What’s Cool and Unusual – 29th October 2008

wed 29th

consolador de dos caras
la campana, 52-55 liverpool st, sydney

New archetypes – FRIENDS since birth, Screamin’ E. Hernia and Karl Richard-Marx formed New Archetypes in 2006 when it became apparent that Karl’s musical skills combined with fledgling guitarist, filmmaker and gutter poet Hernia’s songs formed the perfect recipe for a brutal new archetype. In a rehearsal room in their death-metal friend Billy’s warehouse flat above a smash repair joint in Redfern, they hammered away at their craft, throwing in covers by The Stooges, The Beasts of Bourbon and The Birthday Party, Karl accompanying variously on guitar, bass and a horrific optical theremin shaped like a baby doll’s head with red glowing eyes, which he ran through all manner of effects to synthesise the rotting belch of the devil. Hernia’s raspy screaming and shouting was terrifying. One evening, during a particularly bone-powdering jam, they earnt their first $5, when a tripping metal head who hung out at the flat stuck the money under the door, with a note pleading with them to stop making him feel like he was dying. Skip forward a few months, and Karl is at a party getting hammered. His brother Hans Regretel and friend The Naked Drewth mention they want to form a band, Hans being a bassist/guitarist, Drew being an aspiring drummer (in that he couldn’t play, but liked the idea). Karl and Hernia decided this mix of experience and inexperience (or innocence?) had an attractive Blakean undertone. Besides, this way there’d be more people to chip in for bourbon. Soon after, New Archetypes rehearsed together for the first time, The Naked Drewth having his first ever bash at a kit. With them was friend Ted Frostbite, an eccentric punk and pipe organ virtuoso, who’d performed recitals in places like the Sydney Town Hall and the Opera House. His father was also a keyboard player for Suzi Quattro, as well as The Who’s John Entwistle, Kiki Dee and Robert Palmer’s early-’70s group Vinegar Joe. Despite Ted’s extreme abilities in the art of fine music, he aimed for total chaos. The formula had been written. New Archetypes were complete. The first public New Archetypes gig took place January 5, 2007, at the Lansdowne Hotel and was cut short after just two songs because Screamin’ E. Hernia had already been in a fight with a bouncer and got kicked out. The band had to sneak him back in to play. They were compensated by the venue with unlimited free beer. Things just haven’t been the same since. Prepare yourself for NA. It will be loud. It will be brutal. It will be primitive. You will be addicted. NA beckons.

Maxwell stone – Formed 2005 in Enmore, Sydney. Maxwell Stone is described as Stoner Rock with metal inclinations. Members include Peter ”P.P.R.” Richards (Guitar/Drums)27,Albury ”Benny” West (Drums)24, Sam ”Rush” McNair (Vocals/Guitar)26 & brother Tom ”AKA1-Madman” (Lead Guitar)27. Maxwell Stone is the product of the now infamous ”Cakehole”. The Cakehole is a shoptop flat above a cake shop (though the cake shop no longer remains). Tom,Sam & friend since primary school Pete began jamming on an old borrowed amp inthe lounge room. It grew from there to playing at parties and soon enough in November 2005 the group played their first gig, Bar Broadway in Sydney. In 2007 Maxwell Stone recruited ex-Leprechaun Deathstar drummer Albury West. Maxwell Stone’s music was used in the soundtrack of ”Cheerleader Swap Meat” also playing at the Film launch in August 07. The group plays regular local shows and draws a dedicated fanbase. In 2008 Maxwell Stone has recorded a self titled E.P and plans to release in November. A tour of the Eastern States of Australia is planned for late 2008.

http://www.youtube.com/MaxwellStoneMusic

White knuckle Fever are the dynamo psychobluesy duo uniting 3k short (from machine gun fellatio) and celia curtis (biffos blow up bonanza) . Better put your seatbelts on because they are going to take you for a ride into the abyss !

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thu 30

Conor O’Brien

There Stands The Glass

Opening 30th October

31st October – 16th November 2008

Conor O’Brien was recently referred to as one of the country’s ‘best, most interesting and certainly most promising’ young photographers by the Associate Curator of the Art Gallery of Western Australia, Dr Robert Cook.  In October and November 2008, Black & Blue Gallery will host O’Brien’s most recent body of work, There Stands The Glass. 

First shown at the Centre for Contemporary Photography (CCP) in Melbourne earlier this year, There Stands The Glass is a collection of colour photographs; portraits, landscapes and observations that are calm and considered, never poking fun at their subjects but always celebrating their beauty. The images were captured over two years and deal with people and the sense of people.  The subjects are almost always friends, family and the places that hold their spirit.

The Age reviewer Penelope Modra wrote of There Stands The Glass, “[O’Brien]’s not asking you to look through his eyes as thought they are your own and share some modernist‘epiphany moment’. It’s just an invitation to feel, well, what you feel.”

O’Brien has shown work at the Australian Centre for Photography, the Centre for Contemporary Photography, The National Portrait Gallery, The Art Gallery of

Western Australia, the Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, Utopian Slumps Gallery and was included in the New York Photography Festival 2008.  He currently lives and works in Sydney.

Vito Belgiorno-Zegna, Director

Black & Blue Gallery
302/267-271 Cleveland Street
Redfern NSW 2016

Thurs to Sat 11-6   Sun 12-5 

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fri 31

louie’s, 34 murray st, marrickville

*Duke Magazine Halloween Party* – Serial Killer Dress Up, Fat-O-Gram, Dancing, Tunes, Party!!!!

thing is, party’s are always fuggin sick. and dressing up is awesome. and dressing up on halloween is the best. AND and and they are gonna have FAT-O-GRAMS. as in some big fatso gettin naked. you really wanna miss that?

starts at 8 and costs $10. try say no.

“Duke is like if National Geographic and National Lampoon had a kid, and the kid grew up to be this really bitchy teenage girl”

– Peter Shamrock, arts editor for  Irish Brogue Weekly

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fri 31

Dark Carnivàle

The Red Rattler Theatre Stage One Launch
and fundraiser for eco-efficient utilities
doors open 8pm, showtime 9pm sharp
limited capacity, be early!

6 Faversham St.
Marrickville

$20 / $15 conc

MOJO JUJU & the Snake Oil Merchants
The Kingpins
Lillian Starr & D-Vinyl
Sex Intents & Glitta Supernova
Brown Council
Justin Shoulder
Janie Gibson
Celia Curtis
GayLourdes
Wife
Crash and Danni

hosted by Kelli Jean
with DJ Gemma

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sat 1

*Deja Boo!*

ok halloween is the night before, but its such a good holiday that i think it’s pretty fair to spread it out over 2 days.

this is Deja Vu’s 4th birthday, and some guy named Aiden’s Halloween party.

this is from the flyer – “open jams & food from 5pm” – i guess jam is more of a spread than a food ey. ha ha ha. blegh. it goes till like 4 am or something.

ANYWAY bands/people/dj’s featured on this night are:

Fuji Collective, Toecutter, Day of the Meerkat, Svelt, Squid, Captains, Baram, Brackets

all for a gold coin donation. fuckin deal!

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sat 1

The Red Rattler Theatre
6 Faversham St.
Marrickville NSW 2204

SCOOTER
7pm $5

BugGiRL (gong)
Valentiine (melb)
Kate Duffy (syd)
DJ Huckleberry Spin

enquiries@redrattler.org
http://www.redrattler.org

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sun 2

Black Rose Anarchist Library & Bookshop

22 Enmore Rd (100m from Newtown Station)

6.30pm

Leila Khaled: Hijacker. About the Hijacking of TWA flight 840 in 1969. The destination was Tel Aviv, Israel. A short while after take off Leila Khaled leaves her seat and threatens the crew with hand grenades and enters the cockpit. She takes hold of the microphone; “Ladies and gentlemen, your attentions please, kindly fasten your seat belts. This is your new Captain speaking. The Che Guevara commando unit of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine…”
www.leilakhaled.com

open:
thursday & friday 11-7
saturday & sunday 11-5

accessibility: there are three steps at the entrance. the toilet is not easily accessible

shaun/tenzenmen
++  i’ll either be at these events or wishing i was there  ++

In the encrusted green unwild – 1st December 1994

Well, are you feeling festive on the first of the Christmas month? I’m sure confused because Christmas time normally means cold days, long nights and sifting around with the heating on. I’m currently running around in t-shirt and jeans and mostly less than that! Not much snow forecast in Sydney for Christmas I don’t suppose.

Anyway, after coming back from cousin Jan’s we attempted to park the car in the garage and scraped the front, taking off some paint, which we thought might cost us some to repair if they pick up on it when we return it on Tuesday. Oh well, nothing we could do about it.

After all the excitement of the beach on Sunday we had to get Broni into the city for a job interview, it turned out to be a bit of a waste of time as it was pretty much earmarked for someone else and they were just going through the motions of interviewing people anyway. It was interview practice anyway, for her interview in Newcastle, which is where we headed after that, this road will be as familiar to me as the Poole-London motorway soon, at least this road is a sight prettier.

We hoped to hit the beach but the weather turned from boiling hot sunshine to a dull mist by the time we got there. As we drove through I figured Newcastle seemed like a cool place to live, not too far away from Sydney and a little more relaxed than there. We planned to stay with Broni’s friend Christa and after bumming around town for a bit we went to her house, a Victorian looking terrace house about a hundred yards from the beach (lots of beaches here!).

Inside, the house just blew me away, it was huge, kinda deceptive from the outside cos it looked kinda squashed in there, though it did remind me of something out of Chelsea, London. So, inside Christa shows us around. The ceilings are high which give the impression of space, the floors polished wood, furniture sparse and functional, all clean and tidy, as we go we get to meet the rest of the household, Michael, who actually owns the place, he’s a doctor, Jim, who’s also a doctor and practicing surfing, so we agreed to get down to the beach sometime in the future, and Cathy who’s a physio and gave me that deja vu feeling that I’d seen her somewhere before. Christa is an occupational therapist, so everyone in the house is well paid and they’re having a ball, quite prepared though they were to share their good fortune with their friends.

The house goes down one floor to the kitchen and a bedroom and outside into a yard where Michael and Jim were making some mighty fine home brew (checked some they’d made earlier and it was good). Upstairs to more bedrooms and bathroom that included a spa bath and a shower that hung down in the middle of the bath with at least a seven inch head. Through another bedroom that lead out onto a front verandah that was shut off with big yellow storm doors, and upstairs again to an attic room that just about had a view of the beach left between the buildings that had recently been constructed. What an amazing place to live and incredibly cheaply too, these guys had really fallen on their feet. They all made us feel really comfortable and relaxed.

After much chat, me, Broni and Christa headed into town, in what was a dull rainy old night, though still warm enough for only a shirt, we hit the Thai restaurant and deluged ourselves with red curries and satay sauces. The pace in the whole town seemed really comfortable and more to my liking compared with Sydney, so we hope that Broni goes well in her interview, in fact Jim’s girlfriend is a speech pathologist at another hospital and gave us some inside information which could mean well for Broni, let’s hope so.

Off to bed, Broni sits up and revises, especially in light of this new information, and when she eventually turns out the light we lay awake for sometime before hitting snoozeland.

Bright and early risers with much on our minds, fingers crossed and all that, we say our farewells and thanks to our new friends and drive up to the hospital, which is set around beautiful bushland, the birds screaming mad messages at the edge of the car park.

Broni comes out about an hour later with a big smile, knowing she’s done well and in with a chance, now the desperate wait ’til they get in touch and advise us. We grab a local paper with houses for rent and other jobs for me advertised, let’s force our luck, hey?

We drive up to Peter and Paula’s house, which is another stylish house with an incredible view over the beach and the town, must cost a fortune to live up here. They feed us, Peter decides to help out by painting the scrape in the car, unfortunately it doesn’t work too well in the short time we have to fix it and he comes up with this hail’ brained scheme of covering the car in dirt and mud which he then proceeds to do, a little bit of oxide thrown in for good measure, we have to dash to get back to Sydney in time but on the way we start to feel guilty and stop quickly at a jet wash and hose off the offending dirt, leaving just a small trace of oxide near the scrape.

Gunning for home, hitting 140 on the flat, that’s k’s now, not mph ok, we break the sound barrier and arrive with a half hour to spare, run in and pay and run out again straight to the train station and onto a train where we sit back and relax.

We get some beer and wine and celebrate the night away, exhausted after these five free days, free to drive anywhere anytime and boy, did we, nearly a thousand k’s.

Well, that’s as much excitement as I could stand these days so I’ve spent the next two calming myself down a bit. And today, I’m gloriously happy, content with life and my long term buddy, Broni, and happy at all the fun I’m due to have, come and get me!

25th Mar 2021 – I remember none of this except the scrape on the car. I’m thinking it’s a good job I wrote it down but then wondering if I haven’t bothered to remember it much because I wrote it down? It is a lot of beers ago now though.

Searching for images to use for some of these posts throws out some really nice old old pictures. 1924 or 1994 – it’s all getting old these days.

Flying monkeys dressed like bellmen – 3rd March 1994

What mad destiny had led me here, keyboard sat and twisty back?  Last entry into my world made six days gone.

Weekend spent with drunken buddies at the Joiners, we presented P.J. with a 31 candled cake Broni whipped up in the storm of the morning.  I took stage for drunken announcement which I don’t remember whether to regret.

Me, my baby and the Maybush mad dogs had drunk ourselves to oblivion and we were barking no more.  We hit our various sacks and I fell asleep dreaming of dancing in aisles, hassling young girls telling me they’re with a brother’s friend who’s in a band that’s playing that they can’t quite remember the name of, of P.J.’s face, lit up with grim surprise, of Red Dwarf and Broni’s complaining of tiredness.

Waking with others lain strewn about the house, rest of the crew let themselves in 3am after dumping P.J’s vodka drenched body home.  He toilet slept after sickness, no doubt some of our cake included. 

We laughed at the stories of the night before and we all lifted from our slumber, some to band practice, others to the industrial mecca of Eastleigh, where me, Broni and Richie consumed coffees at his, then Chrissy’s.  She’s occupied all her waking moments and twas good to see her happiness at the poetry booklet, now finished and for sale.  She and little tike Amanda read poems together as people came and went like the house was an airport terminal.  Poor Chrissy, faced with such loss, I saw some of her scribblings saying ‘Chrissy loves Steve’, recently done.  The hullabaloo of the house though must distract her somewhat, surrounded by so many friends.  Beautiful Rebecca now able to sit upright without topsy-turvying over on the floor, soon writing poetry I bet!

Came back black highway and relaxed with cheese and wine, for we live like kings, and watched a beautiful film called Orlando and eventually fell asleep to another called The Lover.

My Monday at work cut short as my wrist said ‘Hey Mister, no more you write with me’, so appointment made I wait around the sunny Tuesday at home and on visiting surgery (the receptionist another one of the deja vu people as I’ll now call them) get signed off for two weeks rest and pleasure.  But what frustration this brings as I have a million things to put to paper with pen and an arm that won’t accept the challenge, hence here sat typing this!

Midweek brought the freshest sunny day so far this year and I sat in the park watching the world go by and reading some more from Jack, sat desolate in the mountain tops pondering existence and coming up with some pretty good ideas.

images.jpg

All this and more too as Broni is several moondays late and we think up names and cry and wonder about our future and what plans best to make.  Nothing definite yet though.

But I’m still full of happiness for the world and know I can overcome whatever challenge life might wish to throw at me.

Two postscripts; Broni hits car at fifty miles an hour reverse!  And I’m in the bad books with Fatty though I’ve not yet heard it from his lips and my guess is unlikely too either. Poor boy.