Thursday 14th May
Whether you're being hunted by the Camorra or the landlords' association, this week it pays to keep your eyes on the prize. You might find a side salad in the gutter - or your favourite gallery not answering the doorbell next time you try to peddle them ice.
ThreeThousand 205 - eyes on the prize
Also on the site right now:
STREET - Hot Little Hands video clip shoot!
STREET - The Outsiders exhibition launch
STRAY - Barrie goes to club football
EATDRINK - Barrie gets the raw egg
GOODS - Kollate is a couture service for not-wankers
Cover image by Max Olijnyk. If you would like to submit a covershot, that would be so rad! Email photo@threethousand.com.au.
Spike Jonze has Wild Things blog
TV on Papermag
A Milli: The Party
YooouuuTuuube
Kanye versus Twitter
It's easy to be Wes Anderson!
Youth in Japan
The hipster grifter confesses
Designer sells everything she owns
I'd be pretty uptight about it, Mike
David Lynch
Tell us what's cool
cool@threethousand.com.au
Gomorrah
What:
Gomorrah
When:
In cinemas from May 14
Watch the trailer:
Here
Win:
Thanks to Madman we have 3 dbls to give away! To enter, email win@threethousand.com.au with the subject line ‘Scarlett Johansson has blood on her dress'
Life in Naples under the Camorra is hardly glamorous. These mafiosi aren't honour-bound or flashily decadent. They're pitiless, mercenary thugs who've perfunctorily killed 4,000 people in the last three years. Roberto Caviano, who wrote the book on which Gomorrah is based, is under permanent police protection. Matteo Garrone's Cannes Grand Prix-winning film is powerful fiction that plays like documentary. Through observational vignettes, we see how the Camorra's iron fist grips people's daily lives. Don Ciro (Gianfelice Imparato) is a low-level bagman who ventures into the grim Commish flats to deliver money to the families of imprisoned Camorra men. Feisty Maria (Maria Nazionale) is one of these wives.
Haute-couture tailor Pasquale (Salvatore Cantalupo) dares to moonlight for a competing Chinese workshop; teenage dickheads Marco (Marco Macor) and Ciro (Ciro Petrone) play Tony Montana games, ignorant of who they're fucking with. Toto (Salvatore Abruzzese) is a kid whose coming-of-age involves betrayal and being shot at. Roberto (Carmine Paternoster), apprentice to a Camorra-run toxic waste disposal contractor, is the only one to articulate what audiences feel throughout - that this is no way to live. But Gomorrah gives its characters very little alternative.
Format: Cinema
Mood: Gulp
Brothersister Records 7" releases
What:
Brothersister Records 7" releases
Who:
Drama For Yamaha, Inquiet, Kharkov
On:
Brothersister Records
Where:
Brothersister Records shop
Related links:
Drama For Yamaha MySpace,
Inquiet MySpace, Kharkov MySpace
Trust cottage Melbourne label Brothersister Records to solve the 'problem' of pop music's dematerialisation and release format conundrum so neatly and with such understated class. Tonight the inventive and enduring collective launch two new lathe-cut 7-inch releases, bundled with digital mixes and packaged in beautiful, limited edition sleeve art. Cut individually in the 'unorthodox and homegrown medium' of polycarbonate plastic, each record of the fifty a-piece runs becomes, in the label's words, 'more of an obscure cultural artifact than a pinnacle of high fidelity', or a 'must-have, 4D fetish object' in ours.
The first is a split between Brothersister house band Drama for Yamaha and label founder Sam Szoke-Burke's drums-and-chanting outfit Inquiet. Drama for Yamaha's side, 'Island Pop' sounds like Tortoise dancing drunk on Pacific kava - precisely shaky and instrumentally complex - while Inquiet's soaring 'Revisiting the Andes' uses cyclical pump organ, harmonica and story telling lyrics to calming effect. Kharkov's release, 'Glitch' b/w 'Space', is more radically minimal, startling, and impossible to place geographically. His two sides of sharp-relief techno are super-controlled, Cologne-styled heavy edits, and brilliant.
Launch:
Thurs May 14 at Bar Open with support from GUGG, free entry, doors 8pm.
Release: 7"
To Cure: A broken heart
Keywords: The Old Bar, Sunshine & Grease, Brothersister Records
Animal Shelter - Art, Sex and Literature, Issue 01
What:
Animal Shelter - Art, Sex and Literature, Issue 01, [Eds. Hedi El Kholti and Paul Gellman]
Where:
Email info@semiotexte.com for international orders
How much:
$12 USD + shipping
It's fair to say that my mother has always had her doubts, and Animal Shelter is not the sort of magazine I want to leave lying around for her to find. Nor, I am somewhat ashamed to say, is it the kind of publication that makes me feel comfortable on the Cranbourne line (or beyond any city loop station for that matter) as it has the uncanniest knack of opening to the ‘inappropriate' page.
These minor details aside, Animal Shelter is, without a doubt, one of the most engaging publications I've come across in a long time. Looking back to the underground press sex culture of the 1970s, the publication is dedicated to real freedom for the present. Part intellectual journal, part DIY zine, it features essays, art, prose and poetry and, in a rare achievement, matches its passion with its precision and its approach with its reproaches.
Featuring:
Tony Duvert, Bruce Benderson, Gary Boas, Jennifer Doyle, Chris Kraus, Adbellah Taïa, Masha Tupitsyn, Ariana Reines and others.
Format: Book
Motivation: Improve your dinner conversation
Keywords: semiotexte
Uplands Gallery is moving!
What:
Uplands Gallery is moving!
Where:
To 249 High St, Prahran (corner of Regent St)
When:
Launching TONIGHT! Thurs May 14, 6-8pm
How much:
Free! (art not free)
Often, while I'm sitting in the Chapel Street pie shop trying to work out what to write about an Uplands exhibition, reading the catalogue essay and wondering why it's a short story about a fellow getting stoned at someone's house, I have thought about that doorbell buzzer they have.
It must be very annoying having to buzz everyone in so they can get upstairs to the gallery. Jarrod and Tara must wish they could come over the intercom all doorbitch-like. Bzzzzz. "Are you going to try to sell me ice? Are you going to shoot up in the toilets then pass out on the mezzanine outside Cameron's Models? Are you going to ask me directions to American Apparel?"
Maybe this is why they are moving the gallery around the corner to a ground level shopfront. Calling the fuzz on meth dealers and nu-ravers can now happen before anyone starts fingering the art. The first exhibition at easy surveillance headquarters is Problem Solving: Espress Yourself - a group show inspired by Kain Picken & Rob McKenzie's sculpture Espress Yourself (Briony), shown last year at Uplands. It's an all-star reunion show: A Constructed World, Pat Foster & Jen Berean, Tony Garifalakis and more.
Medium: Mixed
Drink: Anything, as long as you look good holding it
Keywords: Exhibition, Launch, Uplands Gallery, Prahran
books@manic and Modern Journal MASSIVE SALE!
What:
books@manic and Modern Journal MASSIVE SALE!
Where:
Unit 10, Rear building, 420 Victoria St, Brunswick (enter via main gate)
When:
Fri May 15, 10am-6pm, Sat May 16, 10am-4pm
Contact:
9940 1556
Book distribution is a funny business. To the naked public eye, it's no more visible than Phil Spector before he murdered that prostitute, but boy is it important! Books@manic is a nationwide operation that takes beautifully produced books about architecture, art, cinema, photography, graphics, landscape and design from Europe, Asia and the US and plonks them in the likes of Metropolis, The Brunswick Street Bookstore and The Paperback (aka dream bookshops).
Modern Journal, their Melbourne-based counterpart, concern themselves with the best in contemporary art publications as well as distributing books and magazines on architecture and design (see: Dumbo feather, Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces and Serps Press) to retailers throughout Australia and New Zealand.
This weekend Modern Journal and books@manic join forces in the sale to end all sales. In the words of books@manic's publisher, Lars Muller, ‘books are more than books. They are objects and need to be present in reality. You have to smell them, touch them and feel their weight in your hand. So go to a bookseller near you and do just that (AND BUY THEM FOR 50% OFF!), it's worth it.' You heard Lars.
Product: Books
Theft: Theft is a risk
Manners
What:
Manners
Who:
Passion Pit
On:
Columbia
Win:
One of two Passion Pit packs including an album and tee! To enter email win@threethousand.com.au with the subject 'We shall dance on all the couches to this'
Manners is a succinct demonstration of the double-edged sword of major label opportunity. Columbia's backing has allowed for an album layered with Passion Pit's signature gasflare-pop sounds, full of satisfying wails and epic melodies. But it's impossible to avoid the feeling that during recording, a faceless Mr Jones was standing in, asking them to Please Calm Down, Guys, We Have To Sell This To Radio.
This is most evident on last year's breakout track 'Sleepyhead'. Then an exuberant two-and-a-half-minutes of unbridled joy, it is now a heavily sanitised production, the driving bass and raw screeches of the original rendered limp and subdued.
There's no question this is one of the best records of the year. A lot of people will dance on a lot of couches to it, and Passion Pit should follow fellow electro-poppers MGMT into the stratosphere. But it's just not the aural paroxysm of ecstasy it should have been.
Release: Album
To Cure: An empty dancefloor
Keywords: Passion Pit, Columbia, Manners
Save the MMoP
What:
Save the MMoP
Where:
Melbourne Museum of Printing, 36 Moreland St Footscray
When:
Sun May 17, 2pm-6pm
How much:
FREE! (Usually it costs though)
Contact:
9689 7555
Pick up an old book and look closely at the page. You'll see not only ink on paper but also an impression of the heavy metal letterforms that laid the ink there. Pages used to be composed by hand, locked up in a chase, inked and then slammed against a piece of paper.
A few years ago, letterpress equipment was being sold off as scrap metal. Tons and tons of lead and steel was melted down, never to make impressions on paper again. Luckily Michael Isaachsen took it upon himself to collect specimens of this kind of machinery. The amazing thing about his Melbourne Museum of Printing is that it's a working print shop - you can spend an afternoon learning about typesetting and printing by actually doing it.
But funding a museum of printing is like trying to fund a magazine without selling advertising. This Sunday, there will be an exhibition/fundraiser to try and prevent this amazing place from closing. Twenty-two artists and designers have made prints that you can buy, including Callum Morton, Emily Floyd, John Warwicker and our friends at The Narrows (who have helped to organise the whole thing). The Primitive Calculators will be playing, there'll be bookbinding and typesetting demonstrations. And heavy metal.
Ambience: Indoor
Difficulty: Won't hurt a bit
Travelling edible plants
In what might be an uncharacteristically rad offshoot of the Guerrilla Douchebags, someone in this city is sending small edible plants on unpredictable journeys. With a note that reads "Where are you going to take me?", they are our green-obsessed society's version of the baby on the doorstep.
The friendly note seems very concerned with the treatment of these takeaway-cup-planted flora, giving instructions on how to care for them, and even asking you to let their 'parents' know where they have ended up. Nevertheless, the note concludes with a grim imperative: "Plant me, then eat me."
Dear parents: I ated your child with olive oil and little bit lemon squeeze in the dressing. Thanks you.
Venue: anywhere, anytime
Meal: Snacktastic
Keywords: Garden, Environmental
Fat Sale
What:
Fat Sale
Where:
210 Brunswick St, Fitzroy
When:
Until Sun May 17, Mon-Sat 9.30am-6pm Sun 12pm-5pm
How much:
Deep discounts on tons of labels
Description:
This sale has been going since the 7th, but I decided I would hold out a week before telling my friends so I could try to grab the best deals. Sadly I didn't get anything because, after trying on new jeans, I handed them back to the girl sorting the piles and, to my surprise, it was that cute bartender from Sister Bella that I always talk to about the States. In my shock, I dropped the pants on the table, made that really awkward eye contact, almost said "Hey we met at Bellas right when you got back from the US, want to go for a drink and play ping pong?" but instead I emitted a tiny squeak and then dragged everyone out of there as quick as possible. But still, the clothes are great and really cheap for a couple more days. - PC
Event: Sales
Stimulus: Clothing
Keywords: Fitzroy, Fat Clothing Stores
The Scare play Too Many Creeps
What:
The Scare play Too Many Creeps
Where:
CBD Nightclub, 12 McKillop St, Melbourne
When:
TONIGHT! Thurs May 14, doors 9pm
How much:
$8 or cheap list if you say 'No Money'
Description:
The Scare make rock music that has three distinct qualities. They use overdrive pedals that make the guitarist sound like he is playing under high-voltage power lines, while the bassist draws lines that are unabashedly groove filled which means he probably gets the most ass, and on top of it all are the vocals which sound as cocky as the frontman of McLusky did. Anyways they seem to understand this recession, as their hit song online is called ‘No Money', which is also what you can say at the door to get the cheap list. Le Mutant Discothèque on level 2 will open at midnight so don't wear yourself out too much upstairs. - PC
Event: Bands & DJs
Stimulus: C
Keywords: City, Dance, Too Many Creeps
kerb 17: Is L.A. Dead? Journal launch party
What:
kerb 17: Is L.A. Dead? Journal launch party
Where:
Eckersley's Open Space Gallery, 97 Franklin St, Melbourne
When:
Fri May 15, 6.30-9.30pm
How much:
Free!
Description:
Have you got a buddy who studies design at uni? Well, when you see them next, ask them what they're working on at the moment. Guaranteed they'll go, "Actually, I'm writing an essay on whether design exists or not." Now, I'm not a shock jock, but C'MON. When will they stop going on about how design isn't design and - you know - design something? This, my friends, is why Comic Sans maintains its strangle hold upon our lives. Anyway, the guys at RMIT Landscape Architecture have a new edition of their journal out and it's called Is Landscape Architecture Dead? Honestly, either way I am happy to drink over its body. - PM
Event: Launch
Stimulus: Angst
Wordplay
What:
Wordplay
Where:
The Dan O'Connell Hotel, Cnr Princes and Canning Sts, Carlton
When:
Tonight! Thur May 14, doors 8pm
How much:
Donation
Description:
Carlton's Wordplay is something special. It's a monthly spoken word night, but before you think about those hippy-run open mics up and down Sydney Rd, know that the pretty well respected Geoff Lemon is the organiser. He plans to book hip hop MCs alongside comedians, writers, and poets to make one cohesive night that ‘attempts to repair poetry's image.' This, thanks to livejournal, has become a daunting yet valiant task. - PC
Event: Performance
Stimulus: Ideas
Keywords: poetry, Hip Hop, Spoken Word
Ratatat DJ set at USvsTHEM
What:
Ratatat DJ set at USvsTHEM
Where:
Roxanne, Lvl 3, 2 Coverlid Pl, Melbourne
When:
Fri May 15, doors 9pm
How much:
$15
Description:
Yep, Ratatat are really awesome. And it sucks that you're not going to the show because it sold out years ago. But that's the outcome when you get on this bandwagon two albums too late. Lucky for you and your Pitchfork tee shirt, those guys are DJing at the official afterparty. So rock up late and if anyone asks what your favorite song at the show was, just say "oh that one that goes do do dooo dooo do do dooo" - PC
Event: DJs
Stimulus: C
Keywords: Roxanne, City, After party
Stacey Pullen encore, with Christian Vance (Live), Andee Frost and Otologic
What:
Stacey Pullen encore, with Christian Vance (live), Andee Frost and Otologic
Where:
Sorry Grandma! Cnr Lt Bourke St and Uniacke Crt (near King St)
When:
Fri May 15, doors 10pm
How much:
$25 on the door
Description:
Stacey Pullen is an American techno musician based out of Detroit, with a lady's name. Perhaps this is why he has used the aliases Bango, Kosmik Messenger, X-Stacy and Silent Phase. Pullen was raised in Michigan, where he began working on the techno scene in 1990, studying and figuring out new manly pseudonyms with Derrick May, who was tired of people saying, "Derrick may what? May move back to Belleville? HAHA". Stacey Pullen's blending of house and garage with techno may have influenced later electronic artists, but his grandma still wishes he was a girl. (This techno-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.) - PM
Event: DJs
Stimulus: C
Keywords: City, Sorry Grandma, Dance, Stacey Pullen
Ground Components
What:
Ground Components
Where:
East Brunswick Club, 280 Lygon St, East Brunswick
When:
Sat May 16, doors 8.30pm
How much:
$12 +BF
Description:
Gig of the week! Ground Components with The Harpoons and Shaman Son. GC are bringing a new 7-pice line-up too, with ghey instruments like flutes and clarinets. (ShurrUP. I'm trying to put off the jocks). A magniificent evening of folk music and poetry. - KM
Event: Bands
Event: Supper
Keywords: East Brunswick Club, ground components, The Harpoons
Hot Little Hands video clip launch
What:
Hot Little Hands video clip launch
Where:
Curtin Bandroom, 29 Lygon St, Carlton
When:
Sat May 16, doors 9pm
How much:
$10 on the door
Description:
There are some bands that say, "Okay gang, video clip! Get out your man leggings, we're going to go snarl at people so Ruby Rose will play our song on her show, we must impress the MTV lesbian." And there are others who make really good video clips. Like Hot Little Hands. Their new video clip for 'Dynamite in Black & White' was made in a costume shop. It is an '80s-style montage sequence! There's a wizard, a werewolf, Spiderman, a chick dressed as a guitar and a latex frog. And more. They're playing with Polygon Palace and Kid Sam at the launch, and they're doing a 'pay what you want for their album on a CD' deal. One guy paid $30 last time they did this. Take it in the face: iTunes. - PM
Event: Launch
Stimulus: Fame
Keywords: Carlton, John Curtin Bandroom, Hot Little Hands
Tame Impala and Oh Mercy live recording
What:
Tame Impala and Oh Mercy live recording
Where:
The Toff, Lvl 2, 252 Swanston St, Melbourne
When:
Sun May 17, doors 8pm (although the press release said 7.30pm, so split the difference if you're a keen bean)
How much:
Free! (limited capacity though)
Description:
Triple J is putting on shows at The Toff now. Will the youth network never stop? Don't you try to stop the youth! They won't swear at you, but they'll definitely say stuff like 'Golly, Zan says you're a shiter'. This week it's a live recording of Tame Impala and Oh Mercy. Entry is free so you might as well listen to it one the radio because that's as close as you'll get to the bar. - PM
Event: Bands
Stimulus: crazy
Keywords: Tame Impala, The Toff in Town, triple j
Lenko's new shop needs help!
What:
Lenko's new shop needs help!
Where:
Cathedral Arcade, 37 Swanston St, Melbourne
When:
Until it's awesome
Description:
While being in the guts of Melbourne Central is a pretty great place for a retail outlet, nothing beats the hip end of town near Centre Place and Flinders Lane. Lenko just scored a new shop down on that end of town and has published a call to arms. Because it's such a huge job to refurnish the space, they are asking anyone who's got time and elbows to stop by Cathedral Arcade and lend a helping hand, or some wall-painting expertise. - PC
Event: Rally
Stimulus: The real live world
106.7PBSFM Radio Festival 2009
What:
106.7PBSFM Radio Festival 2009
Where:
Floating through the air
When:
May 18-21
How much:
How much you got? Contact 8415 1067
PBS FM - It's that wondrous place where freaks, geeks, criminals and perverts are given control of the media and left unattended. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, a rotating assortment of furtive, trenchcoated soundtrack obsessives, elderly, graveyard-toothed northern soulies, and uber-earnest german ‘power metal' specialists tell the tales, plug the gigs and spin the kind of records that stop you dead in your tracks. That make you jiggle uncontrollably. That make you recoil in existential horror. The kind of records you don't usually hear on the radio. The Man sure ain't paying for that, and the only way it's stayed alive for 30 years is through everybody pitching in. The DJ's volunteer, the unemployed come in and answer the phones, and the employed kick in their $70 a year membership dues. Now is the time to pitch in. - RH
Event: Festival
Stimulus: Love
Keywords: Fundraiser, PBS
Enough with this Hemingway and Picasso razzamataz. We've had it up to our document wallets with this notebook industry beat up. You know what the best writing pad in the world is? The Rhodia. It's orange, it has pages, they're all perforated, you can fold the cover up. You know what you'll look like? A person who is interested in taking notes. That's what. The orange cover says nothing but "Hey! I'm here! And what you say? I'm gonna write it down, mofo." Professional-like. You pretty much need to get the whole set. One will not be enough.
Now tear a page out of your wanker journal and write this down: you can get Rhodias in all sizes online at Notemaker. But we have two Essentials Boxes, valued at $34.95 each, to give away. They contain four classic Rhodia notebooks - a No. 8 Pad, a No. 16 Pad, two No. 11 Pads (all with graph paper interiors) and two Rhodia pencils. To enter, just answer the following question:
This week's question:
My notebook is
a) storing of all my whimsical dreams
b) a goddam wanker
c) telling me a story about Rachel McAdams
d) getting the mofo job done
Send your answer, name and mailing address to win@threethousand.com.au. Winners will be notified by email. Subscriber only entry. Not a subscriber? Oh nooooees! Sign up here.
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