Cube Sunday

Take Cover

HOLY GRAIL, KINGSTON

Dido and Aeneas

Dance

10pm-2am.

KING O’MALLEY’S, CIVIC

NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY

Dance

A Touch of Soul

Hospitality Night

Integration, assimilation and a fair go for all: Khaled Sabsabi expands on his work.

THE PLAYHOUSE

With Bladder Spasms (Syd), Buttnugget and Rotten Opera.

Heuristic

monday AUGUST 30

Arts

D’Opus

KNIGHTSBRIDGE PENTHOUSE

sunday AUGUST 29

10.30pm-2.30am.

Lord

THE MARAM, ERINDALE CENTRE

With Kira Puru.

Begg, Borrow, Steal 1pm, free.

CANBERRA IRISH CLUB

Something Different

Captain, My Captain

Learn to swing with Jumptown! No experience or partner necessary!

6.30pm, $14.

WHITE EAGLE POLISH CLUB

Meditation Classes

Buddhist meditation classes every Monday, drop-in any week. Class fee $14. Call 9387 7717.

WESLEY MUSIC CENTRE

Irish Jam Session

Come and have a fiddle from 5pm.

KING O’MALLEY’S, CIVIC

THE FRONT CAFE AND GALLERY

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FIRST CONTACT SIDE A: BMA band profile

JONNO ZILBER AND THE ZILBERFISH LITTLE BIG BAND Where did your band name come from? It’s a clever play on words y’see? It came down to that or Zilberchair.

Group members: Jonno Zilber (singer/guitar), Cam Smith (trumpet), Tom Fell (sax), Max Williams (sax), Rod Harding (trombone), Leo Joseph (keys), Peter Barta (bass) and Mitch Preston (drums).

Describe your sound: Big band swing meets little band blues Who are your influences, musical or otherwise? The Holy Trinity - Louis Armstrong, Louis Prima and Louis Jordan.

What’s the weirdest experience you’ve had whilst performing? Not too many weird experiences with the band but while playing solo I’ve had them all: from playing in a prison yard to things that have been thrown at me on stage, including one prosthetic leg.

What’s your biggest achievement/proudest moment so far? Personally, putting together and playing with this little big band has been one of my biggest achievements. Too much fun to be legal!

What are your plans for the future? I’m currently sitting on some great recordings of the band live in a studio which I’m hoping to release in the not too distant future.

What makes you laugh? When one of the guys in the band plays something amazing, the first reaction is always to laugh.

What pisses you off? People who move in next to music venues (and airports) then complain about the noise.

What’s your opinion of the local scene? Great! I always look forward to coming home to Canberra so I can see our local talent. Of course venues wax and wane with the seasons but as a band we constantly receive so much love from everyone who comes to our shows and we’re ever grateful for that!

What are your upcoming gigs? The National Press Club, Thursday November 11.

Contact info: JonnoZilber.com and myspace.com/ JonnoAndTheZilberfish .

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Aaron Peacey Aaron 0410 381 306 Activate Jetpack activatejetpack@ hotmail.com Adam Hole Adam 0421 023 226 Afternoon Shift Adam 0402 055 314 After Close Scotty 0412 742 682, afterclose@hotmail.com Alcove Mark 0410 112 522 Alice 0423 100 792 Allies ACT (Oxfam Group) alliesact@hotmail.com/ myspace.com/alliesact Amphibian Sound PA Clare 0410 308 288 Amplif5’d Classic rock covers band Joy 0407 200 428, joybarac-heath@hotmail.com Annie & the Armadillos Annie 6161 1078/0422 076 313 The Ashburys Dan Craddock 0419 626 903 Aria Stone, sax & flute, singer/ songwriter (guitar) Aria 0411 803 343 Australian Songwriters Association (Keiran Roberts) 6231 0433 Arythmia: Ben 0423 408 767/ arythmiamusic@gmail.com Backbeat Drivers Steve 0422 733 974, www.backbeatdrivers.com Big Boss Groove Andrew 0404 455 834, www.bigbossgroove.com.au Bill Quinn Overheard Productions www.myspace.com/overheard productions, Ph: 0413 000 086 Birds Love Fighting Gangbusters/DIY shows - bookings@birdslovefighting.com Black Label Photography Kingsley 0438 351 007 Blister Bug Stu 0408 617 791 Bridge Between, The Rachel 0412 598 138, thebridgebetween.com.au Bruce Stage mgr/consultant 6254 9857 Caution Horses Nigel 0417 211 580 Chris Harland Blues Band 0418 490 640 chrisharlandbluesband@yahoo.com.au Clear Vision Films rehearsals/film clips/stunts - 0438 647 281 wcoulton.clearvisionfilms.com Cole Bennetts Photography 0415 982 662 /colebennetts@gmail.com Cris Clucas Cris 6262 5652 Crooked Dave 0421 508 467 Danny V Danny 6238 1673/0413 502 428 Dawn Theory Nathan 0402 845 132 D’Opus & Roshambo hifidelitystyles@yahoo.com DJs Madrid and Gordon 0417 433 971 DJ Latino Rogelio 0401 274 208 DJ Moises (RnB/Latin) 0402 497 835 or moises_lopez@hotmail DNA Vic 0408 477 020 Drumassault Kate 0414 236 323 Easy Mode Daz 0404 156 482, easymodeband@gmail.com Entity Chris 0412 027 894 Epic Flagon band@epicflagon.com Fighting Mongooses, The Adam 0402 055 314 Final Warning Brendan 0422 809 552 Fire on the Hill Aaron 0410 381 306/ Lachlan 0400 038 388 4dead Peter 0401 006 551 Freeloaders, The Steve 0412 653 597 Friend or Enemy 6238 0083, www.myspace.com/friendorenemy Funk Shui Dave 0407 974 476 Gareth Hailey DJ & Electronica 0414 215 885 GiLF Kelly 0410 588 747, gilf.mail@gmail.com Groovalicious Corporate/Weddings/ Private functions 0448 995 158 groovalicious@y7mail.com Guy The Sound Guy live & studio sound engineer, 0400 585 369, guy@ guythesoundguy.com HalfPast Chris 0412 115 594 Hancock Basement Tom 6257 5375, hancockbasement@hotmail.com Happy Hour Wendy 0406 375 096

Haunted Attics band@hauntedatticsmusic.com Hitherto Paul 0408 425 636 In The Flesh Scott 0410 475 703 Inside the Exterior Nathan 0401 072 650 Itchy Triggers Andrew 0401 588 884 Jacqui Seczawa 0428 428 722 JDY Clothing 0405 648 288/ www.jdyclothing.com Jenn Pacor singer/songwriter avail. for originals & covers, 0405 618 630 Jim Boots 0417 211 580 Johnny Roadkill Paulie 0408 287 672, paulie_mcmillan@live.com.au Karismakatz DJ Gosper 0411 065 189/ dj@karismakatz.com Kayo Marbilus myspace.com/kayomarbilus Kurt’s Metalworx (PA) 0417 025 792 Little Smoke Sam 0411 112 075 Los Chavos Andy 0401 572 150 los.chavos@yahoo.com.au Manilla Green Herms 0404 848 462, contactus@manillagreen.com, Mario Brujo Gordon world/latin/ reggae/percussionist and DJ. 0405 820 895 Martin Bailey Audio Engineer 0423 566 093 Words for You: writer/publicity/events Megan ph 6154 0927, megan@wordsforyou.com.au Mercury Switch Lab Studios mercuryswitch@internode.on.net Missing Zero Hadrian Brand 0424 721 907 hadrian.brand@live.com.au Moots aspwinch@grapevine.com.au Huck 0419 630 721 MuShu Jack 0414 292 567, mushu_band@hotmail.com MyOnus myonusmusic@hotmail.com/ www.myspace.com/myonus No Retreat Simon 0411 155 680 Ocean Moses Nigel 0417 211 580 OneWayFare Chris 0418 496 448 Painted Hearts, The Peter 6248 6027 Phathom Chris 0422 888 700 The Pigs The Colonel 0422 412 752 Polka Pigs Ian 6231 5974 Premier Audio Simon 0412 331 876, premier_audio@hotmail.com Rafe Morris 0416 322 763 Redletter Ben 0421 414 472 Redsun Rehearsal Studio Ralph 0404 178 996/6162 1527 Rhythm Party, The Ross 0416 010 680 Roger Bone Band Andy 0413 483 758 Rob Mac Project, The Melinda 0400 405 537 Rug, The Jol 0417 273 041 Samsara Samahdi 0431 083 776 Sansutra J-Ma 0403 476 350 Simone Penkethman (Simone & The Soothsayers, Singing Teacher) 6230 4828 Soundcity Rehearsal Studio Andrew 0401 588 884 Solid Gold Peter 0421 131 887/ solid.gold@live.com.au Super Best Friends Matt 0438 228 748 Surrender Jordan 0439 907 853 Switch 3 Mick 0410 698 479 System Addict Jamie 0418 398 556 The Morning After (covers band) Anthony 0402 500 843/ myspace.com/themorningaftercovers Tiger Bones & The Ferabul-Zers Danny feralbul@aapt.net.au Tim James Lucia 6282 3740, LUCIAMURDOCH@hotmail.com Top Shelf Colin 0408 631 514 Transmission Nowhere Emilie 0421 953 519/myspace.com/ transmissionnowhere Udo 0412 086 158 Undersided, The Baz 0408 468 041 Using Three Words Dan 0416 123 020, usingthreewords@hotmail.com Voodoo Doll Mark 0428 650 549 William Blakely Will 0414 910 014

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