BMA Magazine 431 Dec 3 2013

2013 – THE YEAR IN REVIEW

The Best Albums of 2013 The Centenary of Canberra Reviewed Chuck Palahniuk + King Parrot & Gay Paris Five Canberra Bands to Watch in 2014 The Best Films of 2013 + Helmet & more!

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The longest issue of BMA Magazine ever published! And with a whopping zero pages of real estate listings! #431DECEMBER4 Fax: (02) 6257 4361 Mail: PO Box 713 Civic Square, ACT 2608 Publisher Scott Layne Allan Sko General Manager Allan Sko T: (02) 6257 4360 E: advertising@bmamag.com

Editor in Chief Ashley Thomson T: (02) 6257 4456 E: editorial@bmamag.com

Accounts Manager Fahim Shahnoor T: (02) 6247 4816 E: accounts@bmamag.com

Sub-Editor & Social Media Manager Jeremy Stevens

In a recent study undertaken

by Volunteering ACT, 90% of organisations said that they need more volunteers. Luckily for these organisations, BMA Magazine has them covered.

Turn to page 30 of this issue to find BMA’s Guide to Volunteering! And if you don’t find anything there that piques your curiosity, head along to the 2013 Volunteering Expo at Albert Hall on Thursday December 5 and Friday December 6. Don’t get us wrong – money does make the world go round, no matter what Disney movies may have you think – but volunteering is the finest way to fool chumps into thinking you’re good people.

Make your paper later, booboo.

See volunteeringact.org.au for more info.

Summernats is Your Favourite Event!

According to the Australian Event Awards, Summernats is officially ‘Australia’s Favourite Event’. It beat out such industry heavyweights as the Southern 80 Ski Race, Blues on Broadbeach, Gold Coast Airport Marathon, Mali in the City, Sprung Festival, and the incomparable Southern Australian Wooden Boat Festival. Said Summernats co-owner Andy Lopez, ‘To win in a field of such outstanding

Win Fame/Money for the Very Things that make your Teachers Hate You The annual Melbourne International Comedy Festival Class Clowns competition is open again, hunting for the funniest teens in Australia aged 14 to 18. If that sounds like you, you can register for free now, and they even offer help workshopping a three to fiveminute sketch before the heats.

And if standing up there alone sounds like too much, sketches can include up to three people.

Past entrants include Harley Breen, Dave Williams, Matt Okine, and others. The ACT heat will be held at Canberra Theatre Centre’s Courtyard Studio on Friday March 14.

Head to classclowns.com.au for more info.

Dead People Show Up Mary J Blige As Mary J Blige releases her Christmas album A Very Mary Christmas to universal nothingness, it is to music from yesteryear that we should be looking. Christmas music didn’t used to be shit, after all.

Once upon a time, the world’s greatest musicians wrote masterpieces in honour of the event. This year, one such masterpiece, Johann Sebastian

Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, will be coming to Canberra thanks to the Australian Chamber Orchestra and the Choir of London. You can see them at work at Llewellyn Hall on Sunday December 15 from 6:30pm, and get tickets via Ticketek. Bear in mind, of course, that this is a fourhour musical event: bring two hip-flasks, an extra tab or two (just in case), and your true Christmas spirit.

BMA Magazine Seeking New ‘Locality’ Columnist For the past several years, the ‘Locality’ column has been written by the Editor of BMA Magazine. But with a redesign in the works – a redesign that will bring back the much-maligned ‘Editor’s Note’ – it has become this Editor’s opinion that ‘Locality’ would best be handled (like all BMA’s other columns) from without. ‘Locality’ has traditionally been a place where music created and/ or performed by locals is compiled into a 500-word digest, designed to last readers one fortnight. As such, any replacement would need to have an intimate knowledge of local venues, bands, and releases. If you’re interested in applying for the position – which, it is definitely worth mentioning, is unpaid – email editorial@bmamag. com with a short blurb about yourself, your interest in the position, and any other junk you can think of. Your work would begin in the new year.

The new ‘Locality’ columnist will be chosen when an applicant comes to the BMA offices with the recently killed carcasses of both these animals. Matty Ellis need not apply.

90% of Organisations in the ACT Need More Volunteers

Australian events is a real honour.’ You can partake of this nationally revered, family friendly, environmentally progressive, positively irreproachable event in the new year by visiting summernats.com.au.

Graphic Design Chris Halloran Film Editor Melissa Wellham NEXT ISSUE 432 OUT JAN 15 EDITORIAL DEADLINE JAN 6 ADVERTISING DEADLINE JAN 9 Published by Radar Media Pty Ltd ABN 76 097 301 730 BMA Magazine is independently owned and published.

Opinions expressed in BMA Magazine are not necessarily those of the editor, publisher or staff.

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FROM THE BOSSMAN So here we are. The final edition of BMA Magazine for 2013, our centenary year. Centenary, centenary, centenary. Heard that word enough yet? In many ways it has been a great year, but I believe there are many Canberrans – including myself – who won’t be upset if they never hear the word ‘centenary’ ever again.

Don’t get me wrong; the year gave us many things to cheer about.

The Canberra Comedy Festival, You Are Here, The Spiegeltent, The Village … Heck a certain little magazine I happen to be close to even busted out an exhibition for the first time in its 21-year history. The list goes on. And on. And on.

And therein lies the problem. There were simply too many things to go to. It’s undeniable that fatigue set in. After all, we are but 380,000 Canberrans and there’s only so many blocks in the diary.

I remember attending one of the first media callouts about the Centenary (there’s that word again) towards the end of 2012 and I came away pumped. Robyn Archer spoke – in that bristlingwith-enthusiasm manner of hers – about how there was a certain amount of money to play with and they had two choices: they could either spend it all on getting The Rolling Stones to perform at Canberra’s 100th birthday, or they could spread it out to as many people as possible, even including the cake decorators.

‘What a grand idea!’ thought I. Why not celebrate Canberra by pumping the money into creative Canberrans, the people who made, and make, this city what it is. Bravo. Great thinking.

the Centenary year was perfect, creating a beautiful place to take the family of a weekend whilst giving off a symbolically regenerated vibe to Canberrans. Editor Ash will call me a wanker for calling it ‘symbolically regenerated’ but stuff him, it is dammit. Not to mention the beautiful vista it offers of Canberra, showing off the place in all its leafy glory. The Arboretum is arguably the greatest ‘legacy’ component.

As for changing our perception, at the very least, they succeeded as far as our interstate neighbours were concerned. When in Sydney or Melbourne this year – when I revealed I was from Canberra to a perfect stranger, as I am wont to do – instead of being greeted with the kind of face reserved for sucking on a lemon, as has happened in the past, people now pipe up with compliments. ‘Oh! I love that city, so beautiful,’ a lovely lass called Sarah told me on a Manly ferry just last week.

And possibly the greatest moment of the year came in Guy Pearce’s humble apology for bagging Canberra in his The Late Late Show interview with Craig Ferguson. Normally such Canberra bashing by a celebrity would lead to smirks from our neighbouring press. Instead, the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, and various other metropolitan papers took Pearce to task and the man himself, to his absolute credit, issued a hilarious apology in which he called himself a dickhead. Champion.

At heart I am a patriotic second generation Canberran. My Mum was born here, I was born here, and my two daughters were born here. I love Canberra and its people. A Canberran is a selfdeprecator. A Canberra is a person who puts out the flames on their neighbour’s house while theirs is still burning. And, as far as I personally am concerned the Centenary, despite its faults, has made me more proud to be a Canberran.

ALLAN SKO - allan@bmamag.com

Except this seemingly excellent idea led to everyone doing something. The month of March alone was sheer madness. I love comedy more than most things, but despite a generous invitation to the opening gala – with free booze, no less, free frickin’ booze people! – I couldn’t attend. I was exhausting myself with preparing for our exhibition, attending You Are Here events and stealing away into Art, Not Apart and The Village for MCing duties. And there was Enlighten too. And, and, and …

It seems ungrateful to complain about having too many things to choose from. And it is. But I do, because there were many great occasions I missed, and there were excellent events that didn’t quite get the numbers they deserved because, I deeply suspect, of the huge amount on offer.

But there were many successes. There were criticisms levelled at the March 12 birthday celebrations – legitimate ones, at that – but no one could argue with the spectacular nature of the closing fireworks. Among the many ideas about the Centenary Robyn Archer and co. set out to achieve two things – to create a legacy and to change the negative perceptions of Canberra. And whilst my BMA Mag cohort Glen Martin argues against the latter point in his column (page 32 for that), I believe they succeeded.

The Canberra Comedy Festival, You Are Here, and Enlighten are among three regular fixtures heading into 2014.

The things people whinged about costing too much money turned out to be some of the year’s highlights. The Skywhale has seen more column inches than a Fyshwick lady of the night.

Much maligned at first for its bizarreness, the multi-titted flying fiend was soon warmed to by Canberrans, and a viewing up close makes you realise how majestic it really is. And ‘majestic’ is never a word you would think of to describe a massive pendulousbreasted flying monster. That’s a deft trick to pull off.

Another cost controversy was the Pod Park at the National Arboretum, which must rank as one of Australia’s best playgrounds. After the area was devastated by the fires of 2003, the decision to create the National Arboretum and launch it in

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YOU PISSED ME OFF! Care to immortalise your hatred in print? Send an email to editorial@bmamag.com and see your malicious bile circulated to thousands. [All entries contain original spellings.]

To the people who complain that Christmas decorations in shops are coming out earlier every year: I have been alive for over 30 years, and every year as far back as I can remember this has been a common complaint. If it was true that Christmas decorations are coming out earlier every year, then two things are possible. Either Christmas decorations are now being put out so early that what we are seeing is not the Christmas decorations for this year, but those for at least a year in advance.

Or you are a bunch of sad Christmas decoration anoraks who mark off the date you first see decorations, plotting the data in some kind spreadsheet application so as to identify a trend.

Either way, you pissed me off.

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Image credit: Andrew Galan Image credit: NudgePix

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WHO: Bela Farkas WHAT: CD Launch WHEN: Wed Dec 4 WHERE: The Phoenix Bar

This December will see Canberra-based poet Bela Farkas launch his self-made CD, Sacrificial Poems – a collection that Farkas has put together over a few years while helping run local slam BAD!SLAM!NO!BISCUIT! There will be readings from poets Andrew Galan, Duncan Felton, Ali McGregor, Zoë Erskine, Aaron Kirby, Arrin Chapman, Ellie Malbon, Ryan Schipper, Raphael Kabo, and Amelia Filmer-Sankey – all of whom will be reading from Sacrificial Poems.

Featuring music from The Kooky Fandango and Hayley Shone, you could hardly fit more talent in the bar! Except for you, dear reader.

There’s always space for you. Get down there for a 7:30pm start.

WHO: Shaun Kirk WHAT: EP Tour WHEN: Thu Dec 5 WHERE: The Front Gallery & Café

After performing alongside artists like Robert Plant, Ben Harper, and The Cat Empire at festivals as huge as Bluesfest, Woodford Folk Festival, Port Fairy Folk Festival, and St Kilda Festival in the past 12 months, who can blame Shaun Kirk for riding the wave. He’s currently getting ready to release his brand new EP, Giving, which he’s touring nationally before returning to finish recording his new album, Steer the Wheel. The Giving EP will provide a taste of the upcoming album, and Kirk will be donating 10% of all EP sale profits to Orphfund, which helps abandoned, orphaned, and vulnerable children the world over. Tickets are $10 + bf through Moshtix.

WHO: Paul Greene & the Other Colours WHAT: Single Launch WHEN: Sat Dec 7 WHERE: The Front Gallery & Café

It’s only been a short while since Paul Greene & the Other Colours stopped touring their breakthrough 2012 album, Behind the Stars, but they’re hitting the road again – this time armed with a taste of their brand new album, which is due for release in 2014.

Their new single, Beautiful Delusion, builds on evocative strings and Greene’s carefully treading voice, keeping calm throughout without feeling too airy or light, and it further solidifies the praise the band received after the release of their ARIA nominated Behind the Stars. Get down to The Front for a 7:30pm start. Tickets are $15.

WHO: Shades of Monday, Last Minute Jazz, and More WHAT: Loungin’ by the Lake WHEN: Sun Dec 8 WHERE: Belconnen Arts Centre

Loungin’ by the Lake is a concert right on the Lake Ginninderra foreshore, which will raise awareness and money in support of the Cure For Life Foundation. There will be music from groups like Shades of Monday and Last Minute Jazz, plus face painting, balloons, and local food. Santa will even arrive with sweet treats for the kids. Doors open at 3:45pm, with the event going from 4:30– 7pm. Tickets are $15 for adults and $10 for concession, however VIP and family packages are available. You can purchase tickets at trybooking.com/DWXG, and ticket profits go to the Cure For Life Foundation. For more info, see belconnenartscentre.com.au.

WHO: Revellers, Outlines, Break a Leg WHAT: Live Punk WHEN: Thu Dec 12 WHERE: The Phoenix Bar

Local punk rockers Revellers have been busy in 2013. They played a stack of shows in support of their debut EP, Night Time Lunatics, and then took out the 2013 MAMA for Best Heavy Act – a fine reward. They’re now getting ready write songs for a follow-up release, slated for the first half of 2014 on Melbourne label Whisk & Key Records. Come and see them play their last gig of 2013 and send the year out in style. The show kicks off at 8pm, and they’ll be joined by post-hardcore band Outlines (Vic), hardcore act Break a Leg (Vic), and locals No Assumption.

Entry is $5.

WHO: Scar the Surface WHAT: Album Tour WHEN: Fri Dec 13 WHERE: The Basement

Melbourne’s very own melodic metalheads Scar the Surface will be paying us a visit in the lead-up to Christmas. Their influences include bands like Misery Signals, Killswitch Engage, and Lamb of God, and since forming in 2007, they’ve released a demo album, two singles, and an EP in 2010. 2013 will see them release their debut studio album, From the Shadows to the Fire – an album which will feature songs written over a two year period, and provide a portrait of an emerging and very talented band. Head down to The Basement at 8:30pm to catch them and a whole host of other top metal acts for only $15.

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If you still haven’t managed to catch local act Mornings at a gig, you’ve either been incredibly busy, or haven’t been paying attention to upcoming shows. These guys have been playing solidly for a good few months now, and there’s no better time to check them out. On top of that, you’ll get to see Thomas Covenant and Beast & Flood from Sydney both launch EPs on the night. They’ll all be joined by Central West and A Drone Coda – and if you ask us, there’s no better way to bring in the weekend. This will be one of the last shows at Magpies this year, and you couldn’t welcome back a finer venue in better fashion. Doors open at 8:30pm, and entry is $5.

WHO: Mornings, Thomas Covenant, Beast & Flood, and More WHAT: Double EP Launch WHEN: Fri Dec 13 WHERE: Magpies City Club

Steve Kilbey, lead singer-songwriter and bassist for classic Australian rockers The Church, is heading to Canberra for a solo show. After forging a career as a musician, painter, writer, and poet, Kilbey is considered to be a man of many talents. For over 33 years he’s continued to provide fans old and new with more material, releasing over 30 albums with The Church, with much of it receiving international success and critical recognition. 2010 saw The Church inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame, and they shortly after performed with a symphony orchestra at the Sydney Opera House.

Head down for a 7:30pm start. Tickets are $25.

WHO: Steve Kilbey WHAT: Solo Show WHEN: Sun Dec 15 WHERE: Smith’s Alternative

We’re all used to Canberra quieting down over the festive period, and in many ways it does. But it pays to keep an eye open, because if you do, you’re guaranteed to find some damn good events – just like The Big Christmas Hootenanny! Presented by Dream Damage, it’ll see locals TV Colours, Biscuits, and Mikey Shannahan come together for a huge evening of celebrations, great tunes, and a beer or two at the newly renovated Phoenix. Santa will make an appearance, and there are more acts yet to be announced. It starts at 8pm, with tickets for $5 on the door, and entry gets you a ticket for the Hootenanny hamper.

WHO: TV Colours, Biscuits, Mikey Shannahan, and More.

WHAT: The Big Christmas Hootenanny WHEN: Thu Dec 19 WHERE: The Phoenix Bar

Get excited, psych fiends – California’s best, Earthless, will be returning to Australia for the third time, and they’ll be bringing Los Angeles-based garage punks The Shrine with them. Having shared the stage with acts like Dinosaur Jr., Dead Meadow, and Wooden Ships, Earthless have well and truly cut their teeth – and to top it off, their third studio album, From the Ages, is widely considered to be their finest record to date. If you’re unfamiliar with the power trio of The Shrine, you’re in for a treat there too. Skater punks to their core, they take the genre back to where it began. Tickets are $39.80 + bf through Oztix.

WHO: Earthless, The Shrine, Tumbleweed WHAT: Australian Tour WHEN: Wed Jan 1 WHERE: The Basement

If you’re planning to head out of Canberra this January, give some serious thought to getting your blues on and breathing in the fresh mountain air. The 20th Thredbo Blues Festival is coming up, and with an intimate feel and a brilliant line-up featuring 22 Australian artists over the weekend, it’s one of the more unique festivals our country has to offer. 2014 will bring along Wendy Matthews, Jeff Lang, Kevin Borich, Ray Beadle, and Rick Price – and that’s just a handful of the artists on show. With a whole bunch of ticketing options available, including accommodation, you’ll want to mark it on the calendar. See thredbo.com.au for more information.

WHO: Wendy Matthews, Jeff Lang, and More WHAT: Thredbo Blues Festival WHEN: Fri–Sun January 17–19 WHERE: Thredbo Alpine Village

The mysterious Chan Marshall, aka Cat Power, is set to return to our shores this January for a string of intimate solo shows. She’ll be performing a number of shows as part of Sydney Festival, plus shows in Melbourne, Fremantle, Meeniyan Town Hall in Gippsland, Milton, and her first show in Canberra in over ten years. After releasing her ninth album, Sun, in 2012, she toured in early 2013 with her full band, selling out shows at Perth International Arts Festival and Melbourne’s Forum, and playing a headline slot at Golden Plains Festival. The show starts at 8pm, and tickets are on sale now for $50 + bf through thestreet.org.au.

WHO: Cat Power WHAT: Solo Tour WHEN: Thu Jan 30 WHERE: The Street Theatre

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BMA MAGAZINE’S TOP FIVE ALBUMS OF 2012 ALLAN SKO: PUBLISHER/BOSSMAN

ASHLEY THOMSON: EDITOR IN CHIEF

5. rat & co – One Uno Ein [independent]

5. The National – Trouble Will Find Me [4AD]

There have been many unsung heroes of downtempo electronica over the years – I urge you to check out Hint’s Portakabin Fever, Deadly Avenger’s Day One, or anything by Aim – and Rat & Co join those ranks in 2013. One Uno Ein is largely a cold, ethereal affair that may alienate the casual listener. But within their challenging sonics are melodies that haunt the head long after hearing. Tracks Seawind and Fourth Sun do just this, whilst closing song Dark Jam is all the best parts of Boards of Canada. Gloomy in parts, maybe, but largely mesmeric.

The National is weird. They’re sad old men who write sad, slow, old man music. They haven’t written a single in their entire career, excepting maybe Fake Empire, and yet not one of their albums has been anything less than stellar. Some of the lyrics catch you so unexpectedly that you fall in love with a song in the space of a few heart wrenching seconds. And while their melodies rarely repeat in your skull, it’s to their benefit. Trouble Will Find Me is another tremendous album from a group of musicians whose work will no doubt skyrocket in value when they finally roll into a bathtub to drown.

4. moderat – ii [monkeytown records]

4. Yo La Tengo – Fade [MATADOR RECORDS]

This was far from a perfect album but the pairing of Apparat and Modeselektor delivered two of 2013’s most amazing songs. Damage was a heartwrencher, but Bad Kingdom – with its trembling sawtooth bass, soaring synths, crisp breakbeat and agonising lyrics – is one of the best tracks in years. And if you haven’t yet checked out the amazing video for it, do yourself a favour. ‘This is not what you wanted,’ Sascha Ring aka Apparat croons in the chorus. This is exactly what we wanted.

I first listened to Yo La Tengo halfway up a mountain ridge in Gran Canaria. Tiny Birds, I think it was. Great song. Ever since then, the more I listen to them, the warmer YLT’s songs seem to become. They make a riff last eight minutes yet you can’t feel time passing. Every song seems like a happy accident that happened when three stoners jammed near a microphone, and without the microphone the song would have been lost forever. ‘We must accept that there is a quiet trio who live in Hoboken, doing music better than almost everyone else,’ wrote BMA’s Glen Martin when Fade was released in January. He pretty much summed it up.

3. regurgitator – dirty pop fantasy [valve] This is the last we’ll hear from these whacky funsters for a while as Quan only went and got his missus knocked up, innit?

Good job they have left us with their best album since Unit.

Everything about the band – from their hilarious press shots to the quirky album art – reeks of fun, subversiveness, and wit, but they match this with an assurance in execution and a knowledge of music that seems effortless. This is a record Quan himself describes as, ‘the band finally and unequivocally disappearing up its own arse.’ By that I assume he means a record that ploughs the depths and scales the heights of all things pop across various ages before condensing it into 19 very enjoyable tracks across a tight 42 minutes. Great fun, great music.

2. boards of canada – tomorrow’s harvest [warp records]

3. Bonobo – The North Borders [NINJA TUNE] The North Borders is long, coming in at just under an hour.

Not all of its 13 tracks are outright winners, either, which would ordinarily lead me to trim them from my playlists in the hedonistic, valueless fashion of our time. As it is, all 13 make the grade, for the simple reason that The North Borders is the sum of its parts. It has standout tracks, sure, but Bonobo, who already has a back catalogue worthy of one of the best electronic producers in the world, has created his best album yet.

2. Justin Timberlake – The 20/20 Experience [RCA]

Regular readers will know I’m a BoC whore. And proud. But this was a difficult album to truly like, and deliberately so. Through downtempo and often eerie sonics, it told a tale of nuclear apocalypse. In many places not easy listening, but again BoC delivered some of the year’s best tracks – and some of their best material to date – with the commanding Come To Dust and the majestic, melancholic, and beautiful Nothing Is Real. There is a fanmade video for the latter on YouTube by Scott V that deserves more views. Check it out.

The reviews for ‘part two’ of this album were so bad that I never listened to it. Some music journalist, me. But sometimes you appreciate something so much that you don’t want anything to spoil it. And people have definitely tried to spoil The 20/20 Experience. To some, JT will never be more than a synchronised dancer with good bone structure who was manufactured for fame. Would that this music girded their hearts and loins as it does mine. 20/20 is syrupy, R&B-rich, experimental yet classic pop of an order so high that it ranks with Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye’s best.

1. chase and status – brand new machine [emi records]

1. Washed Out – Paracosm [SUB POP]

This album likely won’t be on many End-of-Year lists.

Not here, not in Pitchfork or MOJO or NME. Not because it’s bad. It’s an affectionate love letter to the rave scene from a pair of lovable former drum ‘n’ bass heads. And it’s not without its hunk of cheese as a result. But god DAMN if they didn’t go ahead and deliver ten of the most exciting opening minutes I have experienced in music in recent years.

Gun Metal Grey has a grab-ya-nuts swagger but is a mere prelude to the epicness to follow. International is, hands down, my tune of 2013. I refuse to let this column go without mentioning how truly, monumentally fucking awesome that song is. Stick it on, tear off all your clothes and pour a bottle of hard liqour over your head. It’s THAT good.

I missed Washed Out’s first album, Within and Without. Well, not so much ‘missed’ as ‘disliked’, or ‘found boring’. People who caught it square in the chest (as I would later) didn’t seem to like Ernest Greene’s follow-up, Paracosm, as much as I did, but to me, it’s the superior album. It’s warm, and seems to go out of its way to waft you from track to track. If you read the lyrics in the liner, you’ll find plenty of self-doubt, anxiety, and outright depression, but (as I wrote earlier this year) Paracosm seems designed as a coping mechanism, a big-hearted friend guiding you to closure. In many ways, Bonobo’s The North Borders and Paracosm are like Cain and Abel, respectively. Bonobo’s album is moody and urgent, where Paracosm is airy and fine. This year, the good guy wins.

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BERT POLE: COLUMNIST – THE REALNESS

CHRIS DOWNTON: CONTRIBUTOR

5. DJ Day – Land of 1000 Chances & The Day Before [piecelock 70]

5. MGMT – MGMT [columbia]

Okay, so I’m going to be a bit sneaky here and drop in two DJ Day releases in the number five slot. Land of 1000 Chances dropped back in February this year and on first listen I knew this amazing album would be in my top five come end of year. Stand out tracks include Mamma Shelter and the title track. Day also released The Day Before later in the year, which was a vinyl-only release of his previous 12” and 45s. The progression from Day Before to Chances is impressive.

4. House Shoes – Presents the King James Version Chapter One: Verses One – Four [redefinition records] Technically this is a mixtape, but it got a vinyl release courtesy of Redefinition Records so that means it qualifies for an end of year list. House Shoes has basically constructed a sample shrine to the late great J Dilla. I get chills down my spine when proceedings kick off with the Paul Mauriat sample used on the Jaylib McNasty Filth track. Get ready to keep oo-ing and ah-ing as House Shoes takes you on a magical ride through the extensive musical trove J Dilla used to craft his timeless beats or rhyme over.

3. Ghostface Killah & Adrian Younge – Twelve Reasons To Die [soul temple records] Remember when the WU ruled this hip hop thing? Remember when the RZA was the go-to producer? Well Twelve Reasons to Die revived those days. This album was one of the most anticipated releases this year. Ghostface Killah stepped it up another notch, if that was possible. Adrian Younge and Venice Dawn brought back that vintage WU sound, and the RZA executive produced it all – pure dopeness! Have to also mention The Brown Tape: Apollo Brown caused mass hysteria with his limited cassette-only remix of the project.

2. Jonwayne – Cassette Trilogy [stonesthrow records] If you are a regular reader of my column, you will have known Jonwayne would have to feature somewhere on my top five list. I totally lapped up the Cassette Trilogy. I even made a side venture to Rehab Records on a recent Brisbane trip as I knew they had copies of Cassette, which was shelved due to legal threats from Phillip Morris. Each cassette in the trilogy features Jonwayne’s impressive wordplay over his equally impressive production. Also features Jonwayne killing a couple of classic hip hop beats.

1. Oddisee – The Beauty in All/Tangible Dream [mellow music group] It wouldn’t surprise me if Oddisee finishes up similar to 2012, coming in on top of many a best of 2013 list. The Brooklyn-based MC/producer just continues excelling with each release. I honestly think Oddisee is currently the best producer on the mic in the game, and I think The Beauty in All and Tangible Dream are very strong testaments to that claim. The Beauty in All is a straight up instrumental project which showcases his progression as a musician. Check In My Day. Tangible Dream is a very reflective album which showcases Oddisee’s lyrical abilities over his own production. Stand out tracks include Yeezus Was a Mortal Man and Own Appeal.

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Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser are transforming into Ween minus the laugh track. If 2010’s Congratulations saw them confronting the fanbase who liked Kids with a sprawling and often difficult descent into retro psychedelic rock, MGMT grabs those who’ve stuck around and drags them further in.

There are very few pop bands who are able to sound as genuinely tripped out yet as startlingly lucid as this, and for my money, MGMT are one of the few remaining truly psychedelic bands currently operating out there on a high profile level.

4. Pantha du Prince and The Bell Laboratory – Elements Of Light [rough trade] It’s such a brilliant concept that you wonder why noone thought of it earlier. Take minimalist techno/house programming and then combine it with the live sounds of a carillon (something all Canberrans will be familiar with), yielding something that sits between the Force Inc label or Mike Oldfield’s score for The Exorcist. When all of the elements lock into place in full flight on this spectacular debut album, the results are like nothing on Earth. I’m jealous of friends overseas who saw it performed in a NYC church.

3. PVT – Homosapien [create/control] PVT’s shift towards being a ‘proper’ pop band seems to be the subject of some derision amongst longtime fans, but I personally found that this fourth album took the more vocal and lyric-centred directions explored on preceding album Church with No Magic to even more impressive places. After listening to this, it makes perfect sense why they opened for Gary Numan. This is dark and dramatic post-New Wave coldness that sees Richard Pike sounding more comfortable in the newfound frontman role than ever. Homosapien deserved way more attention this year.

2. The Flaming Lips – The Terror [warner] Dancing in animal costumes onstage this is not. In fact, this could easily be the scariest, bleakest big major-label release of the year. After the break-up of his longterm marriage, Wayne Coyne and co. proceeded to make one of the most icy and hypnagogic descents into cosmic kraut and prog-rock you could imagine. Music for getting separated from your lunar module midspacewalk – the sound of graceful resignation, with absolutely no hint of a happy ending anywhere in sight. Proof that diabolically bad periods for bands often yield their creative high points.

1. Fuck Buttons – Slow Focus [atp recordings] Fuck Buttons (or ‘F Buttons’, if you’re the London Olympic organisers) look set to unite some disparate genre-related tribes perhaps more than any other band I’ve seen this year. There’s a massive electronic dance pulse tied to a keen grasp of dancefloor dynamics, builds and peaks, matched with a fearsome industrial noise sensibility and a sheer sense of sonic attack that draws from rock more than anything else. I didn’t think that they’d be able to top their incredible Tarot Sport collection, but with this latest album they pretty much push the roof straight off. The most slamming and straight-out cathartic sonic hoedown you’ll probably have this year.

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BMA MAGAZINE’S TOP FIVE ALBUMS OF 2012 CODY ATKINSON: SINGLES REVIEWER

DONG HYUN SUH: COLUMNIST – QUITE EXCITING, THIS COMPUTER MAGIC

5. Thee Oh Sees – Floating Coffin [castle face records] It seems like Thee Oh Sees release a new album every few months or so, each filled like a piñata with wondrous garage psychedelic treats. Floating Coffin is another example of this, but perhaps more so. It sees Dwyer and co. unafraid to change it up every now and again (see The Minotaur), but primarily rock the fuck out (Toe Cutter – Thumb Buster). They exude energy, both live and on record, that few other bands can come close to matching. In short: listen to this album.

4. Savages – Silence Yourself [matador records] With Carrie Brownstein becoming better known for Portlandia than Wild Flag and Sleater-Kinney, and Electrelane becoming an on-again off-again thing, Savages came along and blew the female post-punk thing up. Think of it as third wave riot grrrl, with slicing guitars and driving beats all over this thing. I’d point to a standout track, but I think that there really isn’t anything even approaching a weak spot on Silence Yourself. A masterful debut album.

3. TV Colours – Purple Skies, Toxic River [dream damage] I really don’t know how to accurately rate this album. It is by far my favourite 2013 Australian album, and it kinda came from nowhere, which happens to be somewhere in suburban Canberra. Raw, powerful, catchy, this is an album that makes you sit up and take notice. Bobby Kill has a knack for writing a good hook, but the most impressive thing about this full-length is its sense of cohesiveness, and its ability to tell a story across an entire album.

2. Fuck Buttons – Slow Focus [atp records] Fuck Buttons go a bit more hip hop and survive to see the other side. As is usual for Fuck Buttons, noise is the order of the day, with some surprisingly danceable beats to go with it. Their bent toys and synths get quite a workout, pushing fragile electronics to their limits. And if you’re into lyrics, this isn’t the album for you, with no decipherable words in sight. Not an easy listening album so much as one that beats you into submission while you (or at least I) ask for more.

1. Deerhunter – Monomania [4ad] Bradford Cox, in his previous efforts with Deerhunter, has seemed to hold obsessions with different genres of music. He’s had his experimental albums, his straight-up rock and rollers, and most recently, his homage to Bowie (Halcyon Digest). But Monomania is his first attempt at blending all of his influences together, despite the album’s title alluding to a single-minded focus. On first listen, Monomania seems like noisy garage rock (not that there’s anything wrong with that), but each subsequent listen reveals a further layer of depth, from the little guitar freak-outs (like on Leather Jacket II), to tiny unpolished pop gems (such as Pensacola). A great album from a band at the peak of their powers.

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5. Forest Swords – Engravings [tri angle] Matthew Barnes, the man behind Forest Swords, said he mixed this entire album on his laptop while sitting outside, and that’s pretty symbolic of what this album is about – a fusion of cold electronica with warm ‘natural’ sounds. This bends the conceptions of what electronic music can be – the hypnotic, melancholic style owes something to post-dubstep, but the mix of loops, simple beats, echoing vocals, and beautiful guitar lines creates a progressive and incredibly interesting sound. Engravings is an album where the execution matches the lofty standards of its concept.

4. Jon Hopkins – Immunity [domino records] An intricate and expertly crafted mesh of driving beats, captivating melodies, and palpable confidence. In eight vivid, atmospheric tracks, Immunity captures the emotional and visceral journey of a night out. Deftly composed and produced, Immunity rewards the attentive listener while at the same time being highly accessible. From the building giddy energy of the first half to the anxiety and then contemplative bliss of the second half, Immunity is an album which puts to rest that persistent trope that electronic music is emotionless and cold.

3. Darkside – Psychic [matador/other people] I’ve gushed about this album before – to friends/family/ anyone who would listen, and in this very publication. Even just the online preview of the album was enough to convince me that this would end up somewhere in my top albums of 2013, and well, here we are. Nicolas Jaar and Dave Harrington have conspired to produce an album of portentous quality. The bluesy guitar lines and the ambient electronic swirls and pining vocals all layer over each other to build a brooding and glorious soundscape.

2. Death Grips – Government Plates [third worlds] Fuck Kanye and fuck Yeezus. I actually enjoyed Yeezus, but Death Grips is to Yeezus what a samurai sword is to a penknife. Sharper, edgier, and altogether a lot more kick-ass.

Government Plates is a far better example of the abrasive experimental style Kanye strived for, and an amazing album in its own right. Government Plates is an evolution of the Death Grips sound, it’s heavier, meaner and grittier. It has more of an emphasis on the beats and production to create atmosphere and less on MC Ride’s trademark baying.

It’s raw as fuck.

1. Deafheaven – Sunbather [deathwish] Metal is a genre I never fully grew out of. I still cite Slayer’s Reign in Blood as my favourite album, but I did stop listening to it actively. Deafheaven’s Sunbather has brought me back. I was skeptical at first, because of its slick album cover and Pitchfork-approved-metal status, but this is the most impressive release I’ve listened to in 2013. This sort of atmospheric, shoegazing black metal has been done before, but Deafheaven do it to perfection, their sense of dynamics preternatural, almost Pixies-like. Deafheaven are a band capable of producing haunting melody and punishing ferocity. Sunbather is emotionally resonant, technically accomplished, and musically irresistible.

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GLEN MARTIN: COLUMNIST – UNINHIBITED

JEREMY STEVENS: SUB-EDITOR

5. Artist – title [label]

5. Atoms For Peace – Amok [xl recordings]

In a lame attempt to indicate just how many good records came out this year, number five is a list of all the records worth mentioning that didn’t make the top four: Bill Callahan’s Dream River, Day Ravies’ Tussle, Beaches’ She Beats, TV Colours’ Purple Skies, Toxic River, Vampire Weekend’s Modern Vampires of the City, The Pastels’ Slow Summits, Monnone Alone’s Together at Last, Haim’s Days Are Gone, Eleanor Friedberger’s Personal Record, Phoenix’s Bankrupt!, The Drones’ I See Seaweed, The Cannanes’ Howling at All Hour, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’s Push the Sky Away. Fine albums all.

A very honourable mention goes to Bonobo’s The North Borders. But I must concede Mr Yorke and co. a spot here with Amok. Amok is full of scattery percussion and agitated synths, all held together by Yorke’s voice and Flea’s impressive bass work. While the space between hooks, like on Default and Judge, Jury and Executioner, makes this an initially difficult release to swallow, tracks like the densely looped-up Unless show the band can craft pay offs that truly count too.

4. Okkervil River – The Silver Gymnasium [ato] As I wrote back in September, The Silver Gymnasium hits home because of how well it captures the mood of a time familiar to me. For you it might be different, but if you were a kid in the ‘80s there’s so much to like about this set. The cues are never slavishly replicated. Rather, beneath Will Sheff’s typically magnificent verbiage is sound and craft which delivers the vibe of the culture of the age. Early onset video games, big production TV series, and John Hughes films. Wistful magnificence.

3. Yo La Tengo – Fade [matador] Fade came out in January and I smashed it, playing it over and over. It sat for a bit through the winter, and when I put it on again in spring it sounded like a whole new album. Yo La Tengo have made a bunch of essential classics and Fade is very close to the top of their large and sprawling tree. They balance light and shade perfectly, give every kind of pop/rock/art fan something to chew on, and sound like all of music while always sounding like themselves.

2. Dick Diver – Calendar Days [chapter music] Back at the start of the year I called Dick Diver the best band in the country. An underwhelming show at Transit hasn’t affected this position. Calendar Days has grown over the months since its release, revealing real, long-lasting quality. This LP snakes into your consciousness, speaks in an unforced local vernacular, and has enough hooks to hang another year’s worth of coats on. To make something so seemingly effortless takes real skill. This is a benchmark record for Australian music, and well done to their label for their biggest year yet.

1. The National – Trouble Will Find Me [4ad] Big records by big bands don’t often live up to the expectation, especially once the listener has spent some time with it. The initial buzz fades. Not with this. In fact, after wondering if I’d have any emotional capacity to love The National more after their previous three sets, Trouble Will Find Me tops them all. From Sea of Love to Pink Rabbits via This Is the Last Time and Graceless, these are tunes to establish long-term relationships with. Age and experience, right?

It’s an outstanding record, revealing new turns the more it’s spun. They’re the best band in the world right now, and this is their best record yet.

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4. The National – Trouble Will Find Me [4ad] Some people find The National boring. I respectfully disagree, mainly because the thought of a world where we all listen to jimmy jangle San Cisco pop all day sounds fucking terrifying. Trouble Will Find Me is a great piece of work. Their arrangements sound beautiful – in particular, stand out Humiliation – and as always, Bryan Devendorf’s drumming holds pieces together. But there is nothing here more beautiful than Fake Empire, with as much explosive fire as Mr. November, or as heartbreaking as Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks.

A small part of me feels disappointed; most of me knows I ask far, far too much. Here, The National is incredible, as I imagine they always will be.

3. Toro Y Moi – Anything in Return [carpark records] Anything in Return makes me want to dance, and artists have to work damn hard to get that. Chaz’s clear pop hooks slide right into his interesting structures, and they encourage you to dig just a bit deeper. The production is pushy and doesn’t fit the airy, sparse style many producers now champion. And the grooves don’t stop coming. A friend once criticised So Many Details on its percussion-dominant mix, but that’s why it’s so good. It’s doesn’t fit the ‘perfect’ mould. It doesn’t have to be smooth, light, or instantly accessible.

And that’s what makes it so damn incredible.

2. Los Campesinos! – No Blues [Wichita Recordings/Turnstile Music] Los Campesinos! seem to either resonate with people and turn them into obsessives, or not click at all. They take bright, catchy pop, and lather it in doom, despair, and broken hearts.

No Blues sees them further refine this juxtaposed mix. ‘We’re too much sugar, too much salt, and it’s no-one else’s fault/ We are beautiful but tragically we’re doomed,’ Paul Heaton writes in the liner notes to We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed, the band’s second release. As it turns out, No Blues doesn’t have too much salt or sugar, and they sound less doomed.

With a wink and a grin, they’ve crafted one of their best releases yet.

1. Karnivool – Asymmetry [Cymatic Records/Sony] Karnivool continually surprise me. After putting together the acclaimed Sound Awake, they’ve shaken things up – and you only need to look at their Facebook page to see just how polarising the shake up has been.

Asymmetry sounds aggressively real. Production is less shiny, and the band’s playing is more complex. While Sound Awake took a good ten plus listens to click, Asymmetry calls for a complete rewiring of expectations. Beneath its surface sits a very subtle and fierce anger, and it’s uneasy in many respects. But if you let it take you over, it’s an album that will pulse through your body until it becomes something you crave. Where Karnivool go next is anybody’s guess.

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BMA MAGAZINE’S TOP FIVE ALBUMS OF 2012 JOSH NIXON: COLUMNIST – METALLISE

JUSTIN HOOK: CONTRIBUTOR

5. Cathedral – The Last Spire [ris above records]

5. William Tyler – Impossible Truth [merge]

I remember the first time I heard Cathedral in the legendary Terrace Bar in Civic and my mate DD hearing the opening throws of Commiserating the Celebration, and he just fell to his knees, plucking grapefruits long before Abbath did in Immortal. This album sums up the subsequent 20 years with the doom, groove, and kooky prog moments of the spearhead of the second wave of doom bands in eight songs. The collector’s vinyl came with a certificate of death signed by the band as a fitting farewell.

I’ve already name-checked John Fahey in a review once this year, but this one makes more sense. Tyler’s echo-laden open-tuned fingerpicked instrumental dirges and stomps are the exact opposite of laid-back background music. They are dense without being overbearing. They engage, prod, and lift. When you don’t rely on vocal hooks, the structure of a song changes dramatically, meaning everything feels like an ebbing journey. It also means it’s an empty and changeable canvas, ready for individual projections. Impossible Truth sounds organic and it will change and grow with you.

4. Clagg – Gather Your Beasts [independent] After Lord of the Deep, Clagg were in a curious position in their career. The band played some shows, sold a bunch of merch, and were generally lauded for their effort. Then their guitarist Tom split and took off with all the money. Not to be deterred, but taking four years to come back, the band had become much stronger, I first noticed, with the addition of Dav Byrne of Agonhymn on second guitar. Gather Your Beasts is a triumphant expression of world class doom metal.

3. Exhumed – Necrocracy [relapse records] Exhumed have been around a long time. Necrocracy is their sixth record, and main man Matt Harvey decided to slow things down from the usual out and out bludgeoning they deliver. What you get is more melody, riffs with room to breathe in the fetid air they react to, and an album that tops Carcass’s return to form this year for the genre. The album does remind me a lot of the best bits of Necroticism or Heartwork-era Carcass, and that’s never a bad thing. Bloody brutal.

2. Church of Misery – Thy Kingdom Scum [rise above records] After delivering one of the sets of the year, Japan’s CoM return with their serial killer-obsessed doom, a new guitarist, and buckets of Sabbath-inspired, psychedelic heavy ‘70s charm.

It’s fifth album time for the band that’s been doing it since the mid ‘90s and you would think that the schtick may have run dry by now. Somehow, having their new axeman Ikuma Kawabe has spurred main writer and bassist Tatsu Mikami to even greater heights. The production is perfect and the riffage is motherfucking Goldilocks – just right.

1. Portal – Vexovoid [profound lore] If you’re not familiar with Portal, go and watch the video for Curtain. That will give you the flavour they’ve gone for with their utterly extreme, yet most accessible album to date. In 1990 I first heard Morbid Angel and they scared me with their Lovecraftian vibe. This album is the natural and unspeakable evolution of those ideas and atmospheres in a contemporary and original way. The Queensland band’s fourth full-length is everything that the band’s oppressive dark stage shows and aesthetic have promised. The album suffocates, triggering a dreadful claustrophobia as if the listener is subjected to witnessing an ancient forbidden rite, and it’s my album of 2013.

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4. Besnard Lakes – Until in Excess, Imperceptible UFO [jagjaguwar] Another reliably brilliant and beguiling Besnard Lakes album containing two of their best songs ever. People of the Sticks is a galloping, hazy jangle anthem that was written in the clouds and recorded in the stratosphere. It’s murky, beautiful, and anthemic. Colour Yr Lights In is a slow moving epic that deploys Jace Lasek’s iridescent and eerie falsetto early on, before the ever-present guitar squalls take over. Legally, the word ‘shimmering’ should always be applied to this band. Another husband/wife-led Montreal band might get the media attention, but this lesser known one remains unburdened by excess.

3. Meat Puppets – Rat Farm [megaforce records] Like Dinosaur Jr., here’s another band right in the middle of an extraordinary post-reunion second wind. Rat Farm is everything you’d want from a Meat Puppets album, and possibly the best late-career starting point for a beginner. The band never veers too far from their template of jumpy chords, outrageous all-over-the-shop soloing, tight harmonies, and vivid imagery. Every song is instantly hummable and belongs on your stereo all summer long. Though there are only passing sonic similarities, Meat Puppets carry Grateful Dead’s anything-goes mantle with confidence.

2. Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark – English Electric [bmg] Assuming very few of you grew up in the John Hughes era, it’s likely you have no idea who OMD are. In summary: Pretty in Pink made them a massive ‘80s synth-commercial pop band, but overshadowed their roots as an innovative electronic pop act. In truth, we had no reason to expect an album as good as English Electric, one that is happy to embrace their three decades-gone classic period and not feel embarrassed about laying on highly melodic pop hooks.

The nostalgia circuit rages on, but OMD dance to a different beat.

1. Richard Thompson – Electric [proper records] In recent years, it was easier to offer academic respect to Richard Thompson’s output rather than outright joy.

Unarguably, Thompson is one of the greatest guitarists of all time and his control of the instrument only gets better with time. Recorded in Nashville with Americana producer du jour Billy Miller, Electric – as the name implies – is Thompson’s conscious attempt to get back to basics. Getting out of LA has clearly re-focused Thompson because this is the sound of a songwriter trimming the fat considerably, even if he skits from baroque pop, jazz, classic rock, folk, and country. True, this is Thompson’s selfimposed remit, but rarely has it sounded so uncomplicated and unforced.

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RORY McCARTNEY: CONTRIBUTOR

TIM GALVIN: COLUMNIST – DANCE THE DROP

5. The Drones – I See Seaweed [independent/mgm] The Drones’ sixth album builds on their reputation for music which is as challenging as it is awesome. If Justin Bieber is equivalent to a Noddy book, then The Drones are an 800-page Russian novel, full of sub-plots and complicated family trees.

I would never pretend that I fully understand a lot of Gareth Liddiard’s tortured lyrics. With a style of brooding menace which lashes out with sudden fury, this is songwriting that takes no prisoners. The Drones do not do ‘pretty music’ and are not recommended for depressives.

5. Sasha – Involv3r [ministry of sound]

4. London Grammar – If You Wait [dew process/universal]

4. Rudimental – Home [warner music uk]

The most striking aspect of the debut album from UK art rock three-piece London Grammar is the voice of Hannah Reid.

With the power of Florence Welch and a timbre reminiscent of Little Green Cars’ Faye O’Rourke, her outstanding vocal range has her soaring one moment and rich and deep the next. However, it’s the subtle guitar of Dan Rothman and the keys and percussion of Dot Major which come together with her voice to make London Grammar a remarkable triptych. This is an extraordinary release for a new, young band.

The previous instalment of the epic Involver series was #1 on my list a few years ago, so this had a lot to live up to. Hardened progressive fanboys seemed to baulk at this release because it was a lot deeper than his back catalogue, and I must admit on first listen I felt a little detached. I decided to stay with it and give it another chance and boy, was I glad I did so. This is such a beautiful evolution for Sasha and it has been on high rotation for me all year.

These guys are absolutely bonkers. Ever since the release of Feel the Love they have pumped out more anthems than a singer at the World Cup. Those of you who have had the pleasure of seeing Rudimental play live will know how passionate they are about wringing every last bit of dopamine out of your brain stem, and their debut album is a pristine example of this commitment. There are big things to come for Rudimental over the next few years; these guys are definitely here to stay!

3. Adalita – All Day Venus [liberation music]

3. Various Artists – Defected Presents MK in the House [defected]

With Geelong band Magic Dirt on hold since 2011, front woman Adalita Srsen has been going from strength to strength with her solo career. All Day Venus brings a brighter, rockier sound than her debut, incorporating more of the Magic Dirt vibe with powerful guitars and big, space-filling vocals. The opener, Annihilate Baby, sets the agenda, landing a punch to the head with its super, growling guitar and PJ Harvey-esque vocals. Adalita shows a new side to her musical personality on this great sophomore solo release.

Those of you who have followed my column The Drop will understand my undying passion for house music. Just when I was sure that the unstoppable American EDM monster was about to swallow the entire industry whole and ruin dance music for the next ten years, along came MK. This compilation is as sexy as Jennifer Lawrence riding a horse made of breasts. I dare you not to whip out your genitals before the first disc is done. Challenge accepted?

2. Karnivool – Asymmetry [sony] Karnivool’s music has always ridden a challenging, ragged edge, but that was not good enough for them. Determined not to deliver more of the same, the band journeyed into uncharted territory to reconstruct themselves. The results are awesome, although their random and arty structure will not be to everyone’s taste.

Churning beats thrash about like a living animal in Nachash, the flagship song of the album. Tracks like this are acres away from the exciting but relatively conventional patterns of past glories such as Themata. Album number three has been worth the wait.

1. Big Scary – Not Art [Pieater/Inertia] Initially rated below other albums in this list, Big Scary’s sophomore release has impressed more and more with repeated rotations. Melbourne duo Tom Iansek and Jo Syme have created a masterpiece that constitutes a very arty and brave foray towards the boundaries of indie rock.

Now the band has really put the ‘A’ into ‘Alternative’ with a genre confusing change in style that will shock their fans. Having abandoned conventional rock-pop, the band has aimed to produce work which feeds its own creative juices, rather than delivering catchy tunes for the listening public. Big Scary has delivered one of the most varied, inventive, and amazing soundscapes of 2013.

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2. Hot Since 82 – Little Black Book [moda black] Without doubt my favourite producer of 2013 is Hot Since 82. I think I’ve played Planes and Trains in every set this year, Shadows too. His bass-driven underground tech sound somehow manages to translate onto any dance floor. His production is unbelievably exquisite. If I had to show someone what my favourite style of music is, I would play them anything by this man. The only reason that this album isn’t #1 for me this year is that it is very new and hasn’t had enough time to properly sink in as a long player. Immaculate.

1. Disclosure – Settle [island records] Drum roll please! As much as I would have liked for this to be a surprise, it really isn’t. The clean cut Lawrence twins have managed to do no wrong in 2013.

From modest beginnings in a small town in Surrey to champions of the house music revival, Disclosure’s unique sound ignited the dance music scene all over the world. Tracks like Latch, White Noise, When a Fire Starts to Burn, and F for You took a broadsword to the EDM giants, teaching punters that ‘Groove is in the Heart’. This is indeed one of those special albums that history will hold in the same regard as Pnau’s Sambanova and Basement Jaxx’s Remedy; a true house music classic. Take a bow young lads, you did good.

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cody atkinson The single is dead. Long live the single. The pop charts in Australia are dominated by the musical by-products of TV reality singing shows, with ten of the last 12 Australian songs to go number one coming from the box. At the same time, more bands are putting out singles – from streaming them through music blogs to chucking them on YouTube, even putting out a split cassette. The music is out there if you want it, and a lot of it is very, very good. Lists and charts aren’t what music is about, it’s about your experience consuming music. So take the following words with a grain of salt, knowing that it was knocked up in an apartment after a beer or two. If you haven’t heard some of these tracks, take this opportunity to have a listen.

If you have and think that my list is shit, take this opportunity to tell me in 140 characters or less on Twitter: @capitalcitycody THE BEST: Fuck Buttons – The Red Wing This is a glorious cacophony of noise. Just that damn synth line, going over and over and over in my head. I read somewhere that The Prodigy is still the most-used band during chase scenes in movies. This song will be the most-used song to indicate paranoia in movies.

The Drones – I See Seaweed Gareth Liddiard has a way with words that few others do, and he might be a better guitarist than he is a lyricist.

There is little more praise that can be heaped on The Drones, and for just reasons. I See Seaweed is a sonic tour de force, an undeniable highlight on an album packed full of them.

Yo La Tengo – Ohm The choice cut from one of Yo La Tengo’s finest albums.

For over two decades, YLT have shifted effortlessly between moods and genres, and Ohm sees them on the top of their game again. Ohm is down the poppier end of the YLT backcatalogue, but it still retains that trademark sense of melancholy.

Danger Beach – Magnum Probably the most overlooked local band right now, Danger Beach kill their take on demented ‘60s girl pop with a little help from The Creamers. LA Thomas’s fuzzy growl is a fantastic counterpoint to the sweet female vocals on display, and that damn guitar line is the aural equivalent of drinking a beer on a balcony on a warm summer’s day.

Moderat – Bad Kingdom Catchy and hook-laden, Bad Kingdom sees Moderat (the product of Apparat and Modeselektor) return.

The sawtooth bass is killer, pounding away at the back of the track before the soft synth pads take pride of place. But it’s the breakbeat that gets me here, a classic example of less is more.

Beaches – Send Them Away For the single off their latest album, Beaches chose to release Send Them Away – a song that isn’t particularly representative of the rest of the album. That is not to say ‘bad’, just different. Less krautrocky, more poppy, and extraordinarily catchy.

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Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – We No Who U R You know a song becomes ubiquitous when it gets inserted into the slow motion replays on Channel 9’s cricket coverage. We No Who U R sees Nick Cave embark on a change of direction, making a play towards the slower styles of Low and Lost Animal. Definitely a musical statement of intent from a man worth listening to.

Bonobo – Cirrus Bonobo, at his best, creates intricate melodies that interplay and intersperse, both drawing the listener in while creating a sense of wonderment that isolates. Cirrus sees fuzzy basslines intertwine with xylophones to create some really pretty sounds.

The best songs playlist can be found here: bit.ly/ImrNXd THE BLURST: Jason Derulo – Talk Dirty This is the worst thing. For so many reasons. If I keep writing about this song I’ll get progressively more angry, which will harden my arteries and eventually lead to a heart attack.

I’m not letting Jason Derulo win. Not this time.

Redfoo – Let’s Get Ridiculous Why Redfoo? Why does Redfoo exist? He’s a freaking stock trader, who likely only got a break in music off his family name (a bloody good family name at that). His music sounds like what would happen if an accountant took one too many ‘E’s and went off the deep end. He is a guy in his late thirties who pretends to be in his late teens. This song is the pits.

Alison Gold – Chinese Food This is an actual song that hit the US charts. I really hope that it’s trying to be bad. The redeeming feature is that there is a panda suit in the video. I’m gonna finish up here cause it turns out I’m lost for words.

Taylor Henderson – Borrow My Heart The first lyric is ‘Oh love, love is a feeling that you fear’.

And we’re done.

Justin Bieber x Miley Cyrus – Twerk Turns out that the most successful territory for Bieber sales-wise is Denmark. Now there’s a fun fact. A less fun fact is how bad this song is. I don’t really care either way about twerking, but I kinda care about how bad this song is. It is bad.

Bad. BAAAAAAAD. The Worst Songs Playlist can be found here: bit.ly/1idrzkR If you don’t want to spend 20 odd minutes listening to these songs, Cody has done a four-ish minute mix of all these songs at the same time: bit.ly/1c7xZgc. If four minutes is still too long, he’s condensed it down to 30 seconds here: bit.ly/18mKV3e.

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ian McCARTHY Canberra’s centenary year has been an amazing year for local music, with the youth of Canberra being no exception. The quality of music made by young people has been more than enough to put the likes of Rebecca Black and Justin Bieber to the shame they should already be feeling. So without further ado, here’s a list of five amazing young bands to have caught our attention this year – we look forward to seeing much more of them in 2014.

from punk nights at the Woden Youthie to a support slot for celticpunk legends The Go Set and The Real McKenzies at ANU Bar. They also scored a nomination for Best Heavy Act at the 2013 MAMAs. Yeah, they’re good. No Assumption’s music is not difficult to describe. It’s punk in its hardest and purest form. Loud guitars, fast rhythms, and harsh vocals are the driving force behind some of the sweatiest, high-energy shows you’re likely to encounter in Canberra.

Novia Scotia

2014 will hopefully include many more noisy, rowdy shows from the band. Also, after signing to Phat Track entertainment, the recording home of First Edition, we can realistically hope for a new release from No Assumption in the near future.

Novia Scotia is a bit of everything mixed into one easy-to-swallow capsule (prescription, of course). Having been active for just over a year, the band wasted no time setting up a solid and dedicated fan base – their most recent headline show at the intimate Smith’s Alternative sold out nearly a week in advance.

Novia Scotia specialize in light-hearted indie-rock, wrapped in tinges of funk and pop, with the added bonus of a two-trumpet horn section, all delivered with their own unique brand of geeky charisma. It’s impossible to attend a Novia Scotia show without: a) jumping emphatically, and b) singing their own catchy lyrics right back at them. Novia Scotia has spent the majority of the year in various stages of production for their first EP, a release eagerly anticipated for the new year and hopefully accompanied by many more exciting shows.

Purity It’s rare for Canberra’s hardcore scene to produce anything interesting or unique. Enter Purity, who, along with the previously mentioned qualities, are tight and powerful live – and just generally badass. In addition to winning this year’s Lift Off band competition, 2013 has seen Purity join line-ups with some of the best Australian hardcore bands, including support slots for Northlane and I Killed the Prom Queen. August also had the band making its first release, a three-track demo titled D.E.A.D. Though often simply labelled a hardcore band, Purity’s music isn’t just fast riffs and breakdowns. The band has proven itself more than capable of constructing slick and intricate soundscapes and melodies which, if not always easily digestible, are striking and original. Purity are set to drop their new EP Little Park early in 2014, and if it’s anything like the recently released, hauntingly melodic single Winter Coats, it will easily be one of the best releases from a Canberra hardcore band in a long time.

No Assumption These Queanbeyan hoodlums have been around for a few years now, but 2013 has seen them truly blossom (as much as a hardcore punk band can blossom). They’ve made their first proper release, an EP titled First Edition, and played a countless number of killer shows

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The Steptones The Steptones seem to have come out of nowhere to win the hearts of pretty much anyone who’s heard them. As the winners of the 2013 MAMA for Best ACT Live Youth Band, they seem an obvious inclusion here.

The Steptones are a likeable band. Their charming antics, irresistible smiles, and classy jackets make them the sort of guys you would want your daughter to date – a sentiment enforced further by their music. The Steptones are masters of guitar-driven pop. Their pleasant voices, their catchy hooks, and their danceable rhythms make the perfect recipe for what will inevitably become known as ‘Steptone-mania’. As the crowned victors of the Smell’s Like Centenary Spirit band competition, we now have a set at Groovin’ the Moo and some sweet new recorded goodies to look forward to from The Steptones in 2014.

Oxen Oxen are the only band on this list that would not have been found in any competitions this year. Come to think of it, there are a lot of places where Oxen can’t be found, including the internet. However, if you can find Oxen, it’s worth it.

Including members of the recently disbanded surf-punk outfit Beach Slut (who, if they were still together, would have easily made this list), Oxen play their own unique blend of grunge-soaked postpunk. Delicate but frantic guitar tones blend together with a solid rhythm section, and soft yet demanding vocals create an intense and entrancing soundscape all of their own.

Oxen’s live shows are captivating. No gimmicks or crazy antics, just four guys and their instruments as they work their way up and back from composed melodic calms into fast and powerful frenzies of sound, the audience unable to let their attention stray for a single second. Hopefully along with some more great shows, 2014 will see the band make their first release on Cinnamon Records. The expectations are undoubtedly high, but Oxen can deliver.

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alice McSHANE They may not be famous last words, but, for this once-proud connoisseur of irony, ‘No I’m not doing it seriously,’ have proven every bit as noxious as a naïve, ‘It’s my last day before retirement’, or ‘How hard could it be?’ If ironic detachment took human form, I dared dream to have Alan Rickman or Dylan Moran materialise before my disinterested eyes, but now I know the actor they’d hire would be Sean Bean, the human spoiler/walking death knell.

A few hours of this passed before I wondered why I wasn’t receiving any likes. Admittedly, my Instagram selfies (ironic, of course) are by no means irresistible, and an extensive selfie collection probably isn’t the most attractive feature anyway.

But I enquired after the exact mechanisms of Tinder, doth protesting far, far too much that I was still not interested in using it for reals. As it turns out (fuck you, Tinder), you have to like people in order to be notified whether they have liked you in return.

Let me break it down in baking terms with this You can be as hot as recipe for success: take So to be validated, I was going to have to the sun but unless I see one very, very single validate in turn. Oh. Dear. God. Harry Potter on your list person with no more Tinder works off Facebook, so it knows not than zero fucks to give of likes, this love story is to match you with your friends, because no nd frie er, about everyone else’s wat the dead in one needs James from high school knowing relationships; add a they’re still single and haven’t quite moved wheelbarrow-sized need on from that brief time they had a crush on him for six years for external validation (which should be equal parts Hannah and would stare at him all the time and waited patiently by their Horvath, and crippling); add Wi-Fi and the app store; then blend High School Musical calendar when he said he wasn’t ready for with a fistful of rage (directed at the blossoming relationship of a relationship right now … (*cough* forever alone). Tinder also two mutual friends, whose initial ice-breaker was a discussion of accesses your interests so you can see what you have in common how exactly they knew me). Upturn the blender and laugh at the with other users. You can be as hot as the sun but unless I see hot mess which dribbles out, aka Me. On Tinder.

Harry Potter on your list of likes, this love story is dead in the I joined Tinder. Ironically. That day I also got a tattoo on my water, friend. forehead which says ‘Idiot’ and rode around town backwards on a This particular beau had a staggering amount in common with donkey while penning my memoir: Fifty Shades of Fuck Off Foolish. me. Appropriately, his opening line was thus: ‘With this much in Somewhere out there, my future self with her dusty old Benedict common, how will we ever get along’. Baller move. The game was Cumberbatch man-pillow still chortles when she remembers this afoot. Sort of. I threw the phone away and freaked out because last glorious day of self-assured delusion, when my commitment shit was now real and the part of my brain that knows how to to the spinsterhood seemed unshakeable. Before 23 years worth interact with people had decided our best course of action was to of spinster dreams filled with cat-hoarding, snuggies, and Mamma not, and jumped ship.

Mia, turned to dust.

Gathering myself and my A-game, it turns out I’m great at online The fateful day my best friend came around to tell me about her sass, and screen-shotting conversations and sending them to my recent Tinder hook ups. Me and my zero fucks to give about other friends for suggestions is a very effective strategy for crafting people’s relationship success grew increasingly unhappy with witty retorts. At the end of day one, I had his phone number. At the this situation. A brief attempt to show enthusiasm backfired, end of day two, a coffee date. Imagine my surprise at discovering igniting instead a bitter hatefire which swept through my phone, there was a legitimate human being on Tinder and they wanted downloading Tinder, filling out a profile, and filling it with selfies. to meet me. I was broken. Completely. Irony, iron will, single lady My singleness had become very aggressive – it was determined convictions gone. Tinder won. to both win at Tinder and prove that winning Tinder was somehow actually possible.

My friends already know this charming anecdote and have rallied around my sorry single arse with those, ‘You’ve made a terrible Initially, I asserted my dominance by judging severely the profiles mistake but we can’t bear to tell you’ overly affirming stories of hapless manfolk, revelling in my own sassy genius as I ‘dealof people they know who were successful with online dating. broke’ profile picture after profile picture. This syndrome, FYI, Actual quote: ‘I guess the point of that story is that normal is called DLL-ing (or ‘Delusional Liz Lemon-ing’), and it involves a people online date.’ Cue internal tears and external look of blank young woman who sees so much of herself in fictional character incredulity. The point of this story, however, is far simpler. Do Liz Lemon that she forgets it’s probably far more desirable to not ever, ever, ever, ever attempt to ironically online date when be Tina Fey and have Amy Poehler as your best friend. Instead, you’re single. I lost everything, and gained a relationship. I hope. she chooses to eat copious amounts of night cheese, decides Fuckfuckfuckdamneverythingtohell.

Liz Lemon is her spirit animal, and spends the next ten years attempting to perfect her impression of Liz Lemon’s Jury Duty If you’d care to ignore/follow Alice’s example, you can find out more Princess Leia. at gotinder.com.

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alice McSHANE Be bold, be brave, be adventurous in 2014. Whether you want new skills, an outlet for existing talents, a resume so full your dream employer will be falling over themselves to hire you, or you’re simply just a gosh-darn lovely person with a few idle hours to fill, donating your time as a volunteer is where it’s at. In order to maximise your time donation, here is a starter list of volunteer opportunities around Canberra.

The Humanitarian Everyone jokes that your middle name is ‘Saint’ but you don’t buy into all that. ‘Saint is just a title,’ you remind them gently, as you rescue an ant from being stepped on. Next to ‘good’ in the dictionary there’s a photo of your mum, because when they asked for your picture you politely declined and suggested her instead. Your next stop is the Red Cross in Canberra, where you’ll serve food at the Roadhouse, be a volunteer companion for people in aged care, and work a telephone helpline. For these opportunities and more head to volunteering.redcross.org.au.

The Inspiration Can you stand children? Yes? Well congratulations, you’re clearly the best of us. This means, however, that it’s your duty to mould their underdeveloped brains into something beneficial to the world.

Amnesty International needs you for their Schools Network Outreach Team to help plan and deliver workshops on human rights campaign areas. Inspire the youth at amnesty.org.au (specifically ACT action groups).

The Broadcaster If you believe radio could be more than simply a reminder service that it’s Monday, Hump Day, Friday, or raining, then you should check out Canberra’s community radio station 2XX FM. They offer a range of internships, volunteer, and work experience opportunities which can be found at 2xxfm.org.au.

The Good Sport The ‘Shirtless, Sombrero, Zinc, Beach Ball and Beer Appreciation Festival’ is heading to Australia in 2015. Yes the ICC Cricket World Cup will be looking for Canberra volunteers at some stage next year so if ‘sport’ is your thing, then keep checking icc-cricket.com for volunteer updates.

The Culture Vulture Good news, hippies! The National Folk Festival has just begun their search for 2014’s festival volunteers. Tune your ukulele, iron your hemp pants, abandon your shaver, and commit to 20+ hours of volunteering to earn yourself a free season and camping pass. Less (time-)committed volunteers will simply have to be content with a fleeting feeling of being ‘a part of something’. Head to folkfestival. org.au for more information.

The Big Guns Trust Questacon to have volunteer roles such as ‘Science Explainer’ and ‘Volunteer Tinkerer’. If you’ve ever used the phrase ‘timey-wimey

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stuff’ then clearly Questacon is your home away from home and it’s about time you made it official. Information sessions are held in February and July so head to questacon.edu.au to sign up.

For the die-hard resume-padders, nothing is more impressively official than the Australian War Memorial (except for maybe the National Gallery, but they have a waiting list for volunteers so they are not welcome here). You’ll work either front-of-house or behind the scenes; and if you need to know more than that, well you have Google. Head to awm.gov.au for more information If you like to both read books and watch films (i.e. you are a unicorn), then the National Film and Sound Archive library is the place for you. Volunteers get discounted entry to ARC, and (gird your geeky loins) borrowing privileges from the library. Head to nfsa.gov.au for more information.

Ah, ‘democracy’, remember that? The Museum of Australian Democracy sure does, and they’re on the lookout for volunteer guides. So if you’d like to pretend what’s happening right now in Australian politics just isn’t, immerse yourself in the golden days at moadoph.gov.au/about/employment.

Shop Assistants of the World, Unite This is a tough one, a role for those possessed of the kind of true grit Charles Portis could never dream of. Market-stall minding.

Carpets for Communities is a not-for-profit organisation which provides Cambodian mothers with a stable income through the production of eco-friendly carpets. If you have what it takes, head to carpetsforcommunities.org.

Longing to know what life could be like working on Lonsdale Street?

Dreaming of exponential growth in your coolness/beard-growing capabilities? Lifeline has two opportunities for you. Hipsley Lane vintage clothes store is looking for retail volunteers. Say goodbye to contemporary society and hello to shoulder pads and an incredible new kerchief collection.

Otherwise, train in the art of being a barista with mobile coffee trailer Bean Countin’. Equipped with a beloved universal skill and proof of excellent personhood, you’ll be ready to take on anything.

Contact Matt at matt.heffernan@act.lifeline.org.au for more information.

The Mentor On her recent tour around Australia, Beyonce partnered her Beygood charity with Barnardos Australia, urging fans to donate clothes for disadvantaged children. Barnardos also run a mentoring program for children from vulnerable families. Whilst not quite the outlet for your secret Dead Poet’s Society, Half-Nelson, Coach Carter mash-up fantasy, if you were pretty good to your siblings growing up and have patience, compassion, and a firmly resolute good nature, head to the Canberra page at barnardos.org.au.

So there you have it. If none of this sounded like you, there are heaps more volunteer opportunities at volunteeringact.org.au. Go forth and enrich the world, you gorgeous thing, you.

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glen martin A year ago I wrote in this magazine that the Centenary was an opportunity for our city to rebrand. By these criteria, the centenary program was a failure.

Where was the narrative? The overarching sweep that linked the events to a philosophy?

It didn’t exist. In this sense, the year ran just like the physical program I mentioned in the December 2012 issue of BMA: it lumped all events together without context. In turn, this meant that the whole thing missed the great intangible prize on offer – that of shifting the wider public perception of the place. A task which is difficult, to say the least, and requires a flashpoint like a centennial celebration to facilitate. No matter. It didn’t happen. Instead, Canberra reaffirmed its reputation as a place full of talent, but with low self esteem.

The big birthday itself in March was the worst of the bunch. Not enough food? A weirdly underutilised central water feature?

A lack of coherence? Poorly performing transport? All the quibbles were too easily answered by one oft-used and all too easy rejoinder – it was just so Canberra. Full of potential, but underwhelming.

Which brings us to Skywhale. Read carefully. I am not about to join the ranks of the naysayers and the scorn-pourers keen to deflate the magnificent multi-titted monstrosity. I love its oddness and feel thankful for its existence.

But. And this is a big but: that Skywhale was initially pinned to the centenary in media reports as a Government-funded art object.

So Skywhale was forever linked in the public imagination as a representative Government-authorised object.

The argument here, again, is one of how information progresses.

The message that ties this object to ideas of representation allows people like Grahame Morris – Canberra resident, powerful lobbyist, and former Howard government Chief of Staff – to use Skywhale and the funding model as manna for another yarn about culture wars. That Skywhale was never intended to be representative is now lost in the public imagination. I love how Canberra rallied and got behind Skywhale. But the need for such a reaction should never have arisen. Getting the messaging right in the first instance, distancing the object from anything burdened by representation, would’ve let that startling monster fly on its own steam. Or hot air.

On the plus side, I also wrote of You Are Here’s magnificence a year ago, and 12 months on it is worth again noting what a success this thing is, and how it points toward a different reading of Canberra. Next year the festival returns without David Finnigan and Yolande Norris, the two directors who were instrumental in running three outstanding editions. Let me again devote a little ink to the good Norris and Finnigan brought to our city, and the nation’s art scene: I spent most of You Are Here 2013 foolishly stationed overseas, and this was a mistake – all reports

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indicated it was exactly what it should have been: magnificent, shambolic, inclusive, amusing, and enlivening. I cannot applaud this effort enough.

Doesn’t the takeover of Shooters by The Phoenix feel like a victory for good over evil?

Intriguingly, 2014 will see the return of Jorian Gardner to the Fringe Festival. Google him to see just how varied opinion is on this chap.

Some say he’s a great champion of Canberra arts, others suggest he’s a self-aggrandising prat, or worse. His reign as co-owner of the new Smith’s Alternative (which ended in November) saw the venue become an essential part of Canberra’s live entertainment roster, but many artists complained of double bookings and poor communication. Still, the addition of Smith’s as a regular space was a highlight of 2013 and we hope it continues. Special mention should go to Bevan Noble, who provides outstanding service to musicians on that little stage.

On that front, another mention should go to David Howe of the Canberra Musicians Club. To put on a show via Howe and CMC is to get 10k worth of service for a fraction (and I mean a fraction of a fraction) of the price. Meaning that things like Gangbusters – a marginal event that took place in July, which could never cover the costs of running two stages in a big room anywhere else – could happen. What a day that was, perfectly crowned by the triumphant unveiling of the long-awaited TV Colours album, itself a local landmark in 2013.

Art in pubs became more of a thing in 2013. Knightsbridge and Honky Tonks continue to open their walls to new works, and the return of PechaKucha provided opportunity for makers of all stripes to check out new ideas in boozy spaces. Our galleries continue to make waves, but nothing beats the breaking down of behaviours in a different environment to freshen things up. The Traders remains the leader in this regard – we’re lucky to have that space and the still-emerging liveliness of Lonsdale Street as a destination.

Finally, doesn’t the takeover of Shooters by The Phoenix feel like a victory for good over evil? Will anybody mourn Shooters? If so, you’re forgetting that Mooseheads is just around the corner. Go get your fleshy fake-tanned limbs inappropriately fondled there, and the rest of us will toast the ongoing success of the little smelly pub that could. Without The Phoenix, there would be no Canberra music scene. Period. The Phoenix is where new bands cut teeth, it’s where BAD!SLAM! and pub theatre takes place, and more than any other space in town, The Phoenix builds community.

It might not be your bag, but it allows new artists to practice, and for this alone it should be loudly applauded. Well done Phoenix, and well done you for making it to the end of 2013.

You can read more of Glen Martin’s immaculately thought-out opinions of Canberra, among other things, at bmamag.com/ authors/glen-martin.

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top ten films

2013 didn’t present as many immediate choices for the best films of the year as 2012. And certainly not as many as 2011 (Black Swan, The Tree of Life, Drive – will that year ever be beaten in terms of cinematic genius?). But the lack of blockbusters has allowed for attention to be paid to films that might have slipped under the radar. Films like the challenging, surreal The Act of Killing, the light-hearted and irrepressible Frances Ha, and the ‘shot in only 12 days, how the heck did they do that’ Much Ado About Nothing. This year’s top ten was compiled – with only a small amount of bickering – by your film writers Cam Williams, Megan McKeough, and Melissa Wellham (just talking about myself in the third person WITH now). We hope you – if not approve – enjoy reading MELISSA WELLHAM, MEGAN McKEOUGH, & CAMERON WILLIAMS our thoughts. – MELISSA WELLHAM

10. Much Ado About Nothing

5. Captain Phillips

Last year, Joss Whedon created the ‘BEST COMIC BOOK MOVIE EVER’ (Melissa Wellham, on Twitter) with The Avengers. This year, he sneaks onto the top ten with his adaptation of the ‘BEST SHAKESPEARE PLAY EVER’ (Melissa Wellham, in general conversation). A black and white beauty, filmed during the 2011 writer’s strike, Much Ado shows that a clever script and likeable leads are all you need to adapt a classic – or create a classic. – MW

Captain Phillips is based on a true story about a group of Somali pirates who attacked a cargo ship in 2009, resulting in a hostage crisis. Filmmaker Paul Greengrass has made one hell of a dramatisation of the events. There are incredible performances from Tom Hanks and Barkhad Abdi playing opposing captains from two different worlds. Career defining work for Greengrass and a remarkable achievement. – CW

9. BLACKFISH

4. Frances Ha

Blackfish is a captivating look at cruelty against orcas (killer whales) in captivity. The film also illuminates the darker side of Sea World-type industries: the fact that wild animals will always be wild. And they can still be a danger to trainers.

It’s an aggressive film, passionate in its pursuit of education. The doco is meticulously researched, and charts every significant orca attack since the ‘70s. Blackfish is very good – and very disturbing. – MW

The black and white Frances Ha delves into the dreams and daily toils of aspiring dancer Frances.

Delightful with a pinch of nostalgia, and a healthy dash of Woody Allen aesthetic, this sparkling film makes the age-old ‘awkwardly likeable 20-something in New York’ trope fresh again. A triumph for both director Noah Baumbach and Frances Ha’s likeable lead, Greta Gerwig, this delicate mix of charm and humour hit just the right note. – MM

8. BEFORE MIDNIGHT

3. The Act of Killing

Proving sequels don’t have to suck, Richard Linklater and actors Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke return for the final film in the Before trilogy.

In Before Midnight, the challenges of mid-40s married life are explored. Commitment. Divorce.

Infidelity. Resentment. It’s just as beautiful a film as the others, but infinitely braver. This film explores the brutality of long-lasting love – with nothing but a strong script, and two exceptional actors. – MW

Joshua Oppenheimer’s surreal doco The Act of Killing is as powerful as it was controversial. As Indonesian gangster Anwar and his friends re-enact the murders they committed during the Indonesian massacres of the ‘60s, emulating their favourite genres, the result is disturbing and compelling.

This film is unlike any other – from the moments of humour, to the misty waterfall dance numbers, to the ugly truths at its core. – MM

7. Spring Breakers

2. Stoker

The ideals of freedom, paradise, and the American dream pulse in a neon, bubble-gum-scented descent into darkness in one of the most potent pieces of filmmaking this year. As Captain Benjamin L. Willard took the river journey of madness to find Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now, so too does Korine with his bikini clad crew in Spring Breakers. The ladies are fierce, and James Franco plays a white trash rapper and drug dealer amazingly. A scummy, enlightening reflection of the western world. – CW

Director Chan-wook Park has created a morbid environment for a sumptuous mystery to unfold.

Stoker is bursting with luscious direction, intricate scripting (by Wentworth Miller – yes, the guy from Prison Break), and amazing performances. With visuals by Park, and cinematographer Chung-hoon Chung, the entire film looks like a sinister Norman Rockwell painting. The duo took something that seemed mundane and made it unforgettable. Stoker is easily the best psychotic family drama of the year. – CW

6. Django Unchained

1. Gravity

Quentin Tarantino’s Southern revenge tale set screens on fire with unashamed violence, gun-slinging, and tongue-in-cheek humour. Who wasn’t invested in the journey of freed slave Django (Jamie Foxx) and bounty hunter Dr Schultz (Christoph Waltz, scoring another Oscar win), as they came nose-to-nose with a rotten-teethed DiCaprio and his pet skull, Ben? Django is a ride that gallops into the sunset with our heartfelt approval. – MM

Gravity is an eerie, intense, chilling, and thrilling science-fiction film that explores the terror of space without having to resort to aliens and explosions. Instead, the unsettling enemy is nothingness. Emptiness. Aloneness. Gravity was unanimously chosen to top this year’s list – and not just because your film writers are sci-fi geeks.

It’s masterfully directed, its pacing impeccable, its visuals stunning. A phenomenal film from Alfonso Cuarón. – MW

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TV: The Year in Review with Allan Sko and Justin Hook BMA Mag’s resident TV nerds Justin Hook and Allan Sko rub their square eyes raw in order to dissect the year in shows. This article sees our intrepid heroes exchanging commentary, using the clever visual conception of putting their names in capitals before their comments. Genius.

The Golden Age of TV™ Is Coming To End … Enjoy the Ride Down JUSTIN HOOK (JH): With Breaking Bad done, it might be time for us all to sit down, have a Bex, and admit that it’s just a TV show. It may be a great TV show (some disagree) but a strange sense of over-commitment surrounded this story. The symbiotic relationship between viewer and show runner (fancy word for person who sets the overarching plot) has descended into farce, to the point that writers are fired from shows ostensibly because they couldn’t adapt to the viewers’ demands (The Walking Dead).

It’s natural that fans feel a connection to characters, but ultimately we are viewers, simple as that. We are passive. We don’t write the shows but we feel we have influence. We don’t and we shouldn’t. The Golden Age of TV™ has empowered viewers to the point they think it confers actual power. We are rapidly approaching Peak TV, where networks court this relationship through their programming and marketing. They will increasingly make shows that forge the relationship some fools thought they had with Walter White’s fictional family.

It’s time we backed the fuck off and acknowledged we aren’t scriptwriters or producers. We are viewers, and the folly of demanding that our communal needs be met is in dire need of an overhaul. We have become too smug and knowing for our own good.

The Panel Show Takes Over ALLAN SKO (AS): Key shows have ended (Breaking Bad, 30 Rock), returning favourites have misfired (Arrested Development, Bob’s Burgers, Community), and there’s not much on the horizon to crow about. The Golden Age of TV™ may well be coming to a close. But one category that continues to burn brightly is the Panel Show. We, the ravenous viewers, can’t seem to get enough. It’s a lazy, cookie-cutter format … And I bloody love it. The TV schedule is bulging with amusing celebrities sitting behind desks exchanging pre-scripted yet seemingly improvisational quips and answers. On the ABC alone there’s – in order of enjoyment – long-stayer QI, Would I Lie To You?, Mock The Week, Never Mind The

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Buzzcocks, The Gruen Transfer, Spicks & Specks reruns and <ahem> Tractor Monkeys. With news that Spicks is rebooting in 2014, it’s clear the panel format is very much in its own Golden Age. You could accuse the format of being lazy, unimaginative and overplayed, and there would be undeniable truth to that. There are examples of it not going well; Andrew Denton’s attempt at QI in Randling fell flat.

Despite the brilliance of Shaun Micallef, you have to wade through a lot of commercial TV pap in Talkin’ Bout Your Generation. And Tractor Monkeys. But it still throws up entertaining television, with the British shows in particular excelling by being able to grasp the basics – a solid idea that delivers ‘panel money shots’ (in QI it’s interesting facts among the humour, in Would I Lie To You? it’s revealing celebrity facts among the humour) combined with genuinely amusing guests.

You could hate this and find it boring, or you could just sit back and appreciate it for the showcase of funny people the world has to offer.

After all, it ain’t going nowhere.

Best New Shows JH: 2013 hasn’t been a banner year for new shows. There’s been lots of middling-good shows and only a couple of real standouts.

Whitechapel may be slavishly signing up to the slow-burn Nordic noir crime thing but the interplay between Olivia Coleman and David Tennant made it one of the best new shows of the year. Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. deserves a spot even though it was nowhere near as exciting as it anticipated [AS: I watched one episode of this, and it was fucking awful]. If anything, moving the Marvel universe onto the small screen is a wise lateral move for the increasingly powerful studio. The Cold War spy drama The Americans was a little bit Mad Men period piece and a little bit subversive early Homeland, and thus a wellrounded quiet-achiever.

The US remake of cult UK politico-drama House of Cards made all sorts of noise. It had David Fincher and Kevin Spacey holding the ropes. It was being distributed through Netflix. And it cost an absolute mint to make. It was a very good debut – cold, brutal, mendacious – even for those who complain about remakes for the North American market. Washington politics is made for TV, last years MVP Veep was even better this year, so hopefully this one can follow suit.

The Kroll Show was the best new comedy of the year. Nick Kroll has a sweet obnoxiousness about him and he really pushed his improv roots in this character-based skit comedy. More Nick Kroll on TV is a good thing. Locally, the ABC delivered two brilliant comedies on either end of the spectrum – the outlandish Upper Middle Bogan and the tenderer, touching It’s a Date.

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Reliable and Occasionally Understated Brilliance AS: Whilst there is talk about the so-called Golden Age of TV™ coming to a close, 2013 still put in a stellar year of gripping viewing. Game of Thrones bounced back after a patchy second season to deliver the year’s most talked-about moment with The Red Wedding. Equally cruel in subject matter yet utterly hilarious, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia somehow manages to keep the laughs coming with the crew/writers finding new and inventive ways of pushing the boat out.

But hands down show of the year goes to Boardwalk Empire which goes from strength to strength and ended the year with a cracking finale. Creator Terence Winter and company are masters of the long form of storytelling that is the TV series, taking their time to build character story arcs, ratchet up the tension, and ensure when a fan-favourite leaves the show, it really hurts. Season four saw tragic character deaths, utterly brutal fight scenes (would sir care for a wooden splint through the cheek?), feisty new characters, and the continuation of Stephen Graham’s Al Capone as one of the best characters currently on TV. And it would be remiss of me not to mention the big Doctor Who anniversary. There, I mentioned it.

Mistakes, Wobbles, and Failures AS: Sadly, some greats started showing signs of fatigue in 2013.

Where in 2012 Bob’s Burgers was my favourite, this year has seen it falter, with the simple storytelling sacrificed for an unsettling surrealism. There seems to be no hype surrounding The Walking Dead this year; you feel people have simply given up. I know I have. After a surging start to season three, Dead entered sucktown halfway through and limped towards a vastly disappointing conclusion.

Season four sees the return of the myriad reasons season two was so dire – a multitude of redshirts (easily dispatched minor characters), stupid characters (you’re in a zombie-infested world … Fucking look behind you every once in awhile!), and the continued whininess of lead man Rick Grimes. In the original comic Grimes is 80% rugged leader and 20% emotionally conflicted dweller. In the show it’s the opposite, and this does not for good television make. The Walking Dead now, ironically, resembles a shambling, rotting corpse.

JH: After the poorly managed exit of creator Dan Harmon the year before, Community limped through a misfiring fourth season. The jokes – where they existed – were undercooked, and the cast looked like they’d prefer to be anywhere else. Harmon is back in the fold but maybe it’s time to finish this one off.

Arrested Development returned to much fanfare and rightly so. It actually happened! Perhaps it shouldn’t have, because the interwoven narrative that devoted episodes to individual characters may have been a planning necessity but it didn’t achieve the Rashomon effect it was aiming for.

The less said about the Dexter finale the better, although it is worth noting the show had already burnt though

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most of its goodwill by then. And then there’s Homeland, which is now a sad parody of itself.

Speaking of goodwill, Rebel Wilson’s weak major network debut Super Fun Night hasn’t put her on the back foot but it’s not the best way to leverage the astonishing run of fawning press she’s received in the last few years.

So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye…

The Year’s Final Episodes AS: After seven years, Breaking Bad finally came to an end in what was possibly the most anticipated series finale since The Sopranos.

It needed to end when it did; the elongated final series showed signs of faltering, so its telegraphed end at least gave the show the chance to end on its own terms. What creator Vince Gilligan delivered was an arguably safe, apt and – to the hardcore White-outs at least – satisfying end. The finale was not without the kind of irritating plot holes that plagued the series – how did the fugitive Walter find Jesse’s friends so easily? How did he get into Skyler’s safehouse with all the police surveillance? A rotating gun in a boot that isn’t checked for? Really! ? ! – but it also delivered satisfying scenes that had been building all series. Walter and Skyler’s final dialogue hit the mark and was the highlight of the episode. The resolution between Jesse and Walt was apt. And the very final scene was just how many thought the series should end.

So while it doesn’t get any points for bravely ending the series like David Chase did with The Sopranos, it succeeded in giving the fanbase a solid send off.

To keep any series going over a number of years/series is hard enough, but doubly so for a comedy. Characters quickly become caricatures, and unlike a drama you can’t suddenly rekindle dwindling interest with a major death. This is why Seinfeld is justly lauded; despite a wobbly final episode, the show never had a truly bad show over its original nine-year run. 30 Rock is the closest we’ve had to a Seinfeld comedy run, thanks largely to the relatable comedic brilliance of Tina Fey and the enigmatic Alec Baldwin. While the increasing pop culture references and meta focus may see this show date over time, 30 Rock’s writing was among the sharpest on TV. Whilst it got a little patchy towards the end it was still able to finish with a witty final series and a fitting last episode and final scene that took its meta show-within-a-show leanings to its natural conclusion.

JH: This year we farewelled a stack of long running shows. Fan favourites like sci-fi mystery Fringe proved everyone wrong by making it to five seasons, and even though the back end felt a little forced and chaotic it stands at an even 100 episodes, ripe to be rediscovered in years to come. The Office (ahem) closed its doors, and not before time. It really fell off a cliff a few seasons back and the return of Michael Scott/Steve Carrell only served to remind us how much The Office needed him. The Borgias, a reliable yet criminally overlooked gem, wound up, but I doubt anyone noticed. Happy Endings, Southland, and Enlightened are three examples of low rating departing shows that created the necessary texture below the big name successes. You never knew how good you had it.

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ALL AGES Hey folks! It’s me again, Andie, or that pun girl. I’m home after travelling the world and all I can say is I’m feeling as chuffed as a majestic Canberran Skywhale. My aim has always been to make the countdown until your 18th birthday more bearable, and I plan to do so by spamming you with events for the young and hip. Saying ‘hip’ is cool, right guys? Guys … ?

Oh there you all are, almost lost you. I see you’re already lining up for tickets for the Vans Warped Tour. If you’ve been living in a pineapple under the sea lately and happened to miss the line-up, here it is: The Offspring, Parkway Drive, Simple Plan, Millencolin, The Amity Affliction, New Found Glory, The Used, Reel Big Fish, Hatebreed, Tonight Alive, The Summer Set, Kids in Glass Houses, We Came as Romans, Man Overboard, Confession, Crown the Empire, The Dangerous Summer, For All Those Sleeping, Veara, Anarbor, Hands Like Houses, Mallory Knox, Buried in Verona, RDGLDGRN, Hand of Mercy, Drawing North, and Atlantis Awaits. Catch them all at Exhibition Park on Friday December 6. Tickets are $107.10 + bf and available online at Oztix.

I was having a conversation with The Universe recently and it told me it wants to apologise to you for all those times your favourite band came to town but you were too young to go. The Universe presents to you: MOMENTUM Festival, a strictly under-18s event to farewell the school year and welcome in summer. Headliners include the successful Aussie duo Stafford Brothers, Will Sparks, Rawson, DJ Rush, and more to be advised. It’ll be at the UC Refectory on Friday December 13. Tickets start at $33.60 + bf for early bird tickets (get in quick!), and go up to $66.25 + bf for VIP tickets, which gives you access to a private soft-drink bar, an elevated viewing area, and a chance to meet the artists. Get tickets online at Oztix.

For most people, the words ‘The Corner’ conjure bad memories of sitting in semi-solitary confinement back in their primary school days. You’ll be happy to hear that The Corner in Belconnen (located on the corner of Swanson and Chandler Street) is a far cry from your ghosts of primary school past. The Corner hosts a Band Night on the first Friday of every month, making the next upcoming ones on Friday December 6 and Friday January 3. Performers are yet to be announced, but if you’re interested in performing or know someone who is, you can contact the BCS on their Facebook page or contact Lucy at lucy.holgatemannall@bcsact.com.au. Entry is free and doors open from 4pm. If your brain needs some sharpening, The Corner is also holding a trivia night on Friday December 20. Entry here is also free and doors open at 4pm.

The fun doesn’t stop there. The Corner also has a School Holiday Program running from Mon–Fri January 6–31, with a range of activities like ice skating, cooking, paintball, BBQ, fort building, trivia, pool, geocaching, and not to mention a Zombie Apocalypse End of Holiday Party. Wow. You can keep in touch with the BCS on Facebook for up to date information on events at facebook.com/ bcsyouthservices.

2013 has been an amazing year, and I wish you the happiest of holidays!

Cheers, ANDIE EGAN allagescolumn@gmail.com

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LOCALITY

This column has to last until our next issue on Wednesday January 15, so I will take an old adage to heart – ‘brevity is the soul of shit’ – and cram as much local jolly in here as possible. Note: if I don’t mention a price, it’s free.

Little Mac and the Monster Men and Bacon Cakes, two fine local acts, may be supporting Guitar Wolf at The Basement on Wednesday December 4, but it’s my fondness for Wild Zero that will see me at the doors at 8pm sharp ($28.60 + bf thru Oztix). A Drone Coda is playing Transit Bar on Thursday December 5 from 8pm with Golden Blonde and Spartak. No two shows are the same for these bands, yet all are recommended. Positive Feedback Loop is playing Pot Belly Bar (still easily my favourite pub/venue in the north) on Friday December 6 from 8pm for $5 with The Feldons and Daz Jamieson. Melodic metalheads Eyes to the Sky are playing Transit Bar on Saturday December 7 from 8pm for a $10 door with Mandala and Delinquent – out-of-towners, pooh pooh.

The Bootleg Sessions on Monday December 9 has a bunch of acts with odd names (plus Pocket Fox) and I’m listing it for that reason alone: Guerilla Zingari, Handkerchief Thief, and Hannah Blackburn (wtf, right?). 8pm, as usual. Canberra Musicians Club presents the launch of Fossil Rabbit’s Cloudache EP on Wednesday December 11 from 7:30pm at Smith’s Alternative. Interesting act, great supports.

Smith’s has ‘Wash the Cat’ on Thursday December 12 too, with Faux Faux Amis, Bacon Cakes, Sex Noises, and more all playing from 8:30pm for $5. Revellers will play Transit Bar the same night, at roughly the same time, with No Assumption and more for free.

Zoopagoo, Beth n Ben, and others have put together Monster Mash at the ANU Bar on Friday December 13, where you get in for $15 (down from $20) if you dress up. Starts 8pm. And Mornings are playing the same night at Magpies City Club from 8:30pm for $5, after a double EP launch from two out-of-town bands. The second Wormhole takes place on Saturday December 14 on Hartley St, Turner, with a whole mess of local bands spread over two houses from 12pm to late. It’s $10. Rounding out the week, Waterford and Sex Noises are supporting Angie & Nathan Roche’s double album launch at The Phoenix Bar on Sunday December 15 from 8pm.

YOU MADE MY DAY!

Email editorial@bmamag.com to send a message of gratitude, warmth and generosity to the world at large. Aw. Dear Facebook, I know you probably don’t hear this a lot, but you made my day. The 1.1 billion or so users of your fine services belie the bad rep and loyal following of haters you attract, however I feel that enthusiastic ‘Facey’ users such as myself are all too silent when coming to your defence. I see us as a silent majority, if you will. You, on the other hand, continue to provide an always entertaining, and world-bettering service free of charge, all the while stoically fending off criticisms about data-mining (whatevs), encouraging a culture of envy and narcissism (*yawn*), depleted attention spans (umm, I swear I had something for this...), procrastination and blah blah blah. You’re a valuable and necessary, yet unappreciated, often misunderstood and regularly vilified part of our lives. In this sense, I see you as the Dark Knight of the interwebs; your utility belt an endless newsfeed of poorly-ageing ex girlfriends, self-righteous bourgeois pinkos, awesome travel buddies I met for two hours while drunk in Managua and have now bonded with via ‘likes’ and ‘happy birthday’ one-liners, cat-themed Buzzfeed lists, and so, so much more. So go on, tell the NSA that I ‘Like’ Noam Chomsky, read the New Internationalist, and watch a sloppy bucketload of porn. Because I will love you anyway. Forever. You made my day.

TV Colours are playing their last local show of 2013 at The Phoenix Bar on Thursday December 19 with Biscuits from 9pm. Stellar year for them, and deserved. The Basemental 2013 compilation is launching at The Basement on Friday December 20 from 8pm with a bunch of bands for $10. Excellent local compilation – turn to our album pages for a review. Who knows what The Phoenix’s Xmas Bootleg Sessions will hold on Monday December 23? I don’t. The Basement’s NYE Party, however, will sport Dylan Hekimian, Hence the Testbed, and many more from 2pm on Tuesday December 31.

And in a befitting final listing, new local label Holy Eucharist Line will launch at The Phoenix on Saturday January 11 from 9:30pm, with sets from Crmwll, Matthew Elias, and Northumberland.

And until next year, that’s everything local I care about.

ASHLEY THOMSON - editorial@bmamag.com; @aabthomson

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allan sko CHUCK PALAHNIUK – penner of sex and violence-filled love notes to humanity – is feeling the creative juju. The second instalment in the Madison trilogy, Doomed, is out; he’s working on a sequel to Fight Club; and he’s set to release a book so ‘big and controversial’ it will ‘wipe Fight Club off the map’.

Throw in getting punched on tour, public nudity, his parents’ death, and psychotropic drugs, and it’s clear he’s leading a deeply boring life.

old Madison working her way through hell – was in part a way of dealing with the death of his parents. Was this still the case some years, and two books, later? ‘It’s still slightly the case,’ Palahniuk says, pausing. ‘Originally it was a way to distract myself so enough time would go by to live a life without my parents. But the longer I keep working on this the more I realise, y’know … I noticed my friends with children, as they grow up, they’re able to revisit all the stages of their own development and all those odd phases they went through. So because I don’t, and won’t, have children, having Madison I’m able to cobble together a sense of revisiting childhood phases. She’s my surrogate child.’

A young man jumped on stage and slugged me as hard as he could. I think he was being playful

Given his prose, you would expect the man to be a Henry Rollinsesque force or have the brooding intensity of James Ellroy.

Instead, he presents as a relaxed, happy man, excited to talk about his work and the crazy human experiences that inspire it.

In his mid-30s Palahniuk juggled writing and working with Freightliner, building trucks by day and characters by night.

Despite struggling to find any publishers or agents that could stomach his confronting work, Palahniuk never toned his work down. Only when Fight Club went into production did Palahniuk quit his job, and to this day he calls upon people as his main inspiration. ‘[The Guts story – in which a person’s innards are sucked out anally by a pool filter whilst having an asphyxiationenhanced wank] was something someone told me,’ he reveals.

‘People have told me the most appalling things. I plan to use some; others I’m going to take to my grave. I get letters from troubled people who found something in my work that keeps them going.

That breaks my heart. But it feels like a nice completion. So much of my work comes from people … [The writing] feels like a lens focusing these feelings and making them available for other people in the same situation.’

It’s the aspiration of many writers to find a moved readership, but the burden of knowing your work keeps a person on this mortal coil must weigh heavy when it comes to a new project.

‘Not especially,’ Palahniuk reveals. ‘It emboldens me to be a little more risky and honest and not worry so much about how I look.

And I think that’s something young people admire.’ Unfortunately for Palahniuk, the edgy nature of his writing means that along with the well-meaning, he attracts the crazies. ‘I look forward to [touring], but I also dread it because when things go wrong, they go very wrong,’ he says. ‘About a month ago I was in San Francisco and sold out the [2000-strong] Castro Theatre. After the event a young man jumped on stage and slugged me as hard as he could. I think he was being playful and wanted to say hello. Later he brought me a bottle of wine to say sorry. Another man took off all of his clothes during a book signing.’

Palahniuk deals with drama in a more internal way in his recent book Doomed. Speaking to him two years ago at the release of Damned, he revealed the book – about the recently dead 13-year-

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Fight Club could also be considered Palahniuk’s surrogate child, given its association with its creator. Fans eager for more exploits from Tyler Durden can thank the comic world for more storytelling. ‘[Comic artists] Matt Fraction and David Mack charmed me into doing this,’ Palahniuk says. ‘[We see] the same characters but ten years down the road. We’ve got the narrator taking an enormous amount of psychotropic drugs in order to keep Tyler Durden suppressed … A couple of pages later, Tyler’s out.’

Psychotropic drugs have become a feature in Palahniuk’s recent work. As well as the Fight Club sequel, one of Doomed’s best characters concerns a psychic bounty hunter who deliberately ODs on ketamine in order to enter the astral plain. Why such focus of psychotropics? ‘I love ketamine stories,’ Palahniuk says. ‘There’s a huge ketamine culture about people interacting with the spirit world. I love that stuff!’

Despite the Madison trilogy going full steam ahead, judging by the enthusiasm in his voice it seems another project is exciting Palahniuk the most. ‘Boy, next year’s book is gonna be really big and really controversial,’ he says. ‘It’s called Beautiful You, and it’s gonna wipe Fight Club off the map. It’s unlike anything I have ever written. I combine the romance novels my mother used to read with the pornography my father used to read. So it’s fantastically graphic pornography but written in the euphemistic language of romance novels. Badly written sex is hi-larious! I call it gonzo eroticism.’

Finding it hard to top that, the conversation skips on … Palahniuk answers questions on his current favourite authors (‘hard-to-find American writer Lydia Yuknavich and a Korean-American writer named Nami Mun’), the state of the Fight Club theatre production (‘there was an old plan; David Fincher hasn’t talked about it since 2008’), and his favourite Disney movie (‘The Black Hole … That was a huge, crashing disaster … That would be my favourite’). But we end on the burning question; when is he coming to Australia?

‘I should have gone to Australia ten years ago. But I’ll come over next year. I promise.’

We’ll hold you to that, Chuck. Like a horny person holds a pool filter to their nether-regions.

Doomed is out now via Random House.

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A GREAT WAY TO SPEND YOUR TWENTIES pete huet NATHAN ROCHE is one of the most enigmatic characters of Sydney’s inner-suburbs. A Townsville transplant, Roche is part David McComb, part Lou Reed, and yet somehow entirely his jovial self.

A prolific recording artist (mostly under the Marf Loth moniker), Roche spent part of his Sunday answering BMA’s questions.

You appear to be living the ‘80s Newtown indie rock dream minus the heroin. Is this accurate? Well, the truth is I moved to Woolloomooloo just over a year ago. There’s much more heroin here.

Can’t say it’s the sort of place where ‘dreams are made’, but it’s definitely the best suburb – all the grit with hardly any young people with hoola-hoops, hacky sacks, and purple hair.

[I’m] friendly with the ageing locals and the best pubs in town are here. So I guess you might be right, I’m living the dream.

I was robbed with a machete, thrown into the world of lucha libre, cockfights, and general madness

Tell us about Townsville. Nice little port town, gigantic rock smack bam in the centre. All the coconuts, mangoes, and cyclones you’d ever want. It’s predominantly military with a ratio of 12 men to 1 woman, which is why I had to leave. I lived on The Strand for a while.

I used to wash in the ocean. It was a great place to grow up, but not a remarkable place to stay.

BMA has lost count of the number of albums you’ve put out. Do you know how many you are up to? I think there are seven Marf Loth albums, three Nathan Roche & the Wentworth Avenue BreezeOut records, and maybe a silly assortment of odd bits and bobs (Home Run, The Revisionists, Redneck Discotheque). The next one will be the triple-LP concept record to rule them all.

Any truth to the rumour we almost lost you to the Mexican underworld of chaos and cockfights? Yeah, that’s true – it was a very close call. I wasn’t in a very good state last year. I was robbed with a machete, thrown into the world of lucha libre, cockfights and general madness. Plenty of mojitos and sunlight. I came back heavily tanned and forgot about the whole four months within the week.

Last time you were seen in these parts, you’d hitched a ride down with Day Ravies to join the masses in the Polish Club for Gangbusters. Do you a) remember the gig and b) have a favourite Polish beer? Yes! All the bands were amazing. I had a great time with The Ocean Party guys as always. They’re my soul brothers. Friends from North Queensland, Jordan Ireland and Jordan Grant, made an unexpected appearance. I remember a bar brawl at The Phoenix and sleeping on the floor in a ‘70s motor inn. It was wild! Best beer was the high percentage one.

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Roche will launch his first official solo record alongside Angie Bermuda (Circle Pit, Straight Arrows, Ruined Fortune) at The Phoenix, Sunday December 15, from 8:30pm. Support from Waterford and Sex Noises.

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Image credit: Adam Thomas

THE SAME ONLY DIFFERENT zoya patel

When you generally think of solo musicians who play guitar, chances are you imagine a folk, acoustic, singer-songwriter kind of thing. Well, FOSSIL RABBIT might be a solo musician, and he might be armed with just his guitar, but he’s bound to challenge your perceptions with his brand of ambient, electronica-style sounds. Fossil Rabbit, aka Chris Finnigan, has been part of I can try to develop the same the Canberra n atio sounds through the vibr music scene ch whi , ngs of the guitar stri for some gives it a different feel to time, both most electronic music as his solo project, and also as lead guitarist in Canberra bands such as Prom, Standing Waves, and Finnigan and Brother. On Wednesday December 11, Finnigan will be releasing his debut EP as Fossil Rabbit, Cloudache – five tracks of intricately constructed melodies and soundscapes, all created using his guitar, a loop pedal, and a special effects pedal.

‘When I originally started this style of music, I intended for it to be done alongside electronica, or laptop music,’ Finnigan explains.

‘But I basically made a decision after developing that sound for a bit to set a challenge of trying to make electronic music using only the guitar and loop pedal, and the particular effects pedal I have.’

Cloudache is a culmination of that attempt to produce a full palette of sounds by manipulating guitar tones in various ways. The tracks range from heavy, beat-driven sounds to lighter, melodic tracks, each with a unique narrative arc. Watching Finnigan play live, his talent as a guitarist is unmistakeable – each song is beautifully layered and detailed. I ask him why he chose to play guitar rather than work with computer programs to create similar sounds.

‘I guess there’s two parts – partly it’s because I had a guitar at the time and it was easier to keep getting better at something that I already had some skill with,’ Finnigan says. ‘But also because using the guitar to create that sort of sound gave me the opportunity to develop a more unique style. Instead of relying on the pre-made sounds used in the laptop, I can try to develop the same sounds through the vibration of the guitar strings, which gives it a different feel to most electronic music.’ Despite the changing nature of music releases, with websites like Bandcamp and Soundcloud making physical EPs more and more redundant, Finnigan feels it’s important to release something tangible with Cloudache. ‘EPs are something physical that sort of nurture and engage the local music scene,’ he says. ‘Even just through live events, they give a sort of narrative to contextualise the different sorts of music in the scene and the progress of musicians and bands.’

The launch will see Finnigan joined by Aphir, Reuben Ingall, and Vacancy, musicians who share Finnigan’s interest in experimental and more electronic-based pop. ‘I’m pretty psyched to have these guys playing with me and I think it’s going to be a great night.’

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CMC presents Fossil Rabbit’s launch at Smith’s Alternative on Wednesday December 11. Price TBA, with Vacancy, Reuben Ingall, and Aphir. 7:30pm.

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Image credit: Oscar Condon

One day it will be great to have epic exhibitions of art on video and music – a total barrage of awesome

ANIMATRONIC DINOSAURS? HEL YEAH! chiara grassia

‘I thought this would either evolve organically or it won’t. But it did, because we did meet some other bands and they were interested in recording with us, so it grew into a community,’ says Becki Whitton, one third of the creative minds behind record label HOLY EUCHARIST LINE (which shrinks down to the fantastic HEL). Although they’ve only just started, Whitton, along with Sam Andrews and Oscar Condon, have assembled a solid roster including Crmwll (Whitton and Andrews’ band) and teenage duo Northumberland, whom both Whitton and Andrews taught – vocals and guitar, respectfully. ‘I guess teaching has been a good way of stealing new talent,’ she says with a laugh. ‘We want to stay pretty eclectic with the sounds that we house on the label – I know Sam’s keen to get more electronic acts as part of it, and even metal bands.’

As the newest label on Canberra’s growing scene, HEL is distinguishing itself with a strong emphasis on visuals and experimentation. A handful of releases and video clips to their name, HEL is already executing their clear vision of marrying sound with

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visual art.

Their logo, created by Condon, is bold and stark, a sleek bastard child of Einstürzende Neubauten’s classic symbol. Listing labels like 4AD and Young Turks as influences, Whitton stresses, ‘We want it to be about more than just music. We want our label to have a brand, and to put out a really good aesthetic – to be more about visuals as well as just sound. One day it will be great to have epic exhibitions of art on video and music – a total barrage of awesome for all of your senses. With time, and with money.’

HEL’s visual visionaries are Condon and photographer Anna Mayberry.

‘They’re really keen on blending the forms of music and art so that they’re basically inseparable from one another – which is a really interesting idea,’ Whitton says, ‘but I’m still not sure if I agree … We all have opinions on this stuff, so there’s a lot of intellectual bickering that goes on.’

The label will launch at the newly-renovated Phoenix on Saturday January 11, the perfect setting for HEL. Preparations are underway, but Whitton keeps quiet on what HEL will be on the bill. ‘We do have a reasonably clear line-up – there will be something old, something new, and something interstate, and now I need something that rhymes with “new”. Maybe the fourth act will paint themselves blue?’

While there’s talk of securing projection screens, the visual elements of HEL’s launch are still being decided. ‘We were talking about having animatronic dinosaurs on stage, but I’m not sure if that’s a joke or not … We want our label to be a place for experimentation, and if we can get enough funding behind us we can make some of our artists’ wildest dreams come true.’

HEL will be launched at The Phoenix on Saturday January 11. Keep an eye on holyeucharistline.com for more information closer to the date.

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Best Shots of 2013

Matt and Kim by Dale Wowk Groovinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; the Moo Canberra

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Best Shots of 2013

Golden Hour by Martin Ollman Canberraâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Centenary Celebrations

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Best Shots of 2013

Skywhale by Adam Thomas Bloom Festival

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THE REALNESS Do you love great food? Do you love hearing classic ‘90s hip hop while eating great food? It’s normally pretty hard to find a café or restaurant combining the two, so imagine my excitement when I rocked up to dinner last Saturday night at Eightsix in Braddon and heard Junior M.A.F.I.A blaring out of the speakers. Okay, must be an error in the playlist, I thought. Get seated and then a Mobb Deep track comes on. For the next two hours it was classic track after classic track. Even had to duck into the toilet to call a mate when KRS ONE’s MC’s Act Like They Don’t Know came on.

Earlier this year, Brisbane/Byron Bay production outfit Resin Dogs

released the first single, Still the Beats featuring Dialectrix, as a little teaser for their forthcoming EP, The Beats Downunder. The EP is available now, and sees the Dogs collaborate with Brisbane songstress Kel on Earth on Ride, and Koolism member Hau on For My People. The EP also includes the original version of the lead single Still the Beats and two remixes by Slynk and OMEGAMAN. Joe Buck has been responsible for creating some of the most iconic hip-hop cover art. For those unaware of his work, he’s responsible for creating the De La Soul logo and the De La Soul Is Dead album cover. More recently, Joe has crafted album covers for the Real Live project on Slice of Spice Records, and many covers for Redefinition Records artists. Joe has recently opened his own store via hollispark.com and made available some of his classic prints that would appeal to fans of Biggie, Nas, or just hip hop heads in general.

The first 100 prints ordered will be signed and numbered.

There have been a couple of impressive releases recently via Mellow Music Group. Worthy of attention is The City under the City by L’Orange and Stik Figa.

L’Orange has dug deep into the crates and blended some lovely sample-based beats that really compliment Kansas City MC Stik Figa. It features guest appearances from fellow label mates yU, Has-Lo, and possible one of the best female MC’s to pick up a mic, Rapsody. May as well cop The City under the City’s instrumentals while you’re at it.

Brother Ali and Jake One have released a brilliant downloadonly project, Left in the Deck.

Unlike conventional download mechanisms, you can only receive the download once you have purchased the Brother Ali ‘Cassette’ t-shirt via the Fifth Element store front. In the meantime, you can enjoy the Left In The Deck tape via YouTube – kind of ironic isn’t it! If you decide to purchase a shirt you may wish to add Step Brothers’ Lord Steppington album to your crate. The Step Brothers project has been a long talked about venture between Evidence and Alchemist, which has finally come to fruition.

Looks like both Ev and Al will be trading verses and it could get a bit competitive, if the recent Step Master video is anything to go by. Fans of the Geto Boys or RapA-Lot Records will be interested in the 30-minute documentary about the legendary group and label out of 5th Ward, Texas. A quick search of Egotripland.com will guide you to the source.

BERT POLE bertpole@hotmail.com

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jade fosberry It’s been an interesting year for hip hop. Babies were made, interviews went awry, musical disses turned into public feuds, and Kanye’s head grew to the size of his girlfriend’s rear-end. But along with all the drama, much more importantly, 2013 saw the production of quality hip hop, from our shores to the other side of the world.

Here are some highlights from the past 12 months: Kanye releases album – world does not stop spinning: Kanye West released his sixth album, cleverly likening himself to a holy figure … something along the lines of ‘Yoses’ … ? The album was bold and experimental, meshing several genres, while still staying true to its hip hop roots. Props to Kanye for stepping out of his comfort zone. That said, Kanye, nothing you release will ever compare to Late Registration. Don’t get me wrong, there were some definite standouts – Bound 2 and Blood On The Leaves were two of my favourites, pairing perfect samples with Yeezy’s killer lyrics.

Kanye somehow also found time to impregnate some video hoe (I can say that since she’s the leading lady of the new POV pornoesque Bound 2 clip). As always, it’s been an interesting year for ol’ Yeezy, but at least the almost definite result will be the release of the single Gold Digger Part 2 – Fool Me Twice, Shame on ‘Ye. So that’s something we can all look forward to.

Collaborations: There were some crazy-brilliant collabs this year. Drapht and Ta-ku, Allday and Bam Bam, Jackie Onassis and Spit Syndicate, and Horrorshow and Suffa, amongst many more, brought brains together to produce hip hop gold. Elsewhere, Britney, Will.I.Am, and Wacka Flocka Flame (and others I’ll spare by not mentioning) managed to produce five minutes of absolute shit. A+, you guys.

Ta-ku: For all the average releases and recordings that took place this year, Ta-ku single-handedly evened things out. In 2012 he released the brilliant 50 Days for Dilla, paying tribute to a legend by creating a Dilla-esque beat for 50 days straight. But it was 2013 that really saw Ta-ku break ground, with his unfaultable beats, but more so with the beautifully haunting Songs to Break Up To. The album encompasses so much emotion in a perfect marriage of hip hop and soul. Put simply, it is art. Ta-ku also managed to keep his hair game fresh for an entire year. Just stop, Regan – you’re making everyone look bad.

Miley Cyrus took on hip hop – both emerged losers: Hip hop, for having been tainted by the devilish (probably diseased) tongue of Miley Cyrus. And Miley, because despite the dollars and publicity, she still looks like an absolute dickhead.

360 gave up on trying to stay relevant: 360 seemed to skyrocket to fame with the release of Falling and Flying in 2011. 2012 was undoubtedly his biggest year in terms of musical accolades, and he managed to take his fame five steps further by creating a massive online presence over every avenue of social media. It quickly became very little about the music, and largely about his personal relationships, very personal attacks, and

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in general, his unsolicited two cents. 2013 finally saw 60’s smoke cloud disappear into irrelevance and we all got a bit of peace and quiet on our daily internet trawl.

The perfection of hip hop sub-genres: The ‘90s brought with it so many alternative ways of making hip hop, but it’s taken a good decade for musicians to perfect the untapped world of hip hop sub-genres. This year, thanks to the likes of Ta-ku, Flosstradamus, and RL Grime, amongst many others, we’ve been able to experience the kick drums, hi-hats, and synth sounds of trap, grime, and glitch-hop like never before. Illy also, somehow, managed to mesh rap with screamo, featuring The Amity Affliction’s Ahren Stringer on one of his tracks. Like most fans of hip hop and hardcore, as much as I wished for the collaboration of genres, I never thought it would turn out well. However Illy, like always, managed to prove the two could get along in one brilliant song. Note: Illy is a professional, please do not try this at home.

Kendrick Lamar’s Control verse: Summary: Kendrick said things, people got angry. All involved proved that rap battles can in fact, be terribly boring.

James Blake’s PDA with hip hop: James Blake is no stranger to tackling various genres. After a year of hinting about his love of hip hop, he finally featured Chance the Rapper on his track, Life Around Here. The result: musical genius.

Drake published his diary in the form of Nothing Was The Same: That’s pretty much it. Also, Drake’s real name is … Aubrey Graham.

The rise of the hip hop vocabulary: The English language was the recipient of a pretty epic slap to the face as news surfaced that the term ‘twerk’ will be added to the Oxford English Dictionary. Fingers crossed other gems like ‘turnt’, ‘thirsty’, and ‘ratchet’ don’t think the same ease of entry applies to them. Again, we can all thank Miley Cyrus for her immeasurable contribution to the hip hop community.

Young, local talent: Ending things on a high note, 2013 saw the rise of so much brilliant, young, hip hop talent. Remi, Allday, Jimblah, and many more proved our country’s hip hop abilities (if ever in doubt) and used 2013 to release some of biggest local hip hop albums, ever. The One Day Crew (Spit Syndicate, Horrorshow, and Jackie Onassis) also managed to kick all the proverbial goals, with the release of three untouchable albums. They also held a series of BBQ/music/general chill sessions in the form of One Day Sundays. In doing so, they grew Sydney’s population by 15%.

All in all: While Miley was busy twerking, Kanye was looking at himself in the mirror, and everyone else in the US was getting fired up at Kendrick, Aussie hip hoppers were proving prolific, producing brilliant beats, and quietly making history.

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is anything to go by, then 2014 should be an amazing year as these various projects continue to build up steam.

So we’ve come to the end of 2013, with this being the last QETCM column you’ll be reading until next year.

There are still some shows to look out for over the intervening period. Australian producer Mr. Bill will be playing at The Clubhouse on Saturday 14 December. If you like glitchy breaks, big basslines, and some sweet melodies then grab yourself a ticket.

This will also be the last big show on Clubhouse’s calendar for the next little while – yet another reason to see him.

And on Friday December 20, UK producer Alex Metric will play at Trinity Bar, supported by the likes of Offtapia, Shaolin, and Kimosabi. The event page on Facebook is talking this one up: ‘It is with great pleasure we announce one of the biggest internationals that will be joining us in the month of December. ALEX METRIC! Lock Fri 20th December in, this is set to be a BIG ONE!’ It’s $15 before 10pm.

Looking back on 2013, it’s been a good year for EDM. Canberra played host to acts such as TOKiMONSTA, Shigeto, Gold Panda, and Max Cooper – with a lot of good work done by Blahnket, among others – while local acts such as Doppel shined.

Burner Collective, and the Burner Collective EPs, showcased the amazing array of talented producers we have in Canberra. If 2013

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There were a lot of amazing releases this year, my favourite, in no particular order: Immunity by Jon Hopkins, II by Moderat, Engravings by Forest Swords, No Better Time Than Now by Shigeto, Nonfiction by The Range, Psychic by Darkside, Nostalchic

by Lapalux, Half of Where You Live by Gold Panda, Exai by Autechre, and Double Cup by DJ Rashad.

As for the very best album of 2013, I can’t go past Psychic by Darkside. Nicolas Jaar is a very talented guy, as is the other half of Darkside, Dave Harrington, and together they’ve got the Midas touch. Their full album length remix of Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories was killer, an indication of their talent and signature sound and what was to come with Psychic. The bluesy guitar lines over the ambient electronic swirls and pining vocals all layer over each other to build a brooding and glorious soundscape.

If you missed any of these, then I highly recommend catching up on them. One new release to add to that list is Cold Mission by Logos.

This album embodies the aphorism ‘less is more’ and proves it true.

The sparseness of its soundscape, particularly during the first half of the album, only makes each punctuation of carefully placed and curated sound all the more impactful. Even when the album does swing into full gear it feels restrained, not in the sense of being limited but rather being economical. Shuddering bursts of bass, icy strings, resounding percussion, and cut-up vocals dart in and out, while the bottomless, disembodied backdrop remains constant.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Holidays, and a Festivus for the rest of us.

DONG HYUN SUH

@bmamag

DANCE THE DROP

Club land is full of archetypal characters, none more polarising than the bouncer. They are tight-shirted gatekeepers who guard the inner sanctum of a venue from the imminent threat of expensive sneakers. They prevent a club from becoming too full of men; a mean feat, for saying ‘Nah mate’ to a bunch of tanked-up alpha males usually results in nasty looks and a ‘Let’s just farkin’ go to Mooseheads’. The grandest bar in the world can lose its lustre if its entrance is flanked by a couple of Neanderthals beating their chests and ogling your girlfriend. Finding a good bouncer is as rare as a modest Kanye quote, but there are good bouncers out there.

They are the loveable death machines who care; they are surly, yet polite. They are capable of insurmountable destruction, yet they are friendly and helpful. Hiring professional bouncers can be the best investment you make for a venue. Next time you step behind the rope, look deep into the eyes of your swollen concierge. If you spy the flaming pits of hell, keep your head down and pray. If you find yourself peering into the soul of a gentle giant, take the time to your fist for a bump that says ‘thank you for allowing me to live’.

Shadow Child, Julio Bashmore and Jacques Greene. It’s been a great year for dance music and to celebrate, here are my top five tunes for 2013. I wish you all a very merry Christmas and a happy and safe start to the New Year.

Tiga Vs Audion – Let’s Go Dancing [One Love] – A proper lesson in pounding quasi-techno. I remember hearing Digitalism drop this at the Ivy Garden Party and my life was changed forever!

Paul Rutherford – Get Real (Pete Gooding’s Secret Life remix) [Selador] – Simply breathtaking, big room progressive house. The chilling chords and emotional bass line provide perfect peak time heart hands for all.

Hot Since 82 – Shadows (feat. Alex Mills) [Moda Black] – One of the best tracks from Little Black Book, Shadows is a dark and wonderful ode to future house music. I’ve played this out more times than I can count and it always goes down a treat.

Pryda – LYCKA [Pryda Recordings] – I’m banking on this being officially released before the end of the year so that it can be included in this list. What can be said about this record that hasn’t already been said about bacon? Perfect in every way.

Disclosure – When A Fire Starts To Burn/White Noise ft.

AlunaGeorge [PMR] – Garage was back in a huge way in 2013 and these feel good tracks from Disclosure really set the standard. I know it’s cheating to include both, but who could separate them!

TIM GALVIN - tim.galvin@live.com.au

Considering that this is the final edition of BMA for the year, let’s talk national holiday parties. On New Year’s Eve, Ivy in Sydney presents Lost & Found featuring US legend Danny Tenaglia, and Bicep, Cyril Hahn, and Will Saul. Locally, Academy features the huge Ministry of Sound Annual party with Uberjakd headlining. For those of you who like to avoid the NYE hubbub, The Met in Brisbane features a monumental party on Friday January 3 featuring Dusky,

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METALISE Where does the time go? It’s finally 666mas, we’ve put another year in the rearview mirror, and for me, it’s been a very interesting year on the Australian metal scene, both locally and nationally.

On the local front, it’s really pleasing to see Warped in town in a week or so. We also have Kylesa and Helmet/Melvins on successive nights at the ANU Bar on Wednesday December 11 and Thursday December 12, respectively. The former is being brought by long time Canberra gig supporter Heathen Skulls, who also have a great international bill at The Basement on Wednesday January 1with Earthless, The Shrine, and Aussie stoner icons Tumbleweed.

Hopefully these sorts of shows do well and lead to more shows here for us, especially as part of the now annual Soundwave sideshow circus that keeps metal heads broke well into autumn.

Heathen Skulls also brought out Germans Kadavar and Swede’s Blue Pills last week, and allowed the rekindled OG line-up of Looking Glass to warm up as Kylesa support. It is just so great to have their world class psyche doom back to full strength.

The Phoenix has also featured a tonne of great, heavier music this year, along with the staple home of metal in the ACT, The Basement.

Belco’s home of heavy have an enormous cache of shows right through the summer. In brief, Sunday December 8 is I Killed the Prom Queen, then Friday December 13 has a huge local bill including Tensions Arise, Scar The Surface, Perpetual End, Johnny Roadkill, and Na Maza. Friday December 20 will bring Basemental 2013, with their own CD launch featuring Knights of the Spatchcock, CHUD, Space Party, Tundrel, and more.

There’s a massive acoustic New Year’s Eve party during the day, leading up to an evening with bands including Temtris, Drillbaba, and Hence the Testbed. There’s also The Boys Of Summer 2014 tour with Blessthefall from the USA, Like Moths To Flames, and The Colour Morale on Tuesday January 14. There is something every weekend, so make sure you get along to a few shows.

Nationally on the metal front, few bands had a 2013 as totally rad as King Parrot off the back of their excellent 2012 album Bite Your Head Off. The country and the world discovered that not only are they a formidable live act, but their acting skills are amazing as demonstrated in the Shit on the Liver and Bozo clips. Gotta go see them on Thursday December 19 at the ANU Bar with Gay Paris!

Also, once again, my favourite album this year has been an Aussie album. That makes three years running, with Melbourne’s The Kill and locals Looking Glass taking the previous two years. This is not a contrived pick to support Aussie music for the sake of it – Portal from Queensland absolutely blew me away with Vexovoid this year and I can’t stress it enough, check out that amazing film clip for Curtain on YouTube. We are consistently punching above our weight on the world stage in this country, and you can see them in early 2014 with the mighty Absu and Denouncement Pyre at The Factory Theatre in Sydney on Saturday March 22.

Have a great festivus and see you in 2014!

JOSH NIXON doomtildeath@hotmail.com

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@bmamag

Depending on if I’m having a fat day or not, there could be nudity

A DARK ARTS ECONOMY ian McCARTHY If you’ve never heard of GAY PARIS, then there’s probably something wrong with you. That’s okay, we’re here to help. Gay Paris are a cheeky hard rock band for the enjoyment of anyone and everyone, with the possible exceptions of the heavily religious and the sexually conservative. If you’re one of those two, you should probably stop reading now.

The band’s front man, Luke ‘Wailin H.’ Monks, recently had a chat to BMA that began on the subject of the band’s newest merchandise – t-shirts with large block letters spelling out the phrase ‘Hail Satan!’.

The explanation: ‘Rather than selling our soul to the devil to make good music, we’re just gonna sell his paraphernalia … It’s a dark arts economy.’ Satan is actually a common theme with Gay Paris, but in a more light-hearted way than you’d usually find. ‘Any instrument with distorted bass is the devil and is going to do strange things to your loins, and I think that’s fine,’ says Monks. ‘If people don’t want to have a good time with a reconfiguring of mythology, well, don’t come to a Gay Paris show.’

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The band’s Facebook page also makes the ambiguous claim that their shows are rarely matched in the amount of beer spilled. When asked if they would ever consider reimbursing fans for their spilled drinks, Monks says, ‘Never. That’s ridiculous. Look, it’s a lot of take on our part and I think that if you’re in the front row, and you should be, then you should be more worried about, “Are you sexy enough?” Not worrying about, “Do I have enough beer left?” Because I will share my hip flask with you.’

Though confident in the band’s sense of self-aggrandisement, Monks seems unsure about some recently observed effects of their music.

‘In the last three months, I’ve noticed we’re getting these, I guess you would call them “mosh pits”, and I’m not sure how I feel about that,’ he says. ‘I’m all for seeing some sweet, sweet cans or a butt being flashed but … if you throw a lady in the air … you have to be a little bit polite with that and not try to, you know, yank her panties off.’

Displaying a glimpse of moral light, he continues: ‘I think I’ve seen stuff that equated to that a couple of times and it puts me on the spot to think, “What is my role, as rock ‘n’ roll lunatic, or possibly decent human being, depending on the hour of the day?” ‘ Gay Paris has an east coast tour with King Parrot in December. For those who don’t know what to expect from the band, Monks says, ‘I’m probably gonna knock your drink over. I’ll share my drink with you.

We’ll hit on your lady friend or your man friend. Depending on if I’m having a fat day or not, there could be nudity.’

Gay Paris will be summoning Satan at the ANU bar with King Parrot on Thursday December 19. Tickets are $15 + bf through Moshtix. Support from Wretch and Zawmbeez.

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baz ruddick Sometimes the hardest thing about being an up-and-coming metal band is standing out from the crowd. The plethora of established metal bands countrywide is astounding, and it seems that in every corner of this great brown land, metal bands are cropping up with similar names, a similar air of pretension, and unfortunately, a general inability to push the boundaries and have a shitload of fun.

Matt Young approaches his band with a unique and refreshing attitude. Like a marauding band of Vikings, the hard hitting, hard partying tour de force KING PARROT is shaking things up in a way that hasn’t been seen for years, leaving a path of decadent destruction and squawking up a shitstorm wherever they go. I caught up with Young before King Parrot embark on a Christmas time tour with swamp rock band Gay Paris.

The brotherhoods of King Parrot and Gay Paris have met with a kindred understanding. A band that puts 100% of their energy into their show is as rare as hen’s teeth in today’s ultra cool and pretentious music scene, but for these two bands, showmanship is paramount. Having appeared alongside each other on the Cherry Rock and Dead of Winter Festivals, the common factor of insanity and stage presence drove them together, despite musical difference. ‘We are both really energetic bands and we really like what each other does,’ Young explains, ‘so we thought, “Let’s give it a try and see what happens”, and we reckon it works pretty well.’

A long-time critic of the Melbourne music scene and the metal scene in general, Young’s solution was not to throw slander from afar, but rather get involved and do it how he thought it needed to be done. ‘Initially when we started there were a fuck load of bands in Melbourne that didn’t fucking do anything and just stood there and shoe-gazed,’ Young says. ‘The crowd just kind of stood passively and didn’t get involved and for some fucking reason that really pissed me off!’ Young’s innate respect for showmanship compelled him to make a difference and disturb the peace for the greater good of man and the live music-going community. ‘Just because it’s a small local gig doesn’t mean you can’t have fun and go nuts. If anything, that should be more of a reason to do that.

People just need a bit of a fucking push sometimes.’

After establishing themselves as a musically capable band, the next step was a stage show with a reputation that preceded them. ‘We pride ourself on the fact that anything can happen at anytime at one of our shows. It’s happened to me plenty of times,’ Young says. ‘I’ve been hit, kicked, slapped, spat [on], and all sorts of shit … I think you want to have that danger element there at a metal gig and you definitely get that at every King Parrot gig.

That is something we are proud of.’ The only thing Matt ruled out completely was old fashioned GG Allin-inspired defecation and turd slinging, despite alluding to pissing himself once mid-show.

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Having conquered Australia in one short year, and with rumours of a Soundwave slot in the pipeline, King Parrot’s sights are now set on the shores of Europe and North America. ‘We set out at the start of this year to try and play around the country as much as we could to solidify ourselves,’ Young says. ‘We wanted to make sure we had the credibility here in Australia as a live band, and hopefully that holds us in good stead so we can get a foothold overseas. We didn’t want to be one of those bands that goes out and buys ourselves onto tours. One, because that doesn’t really sit right with me, and two, because we probably don’t have the fucking money to do it anyway.’

We pride ourself on the fact that anything can happen at anytime at one of our shows

This hard working attitude has paid off, with an invite to the ultra prestigious South by Southwest musical showcase in the United States. ‘I think about 2000 bands from around the world get to go there and play, and to be one of those bands is pretty cool, especially with the sort of music we play! We have some good booking agents overseas and we have a pretty good label with Candlelight Records,’ Young says. ‘Hopefully we get a good US tour out of it so if it happens, it happens, and if we only get to go and do SXSW then that is fucking amazing as well!’

A band that simultaneously shocks and delivers substance with conviction isn’t a band you find every day. As you would expect, a band like King Parrot attracts a special individual. ‘Plenty of those crazy people! We seem to attract them and that is fine with us,’ Young says. ‘They need somewhere to go and we can accommodate them and we embrace them. A lot of King Parrot tattoos have surfaced now. This one guy in Melbourne got one from his elbow to his wrist – and our drummer Skitz actually did it for him!’ A King Parrot tattoo is a badge of honour, a symbol of loyal conviction to the rowdy-fication of our youth, and an unashamed homage to the inner beast that lurks in us all.

Young shares with me an anecdote that epitomises the King Parrot experience: ‘We were playing a show somewhere and this dude in the audience was calling me over between songs.

He had his hand in a fist and I thought he just wanted to fist bump, and he said, “Put your hand out.” I thought he was going to give me some money or something, but when I put my hand out he put a bunch of maggots in it! I just fucking threw them in his face! That was fucked up!’

King Parrot will be destroying the ANU bar with Gay Paris on Thursday December 19. Tickets are $15 + bf through Moshtix.

Support from Wretch and Zawmbeez.

@bmamag

Not to be Debbie Downer, but I was in a really dark place when writing for that record

SOMETHING IN THE WATER carrie gibson KYLESA had hoped to wind down after finishing their last tour, but business has been booming over the past two weeks. They’re preparing for their Australian tour and putting the finals cogs into motion as they launch their own record label, Retro Futurist.

‘Phillip [Cope] and I are just huge music nerds and really into vinyl,’ Laura Pleasants, vocalist and guitarist, says. ‘As we’ve gotten older and more established, we knew now is a good time to do this. The label is still in its baby stages so we’ll see where it goes, but we’re really pumped about it.’

Pleasants is enthusiastic for the venture, and explains that the decision was an important one. ‘There are a lot of good bands out there that maybe don’t have a lot of exposure, so bigger labels won’t necessarily pick up those bands because they don’t have the experience,’ she says. ‘We do so much promotion ourselves for Kylesa so it was sort of a natural process to go down this road.’

Georgia, to the sludge enthusiasts, seems to be the sludge metal capital of the world, and it would be easy to suggest there’s something

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in the water. ‘Oh yeah, the water here – you don’t really want to drink it, but it flows through our veins anyway,’ Pleasants laughs. ‘I had just moved to Savannah to go to college, my first band was like surfy, punk garage rock, very blues based … Then I saw Damad, Phillip’s old band, they were the kings of scene down here and I was just hungry for music, you know … I saw a lot of these sludge bands – so that turned me onto the sound.’

When Pleasants thinks sludge metal, original sludge, bands like the Melvins or the more extreme Buzzoven and EyeHateGod are most prominent. ‘When I heard Buzzoven for the first time I was like “Whoa!

What is happening, it’s scary, its edgy it’s fucking heavy,” so that was a big moment for me.’

Ultraviolet – the band’s latest album, and highest charting to date – was influenced by some dark events in Pleasant’s life. ‘Not to be Debbie Downer, but I was in a really dark place when writing for that record,’ she says. ‘I had just lost my mother to a long battle with cancer and I was just deeply sad, and the only thing I could really muster was slower, more melodic songs. I didn’t feel like writing anything fast or rocking or brutal, I was just very much in a mood, and I explained that to the guys.’

Pleasants states firmly that she never wants to write an album like it again.

Not being seasoned travellers of Australia, Kylesa aren’t sure what to expect. But as excitement grows, Pleasants sums up her praise for the Great Southern Land: ‘It’s paradise, if I could live there, I totally would.’

Kylesa will be performing at ANU Bar on Wednesday December 11. Doors open at 8pm, and support is from Rise of Avernus and Looking Glass.

Tickets are $35 + bf through trybooking.com/DSKY.

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be supported by Gentlemen from Melbourne and local hardcore punks Hygiene.

Well, here it is – the final instalment of Punk and Disorderly for 2013. It’s been a great year for punk in Canberra, with hardly a week gone by without a range of great punk artists playing shows in local venues.

In 2013, the new alternative label Cinnamon Records was established, local legends Super Best Friends went viral with their video for Round and Round, hundreds of interstate and international bands drove in and out of Canberra, and you dear reader, undoubtedly attended a countless number of loud, crazy, sweaty punk shows.

Firstly, I’d like to give big congratulations to Revellers, who won the 2013 MAMA for Best Heavy Act, and Super Best Friends, co-winners of the 2013 MAMA for Best ACT Rock Artist. We’ll be looking forward to hearing more from them in the new year.

If you’re lucky enough to have picked this up in time, you can catch Japanese garage-punk trio Guitar Wolf at The Basement on Wednesday December 4, with local support from Bacon Cakes and Little Mac and the Monster Men. Tickets are $28.60 + bf through Oztix.

On Thursday December 5, California’s Lecherous Gaze will be stopping by The Phoenix Bar. According to Facebook, they plan to ‘burn your brains with the hottest coals of the devil’s riffs.’ They’ll

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A week later, on Thursday December 12, the previously congratulated Revellers will be taking stage at The Phoenix Bar. They will be accompanied by Outlines and Break a Leg from Victoria, along with locals No Assumption. Entry will be $5 on the night.

Friday December 16 will be a big night at Magpies City Club in Civic, with local post-punk outfit Mornings taking the stage as well as Sydney bands Beast & Flood and Thomas Covenant.

They’ll be supported further by locals Central West and A Drone Coda. All of this for just $5 at the door.

The same night will see sludge rock legends The Melvins taking over the ANU Bar along with their alt-metal mates in Helmet. Tickets are $75.45 + bf through Ticketek.

On Boxing Day, Thursday December 26, Melbourne’s Strawberry Fist Cake will be stopping by The Basement as part of their Summer Time Treats East Coast Tour. They’ll be joined by Litter and more local bands yet to be confirmed.

As always, make sure to tune into 2XX FM every Monday night at 9:30pm to get a weekly update on upcoming punk and hardcore gigs, as well as a great big dose of the best new local, Australian, and international punk and hardcore music.

So that’s Punk and Disorderly for 2013. I can’t wait to keep writing in the new year, which will hopefully be packed with just as many drunken, dirty, classless moments as this one.

IAN McCARTHY

@bmamag

EVERYBODY’S GOOD AT SOMETHING dan bigna Merciless riffs slash through HELMET’s greatest music. The opening shotgun chords to In the Meantime from the 1992 album Meantime are a heat flash before the explosion. The band’s best album, Betty, was an album like no other released at the time, and is one of the finest post-punk statements of the 1990s. Helmet had forged its own white-hot path within so-called alternative music. Similar things were happening in the Pacific Northwest, which is why the coming together of Helmet and the Melvins for an Australian tour is something of beauty.

We were just doing something that we believed in and loved

Helmet main dude Page Hamilton tells me that one of the earliest tours the band did was with the Melvins, and a forthcoming split 7-inch with them is a full circle moment. Hamilton very much cares about his music, and a jazz guitar background keeps him highly attuned to the impact of all manner of variations in a seasoned guitarist’s arsenal.

‘There’s always stuff the second an album is mixed and mastered where you are like, “Oh man, this would have been way cooler”,’ Hamilton says. ‘On Like I Care from Aftertaste I had this one change in the second chorus that I came up with after everything had been done, and we went in and recorded just that little section and then we had to splice it into the mastering session, just that one little bit.’

Listening to the music of others also impacts upon a restless creative desire to get the sounds and words right, but sometimes another artistic sensibility isn’t easy to discern. ‘I listened to the Melvins album [Senile Animal] and I just went, “Holy fucking shit. I had no idea this album was that good”,’ Hamilton says. ‘So I got online thinking this will be good for lyric inspiration and I was like, “Wrong! I have no idea what he’s talking about.” ‘ When Hamilton lets out guttural screams to close Street Crab on Betty, I’m not sure what he’s saying either. But it’s the sound that counts, and the hardcore funk of Helmet attracted major label attention when the band was at its heaviest. ‘Helmet was exploding in Europe and the US, but the grunge explosion upped the ante and probably tripled our record deal,’ Hamilton says. ‘We knew were going to have to jump to a major label, but when Nirvana broke, that sort of blew the doors off, like, “Oh my god, indie bands can be big.” And they were interesting times for sure. But my band was doing what we set out to do and it’s not like we were going to climb to a major label and try to accommodate some marketplace … We were just doing something that we believed in and loved.’

A former family member confirmed this for Hamilton. ‘My ex father-in-law said all I write is fuck-you songs,’ Hamilton laughs. ‘Well, everybody’s got to be good at something.’

Helmet and (the) Melvins will blow the doors off ANU Bar on Thursday December 12. Doors 7:30pm, and tickets are $75.45 + bf thru Ticketek.

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E X H I B I T I O N I S T

FUTURE REFLECTIONS alice McSHANE How appropriate it is, as we farewell Canberra’s first centenary, to look to our cultural future, acknowledging that while there is much work to be done, we can tentatively hope the next one will be better.

For their latest exhibition, FUTURE PROOF, Canberra Contemporary Arts Space (CCAS) has assembled a group of exceptional artists whose work is not only futuristic, but ingrained in contemporary art practice. Clearly, CCAS will not be bidding farewell to 2013 with a fizzle. The excitement emanating from the gallery is multifaceted: the five curators for this exhibition have been brought together as a tour de force creative team from this year’s centenary program, the artists to be showcased have not been seen in any other CCAS centenary event, and their works will seek not to establish an end or beginning but will posit a future in continuous dialogue with our present.

I sat down with two Future Proof curators, Annika Harding and Alexander Boynes, to discuss the upcoming exhibition, which was born not of an urge to ward or make impervious our society against the future. Instead ‘proof’ here is closer to its use in advertising. A draft, a first attempt.

‘It’s not necessarily set in stone; it’s just our take on what the future might hold,’ Harding says. ‘We want to acknowledge that the past always repeats itself, so there will be elements in the future that have popped up in the past, but we’re also thinking about ways in which people work, and the kinds of materials people use, and the kind of ideas that people engage with, that we think will probably have a lot of relevance going forwards as well.’ For Boynes, the ideas of relevance, newness, and experimentation are of interest. ‘There’s this interesting point between an established artist, who’s got a set formula and they paint the same picture every time, and it sells every time, because people want to buy that picture, people want to own “one of them”,’ Boynes says. ‘These guys are not necessarily at that point, which is really exciting, but they do have very specific things and they’re on their own trajectories. They’ve got great potential and enthusiasm.’

Alongside Harding and Boynes, David Broker, Anni Doyle Wawrzynczak, and Janice Falsone make up the curatorial team who all have each been allowed to select two artists for the exhibition.

Boynes opted for a collaboration between Gregory Hodge and Clare Thackway. These Canberra-based painters come at art from different angles, notes Boynes: ‘Greg Hodge through mostly abstraction in a very loose sense and Clare Thackway through figurative representational work.’ Timothy Dwyer (also known as Horse MacGyver), an ‘underground hero of electronic music’, was Boynes’ other selection. This cyber-punk artist embraces new media

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and technology to deal with what it means to be living with the unprecedented scope of social media. As Boynes explains, it will explore, ‘the overwhelming sense of what it means to exist with the internet in this day and age, but with reference to the broader picture coming through pop culture from the ‘70s and ‘80s.’

Annika Harding’s pointed choices were Jonathan Webster and Rosalind Lemoh. ‘Ros engages with a lot of ideas about industrial waste and the human body, and the changing nature of how we interact with a whole range of chemicals and industrial processes, and what that means for the environment and bodies,’ she says.

‘I chose Jon Webster because he works in this really interesting way. His art practice becomes a part of his life and something as simple as going for a walk leads to work that happens both outside and in the studio with found objects, stuff he finds along the way. So I thought that was an interesting take on what the future holds for artists.’

The complete list of artists exhibiting includes Nicci Haynes, whose impressive output of chaotic, shadowy pieces has exhibited around Australia. Glass as an instrument of change is the ambition of local glassworker Jo Wu, who has previously used the form to explore gender and nature. Former CCAS resident Daniel Vukovljak creates a dialogue between popular culture and classic art forms in his work. Frank Thirion will also feature, his geometric work inspired by environments both natural and man-made. Patsy Payne characterises the relationship between the individual and the world as a ‘permeable membrane’. Finally, Brendan Murphy adds a sophisticated minimalist aesthetic.

The diversity of artistic forms embraced in this exhibition speaks to the optimism Boynes wishes to evoke. ‘Getting home town acknowledgement or support from the greater arts community is hard,’ he says. ‘It’s trying to focus on the fact that we’ve got some awesome stuff going on here, and try to get people really excited and get people supporting it, and also encourage people to keep on making, and grow and develop into the future. There are so many great artists in this city and this country, if you don’t find something to get excited about, at least one work that makes you impressed, then you’ve got your eyes closed.’

With the perspectives of five curators and 11 artists, this frenetic, chaotic, apocalyptic, yet optimistic exhibition will be anything but predictable. How could it be? The idea of future deserves flux, unknowability. It is not something you can be told.

Future Proof will be held at the Canberra Contemporary Art Space at Gorman House between Fri Dec 6–Sat Feb 8. See our Entertainment Guide for Christmas opening days. Entry is free.

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Undertow; Gregory Hodge & Clare Thackway

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UNINHIBITED Earlier this year I had a rambling conversation with a friend about a tiptop business idea. When I say conversation, I mean rant, with said friend kindly nodding at various points, but still.

It was all about setting up a ‘Tinkerium’, a place where our various skills could be housed in a super-awesome-but-light-on-practicaldetail money spinning space.

See, I’d be at the perfectly built sweeping counter bench, tapping away on Government contract editing jobs (the amount of cash our Government spends on getting mindless publications subbed and re-written in plain English is amazing. Amazing). The bench would be in a room, perfectly appointed, where you could come and buy paperbacks and vinyl, get a suit cut from an in-house tailor, even get a light haircut. There’d be whiskey tasting sessions and fine coffee.

Out the back would be a shed, where people who don’t get a chance to make things could do so under the tutelage of my friend, who is one of these modern freaks able to, like, build stuff. Beautiful stuff.

Furniture. Pocket watches. Whatevers. Lovely things to last.

The idea springs from two places. First is an attraction to the making of things. The second has everything to do with a gnawing disgust of acquiring mass produced stuff.

Our town is set around places of commerce. As Christmas approaches, we’ll be heading down to the mall en masse. The centre

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of Canberra is not full of stunning vistas and broad boardwalks, but malls. Each town centre repeats the dose. We gather in these places and shop as recreation. The cards are stacked against the non-shoppers. And we know that this is not good for us. But we feel powerless to stop it.

The first world works on an entirely unsustainable premise – that the entire economic show hinges on the perpetual acquisition of objects and services. And unless you have the hoarding gene, that means we’re buying and discarding.

It’s a deeply unsatisfying experience. You know it is. ‘Cos you’re stuck in it too. I’ve seen you, and we’ve exchanged knowing looks.

I get it.

Which is why I’m telling you this. Next year, let’s spend less. I’m not suggesting a monkish right-on holier-than-thou campaign. Nor am I suggesting that we can hold hands and watch as local business burns. Not at all.

I am saying that if you’re going to spend your hard earned, maybe do so on something made with the hands of those with whom you’re exchanging your currency.

It’s a yes to lunch at Sweet Bones and Močan, locally designed and made clothes at Wild Wood, stuff for the home picked up at art and design school grad shows or CraftACT – and it’s a firm no to global entities, ‘fast fashion’ houses, any business with operations based in horrific crumbling death-trap sweatshops in Bangladesh (especially ‘Yogawear’ businesses based on the philosophy of Ayn Rand).

Let’s start pre-Christmas. Go local, high quality, and hand made.

GLEN MARTIN glenpetermartin@gmail.com

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ARTISTPROFILE: Daniel Vukovljak

What do you do? I divide my time between painting, making drawing machines, traditional and 3D animation, working on comic books, printmaking, collage, and interactive video art.

When, how and why did you get into it? When I was a young lad, my mum bought me a Spiderman comic that had him in a Star Wars ripoff story. I thought it was so cool that I wanted to draw everything in it. That pretty much started it all.

Who or what influences you as an artist? Old masters such as Caravaggio and Raphael, comic book illustrators like Buscema, Kirby, and Mignola, animation (early Disney, Pixar), contemporary artists like Doig, Richter, Tuymans, and my art school friends. And Google.

Of what are you proudest so far? Parenthood aside, it would have to be the unveiling of a painting I did for my sister’s birthday.

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I painted a pig Mona Lisa, and she cried uncontrollably out of laughter for five minutes straight. Don’t think I’ll ever have a reaction like that again.

What are your plans for the future? I’m hoping to make more collaborative works. Definitely no more pig Mona Lisas.

What makes you laugh? My kids – it’s funny what they repeat back to you. No, I said, ‘OH TRUCK!’ What pisses you off? Nobody pisses me off more than myself.

What about the local scene would you change? It would be good to see more non-art-crowd people making it to art openings – there is much to experience.

Upcoming exhibitions? I’m in a group show put on by local art curators called Future Proof. It’s at the Canberra Contemporary Art Space, Gorman House, opening Friday December 6 until Saturday February 8. All welcome.

Contact Info: danvoid.com.

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CUTTING YOUR TEETH IN CANBERRA mel cerato Starting out in 2008, performing in the Canberra Heat of the Green Faces competition, DANIEL CONNELL cut his comedy teeth at some of the city’s renowned comedy nights, before moving to Melbourne to establish himself in the local scene. His laid-back observational humour has earned him some prime spots at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and seen him perform with some of the country’s top comedic talent. He is also co-creator of the Must See Comedy Festival, which will hit Canberra again early next year.

‘Tim Duck and I created the idea to have a tour of Canberra and then somewhere down the coast,’ Connell explains, ‘and ‘cause I’m from Bateman’s Bay we always do one there, and Ulladulla the previous two years but not this year. We put a show together and try to do it at the same time every year, and me being down here in Melbourne, I’m able to contact a few bigger names that we can get to come to Canberra.’ Some of those big names include Bob Franklin, the Nelson Twins, and this year’s headliner, American comedian Jeff Green. Next year will be the third year for the festival and is sure to be a big one, with Aussies Mick Meredith and Harley Breen headlining.

‘Last year we had about 240 people there,’ says Connell. ‘It’s getting some good momentum, people are remembering the brand and the title. It’s always that second week of January. This year’s show was a real success, so fingers crossed.’

Connell has learnt a lot about the industry through his involvement with the festival, and thanks the city of Canberra for the best start in comedy he could ask for.

‘Canberra is definitely a great place to start. Everyone is so helpful and there isn’t too much pressure to perform, because there aren’t a great deal of comedians. Also, the crowds are very good and responsive,’ Connell says.

‘When I started, it was a very tight knit group, quite a small scene compared to other cities,’ Connell remembers fondly. ‘Everyone was really friendly, and there was only three or four rooms when I started – now I think there might be five! A lot of them are monthly rooms, so you can get up to five times a month if you are really proactive, and I thought that was a lot when I lived there. But then once you move to Melbourne and there are like 30 rooms, you can do five a week some weeks.’

Having such a busy schedule might seem like hard work, but Connell takes it in his stride and is looking forward to watching the Must See Comedy Festival grow bigger and better in years to come.

See Daniel Connell and a bunch of other funny people at the Must See Comedy Festival when it comes to Casino Canberra on Thursday January 9.

Tickets are $22 through comedyact.com.au, or $25 on the door.

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of the community to help rein in the unsavoury elements of your society, which so often appear lauded rather than lamented.

New as I am to the dishevelled, amateur operation of BMA Magazine, run by what one can only assume is the Centre for Reformed Second-Tier Offenders over at Gorman House, just one of the many impertinences thrust upon me during my admirable patronage has been the existence of an emboldened end-of-year edition. An edition whose intention it is to review and recap the previous year’s activity, however disgusting.

To review my own experiences would be to subject myself to a period of such unrelenting revulsion and disenchantment that I’m not sure there are sufficient stocks of morphine in the world to sustain me.

I am still at a loss to identify the historical worth provided by the advent of the ‘twerk’ (a dubious practice whereby one surrenders one’s buttocks to unspecified employment by another); a society where young women prosecute their annexation of strength and independence by dressing as enslaved prostitutes; where young men attempt to bolster their masculinity by ingesting all manner of potions until they resemble irritable silverback gorillas, only to simultaneously wear shorts above the knee.

I confess to finding the whole experience exhausting. How can one possibly volunteer to relive such trauma, let alone attempt to divine worth within its shameful performance? You may have heard me advocate for regular, ordered public beatings involving all sections

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However, several court appearances later and I find that your spineless judiciary would rather lambast a gentleman for administering the wholly justified flagellation of an adolescent than tell said adolescent to pull his bloody trousers up.

I’m sure there are many other contributors to these pages who will do a better job than I in distilling the nature of these times, and I can only presume that the dictatorial demands of Mr Ashley Thomson and his cabal of reprobates upon my time are in anticipation of the receipt of longer-term perspective – a position I find myself uniquely placed to inhabit, afloat as I am on a crest of mind-bending barbiturates.

So, what wisdom can I offer you young ones? How can you learn from the mistakes of the past to better your futures? In short, you can’t.

You are all utterly without merit and beyond hope. You who would extend the highest political office in the land to those-who-shallnot-be-named, without any prospect of a corrupting yet profitable kick-back for your troubles, frankly deserve to be exposed to the likes of The Bachelor and LMFAO. All is lost! Surrender to filth and debauchery! Extinguish the flame of human advancement with the tempest of irresponsible drug intake until the smouldering core of goodness can be rekindled anew! Save future generations by sacrificing yourselves!

Desecrate the temples built to the saccharine self-involvement of Oprah Winfrey and her insidious self-help offspring! Raze this Babylon and build again upon the bones of the Bieber! gideon foxington-smythe

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A R T | C O M E DY | D A N C E | L I T E R AT U R E | T H E AT R E of reason – I’m the kind of hipster jerk that wears black jeans and a flannelette shirt to the beach. What. A. Massive. Cockhead!

So why the prejudice? I guess it’s because they look different. They smell different. They even talk, it seems, in a completely different language. It’s not their fault that this is their reality, it’s just who they are. And they’re doing their best.

Bloody Boat People In Australia, right now, the subject of boats and the people in them is quite contentious. It’s interesting to me that if you’re the member of a yacht club and wear silly shoes, for the most part you’ll face no prejudice in life.

However, spend $80,000 on your family’s safety and you’ll likely have your rickety un-seaworthy vessel ripped apart by the Australian navy and be condemned to an indefinite time somewhere that’s anywhere but here.

I live in Melbourne, in the suburb of Elwood, which is on Port Phillip Bay. And so I am lucky to have easy access to the beach at the end of my street. It’s not exactly the surf coast, it’s more shipping lane and effluent, but a beach nonetheless.

Also at the beach I visit is a private marina. It’s a meeting place for yacht jockeys and their upper-middle class twatty friends to wine and dine and enjoy the spoils of their labour (or their daddies’). I see them when I go for a walk and when I’m playing in the potentially syringe-laden sand with my three-year-old. And I think to myself when I look upon their perfect bodies adorned with their perfect pastel shirts, ‘Fuck, I’d love to slap you right in your noise hole!’ I don’t know why I think that. They’ve done nothing to me. They’ve never said anything offensive to me, they’ve never threatened my child or even given me a dirty look, and my word, I’ve given them plenty

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So I should think this, too, would be our attitude towards asylum seekers. A group of people, only connected by their burning desire to survive, and to flee where they are, for whatever reason that is and by any means they can. It’s not something to be fearful of. It should be something to admire and inspire.

At the very least they’re just a bit different. In fact they have a lot in common with yacht jockeys, and most people look at them with admiration. They both socialise on boats, they both spend a hell of a lot of money on their boats and they both wear, in my opinion, silly looking clothes. So it shouldn’t be that hard for us all to treat both of these groups with the same level of dignity! A little more charity and little bit more good old Aussie ‘couldn’t give a toss what you do’ attitude.

P.S. The term ‘boat people’ with regards to asylum seekers is incorrect! It’s divisive and has been used as a political tool to separate us from reality in order to create fear and hate within the hearts of the Australian people. We’re all better than that!

Sorry this hasn’t been funnier. Something, something, something, cock joke! Also yacht jockey is offensive and incorrect. They prefer yacht rider. Or yacht jerk. harley breen - Appearing as part of Must See Comedy festival on Thursday January 9 at Casino Canberra. Tickets are available through comedyact.com.au.

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LITERATURE IN REVIEW The Tournament Matthew Reilly [Orion; 2013]

In 1546, a teenaged Elizabeth Tudor goes on a secret journey to Constantinople to attend an international chess competition hosted by Sultan Sulemain. While there, she discusses theology and feminism with Michelangelo and Ignatius Loyola, flirts with Ivan the Terrible, encounters the horrors of the appetites of royalty and priests, accidentally embroils herself in palace politics, and helps her teacher solve a tidy half-dozen murders.

This book is utterly ridiculous from just about every angle, and I am definitely going to read it at least twice more.

Reilly’s strength as writer has always been his pacing, his ability to drop the reader head-first into the most absurd situations and give them no time to question it. The Tournament is a departure from his usual oeuvre – it’s a historical mystery rather than a Die Hard-style action extravaganza – but his usual tactic of upping the stakes beyond the willing suspension of disbelief, and then upping them a little bit more, works just as well here as it does for the team of marines fighting aliens in Antarctica, which is Reilly’s favoured genre.

Despite having a premise so impossible it is sure to make historians everywhere groan, the storytelling is rich in period detail and the mystery genuinely surprising. The interplay between the various nobles, royals, and churchmen creates a fascinating portrait of the political scene of the time – the golden age of the Ottoman Empire, the Protestant schisms, and the intricate world of the palace all

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centred around the game of chess – which provides an ever-apt metaphor for politics.

More than anything else, though, it’s a coming of age for the young princess at the centre of the story, a glimpse at what sort of childhood events might have moulded a disfavoured third child into the most successful lone queen in British history. Elizabeth is very young and sheltered at the beginning, but in Constantinople, under the guidance of her teacher Roger Ascham, she begins to develop the steely determination and stubborn independence she was famed for. Her lifelong distaste for marriage begins here as well, as she observes the powerful men around her use sex and loyalty as tools of dominance and control.

However, the sexual politics of the book may be its weakest point, slipping often into totally unnecessary sensationalism and purple prose, especially given Elizabeth’s youth and naivete.

The Tournament is very silly, but cracking good fun and extremely readable; recommended summer reading, so long as you aren’t expecting high literature. emma grist

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CLASSICS IN REVIEW One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel García Márquez [First published: 1967]

In Gabriel García Márquez’s modern epic, One Hundred Years of Solitude, we witness the generational adventures and conflicts, trysts and tragedies of the Buendía family of Macondo.

The Buendía family, headed by the patriarch Jose Arcadio and his ancient wife Úrsula Iguarán, planted its roots in Macondo and extended them down through seven generations of romantics and revolutionaries, orphans and illegitimates, hermits and heroes. Founded with high hopes of being a Jerusalem of the Americas, Macondo soon becomes more of a Cuidad Constitución of Peru; a capital city built in the heart of the nation, but soon forgotten by its founders and reclaimed by the forest around it.

The promise of Macondo and its founder is ever elusive, forever foregone, and eventually forgotten by all. But in the rise and fall of Macondo, with all its fantastic characters and catastrophes, there is great humour, great humanity, and great heartbreak: a true tragiccomedy of the Americas.

It is said that this story of the Buendías may be read as a history of Colombia, but perhaps One Hundred Years of Solitude might also be understood as a history of Latin America generally, and still more, a history of colonialism. It is also said that magic realism is the literature of post-colonial peoples. If this is true, then perhaps in our own country – a country slowly coming to grips with its past of conquest and colony – it is Richard Flanagan who, in his Death of a River Guide, paints an emerging portrait of our post-colonial selves by casting aside those more ‘traditional’ understandings of narrative arc to write with a fluidity of time and a ‘closeness to myth’ (as it was put by Jorge Luis Borges, the Argentine father of magic realism).

Not a closeness to foreign myth of nation and empire, but to native myth of dreamtime and ancestral lore.

In Marquez’s Macondo, time does not follow our time’s rules: it is fluid, flux, transient, not bound by dawn or dusk, nor even death itself. Their time instead follows the form described by Borges, who, writing in Stories from Turkestan, tells us that in pre-modern worlds, ‘time aspires to eternity’. It is there in that eternal world, the world of the Buendía family, where time ‘not only expands, but has the loose shape of dreams’. It is there, in Macondo, where life is lived ‘broad like a dream’, where the communal life is one lived with ‘a closeness to myth, to dreams, to any eventuality’. It is there, in the world of One Hundred Years of Solitude, that Márquez gives us a feeling of what Borges called the ‘nostalgia for life’ – the yearning for a world without separation of object and subject, past and present, myth and reality; an organic world where life is lived raw. timothy ginty

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bit PARTS WANDERLUST WHAT: Art Exhibition WHEN: Wed Nov 20 – Sat Mar 1 WHERE: Canberra’s East Hotel Simon Wilde’s art shows a love for exploring the unknown. As a traveller, his work is inspired by his wanderings, so it seems appropriate that his latest exhibition is titled Wanderlust. Wilde has lived in places as far afield as China and West Africa, visited over 60 countries in total, and even hitch-hiked across the Sahara Desert. Set inside the atrium of the boutique East Hotel, Wanderlust will show pieces at different stages in Wilde’s artistic evolution, with Wilde linking his travels and art. ‘Creating art has the same mentality as traveling – for me it’s about doing something different and seeing what happens.’ Entry is free.

OLD BUS DEPOT MARKETS WHAT: Christmas Markets WHEN: Saturdays and Sundays in December before Christmas WHERE: Old Bus Depot Markets, Kingston That end of year rush to find Christmas gifts is often far more stressful than it should be. Thankfully, the Old Bus Depot Markets are here to solve that problem all through December. ‘You can stock up on Christmas decorations, food and gifts for family and friends, without all the crowds and mass produced items you find in the major shopping centres,’ Director Morna Whiting says. Don’t forget to check out all of the deals at the Annual Christmas Stallholder Sale on Sat Dec 7 too.

Entry to the markets is free, and they open from 10am–4pm. See obdm. com.au for more information.

HIDE WHAT: Art Exhibition WHEN: Wed–Sun December 4–15 WHERE: ANCA Gallery Hide is a showcase of new work from emerging artist Haeli Van Veen.

A graduate of the ANU School of Art and recipient of the 2012 ANCA EASS (ANU School of Art Emerging Artist Support Scheme), Van Veen is a talented, multi-disciplinary artist, who makes use of drawing, photography, and mixed media sculpture to explore the traditions and protective rites of a number of Indigenous cultures (such as the Inuit and Berber). Hide also examines the cultural significance of animals in legend, and how that impacts upon ethnographic tattoo. Hide opens at 6pm on Wed Dec 4. ANCA is open from 12–5pm, Wed–Sun. THE MUSICAL OF MUSICALS (THE MUSICAL!) WHAT: A Musical, Duh WHEN: Thu–Sat December 5–21 WHERE: The Courtyard Studio After selling out performances in 2009 and 2010, Everyman Theatre is bringing back The Musical of Musicals (The Musical!) with its original Canberra cast and crew! Directed by Duncan Ley and Duncan Driver, and written by Eric Rockwell and Joanne Bogart, it’s a clever homage to five of the most prolific composers of musical theatre. The core story turns into the plot for five musicals, each exploring the style of another composer, and the five performers leap between roles and musical styles, resulting in something everyone will love. $42 + bf through canberratheatrecentre.com.au.

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TRADE NIGHT MARKET WHAT: Fair, Handmade, and Organic Market WHEN: Fri Dec 6 WHERE: The Canberra Environment Centre The Canberra Environment Centre will be holding its third Christmas night market this December. Featuring fair, handmade, and organic goods, this year will be bigger than ever, with more stallholders who will be selling eco-friendly fair trade goods. There’ll be plenty to pick up and put under the tree – plus you won’t feel bad about contributing to the consumer waste that so often comes with Christmas. Get away from the malls, grab some food from the stalls, and visit the pop-up wine bar stocked with local produce. Brother Be will be providing tunes, and entry is free, with the market going from 5–9pm.

TEDXCANBERRAWOMEN 2013 WHAT: TEDxCanberra Talks WHEN: Fri Dec 6 WHERE: Visions Theatre, National Museum of Australia For the second year, TEDxCanberra will be joining up with TEDWomen to host a satellite event. In what is a special opportunity to share and discuss ideas with a diverse group of women and men, this year’s event, titled Invented Here, will include a session with the TEDWomen event on screen, and a session with Canberra women presenting talks. The talks will run from 1–4:30pm, and there will be plenty of free exhibitions to check out before and after, including activities suitable for children.

Tickets are $40, and registration for the event is open now. See tedxcanberra.org for more information.

HOLLYDAYS WHAT: Art Exhibition WHEN: Fri–Tue December 6–24 WHERE: Bilk Gallery, Manuka Bilk Gallery will be looking back on a year of exhibitions, while celebrating 2014 with its annual Christmas exhibition. The exhibition will feature work by Kath Inglis, Sarah Murphy, Mio Kuhnen, Tanja Taglietti, Lisa Cahill, Mel Douglas, Marian Hosking, Sue Lorraine, Jess Dare, Alice Potter, Johannes Kuhnen, Bin Dixon-Ward, and Catherine Truman. You can make use of their Wishing Tree – an ingenious solution to the problem of finding people the gifts they want – and if you’re just gift shopping, they have jewellery and glassware in stock along with gift vouchers. The opening celebration is on Fri Dec 6, 6–8pm.

HUSTLE&SCOUT WHAT: Markets and Music WHEN: Sat Dec 14 WHERE: NewActon Nishi & Hotel Hotel Hustle&Scout is a seasonal market that brings local musical talent and innovative fashion straight to the public. The upcoming market will take place across two floors of the Nishi building in NewActon, and will display work from 32 designers and vintage collectors. Local musicians Lavers, Beth n Ben, and DJ Louderest, will be performing, with Lavers playing songs from their forthcoming album. There’ll also be performances from Sarina Del Fuego; April’s Caravan will have roaming models; and there’ll be a styling suite presented by Haus Models and stylist, Annie Brown. Entry is free, and the markets will go from 3–8pm.

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on albums

Kelly brings the grit that I find Finn misses (and needs – live versions of his entire oeuvre always trump the more precious recordings thereof). Finn brings touches of the mystical and a peerless melodic sensibility. And each voice is one of hard won experience. Kids, youth really isn’t where it’s at. Getting old and knowing shit trumps dumb haircuts and the temerity to wear short shorts every day.

album of the issue neil finn & paul kelly Goin’ Your Way [emi] In February I went to the best gig of the year. An unexpected highlight. Paul Kelly and Neil Finn were meant to offer up sonic comfort food, and instead served some kinda of Heston Blumenthalmeets-your Nanna’s pot roast melange.

High art that satisfies. It was an incredible evening. And fortunately, they’ve released an incredible document thereof. This review has to be of the record as a record, not of a memory of a show or as a compilation of songs so firmly entrenched in the national psyche. And as a record, Goin’ Your Way is triumphant.

The banter is cut, and while the banter was a highlight of the show, we don’t need it. Instead, the only thing that indicates a live performance is the applause, a couple of sing-along shout outs, and the occasional mistake.

What elevated the show and elevates this LP is the way the songs are shared.

The sense of timing, the use of these two very different talents, and the general lack of ego (or perhaps equally matched ego) mean that each song is improved. If there’s a long-term problem, it might be that from now on there’s a bunch of Paul Kelly songs let down by the lack of Neil Finn, and vice versa. The two bring such incredible strengths and deploy these perfectly. Perfectly. It stunned me on the night and it does so on this record.

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In terms of highlights, where to begin?

Disc one and disc two? That’ll do.

There are no missteps, though Into Temptation, You Can Put Your Shoes Under My Bed, Distant Sun, She Will Have Her Way, Careless, Deeper Water, Only Talking Sense, and Leaps & Bounds are all astonishing. Family is a theme throughout (with Dan Kelly and Elroy Finn supporting, alongside incredible bassist Zoe Hauptmann – probably the best all star backing band ever assembled in this nation), which is why Won’t Give In becomes a standout. A song about the good and bad that flows from being part of a clan soars in this take. And it gives the listener a big clue as to why this tour and album work so well. These are two towering figures of our cultural landscape interested in exploring the many facets of belonging – there’s a humility rubbing against the ambition both men possess in quarts.

If there’s anything to balance this gushing, it’s these three piddling points; the sequencing of Love is the Law after the twin towers of Don’t Dream It’s Over and To Her Door is a bit off. Secondly, I could have done with They Thought I Was Asleep and the post punk shreddage version of I Got You that other shows on the tour received.

And finally, it would’ve been a nice touch to include a Dan Kelly song, sung by his uncle. These are the down points.

Best I could come up with. Fact remains, this is a record that fans will adore.

Indeed, if I were running the marketing campaign, I’d pitch Goin’ Your Way at ‘people who like music. People with a pulse.’ It loses half a star because five stars needs to be reserved for entirely groundbreaking work. But in reality it’s off the star charts. Most of Australia (and New Zealand!) will buy this, and they will not be disappointed. A magnificent, peerless, perfect record.

various artists basemental 2013 [independent] Hidden in a quiet Belco backstreet, far from the bright lights of Civic, The Basement is the capital’s home of all things metal.

While punters often appear somewhat wild, and their preferred volume level is ‘earth shaking’, the crowds are usually much better behaved than the alcohol-fueled clubbers in town. They’re there for serious music.

Basemental 2013 showcases some of the many local and interstate bands that have strutted their stuff under the giant spider adorning the venue’s ceiling. Competition to be included was fierce, and 20 bands got a place on the tracklist on a ‘first in, best dressed’ basis.

Punters hungering for the traditional blast beat drumming, mad guitars, and orc-like vocals will find it in songs such as Inhuman Remnants’ Anathema, or Devour the Sun by Our Last Enemy. However, this album is no solid phalanx of sound, as the compilation process resulted in an eclectic mix of bands.

While the emphasis was on heavy rock and metal, there is broad scope for variety within these genres, including the electrometal of Death Cult Massive’s Hate as I Do II, the lush vocal harmonies of Knights of the Spatchcock, and the dazzling guitars of Johnny Roadkill. There’s even the retro surf rock sound of Space Party’s Creepy. The best track title is Tundrel’s What Doesn’t Kill Us (Hurts A Lot), while the best band name goes to Upside Down Miss Jane (past Mr Squiggle viewers will get the joke).

In the tradition of metal music contributing to good causes (e.g. the long-running Metal for the Brain), profits from sales go to the RSPCA. This CD is the perfect Christmas stocking item for your favourite metalhead.

RORY McCARTNEY

GLEN MARTIN

@bmamag

cfcf outside [dummy/pias]

owen campbell the pilgrim [mgm]

the stevens a history of hygiene [chapter music]

After initially surfacing with a series of EPs, Montreal-based electronic producer Michael Silver’s 2009 debut album as CFCF, Continent, saw him attracting considerable attention for his post-chillwave atmospheres, his profile being boosted substantially by subsequent remixes for the likes of The Presets and Crystal Castles.

Four years on, and his second album, Outside, offers a follow-up that’s distinctly less beat-driven than its predecessor, and far more song-based. There’s also more (still subtle) integration of instrumental elements, such as guitars and drums, into the predominantly electronic arrangements, resulting in a collection that feels bigger and more deeply textured at the same time.

Local singer-songwriter Owen Campbell is a man going places. From a dodgy start as a six-year-old with an inflatable guitar, he went on to make his mark in Australia’s Got Talent. Campbell then struck gold with 2012 debut record Sunshine Road, and his followup album peaked at #1 on the iTunes blues charts in Oz and abroad.

Someday soon a tastemaker is going to call time on the jangle-pop trend that has swept the three key Melbourne suburbs which inform bands filling the electronic pages of Mess+Noise. Thereafter, any band that inspires the ‘Flying Nun’, ‘80s-tinged, Go-Betweens-esque sobriquets will be sent to the bottom of the indie pop barrel.

Which is a shame. Because this focus on a gentler, more relaxed song craft best evidenced by Dick Diver, Twerps, Pop Singles, and Monnone Alone, is a vein of music which gets closer to reflecting a national sound than, say, the iconoclastic bombast of The Drones. Luckily for The Stevens, that time has not yet come, which means this great record should get its day in the afternoon sun.

It’s no real surprise to learn that most of the tracks were written while Silver was travelling on buses or trains, as there’s a near constant feeling of gliding motion here. While there are reflected traces of the contemporary likes of Boards of Canada and M83 to be found amidst these neon-lit tracks, the vibe here frequently feels more drawn from the mid-‘80s, with Tangerine Dream, Peter Gabriel, and even Paul Simon evoked at points. There’s certainly more than a hint of Rhythm of the Saints to the way in which Silver’s languid vocals collide with jangling guitars and vaguely tribal drums on Feeling, Holding. Elsewhere though, stripped back, synth-sheeny moments such as The Breath hearken far more towards Simple Minds or Tears For Fear’s icy AM radio ballads.

It’s a testament to Silver’s writing skills that the incorporation of these influences cuts much deeper than mere homage or pastiche.

There’s a feeling of blissful joy here, but it’s matched by a sense of loneliness and uncertainty lurking just beneath. chris downton

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While the lead track is titled Wrecking Ball, this is no cover of the Miley Cyrus song, and anyone searching Google for a video of Campbell perched naked on a large ball and chain is going to be very disappointed (he hasn’t even taken off his socks).

What the song does offer, apart from the standout blues voice of Campbell, is some gobsmacking guitar work, with intricately woven licks circling like snarling dogs. Leave it Alone is finely crafted, with the addition of Paul Williamson’s sax, swirling keys from Bruce Haymes, and backing vocals from the Wolfgramm sisters. Produced by Mark Opitz whose modest studio credits include AC/DC, Australian Crawl, and Cold Chisel, this is a musically powerful album, with Kay Chinnery (The Lethals) on drums and various stringed instruments from maestro Jeff Lang.

There’s no going past the musical skills of the man himself, with Campbell making magic with the banjo in Highway Bound, another album highlight. The disk’s most unusual feature is Bukhu Ganburged’s Mongolian throat singing in Bukhus Blues.

Curious, but his guttural tone is an acquired taste. What does appeal is the haunting eastern sound of Ganburged’s horse hair fiddle playing. Campbell’s accent sounds quite American in New Year’s Eve and, with his forthcoming move to LA, it’s easy to foresee great things in store for him there.

RORY McCARTNEY

The track list runs to 24 titles, but A History of Hygiene is made up of full tunes and half tunes, simple ideas and sketches.

Opening with a proto-rock VU-style stomp number called From Puberty to Success, The Stevens thereafter dish up a platter of clever, witty winners. There’s certainly a Pavement influence, a healthy smattering of Bats/3D’s/Verlaines references, and a little early R.E.M. seasoning.

There’s a bunch of bands who’d give the right nut to write an opening line as a good as, ‘If nice guys finish last then there’s a lotta people tied for first’, from Scared of Other Men. Indeed, if there’s a quibble, it’d be that a band capable of gold like Red Ribbon and Hindsight also push an air of trying to not try. And that pointed lack of ambition could grate against the real quality here.

But whatever. Great songs are hard to come by. The Stevens do great songs with alarming frequency. glen martin

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nypc nypc [cooking vinyl]

dead meadow warble womb [xemu records]

nunchukka superfly live at the tote [we empty rooms]

The band New Young Pony Club decided it was time to shed a few members and discard some letters to become NYPC (or maybe they were just sick of the Saddle Club jokes about mean girls?). Now down to founding core members Tahita Bulmer and Andy Spence, they’ve retained their electrodance and pop focus, but have lightened their sound.

Dead Meadow played the ANU Bar in 2012 and performed a fantastic set. It was all about the right melding of ethereal vibes and crunching chords, which created a wonderful psychedelic mix that anyone in their right mind would want to check out.

Turns out there were about 30 people in the audience, but each one of those 30 people had the opportunity to experience psych rock at its very best from a superb band that has done nothing at any point to sell out.

Comprising Ray Ahn and Peter Black from famed Sydney band The Hard-Ons, plus (at the date of the recording) drummer Joel Ellis, Nunchukka Superfly delivers a style of punk-tinged crazy rock that kicks off at the point where most other bands run out of puff. After four studio LPs, their label has re-released this 2006 testament to the band’s musical ferocity. The recording at the legendary Tote Hotel in Melbourne faithfully renders the spilled beer, sweaty skin, and harsh spot-lit atmosphere of a gig.

The full-bodied quality of the previous New Young Pony Club album has been lost, and the rich bass lines have been overtaken by sharper tones. One thing that hasn’t changed is Tahita’s penchant for running a few gasps and breathing noises into the songs. The guttural exhalations at the beginning of opener, Hard Knocks, verge on the erotic. While Sarah Jones is not counted as a formal member of the band anymore, she contributed percussion on several tracks of NYPC’s self-produced record.

Indeed, the album would lose a lot without the skeleton of Jones’ drumming being available as both a framework for all the lush synth work, and to provide a concrete sound to balance the electronica.

Highlights come mid-CD, starting with Now I’m Your Gun. The most heavily electro-crafted song on the disk, with its slippery synths and a constellation of bright beeps, it could be the band’s candidate for a 007 movie soundtrack.

I Came Through fFor You may have unimaginative lyrics, but its combination of a synth soufflé, siren-like wail, and sharp percussion make it another winner.

NYPC is more upbeat than the last album.

With its brighter vocals, catchy rhythms, and a clever mix of sounds that ripple, oscillate, and flash, it is eminently listenable, but has lost some of the depth and impact of their last album.

Warble Womb is the Washington, DC band’s seventh album, and is a measure of the right stuff once again. The basic template was established on their self-titled debut back in 2001. Dead Meadow had already worked out that potent psych-rock didn’t need to rely on many hours in the studio, with a crack team of producer visionaries to layer a basic sound with all manner of effects and other studio trickery, to provide sensory overload.

Sometimes – as The Beatles demonstrated many years ago – the simple approach is the best approach.

Dead Meadow no doubt draw influences from some of the greatest psychedelic music, not just for fun but to see how the most atmospheric music can be created with the simplest tools. In this respect, Jason Simon’s laid-back drawl on I’m Cured works a treat. On this song the melody is good, the pace is suitably languid, and the atmosphere is a lazy Sunday afternoon with a few cold beers and appropriate herb.

Dead Meadow hasn’t sought out anything particularly radical on Warble Womb, but the flow is so good that all that really matters is one timeless adage: ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’ dan bigna

The recording comes complete with technical asides (not getting any drums in the foldback), Black’s chatter with the punters, and appreciative yells from the floor. CD purchasers at the time were pleased or disappointed, depending upon their outlook, that half the track list was unfamiliar, not having previously been captured on studio albums. Song lengths swing wildly. There’s the six-and-a-halfminute opener, This is Just a Desk Job for Me, with its mix of relentless bass from Ahn, grinding on and on, coupled with spasmodic, brilliant riffage from Black’s guitar. This epic is followed by the one minute of insane drumming, screams, and noise that is Kim Beazley. Vocals vary from demented ramblings to yells that come close to sounding like a man who’s trying to have a baby.

There are moments of more conventional rock in Everything I Say is Gold, and even a surprise detour into pop-rock in the humorously titled The Sniper Who Sang Kiss Songs to Himself. However, overall, the album is a festival of tortured guitars, ruled by a manic king with a mic. It’s a performance that yells, ‘This is us, and you don’t have to like it.’

RORY McCARTNEY

RORY McCARTNEY

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v

singles in focus by cody atkinson stephen malkmus & the jicks lariat

Débruit & Alsarah aljawal [Soundway/Shock]

atlantis awaits Dying to Live [independent]

While he will be a new name to many, Parisian electronic producer Débruit (real name Xavier Thomas) has spent the last five years steadily building up a reputation as a figure to watch in bass music/ wonky/footwork circles with a stream of impressive EP releases on labels like Civil Music. Three years on from his preceding From the Horizon collection, this fourth album arrives on the distinctly afrobeat/ world music-oriented Soundway label – and it sees him collaborating with Sudanese born and now Brooklyn-based singer Alsarah to craft a collection that feels substantially different to his previous work.

It’s taken four years since locally based screamo-pop band Atlantis Awaits formed for them to launch their debut LP, but it has been worth the wait.

While Thomas’s incorporation of exotic percussion signatures and sampled Middle Eastern instrumentation has previously added some of the most intriguing edges to his music, Aljawal sees the fusion of these elements and Alsarah’s manipulated Sudanese vocals creating something even more cohesive, yielding an album that, like Omar Souleyman, feels futuristic and exotically traditional at the same time. In truth, it takes a while before Thomas really winds things up here. Indeed, earlier tracks such as Alharal and Sharara see him almost teasing the listener with the increasingly complex and intricate interplay between Alsarah’s haunting vocals, traditional instrumentation, and jagged, unpredictable rhythmic programming. By the time the listener makes it to the bouncing, g-funk synth-laced Khartoum, the furious juke snare rolls have shifted firmly to the forefront, as vampy bass synths add an undertone of drama and the vocal elements get sliced and diced. Unlike a lot of juke/ bass music releases, this is a surprisingly easy album to listen to all the way through, conjuring potent exotic atmosphere even when divorced from the dance floor. chris downton

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While their gig at the 2012 Woden Festival was enjoyable, I never expected their album to be this good. Tegan Rogers possesses a voice any pop princess would love to have.

However, pop princesses are a dime a dozen.

It’s the combination of her voice with some serious guitars and the injection of hardcore vocal treatment which produces the appeal of Atlantis Awaits.

The disc bangs open with album single Letters in Wonderland. The guitar licks fall like showers of sparks, and the melodic female singing is broken up by outbursts of hardcore screaming in the ‘beauty and the beast’ pattern that is the band’s signature sound. Bassist Steve Wright is responsible for the vocal chord challenging screams which balance out the more elegant tones of Tegan.

Chosen Ones brings a dazzlingly bright vocal line with upbeat licks to match. The big vocal effect in Intervention is matched by expansive guitars and counter-balanced by Tegan dropping in some soft, little girl vocals to add variety. However, the album highlight has to be the fast-paced Rebirth, delivering more male vocals, strong opening riffage, and a very catchy chorus.

While the album appears to have a combative theme, with references to what we’re fighting for, or never having fought so hard before, the overall tone is positive and triumphant. Yes, there is a certain pop fizz on some tracks, but they carry an underlying shot of absinthe. While the dominant poprock aroma may offend hardcore purists, this style should expand their crowd appeal.

RORY McCARTNEY

Stephen Malkmus returns with one of his catchiest tracks in years, full of offhand lyrical non-sequiturs and half rhymes. The cherry on top is the refrain, ‘We grew up listening to music from the best decade ever’, which seems like a tacit acknowledgement of much of the criticism thrown his way about his new material, that his earlier Pavement stuff is his best – but it is one he tries to fight. (4.5 stars.)

the john steel singers state of unrest Another solid track from the Brissybased indie pop-rockers, heavy on electronics but lighter than usual on horns. The interplay between the guitars is great throughout the track. A bit more fuzziness bleeds into State of Unrest when compared to their earlier work, and it feels a bit more real, if you know what I mean. (4 stars.)

arcade fire afterlife There’s nothing particularly interesting about Afterlife, nothing that draws you one way or the other. It is above average electro-rock that tries to be something more. To be specific, it sounds more like LCD Soundsystem than what you’d expect from Arcade Fire. This is what ‘maintaining the fanbase’ sounds like. (3 stars.)

one direction story of my life I know it may be hard for you to believe, but I really don’t care about One Direction. True story. I don’t care about what they wear, who they’re dating, what supermarket they’re getting paid by, their fragrance range, or their latest single.

I don’t even care enough to finish—

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the word

on films

WITH MELISSA WELLHAM

It’s the last issue of BMA for the year, and you know what that means: you’ll have to get through the summer holiday season of new releases without the advice of these ‘ere reviewers. You poor, lost souls. How ever will you cope?

If you need some tips for what to look our for over the Dec/ Jan period, don’t worry – we’re not going to leave you in the lurch. Ender’s Game will be exploding onto screens on Thursday December 5, The Book Thief on Thursday January 9, and 12 Years A Slave on Wednesday January 15.

Happy holiday viewing!

quote of the issue Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence): ‘Any last advice?’

Haymitch Abernathy (Woody Harrelson): ‘Stay alive.’

– The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

the hunger games: catching fire Catching Fire is the compelling second installment in the Hunger Games franchise – but saying that makes it sound kind of boring. What I actually want to say is this: !!!!!!

Katniss Everdeen (played by the world’s imaginary best friend, Jennifer Lawrence) and her Mockingjay pin have become a symbol of hope and revolution for the people living in the oppressed Districts – and a threat to the creepy-as-fuck President Snow (Donald Sutherland) and the Capitol.

Rebellion is simmering beneath the surface, and Snow knows that Katniss – the girl on fire – must be extinguished. Katniss and Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) find themselves fighting for their lives once more – and for the lives of the people they love.

The thought-provoking themes of the franchise – dystopia, dissent, classism, oppression – are given a deeper exploration in the second film, as Katniss and Peeta are not merely fighting other kids in a horrific televised battle to the death. They are fighting the ‘real enemy’.

As ever, what makes the franchise particularly compelling is the especially strong ensemble cast. Aside from J Law and J Hutch, Elizabeth Banks gives a tear-inducing performance as Effie Trinket, Woody Harrelson snarls and slurs his way through the script as Haymitch, and Stanley Tucci shines as the host of the games, Caesar Flickerman.

It’s two-and-a-half hours long – but it will leave you wanting more.

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melissa wellham

blackfish

adoration (aka adore)

Prepare to cancel your next trip to Sea World with the arrival of Blackfish.

Lil (Naomi Watts) and Roz (Robin Wright) are close lifelong friends, who become sexually and romantically entangled with each other’s sons, Ian (Xavier Samuel) and Tom (James Frecheville). As the affairs continue, Lil and Roz must weigh up their desires with concerns about the realistic future of their unorthodox relationships. Set against a beautiful beachside backdrop, Adoration unfolds the plot at a thoughtful and meandering pace, which does teeter on the brink of being too slow. With the sexual tension offsetting nicely the rich coastal surroundings, Adoration certainly looks wonderful and has a palpable atmosphere – the four seem to exist in their own world.

However, the characters themselves never seem to convincingly blossom, and while there are a few wonderful, intimate moments, there is a lack of gut-wrenching, climactic emotion. The focus here is certainly on Wright and Watts, and they have a convincing chemistry that the film would be much worse without.

Supports include Gary Sweet and Ben Mendelsohn, who both manage decent performances with what little they’re given to work with, and Samuel stands out as the more convincing of the two sons.

Filmmaker Gabriela Cowperthwaite ensures that you’ll never step into any aquarium housing large sea mammals by shining the light on the barbaric practices of big businesses chasing the almighty dollar with killer whales.

The documentary focuses on a killer whale in captivity named Tilikum. Since being captured in the 1980s, Tilikum has been involved in several incidents that resulted in the death of human trainers working at Sea World in America and other ‘parks’.

Cowperthwaite gets the story from the mouths of the trainers who worked for Sea World, and their honesty gets to the heart of the shameful business practices that result in the mistreatment of killer whales in captivity. There’s raw footage of frustrated animals lashing out at trainers, injured orcas, and examples of how Sea World captures animals in the wild: there aren’t many moments that aren’t shocking.

Sequences are broken up by real television commercials from Sea World that Cowperthwaite uses to show the family friendly gloss the company orchestrates to hide their dirty secrets.

Blackfish is a must see. Mainly so you don’t make the mistake of being caught enjoying yourself at Sea World. cameron williams

Adoration is a close-up character drama that benefits from the acting chops of the two leading ladies, however it sadly falls short of being wholly engaging and memorable. With the conclusion feeling all-tooconvenient, I was sadly left a bit disappointed.

MEGAN McKEOUGH

@bmamag

the day of the doctor

the counselor

At pretty-much-feature-movielength, and as one of the most exciting television events to grace both the silver and small screen this year (er, for geeks), I feel it would be remiss of me not to review the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary special – The Day of the Doctor – which screened in cinemas around Australia on the same day it was broadcast on the BBC.

Director Ridley Scott and screenwriter Cormac McCarthy have collaborated on a cynical examination of crime that portrays illegal behaviour in a foul way – which is exactly what the characters and the setting deserve. A wealthy lawyer, known only as The Counselor (Michael Fassbender), decides to invest in drug trafficking based on the advice of a crooked business associate, Reiner (Javier Bardem), and his girlfriend, Malkina (Cameron Diaz). Once committed, The Counselor learns from his partner, Westray (Brad Pitt), that the plan has gone sour and he must disappear with his fiancé, Laura (Penelope Cruz), before various crime syndicates exact retribution.

The Day of the Doctor features not one, not two, but three Doctors – the forgetful, man-boy Matt Smith, and the reappearance of his fez; the brooding, skinny-suited David Tennant (cue fangirls the world over swooning); and John Hurt as a darker, past incarnation of The Doctor. This time their goal wasn’t to save the world – but to save the Doctor’s world: Gallifrey.

The in-jokes and in-references are glorious, and the banter and mocking between the three Doctors is just delightful.

Of course, it doesn’t make, you know, sense – but then the world of the Doctor rarely does. The plot holes are hastily patched over, and still leaky – but they won’t bring down the TARDIS. If you’re not a fan, you’ll hate it. And if you’re traditionalist Doctor Who fan (who thinks the world still isn’t ready for a female Doctor), you might hate it too. But if you are prepared to suspend disbelief and go along for the ride, you’ll find it the adventure pretty enjoyable. Geronimo! melissa wellham

At times, the philosophical felons are a little hard to stomach, and they do start to stack up, but McCarthy doesn’t waste a line of dialogue.

It’s a rich examining of the nature of crime, relationships, sexuality, human brutality, the hierarchy of society, and greed. There’s a twisted enjoyment that comes from watching The Counselor get consumed by his own foolish attempt at breaking the law.

McCarthy’s dialogue-heavy script does a lot of the work, but Scott makes sure the tension matches the escalating situation, and the violence matches the bleak tone.

McCarthy and Scott have crafted a spectacular feeding frenzy void of any of the gloss or fantasy associated with the criminal underbelly. cameron williams

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The year is drawing to a close and so too is Blackbox. This, the 301st edition of this columnist’s rants and viewing tips, will be the last.

Back in February 2001 when Blackbox first appeared in the pages of BMA, the digital revolution was close to a decade away, Canberra had five free-to-air stations and people only connected Foxtel for the sport. Broadband was in its infancy and download so slow it took half a day to procure an episode of The Simpsons. Bit torrent sites were the domain of serious IT nerds and it was record companies, not film studios, worried about illegal downloads.

The first iPod was still eight months away and your TV really was a black (or silver) cathode ray-powered box. (The Black Box in the column’s name, by the way, was also a reference to the intel from a plane’s flight recorder.)

Fast forward almost 13 years and the television landscape has changed dramatically. TV isn’t about channels anymore – it’s about platforms. And instead of time-shifting, we talk about television on demand. And that’s the point. BMA is a printed magazine with quite long deadlines. At a time when bloggers are putting up reviews within an hour of airtimes, most of you have downloaded the show at least a week before BMA is published, which makes a fortnightly TV column a bit redundant.

But rather than dying the slow, drawn out death that was predicted 15 years ago, television, or at least the content, has thrived. It’s not uncommon to hear people say, “I don’t watch TV.” But they do. They just watch it in a different way. You can call it episodic drama but it’s TV content designed to be viewed as episodes.

It was a phenomenon that took shape in the early ‘90s – mixing the mini-series format and discreet weekly episodes to produce series with longer story arcs entwining across multiple episodes. By 2001, pioneers of this genre, such as the X-Files and Buffy were nearing their natural end. Agents of S.H.I.E.LD. creator Joss Wheedon’s cult hit Firefly, which starred a pre-Castle Nathan Fillion and sealed the sci-fi fate of Summer Glau, was still a year off. The golden age of writing and production typified by the HBO catalogue had barely begun. The first of these, The West Wing and The Wire, were so poorly treated by commercial networks that the ABC reran them from start to finish years later. There was also some great British and local fare in shows such as Teachers and Rake.

The late ‘90s also introduced us to the scourge of free-to-air-TV: reality programming. 2001 was the year Survivor filmed in Australia and an Oscar was first awarded in this category. Australian Idol was yet to appear on the scene.

It would be years before teen drama would take on the glitz of Gossip Girl and Pretty Little Liars or re-imagine the vampirefuelled success of Buffy. In 2001, teens were obsessing over the intellectual discourse of a group of teens from the mid-west in Dawson’s Creek.

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Talk, panel, and game shows also made a resurgence, albeit in a hipper format, usually with a comedian at the helm. There was Wil Anderson’s The Glasshouse which looked at events of the week, the Tony Squires-hosted sport panel The Fat, and Andrew Denton’s long-running Enough Rope. Rockwiz brought music trivia to the box in May 2005 and Spicks and Specks followed soon after. It was also the decade television made the laconic underground publishers of The Chaser the most recognisable faces in the nation.

It was also the decade where animation hit the big time. The Simpsons and South Park were already hits in 2001 as was Blackbox’s favourite, Daria. The sublime humour of Archer wouldn’t hit the Box for another ten years.

I’ve missed a lot – a plethora of ob docos, lifestyle shows, unsurpassed comedy, and some of the best documentaries ever made. But I’m almost out of time, and note this last column also marks the closure of a lengthy chapter in my life.

For the past 17 years, almost every issue of BMA has featured my byline. It has been a stellar ride. I have met loads of incredibly inspiring, talented and interesting people, and made quite a few life-long friends. I’d like to particularly thank Vanessa Bowden, Lisa Howdin, Scott Layne, and also the many editors who’ve put up with my deadline tardiness.

And most of all, I’d like to thank you, the readers of this column.

Rest assured I will still be watching the box and unleashing TV news, views and abuse through Twitter. But for now, in the best BMA tradition, I’ll leave you with the top five TV moments from the past 13 years: 1. The return of Dr Who – the childhood fodder of almost every Gen X-er was given a new lease on life, and last weekend the show celebrated its 50th anniversary.

2. HBO – because its approach to quality TV drama has raised the stakes, and audiences are the winners. Think The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, Da Ali G Show, Deadwood, and of course, Game of Thrones.

3. The doco Great Australian Albums – if only because The Triffids reformed (with guest vocalists) to play Born Sandy Devotional live.

Oh, and Koolism winning an ARIA. 4. NCIS chief Gibbs asking, ‘What’s emo?’ on the show’s second episode, and being given the answer, ‘Emotional music,’ as the writer’s mocked the world’s silliest genre title.

5. The episode of The Lone Gunmen which featured a hijacked plane about to crash into the World Trade Centre which screened just days before one actually did.

TRACY HEFFERNAN tracyherrernan@bigpond.com; @ChezBlackbox

@bmamag

the word on dvds

the fall [madman]

the following [Warner Home Video]

Mad Men – Season Six [Universal/Sony]

Unlike most murder-whodunits, The Fall wastes no time in revealing the killer. In the opening scene, we see a rakish guy in a black mask take a selfie after he breaks into the home of a young lawyer to lay out and sniff her underwear, as I suspect most serial killers are inclined to do. The twist – if you could call it that – is deepened when the intruder, Paul Spector (Jamie Dornan), goes home to a wife and two children. The concept of evil lurking behind the most unsuspected faces continues when Paul is revealed as a benign, softly spoken bereavement counsellor. So that’s the killer sorted out: a methodical creep who uses his family as a shield.

The most important thing you need to know about Kevin Williamson is that he was also responsible for Scream and Dawson’s Creek. The Following is the ungodly marriage of both those shows. It desperately wants to be the sharp, snappy serial killer story, but struggles for this entire first season to address the soapy and clichéd scaffolding on which it is built.

It’s also unremittingly grim torture porn TV.

Mad Men hasn’t faltered because its ebbs and flows are low gradient. Even though Don Draper navigates the show through some of the most tumultuous years in contemporary history, the almost zealous uniformity and slow leak of reality into Draper’s world has promoted its longevity. This was actually one of the more frustrating elements in earlier seasons, where it seemed as if nothing was actually happening and the sole reason to watch was to get your weekly fix of furniture, fashion, and design porn. But approaching the end of Mad Men’s run, it’s convenient to look back and realise the muted approach – relatively speaking – Matthew Wiener has built into Mad Men has made it a richer, more compulsive viewer experience. That doesn’t mean much of this season hasn’t been its own sort of special drag.

Draper (John Hamm) mopes around for the most part, unhappy in another marriage, cheating, and eventually getting his comeuppance in the finale that is, frankly, a classic TV trope cliff-hanger and yet thoroughly organic.

The Fall is quite obviously modelled on the template of The Killing and The Bridge, where female protagonist cops get the job done in unusual, polarising, and occasionally quirky ways. Stella Gibson (Gillian Anderson) has been seconded to Belfast to review an unsolved case, but soon worms her way into the senior investigative role of the murders that only she managed to link together. Anderson plays Gibson as a taciturn, no-nonsense jerk so clearly two steps ahead of her peers that you wonder why she even bothers turning up to work. Her private life is a mystery, and she demands colleagues throw away commitments to follow her aloof leadership.

This critical character is so patently off-putting, but we are expected to buy-in because she ‘gets the job done’. It’s a major problem, especially when the supporting cast act rings around Anderson. Nevertheless, The Fall manages to overcome a befuddling lead performance and running only five episodes long, it remains taught and tense. And whilst it doesn’t quite reach the heights of The Killing at its best, the Irish setting is an agreeable change of scenery. justin hook

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Ryan Hardy (Kevin Bacon) has retired from the FBI and lives in a whisky-soaked loft after putting away a serial killer (Dr Joe Carroll) and diddling his wife whilst he’s in prison.

After Carroll escapes, Hardy reluctantly re-joins the force; as above, Williamson has never met a cliché he’s unafraid to deploy. In prison, Carroll unleashes a wave of ‘followers’ he’s somehow convinced to act out his murder and revenge fantasies, one of which involves the kidnapping of his own son.

He taunts Hardy and his exwife, Claire (Natalie Zea), and waxes lyrical about the art of murder. Oh geez.

The fundamental problem with this show’s structure is that it introduces the possibility that every character you think is a good guy is actually a bad one, and will reveal themselves to be a homicidal robot when it suits the script, as it did throughout the entire first season. Used sparingly, it is terrifying – used frequently, there is no shock value. If you are constantly second guessing every character, you eventually give up. And this bled into the plot, where the back end of the season was a dog chasing its own tail – we knew Carroll was planning something, just deliver it!

Kevin Bacon, who is finally started to show some signs of ageing, is pretty much the sole reason to stick it out – but that might not be enough.

Draper’s troubles are juxtaposed neatly with the continued growth of Peggy (Elizabeth Moss) into the mantle of shrewd business mind and potential future core of the show. Seeing Betty settle into Draper’s old desk suggests the paths of Peggy and Don are crossing in opposite directions, their identities somehow swapping.

And Mad Men is nothing if not all about identity. But for all the depth of character, sly historical winks, and gorgeous production design, we know Don Draper and all he represents (traditional power structures) is quicksand, and the dread hanging over this penultimate season suggests everything is about to fall apart, once and for all.

justin hook

justin hook

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the word

Container, Spartak, Mornings The Basement Tuesday November 12

on gigs

‘Get the fucking chips and gravy mate, they’re fucking great! Only two bucks.’ An auspicious exultation to a gig. I’ve got a personal rule not to spend my Tuesday nights in Belconnen, but for this I decided to make an exception. In retrospect, it was a great move.

‘Hi, we’re Mornings. We have one song left.’ You’d normally feel ripped off hearing this one song into a set, but Mornings were a solid 15 minutes in. Instead of the taut post-rock that usually typifies Mornings’ songs, this show saw Mornings embark on more experimental dirges which swelled with sound. It was a great example of a band changing their sound to fit a particular occasion, without sacrificing their artistic integrity. This was the second time I had seen Spartak in less than a week, and unfortunately it wasn’t quite as good of a show. The sound mix seemed a bit off, and perhaps The Basement isn’t the best stage for their work. However, their new material is extremely impressive, and their forthcoming album is one of the most anticipated Canberra albums of 2014.

And then there was noise. Pulsating waves of noise washed over consistent, repetitive beats, creating a hypnotic blend of sound.

Container has a policy of playing for only a half hour – any longer destroys the intensity of his music. The merit to this approach is clear, his set left the audience drained but wanting more. Punk and hardcore is often thought of as being fast and furious, but Container has nailed it and transported it to electronica. The visceral energy displayed in his music drew the audience into his world, one with stunted 909 beats and involuntary dancing.

CODY ATKINSON

the word

Girls Pissing On Girls Pissing, Orlando Furious, Beach Slut Magpies City Club Thursday November 21

on gigs

A man wearing shiny gold pants is certainly a sight to see when descending into City Magpies. Orlando Furious is a man who is seemingly comfortable in those pants. He unleashed a super slow blend of lo-fi R&B and pop, furiously crooning over mobile phone beats. If it wasn’t so lazy, I’d call him Footscray’s version of Serge Gainsbourg, but it is pretty lazy, so I won’t.

Girls Pissing on Girls Pissing are avant-garde. I’d say that they try to push the boundaries, but that implies that they haven’t already barrelled past them at full pelt. They do pain, anger, and despair.

Although the keyboard malfunctioned for much of their set, there was no dulling of their intensity or intent throughout. Broadly speaking, GPOGP played slow semi-atonal hardcore, with an organ chucked in there. They seemed to care so much, but mostly about provoking thought in others. I can pretty comfortably say that I haven’t seen a band like them before.

PHOTO BY Rose Evans

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It was only a couple of months ago that Beach Slut was launching their latest EP, a gig that showed their promise for the future. And now they’re done. Finished. Kaput. That’s not to say that they won’t continue playing music, as in true Canberra fashion they already have approximately 1,523,453 side projects on the go. But as a band playing these songs, they are done. And that’s a bit of a shame, as this particular Beach Slut set was probably the best I had caught.

They played material off both their EPs, and tracks like Haircuts and Teen Dream showed off their strengths as a band – a furious energy at times offset by some nice melodies.

CODY ATKINSON

@bmamag

the word

The Phoenix’s All-Day Birthday The Phoenix Bar Saturday November 23

on gigs

I woke up sore and battered on Sunday morning. My ears were ringing. I had a bruise on my chest, maybe a cut on my leg. The Phoenix had beaten me. Literally and metaphorically.

Saturday night was always going to be crazy. The famous Phoenix blackboard stated that there were a ‘Fuckload of Bands’ playing, and it might have even been underestimating the number of bands on show.

The first act I caught was Wallflower, who played some pretty solid pop rock, albeit with strange near-falsetto vocal effects. Wallflower was promptly followed by Brother Be, who played their blend of soft folk-rock, which did pretty well with the crowd in the early evening.

Next up were Liam Mckahey and the Bodies, who played some haunting, theatrical rock. They also got bonus points for having the first accordion of the evening, which counts for something. Catchy and endearing.

The Chuffs turned the night up a notch, transitioning from the softer music of before to straight out garage rock. A bit of a punk vibe ran through the set, but the tunes stood up for themselves. A good effort for what was still an early night. Hence the Testbed then stepped up and represented the heavier side of rock, chugging out chords and riffs on the small stage.

By the time that Mornings were up to perform, the crowd had settled in for the long night. The packed front bar watched with anticipation while Mornings launched into their punk meets postpunk material, with intertwining guitar and basslines running all over the backbeat. Jordan Rodgers led admirably from the front, but the rest of the band weren’t far behind.

Bacon Cakes was Bacon Cakes. He will continue to be Bacon Cakes.

He will break a string on his guitar during his set. He will probably muck up the start to one of his songs. He will heckle and be heckled by the crowd. He’ll also play some damn catchy garage rock that gets toes tapping.

The Fighting League playing at The Phoenix is a combination I have long had a policy of dropping everything to see. Their album launch in 2011 is still probably the best show I’ve seen in Canberra, so it’s fitting that they headlined The Phoenix’s Birthday Week. The first half of their set saw the band crack out several tunes from Tropical Paradise, including Calypso and 4 Square. When they’re flying, there is nearly no better band in the country live. That’s not a typo, they are up there with bands like Six Ft Hick and My Disco. And it was all clicking for them early.

Something was different, however, when they played traditional set closer Guys You Want To Be not far into the set. After Guys, The Fighting League did something slightly unusual for them: introduce a keyboard and go a bit new wave. I can’t say if it was new or old material, but it was certainly unfamiliar.

The Phoenix is a small yet welcoming bar, and a safe harbour for musicians and music fans of all persuasions. It’s a place where you generally leave your pretensions at the door. The twentieth birthday week underlined exactly why. It was, by and large, honest bands playing music that they cared about to people who care about music.

PHOTOS BY ADAM THOMAS

And that’s precisely what’s right with music in Canberra.

CODY ATKINSON

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83

the word

on gigs

The MusicACT Music Awards 2013 Albert Hall Saturday November 23 Albert Hall looked the part for the MusicACT Music Awards’ (MAMAs) second instalment. It is a magnificent old building, and all facets of Canberra’s music industry came out. The night was seen through with solid performances from Fun Machine, The Steptones, and the quite brilliant Hall of Fame inductee The Idea of North. Los Chavos in particular put on an impressive show, their lead singer bringing the Hall to its feet for the first time in the night. Meanwhile, the cash bar was either a horrid misstep or a Machiavellian ploy to keep things civil, Albert Hall being a good click’s walk from the nearest ATM. As to the awards, the MAMAs committed to its formula: reward where rewards are sought, reward where rewards are due, and reward as much as possible. Fun Machine won Best ACT Artist of 2013, Ben Colin won Best ACT Bass Music Producer, and Revellers took home Best ACT Heavy Artist including Punk, Hardcore and Metal. Obvious choices all, and all deserving. Then there were the oddities: Super Best Friends won the Best ACT Rock Artist, and then so did Elisha Bones. Michael Bones summed the experience up quite well: ‘They say you never expect to win things like this, but you expect it even less when the award’s already been given.’ It happened again: Best ACT House, Electro or Techno Producer went to The Aston Shuffle – cheers, acceptance, and then – and Ashley Feraude! No one can say the MAMAs didn’t aim to please, even if it didn’t contribute to a sense of great value in the receipt of the awards.

The bigger surprises came in the form of Dylan Hekimian’s win for Best ACT Live Performer and Amber Nichols’ win for Best ACT Pop Artist (two wise endorsements of artists who could use it, over some usual suspects who have plenty of press already), and Zierholz @ UC’s win for Best ACT Live Music Venue. Other venues in Canberra sport stronger local line-ups, and arguably better sound quality (not to mention better beer), but as an oasis of medium-tolarge-scale touring music in the Belconnen area, Zierholz @ UC is a choice that signals this award can go to venues as much as places that host open mic nights and free local music three nights a week.

Zierholz @ UC is the kind of venue that helps put Canberra back on the touring map, the way the ANU Bar used to do. Well deserved.

Highlights included a speech by Jim Cotter. Cotter, co-recipient of the Contribution to the ACT Music Industry award with Frank Madrid, was blunt, calling Charles Ives to mind – ‘Awards are merely the badges of mediocrity’ – before advising, ‘If you don’t win tonight, fuck it, get on with your art.’

PHOTOS BY MARTIN OLLMAN

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Near night’s end was the award for Best ACT Song of the Year, which went to Fun Machine’s Ready for the Fight. That Ready for the Fight was first recorded and released in July 2012 seems to have been overlooked, but this is no fault of the song’s or the band’s. The MAMAs is based on a very important prerequisite: in order to be nominated, you have to nominate yourself. This leads to the most salient critique one can level at the MAMAs: the music that was missing. Because bands and artists have to nominate themselves, and pay to nominate themselves, the best music in the ACT wasn’t present that night. Cracked Actor, Burrows, TV Colours, and The Fighting League were absent from all categories, and no one could doubt that, between them, they represent the finest in live music, albums, singles, and produced music in Canberra in 2013. And they’re just the obvious exclusions. The fact is you can’t rely on artists to put their hands up. In many cases, it’s not in their nature. At this point in its evolution, the MAMAs can commit to handing out awards to the artists who step forward, cash in hand, to ask for them, or begin picking winners from an open field. Let’s hope, for the sake of the music that went unmentioned this year, that it’s the latter.

ASHLEY THOMSON

@bmamag

the word

on gigs

Kadavar, Blues Pills ANU Bar Thursday November 28 This was a great show, but let’s backtrack for a moment. Australian 1990s grunge rockers Tumbleweed are playing a bunch of shows with German stoner rockers Kadavar on this tour, but decided to skip Canberra. This is a tad unfortunate, as the psychedelic, riffheavy vibe traded by both bands would have worked a treat on this occasion, brought more people through the door, and made for a complete experience. As it turned out, headliners Kadavar came up with the goods for all fans of heavy psych rock anyway, without more familiar guests on board.

I was transported to the 1970s the instant I saw the beards, long hair, and faded denims of this German three-piece. The space was filled with a Black Sabbath-like goodness that saturates the two albums Kadavar has released, which upped the intensity quotient no end.

Support band Blues Pills thrashed away to reasonable effect – okay, but not mind-blowing. Kadavar, on the other hand, kicked out the jams at an appropriate mid-pace with all the right elements in place – grungy guitars working out a hard blues boogie in the best early 1970s tradition on tracks such as Eye of the Storm, with the unmistakeable sweet hit from the wah-wah pedal. This, as any Hendrix fan knows, creates a total rift in the space-time continuum when placed in the right hands. The crowd was small but dedicated, particularly when air guitar moves kicked in. It was also good to see Landspeed Records in attendance, as I would have been completely unaware of this retro band making all the right moves had the Abra Kadavar album not been playing in the shop one sunny day.

DAN BIGNA

the word

on gigs

Jonwayne, Silent Jay, Mute x Roleo, Burner Collective, Deaf Cat Digress Cocktail Lounge Saturday November 30 It’s been a big year for Blahnket, who rounded out 2013 presenting Jonwayne’s Canberra appearance at Digress after two venue changes. Gold Panda, XXYXX, Shigeto, L-Vis 1990, TOKiMONSTA, and others have rounded a list of shows that would have been unlikely to make it to Canberra without Blahnket, and no doubt did so only with significant organisational input and minimal (or nonexistent) financial reward. The year’s efforts put Blahnket’s Patrick Morgan squarely at the top of a list of local DIY event planners, without even making mention of his excellent work as Deaf Cat. Canberran of the Year, for my part.

Digress masked its awkward layout in a healthy dose of smoke machine on the night in question. Mute x Roleo, a Sydney producer/ MC duo, put in a high-energy support slot for the small crowd between the dais and the bar. Without being able to discern lyrics, the flow and timing of the duo was impressive, and they made the best of it. Silent Jay was impressive also. His slow, rich beats laden with glowing vocal samples (often bolstered by his own remixed singing) were splendid. I resolved on the spot to hunt down his work.

Jonwayne looks like the lovechild of Samwell Tarly and Action Bronson, and plays with the practiced ease you’d expect of a Stones Throw signing. For the first time in the night, the beats took on an invigorating swagger. After running the gamut of his finest work, Jonwayne came out from behind the decks to MC in the midst of the crowd, instantly creating a high. While the show ended in disarray as Jonwayne put down the mic to make a charge for the bar, it was the best Blahnket show set I’ve yet seen. Here’s to more in 2014.

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ASHLEY THOMSON

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ENTERTAINMENT GUIDE Wed Dec 4 - Thu Dec 5

Listings are a free community service. Email editorial@bmamag.com to have your events appear each issue. wednesday december 4 Art Exhibitions Cathy Franzi & Art Quilt Australia

The hills of Canberra by Franzi, and people, place, nation in quilts. 10am5pm (12-4pm, Sat).

CRAFT ACT CRAFT & DESIGN CENTRE

Head Full of Flames

Karaoke Karaoke Wednesdays

With Carry On Karaoke. 9pm.

Free entry.

Art Exhibitions

Karaoke

Art by Nat Randall. Opens Thu Dec 5, 6pm.

DIGRESS COCKTAIL BAR

From 10pm. All welcome.

THE DURHAM

Live Music

Cathy Franzi & Art Quilt Australia

School’s Out Night

Self-Reflexion

P J O’REILLY’S (TUGGERANONG)

With The Alternative, Midnight Cinderella, Sexytet, Mind The Gap. 7:30pm. Gold coin donation.

Portraiture by mixed ability artists.

10am-4pm.

Pete Wild and the Ones

Hide

Guitar Wolf (Japan)

BELCONNEN ARTS CENTRE

Art by Haeli Van Veen. Opens Wed Dec 4, 6pm. 12-5pm.

ANCA GALLERY

Small Works

A combined exhibition by selected artists. 10am-5pm (9am-5pm Sat/Sun).

BILK GALLERY

21 Reasons

A multimedia exhibition in celebration of I-Day. Opens Wed Dec 4, 3pm.

9am-4:30pm.

GALLERY@BCS

Trigger Happy

Art by award-winning painter Ben Quilty. 12-5pm.

DRILL HALL GALLERY

Afterglow

CANBERRA CONTEMPORARY ARTS SPACE (MANUKA)

Punk in the nation’s capital, 19771992. 10am-5pm (12-5pm Sat-Sun). Free.

CANBERRA MUSEUM AND GALLERY

thursday december 5

7:30pm. Door price TBA.

THE FRONT GALLERY AND CAFÉ

With Little Mac & the Monster Men, Bacon Cakes. Doors 8pm. Tickets through Oztix.

THE BASEMENT

Something Different Polka Luka In-House Market Jewellery, cast resins objects, and homewares by Alex Freeman.

8am–6pm. Free entry.

The hills of Canberra by Franzi, and people, place, nation in quilts. 10am5pm (12-4pm, Sat).

CRAFT ACT CRAFT & DESIGN CENTRE

Head Full of Flames

Punk in the nation’s capital, 1977-1992. 10am-5pm (12-5pm Sat-Sun). Free.

CANBERRA MUSEUM AND GALLERY

Self-Reflexion

OLD CANBERRA INN

Rock Karaoke

9pm-2am. Free entry.

CHARLIE BLACK

Karaoke

With Ka-tere-oke. Win $50 cash and vouchers. 8:30pm.

P J O’REILLY’S (TUGGERANONG)

Live Music Dos Locos

9:30pm. Free.

KING O’MALLEY’S IRISH PUB

Shaun Kirk

7:30pm. $10 + bf thru Moshtix/$15 at the door.

THE FRONT GALLERY AND CAFÉ

Hide

Live Jazz

Art by Haeli Van Veen. Opens Wed Dec 4, 6pm. 12-5pm.

ANCA GALLERY

Small Works

Bela Farkas and Friends

21 Reasons

BILK GALLERY

A multimedia exhibition in celebration of I-Day. Opens Wed Dec 4, 3pm. 9am-4:30pm.

Theatre

GALLERY@BCS

And Then There Were 3

Art by award-winning painter Ben Quilty. 12-5pm.

Theatre Made in Canberra. 2pm/ 7:30pm. $25-35 thru thestreet.org.au.

8pm-midnight. Free entry.

Lecherous Gaze (USA)

BELCONNEN ARTS CENTRE

THE FRONT GALLERY AND CAFÉ

THE PHOENIX BAR

Karaoke at The Inn

Portraiture by mixed ability artists.

10am-4pm.

A combined exhibition by selected artists. 10am-5pm (9am-5pm Sat/Sun).

Sacrificial Poems CD Launch, with Kooky Fandango, Hayley Shone. 8pm.

Karaoke

Trigger Happy

With Hygiene, Gentlemen (Melb). 9pm.

THE PHOENIX BAR

From 4pm. Free.

MINT GARDEN BAR

Break a Leg

With Outlines, Break The Wall, Machina Genova. 8pm. Door price TBA. THE BASEMENT

A Drone Coda

With Golden Blonde and Spartak.

8pm. Free.

TRANSIT BAR

Fun Machine

6:30pm. See sunsetcinema.com.au/ canberra for corresponding screening.

NATIONAL BOTANIC GARDENS

DRILL HALL GALLERY

THE STREET THEATRE

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@bmamag

ENTERTAINMENT GUIDE Thu Dec 5 - Sat Dec 7 Open Mic Night

Hosted by Ben Chann. Showcasing local talents. 7pm. Free.

OJO CAFE AND BAR

The Tiger and Me

With The Bearded Gypsy Band, and more. 8pm. $15/12/10 door.

THE POLISH WHITE EAGLE CLUB

On The Town Noche Latina

DJ Paisa and DJ Mateo on the decks and percussion. 8:30pm til midnight. $5.

THE ALCHEMY BAR

Something Different Polka Luka In-House Market Jewellery, cast resins objects, and homewares by Alex Freeman.

8am–6pm. Free entry.

THE FRONT GALLERY AND CAFÉ

Theatre And Then There Were 3

21 Reasons

A multimedia exhibition in celebration of I-Day. Opens Wed Dec 4, 3pm.

9am-4:30pm.

GALLERY@BCS

Trigger Happy

Art by award-winning painter Ben Quilty. 12-5pm.

DRILL HALL GALLERY

Live Music ALIVE Fridays pres. W&W

9pm. $20 + bf through Moshtix.

ACADEMY NIGHTCLUB

Chicago Charles/Heuristic 5pm afternoon session/10pm band. Free.

KING O’MALLEY’S IRISH PUB

Blake Noble

Earning comparisons to the world’s best guitarists. 7:30pm. $10.

THE FRONT GALLERY AND CAFÉ

DJ Snake (France)

Pang! presents, from Mad Decent Records. $15 before 10pm.

TRINITY BAR

Theatre

Live Music

Shortis & Simpson Christmas Special

Eyes to the Sky

The Polly & the Ivy. 2pm/8pm. $30/25 via (02) 6247 4459 or smithsalternative@gmail.com.

SMITH’S ALTERNATIVE

And Then There Were 3 Theatre Made in Canberra.

2pm/7:30pm. $25-35 thru thestreet.org.au.

THE STREET THEATRE

The Musicals of Musicals – The Musical!

8pm. $35–42 + bf through canberratheatrecentre.com.au.

THE COURTYARD STUDIO

saturday december 7

The Musicals of Musicals – The Musical!

9pm. Free.

A super mega art exhibition, with everyone, by everyone. Opens Fri Dec 6, 6pm. 11am-5pm (10am-4pm, S

8pm. $35–42 + bf through canberratheatrecentre.com.au.

THE COURTYARD STUDIO

friday december 6 Art Exhibitions Future Proof

A super mega art exhibition, with everyone, by everyone. Opens Fri Dec 6, 6pm. 11am-5pm (10am-4pm, S

CANBERRA CONTEMPORARY ART SPACE (GORMAN HOUSE)

The 2013 M16 Artspace Drawing Prize

Positive Feedback Loop

With The Feldons, and Daz Jamieson (formerly of Activate Jetpack). 8pm. $5.

POT BELLY BAR

Vans Warped Tour Australia

The Offspring, The Used, Parkway Drive, Simple Plan and more. $107.10 through Oztix.

EXHIBITION PARK IN CANBERRA (EPIC)

Live Acoustic Music

By Raw Gigs, every Friday from 5-7pm. Free.

MINI BAR

Minh!

With support act TBA. 7:30pm. Free.

OJO CAFE AND BAR

Winners TBA at the opening, Fri Dec 6, 6pm. 12-5pm.

Live Music

Hollydays

The Crooked Fiddle Band

M16 ARTSPACE

From 5:30pm. Free.

MINT GARDEN BAR

The annual Bilk Christmas exhibition.

11am-5pm (- 7pm Fri, -4pm Sat).

Album launch tour, with Brass Knuckle Brass Band. 8pm. $15/10/8 door.

BILK GALLERY

THE POLISH WHITE EAGLE CLUB

Head Full of Flames

On The Town

Punk in the nation’s capital, 1977-1992. 10am-5pm (12-5pm Sat-Sun). Free.

CANBERRA MUSEUM AND GALLERY

Afterglow

Art by Nat Randall. Opens Thu Dec 5, 6pm.

CANBERRA CONTEMPORARY ARTS SPACE (MANUKA)

Cathy Franzi & Art Quilt Australia

The hills of Canberra by Franzi, and people, place, nation in quilts. 10am5pm (12-4pm, Sat).

CRAFT ACT CRAFT & DESIGN CENTRE

Self-Reflexion

Portraiture by mixed ability artists.

10am-4pm.

BELCONNEN ARTS CENTRE

Hide

Art by Haeli Van Veen. Opens Wed Dec 4, 6pm. 12-5pm.

ANCA GALLERY

Small Works

A combined exhibition by selected artists. 10am-5pm (9am-5pm Sat/Sun).

Retro Weekends

Future Proof

CANBERRA CONTEMPORARY ART SPACE (GORMAN HOUSE)

Head Full of Flames

Punk in the nation’s capital, 1977-1992. 10am-5pm (12-5pm Sat-Sun). Free.

Presented by Housemates: Specs, Cannon, and more. 10pm. $10.

THE CLUBHOUSE

I Love Bachata Party

World bachata champions teach and perform, with DJ Trent Richardson, DJ Spink. 9pm.

MONKEYBAR

Something Different Polka Luka In-House Market

Paul Greene & the Other Colours With as many miles as accolades.

7:30pm. $15.

THE FRONT GALLERY AND CAFÉ

Fire on the Hill

With Owen Campbell. 9:30pm.

THE PHOENIX BAR

Della

2:30-5:30pm. Free.

Cocktail Theme Night OLD CANBERRA INN

DJ Ced Nada

6:30pm. See sunsetcinema.com.au/ canberra for corresponding screening.

NATIONAL BOTANIC GARDENS

Pantera Tribute Night

With Shattered Axiom, Rise, Dark Nemesis. 8pm. $15.

THE BASEMENT

On The Town 10pm to late. Free.

KNIGHTSBRIDGE PENTHOUSE

M16 ARTSPACE

9pm. $10 entry all night.

Winners TBA at the opening, Fri Dec 6, 6pm. 12-5pm.

LOVE Saturdays with Ashley Feraude

Hollydays

ACADEMY NIGHTCLUB

The annual Bilk Christmas exhibition.

11am-5pm (- 7pm Fri, -4pm Sat).

Retro Weekends

Afterglow

DIGRESS COCKTAIL BAR

BILK GALLERY

Art by Nat Randall. Opens Thu Dec 5, 6pm.

CANBERRA CONTEMPORARY ARTS SPACE (MANUKA)

Cathy Franzi & Art Quilt Australia

Spinning your favourite retro tunes with DJ Sass and Tasha. Free entry. 9pm.

Urban Playground Presents Canberra’s hottest R&B Night.

Open 10pm.

MONKEYBAR

Something Different

The hills of Canberra by Franzi, and people, place, nation in quilts. 10am5pm (12-4pm, Sat).

Polka Luka In-House Market

Self-Reflexion

THE FRONT GALLERY AND CAFÉ

CRAFT ACT CRAFT & DESIGN CENTRE

D’Opus

Houseparty

KING O’MALLEY’S IRISH PUB

Ced Nada

Hide

KNIGHTSBRIDGE PENTHOUSE

10:30pm. Free.

The 2013 M16 Artspace Drawing Prize

Portraiture by mixed ability artists.

10am-4pm.

10pm to late. Free.

Special K

CANBERRA MUSEUM AND GALLERY

Spinning your favourite retro tunes with DJ Sass and Tasha. Free entry. 9pm.

DIGRESS COCKTAIL BAR

P J O’REILLY’S (TUGGERANONG)

Wear a dress or tie. With Annie and the Armadillos. 9pm. Free.

Art by award-winning painter Ben Quilty. 12-5pm.

THE BASEMENT

OLD CANBERRA INN

Canberra rock band. 9pm. $10.

Trigger Happy

Reign of Terror De Ja Blues

Mattersphere Album Launch

ELK & PEA

Theatre Made in Canberra.

2pm/7:30pm. $25-35 thru thestreet.org.au.

THE STREET THEATRE

TRANSIT BAR

Art Exhibitions

DRILL HALL GALLERY

8pm. Door price TBA.

With Mandala (Syd), and Delinquent (Nowra). 8pm. $10 door.

BELCONNEN ARTS CENTRE

Art by Haeli Van Veen. Opens Wed Dec 4, 6pm. 12-5pm.

ANCA GALLERY

Small Works

A combined exhibition by selected artists. 10am-5pm (9am-5pm Sat/Sun).

BILK GALLERY

Comedy Greg Fleet & Steady Eddy

The Stand Up for the Dogs tour.

6:30pm. $85 inc. three-course dinner.

AINSLIE FOOTBALL CLUB

Jewellery, cast resins objects, and homewares by Alex Freeman.

8am–6pm. Free entry.

Theatre Shortis & Simpson Christmas Special

The Polly & the Ivy. 2pm/8pm. $30/25 via (02) 6247 4459 or smithsalternative@gmail.com.

SMITH’S ALTERNATIVE

And Then There Were 3 Theatre Made in Canberra.

2pm/7:30pm. $25-35 thru thestreet.org.au.

THE STREET THEATRE

The Musicals of Musicals – The Musical!

8pm. $35–42 + bf through canberratheatrecentre.com.au.

THE COURTYARD STUDIO

Jewellery, cast resins objects, and homewares by Alex Freeman.

8am–6pm. Free entry.

THE FRONT GALLERY AND CAFÉ

BILK GALLERY

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ENTERTAINMENT GUIDE Sun Dec 8 - Wed Dec 11 sunday december 8 Art Exhibitions Head Full of Flames

Punk in the nation’s capital, 19771992. 10am-5pm (12-5pm Sat-Sun). Free.

CANBERRA MUSEUM AND GALLERY

Trigger Happy

Art by award-winning painter Ben Quilty. 12-5pm.

DRILL HALL GALLERY

The 2013 M16 Artspace Drawing Prize

Winners TBA at the opening, Fri Dec 6, 6pm. 12-5pm.

M16 ARTSPACE

Afterglow

Art by Nat Randall. Opens Thu Dec 5, 6pm.

CANBERRA CONTEMPORARY ARTS SPACE (MANUKA)

Self-Reflexion

Portraiture by mixed ability artists.

10am-4pm.

BELCONNEN ARTS CENTRE

Hide

Art by Haeli Van Veen. Opens Wed Dec 4, 6pm. 12-5pm.

ANCA GALLERY

Small Works

A combined exhibition by selected artists. 10am-5pm (9am-5pm Sat/Sun).

Theatre Shortis & Simpson Christmas Special

The Polly & the Ivy. 2pm/8pm. $30/25 via (02) 6247 4459 or smithsalternative@gmail.com.

SMITH’S ALTERNATIVE

And Then There Were 3 Theatre Made in Canberra.

2pm/7:30pm. $25-35 thru thestreet.org.au.

THE STREET THEATRE

monday december 9

With Acacia Suitcase: soulful and melodic. Happy hour and tapas.

5-7pm. Free.

A BITE TO EAT CAFE

Irish Jam Session

Free traditional Irish music in the pub from late afternoon on into the night. Free.

KING O’MALLEY’S IRISH PUB

Cherie & Raz

The acoustic sessions, every Sunday from 2pm. Free.

IRON BAR

Sunday Afternoon Sessions

With The Roger Bone Band. 4-7pm.

Free entry.

With The Institute, When Giants Sleep, Reigner, Purity. 8pm. Tickets through Oztix.

CANBERRA MUSEUM AND GALLERY

Comedy Schnitz & Giggles

Impro comedy. 7pm. Free.

SMITH’S ALTERNATIVE

Polka Luka In-House Market Jewellery, cast resins objects, and homewares by Alex Freeman.

8am–6pm. Free entry.

THE FRONT GALLERY AND CAFÉ

Co-founder of The Gadflys, songwriter, and musician. 7:30pm. $10.

CRAFT ACT CRAFT & DESIGN CENTRE

Art by Haeli Van Veen. Opens Wed Dec 4, 6pm. 12-5pm.

Irish Jam Session

Head Full of Flames

KING O’MALLEY’S IRISH PUB

CANBERRA MUSEUM AND GALLERY

Something Different

A combined exhibition by selected artists. 10am-5pm (9am-5pm Sat/Sun).

Free traditional Irish music in the pub from late afternoon on into the night. Free.

Polka Luka In-House Market Jewellery, cast resins objects, and homewares by Alex Freeman.

8am–6pm. Free entry.

THE FRONT GALLERY AND CAFÉ

Punk in the nation’s capital, 1977-1992. 10am-5pm (12-5pm Sat-Sun). Free.

Small Works BILK GALLERY

Karaoke Karaoke Wednesdays

Karaoke

Something Different

P J O’REILLY’S (TUGGERANONG)

THE PHOENIX BAR

Polka Luka In-House Market Jewellery, cast resins objects, and homewares by Alex Freeman.

8am–6pm. Free entry.

THE FRONT GALLERY AND CAFÉ

Trivia Rainman’s Trivial Excuse

Transit trivia returms with your host Rainman. Book your table now on (02) 6162 0899. 7:30pm.

TRANSIT BAR

tuesday december 10 Art Exhibitions 21 Reasons

A super mega art exhibition, with everyone, by everyone. Opens Fri Dec 6, 6pm. 11am-5pm (10am-4pm, S

Something Different

TRANSIT BAR

Trivia Night

Ellie Boardman

TRANSIT BAR

Cathy Franzi & Art Quilt Australia

With Carry On Karaoke. 9pm.

Free entry.

Future Proof

Does exactly what it says on the packet.

From 2pm.

CANBERRA CONTEMPORARY ARTS SPACE (MANUKA)

Trivia

GALLERY@BCS

Free Pool Tables

Croon and wail your heart out on the Transit stage. 9pm. Free.

Art by Nat Randall. Opens Thu Dec 5, 6pm.

With Guerilla Zingari, Handkerchief Thief, Pocket Fox, Hannah Blackburn. 8pm.

OLD CANBERRA INN

On The Town

Karaoke Love

Afterglow

ANCA GALLERY

4pm. Free.

OJO CAFE AND BAR

Karaoke

BILK GALLERY

THE FRONT GALLERY AND CAFÉ

Punk in the nation’s capital, 1977-1992. 10am-5pm (12-5pm Sat-Sun). Free.

Fun on the Run

2:30pm. Free.

SMITH’S ALTERNATIVE

The annual Bilk Christmas exhibition.

11am-5pm (- 7pm Fri, -4pm Sat).

Head Full of Flames

GALLERY@BCS

A multimedia exhibition in celebration of I-Day. Opens Wed Dec 4, 3pm.

9am-4:30pm.

THE BASEMENT

7pm. Free.

Hollydays

Hide

CANBERRA IRISH CLUB

I Killed The Prom Queen

Irresponsible Comedy

M16 ARTSPACE

Mick Moriarty

The Bootleg Sessions

Sunday Best at A Bite to Eat

Comedy

Winners TBA at the opening, Fri Dec 6, 6pm. 12-5pm.

Live Music

21 Reasons

Live Music

CANBERRA IRISH CLUB

CANBERRA MUSEUM AND GALLERY

The 2013 M16 Artspace Drawing Prize

A multimedia exhibition in celebration of I-Day. Opens Wed Dec 4, 3pm.

9am-4:30pm.

Live Music

Sunday afternoon sessions.

4-7pm. Free entry.

Punk in the nation’s capital, 1977-1992. 10am-5pm (12-5pm Sat-Sun). Free.

The hills of Canberra by Franzi, and people, place, nation in quilts. 10am5pm (12-4pm, Sat).

Art Exhibitions

BILK GALLERY

The Roger Bone Band

Head Full of Flames

CANBERRA CONTEMPORARY ART SPACE (GORMAN HOUSE)

Hollydays

The annual Bilk Christmas exhibition.

11am-5pm (- 7pm Fri, -4pm Sat).

BILK GALLERY

Cathy Franzi & Art Quilt Australia

$5 entry. First prize $100 + jug vouchers and drink vouchers. 6pm.

THE DURHAM

Live Music

THE DURHAM

Canberra Musicians Club Presents

7:30pm. All welcome.

Tuesday Pub Trivia First prize $70 bar tab.

7:30pm. Free entry.

O’NEILL’S IRISH PUB

Trivia and Peers with Bondy and Kiers

Arc Cinema presents. 7:30pm. Free.

THE PHOENIX BAR

Trivial Tuesdays

First prize $75 bar tab, second $50 Indian Affair restaurant voucher.

6:30pm. Free.

DIGRESS COCKTAIL BAR

wednesday december 11 Art Exhibitions Past.Present.Future

Fossil Rabbit ‘Cloudache’ EP Launch.

Electronica meets guitar and beats.

7:30pm. Free.

SMITH’S ALTERNATIVE

Faculty Plays

The CMM Xmas Gig. 9pm.

THE PHOENIX BAR

Kylesa

8pm. $35 + bf through TryBooking.

ANU BAR AND REFECTORY

Something Different Polka Luka In-House Market Jewellery, cast resins objects, and homewares by Alex Freeman.

8am–6pm. Free entry.

THE FRONT GALLERY AND CAFÉ

Photography by Mark Mohell. Opens Wed Dec 11, 6pm.

9am-5:30pm (-1pm, Sat).

Theatre

21 Reasons

8pm. $35–42 + bf through canberratheatrecentre.com.au.

CANBERRA CITY FRAMING GALLERY

A multimedia exhibition in celebration of I-Day. Opens Wed Dec 4, 3pm.

9am-4:30pm.

The Musicals of Musicals – The Musical!

THE COURTYARD STUDIO

GALLERY@BCS

Trigger Happy

Art by award-winning painter Ben Quilty. 12-5pm.

DRILL HALL GALLERY

Future Proof

Small Works

CANBERRA CONTEMPORARY ART SPACE (GORMAN HOUSE)

A combined exhibition by selected artists. 10am-5pm (9am-5pm Sat/Sun).

From 10pm. All welcome.

Trivia

The hills of Canberra by Franzi, and people, place, nation in quilts. 10am5pm (12-4pm, Sat).

CRAFT ACT CRAFT & DESIGN CENTRE

DIGRESS COCKTAIL BAR

A super mega art exhibition, with everyone, by everyone. Opens Fri Dec 6, 6pm. 11am-5pm (10am-4pm, S

BILK GALLERY

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ENTERTAINMENT GUIDE Thu Dec 12 - Fri Dec 13 thursday december 12 Art Exhibitions Past.Present.Future

Photography by Mark Mohell.

Opens Wed Dec 11, 6pm.

9am-5:30pm (-1pm, Sat).

CANBERRA CITY FRAMING GALLERY

21 Reasons

Karaoke Karaoke at The Inn

8pm-midnight. Free entry.

Art Exhibitions

Rock Karaoke

Small Works

OLD CANBERRA INN CHARLIE BLACK

A combined exhibition by selected artists. 10am-5pm (9am-5pm Sat/Sun).

Live Music

Past.Present.Future

9pm-2am. Free entry.

A multimedia exhibition in celebration of I-Day. Opens Wed Dec 4, 3pm.

9am-4:30pm.

Open Mic Night

Trigger Happy

Illworth’s

DRILL HALL GALLERY

TRANSIT BAR

GALLERY@BCS

Art by award-winning painter Ben Quilty. 12-5pm.

Future Proof

A super mega art exhibition, with everyone, by everyone. Opens Fri Dec 6, 6pm. 11am-5pm (10am-4pm, S

CANBERRA CONTEMPORARY ART SPACE (GORMAN HOUSE)

The 2013 M16 Artspace Drawing Prize

Winners TBA at the opening, Fri Dec 6, 6pm. 12-5pm.

M16 ARTSPACE

Hollydays

The annual Bilk Christmas exhibition.

11am-5pm (- 7pm Fri, -4pm Sat).

BILK GALLERY

Afterglow

Art by Nat Randall. Opens Thu Dec 5, 6pm.

CANBERRA CONTEMPORARY ARTS SPACE (MANUKA)

Cathy Franzi & Art Quilt Australia

The hills of Canberra by Franzi, and people, place, nation in quilts. 10am5pm (12-4pm, Sat).

CRAFT ACT CRAFT & DESIGN CENTRE

Hide

Art by Haeli Van Veen. Opens Wed Dec 4, 6pm. 12-5pm.

ANCA GALLERY

Head Full of Flames

Punk in the nation’s capital, 1977-1992. 10am-5pm (12-5pm Sat-Sun). Free.

CANBERRA MUSEUM AND GALLERY

Small Works

A combined exhibition by selected artists. 10am-5pm (9am-5pm Sat/Sun).

BILK GALLERY

friday december 13

Hosted by Ben Chann. Showcasing local talent. 7pm. Free.

OJO CAFE AND BAR

BILK GALLERY

Photography by Mark Mohell.

Opens Wed Dec 11, 6pm.

9am-5:30pm (-1pm, Sat).

CANBERRA CITY FRAMING GALLERY

21 Reasons

Canberra’s fresh rhymes people: Nix, Word’s Eye View, and more. 8pm. $10.

A multimedia exhibition in celebration of I-Day. Opens Wed Dec 4, 3pm.

9am-4:30pm.

Chicago Charles & Dave

Trigger Happy

9:30pm. Free.

KING O’MALLEY’S IRISH PUB

‘Wash the Cat’

With Faux Faux Amis, Bacon Cakes, Sex Noises, and more. 8:30pm. $5.

SMITH’S ALTERNATIVE

Live Jazz

GALLERY@BCS

Art by award-winning painter Ben Quilty. 12-5pm.

DRILL HALL GALLERY

Future Proof

A super mega art exhibition, with everyone, by everyone. Opens Fri Dec 6, 6pm. 11am-5pm (10am-4pm, S

Live Music Davesway

Or the highway. 7:30pm. Free.

OJO CAFE AND BAR

ALIVE Fridays Double Header Will Sparks & The Stafford Brothers.

9pm. $29.95 + bf Moshtix.

ACADEMY NIGHTCLUB

Oscar

10pm. Free.

KING O’MALLEY’S IRISH PUB

Momentum Festival (Under-18s Only)

With Stafford Brothers, Will Sparks, and more. 7pm. $33.60 + bf and up thru Oztix.

UC REFECTORY

Tornado Wallace (Turbo Recordings)

Pang! presents. Free before 10pm.

TRINITY BAR

Obsessions

Classic rock done right. 8pm.

CALWELL BAR N BISTRO

Roys de Vocce

From 4pm. Free.

CANBERRA CONTEMPORARY ART SPACE (GORMAN HOUSE)

Folk, rock, country and blues!

7pm. Free.

Revellers

The 2013 M16 Artspace Drawing Prize

Mornings

MINT GARDEN BAR

With Outlines (Vic), Break a Leg (Vic), and No Assumption. 8pm. Free.

THE PHOENIX BAR

Winners TBA at the opening, Fri Dec 6, 6pm. 12-5pm.

The Burley Griffin

M16 ARTSPACE

NATIONAL BOTANIC GARDENS

The annual Bilk Christmas exhibition.

11am-5pm (- 7pm Fri, -4pm Sat).

6:30pm. See sunsetcinema.com.au/ canberra for corresponding screening.

Hollydays

The Melvins & Helmet

BILK GALLERY

ANU BAR AND REFECTORY

Art by Nat Randall. Opens Thu Dec 5, 6pm.

With special guests. 8pm. Tickets thru Ticketek.

On The Town

Afterglow

CANBERRA CONTEMPORARY ARTS SPACE (MANUKA)

SMITH’S ALTERNATIVE

Plus a double EP launch: Thomas Covenant and Beast & Flood. 8:30pm. $5.

MAGPIES CITY CLUB

Monster Mash

With Zoopagoo, Beth n Ben, and more.

8pm. $15/20 door.

ANU BAR AND REFECTORY

Tensions Arise

With Scar The Surface, Perpetual End, Johnny Roadkill, Na Maza. Doors 8pm. $15.

THE BASEMENT

Noche Latina

Cathy Franzi & Art Quilt Australia

THE ALCHEMY BAR

CRAFT ACT CRAFT & DESIGN CENTRE

No Idea

College Express 5

OLD CANBERRA INN

DJ Paisa and DJ Mateo on the decks and percussion. 8:30pm til midnight. $5.

Something Different Polka Luka In-House Market Jewellery, cast resins objects, and homewares by Alex Freeman.

8am–6pm. Free entry.

THE FRONT GALLERY AND CAFÉ

The hills of Canberra by Franzi, and people, place, nation in quilts. 10am5pm (12-4pm, Sat).

Artwork by Year 11 & 12 students from across the ACT. 10am-4pm.

BELCONNEN ARTS CENTRE

Head Full of Flames

Punk in the nation’s capital, 1977-1992. 10am-5pm (12-5pm Sat-Sun). Free.

Theatre

CANBERRA MUSEUM AND GALLERY

The Musicals of Musicals – The Musical!

Art by Haeli Van Veen. Opens Wed Dec 4, 6pm. 12-5pm.

8pm. $35–42 + bf through canberratheatrecentre.com.au.

Live Acoustic Music

By Raw Gigs, every Friday from 5-7pm.

Free.

MINI BAR

9pm. Free.

Dv8AHOY

1pm to 9pm. $40-50.

TBA

Live Music

From 5:30pm. Free.

MINT GARDEN BAR

Hide

ANCA GALLERY

THE COURTYARD STUDIO

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ENTERTAINMENT GUIDE Fri Dec 13 - Mon Dec 16 friday december 13 (cont.)

On The Town Retro Weekends

Hide

Canberra Christmas Markets

ANCA GALLERY

EXHIBITION PARK IN CANBERRA (EPIC)

Art by Haeli Van Veen. Opens Wed Dec 4, 6pm. 12-5pm.

Dance

Unique gifts, wonderful food, and Christmas cheer. 9am-3pm. $3.

Polka Luka In-House Market Jewellery, cast resins objects, and homewares by Alex Freeman.

8am–6pm. Free entry.

Spinning your favourite retro tunes with DJ Sass and Tasha. Free entry. 9pm.

On Course 2013

MonkeyBAR’s 6th Birthday Party!

QL2 THEATRE

Theatre

Havana Nights presents, with DJ Trent Richardson, DJ Spink. 9pm.

Live Music

MONKEYBAR

Slow Turismo

The Musicals of Musicals – The Musical!

Ben Reeve

With Wallflower. 8pm. Free entry.

TRANSIT BAR

DIGRESS COCKTAIL BAR

10pm to late. Free.

New compact dance pieces by university dancers. 7pm. $12/16.

THE FRONT GALLERY AND CAFÉ

8pm. $35–42 + bf through canberratheatrecentre.com.au.

THE COURTYARD STUDIO

KNIGHTSBRIDGE PENTHOUSE

Mr. Bill

Something Different

THE CLUBHOUSE

Polka Luka In-House Market

2:30-5:30pm. Free.

Art Exhibitions

Heuristic

Head Full of Flames

Jewellery, cast resins objects, and homewares by Alex Freeman.

8am–6pm. Free entry.

THE FRONT GALLERY AND CAFÉ

Theatre The Musicals of Musicals – The Musical!

8pm. $35–42 + bf through canberratheatrecentre.com.au.

THE COURTYARD STUDIO

saturday december 14 Art Exhibitions Small Works

A combined exhibition by selected artists. 10am-5pm (9am-5pm Sat/Sun).

BILK GALLERY

Past.Present.Future

Supports TBA. 9pm. Door price TBA.

Plump Duo ELK & PEA

10:30pm. Free.

KING O’MALLEY’S IRISH PUB

Robosonic (Germany)

Pang! House presents. Free before 10pm.

TRINITY BAR

Sweet Shoppe

With Meat Tray, Territory. 9:30pm.

THE PHOENIX BAR

Positive Feedback Loop

With Dylan Hekimian. 8pm. $7.

SMITH’S ALTERNATIVE

Kev’s Birthday

With Metropolis, Soundgarden (just not the real one), plus guests.

Doors 8pm. $10.

THE BASEMENT

Night Potion 9pm. Free.

OLD CANBERRA INN

Photography by Mark Mohell.

Opens Wed Dec 11, 6pm.

9am-5:30pm (-1pm, Sat).

Wormhole 2.0

Trigger Happy

HARTLEY ST, TURNER

CANBERRA CITY FRAMING GALLERY

uniVibes Presents. With Brother Be, Second Hand Salmon, many more.

12pm-late. $10.

Art by award-winning painter Ben Quilty. 12-5pm.

DJ Cheese

Future Proof

NATIONAL BOTANIC GARDENS

DRILL HALL GALLERY

A super mega art exhibition, with everyone, by everyone. Opens Fri Dec 6, 6pm. 11am-5pm (10am-4pm, S

CANBERRA CONTEMPORARY ART SPACE (GORMAN HOUSE)

The 2013 M16 Artspace Drawing Prize

Winners TBA at the opening, Fri Dec 6, 6pm. 12-5pm.

6:30pm. See sunsetcinema.com.au/ canberra for corresponding screening.

sunday december 15

Punk in the nation’s capital, 1977-1992. 10am-5pm (12-5pm Sat-Sun). Free.

CANBERRA MUSEUM AND GALLERY

Small Works

A combined exhibition by selected artists. 10am-5pm (9am-5pm Sat/Sun).

BILK GALLERY

Trigger Happy

Art by award-winning painter Ben Quilty. 12-5pm.

DRILL HALL GALLERY

The 2013 M16 Artspace Drawing Prize

Winners TBA at the opening, Fri Dec 6, 6pm. 12-5pm.

M16 ARTSPACE

Afterglow

Art by Nat Randall. Opens Thu Dec 5, 6pm.

CANBERRA CONTEMPORARY ARTS SPACE (MANUKA)

College Express 5

Artwork by Year 11 & 12 students from across the ACT. 10am-4pm.

BELCONNEN ARTS CENTRE

Hide

Art by Haeli Van Veen. Opens Wed Dec 4, 6pm. 12-5pm.

ANCA GALLERY

On The Town

Dance

D’Opus

On Course 2013

10pm to late. Free.

KNIGHTSBRIDGE PENTHOUSE

LOVE Saturdays with Jared De Veer

New compact dance pieces by university dancers. 7pm. $12/16.

QL2 THEATRE

9pm. $10 entry all night.

Live Music

Hollydays

Retro Weekends

Cassidy’s Ceili

BILK GALLERY

DIGRESS COCKTAIL BAR

CANBERRA IRISH CLUB

M16 ARTSPACE

The annual Bilk Christmas exhibition.

11am-5pm (- 7pm Fri, -4pm Sat).

ACADEMY NIGHTCLUB

Spinning your favourite retro tunes with DJ Sass and Tasha. Free entry. 9pm.

Sunday afternoon sessions. 4-7pm.

Free entry.

Sunday Best at A Bite to Eat

Afterglow

Urban Playground Presents

CANBERRA CONTEMPORARY ARTS SPACE (MANUKA)

MONKEYBAR

With Crmwll: sparse, sweet lyrical dream pop. Happy hour and tapas.

5-7pm. Free.

Something Different

Hold Harbour

Art by Nat Randall. Opens Thu Dec 5, 6pm.

Cathy Franzi & Art Quilt Australia

The hills of Canberra by Franzi, and people, place, nation in quilts. 10am5pm (12-4pm, Sat).

Canberra’s hottest R&B Night.

Open 10pm.

Hustle&Scout Twilight Fashion Market

College Express 5

Fashion, jewellery, vintage threads, and live music from Beth n Ben and more.

3-8pm. Free.

BELCONNEN ARTS CENTRE

Canberra Custom Culture Festival 2013

CRAFT ACT CRAFT & DESIGN CENTRE

Artwork by Year 11 & 12 students from across the ACT. 10am-4pm.

NISHI GALLERY

Head Full of Flames

Custom car everything, with Charlie Greaser, The Velvet Vixens and much more. 11am-4pm. $10.

Punk in the nation’s capital, 1977-1992. 10am-5pm (12-5pm Sat-Sun). Free.

MAJURA COMMUNITY CENTRE

A BITE TO EAT CAFE

51 50

With Finding Eve. 9pm. Door price TBA. P J O’REILLY’S (TUGGERANONG)

Minh Ha

The acoustic sessions, every Sunday from 2pm. Free.

IRON BAR

Decades

An afternoon of music, and a record sale with Dynomite Records.

3pm. Free entry.

TRANSIT BAR

Canberra Blues Society Jam The best Canberra blues musicians gettin’ loose. 2-5:30pm. $3 members/$5 non-members.

HARMONIE GERMAN CLUB

Angie & Nathan Roche

Dual album launches. With Waterford, Sex Noises. 8pm.

THE PHOENIX BAR

Smith’s Summer Sounds & Sangria

With Medicina, a bunch of friends who love to jam. 2–4pm.

SMITH’S ALTERNATIVE

Steve Kilbey (The Church)

Special solo show. 7:30pm. $25.

SMITH’S ALTERNATIVE

Mal

4pm. Free.

OLD CANBERRA INN

On The Town Free Pool Tables

Does exactly what it says on the packet.

From 2pm.

TRANSIT BAR

Something Different Canberra Christmas Markets Unique gifts, wonderful food, and Christmas cheer. 9am-3pm. $3.

EXHIBITION PARK IN CANBERRA (EPIC)

Polka Luka In-House Market Jewellery, cast resins objects, and homewares by Alex Freeman.

8am–6pm. Free entry.

THE FRONT GALLERY AND CAFÉ

monday december 16 Art Exhibitions Head Full of Flames

Punk in the nation’s capital, 1977-1992. 10am-5pm (12-5pm Sat-Sun). Free.

CANBERRA MUSEUM AND GALLERY

Past.Present.Future

Photography by Mark Mohell.

Opens Wed Dec 11, 6pm.

9am-5:30pm (-1pm, Sat).

CANBERRA CITY FRAMING GALLERY

Live Music 2XX LocalnLive Presents Bootleg Sessions

2:30pm. Free.

With Worthwhile Jones, This Lone Ranger, Canberra Cannons, Bottlebrush. 8pm.

Bach’s Oratorio

Smith’s Christmas

OJO CAFE AND BAR

Performed by the ACO and Choir of London. 6:30pm. Tickets thru Ticketek.

LLEWELLYN HALL

Irish Jam Session

Free traditional Irish music in the pub from late afternoon on into the night. Free.

KING O’MALLEY’S IRISH PUB

THE PHOENIX BAR

6pm. $20.

SMITH’S ALTERNATIVE

Something Different Polka Luka In-House Market Jewellery, cast resins objects, and homewares by Alex Freeman.

8am–6pm. Free entry.

THE FRONT GALLERY AND CAFÉ

CANBERRA MUSEUM AND GALLERY

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ENTERTAINMENT GUIDE Tue Dec 17 - Fri Dec 20 tuesday december 17

wednesday december 18

Art Exhibitions

Art Exhibitions

Head Full of Flames

Head Full of Flames

CANBERRA MUSEUM AND GALLERY

CANBERRA MUSEUM AND GALLERY

Punk in the nation’s capital, 1977-1992. 10am-5pm (12-5pm Sat-Sun). Free.

thursday december 19 Art Exhibitions Head Full of Flames

Punk in the nation’s capital, 1977-1992. 10am-5pm (12-5pm Sat-Sun). Free.

Punk in the nation’s capital, 1977-1992. 10am-5pm (12-5pm Sat-Sun). Free.

Small Works

Small Works

Small Works

BILK GALLERY

BILK GALLERY

BILK GALLERY

A combined exhibition by selected artists. 10am-5pm (9am-5pm Sat/Sun).

Past.Present.Future

Photography by Mark Mohell.

Opens Wed Dec 11, 6pm.

9am-5:30pm (-1pm, Sat).

CANBERRA CITY FRAMING GALLERY

Future Proof

A super mega art exhibition, with everyone, by everyone. Opens Fri Dec 6, 6pm. 11am-5pm (10am-4pm, S

CANBERRA CONTEMPORARY ART SPACE (GORMAN HOUSE)

Hollydays

The annual Bilk Christmas exhibition.

11am-5pm (- 7pm Fri, -4pm Sat).

BILK GALLERY

College Express 5

A combined exhibition by selected artists. 10am-5pm (9am-5pm Sat/Sun).

Past.Present.Future

Photography by Mark Mohell.

Opens Wed Dec 11, 6pm.

9am-5:30pm (-1pm, Sat).

CANBERRA CITY FRAMING GALLERY

Future Proof

A super mega art exhibition, with everyone, by everyone. Opens Fri Dec 6, 6pm. 11am-5pm (10am-4pm, S

CANBERRA CONTEMPORARY ART SPACE (GORMAN HOUSE)

The 2013 M16 Artspace Drawing Prize

Winners TBA at the opening, Fri Dec 6, 6pm. 12-5pm.

M16 ARTSPACE

CANBERRA MUSEUM AND GALLERY

A combined exhibition by selected artists. 10am-5pm (9am-5pm Sat/Sun).

Past.Present.Future

Photography by Mark Mohell.

Opens Wed Dec 11, 6pm.

9am-5:30pm (-1pm, Sat).

CANBERRA CITY FRAMING GALLERY

Future Proof

A super mega art exhibition, with everyone, by everyone. Opens Fri Dec 6, 6pm. 11am-5pm (10am-4pm, S

CANBERRA CONTEMPORARY ART SPACE (GORMAN HOUSE)

Hollydays

The annual Bilk Christmas exhibition.

11am-5pm (- 7pm Fri, -4pm Sat).

BILK GALLERY

Artwork by Year 11 & 12 students from across the ACT. 10am-4pm.

Hollydays

The 2013 M16 Artspace Drawing Prize

So Good a Thing

BILK GALLERY

M16 ARTSPACE

BELCONNEN ARTS CENTRE

Judith Clingan’s remembers fifty years of music in the ACT. 10am-10pm.

The annual Bilk Christmas exhibition.

11am-5pm (- 7pm Fri, -4pm Sat).

Winners TBA at the opening, Fri Dec 6, 6pm. 12-5pm.

College Express 5

College Express 5

BELCONNEN ARTS CENTRE

BELCONNEN ARTS CENTRE

Polka Luka In-House Market Jewellery, cast resins objects, and homewares by Alex Freeman.

8am–6pm. Free entry.

THE FRONT GALLERY AND CAFÉ

Theatre The Musicals of Musicals – The Musical!

8pm. $35–42 + bf through canberratheatrecentre.com.au.

THE COURTYARD STUDIO

friday december 20 Art Exhibitions Head Full of Flames

Punk in the nation’s capital, 1977-1992. 10am-5pm (12-5pm Sat-Sun). Free.

CANBERRA MUSEUM AND GALLERY

Small Works

A combined exhibition by selected artists. 10am-5pm (9am-5pm Sat/Sun).

BILK GALLERY

Past.Present.Future

9am-5:30pm (-1pm, Sat).

CANBERRA CITY FRAMING GALLERY

The 2013 M16 Artspace Drawing Prize

Winners TBA at the opening, Fri Dec 6, 6pm. 12-5pm.

ALBERT HALL

Artwork by Year 11 & 12 students from across the ACT. 10am-4pm.

Karaoke

So Good a Thing

So Good a Thing

ALBERT HALL

ALBERT HALL

CANBERRA CONTEMPORARY ART SPACE (GORMAN HOUSE)

Karaoke Love

Croon and wail your heart out on the Transit stage. 9pm. Free.

Judith Clingan’s remembers fifty years of music in the ACT. 10am-10pm.

Artwork by Year 11 & 12 students from across the ACT. 10am-4pm.

Something Different

Judith Clingan’s remembers fifty years of music in the ACT. 10am-10pm.

M16 ARTSPACE

Future Proof

Opens Fri Dec 6, 6pm. 11am-5pm (10am-4pm, S

TRANSIT BAR

Karaoke

Karaoke

Hollydays

Live Music

Karaoke Wednesdays

Karaoke

BILK GALLERY

DIGRESS COCKTAIL BAR

P J O’REILLY’S (TUGGERANONG)

Irish Jam Session

Free traditional Irish music in the pub from late afternoon on into the night. Free.

KING O’MALLEY’S IRISH PUB

With Carry On Karaoke.

9pm. Free entry.

Karaoke

From 10pm. All welcome.

THE DURHAM

Something Different

Live Music

Polka Luka In-House Market

Positive Feedback Loop

Jewellery, cast resins objects, and homewares by Alex Freeman.

8am–6pm. Free entry.

THE FRONT GALLERY AND CAFÉ

Theatre The Musicals of Musicals – The Musical!

With Ka-tere-oke. Win $50 cash and vouchers. 8:30pm.

Open Mic Night

Live Music

Hosted by Ben Chann. Showcasing local talent. 7pm. Free.

OJO CAFE AND BAR

Canberra Musicians Club Presents

KING O’MALLEY’S IRISH PUB

SMITH’S ALTERNATIVE

9:30pm. Free.

Special K/Long Reef

ACADEMY NIGHTCLUB

King Parrot & Gay Paris

5pm afternoon session/ 10pm band. Free.

Malignant Monster

Trivia

THE PHOENIX BAR

Trivia

Jewellery, cast resins objects, and homewares by Alex Freeman.

8am–6pm. Free entry.

THE DURHAM

Tuesday Pub Trivia

THE FRONT GALLERY AND CAFÉ

First prize $70 bar tab. 7:30pm.

Free entry.

Theatre

Trivial Tuesdays

The Musicals of Musicals – The Musical!

O’NEILL’S IRISH PUB

First prize $75 bar tab, second $50 Indian Affair restaurant voucher.

6:30pm. Free.

DIGRESS COCKTAIL BAR

8pm. $35–42 + bf through canberratheatrecentre.com.au.

THE COURTYARD STUDIO

Nerd Trivia with Joel and Ali

Impact Comics Present. 7:30pm. Free.

THE PHOENIX BAR

ALIVE Fridays pres. Alison Wonderland

MINT GARDEN BAR

BAD!SLAM!NO!BISCUIT!

7:30pm. All welcome.

MINT GARDEN BAR

9pm. $15 entry before midnight.

THE COURTYARD STUDIO

Polka Luka In-House Market

From 5:30pm. Free.

From 4pm. Free.

Something Different 8pm. Free.

Live Music

Live Jazz

A harder tour line-up you could not get.

8pm. $15 + bf thru Moshtix.

8pm. $35–42 + bf through canberratheatrecentre.com.au.

Artwork by Year 11 & 12 students from across the ACT. 10am-4pm.

BELCONNEN ARTS CENTRE

Special K

Christmas special with Julia and the Deep Sea Sirens. 7:30pm. Free.

College Express 5

Live Music

With Kid You Not. 8pm. $5.

THE FRONT GALLERY AND CAFÉ

The annual Bilk Christmas exhibition.

11am-5pm (- 7pm Fri, -4pm Sat).

ANU BAR AND REFECTORY

With Desecrator, Mytile Vey Lorth, Claret Ash. 8pm. Door price TBA.

KING O’MALLEY’S IRISH PUB

The Healers 7:30pm. Free.

HARMONIE GERMAN CLUB

Cell Block 69

TV Colours

The band reunites, one last time. With Prom. 8pm. Door price TBA.

THE PHOENIX BAR

‘Basemental 2013’ CD Launch

THE BASEMENT

With Biscuits. 9pm.

ANU BAR AND REFECTORY

Novia Scotia

With Knights Of The Spatchcock, Chud, Space Party, and more. 8pm. $10, profits to RSPCA.

6:30pm. See sunsetcinema.com.au/ canberra for corresponding screening.

NATIONAL BOTANIC GARDENS

On The Town Noche Latina

DJ Paisa and DJ Mateo on the decks and percussion. 8:30pm til midnight. $5.

THE ALCHEMY BAR

THE BASEMENT

Alex Metric (UK)

Pang! presents. $15 before 10pm.

TRINITY BAR

Live Acoustic Music

By Raw Gigs, every Friday from 5-7pm. Free.

MINI BAR

The Foreigners 9pm. Free.

OLD CANBERRA INN

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91

ENTERTAINMENT GUIDE Fri Dec 20 - Sat Dec 28 friday december 20 (cont.)

On The Town Retro Weekends

Spinning your favourite retro tunes with DJ Sass and Tasha. Free entry. 9pm.

DIGRESS COCKTAIL BAR

Obsessions

Gilded Palace of Sin

Live Music

OLD CANBERRA INN

SMITH’S ALTERNATIVE

Christmas Eve Live Band

9pm. Free.

SAFIA

6:30pm. See sunsetcinema.com.au/ canberra for corresponding screening.

NATIONAL BOTANIC GARDENS

On The Town

Zac

Ced Nada

KNIGHTSBRIDGE PENTHOUSE

KNIGHTSBRIDGE PENTHOUSE

10pm to late. Free.

Something Different Polka Luka In-House Market Jewellery, cast resins objects, and homewares by Alex Freeman.

8am–6pm. Free entry.

THE FRONT GALLERY AND CAFÉ

3–6pm. $5.

Alice Plumb

9:30pm. Free.

4pm. Free.

KING O’MALLEY’S IRISH PUB

On The Town

Pang! presents, for your Christmas Eve. 10pm. Door price TBA.

OLD CANBERRA INN

Free Pool Tables

Bag Raiders TRINITY BAR

Something Different

10pm to late. Free.

Does exactly what it says on the packet.

From 2pm.

LOVE Saturdays with The Projektz

TRANSIT BAR

Xmas Eve Orphan’s Christmas

Something Different

THE PHOENIX BAR

9pm. $10 entry all night.

ACADEMY NIGHTCLUB

Retro Weekends

Spinning your favourite retro tunes with DJ Sass and Tasha. Free entry. 9pm.

DIGRESS COCKTAIL BAR

7:30pm.

Polka Luka In-House Market Jewellery, cast resins objects, and homewares by Alex Freeman.

8am–6pm. Free entry.

THE FRONT GALLERY AND CAFÉ

wednesday december 25 merry christmas from BMa magazine!

Theatre

Lot 33 Reunion

The Musicals of Musicals – The Musical!

TRINITY BAR

DJ Karma Birthday Bash!

Art Exhibitions

THE COURTYARD STUDIO

MONKEYBAR

Something Different

Punk in the nation’s capital, 1977-1992. 10am-5pm (12-5pm Sat-Sun). Free.

Polka Luka In-House Market

Hollydays

Live Music

BILK GALLERY

9pm. Free.

Live Music

Strawberry Fistcake

The Xmas Bootleg Sessions

THE BASEMENT

8pm. $35–42 + bf through canberratheatrecentre.com.au.

saturday december 21 Art Exhibitions Head Full of Flames

It never stops. $10 before 11pm.

Urban Playground presents Canberra’s hottest R&B Night. Open 10pm.

Jewellery, cast resins objects, and homewares by Alex Freeman.

8am–6pm. Free entry.

Punk in the nation’s capital, 1977-1992. 10am-5pm (12-5pm Sat-Sun). Free.

THE FRONT GALLERY AND CAFÉ

Small Works

The Musicals of Musicals – The Musical!

CANBERRA MUSEUM AND GALLERY

A combined exhibition by selected artists. 10am-5pm (9am-5pm Sat/Sun).

BILK GALLERY

Past.Present.Future

Photography by Mark Mohell.

Opens Wed Dec 11, 6pm.

9am-5:30pm (-1pm, Sat).

CANBERRA CITY FRAMING GALLERY

Future Proof

A super mega art exhibition, with everyone, by everyone. Opens Fri Dec 6, 6pm. 11am-5pm (10am-4pm, S

CANBERRA CONTEMPORARY ART SPACE (GORMAN HOUSE)

Hollydays

The annual Bilk Christmas exhibition.

11am-5pm (- 7pm Fri, -4pm Sat).

BILK GALLERY

College Express 5

Artwork by Year 11 & 12 students from across the ACT. 10am-4pm.

BELCONNEN ARTS CENTRE

Film Chemical Brothers

The Toxic Avenger (R18+) plus The Beast of Yukka Flats. 7:30pm. See nfsa. gov.au for tickets.

ARC CINEMA

Live Music

Theatre

8pm. $35–42 + bf through canberratheatrecentre.com.au.

THE COURTYARD STUDIO

sunday december 22 Art Exhibitions Head Full of Flames

Punk in the nation’s capital, 1977-1992. 10am-5pm (12-5pm Sat-Sun). Free.

CANBERRA MUSEUM AND GALLERY

Small Works

A combined exhibition by selected artists. 10am-5pm (9am-5pm Sat/Sun).

BILK GALLERY

Hollydays

The annual Bilk Christmas exhibition.

11am-5pm (- 7pm Fri, -4pm Sat).

BILK GALLERY

College Express 5

Artwork by Year 11 & 12 students from across the ACT. 10am-4pm.

BELCONNEN ARTS CENTRE

With Elena B. Williams: soul, folk, jazz and blues. Happy hour and tapas.

5-7pm. Free.

KING O’MALLEY’S IRISH PUB

Thrashed

8pm. Door price TBA. THE BASEMENT

The Bee Cons 9:30pm.

THE PHOENIX BAR

Sunday Best at A Bite to Eat

A BITE TO EAT CAFE

Rumshack

The acoustic sessions, every Sunday from 2pm. Free.

IRON BAR

A Very Metal XMas

With Wretch, Tonk and more! 3pm. $10 door.

TRANSIT BAR

92

With Party Gravy and Friends.

8pm. Free.

THE PHOENIX BAR

Something Different Polka Luka In-House Market Jewellery, cast resins objects, and homewares by Alex Freeman.

8am–6pm. Free entry.

THE FRONT GALLERY AND CAFÉ

Trivia Rainman’s Trivial Excuse

Transit trivia returms with your host Rainman. Book your table now on (02) 6162 0899. 7:30pm.

TRANSIT BAR

tuesday december 24 Art Exhibitions Head Full of Flames

Punk in the nation’s capital, 1977-1992. 10am-5pm (12-5pm Sat-Sun). Free.

A combined exhibition by selected artists. 10am-5pm (9am-5pm Sat/Sun).

ELK & PEA

10:30pm. Free.

The annual Bilk Christmas exhibition.

11am-5pm (- 7pm Fri, -4pm Sat).

Chris Harland Band CANBERRA IRISH CLUB

Plump

CANBERRA MUSEUM AND GALLERY

CANBERRA MUSEUM AND GALLERY

Sunday afternoon sessions. 4-7pm.

Free entry.

what the fuck are you looking here for?

Head Full of Flames

Live Music

Della

2:30-5:30pm. Free.

monday december 23

Small Works

thursday december 26

Chicago Charles & Dave

KING O’MALLEY’S IRISH PUB

8pm. Door price TBA.

friday december 27 Art Exhibitions College Express 5

Artwork by Year 11 & 12 students from across the ACT. 10am-4pm.

BELCONNEN ARTS CENTRE

Film The Ref (M)

7:30pm. See nfsa.gov.au/arc for info/tix.

ARC CINEMA

Live Music Live Music

From 5:30pm. Free.

MINT GARDEN BAR

Heuristic

10pm. Free.

KING O’MALLEY’S IRISH PUB

On The Town Havana Nights Presents

Canberra’s hottest Latino night, with DJ Trent Richardson, DJ Spink. Open 9pm.

MONKEYBAR

BILK GALLERY

Hollydays

The annual Bilk Christmas exhibition.

11am-5pm (- 7pm Fri, -4pm Sat).

saturday december 28

BILK GALLERY

Art Exhibitions

Karaoke

College Express 5

Karaoke Love: XMas Eve Comp

Artwork by Year 11 & 12 students from across the ACT. 10am-4pm.

TRANSIT BAR

Live Music

The winner takes home $500 to kick of the merry season. 9pm. Free entry.

BELCONNEN ARTS CENTRE

Live Band

10:30pm. Free.

KING O’MALLEY’S IRISH PUB

@bmamag

ENTERTAINMENT GUIDE Sat Dec 28 - Fri Jan 10 On The Town LOVE Saturdays with Runamark 9pm. $10 entry all night.

ACADEMY NIGHTCLUB

Urban Playground Presents Canberra’s hottest R&B Night.

Open 10pm.

wednesday january 1 Live Music

Art Exhibitions College Express 5

Artwork by Year 11 & 12 students from across the ACT. 10am-4pm.

BELCONNEN ARTS CENTRE

tuesday december 31 Live Music Live Band

9:30pm. Free.

KING O’MALLEY’S IRISH PUB

Bass in the Place

With Uberjakd, Projektz, Felixx, and more. 9pm ‘til late. Free.

GAREMA PLACE

Icon

Welcome in the new year with Canberra favourites. From 8pm.

THE TRADIES (DICKSON)

Heavy New Year

Live Evil presents the music of Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, and many more.

8pm. $40 + bf thru Moshtix TRANSIT BAR

Basement NYE Party

With Dylan Hekimian, Temtris, Hence The Testbed, and many more.

All day. Price TBA. THE BASEMENT

Oscar

10:30pm. Free.

KING O’MALLEY’S IRISH PUB

On The Town NYE at Academy

Ministry of Sound ‘The Annual’ Tour with Uberjakd. 9pm. $14.95 + bf thru Moshtix.

ACADEMY NIGHTCLUB

NYE Beach Party

Drink specials all night, the hottest Latino and R&B music. Open 7:30pm.

MONKEYBAR

thursday january 9

Four Winds Cambodia Charity Show

Earthless

With Jova, Critical Monkee, Signs and Symbols, Bruges. Doors 8pm. $15.

THE BASEMENT

The Surrogates

With The Shrine. 8pm. Door price TBA.

MONKEYBAR

sunday december 29

Live Music

thursday january 2 Art Exhibitions Head Full of Flames

Punk in the nation’s capital, 1977-1992. 10am-5pm (12-5pm Sat-Sun). Free.

CANBERRA MUSEUM AND GALLERY

Live Music Chicago Charles & Dave 9:30pm. Free.

KING O’MALLEY’S IRISH PUB

friday january 3 Art Exhibitions

THE BASEMENT

10:30pm. Free.

CANBERRA CITY FRAMING GALLERY

On The Town

Artwork by Year 11 & 12 students from across the ACT. 10am-4pm.

College Express 5

LOVE Saturdays with Ashley Feraude

BELCONNEN ARTS CENTRE

Head Full of Flames

9pm. $10 entry all night.

Punk in the nation’s capital, 1977-1992. 10am-5pm (12-5pm Sat-Sun). Free.

ACADEMY NIGHTCLUB

CANBERRA MUSEUM AND GALLERY

tuesday january 7

Comedy

Art Exhibitions

Must See Comedy

Head Full of Flames

With Mick Meredith, Harley Breen, and more. Doors 7:30pm. $22 + bf thru comedyact.com.au.

Punk in the nation’s capital, 1977-1992. 10am-5pm (12-5pm Sat-Sun). Free.

CASINO CANBERRA

CANBERRA MUSEUM AND GALLERY

College Express 5

College Express 5

BELCONNEN ARTS CENTRE

Karaoke

Head Full of Flames

Punk in the nation’s capital, 1977-1992. 10am-5pm (12-5pm Sat-Sun). Free.

CANBERRA MUSEUM AND GALLERY

BELCONNEN ARTS CENTRE

Irish Jam Session

MINT GARDEN BAR

ALIVE Fridays Pres.

Deorro (USA)

9pm. $15 + bf thru Moshtix.

ACADEMY NIGHTCLUB

Long Reef 10pm. Free.

KING O’MALLEY’S IRISH PUB

saturday january 4 Art Exhibitions College Express 5

10am-4pm.

BELCONNEN ARTS CENTRE

Head Full of Flames

9:30pm. Free.

From 4pm. Free.

TRANSIT BAR

Live Music

Chad & Della Live Jazz

Croon and wail your heart out on the Transit stage. 9pm. Free.

Live Music

Live Music

KING O’MALLEY’S IRISH PUB

Karaoke Love

Live Music From 5:30pm. Free.

Past.Present.Future

Photography by Mark Mohell. Opens Wed Dec 11, 6pm. 9am-5:30pm (-1pm, Sat).

KING O’MALLEY’S IRISH PUB

Artwork by Year 11 & 12 students from across the ACT. 10am-4pm.

Artwork by Year 11 & 12 students from across the ACT. 10am-4pm.

Art Exhibitions

MINT GARDEN BAR

friday january 10 Live Music Special K/Oscar

Free traditional Irish music in the pub from late afternoon on into the night. Free.

5pm afternoon session/ 10pm band. Free.

KING O’MALLEY’S IRISH PUB

KING O’MALLEY’S IRISH PUB

Live Music

wednesday january 8 Art Exhibitions

From 5:30pm. Free.

MINT GARDEN BAR

ALIVE Fridays pres.

Bombs Away

9pm. $15 entry before midnight.

ACADEMY NIGHTCLUB

Head Full of Flames

Punk in the nation’s capital, 1977-1992. 10am-5pm (12-5pm Sat-Sun). Free.

CANBERRA MUSEUM AND GALLERY

College Express 5

Artwork by Year 11 & 12 students from across the ACT. 10am-4pm.

BELCONNEN ARTS CENTRE

Punk in the nation’s capital, 1977-1992. 10am-5pm (12-5pm Sat-Sun). Free.

CANBERRA MUSEUM AND GALLERY

OUT

JAN15

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Merry christmas and a happy new year, readers. Thanks for picking us up and choosing an alternative streetpress as your friend in the cafe, pub, bar, or home of your choosing. we couldn’t do it without you. see you in the new year. love, BMA.

93

FIRST CONTACT SIDE A: BMA band profile

Aaron Peacey 0410381306 band.afternoon.shift@ gmail.com.au

Jenn Pacor Singer-songwriter avail. for originals/covers 0405618630

Adam Hole 0421023226

Johnny Roadkill Paulie 0408287672 paulie_mcmillan@live.com.au

Afternoon Shift 0402055314 Amphibian Sound PA Clare 0410308288 Annie & The Armadillos Annie (02) 61611078/ 0422076313 Aria Stone sax/flute/lute/ harmonica, singer-songwriter Aria 0411803343 Australian Songwriters Association Keiran (02) 62310433

Wallflower

Kurt’s Metalworx (PA) 0417025792 Los Chavos Latin/ska/reggae Rafa 0406647296 Andy 0401572150 Missing Zero Hadrian 0424721907 hadrian.brand@live.com.au

Where did your band name come from? From the book The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky.

Backbeat Drivers Steve 0422733974 backbeatdrivers.com

Group members? Henry (vocals/guitar), Ben (bass/backing vocals), Matt (guitar), Alex (drums).

Bat Country Communion, The Mel 0400405537

Describe your sound: Pop music that’s been sent to outer space and then washed with a dirty rag, sprinkled with artificial sweetener.

Birds Love Fighting Gangbusters/DIY shows-bookings@ birdslovefighting.com

Mornings Jordan 0439907853

Who are your influences, musical or otherwise? Tame Impala, Kanye West, Bon Iver, James Blake, Daughter, Flume, Herbie Hancock, and so many others – it’s so hard to narrow down to a few!

Black Label Photography Kingsley 0438351007 blacklabelphotography.net

Obsessions 0450 960 750 obsessions@grapevine.com.au

What’s the most memorable experience you’ve had whilst performing? Once upon a time a beer fell onto our mixer and killed all the power to our amps, so we had to finish the song acoustically Of what are you proudest so far? In the short time we’ve been together we’ve already been lucky enough to play with Owl Eyes, Willow Beats, and SAFIA. What are your plans for the future? To keep giving our fans as much music as we can, we’re recording at the moment and will hopefully have a track out by new years!

Bridge Between, The Cam 0431550005 Capital Dub Style Reggae/dub events Rafa 0406647296 Cole Bennetts Photography 0415982662 Danny V Danny 0413502428 Dawn Theory Nathan 0402845132 Danny 0413502428

What makes you laugh? Puns and Hot Rod.

Dorothy Jane Band, The Dorothy Jane 0411065189 dorothy-jane@dorothyjane.com

What pisses you off? Rudeness. There is literally never an excuse for it.

Drumassault Dan 0406 375 997

What about the local scene would you change? A bar in Garema Place that really got behind local music and strived to bring bigger bands through Canberra.

Feldons, The 0407 213 701

What are your upcoming gigs? We are working on a couple of recordings, and are hoping to have them out in December – planning to be gigging in the new year!

Contact info: facebook.com/wearewallflowertheband; soundcloud.com/wallflowermusic.

FeralBlu Danny 0413502428 Fire on the Hill Aaron 0410381306 Lachlan 0400038388 Fourth Degree Vic 0408477020 Gareth Dailey DJ/Electronica Gareth 0414215885 Groovalicious Corporate/ weddings/private functions 0448995158 Guy The Sound Guy Live & Studio Sound Engineer 0400585369 guy@guythesoundguy.com Haunted Attics band@hauntedatticsmusic.com

Image credit: Rose Evans

94

Kayo Marbilus facebook.com/kayomarbilus1

Moots Huck 0419630721 Morning After, The Covers band Anthony 0402500843 MuShu Jack 0414292567 mushu_band@hotmail.com

Painted Hearts, The Peter (02) 62486027 Polka Pigs Ian (02) 62315974 Rafe Morris 0416322763 Redletter Ben 0421414472 Redsun Rehearsal Studio Ralph 0404178996/ (02) 61621527 Rug, The Jol 0417273041 Sewer Sideshow Huck 0419630721 Simone & The Soothsayers Singing teacher Simone 62304828 Sorgonian Twins, The Mark 0428650549 Soundcity Rehearsal Studio Andrew 0401588884 STonKA Jamie 0422764482 stonka2615@gmail.com Strange Hour Events Dan 0411112075 Super Best Friends Sam White sam@imcmusic.net System Addict Jamie 0418398556 Tegan Northwood (Singing Teacher) 0410 769 144 Top Shelf Colin 0408631514

In The Flesh Scott 0410475703

Undersided, The Baz 0408468041

Itchy Triggers Alex 0414838480

Zoopagoo zoopagoo@gmail.com

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