Throw Shapes :: Sydney » steph

Happy Birthday Amelia :: Love From Steph

steph — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 00:43:18 +0000

Dear everyone,

Amelia doesn’t have to blog today because it is her birthday. Happy birthday, Amelia! Thanks for the cheese party last night! I had really strange dreams!

Please forward all well wishes, lolcats and youtube links to amelia@throwshapes.com.au.

Comedy Gatecrash :: Shane Matheson Vs Nick Capper

steph — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 09:30:28 +0000

Hey guess what, you guys!? We made up a game! It’s called, “Get A Local Comedian To Interview Another And In Two Weeks Time Get The Latter To Choose Another To Interview, And So On And So Forth Until Someone Gets Bored Or The Whole Thing Disappears Up Its Own Arse Like So Many Attempted Regular Columns.” The interviews can take whatever form the interviewer chooses; a straight up feature, a Q&A, a parent-teacher conference, a hypothetical cooking show, aaannnnd cetera.

Last time we watched on in a confused kind of puzzlement as Ryan Withers threw some suggestive phrases at Shane Matheson. This week Shane was charged to pass-it-on, and he picked fellow Sydney comedian Nick Capper. Nick’s been doing stand-up for only a year and a half, but has quickly become a crowd favourite. According to his bio, his style is unique, sometimes confusing and always funny as hell. His answers to Shane’s questions don’t disprove this allegation…

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SHANE MATHESON ASKS STRANGE QUESTIONS TO NICK CAPPER

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Shane: Hi Nick, you’re known as the “Wild man of comedy”. Please explain.

Nick: I suspect I’m known as the Wild Man of comedy due to my big crazy hair and my rather pungent jungle odour. I also like driving cars really fast, eating chicken and touching people on the face.

Shane: Being a country lad you like a bit of shootin’. What are the three largest species of animals that you have killed?

Nick: Grey Kangaroo, Feral Pig, Rosie O’Donnell

Shane: What was the first sentence you ever said on stage as a comedian?

Nick: “Do you ever do a spin?”

Shane: White blood cells. Help or hindrance?

Nick: Well if they’re as bad as white lies, only in biological form, that makes them a help.

Shane: Tell us your best story about being mistaken for the guy from Wolfmother.

Nick: It would have to be in Brazil when this American girl thought I was him and I played along. She bought me drinks all night and it was a dream come true until she got too drunk and vomited on me. Karma, my friend.

Shane: Romulus or Remus?

Nick: Remus because it’s shorter.

Shane: Tell us about your latest sit-com idea.

Nick: My latest idea for a sitcom is about a boy and a door stop. They become good friends but the door stop remains stagnant. The door stop is a silent friend, only helping when needed.

Shane: What’s your guilty pleasure?

Nick: My guilty pleasure would have to be chicken. I love deep fried chicken. I found this place in Hornsby that really sells the dirtiest greasiest chicken ever it’s fantastic.

Shane: Why did you climb Mount Everest?

Nick: I climbed Everest hoping to find a panda. Instead I just found a red one. How disappointing.

Shane: If you could give one piece of advice to an aspiring comedian, what would it be and how patronisingly would you say it?

Nick: I would say “get a trade first. Then if the comedian thing doesn’t work out you’ve got something to fall back on. Also don’t patronise people, you aspiring meat for the slaughter.”

Shane:What’s your favourite album cover and why?

Nick: My favourite album cover is Andrew WK’s I Get Wet. It’s just a close up of him with a bleeding nose. I love it. The epitome of beauty. It’s confronting and it sums up the album.

Shane: What’s the biggest misconception about Nick Capper?

Nick: The biggest misconception about me is that I’m nice a guy who has time for anyone. This is partly true, except that I don’t have any time for people who whine or complain. Get the job done and give me chicken.

Shane: You’re also a freestyle rapper; can you give us an example about mustard pickles?

Nick:

Mustard pickle gangster
Give me flavour
Shot me in a drop top
Then I’ll see you later.

You bring the mustard
I’ll bring the pickles
Then I’ll bring the war,
Ha-ha you crazy whore!

Shane: Thanks very much for your time Nick, you’re a credit to your race.

Nick: Thanks Shane it’s good to be a part of the same race as you.

—++—

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Nick Capper will be doing a funny, or potentially a few of them, at:

March 2-5: Sydney Comedy Store Young Guns at Adelaide Fringe Festival

March 9-13: The Biggest Comedy Show On Earth at Sydney’s Comedy Store

April 6-17: “Tall, Short and Curlies” with Rodney Todd at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival

He’ll also be back in a few weeks doing something humorous with someone else. We’re not sure what or who that will be but that just adds to the allure, no?

Secret Garden Music Festival :: What’s All This Then, Eh?

steph — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 03:28:14 +0000

So maybe by now you’ve heard about this Secret Garden Festival, right? If anything you’ve heard that it involves camping on a farm a few hours from Sydney, that it’s a fundraiser, and that the ticket cost covers free booze all night… As it stands right now, the lineup features Deep Sea Arcade, the Thundamentals, Emma Davis, Matt Corby and 104 Collective (ft. Seekae, Ghoul, etc etc…) – those guys we told you all about before.

We got the lowdown from co-founder Matt Emsell in the only interview they’ll be giving. You can find it after this important documentary that went up on their site last week.

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The Secret Garden Festival’s not really ‘secret’, but they’re certainly keeping it a little hushed up. It’s not really a festival either – at least not a festival in the way we tend to do festivals. It’s more like a fundraising gig. On a farm in Camden. With camping. And free alcohol. And tripped out art installations. Everywhere.

The party debuted last year with Radio Ink, Amy Meredith and Matt Corby on the lineup – a crossection of genres, but one that worked. “Last year was awesome. None of us had done a festival before, we were kind of flying with it but it worked out incredible in the end. There were around 500 people all up in the end, and it was totally brilliant.” The word of mouth alone made them confident they could do it again, a little bit bigger and a little bit better. This year they’re upping the ante to 650, with a similarly sporadic lineup but some great pull cards – plus a surprise act on the night. “We’ll be drip-feeding the rest of the lineup over coming weeks, but in exciting news we just confirmed a tepee retreat and we have lots of hidden areas that are going to be a lot of fun. We’ve got artists doing giant installations, artists designing the dance stage, artists decorating trees.. We’re hoping for an acid trip sort of effect.”

In his day job Matt manages bands – and the farm belongs to the family of the other half of Secret Garden Festival, Clare Downes, whose experience with NGO’s has been the key in pulling all the sponsorship deals for the festival. “Clare’s parents had been keen to do something on the farm, so we came up with this idea of doing a festival. We’re 26 and all our friends had started to do cool things with their lives, so we thought it was kind of time to pull everyone together and do something awesome with this great pool of resources.”

Depending on how much free stuff they swindle, they’re hoping to end up handing over a nice big check to the Sarah Hilt Foundation. “Sarah is a family friend of Clare’s, and in 2004, when she was nineteen she got Meningococcal Disease.” Sarah lost her left forearm, both legs and fingers and thumb on her right arm – and her internal system isn’t faring that well either. The Foundation raises money for her prosthetics and medical expenses, and also helps other sufferers of the disease. “We wanted a charity where we could make a real difference, where we could feel that by throwing this event we’ve actually changed someone’s life.”

“I come from England where there’s so many amazing small and boutique festivals – and well, we’re trying to get some of them going here.” Which is why they’re keeping it to themselves a little… “We’ve turned down loads of interviews this year, you’re actually the only one. We want to keep it small and family-like, it creates a better vibe – so if you don’t know the person next to you, chances are your friend will!”

For more on the festival, and to try and get yourself a ticket, head right over here.

Tiny Stadiums Festival :: Actually, Most Of It Is Regular-Sized

steph — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 23:49:16 +0000

Today marks the official beginnings of Tiny Stadiums Festival, a mecca of experimental art and performances that takes place in small-ish settings through Erskineville for two weeks of each year. It’s a PACT Theatre production curated by Quarterbred which focuses on “live and site-specific art projects” by a bunch of local emerging artists, whose variegated happenings range from symposiums to installations, from photosohots to film projects, from music to an entire exhibition devoted to the art of the up-do hairstyle.

Our favourites include the Sexy New Urban Design Team, where Applespiel will be constructing their own version of Erskineville, pointing out the suburb’s faults and attempting to fix them; This Waste Land by Hoof and Antler, who mix music and live art scores with ‘the Wasteland’ by T.S. Elliot; Nature League Inner West - a performance in a greenhouse inspired by tiny inner-city parks, pot-plant covered balconies and jungle themed lounge rooms”; and the Hipster-Doofus Party where you get to dress up as an idiot hipster in fluro hats and stupid glasses and retro geometric prints but with even more irony this time. Actually, that last one sounds horrible and we probably won’t go near it.

But do head along to Tiny Stadiums – it’s open now but launches officially with a party on February 23 from 6:30pm at Erskineville Town Hall, and you can click here for more on that.

Oneofour Beat Collective :: Seekae, Ghoul, Cleptoclectics, 48/4

steph — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 00:53:04 +0000

Remember that night you and your friends decided to start an experimental DJ collective? That pub dinner that seemed to never end? The growing excitement as the plan fleshed out, with forks jabbed in the air at one another in exclaimed punctuation? “Yes!” The slammed closed fists on the hard oak table that made the now-forgotten chips bounce worryingly close to the side of the plate? “YES!” Slapping the closest member of your revolutionary new ‘Algonquin Round Turn-Table’ – you had named the collective in a moment of what you would refer to from then on as Clarity Hilarity – until he spluttered up his schnitzel in appreciative laughter? “This is it! This will be what makes us! WE HAVE ARRIVED!”

And then remember the deafening silence that ensued? That horrifying blank vacuum response of Nobody Caring? You didn’t know what went wrong – but we do. What went wrong is that your thing didn’t include members from Seekae, Ghoul, Cleptoclectics and 48/4.

Oneofour Beat Collective “provides a locus of activity, and a context in which to explore the intricacies of beatmaking – everything from swing to bounce, from compression to synthesis.” I found this mixtape download through the New Weird Australia facebook page; it was mixed and compiled by Hamish Dixon of 48/4, and it appears to be Volume 2?

Download Oneofour Beat Collective Mixtape Vol.2

They’re all set to play a similarly mysterious festival – stay tuned please…

Pecha Kucha Sydney :: Going Global For Haiti

steph — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 06:00:50 +0000

Only five more sleeps until Pecha Kucha for Haiti goes down, the first globally synchronised event the PK peeps have attempted. It’ll be a 24 hour extravaganza in over 100 cities, involving 2000 seven minute slideshows by people from every creative corner conceivable – artists, architects, designers, writers, engineers, but this time with a special focus on those with experience in disaster areas. 100% of all profits raised will be going to Architecture for Humanity, helping to rebuild Haiti. For more on the cause, and for an example of how the teeny TED-type slideshows work, you can click right here.

Each city involved will be connected by a presentation ‘WAVE’ which will be starting where Pecha Kucha was born, at SuperDeluxe in Tokyo. It’ll then move West from city to city, dropping in to each group for ten minutes for a video link-up and live presentation which will be streamed online for 24 hours. You’ll also be able to view (and donate to) individual presentations online.

Phew, okay, the local angle – the Sydney event is being held at the MCA on February 20 from 7:30pm. It usually takes them months to organise these things but this time they had just two weeks – they confirmed the full presentation lineup on Friday, and you can find it right down there. Tickets are only $20, but if you’re poor (and/or lazy and/or agoraphobic) you can watch the live streaming on the main site and donate through FirstGiving from the comfort of your very own lazy fat agoraphobic chair. TECHNOLOGY!

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Pecha Kucha Sydney #14 :: Pecha Kucha for Haiti

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Paul Pholeros – Aboriginal Housing guru

Adrian Lahoud – Architect from UTS who has done research on post traumatic urbanism

Martin Abbot – A UTS student presenting work on Beirut

Hugh Snelgrove – From Compton Cricket Club, a program to get youths in South Central LA playing cricket

Dougal Phillips – Biennale of Sydney

Oliver Watts – Art historian talking about Basqiuat and Haiti

Adam Goodrum – Flat pack cardboard housing mastermind. We have no idea what that means but it sounds fascinating.

Liesl Hazelton – 2009 Design NSW: Travelling Scholarship winner

Jen Peedom – filmmaker, whose recent film ‘Solo’ about a solo kayak from Australia to NZ won several AFI awards
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Pecha Kucha Sydney, this Saturday February 20 at the MCA from 7:30pm. For tickets, go here.

Remember Music? :: Here Is Some Of It!

steph — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 00:13:32 +0000

Not being a straight up music blog, unfortunately we don’t ever have enough time to do justice to all the music we’re sent. So we’ve come up with an idea called Do It All At Once And Get It Over With. This actually might be the start of a regular column where we go through everything we’ve been sent over the past two weeks, pick out our favourites, and offer them up incase you missed them… YOUR MOVE, GOOGLE.

Jonathan Boulet :: North To South East To You - Latest track from the Modu-hyped Jonathan Boulet. It’s hard to see Kanye getting as excited about this one, but actually it’s kind of stunning regardless.

The Small Hours :: Sleeping Through Alarms - “Wonder pop lords the Small Hours are back with their latest single, ‘Sleeping Through Alarms’. It’s [make it sound good].” Purveyors of Sydney’s most hilarious press releases, the smallest Hours deliver again – a little bit Dappled, a little John Steel and a little Youth Group.

Last Dinosaurs :: As Far As You’re Concerned – Harks back to the start of the Red Riders/Van She era, no? With a bit of frenetic Brooklyn pop thrown in? Sort of like what would happen if someone from Lost Valentinos produced a track by someone who supported Matt & Kim? …Well GUESS WHAT! THAT HAPPENED!

Frightened Rabbit :: Swim Until You Can’t See Land - Frightened Rabbit. Nuff said. Happy Friday!