SNEAKY // Issue 01

ISSUE ONE FREE

SNEAKY TYZA STEWART / AN AFTERNOON WITH A DOMINATRIX / TONY BUCHEN / HOW TO BE A BAD BITCH THE MAKING OF MYSTERY ROAD / BREAKING HEARTS IN SURRY HILLS / RIP SOCIETY

SNEAKY ISSUE ONE

Stay with me here. This will be the first and last “Letter from the Editor” you’ll see in Sneaky, because for the most part letters from the editor are boring and self-indulgent. So let me be boring and self-indulgent once and I promise I’ll never do it again.

The response from Sneaky issue zero, released last month, has been pretty amazing. I gotta say it’s a nice little ego boost to receive emails from people saying they connected with it. Whenever I’m crying myself to sleep at the thought of losing a shitload of money by publishing this magazine or at the thought of my small, pathetic life in general, I console myself with the fact that there are people out there who like what we’re doing.

As much as we love the emailed compliments, we understand there’s probably some scepticism about what we’re doing. Another street magazine in Sydney? There’s already two for music, a few more for fashion, another that takes care of food and coffee and yet another that makes you feel like a Brooklynite on acid hanging out in a war zone.

That’s why we need you fuckers. It’s taken a while for this to fully formulate in my stupid head, but I think what we’re trying to do is build a platform for Sydney artists, writers, designers, photographers blah blah blah to see their work in print. Something that takes a little time with those artists, gives them the space

and depth they need to be put on display properly. Not just a quick question and answer with a band that has a gig and then moving on to the next show to plug. We want to find the best young Sydney talent and show it to fucking everyone. But you’ve got to be good.

You’ve got to have a bit of balls and determination and energy.

We’re trying our best to build a platform for you.

So send us your shit and if it’s any good we’ll publish it in this shit. If you’re a writer and you’ve got something weird to say just send it our way. If you’re an artist and you’re unique and you do good work, pester us a little. If you’re a fashion designer, photographer, graphic artist, whatever… if you think you have something to say and you say it well, whatever the medium, we want to hear from you. You could go out and become a fucking slave or do an internship where you get to pack a bunch of boxes for a stylist you never really meet, or you could come to us and tell us something unique and if it really is, we’ll put it in print.

Because print is not a dying medium. Sure, newspapers are on the way out but that’s because they’re boring, stupid and have absolutely nothing to say anymore. There is still a space for a magazine that’s made with love and determination and balls and soul and spirit. So stop trying to be normal and come give us some help, asshole. S

W HO? James Branson, Steve Bush, Nikki Sparkes, Ross Eldridge, Ella Bush, Markell Hughes, Rob Scott Michael Branson, Jack Mannix, Jordana Cohen For all advertising enquiries contact ross@sneakymag.com For editorial contact james@sneakymag.com For random stuff and junk contact info@sneakymag.com

06 Hugh and Dan Two very colourful guys: Stylist Hugh and Photographer Dan.

26 Yes Mistress Rob Scott gets weird with a dominatrix for an afternoon of torture.

46 New Releases Our favourite new album

by King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard.

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Tony Buchen Sydney music producer Tony Buchen talks shop about the best job in the world.

Surviving Your Hangover Where to wash away the seediness from the night before.

If You Want Me To Stay Pics by Jack Mannix, memories by our sentimental editor.

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Heartbreak In Surry Hills Street people tell us about their stories of heartbreak and loss. Awwww, diddums.

Tyza Stewart The amazing work of young Sydney-based artist Tyza Stewart.

Mystery Road We talk to Ivan Sen, director of upcoming Aussie film Mystery Road.

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Cherub Rock Sneaky fashion

by Aime Milne and Lauren Dietz.

RIP Society We have a talk to Nick Warnock about his vinyl label RIP Society.

How To Be A Bad Bitch Venus I. Furs on being the sickest chick you can possibly be.

Hugh and Dan

We like their work, and frankly, so should you.

Hugh William Stewart and Dan Hilburn are a stylist and photographer team based in Sydney whose work I really like. I’d invited Hugh and Dan to the office to talk about shooting for Sneaky and was confronted by two of the most flamboyantly dressed men I’d seen in a while. That’s saying something, because our place is in the middle of Surry Hills. I especially appreciated Dan’s pride in displaying his chest hair. I’m pretty damn gorilla-like myself, so I feel a natural kinship with those like me. It’s a brotherhood.

Their work together is interesting. It treads the line between the kind of strange shit I like to see and more commercial, refined imagery. They generally work as a team and have shot numerous campaigns and editorials; all colour and light. They also have an interesting take on male fashion. I did a quick interview while we were talking shit about shooting freaky images for the next issue of Sneaky.

“We often work together when we’re doing something really creative. We have a good chemistry together,” Dan tells me through the extraordinary mane of chest hair sprouting from his collar.

“What I see in Hugh’s styling is a bit of a bravery that a lot of people aren’t prepared to try.”

“It’s good finding people who are able to challenge me and break the mold,” says Hugh. “Working with Dan is really interesting, he comes from a more commercial background and I come from a design background.”

“We’re really into shooting editorial content that’s more arty but also has a nice refined feel.”

They seem to counter each other usefully. Dan has the more refined, commercial eye and Hugh likes to be a bit wilder, but that’s essential in any team. I know some of my ideas for Sneaky are often completely batshit crazy and unworkable. I’d like at some point to do an all analogue issue, made completely by hand, but I’m sure that will get vetoed, and sensibly so.

Says Hugh: “I need somebody to help me keep sensible. Otherwise I’d be doing hideous things.” S 6 SNEAKY

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ALL PHOTOGRAPHY AND STYLING BY HUGH AND DAN 7 SNEAKY

Tony Buchen Has The World’s Best Job WE TALK TO THE SYDNEY PRODUCER ABOUT BEING SURROUNDED BY MUSIC ALL DAY, EVERY DAY. PICTURES TAKEN BY NICK LA ROSA

Here’s some free advice if you’re determined and talented and want to make a career out of music. Try becoming a producer. It’s one of the most fullfilling and interesting jobs anyone can have. If you’re any good you get to have significant creative contributions to more music than you could imagine. Bands, songwriters and performers will have your mark on their work for the rest of their lives. There is an indescribable joy that comes from recording music, working away at a song and getting it on tape or the hard drive. I’m not sure I’m able to put it into words. It’s a bit like a really good drug.

I spent ten years trying to be a musician and producer, and undoubtedly the most determined and talented person I worked with was Tony Buchen. He’s been recording bands in Sydney for ten years, and his back catalogue stands up against anyone I can think of who’s been making music in our city. Think The Preatures, Andy Bull, Phrase, Loon Lake, Tim Finn, Bob Evans. The list could take up this entire article so I’ll stop.

We didn’t really get along in the studio. I was a lazy stoner and Tony had a bit of a dictator vibe about him. He’s gotten better with age on that front, but it’s also something you need if you’re producing a record. Nothing great gets done by committee. He’s remained a lasting influence on me and probably hundreds of musicians who have passed through his studio, where we sat down last Friday and spoke about the best fucking job in the world: Making music.

Why production? I think I started producing because I’m a control freak. You’ve worked with me, you know… When I had my own band I didn’t like the feeling of relinquishing control of the music to a third party unless they were someone I hugely respected. When you’re making your first record, you can’t afford to hire that big producer, so you’re inevitably sitting there thinking “Well, I know exactly what I want to hear but I don’t know how to do it”. So I ended up sitting on the shoulder of the engineer and just asking… And I was trying to fast track straight away to that place where I could sit in that seat and be in control. But I think that’s part of my personality. That’s not for everyone. Some of the best artists I’ve worked with are actually the artists that don’t do that. So it became clear to me that I would be much better serving my true self being a producer rather than an artist. It was better to my production career rather than my artistic career having that control freak mentality.

The second album with Baggsmen really got me addicted to the whole recording process. It got some radio play, and when you hear your song on radio it’s just the best… I know when you’re making any art it’s really difficult to get into the headspace of the audience when they’re listening, looking, whatever. Is it hard to hear the music you’ve produced objectively and just listen to it? That’s the battle of being a producer every single day.

Especially because I like to be busy – I don’t concentrate on one particular project – I do many projects that are often overlapping, so there’s a lot of music that’s going through my brain at any one time. I would say there’s only two hours of my waking day when I’m not absorbing music. So it’s really intense. That battle for objectivity is very difficult., but there are certain psychological techniques that you develop to disembody yourself from the track. The problem with radio now – not just radio but streaming, laptops, earphones – is that there’s all these different ways of listening to music, that our current methods of experiencing music make it increasingly difficult to offer a sound that covers all those formats. Triple J’s compression is one

I would say there’s only two hours of my waking day when I’m not absorbing music.

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thing, streaming, listening through a laptop… what are you mixing for? So what do you mix for? How do you find that balance?

You just have to. You’re not gonna do five different mixes for each format – maybe that will be something in the future. Maybe some little hashtag attached to the file for each format. You might have this compressed file that has five mixes in it. Shit that’s a good idea…

That’s a fucking great idea actually. What I try to do is just rehearse the mix in lots of different environments. I have a bunch of speakers that sound different, and that’s the thing, the listening environment is key too. When you’re driving and listening to music, you’re not devoted as you are in the studio, where you’re not distracted. So it’s important to put yourself in all those situations.

Most people listen in earphones and you’ll actually find that most kids – like under 25 – listen on laptops. Heaps of artists come in with comments on a mix I’ve spent a day on and I ask them what they’ve listened to it on and it’s the laptop! But that’s valid. It’s reality. So much has changed about the experience of making music and how it functions. So have you become better at not worrying about that? About controlling the sound? Yeah absolutely. I used to compensate for my lack of wisdom about these things with a certain bravado. There was a good period of my earlier career when I thought I could just chisel musicians into place. That was a really good phase though, and some producers never change that about themselves – that air of tension in a studio, and sometimes great work comes out of that. So I guess part of the job is managing personalities too… Yeah and I’ve become better at that. Partly that

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came from working in the States… you’re working with these musicians who have a far greater catalogue than you do, so the relationship has shifted, but you’re still calling the shots. You have to be very respectful and that taught me to humble the fuck up for a minute. What I learnt was that the more talking there is in the studio the less you’re focusing on performance. So if you’ve got a baseline of good musicianship it becomes all about putting the right performers in the room and creating a feeling like they’re almost not recording.

The last few sessions I’ve done, the musicians came into the control room and said that it didn’t really feel like they were even recording, and I was like “yes”. Perfect. The music I really love to work on is just musicians in a room. You just let them play and you end up with magical performances. Yeah I’ve noticed that about your work.

Your early stuff was very meticulous and intricate, but things have gotten simpler over time. I’m still trying to pare my sound back, because what I’m starting to realize is that anything that really succeeds is natural. It’s that old cliché of less is more. I want my music to have less, but more of the right things. Lately I’ve just been deleting shit that doesn’t feel one hundred percent right. To do that you need to have a very strong sense of what’s right, so it’s taken some time to have the confidence to do that. I’ve had some musicians who have been shocked at that – that I’ve just gotten rid of whole takes. Just because you’ve worked hard on something doesn’t mean it’s any good. Ten percent of a record is the “hard work” stuff. The rest is inspiration. It has to be based on that first. What’s fascinating to me is that everything we’re talking about is a

psychological process too. I’m reading Daniel Levitin’s book This Is Your Brain On Music.

There’s this great thing he points out in the first chapter. When you hear a frequency, say one hundred hertz, your brain actually resonates at one hundred hertz. And you can put electrodes on your brain that will actually play that signal back into an amplifier. Wow. Yeah, in other word your brain is actually playing the music. That just fascinates me. Do you think you have a “sound”? More often than not the “Sound” you become known for is just the most successful record you have.

You don’t choose this. I actually battle with notions of whether I should have a sound. I could chip away at one particular sound and develop that style, but the thing is I’m someone that came up listening to hip hop, punk, The Beatles, Neil Young, Hendrix.

One day I’d be listening to Beastie Boys or NWA and struggling as a white Jewish kid with this ghetto identity I wanted so badly. And the next I’d listen to the Beatles and just be marveling at the way they used sound. So for me all those things are there. When I work on a hip hop track I’m really excited about that, and then I’ll work on a singer –songwriter track and I’m just really into that too. So I don’t think I’d be true to myself if I were to work in just one style. It really depends on what my role is. Some records I’ll just sit back and engineer, Rick Rubin style – not that I’m comparing myself to him, I don’t want to sound delusional – and let others just talk it out and play. I’ll just interject every now and then. He called himself a “Reducer” rather than a producer. Those Johnny Cash records are just so simple. Yeah, he is able to really just focus on the important things. But in saying that, I really enjoy those records that I do things like string arrangements for. Yeah it’s fun doing those intricate things sometimes. I would never give that up, unless one day I wanted to get super minimalist. I could probably see myself do that in ten years, just sitting in the chair. Have you thought about doing your own music as an artist again? I just did a project with two other artists that’s a three part vocal thing, and that record will be launched next year. That got me back into the game of being an artist. The feeling of writing a song and performing it and having somebody else manage the recording was incredible.

That would have felt so free. Yeah it did. And it taught me so much about being a producer again. So there’s this thing simmering now to do my own album. The problem is that any album you make, you want to come out. I don’t like the idea of making an album as a vanity project. I think any artist wants their music to be heard.

Yeah I think so. There are some who would probably disagree, but all music is to be shared. It’s not in the world for an isolated individual experience. So that’s my trepidation about doing my own album being able to back it all the way and put that effort in. That’s something I tell every artist – don’t bother doing it unless you’re going to back it. Do you think you’d have the mental space to sit back and just write songs? I’ve been working on that. I’ve been

taking on less production work, cherrypicking it a bit more, which is really challenging, because for eight years I’ve been work work work work work. Obviously there’s a lot less focus on creating albums these days. Is that frustrating for you as a producer?

Yeah. I was at the Big Sound conference and there was a producer panel and that question came up. It’s not cool for me. There’s a lot of great things that’s come from the “democratization” of music and recording, but there are some songs, some great songs, that wouldn’t have happened without the context of an album. You need to develop a body of work to develop a sound and then a song just shoots through. A Day In The Life. Yep. Ashes To Ashes. That is my best example of this, you listen to Scary Monsters, it’s such an incredible listen, but to the layperson it’s probably a difficult one, and when that song happens it just leaps out. It would never happened without the album. So I think albums are very important in making better music.

Outside the polished, pop world, a lot of great songs are still happening within the context of albums, so I say to an artist that it is important to get on the path to making an album. It’s very important artistically. When you sit down in the studio it feels very different when you’re recording one song as opposed to five or ten. On day five of making a record something magical happens. It’s like being on camp as a kid! You just lose your inhibitions and let things happen and that’s when great work occurs. But if you do just two days on a single you never have the opportunity to go deep. Yeah it’s more fun to have something to sink your teeth into. Yeah, and partly it’s about financial constraints. A lot of managers are telling their artists not to do an album, and I get why they say that, but they’re not thinking on the level of the art. You get better results if you invest in your artists and put money behind solid recordings. What albums you’ve recorded have stood out as being really fun and creatively fulfilling? I always have to think about it, because I’m so in the moment when I’m working. When I move on to a new record I have to give it my complete devotion. Things come up, and when I see people I’ve worked with there’s an amazing sense of warmth because we’ve been through something together. S tonybuchen.com Management: Catherine Haridy Instagram: @tbuchen SNEAKY 13

Hungover Brunch I’m frankly too seedy write this, but it’s gotta be done. So last night you did beer, red wine, more beer, tequila slammers and then some weird liqueur you’ve never heard of, got two hours sleep and the hangover has kicked in. You feel like death.

You’re NEVER going to drink again (and you really mean it this time). You’ve gotta eat. Now. And if you don’t get a coffee soon you’re actually going to kill someone. Here are our favourite places in Sydney to get brunch when you’re really, really, really fucking hungover.

CLEVELAND’S ON CLEVELAND REDFERN It’s one of the friendliest places to sit down and wash away the dirt from last night. Harry the barista makes me pretty fucking amazing coffee every morning, which is obviously the most important part of your recovery. As well as having some heartwarming food, they also have a hairdresser at the back with a bunch of whisky to choose from. The only catch is you have to get a haircut if you want a drink, but there’s actually no better hangover cure than a shave, so this might be your place.

YOUR MUM AND DAD’S PLACE Yeah, you still live at home, right? Our generation eventually moves out around the age of 35, so for the foreseeable future you can get a nice home cooked breakfast from mumsy to clean off that seedy feeling.

The only problem is the guilt. And the new boy/girl you have hiding away in your childhood bedroom. And the feeling of having failed in life.

KAWA SURRY HILLS The menu at Kawa includes three words likely to prompt a pathetic whimper of hope from anyone with a brutal hangover: All. Day. Breakfast. I usually go the potato rosti with two poached eggs and mushrooms, but if the previous night reached the tequila slammer stage then I pile the house-made beans and bacon on top. More or less everything is organic, free-range and hand crafted, so you can briefly trick your body into thinking you care, and if you sit outside you distract yourself from The Mother Of All Hangovers by ogling the passersby on Crown Street. (The only bummer here is the coffee: sometimes it’s OK, but generally it’s pretty crap.)

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BILLS

STORE ESPRESSO CAMPERDOWN They provide blankets, and that’s enough for me really. They have a great range of food and heartwarming coffee after you’ve destroyed your internal organs the night before, but really it’s all about the blankies.

They’ll even bring your orders over the road to Camperdown Oval.

SURRY HILLS A Sydney institution. If you haven’t crawled all the way from your bed to Bills before, then you don’t know how to truly treat a hangover. Yes it’s popular, yes you might have to wait, but before you start hotfooting it back to bed with Berocca and Panadol in hand, suck back one of Bills Daily Greens juices – a potent combination that delivers essential vitamins and minerals to hit your hangover for six. Pick of the meals is the Crab, Chroizo and House Kim Chee, although if you’re looking for something a little less rich, the Sweetcorn Fritters will allow you to dabble in fried goods whilst keeping it light. (There are also Mimosas and Bloody Marys on offer if you’re feeling that way inclined...)

INDIGO DOUBLE BAY There’s only one place that you will find a queue to feast on the culinary delights of Double Bay. The immense popularity of Indigo has seen it take over the traffic island in the middle of picturesque Transvaal Ave (prime seating) and spread itself over two premises. This may sound a bit clichéd, but it ticks all the boxes when it comes to what you’re looking for in a breakfast – efficient yet friendly service, fresh ingredients, big servings and impeccable coffee, all set in a cutesy floral cul-de-sac. The price might be a little steep compared to some other Sydney jaunts, but it’s certainly worth it. Breakfast highlights include whatever fresh juice they have as their special, the breakfast bruschetta or one of the many omelettes they have available. Finish it off with a stroll along to Rose Bay or a quick dip at Redleaf and you can wave goodbye to your hangover.

MILK BAR BY CAFÉ ISH REDFERN This place serves up what are possibly Sydney’s best milkshakes (I can’t go past the Super Choc combo of Milo and Lindt chocolate), but the Crab And A Cone – a combination of their famous Soft Shell Crab Omelette and a cone of fries – is the real star here. Runners up are the Bacon And Egg Roll and an epic Cheeseburger served on a lusciously soft, house made roll, and everything is offered at bargain prices. The proximity to Redfern park for a bit of a post feed lie down is another bonus feature about curing your hangover at Milk Bar. S

IF YOU WANT ME TO STAY Photography and Styling: Jack Mannix Models: Ebony, Poppy, Tom and Humphry (The Wolves) Stories by our stupid, boring, self indulgent editor.

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We didn’t care because we were free. It was a short, sharp time when we had zero responsibilities and nothing to worry about.

I was maybe 18 or 19 and I was excited about life because I’d just discovered ecstacy, which I thought was pretty amazing. Your first proper high is one of life’s great experiences and I don’t really care if anybody thinks that’s a dangerous thing to say in a magazine because it’s true. The reason young people get addicted is because they’re lied to about drugs before they’ve tried them, so when they get high for the first time and realise that death and depression aren’t immediate they start chasing, and that’s when things get real.

I’d gone up to Byron Bay with a friend called Nathan in my dad’s car, which was filled with clothes and smoke. We’d perfected pulling cones whilst driving (it’s an art form). Nathan and I met at uni and bonded over billies and the Sly And The Family Stone’s song If You Want Me To Stay.

I can’t remember it clearly but I’m pretty sure we planned to just stay in the car all weekend. We had 20 or so pills – an absolutely fucking epic amount for broke uni kids – and we planned to dump 10, sell 10 and live off the proceeds. Which, needless to say, was a stupidly ambitious plan. They all went down.

Thankfully we had my dad’s fuel card from his work. I quickly discovered that not only could you charge petrol to the card but you could buy anything from any Shell service station and charge it to the card. It was a pretty awkward scene a few months later when dad was questioned at work about all the ciggies and chips that were put through in September of whatever year it was.

But we didn’t care because we were free. It was a short, sharp

time when we had exactly zero responsibilities and fucking nothing to worry about, so money didn’t matter. I don’t think I’ve ever told him but I experienced the happiest moment of my life walking next to Nathan outside of an empty club and feeling entirely free and easy and walking on air. No hangups, no extra consideration between what I thought and what I said. Maybe it was a good new pill but I’ve never felt like that again.

We met some random gorgeous hippie girl who invited us to a doof in the rainforest and of course we went... when a random gorgeous hippie girl invites you anywhere, you go.

Everyone there was smoking crytstal meth but Nathan and I didn’t have the balls to get into that shit (raised right) so we just sat back and watched the gorgeous hippie girl and her beautiful friends dance for about I don’t know how many hours straight, happily stoned and still buzzing. On the way back I almost hit a pedestrian on a crossing.

And then we drove back down to Sydney and nothing was ever the same for me. We kept chasing highs that weren’t as nice. We never got too deep but we both ended up smoking years away. We did some fun things like played in a band and every now and then we got really lucky and properly clicked again.

So what is the point of this story? Love those fleeting moments and most of all remember them. Don’t mistake the high you get from friends confused with the one you get from chemicals. You could pop down the greatest concoction devised by science and it wouldn’t matter unless you’re with someone you love.

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It turned into an awkward attemp at sex in the bathrooms, because we couldn’t make any noise and I was too poor to afford condoms.

Emma was a girl I met at the airport. We were both working some random job in promotions, asking strangers if they’d like to try some shitty wine. We’d also both had our hearts broken.

There was the instant connection of two people who were desperate for something fleeting and new, so about half an hour after first meeting I knew there was a good chance. She’d been flown up from Melbourne for a few days and I’d jumped at the chance to get out of my goddamn office (hell).

After flirting for the entire first day I was pretty amped to see her the next. We stood behind the temporary counter and I did my usual thing when trying to impress a girl: verbal diarrhea.

Sometimes it works and I’m rather quite impressive, accessing parts of my brain for knowledge on whatever subject comes to mind. I read a lot, so if you want to get random bits of very shallow knowledge on almost any subject, I’m your man.

Other times it doesn’t work and women just look at me very strangely as I continually talk shit about international relations between the wars or, if things get really desperate and silence threatens to envelop us, my own hangups.

Thankfully Emma found my hangups very charming. We decided to finish up early (no adult supervision) and have a drink. It very quickly turned into attempted sex in one of the airport bathrooms, which was a struggle. Firstly because we couldn’t make any noise

for fear of being found out and secondly because I didn’t have any money to buy a condom. I was irresponsibly poor at the time, spending most of my cash on weed and… well, just weed.

Too embarrassed to admit that I needed to borrow two dollars off her to buy a rubber, I made some stupid excuse about feeling uncomfortable doing it in an airport bathroom and we went back to her hotel.

I was still feeling distraught about my recent breakup. As I kissed Emma’s cheeks and made clumsy attempts at foreplay that would never go anywhere because of the aforementioned lack of protection, my only thoughts were that she didn’t feel right.

She was soft but didn’t have the same feel as Lena, the heartbreak kid. Our conversation didn’t flow as well. I don’t know what I expected but what I really wanted was a clone of the girl who broke my heart. I wanted Emma to magically turn into the person I missed.

Like the stupid cunt that I was, I didn’t even leave the hotel room. We ended up just laying there awkwardly, pretending to be affectionate really just wanting some sleep.

I called her a couple of times because I was young and that’s what you do, but she never answered. She’s probably not reading this, but if she is…

Hi Emma.

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Yes Mistress My afternoon with a dominatrix

Words by Rob Scott Photos by Nathalie Daoust

UNFORTUNATELY FOR MY SENSE OF SELF WORTH, MORALITY, CHANCES OF IMPRESSING GOD AND GETTING INTO HEAVEN, MY FAMILY’S NAME AND JUST GENERAL GOOD TASTE, IT’S BEEN DECIDED THAT I AM NOW OFFICIALLY SNEAKY’S REPORTER ON FRINGE HUMAN BEHAVIOUR. THERE WAS A SERIOUS DISCUSSION ON WHETHER OR NOT I’D BE WILLING TO LET SOMEBODY DEFECATE ON ME IN THE NAME OF “RESEARCH”. I BAULKED AT THAT ONE, BUT IT WAS DECIDED FOR ME THAT ANOTHER MISSION WAS ON THE CARDS: AN AFTERNOON WITH A DOMINATRIX. Although I like an occasional bite or slap if it’s called for, I really do not (or did not… more on that later) have any underlying desire to be spanked, hit, stomped on, whipped, humiliated, caned, kicked in the nuts, pissed on or to undergo CBT. CBT, for anyone who isn’t familiar with the term, is Cock And Ball Torture. There’s a particularly gruesome image on one Sydney-based dominatrix’s website showing a bloodied dick with about twenty small pins inserted into the scrotum. Ew. I wasn’t hungry for that kind of experience. I was actually pretty fucking nervous about the whole shebang, so I asked one of Sneaky’s mates Jack Mannix about what I was in for. Jack has a bit of experience as a tranny assistant to local mistress. He’d helped out with sessions that called for some extra humiliation.

“Some clients liked the actual pain, but most were there to be humiliated and embarrassed. We taunted them, made fun of how they looked. Sometimes we’d piss on them or make them shit themselves…”

Oh dear.

“We had a dungeon and there were chains that we’d tie clients up in. There was also a lot of suppressed breathing – a lot of clients like to be suffocated. There was one guy who liked to be put in a latex suit that had small air holes which I had control of. A lot of that play was about getting him to do humiliating things, and as a reward I would let him breathe a little easier.”

Yeah Jack, please go on to make this more enticing…

“A lot of guys liked to be pissed on. It was good money, too. I would charge a thousand bucks for a pissing session.”

Fuuuuuucccckkkkk!

I found a mistress in Surry Hills on the net. Her website made pretty viewing: pictures of men dressed in leather gimp outfits being led around on a chain by a tattooed woman whose whole look screamed “I will kick your ass”. Several pictures featured a glass of golden liquid that I first thought – rather hopefully – was whisky.

“Um, that’s not whisky,” Ross from Sneaky helpfully pointed out.

Oh. So I finally settled on Mistress Anna in Darlinghurst. She looked nice enough and tough enough at the same time. For some reason I can’t be bothered thinking about, it was important that my dominatrix might be able to take me in a fight – if I felt I could easily physically overpower her I didn’t think I’d get a true experience of being dominated. We arranged to meet at four in the afternoon.

Half an hour before I was due to have my ass kicked the jitters set in solidly. I was scared not really of the humiliation but the SNEAKY 27

pain, which was playing on my mind. I have a low threshold for pain and it had never turned me on too much in bed.

Ten minutes before game on I received a text with strict instructions to wait on the corner near her Darlinghurst terrace and to not under any circumstances knock on her door. As I watched from across the street a short, stocky, George Costanzatype exited, looking shaken and exhilarated. Or so I imagined.

A few minutes later a phone call summoned me in.

“You’ll need to come through and sit on the right hand side.”

Her place was, downstairs at least, like any other Sydney terrace: upper middle. Before we could talk about my upcoming torture she had some medical questions.

“Do you have any medication or health problems I need to know about? High blood pressure?”

“No.” “Good then. A bad back or knees?”

“Not really.”

“The reason I ask is that you’ll be doing a lot of kneeling before me on the floor, and sometimes clients can’t handle that.”

I was sure my knees could handle the pressure.

“I use ‘mercy’ as a safe word, so you need to say that whenever it gets too much. If there’s something you don’t like, especially something physical, I’ll ask you if you need to say ‘mercy’, and you will say ‘yes mistress’ or ‘no mistress’. I also use a rating system from one to five – five being the most painful. So I will also ask you to rate the pain from time to time.

“Once we go upstairs you will always address me as ‘mistress’.

This is an introductory session, so there’s be some light bondage, cock and ball tie and tease… did you want some anal play today?”

Like she was supersizing me.

A long silence ensued.

And ensued.

“Is that part of the regular introductory service?”

“Yes. There’s more though, like putting needles in your cock – but that’s not something you might enjoy.”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Ok, so there’ll be forced orgasm obviously… did you have anything else you want to try? Would you to try some urethral play? One of my favourites is urethral sounding. It’s like a male vibrator. They’re metallic, long, thin rods. I find one that’s smaller than the eye of your penis and insert it…”

Woooaaaahhh. I asked if they’re generally pleasurable because this shit was beginning to sound pretty fucking scary.

“Most guys feel a bit like they’re about to pee or have an orgasm.”

I suggested we could leave it for next time and she decided talk time was over. She led me upstairs and commanded I take a shower.

I dried off and Mistress Anna opened the door, demanding I be naked and directing me to turn around and blindfolding me and putting a tight leather collar around my neck and leading me to her dungeon. The blindfold came off, revealing the lair with all the trappings you’d expect. A hard rubber floor, chains, a sling and what looked like a dentist’s kit containing numerous sharp metal objects.

“Kneel.”

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I knelt.

“I have some rules.”

“Yes mistress.”

“I don’t like soft dicks.”

“Yes mistress.”

“I don’t like dripping dicks.”

“Yes mistress.”

“You come when I let you.”

“Yes mistress.”

The slapping began, starting a beautiful relationship between her hands and my ass. Gently, at first, then gradually harder over the course of a few minutes until I was told to get up. Mistress Anna began to slowly but firmly wrap a thin rope around my balls, too tight for comfort. But comfort wasn’t what I was here for really.

She asked me on a scale of one to five how painful it was.

“One.” Braces were quickly wrapped around my hands and feet, then hooked onto a series of chains in the middle of the room, leaving me in an X position, feet apart and hands up, unable to move more than a few inches. I felt like that douchebag in Game Of Thrones who spends the entire third season getting tortured on a cross.

I was grabbed by the collar and given a round of light emotional abuse (“you’ve been playing with your dick every day, haven’t you? How many times do you touch that dirty thing?”), then some further ass slapping. The ass slapping seems a big part of being a dominatrix. By the time they have kids they need to discipline, your average dominatrix must be well rehearsed in corporal punishment.

I was scratched, had my nipples clamped and underwent further verbal taunting. I was her slave, she was in control, I would do as she commanded. A sharp metal device that I couldn’t see through the tiny opening in my blindfold began to crawl heavily across my chest, she asked how painful it was and I gave it a three out of five. She seemed rather satisfied with a three.

I’m going to stop for a second here and say that it’s hard to gauge the correct tone with which to write this. While the above and below is a simple list of events told rather dispassionately, I wasn’t really sure how I felt at the time. Often I had a sense of detachment – at times wanted to break out laughing. It was painful and humiliating, but so is Tony Abbott.

I was mercifully taken down from the chains – like Jesus from the cross – and dumped on to what appeared to be a gymnastics horse. I was told to bend over it and my hands and feet were again tied, this time to the ground. Some further ass slapping occurred in this position and she squeezed the rope around my balls tighter.

I gave that one a four out of five.

At this point in our session I began to become… a little bored, honestly. I was expecting, probably naively, to feel more physical pain – perhaps I have a greater tolerance than I first suspected, but the subjugation of my body wasn’t bringing too much insight. It elicited few feelings.

Then something strange and unexpected happened. I began to feel a strong desire to be humiliated and abused on an emotional level. I wanted her to scream at me, put me down, call me scum, taunt me, make me feel like a piece of shit. The desire came out of nowhere

and was very, very new. It was overpowering.

So I began to provoke her. I wanted to make her as angry as I possibly could, hoping she’d get angrier and take it out on me. I laughed when she reminded me of her rules.

“They’re not actually rules, you know,” I said, still bound and tied up.

I smiled when she told me to shut up. “’I don’t like floppy dicks’ is not a rule. ‘I don’t like dripping dicks’ is not a rule. They’re just things you don’t like,“ I taunted.

She didn’t seem to take the bait, continuing with the physical humiliation by pouring hot wax on my back, which actually hurt like hell. But I continued being a smartass, trying to provoke her further, purposely forgetting her rules when asked to repeat them, laughing when I should have been screaming, and sweating. She didn’t like the sweating, but I couldn’t help it. It was hot in there.

If it’s possible to find being tied up, abused, whipped and slapped a little boring I was beginning to feel that way. The desire for more abuse got stronger, and for a moment I wanted some more hardcore physical abuse too – I wanted to be punched and spat on. But it was still the emotional torment that I wanted the most, and I started to wish she knew more about me – my hang ups, my secrets, my fears – so she could use them against me. It was a strange and new feeling.

By this time I still wasn’t hard, and I could tell Mistress Anna wasn’t happy about this. What I found out later is that she genuinely wants her clients to be turned on, and she really does enjoy the work. Unlike, say, a prostitute, Mistress Anna actually cares that her clients get what they want from the sessions. It was clear by my flaccidity that it wasn’t happening for me.

She let me off the horse and dragged me gently by the collar over to the sling in the middle of the room, spreading my legs, attaching them to a chain so I couldn’t move them, and putting on some gloves. I guess I had been asking for more with my disobedience. It was time to get fingered.

She applied a generous amount of lube to the… region. After some gentle caressing she inserted what felt like a finger. I expected the anal play to either really turn me off or be strangely enjoyable, but it was neither. My overall reaction to the experience was “meh.” Maybe that’s a little strange in itself, but the physical aspect of what we were doing had now become far less important to me and the desire to be verbally abused took over entirely.

And then, our time was up. She took her finger out of my ass, off came the latex gloves, and my last command was to take a shower.

EPILOGUE: A Post Play Conversation With Mistress Anna.

Mistress Anna: So, how did you feel about that?

Me: I certainly enjoyed parts of it. It’s hard to figure out right now, but what I wanted was more of the emotional abuse.

Mistress Anna: You were definitely pushing it. When you were being a smartass to me and you told me my rules weren’t actually rules I could see your normal dominative personality come through. There’s nothing wrong with that, but what you were doing was a fairly cheeky thing to do to a mistress.

Me: I actually felt myself actively trying to piss you off.

Mistress Anna: A good mistress will control her temper and won’t fall for that. She won’t react abusively.

Me: That’s actually how I wanted you to react.

Mistress Anna: That’s not my thing. A mistress less experienced might thrash out at you.

Me: At some point I did begin to enjoy being hit.

Mistress Anna: Yeah, you did. But you’re new, so it takes a few sessions to know somebody’s boundaries. That was actually pretty challenging for me – you began starting to push my buttons.

Me: I guess that was me not really knowing how it works.

Mistress Anna: Mmmm. But it’s my house and my rules apply here.

Me: Yes ma’am.

I walked out into the real world feeling understandably odd.

Although the experience was strange and new it took me a while to know what to make of it. The physical experience had been tamer than I had expected. Although I’ve never been keen on pain during sex I was still expecting this to hurt more, and was honestly a little disappointed that it didn’t. Although there were some painful moments, I only once shouted the safe word “mercy” and that was when Mistress Anna untied the rope around my testicles and the blood flowed back into them.

But it was my first time, so I imagine that Mistress Anna didn’t want to go too far in an introductory session – if I went again I think I’d ask for something a bit rougher.

What was more interesting was the uncovering of my until-now dormant desire to be psychologically abused. I wanted more taunting, more teasing. I wanted to be told I was scum, and be spat on and be made to lick her boots. I don’t know if that’s something I want in my sexual and emotional relationships with other women – hopefully it simply came from a desire to have a real experience of being dominated – but the fact I wanted more abuse certainly reveals something. I just don’t know what that something is.

I’m not a psychologist so this is probably a very shallow analysis, but my suspicions are that it stems from my relationships with women in my past. I’ve always fallen in love with people who are more morally upstanding than I am. Maybe that comes out of having a good Christian mother or perhaps it’s just the fact that I’m a general scumbag and any woman is bound to be a better citizen than me, but I came to the realization after seeing Mistress Anna that I have never held the balance of power in any of my relationships.

I’ve always been the weaker one. The one to agree to end an argument even if I feel I’m in the right, to cede control for the sake of settlement, to always assume I’m in the wrong because how could this woman I love have any faults?

That’s obviously a warped way of thinking. Of course the women I’ve been with are imperfect, but I’ve never acknowledged that until after those relationships have ended. Now that I’m single, and have been for a year, that part of my life – having someone better than me subconsciously controlling my behaviour – is missing.

The desire to be abused by Mistress Anna seems like a good replacement. I’m gonna go back. S SNEAKY 29

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Canadian photographer Nathalie Daoust spent several months photographing women in their private rooms at one

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of Tokyo’s biggest S&M hotels for her project Tokyo Hotel Story. See more of Nathalie’s work at daoustnathalie.com

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Claire

Damien

Emma

Ella and Alice

Anthony

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Marty

Bobby

Surry Hills. Playground for struggling artists with Macbook Pros stealing wifi from the library. Mothers at the playground with children who are already wearing ironic t shirts. Good coffee served by men with beards.

I lived there six or seven years ago in a stoned daze above a shop on the corner of Devonshire and Crown Street for one hundred and twenty dollars a week rent that was very irregularly paid. Sorry Lisa and Heesco.

Luckily for me Bourke Street Bakery was literally a crawl away, so I’d just spend most of my time either smoking at home or eating their sweet, sweet baked goods. And perving on the women. Jesus Christ there are some beautiful women in Surry Hills! I’m a pretty militant agnostic, but there’s something about the chicks walking past whatever pub or café I’m sitting outside of on Crown Street that force me to consider for brief moments the possibility of a creator. There is no better place in Sydney to be a seedy old man (except perhaps the beaches, but those aren’t my kind of chicks).

I’ve had my heart broken twice in Surry Hills. Stomped on and spat on and set on fire like it’s a pathetic bit of meat. So I went around asking random strangers to tell me their stories of heartbreak. Enjoy.

CLAIRE WORKS IN PR So how many times have you had your heart broken?

Hmmmm. Never. Shit, never? Never. I’m still with my high school sweetheart of seven years. Oh, that’s so lame! Surely you’ve gone close to heartbreak with him before? Nah. Sorry. Not dramatic enough. I guess I’m not interesting. Oh no, that’s plenty interesting. Well done, I’ve never been able to maintain a relationship for more than two years...

MARTY PROFESSIONAL GAMER AND MURALIST

Hey man, have you ever had your heart crushed and stomped on by a woman? Absolutely. I was in the army and I came home and she’d cleaned me out. She even took the shower curtain rings and the light bulbs and everything. Fuuuuuckkk!

Yeah. Pretty brutal, actually. Yeah, sometimes they take some weird stuff. My wife and I recently broke up and she took half a bottle of olive oil, which I thought was a little weird. Well, that’s bad. So did you have any warning about this whatsoever? Nope. I was in the army and I went up north on a military exercise and I came home and it was all gone. To top it all off she left the stinking cat, which I hated because it pissed everywhere.

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Sean

Jake

Sophie

Alicia & Dan

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Mystery girl

ELLA AND ALICE STUDENTS Ever had a bad breakup that ended in heartbreak?

Ella: No. I’ve been lucky. Have you broken anybody’s heart? A little bit. What happened? Well, I decided to break up with him and we had a very nice breakup. I let him feel my boobs a little bit. What, as you broke up with him? Yeah. That’s a really good parting gift. It helped a lot. And we’re still friends. Yeah, I bet. That boob move is effective. Nice strategy. What about Alice? Ummm. No. Awww. But how old are you? I’m eighteen.

Oh well. You’ll do it soon...

ANTHONY MASSAGE THERAPIST Ever had your heart broken? No man, I’m lucky. I’ve been careful. Ever broken anybody’s heart? Yeah, a few. Damn. Were you brutal or nice? No man, very nice.

Whenever you break up with a woman you gotta be nice and gentle. Yeah, otherwise you cop a lot of shit. There you go...

BOBBY PHOTOGRAPHER Hey Bobby, ever had your heart broken? Yes. It’s a long story, and it put me into therapy and medication. Shit man.

Did she just stomp on your heart really brutally? Yeah man, I got fucked over. We both moved to the UK together and it ended nastily. This douchebag got involved and said all this shit about me and then slept with her. She ended up having two kids with him. This is a guy who fucked my best mate’s girlfriend. He just preyed on women and would always move in like three days after a split up. What a cunt. Yeah, he told her that I’d been with other women... all this shit about how I’d cheated. None of it true. And you ended up in therapy?

You should send him the invoice. Haha... yeah!

SEAN CAFÉ MANAGER Ever had your heart broken? Yeah man, definitely. What happened? Who fucked up? It was a mutual fuckup really.

Did it end badly? It was just one of those situations with no communication. Then it ended abruptly and all these weird games happened. Any revenge? Yeah, I slept with one of her friends. Which was an asshole thing to do but it made me feel better about myself.

JAKE PHOTOGRAPHER Shit, everybody here is a photographer. Yeah, it’s Surry Hills man. So have you ever had your heart broken? Yeah. I guess. I just got dumped. Was it a bad one or a regular break up? Pretty standard really. Any ill feeling remaining? Oh yes, I’m very bitter. And twisted? And vengeful. Did you get any revenge? I’m planning something. A girl once broke my heart and I ended up getting with her cousin and one of her best friends. Anything like that planned? Dude, that’s a good

one. I’m gonna write that down.

SOPHIE MODEL Ever had your heart stabbed? Metaphorically, of course. No. Not to this day. Have you ever broken anybody’s heart? No I don’t think so, unless I have a secret admirer who I don’t know about. Yeah, there’s probably some nerdy guy with a room full of pictures of you with the word “bitch” scrawled over them crying himself to sleep every night. Ha ha, yeah. I hope not though.

ALICIA AND DAN ALICIA IS A MANAGER AND DAN “WORKS WITH COMPUTERS” Hey guys, are you like a couple or something? Ha ha, we don’t know yet. Oh really! I’m walking in on the middle of something? So have you guys had your hearts broken before? Alicia: We were talking about this today. I’ve been in love three times. Have you ever had your heart stomped on? Alicia: Yeah, I was with a beautiful woman who became a trans boy. Really? Good story. Yeah, he changed. He smelt differently, he changed. It was heartbreaking. So I guess in that situation you wouldn’t feel as bad about yourself.

It was really about him. Yeah, absolutely. And if you love someone you gotta let them be. Do you still see him? No. It was one of those things where he just become totally different. I’m part of his old life. What about you, Dan? Dan: Yeah, three times. But nobody ever changed sex on you?

Ha ha... no. The last one was pretty tough though, ‘cause it was after nine years. Oh shit. Yeah. We had plans of marriage and kids. Alicia: This is a pretty depressing subject. Yeah, I just want to bring everybody down today.

MYSTERY GIRL Ever had your heart broken? Ever broken anyone’s heart? Nope. I don’t believe you. Surely you’ve broken someone’s heart. Maybe last time. What happened? I just broke up with someone. Was he crushed?

I think so. I didn’t really let him speak. I sort of blocked him off before any emotion came out. I was kinda angry. Did he do something to piss you off? Sort of, yeah. What, did he punch your dog or something? No. He had a history with a lot of other girls so I was like, I can’t date somebody who’s slept with so many girls. But he recently joined Facebook and all these girls came out of the woodwork. And some of them were friends in common with me. I didn’t like that.

You sound like the jealous type. Yeah, I started getting a little jealous. But it bothers you… one of them called him when I was lying next to him. Hang on. You broke up with him because of previous relationships not because he was an asshole or anything? It was about a hundred. Woah. Is he super good looking or really rich or something? I wanna meet this guy. He’s good looking, yeah. Did you know that in China if you sleep with one thousand concubines you get eternal life? No. That sounds awesome. I just couldn’t get serious with somebody who had slept around so much though. Fair enough. S

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Portrait Of The Artist As A Boy TYZA STEWART’S PAINTINGS OFTEN FEATURE THE ARTIST’S HEAD AS A CHILD SUPERIMPOSED ONTO THE BODIES OF NAKED MEN. HENCE THE LAWYERS...

Super Relaxed (2013), oil on board, 30 x 45 cm

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Something strange happened at the Sydney Contemporary Art Fair this year. The lawyers came in. They advised that a number of works by young Brisbane artist Tyza Stewart should be taken down and out of the state of New South Wales. The gallery that represents Stewart, Heiser Gallery, was told they shouldn’t give out the catalogues featuring the work. And that they should probably be pulped.

This advice came from Bill Henson’s lawyer. And when you’re told that your work might be illegal by somebody who pushed hard against the NSW Government’s desire to ban Henson’s pictures of young girls and have him branded a child pornographer, you take that advice rather seriously.

Stewart’s work is provocative. The art writer Rex Butler speaks of his first encounter with Tyza’s paintings: The work exhibited was a small oil on board of two men having sex, looked upon by a small girl – I was not to know yet, but it is Stewart who is crouched down to one side of them.

Stewart’s latest work is a series of images of women with penises.

They are self portraits, essentially. Some feature Tyza as a child with a penis, seemingly masturbating. Hence the lawyers.

There’s a debate to be had here about censorship and what constitutes child pornography. Most artists I spoke to seemed flabbergasted that the silks even got involved. Bruce Heiser, who’s gallery in Brisbane represents Stewart, didn’t see this coming at all.

We could bang on about censorship and politics in art, but that would be boring. Stewart’s art, and the glaringly honest exploration of gender identity that is central to it, is actually way more interesting, because despite the controversy surrounding the images, the work really is rather fucking good.

Personally, I hate talking about art. It only rarely does the artist justice, and looking into a painting and thinking about what it tells you about yourself, your reactions to images you might see as unusual or provocative and your thoughts on the line between say, pornography and art, is always significantly more interesting than trying to have the artist explain what is often unexplainable.

Words never really do it justice. But I spoke to Tyza and tried anyway...

Natural Habitat (2013), oil on board, 30 x 45 cm

Did you always have this idea to work on self portraits? It definitely developed over time. I really just started on this series over the past few years after I finished uni. There’s definitely a style of art I’m drawn to, though.

You seem like a pretty private person – is this a way to compensate for that? I haven’t really thought about that... I guess, although this is one part of my life I’m quite happy to have out in the open, and to have people talk about.

It’s obviously a pretty open exploration of your sexuality...

It’s more about my gender than my sexuality...

Oh yeah. So is it your desire to be a boy? I think when I was a lot younger, around twelve, that was the kind of thing that I wanted. I wanted to be a boy, but now it’s more about not being a woman. Not fitting into that definition of being a woman.

The paintings are so honest – have other artists expressed shock at how openly you’ve displayed your questions on gender? They’re not so much shocked about the honesty. I really like work that’s very honest, and a lot of artists can identify with the work - not in terms of gender - but just through being honest in my art.

Well I guess any artist is really trying to just explain themselves through art. I guess so, but it’s more about trying to explain it to myself rather than other people. So that there’s a discussion with other people….

Were you surprised the work was taken down at the Sydney Contemporary Art Fair? Yeah definitely. I was a bit worried

about it. I think maybe there’s better contexts for the work than an art fair, which is about selling work.

Are you going to continue doing this kind of work for the foreseeable future? Yeah there’s more to explore, extending on this work and going deeper into aspects of it. I think I’ll keep developing this series... S

We could bang on here about censorship and poitics in art, but that would be boring. Stewart’s art, and the glaringly honest exploration of gender indentity that is

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Selfie #1 (2013), oil on panel, 45.1 x 30cm

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New Socks (2013), oil on board, 45 x 30cm

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Transportrait #1 (2013), oil on board, 32.5 x 36cm

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Caught In Two Worlds WE TALK TO THE DIRECTOR IVAN SEN ABOUT HIS NEW FILM, MYSTERY ROAD.

I’ve just finished watching Mystery Road and I’m perplexed.

It’s a haunting film, a murder mystery set in the outback that takes a close look at the complex racial tensions in a small town based on Moree, where director Ivan Sen spent a large part of his childhood.

At the centre is detective Jay Swan, played by Aaron Pedersen, a local Aboriginal cop recently returned from the city and thrown straight into the simmering tensions between his people and the law of white Australia.

“I’ve always been interested in the fringes of cultures, and especially drawn to the historical role of the ‘turncoat’. In Australia he was the Indigenous black tracker or the native policeman. He was a man employed to track, disburse and even slaughter his fellow people,” says Sen. Jay Swan is understandably conflicted about his role as what some in his community see as a turncoat. Sen says he continually struggled with his cultural identity growing up in a small town, and it’s something that he clearly explores in Mystery Road. Swan is caught between two very distinct and opposing worlds, and his own people continually turn their

You have to cater for the widest demographic without it turning to crap. So that’s the challenge that ’m loving at the moment.

backs on him and he gets no cooperation from the local white police. Two girls are murdered and nobody seems to give much of a shit.

There’s a reason the film has such a personal touch. A few years ago a cousin of Sen’s mother was found dead under a roadway in northern New South Wales. She had been stripped and brutally murdered, but the police have done very little to bring her killer to justice. The resentment from the local community is echoed in the film.

But Sen is also an auteur film maker in every sense of the word. His earlier work was done almost entirely alone. Production, editing, cinematography and even music. His films Beneath Clouds and Toomelah played at Berlin, Sundance and Cannes, a remarkable achievement for somebody who does a large amount of work on his own.

The cinematography in Mystery Road is simply stunning.

The music is beautifully constructed without being invasive.

Sen has some interesting lessons for any young film makers wanting to go it alone…

You’ve been making films almost either by youself or with a small team for years now – what struggles have you encountered and what help have you received? Has the decision to make your films without a huge team been something that was forced by circumstance or is it just the way you prefer to make them?

Well, I haven’t been totally making them alone. I couldn’t make them without the actors or my producer. The approach really came from my experimental film Dreamland. That was me and two actors, that was it. It was the first time I’d directed actors while holding the camera and I became addicted. So that film also became an example of showing investors that it could be done.

There was a little resistance by Screen Australia when I went into Toomelah with this solo approach. But they ultimately understood my concerns about taking a crew in there, which would have had a negative effect on the first-time actors. Mystery Road’s crew felt too big at certain times, but when you compare it with normal crews it was pretty small. As long as everyone is there for a very good reason, and they don’t hinder the process, then it’s fine.

What’s the process with making films for you? Do you tend to sit down and write ideas in a sudden burst of energy or is it a longer, more organic process?

I don’t know, it feels different every time because you’re always one film wiser. But it’s always difficult, because you want to push harder every time. With the next film I’m pushing much harder than I have before. The words on the page have to be almost perfect or they’re gone. It’s a commercial film where every second counts.

You have to cater for the widest demographic without it turning to

crap. So that’s the challenge that I’m loving at the moment.

How did you find collaborating with a larger group of people on this one? Was it a struggle to relinquish some of the control you usually have?

No, not at all. It was a great experience. The set was a warm place to be, I just loved the crew and the actors. I tried to be focused and move quickly and the crew followed that approach most of the time.

I loved the support – it really freed me up to be even more creative with the ultimate vision. But I was still lighting and operating the camera, so I was still able to drive the process.

Mystery Road obviously explores simmering racial tension as well – is that something you want to continue to look at in future films?

Maybe not racial division, but other forms of division and exclusivity. The world is a very unfair place and race is only one aspect of it. I think most artists want the world to be a fairer place.

Stylistically what films influenced the making of this one?

Which directors and writers?

I have to say No Country For Old Men was an influence. Not really from a story point of view, but more from a costume and design angle. The script really just came from my own experience of witnessing my family and friends back home in northern New South Wales. All of the details have come from reality somewhere along the line.

Do you have any advice for young film makers who want to get their films made? What was important for you as a young director when you first started out?

Start looking at the audience. A lot of people are saying scary things about the future of cinema and are questioning the life of the current diversity. There are more and more people who want to make films but the screens are choked with Hollywood content. It’s getting more and more difficult to access the screens, especially without any government support. My advice for young filmmakers is to look at what is out there and have a good look at yourself and where you can fit into the jigsaw. S SNEAKY 45

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King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard OUR ALBUM OF THE MONTH IS THE NEW RELEASE FROM KING GIZZARD & THE LIZARD WIZARD. IT’S BEEN PLAYING IN THE OFFICE ON REPEAT. King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard’s excellent new album Float Along Fill Your Lungs has just come out. It’s a really interesting listen, with a lot of references to 60s pop experimentation. It sounds like they had a damn fun time in the studio. I spoke to Stu, lead guitarist and vocalist.

Hey man. How did the recording of the new record go?

It was definitely not the case of us getting in there and recording it all at once. We pieced it together over time. We put the tracks together in the studio and at home. The majority of it we recorded at little home set ups whenever we had some time and space. I suppose you could say it was very leisurely done.

Was that a good thing creatively, having all this time to let the songs happen?

To be honest I’ve never really worked in a big studio, but it’s awesome on a creative level to have time to experiment and tinker with ideas. We had time to fuck around with sounds – we probably did at least fifteen or so tracks – some got abandoned or were never really finished too. We’re all still learning how to record, so that’s all part of the process.

There’s obviously a lot of effects and experimentation with sound on the record.

When you’re writing songs you have an idea of how you’d like them to turn out, but by the time they’re finished it’s always pretty different. We’d just try a lot of ideas along the way.

What’s with the obscuring of your vocals with effects so much? I thought that was pretty interesting…

Haha yeah. I’m slightly obsessed with doing things just because they’re not the regular thing to do. I’m not doing that because I don’t want people to hear what I’m saying. It’s just fun to try different sounds – recording vocals through guitar amps, trying different effects.

Yeah well that’s the fun thing about recording I guess, experimenting in the studio and trying weird shit.

Yeah. And the album was definitely put together without really

thinking about how it would work live either. We just went into the recording process and tried new stuff to see how it sounded.

I noticed on one track you were referencing the old stereo recording in the sixties, where they always had different instruments completely to left and right of the speakers. It’s a weird sound…

Yeah that’s actually called dual mono. It’s essentially the left and the right completely separate. It’s really cool, you get a lot of space and clarity when you mix like that. I guess it makes it harder to have your record sound really massive or brutal that way, but that’s not us.

Yeah that whole big massive brutal stuff has gone way too far. But that dual mono thing always sounds pretty weird in earphones. Have you ever listened to “Taxman” by The Beatles in earphones? It’s kinda fucked up…

Yeah. The all that later Beatles stuff was really experimental in the mixing. Around that time, the mid sixties, there’s heaps of really interesting mixing. In the seventies they came up with a bit of a formula.

All those recordings really sound like the kids got control of the mixing desk, and it’s really cool actually.

Yeah absolutely. We mixed with that in mind. We’re definitely into trying new weird stuff in the studio.

Are you one of those guys that’s always writing with things popping into your head?

I suppose so. I definitely go through stages. When we were making that album, I bought a whole heap of studio gear and was thinking a lot about recording, as opposed to songwriting, and that was spurring on my writing process. When you’re recording, songs sort of form around an idea in the studio.

There’s a real sense of that studio experimentation on the album.

Yeah, especially because the studio was essentially my shed! S Float Along, Fill Your Lungs is out now. King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard play at the Standard on November 2nd.

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CHERUB ROCK Photographer: Amie Milne at Unsigned Management Stylist: Lauren Dietze at Viviens Creative Model: Ellie Lemons at Viviens Models Hair and Makeup: Andrea Micich at Unsigned Management

Wrap Bohemia, Top American Vintage, Skirt Topshop 48 SNEAKY

Bra Hatsumi’s Laundry, Jacket American Vintage, Jeans Genetic Denim

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Jacket Bohemia, Pants Topshop, Shoes Topshop

Top Custo, Jeans Genetic Denim, Shoes Topshop SNEAKY 51

Top Bohemia, Pants American Vintage, Necklace Coussinet 52 SNEAKY

Top Custo, Dress Bohemia

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Jacket Maidenlove, Slip Topshop SNEAKY 55

Nick Warnock’s RIP Society NICK WARNOCK IS RELEASING A SHITLOAD OF AWESOME SYDNEY BANDS ON VINYL. INTERVIEW BY MIKEY BRANSON

There’s a lot of love that goes into making vinyl.

We spoke Nick Warnock the other day about the (mostly) vinyl releases on his label RIP Society.

He’s doing something that a shitload of people all around the world have been doing, but he’s one of only a few in Sydney. There might be a reason for that. As I tore open the collection of records I took back from Nick from their plastic, I was expecting to be transported back to those days when records were precious objects that you treasured: You’d be excited to open them (like a vagina?) and the experience of actually handling the music would bring you and the performer closer. It was real, not digital. It was a beautiful physical object.

I experience none of those emotions when I open records. I’m too young to remember glory days of vinyl, and too old to feel a false nostalgia for something I’d missed out on.

The plastic took too long to take off I had to scratch at it with my fingernails. After opening another I couldn’t get the record and the artwork back in the sleeve. I had to ask my brother to bring his record player in. I have exactly zero emotions about the rise and dominance of digital music, and I am a music freak. I care about it immensely, but for me it’s all about the sound.

But not everybody is like me. There is a growing number of Sydney punk / bedroom pop / dole-wave / call them what you like bands, who are pushing their product on seven and twelve inch. Invariably they’ve at some point been involved with Nick’s RIP Society. Nick has been putting out some of Sydney’s most interesting music since 2008 using his own money and time. It’s a DIY operation done purely out of love.

It’s not profitable. It’s hard work. And it’s a great fucking thing that he’s doing. Mikey Branson spoke to him the other day about releasing music in Sydney...

What is the philosophy of R.I.P Society? It’s mostly about getting stuff done. It was kind of embarrassing, being a part of the music industry. It’s not a proud industry to be a part of.

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Why’s that?

Because it’s lame. I love underground music culture and I guess I just wanted to be a part of that. To add something back to D.I.Y music culture. Because if you really love something you should give back to it. The first release was the first Circle Pit 7 inch because no one was willing to put it out in a way that was the best format for an introductory release of the band. Which was that was a 7 inch.

Do you think they would have had to compromise in some way had they not been on R.I.P Society?

There just wasn’t any outlet to release it locally. You could pitch it to Stained Circles and Arrgh!, both of which were at full capacity at the time. So you could release a CDR and your friends would hear it… Or you had to pander to the proper music industry. You gotta remember, in Sydney good underground music did not exist at all in the public eye about five years ago. You could try to play at the Hopetoun or Sando. Everything existed in warehouses or illegal spaces. A lot of the music was very outsider and very strange. Then people started writing really concise, iconic songs, whereas earlier there was more developing and experimenting.

What bands really broght that good, sharp songwriting to the scene. I think Eddy Current Supression Ring was probably the first..

Yeah they had a really big impact. What other bands before them would you say contributed to that?

Well, that’s kind of hard to say. Some of those bands have been around since I first started going to shows and are still in my musical world. Lakes’ Shaun Bailey was in here today, his was the second release we did. He’s been around since I started. You had to know someone to have an ‘in’ in the Australian music culture that I thought was any good. No one took Australian music seriously and no one seemed to want to validate it.

Well, I guess you can’t really expect anyone to get too ambitious when the Australian music landscape is apparently so bleak.

Out of all the bands I know there’s not much entitlement or ambition, you just have to figure out all of this stuff yourself. Through both R.I.P and Repressed Records, I feel it has been an uphill battle to convince people that what Australia has produced is valid. There’s just this huge tradition in Australia of ignoring what’s good at the time and then in hindsight it becomes this iconic thing. I basically just wanted music that was more creative and human to be a little more visible.

When you say “sound more creative and human” do you mean avoiding that overproduction, polished sound?

It can be highly produced and thought out, but a lot of the time I like the immediacy of a home recording…

And the practicality…

I think thats it for me. I have nothing against hi-fi produced music or its ability to be genuine. I guess part of the reason is most of the records I‘ve released have been done by friends in hobby studios.

Because any instance - that I have known - where a band has gone into a real studio, the studios have this music industry agenda, where they’re trained to think “oh, this thing’s not going to fly”. They’re unfortunately soiled by this set of values on what makes a recording good.

Yeah well I guess when your in a bigger studio there’s always the temptation to spend more time on everything.

Yeah, but again people that I know that have been in that situation have been at odds with it. Unless they take their own technician, and I know more bands who do that now.

Do you think there is a R.I.P Society sound?

R.I.P Society is often represented in a way that’s quite reductionary.

RIP Society has been releasing some of Sydney’s most interesting music on vinyl. It’s a do it yourself operation done purely out of love. It’s not profitable. it’s not hard work. And it’s a great fucking thing that Nick is doing.

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People say lo-fi, garage rock, but to me that’s just one side of the coin. I understand that music websites need to create these false groupings because it’s just an easier way of presenting stuff to people. I don’t really think there’s a sound, because even between the rock records there are differences in the approach. The Bed Wetting Bad Boys record, for example, was recorded in quite a hi-fidelity way - there was very little reverb, all the instruments bled together naturally. And then there’s the Woollen Kits sound where there’s this obvious space between instruments, which they fill in with reverb. Then there’s a Holy Balm record on there, there’s a Zond record on there, there’s a Naked On The Vague single.

Would you say there’s a scene in Sydney that RIP Society taps into?

Well I think so, and there’s people who give everything on the label a bit more of a chance.

That’s the reason a record label is important. Most good music isn’t immediate - I know that most of my favourite records weren’t great on my first listen. So I’m really glad that people pick things up and give it a go. As far as a scene, as long as I’ve lived in Sydney I’ve always met people who’s music I will be a fan of, no matter what shape it takes. For example, those people like Matt and Lucy who were in Naked On The Vague, I’m now doing a record for them with a band called Half High which like sci-fi, synth music. But yeah, there is some kind of thing flowing through what they do. And I like the art side of that band too. Again with the R.I.P, I’ve just met these people in Sydney who I have this musical kinship with and it doesn’t matter whether it’s about guitar music or synth music. But a lot of people out there just like the fun garage music. Our label might seem a little bit trendy right now because of the success of the Royal Headache record.

I really agree that it’s a loose group of people who are motivated to do their own thing more than a scene. But how do you think what you said about Sydney compares to what you might say about Malbourne?

Well, live music is way more ingrained in their traditional social scene. Melbourne has these

There’s this huge tradition in Australia of ignoring what’s good at the time and then in hindsight it becomes this iconic thing. I basically just wanted music that was more creative and human to be a little more visible. long standing institutes. RRR’s been around forever and has always focused on community music, so has the Tote.

And what would you say about Brisbane and Sydney.

I don’t know, I think both have this sort of underdog thing that drives a lot of the good music, this idea of kicking against the society that doesn’t embrace you or what you’re doing.

And then you’ve gotta carve out your own thing to do. I think being in a band in Melbourne is probably easier than any where in the world So is RIP Society running as a profitable business, or is it just for the love?

It’s hard to say because as soon as I get any money I put it back into the label! I want to make it as sustainable as possible. Everything I ever do for it is for the goal of making it exist for as long as possible. If I ever get any money I think of how I can spend it to make records for less, so maybe there’d be more money to put out records in the future. Doing things like setting new distribution channels.

Are you still concentrating on vinyl Yeah. I need to get more savvy with this digital shit, but it really just doesn’t interest me. Its hard to get motivated. It’s a shame because I know people would be willing to pay for mp3’s Why not CDs? I do CD’s, but I rarely sell any. There are only a few people I know who buy them still. If I can afford to service that, and it’s going to be worthwhile, I will. I just think vinyl is the appropriate format for the type of records I put out. It seems synonymous with vinyl for some reason. I know people keep writing these articles about the vinyl revival or something but I’ve always felt that it goes hand in hand with underground culture. S

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Do this.

THE BEST THINGS TO DO IN SYDNEY THIS MONTH HAYFEVER NEW THEATRE, NEWTOWN 9 OCTOBER - 2 NOVEMBER You’ve got to take your hat off to New Theatre. Making do purely on the passion of volunteers and sponsors, they manage to produce hugely entertaining plays for all walks of life to enjoy. It’s this vitality that adds to the charm of New Theatre productions and it’s no different with the production of Hayfever. The eccentric Bliss family cures their boredom by each inviting over an admirer to stay. Pretty soon, things spiral out of control with the guests finding themselves hopelessly out of their depth, all to the sheer delight of the family Bliss.

Written by Noel Coward at only 24 years of age, head to the New Theatre for a night of good old fashioned comedy.

NIGHT NOODLE MARKETS HYDE PARK 9-12, 14-19 AND 21-26 OCTOBER One of the highlights of living in Sydney is undoubtedly being able to grab some mates to chow down on some quality Asian

food in a park in the middle of the city in the warming spring air. A range of delights from Peking Duck Pancakes to Pork Buns, from Pad Thai to Prawn Pa Nang, there’s something here for all tastes.

THE FLOATING WORLD GRIFFIN THEATRE 9 OCTOBER - 16 NOVEMBER Swing by Kings Cross for something other than the nightlife and treat yourself to Sam Strong’s interpretation of John Romeril’s neglected Australian classic The Floating World at Sydney’s proudest independent theatre company. Les and Irene, celebrating their wedding anniversary with a cruise bound for Japan, unwittingly unleash a series of deep, dark and painful memories for Les as he finds himself confronting his WWII past as a prisoner of war. As they edge closer to their destination, Les slips further away from reality in this exquisite tale of an ugly, xenophobic Australia.

ITALIAN FILM FESTIVAL VARIOUS CINEMAS

9 OCTOBER – 3 NOVEMBER A celebration of Italian cinema over four weeks where you can watch a multitude of the country’s finest cinema, both new and old. It opens with the vibrant film The Great Beauty, which was a huge hit at this year’s Cannes Film Festival (it was nominated for the Palme d’Or) and closes with one of Italy’s most revered classics, Fellini’s Roma. join in the fun and celebrate all things Roma.

You can catch a film at either The Palace Verona or Chauvel cinemas but check the website for sessions.

COMMUNITY RADIO UNITY FLOORS TOBY MARTIN TELEGRAPH TOW THE UNION HOTEL 10 OCTOBER We’re a sucker for a good deal, so four great Sydney bands playing for free on a Thursday night floats our boat like you wouldn’t believe. Unity Floors have their debut album Exotic Goldfish Blues out in November on Popfrenzy, but if you can’t wait

TELEVISION ENMORE THEATRE 30 OCTOBER After 40 long years, Television are finally making their way down to Australia. Hitting All Tomorrow’s Parties first, they’ll jet up to Sydney to play a careerspanning set which is sure to include a good dose of their era-defining album Marquee Moon (which must rank as one of the most important and influential rock albums of all time).

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FESTIVAL OF DANGEROUS IDEAS 2 - 4 NOVEMBER Now in its fifth year, the Festival of Dangerous Ideas brings together some of the most interesting speakers from around the globe to discuss their views and engage audiences. Ranging from comedy to controversial, the program covers a broad range of speakers and topics. Highlights include David Simon, creator of HBO series The Wire and his talk “Some People Are More Equal Than Others” and the panel discussion “Life After Truth” featuring Pulitzer prize winning columnist Eugene Robinson.

If you’re going to see one writer speak in your entire life, make sure it’s David Simon. His work on The Wire marks him as a modern day Dickens, taking a deep look at the way institutions rule the lives and bend the morals of both good and evil people. You’ve probably already seen The Wire. Personally I’ve seen it four times. It’s a work of unsurpassed genius. In addition to that, Simon’s books Homocide and The Corner are also amazing reads.

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LI JIN THE HUGHES GALLERY UNTIL 30 OCTOBER Li Jin’s paintings (made in the ancient Chinese style known as literati) depict a simple life. Starkly simple. His recurring themes can be boiled down quite simply to food and sex, and the characters in his work are indulging in carnal satisfaction. They’re a mix of personalities – from beautiful young women to Chinese military officials in uniform – but they all share a gaze, either transfixed or horrified by their desire and that of those around them. Gluttony and lust crowd the page. His art is refreshingly frank and sometimes nihilistic, reducing relationships down to mutual self-interest or occasionally leading to the complete abandon of feast and orgy. The figures in his paintings often look disgusted with themselves. At other times they look dazed, drugged with self-indulgence. Li Jin’s work could be read as a rejection of contemporary values or a satire on modern morals.

He earnestly lays his own life bare; his is a horny, hungry life.

til then to hear it, then get smart and go to this.

PEOPLE MUST JAM WAREHOUSE FIFTH BIRTHDAY WITH FRANK BOOKER 12 OCTOBER From across the Tasman comes one of NZ’s finest exports, Frank Booker. He’s had recent releases on Sleazy Beats and Kolour LTD and hosts the infamous Hit & Quit It Radio with Recloose on Auckland’s GeorgeFM. Plus it’s a birthday – bound to be some cake somewhere.

SIGHA AND SHIFTED CIVIC UNDERGROUND 12 OCTOBER A night of dark, blistering, unabashed British 62 SNEAKY

techno brought to you by Astral People, the team responsible for OutsideIn Festival.

What’s not to love about that sentence?

Catch a b2b set between two of the blazing young guns of the British scene today for an epic five-hour set. Comes with added support from HAHA stalwarts D&D for that little something extra.

TOTAL CONTROL RED RATTLER 12 OCTOBER RIP Society resurface this October and put on another rager of a night following September’s Bitch Prefect show at the Petersham Bowlo. They’ve got Oily Boys and Ruined Fortune Band to support on what will be another out of control night. Support the Sydney punk scene and one of Sydney’s finest labels by getting down to the Rat,

sinking some tinnies and having a rad time.

HAMLET BELVOIR 12 OCTOBER – 1 DECEMBER Ahh Hamlet, you old chestnut; the classic tale of revenge with the Prince of Denmark, haunted by his father’s ghost, taking on his evil uncle. This version features Robyn Nevin, fresh from her role as Jude in the miniseries Top Of The Lake along with the reunion of Strange Interludes alumni Emily Barclay, Toby Schmitz and director Simon Stone. Schmitz reprises his role of Hamlet from the 2010 La Boite production, but with Stone’s talent at exposing the classics in their rawest form, this should prove to be essential theatre.

SUGAR, SUGAR

BRENDA MAY GALLERY UNTIL 19 OCTOBER For this group exhibition, 10 (female) artists have used sugar to make works that probably won’t last far beyond the duration of the show. Judith Klausner has carved cameo-style portraits from Oreo cookies, Mylyn Nguyen creates tiny panoramas from sugar cubes and Janet Tavener has sculpted sugar paste into elaborate pieces that resemble plates of food from a Victorian banquet.

pseudo-compilation album, Top Ten Hits Of The End Of The World, that comprised 10 singles “channelled” from fictional deceased pop bands. They were discovered by Animal Collective’s Avey Tare in a Texas dive bar in 2010 where they were equipping the audience with handmade shoes clad with broken chimes (WTF?). If you are looking for an unconventional yet fun night out, this could be your cup of tea. Described as psych-dance, I’m sure you’d have no trouble finding many other superlatives for Prince Rama.

across Sydney. You can pack those tissues away as the institution that is Mad Racket makes a triumphant return in its new location of The Imperial Hotel. This edition (titled Mad Racket Sleeps With The Fishes) will see the venue transformed into a deep underwater dance grotto and headlined by Dutch veteran Aardvarck. Supported by the ever-reliable Racketeers, pop on your snorkel and go for a splash and, as always, let the good times roll.

BOOM BOOM SAYS DJ QU

IVY 26 OCTOBER The second edition of Garden Party for the Summer, this time featuring a couple of German acts that were just as big five years ago as they are today, such is their timelessness. Given that the Garden Party series always seems to fall on days with impeccable weather (touch wood), grab yourself a ticket and party away your Saturday in the sun before kicking on at Chinese Laundry afterwards with UK techno don Ben Sims. That should be your Saturday taken care of then…

TIAGO ICEBERGS 20 OCTOBER Sunday afternoons just kicked it up a notch with the partnership of Picnic Touring and Icebergs Dining Room for a series of 10 parties. The first with Marcos Cabral was a huge hit and with only 100 tickets available to each party you better get in quick for your chance to see Tiago. Records on DFA, Italians Do It Better and Jolly Jams pack out an impressive resume for the Portuguese taste master. Sunday afternoon, overlooking the beach, smooth tunes and some grand food – what are you waiting for?

LIGHTNING BOLT THE STANDARD 25 OCTOBER Dubbed “one of the most exciting bands you could ever see”, we welcome another band that has hit our shores for the All Tomorrow’s Parties onslaught. Lightning Bolt have earned a reputation for being somewhat unconventional with their live show: they’re known for playing in the middle of the venue as opposed to the stage.

The noise rock duo clearly don’t fuck about, so don’t you fuck about when it comes to buying tickets to this or else you’ll miss out and be a chump.

VIOLENT SOHO OXFORD ART FACTORY 25 OCTOBER Three years in the making and finally Hungry Ghost, the greatly anticipated third album, has made its way out of the studio and into our ear holes. Supported by Sneaky office favourites The Straight Arrows, prepare yourself for a wild night.

PRINCE RAMA THE RED RATTLER 25 OCTOBER Their most recent studio effort was a

TATLER 26 OCTOBER The next edition of the infamous Boom Boom parties, this spring edition features New Jersey based producer DJ Qu. Selfdescribed as “the dancer’s DJ”, he arrives on our shores at the top of his game. A pivotal member of the NYC house scene alongside Fred P, Peven Everett and Jus-Ed, the intimate setting of Tatler’s will provide the perfect backdrop to dance the night away to one of New York’s finest house dons. Tickets are available through Resident Advisor and are bound to sell out, so shake a leg!

HIATUS KAIYOTE THE STANDARD 26 OCTOBER Recently signed to Sony imprint Flying Buddha – the label of super producer Salaam Remi – Hiatus Kaiyote are going off! They’ve killed it on Leno, supported Common and Erykah Badu in the US and have picked up fans in their thousands all over the world with their brand of future-soul that blends elements of hiphop, funk, flamenco, cumbia and jazz. They might not be playing intimate venues like The Standard for too much longer, so catch them while you can...

BOOKA SHADE & DIGITALISM GARDEN PARTY

FUCK BUTTONS

OXFORD ART FACTORY

24 OCTOBER Celebrating the release of their critically acclaimed third album Slow Focus, head on down to OAF to watch Fuck Buttons smash up some soundwaves before they head down to ATP. Hot tip – turn up early to catch the stellar support acts Standish/Carlyon and Kanyon. Whatever extra money you end up spending on beer that isn’t drunk at home will be money well spent.

MAD RACKET AARDVARCK IMPERIAL HOTEL 26 OCTOBER When rumours started to circulate that the Racketeers were calling it quits, an outpouring of grief swept SNEAKY 63

DARKSIDE PSYCHIC How did you guys go about recording the album? Was it an “eyeball to eyeball”, both in the studio thing, or did it grow more organically?

Dave: Letting songs write themselves is crucial to everything we do. Parts of the album Nico might work on alone and send to me, or maybe the other way round, but really it all ends with us staring each other down or staring into some shitty speakers and asking if we’re there yet. Although we do sometimes jam like a band would do...

There’s a large mashup of influences on the album – is that something you found difficult to reconcile, all the genres you used in the songs?

Nico: The most important thing for us was to not consciously think of any influence. We are truly just going in there with our intuitions, mainly with a philosophy that the first thought is the best thought.

Most of the sounds you’re hearing are first thoughts. We feel like you only have so much to give in one day, and it usually comes out first.

There’s a sense of all the tracks having their own space to grow – the songs kind of just happen without quickly getting to the hooks…

Nico: We take our time and we work on things over and over. The truth is that a song is finished when it decides to be finished, so if a song decides it’s going to take a year to make, that’s how long it will take. The song will know.

The album plays as a suite of songs, almost a concept album.

Dave: The phrase “concept album” has a lot of baggage. But any great album, or at least my favourite albums, have an over-arching concept there. What we didn’t do was create traditional songs, like verse/chorus/verse/chorus/bridge/double chorus. I think we probably

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fucked that up! There are some concept albums that I love, but for us the concepts live inside the album. We’re interested in the album being a statement, a big rock or a piece of metal or a mountain.

Did you write the tracks with that in mind?

Nico: We finished the songs independently of each other and they kind of just told the story.

The album has a solid mix of both real and digital instrumentation too…

Dave: Yeah, I mean everything that was analogue was put through something digital, and everything digital was put through something analogue. But I think we’re lucky to live in an era when those questions are obsolete. For me finding the perfect guitar riff for a song can be practicing until I find it, or sometimes it’s me playing for an hour and then going back and looking at that audio file and chopping it up until I find the best hook, taking a bit of it and editing it or recombining it. As a musician, both those processes are valid to me. You find a sound and try to chase it and any tool you use is going to a physical one, whether or not it’s digital or analogue. Whether it’s hands on wood and metal or fingers on keys. In the end it’s all kind of the same thing.

Nico, where did you take your cues from vocally – there seems to me to be a big soul influence on the vocals.

Nico: I consider myself more of a producer than a vocalist, so I don’t really think about the vocals too much. It’s usually the first thing to come to mind…

I thought I heard a bit of Voodoo era D’Angelo in the way you layered vocals and almost mumbled them a bit…

Nico: Cool! I do love that kind of soul music, especially D’Angelo.

MOVEMENT GOODGOD 26 OCTOBER Recent Modular signings Movement are also an act who we can safely say are a band on the up. They’re throwing a shindig at Goodgod to celebrate their new late night jam Us. Supported by Kilter, this is one of our bargain picks of the month – it’ll only set you back a blue swimmer. (That’s $10 if you didn’t know Australian money slang.)

MØ GOODGOD 29 OCTOBER She created a storm with her debut hit song Maiden in May last year, and that secured her a spot at CMJ a few months later. Best described as a blend of Grimes and Lykke Li, she’s made waves with all the right people, including Diplo who she recently released her track XXX 88 with. This is probably another case of “catch her in an intimate setting before she blows up and packs out The Metro”. See what the hype is about for yourself.

CIRCOLOCO HALLOWEEN THE GREENWOOD 2 NOVEMBER One of Sydney’s most famed Halloween parties is back with a bit of help from seasoned pros Matthias Tanzmann, Âme and Francesca Lombardo. Tanzmann has just finished up his Ibiza party Better Lost Than Stupid which ran at DC-10 with help from Circoloco alumni Davide Squillace and Martin Buutrich, while Lombardo and Âme both find their way back to Sydney after long (enough) breaks from the harbour city. Add into the mix a ton of Sydney’s finest on support duties and the open-air charm of the iconic Greenwood Hotel and you’ve got the ingredients for a superb night out.

KING GIZZARD & THE LIZARD WIZARD THE STANDARD 2 NOVEMBER On the road and hitting up cities all over Australia, this is the Sydney pit stop for KGATLW (so much easier than typing their full name) to promote their latest effort in the studio Float Along Fill Your Lungs.

Heavily powered, jangly, fuzzed out rhythms fuelled by an array of instruments (including a sitar), the album delights with its playful nature and warped psychedelia.

THE BREEDERS ENMORE THEATRE 28 OCTOBER In case you can’t tell by now, yeah we’re kind of fans of the All Tomorrow’s Parties lineup in Melbourne. But seeing as they can’t do the same festival in Sydney, we’ve had to include them all here. Performing their iconic album Last Splash (which includes ‘90s anthem Cannonball), the band that started as a side project between Pixies and Throwing Muses are touring the world to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the record with a deluxe edition, LSXX. Making the show extra special is that the definitive line up of the band has never been brought back together…until now.

CREATIVE NON FICTION FESTIVAL 2 NOVEMBER Whether or not you’re an aspiring journalist/ writer or whether you’ve just seen Sarah Polley’s film The Stories We Tell, the Creative Non-Fiction Festival, put on by the NSW Writers Centre will give you a ton of fresh ideas. Curated by Benjamin Law and featuring talks from Nadia Saccardo, Alyx Gorman, Wendy Harmer and Dominic Knight amongst others, learn from the best how to not just report facts but how to tell stories.

MELBOURNE CUP 5 NOVEMBER The most/least enjoyable way to throw away your money on horses, depending on where you stand. There’s a good chance that your boss may put on a spread for you, so take advantage of this – after a few drinks your boss won’t even notice if you’ve ducked home early and gone to the beach. Or hey, if drinking with your boss and then getting him commit to giving you a raise seems like a better idea, try that too.

YOU’RE W ELCOME WANT SOME FREE STUFF? EMAIL YOUR FULL NAME, MAILING ADDRESS AND ANSWER TO INFO@SNEAKYMAG.COM. MYSTERY ROAD Check out our story on page 44.

Sneaky has 10 double passes to give away to see the film, which comes out on October 17. Send us an email with your details and the name of another Hugo Weaving film to be in the running.

STRAWBERRY LAUNCH SYDNEY FEATURING BAMBOUNOU Melbourne’s infamous bush doof, Strawberry Fields, is launching their stellar 2013 event. We’ve got 2 double passes for the night. Simply email us one of the names on this year’s Strawberry Fields line up.

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by Venus I. Furs

Venus I. Furs kicks ass in court for a living, and she's agreed to tell you, dear reader, how to be the maddest chick you can possibly be.

Let’s just start right off with some anal sex: How do you make a Jewish girl scream twice? Fuck her up the ass then wipe your dick on the curtains. I’ve always wondered why girls of other religious affiliations don’t mind having shit on their curtains. The nugget (!) of truth in the joke is that anal is not for everyone, but it’s worth at least one shot if just to fully appreciate why santorum is such an excellent word. Psst... Catholic schoolgirls.

Avoid hell by having all your pre-marital loving up the pooper. Your future husband and even God herself won’t suspect you’ve been a dirty little slapper.

Kids. When are you going to move to the Hamptons and have a bayyyy-beee?

Because if it isn’t before 30, get ready for pitying looks from fertile friends, the threat of eternal existential angst and being thrust to the political sidelines.

No government ever won an election pandering to “working single females who have decided not to further populate this already overcrowded world that we are steadily suffocating into a bleak, disasterridden future”. But say a long hello to sleep-ins, vomit-free clothing and entire meals enjoyed without death screams as you claim your sweet spot in the evolutionary scrap heap.

Going down. One of the questions on OKCupid that you answer to calculate your perfect match is whether you like a bit of “foreplay” before sex. Foreplay. Like it only just scraped into Urban Dictionary, or it’s some kind of new phase all kids are going through these days. Who the hell goes from being fully clothed to being penetrated without at least a kiss, a grope and a bit of a hello-vagina-how’s-it-going feel around?

Maybe if you’re grabbing a quickie in a closet. Or if you’re a rapist.

Being crazy. Or as it really should be called, “Having Emotions”. Yeah, we have ’em. Monthly, weekly, and even daily.

You think I enjoy going through a box of Kleenex during a WorkSafe ad? Or hearing myself yell at you for not doing the washing/not doing the washing just right/doing the washing perfectly but do you have to breathe so loudly through your nose while you eat!? But that same capacity for insanity also lets us fall in love so damn hard and fast that it literally makes the world go round.

Hens. I’d rather gouge my eyes out

with a penis straw then be subjected to another night of 12 girls fuelled by champagne cocktails making scrapbooks, shrieking over dirty pass-the-parcels and squirming as the mother-in-law gets to find out whether the blushing bride-to-be remembers the time she fucked her son in the back seat of the family car – all under the creepy gaze of pantless waiters.

Smarts. There is nothing worse for being taken seriously than being young, female and god-forbid, attractive. The big wide world is full of people trying to belittle and patronise you until your battered ego actually believes you’re worth 30% less.

The sooner you realise they are full of shit, the sooner you can decide whether to seize power by sheer force. Any man worth his testicles will back you, not block you.

Sucking face. Why you eat my face? Why you lick my teeth? Why you bite my nose, swallow my chin, and try to block my oesophagus with your tongue? It takes time but finding your perfect lip locking partner is one of the great revelatory moments of life. Enjoy it.

Labacious. I totally invented that word. All labia are beautiful. Inner, outer, major, minor. Vaginaplasty is the West’s quaint little take on the female genital mutilation fad. Any lover who gets the honour of worshipping before your yonnic temple should be aware that the female anatomy differs in some crucial respects from that of a Barbie doll. If they aren’t, you shouldn’t be the one to lose a body part.

Masturbate more! Screw the religious guilt or whatever negative cultural hogwash you were fed and get in your own pants. The wonderful world of internet porn and a battery operated friend is one of the best known cures for a hangover, Sundayitis or 3pm on a weekday afternoon.

Be slutty for a while. A critical mark of passage for a woman’s sexual empowerment. Hit the bar/club/house party/political rally and pick out the guy/ gal who you most want to eat that night.

Knowing it’s the only taste you’ll get heightens the senses making for an ecstatic night of flavours you’d never even dreamed of. Waking satiated and victorious, you lick your fingers and don’t look back as you leave the bones behind you for the crows to pick at. Don’t worry, they loved it.

Penis envy. One night I had this dream that I was a guy. I peed standing up, left the

seat open and when I dropped my towel on the floor it disappeared into thin air. I did chin ups, plugged myself shamelessly at work, asked for a raise and got paid double, got made company president, then world president – all without taking my hands off my cock.

Self-esteem. Very important to prevent fucking jerks. Oddly though, fucking a whole lot of jerks, especially following a messy break-up, can be a great way to restore one’s self-esteem. Go figure.

As a great band once said, Hooray for boobies! Yes, I answer all men reading this article, I sometimes spend the entire day fondling my own breasts. Why? Because I can.

Urinary Tract Infection. Should be called Razorfirepissfromhellitis, she thinks as she grips the toilet seat, gritting her teeth in pain as the last drops of razorlaced pee come out. FUUUCK! Ladies, three genital health commandments for you today – ye shall always wipe from front to back, ye shall pee before and after sex and, even though there’s nothing better than smelling like sex all day, ye shall shower after every shag sesh.

Virginity, purity, saving yourself. Ugh. If we didn’t spend so much of history as male property, then the patch of membrane between our legs would not have been mistaken for our inherent worth as human beings. Also think about contraception.

Now stop thinking and go have some fun.

Your weight is irrelevant. LOSE 5 KILOS OF BELLY FAT WITH THESE 3 EASY DIET TIPS! Which isn’t at all connected to your self-esteem. WOW, YOU’VE LOST SO MUCH WEIGHT! YOU LOOK AMAZING! And the people who really love you don’t care what size you are. Sweety, have you thought about going on Light-n-Easy?

Daddy and I will even pay for your first month. Why haven’t you finished your dinner? Don’t you like my cooking?

Sigh.

Bush. I recently found a ’70s Playboy and Oh My God – bush! It was like, huge!

There was something regal, powerful, even commanding about the thick woven rugs marking sexual territory. Something about the allure of hidden things. And the promise of softness and untamed wildness at the same time. Bring back the bush!

Electrolysis and laser at your own risk. I’m buying stock in merkins. S SNEAKY 67