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Thom
Yorke wears their T-shirt, Stereogum selects
them for a Bjork
tribute album, Deerhunter calls
them their favourite
new band, and they score a deal with Sub Pop
Records. But it’s only when they start getting
mail like this that No Age know
they’re really onto something:
YOU ARE SATAN’S LIL PUPPETS. KEEP DOING STUPID,
FAKE LIL KID PUNK MUSIC. JUST BECAUSE YOU HAVE
FANS DOESN’T MAKE YOU BETTER THAN ANYONE. NO WONDER
YOU OPENED FOR PUSSY-ASS LIARS… HOPE HELL FEEL’S
GREAT WHEN SATAN’S BUTT FUCKING YOU… EVERYONE
WHO PERFORMS @ THE SMELL IS A FAKE, TRENDY, VEIN
‘LOOK @ ME’ SCENESTER. (sic. On all of it.) |
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The San Fransiscan art-punk duo of
Dean Spunt and Randy Randall
promptly re-posted that love letter on their MySpace
page under the title "the
sweetest little shits ever". I ask Randy if
that’s a response they’re used to getting and he
laughs, “That one really just
came out of the blue.”
In March last year No Age released five different
EPs through five different labels on the same day;
a marketing feat in anyone’s books. An onslaught
of gigs and a slew of breathless reviews were followed
by their debut LP Weirdo Rippers – a compilation
of their favourite pre-released tracks. But while
they’re clearly generating all the right kind of
attention, 'Buzz Band' somehow doesn’t quite cut it
for No Age...
(Do It..) |
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Trying to find something on the internet? Here's an easy way we found. Stop just typing in whateveryourlookingfor.com, and use this. It's called a 'Searching Moto-Engines'. Heaps of cool features. You can search things and also, other things like an image. And 'audio'. You type it in and then people will internet you quickly to tell you about where you can find what you've typed in, like for instance 'cats groups' or 'minidiskmen'. This will take off.
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You’ve probably come across the work of German-born Julia Schauenberg somewhere over the
past few years. Outside of being the resident
photographer for Frankie, she's had her work featured in various papers, print ads and right now she’s got a portrait in the HeadOn
exhibition at the Australian
Centre for Photography. At the end of last
year, Julia and her partner Ben Grace took over
BlackAndBlue Gallery for a month, to exhibit the
work from their book Good
Old World, which documented a year of global
travel where they met up with some grandmamas and papas, listened
to their stories, and then felt obliged to bring
them home. Ben through words, Julia through photos.
I loved looking through Good Old World. What was the idea? What did you learn?
Thank you. It came from the
realisation that there are all these people out
there that have lived amazing long lives, while
at the same time here we are trying to find ourselves
and make decisions about our own destinies. We
felt we had to bring back some wisdom. We took
off, quite spontaneously, travelled the world
for ten months and met the most amazing people.
We learned so many things. If you find a course
that is greater than yourself, you will live a
happier life. Another one is, there is only so
much vodka one can drink.
Has looking through a lens for so long changed the way you see things?
Starting with a thought process
that ends in one frame is usually an interesting
journey, which puts everything in perspective…
I don’t think it’s changed the way I see things,
it’s just defined it a little.
Keep scrolling for more…
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THE
AD WORLD GETS IT RIGHT (THE SEQUAL)
We already
showed you what happened when Absolut
asked Zach Galifianakis to make them an
ad - he agreed only on condition that he'd
be allowed to do whatever
the fuck he wanted with it, and got
Tim & Eric from their Awesome
Show, Great Job involved too. Our good friends at The Internet found out
that actually, he was asked for two
commercials. Here is the second. It's pretty
great. So is this. |
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Many would scoff at one's decision to get a cab for such a short distance at such a busy time of day. To them I say "read on, dicks".
I was already running an hour late to meet up with my sister so jumped into a cab, and was plunged into a world of mid week business traffic. I groaned - it may have been a sigh, the details are hazy - to exclaim my anxiousness towards the slow moving line of cars in front. "Oh great" I thought, "this is probably going to take ten to twelve minutes." And I was right, as you will find out shortly.
While it was dreadful outside the taxi, inside was another story. The cabbie was smiling and bopping his head to wonderful music, an incredible mix of chirpy late 80s/early 90s house, slowed down to almost a reggae tempo, with fantastic wobbly bass and synthesized tambourines with a South African popstar - very famous in Nigeria - over the top. What more could I ask for in this amazing melting pot of sounds? I expressed my interest and the cabby skipped to his favourite track, a poppier affair, something you'd expect to hear at the end of a Disney movie that focused on African stereotypes or a family of shrews trying to make it in the harsh Serengeti. I needed it bad.
It took about 8 minutes to rip the whole 16 tracks to my laptop, which meant the cab ride took 3 minutes longer than the expected 10-12. The cabbie was baffled at first, but I just kinda did it anyway cos that's how I roll motherfuckers. As we sat waiting for the task to finish, the cabbie lovingly charged me an extra ten bucks for the CD, making the total fare from Foster Street to Bayswater Road $21.30 (on Eftpos). We high fived and he drove off.
Often people want to ask what song I'm playing, but cant get to the decks due to the overwhelming mass of sweaty munters holding their phones up to my face and requesting Bloc Party or 'anything Northern'. Next time if I drop some crazy 90s Nigerian pop with wobbly bass and synthesized tambourines, her name is Brenda Fassie. If you wanna buy her CD, sorry, I forgot to write down the Taxi's registration number. SCORE: AWESOME.
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09
JUNE > The phrase "20-legged juggernaut"
was bandied around last year with such blind disregard
for editorial originality that I'd be disgusted
to repeat it here. Instead, I'll offer you
my drunken review of their live mayhem at
Playground Weekender 2007 which went a little
something like: "Its like we're having big
jungle tribal party and everyone's invited
and we're all friends and hahahahahaha look
at his Indian headdress that's so craaaaaazyyyyy
let's fance. Face dance. What?" We've got
a double pass for one person, a copy of
Myth Takes for the other person, and nothing
for you because you got here too late. Suck
it up, loser. |
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| EARN
IT :: DOUBLE PASSES AND
ALBUMS :: CLICK
HERE |
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Julia
travelled from Germany to Sydney eight years ago,
fell in love with the city, and stayed put. She graduated
from COFA with a Bachelor of Fine Arts and followed
it up with a Master of Arts, which won her the
Kodak Photography Student of the Year award in
2003. She’s been freelancing since then, and cites
her favvy photographers as Diane Arbus, Robert
Frank, Martin Parrs and William Eggleston. And
outside of them, she’s inspired by nature but
moreso by human behaviour.
You did a series on redheads where you
put them in white T-shirts in front of a red brick
wall. If I was giving advice to someone who wanted
to hide their ginger hues, I would tell them not
to wear white T-shirts or stand in front of red
brick walls. They all look kind of sad, angry,
and a little bit defeated... Mean?
The idea was that if you
are born as a redhead in Australia, because of
the harsh sunlight, you’re pretty much an outsider
from birth. There are also all those clichés about
redheads, and the nicknames, all of which has
an effect on who you are. Photographing them in
a mugshot way, as if it was an ID photograph or
their passport, accentuated the idea that you
can know people by looking at them. That’s why
they are looking straight at the camera. And the
red brick wall? Well that’s just so Australian.
It worked very well together.
Have you ever made any difficult or political
decisions in your work?
Not so far… I’m sure I’ll
have to at some point. Luckily I’ve not been asked
to do anything I feel morally opposed to. If an
advertising job for cigarettes or something evil
is paying a fortune, I don’t care, I’m not interested.
When I joined my agency I told them that I wouldn’t
sell my soul and they’re cool with that - I think
we’re all responsible for the world we live in.
So what’s next?
I’m working on my next personal
project which I can’t reveal too much about as
yet, but it’s something I’ve been interested in
for a long time that's starting to take shape.
Until then, you can see one of my portraits at
the ACP, or you can buy my book at www.goodoldworld.com
– which would be great, because they’re taking
up my kitchen space.
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| UPDATES |
ST. AUGUSTINES FASHION SHOW + WHAM! |
CLICK HERE TO
SEE THE WHOLE GALLERY |
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| AND |
DIE! DIE! DIE! + WHAM! |
CLICK HERE TO
SEE THE WHOLE GALLERY |
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| That 60's
psychedelic garage thing has become Pretty
Popular Of Late (finger on the pulse and again, you’re
welcome.) And as with all retro-gazing trends
there’s a bunch of shitty Xeroxes, so it’s
good when you can hear a band like BJM
make it sound like you can only imagine it
should. This is their thirteenth album, with
the band’s founder Anton Newcombe
being the only one left from the original
lineup. With a portmanteau title that evokes
the era of their portmanteau moniker, My
Bloody Underground is a thick, heady
trip that makes us want to say things like
“thick, heady trip” before reciting "Howl" and
namedropping John Cage. Yeah, none of us were there for it, but we can pretend, right? Buy it
you loved the first twelve. (SH) |
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| Let's take a moment to pity poor
Tokyo Police Club for being forced to follow up something as ridiculously hyped
as last year’s “Lessons In Crime”.
Moment taken, there’s nothing groundbreaking
here. Nice, well-written pop songs with good
lyrics, pretty keys and a few harmonies thrown
in for good measure. TPC have gotten their Death Cab twee on here, and
the songs are pretty sticky and fun. The bonus remix
CD has some pretty great moments, but DNTEL
could remix a turd and it would sound like
staring up into the rain. Buy it to show
people that sometimes simple pop is simply
fine. Alternatively, just borrow it from someone
else. (SH & RS) |
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| Recorded during
the 2006 solo tour of The Decemberists’
frontman Colin Meloy, this
album sounds pretty much as expected – just
like the Decemberists, only lesser. Unfortunately
for Colin, it becomes clear after only a few
songs that people go to the Decemberists for
the full, ornate grandeur of the ensemble
- stripped down, it's all a bit samey. The best part is Meloy’s Tom Lehrer-esque
rapport with the audience, like when he offers
them with the worst song he’s ever written,
“Dracula’s Daughter”: "You think you got it
bad/Try having Dracula for your dad." So he's
poking fun at the arcane, period-driven Gothicism
that seems to drive, well, every Decemberists
song - it's nice he noticed too. Buy
it if you own more than one Decemberist T
Shirt. (SH) |
| 14
APRIL |
POLYESTER
RECORDS |
>MYSPACE |
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| Portishead
to release their first album in 11 years?
I’m excited, surprised, cautious. Maybe I
even cringed a little, in a "oh, awful memories
of my youth!" kind of way. While Third
maintains the brooding, anxious aesthetic
of Portishead’s catalogue, it offers a more
open admission of vulnerability which overlies
the beautiful seductive
uneasiness of their previous works. The enveloping
sensuality of Portishead and Dummy
is replaced by a darker sexiness, expressed
through the combination of dissonant rumbling
beats and Gibbons' amazing vocal versatility.
Having said that, I didn't really like
it all that much. Just felt like throwing some wanky words around. Buy it to reminisce about the general happiness of your youth without
any of the actually awful details. (RS) |
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| Most of this
gypsy-folk album was written when Van
Pierszalowski was stuck alone on
his father’s fishing boat over one sleepless
Summer. Which would be fine if the whole thing
wasn’t so obviously written only for people
who too happened to be stuck alone on their
father’s fishing boat over one sleepless Summer.
The songs have titles like “Fisherman’s Son”,
“My Eyes Won’t Shut” and “Stuck On A Boat”,
and even when they don't, and seem like they
could be anchored (haha) in something more
general, he throws in a seafaring metaphor
or ocean sound affect to remind you not to
relate to any of it. Three stars for the surprising
last quarter, where his partner Cambria
Goodwin gets hold of the reins and
sings nicely about stuff that isn’t fish.
Buy it if you were stuck on your father’s
fishing boat over one sleepless Summer. (SH) |
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After Movements and the tour DVD edition and the tour and
DJ Kicks compilation and that hyper tech
sexy 'socket-jacking' Euro-dream
I had I was pretty excited about the new
Booka Shade release. But whereas Movements was like that bit in Finding Nemo where
they go electric jelly fish jumping, The
Sun & The Neon Light is like that scene
in the whale. Or something. A real slow mover, that maybe possesses subtleties that I'm just not picking up, Sun... is a warm wash that doesn't start jumping til the second half, and even then didn't grab attentions. Unfair comparisons to earlier work? Maybe... but maybe we wouldn't have even given this three listens if it wasn't by them. Buy if you're a mega fan, or need some cutting edge background dinner music.(MR) |
| 14
APRIL |
ROUGH
TRADE / INERTIA |
>MYSPACE |
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Editor Steph
Harmon Cover Art & Layout Matt Roden
Email steph@throwshapes.com.au Address 24 Bayswater Rd, Kings X, Sydney
Mobile 0422949374 Landline 02 9357 2744 Fax 02 9331 5511
Contributors Ramona Spanx PhotosDaniel Munns and Irina Belova |
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