When was the last time you sent a fax? Ever? The fax machine is like the puppy at the RSPCA that nobody wants for Christmas. It just sits there in the office, year after year, looking like a refugee from the 80s classic Tron, casting a geriatric Evil Eye on your new iPhone and generally not sending faxes.

Well, that’s all about to change. Artist Jimmy Tranter (who incidentally designed the artwork for World Bar’s The Wall) and colleagues from Modular’s creative hothouse The Groop are bringing back the thermal fax machine for a special event at Surry Hills’ China Heights gallery – the Faxhibition. ‘20 artists, one fax machine, one brief – “the fax of life.”‘

“The brief was to create artworks that address our “clever” pun of “The fax of life” and have them sent through our 800 year old thermal paper fax machine that we bought off eBay for 20 bucks,” explains Jimmy. Read more for the full feature…

Posted by Lucy Fokkema in Art, Features

Tags: alter, amy yongsiri, Beastman, ben clare, China Heights Gallery, dan beard, expialidocious, faxhibition, Greedy Hen, grolsch, james jirat patradoon, james kape, jimmy tranter, joshua crowley, Kareena Zerefos, Little Gonzales, margaret sevenjhazi, medecins sans frontieres, modular, paddy dagg, papertiger, safari team, sarah larnach, soda jerk, the groop, The Wall, the world bar, tron, We Buy Your Kids, zoltan blazer

Mart Gallery (that’s M(usic+)art) are having an opening tonight for a show of work by We Buy Your Kids – the dynamite duo of Sonny and Biddy, masters of the art made for music, and in particular, posters. This show will feature re-inventions of some of their favourite posters – and all in black and white, just for kicks. There’s some collaboration in there… and some actual painting of walls, too, but most importantly, some really fun, creative and inspiring art and design from two very talented boys, with posters for Youth Group, Paul Dempsey, Holly Throsby, Grinpoon, Les Savy Fav, Deerhunter and Monotonix in there amongst others. We did a quick Q+A with Sonny about his work. The show opens at 5.30pm tonight, Thursday the 18th of March, at Mart Gallery in Surry Hills.

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+ What is your favourite poster you’ve ever made? Why?
> Seriously? That’s like trying to pick kids…. I really like the Deerhunter poster that we did because from the sketch to how it actually turned out, it was the total sum of our collaborative parts with Biddy and I working together. I like it because its kind of evil as well. Read more for the Q+A…

Posted by amelia in Art, Events

Tags: Art, biddy, gig posters, mart gallery, opening, posters, sonny, W$YK, We Buy Your Kids

So this is where we get to boast about our relationship with ridiculously talented local design duo We Buy Your Kids. You know them; they do the artworks for some of the bands, like some dude called Les Savy Fav and these guys called the Damo Suzukis or something, and also Casiotone & the Painfully Alones, CSSSS, and blog favourites Deer! Hunter – plus they’ve worked on film clips for Aussies like Bells Will Ring and Washingtown. (More is more when the joke’s that good, am I right?)

They’ve DJ’d at our parties, donated art for our auctions, and let us namedrop them on our blog to add to our imagined legitimacy. If you have a blog, and want to namedrop someone, theirs is a good name to drop. Actually, it’s pretty much Blogging 101.

“Step 1: Have a blog. Step 2: Blog about We Buy Your Kids.”

- Blogging 101

Their new show Trials is opening tonight at Monster Children, and you should go along. “It’s mainly screen prints, mainly 1 or 2 colours. Kinda cartoony. Three boobs. A lot of cigarette smoke. A dozen odd witches hats. A clowder of cats. Its about bad luck and badder health.” If you need more to tempt you, which you shouldn’t, we have a sneaky sneak peak of a couple o’ pieces after the jump…

Posted by steph in Art, Events

Tags: Monster Children, We Buy Your Kids

DISCLAIMER: So I am kind of managing this band at present. But rest assured that if I wasn’t I would blog this anyway, because they are possibly the best band in the world*, and because I have a blog.

Shady Lane used to be called Jordy Lane, and used to just be just the one guy until he grabbed himself a band at the end of last year, and changed the band name at the beginning of this one. He’s been making with the musics for quite a while now – you’ve probably heard ‘Galileo’ on FBi or Triple J over the past year or so – but he’s finally (FINALLY) put an album together: Here We Go, Down The Black Hole. [nb: the titular comma comes and goes, depending on whether or not someone's dumbass manager was as professional a copy-checker as she really should have been if she wanted to be taken seriously in this hell-hole of an industry.]

The album can be filed under ‘Postal Service’, ‘Aphex Twin’, ‘indie-pop-electronicawesome’, and ‘the best music in the world*’; and the launch is at Curious Works on August 22. You’ll hear more about that later, but it’s time for the music now: the first single is ‘Absolute Truth’, but another track has been reserved specifically for the internets to get their interpaws on before the rest: ‘Oh, Reality’. Find both after the jump…

Posted by steph in Music, News

Tags: Here We Go Down The Black Hole, Jordy Lane, Rice Is Nice, Seekae, Shady Lane, SPOD, Talons, traps, We Buy Your Kids

We were basically 85% sure that no-one was going to come to our party. We figured that everyone had said yes just to be polite but were actually going to go do more important things, like knit a tiny jumper for the tiny cat they knitted for their real cat. So when we got numbers the next day of the ridiculously large amount of people who came, we were pretty surprised. And hugely delighted…

Posted by amelia and steph in Reviews, Your Face

Tags: Danimals, Ears Vs Eyes, Greedy Hen, Informal Dialogue, James Brown, Lucia Fischer, Luke Tipene, Matt Huynh, Megastick Fanfare, Mel Bligh, Rebecca Murphy, Sonya Gee, SPOD, Stephenie Kanhukamwe, Tony Curran, Watch This Space, We Buy Your Kids

We’re having a party this Wednesday night to launch this here blog. It’s another Ears Vs Eyes shindig – the first was a fundraiser art auction last year, where we nabbed $3000+ for Heaps Decent by selling art from people like EAMO, Beastman, We Buy Your Kids, Greedy Hen, and Simon Degroot. This one is a digital techy audiovisual extravaganza, because blogs are for nerds. That’s right, we’re calling you names already.

Anyway, the party is being held at our BFF’s house. Our BFF is The Wall, every Wednesday at the World Bar. For all you arty farty party types, the Wall let you exhibit your work for free in a delightful room upstairs, while a party happens around you and below you. They don’t take commission, they help you promote it, and goddamn do they know how to party.

But this Wednesday it’s all about us, because It’s Our Birthday – and you’re invited too. More info, and an uncharacteristically oversized image, after the jump.

Posted by steph in Art, Events

Tags: Danimals, Ears Vs Eyes, Greedy Hen, Informal Dialogue, James Brown, Lucia Fischer, Luke Tipene, Matt Huynh, Megastick Fanfare, Mel Bligh, Rebecca Murphy, Sonya Gee, SPOD, Stephenie Kanhukamwe, Tony Curran, Watch This Space, We Buy Your Kids, You Are All Nerds

The Jacky Winter Group is home to pretty much most of your favourite Australian illustrators; names like We Buy Your Kids, Rebecca Wetzler, Oslo Davis, Lilly Piri, James Gulliver Hancock, Eamo and Matt Huynh. And now they’re having a video about it…