Sydney squat project

This could be nothing more than a PR stunt, but it’s an interesting concept and might be worth making the trip to central for if you have nothing better to do.

“The plan is for a bunch of people to roam around the City of Sydney looking safe and unassuming until… They gather and dance like madmen to the sound of an original Nintendo Game Boy blasting through a battery powered boom box of sorts for a period of 3 to 5 minutes in locations that shall cause commotion.”

We can’t say we’re not intrigued. Alas, we’ll be at work…

Paradise Lost - sold out

So don’t go getting any ideas… (for the record, we were too slow…)

Food not bombs benefit on sunday

We realise this isn’t going to be for everyone - hey, it’s probably not even for us, but worth knowing about if you’re keen to support the local chapter of food not bombs.

If you don’t know, they’re a kind of (socialist?) activist group with anti-war, globalisation etc. causes at a macro level, but on a fortnightly level feed a whole bunch of peepz in newtown vegie food.

Anyhoo, looks like they need a van, so they’ve gathered up a whole bunch of bands, spoken word types and zinesters for a sunday afternoon at jura in the ’sham. There’ll be food as well - of course…

Entry is by donation - they’re suggesting $5-15 (or more). Again, not for us but maybe for you?

Steven Ball gets TLC at SYDNEY

This looks really interesting - experimental film-maker, vlogger and research fellow, Steven Ball, is in sydney this friday as part of a whirlwind aussie visit.

He’s presenting a retrospective of his works at officialsydney from 7.30pm for a gold coin donation. Not bad for 80 minutes of short films, variously described as “digital materialist abstraction, spatial exploration, landscape studies and hyperlocal excursions.”

Yep - we’ve got next to no idea what that means either, but officialsydney is usually on the money, so this is high on our to-do list. We imagine it’ll probably be on yours, too.

First look in red rattler

We remember with a fond nostalgia riding the old red rattlers up to sydney back in the mid to late 80s, so we were keen to check out a namesake - aka another new space in this fine city.

Red rattler is by far our favourite space in the city right now. Stepping through the unassuming exterior, we led to the left and into the main room - an expansive garage-like space, not dissimilar to most.

What stood out was the decor and set-up. It’s top notch - stage, curtains, decent PA, lounges, gas heaters - all themed around the colour red.

Not much was doing when we arrived fashionably late (note to selves - arrive a LOT later next time). A DJ spun some tunes early - and although we were kind of getting sick of the slow brake transition between tracks, they did pull out some funky movers like de la’s saturday… and nkotb’s right stuff.

An acoustic performance followed - quite pleasant, but very political and slightly unnerving with the lyrical content. Not much to celebrate here. More bands were promised but we had other things to see tonight too, and parted ways.

More photos below of course - we’d love to see this space really jackin’ to some house or tech beats, but guess we’ll have to wait and see.

  

Cut to Bits is moved

Last minute update - seems cut to bits will no longer be held at dirty shirlows on saturday. Sit tight is the word.

Screenprint art

No question - MEKanarky blows us away. This is just too awesome (one of the many great pieces on display at underbelly 08). Get more here.

Sketch the rhyme @ underbelly 08

Pretty fair to say that sketch the rhyme was one of our faves from the latest installment of the underbelly festival just passed.

The concept was great - five artists clustered around a table on the right, with a camera trained overhead that broadcast their sketches onto the big screen at the back, and a smaller screen facing the MCs at the front.

The MCs then engaged in a variety of ‘games’ - for example, a word association game where the MCs had to guess what the artists were drawing from the sketched clues, all the while freestyling over sublime beats from the phonies.

This got a great reaction from the crowd, and as with the surry hills festival earlier in the year, we were pleasantly surprised again by the quality of some of the rappers (Gabi in particular was outstanding).

Again, great concept… we want more.

Ohana @ random surry hills space

We decided to drop by one of the newer spaces in sydney - and were suitably impressed (unintentionally, though, as it seems we were actually in the wrong place!) Cool little whitewashed room with simple lighting and a friendly (if studenty) crowd.

We arrived expecting to hear the ambient electronica of aktion unit and moonmilk, though as we moved into vicinity it was clear we were mistaken! 

ohana, to the north and hira hira played to a small but knowledgeable audience. we especially enjoyed the unkempt, discordant artrock stylings of ohana, who rocked out (and reminded us of more than a few bands we enjoyed around the turn of the century. god we’re old )

As always, enjoy the rest of our snaps. And we swear next time we go looking for bohemian grove we’ll actually find it!

btw if you came through a search engine to get here, this is NOT bohemian grove. But i swear we will get some pics up soon. ~ed

   

China Heights has moved

In case you were wondering, china heights has ditched the character-filled warehouse location near central for 257 crown street in darling-it-hurts.

Next week’s Anthony Bartok exhibit looks especially enticing for a check-out of the new location.