The Spit Press: Issue 4

04

SYDNEY’S CREATIVE MELTING POT ART.PHOTOGRAPHY MUSIC.DESIGN | FREE SPITPRESS.COM OCT/NOV

Washington “I just didn’t have the heart to tell him I wasn’t a lesbian”

CHINA HEIGHTS Perched high in the low end of the city

GREEDY HEN The First Ladies of Sydney’s music art scene

AND Cloud Control, Primavera 2010, The Cat Empire, Leroy Lee, Two Baked Pooseys and more!

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On the road

An evening festival of music, art and literature to raise funds for The Spit Press and celebrate emerging artists in Sydney

OCTOBER 22ND @ THE VANGUARD NEWTOWN $15 TICKETS. MORE INFO: WWW.SPITPRESS.COM Music from Leroy Lee, The Maple Trail, Jack Carty & Chumpy Jack Kerouac & original readings from Luke Carmen of Penguin Plays Rough Art by Pigeonboy & Rah! Collective Proudly supported by 48 | THE SPIT PRESS | www.spitpress.com | ISSUE 3 Magners Cider

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OCT/NOV

LOCAL

opinion

about/work

05 EDITORIAL 06 SPIT BUCKET 09 CLOUD CONTROL 10 ON THE ROAD 12 PRIMAVERA 2010 18 GREEDY HEN 21 A MEATY DISCUSSION 22 BOUND TO BE READ 23 TIME FLIES 24 MEGAN WASHINGTON 27 THE WRITER’S WAY 29 LEROY LEE 30 AN ALTERNATIVE ROUTE 31 THE ULTIMATE PARADOX 32 CHINA HEIGHTS 35 HOW TYPICAL 36 TWO BAKED POOSEYS 37 BEN BRIAND 38 THE CAT EMPIRE 39 VAN VS. WILD 45 CREATIVE FAILURE 46 RECORDS IN REVIEW 47 SOMETHING FISHY

The Spit Press Team Publisher - Spit Press Media Managing Editor & Advertising - Tym Yee tym@spitpress.com Head Designer - Chumpy chumpy@spitpress.com Head Photographer & Web - Zabrina Wong zab@spitpress.com Arts Editor - Jonathan Villanueva jonathan@spitpress.com Copy Editor - India McDonough jonathan@spitpress.com Distribution - Sophie Begley sophie@spitpress.com Publishing Assistant & Blog - Caitlyn Adamson caitlyn@spitpress.com Spit Press TV - Kevin Lee kevin@spitpress.com ---Senior Contributors: Jared Kelley, Adam Byrne, Edwina Storie, Lynne Xie, Holly Friedlander, Sally Rawsthorne, Tommy Faith, Michael Wong-See. Contributors: Will Kuether, Steph Lentz, Annabel Berry, Serena Or, Nick How, Matthew Lauricella Special Thanks to: Wayne Blair, Melody Ha, Yoni Rusnak, Mark Starmach, Grace Tan, Sabrina Woo, Andrew Yee. Scream Hi! www.spitpress.com / info@spitpress / submissions@spitpress.com Facebook: TheSpit Press.

Facebook fanpage: facebook.com/spitpressfb Twitter @spitpress The Spit Press is published every 8 weeks by Spit Press Media. The opinions expressed by individual contributors are not necessarily those of The Spit Press staff.

For more information visit www.spitpress.com or email info@spitpress.com.

Emails are to be used for professional use only. All competitions are games of skill and do not involve any element of chance. Winners are decided by a panel of judges.

WHEREVER YOU ARE, HAVE A RAD ONE! Cover: Model: Holly from eMg Models Hair & Make-up artist: Xixi Chen Photography: Trish Chong (Tealilyphotography) “On the Road” article: Models: Tom Meares and Holly from eMg Models Photographer: Zabrina Wong

Please the trees.

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On the road One of my fondest childhood memories is of long car trips on family holidays, each one of us kids listening to our respective Discmans, squirming in the back seat so our arses didn’t fall asleep. It doesn’t sound like fun now but at the time there was nothing better than annoying the sibling next to you, invading each others precariously constructed territories and then falling asleep in the middle of the day to the light hum of the engine knowing that when you wake up you’d be at The Big Banana.

What I loved most was staring out the window, watching fields turn into a grainy blur and glimpsing into the life of the simple towns we’d pass on our way to our destination. It forever felt like summer and good times were always just around the next bend.

It’s that sacred feeling of being on the road that we’ve tried to capture in issue 4 of The Spit Press. We’ve asked Washington what it has been like playing all the big festivals and spoke to The Cat Empire and Cloud Control about touring life. Edward Woodley told the team about the challenges he faced on his own journey establishing China Heights Gallery and there’s even a delicious recipe for Lavender Roast Pork with Baked Apples in case you’re in need of refueling.

To celebrate issue 4 we’re hosting an evening festival appropriately called ‘On The Road’ on the 22nd of October at The Vanguard, Newtown. We’d love to meet you and hear where you’re at on your own creative journey so grab a ticket from www.thevanguard.com.au and scroll down to the 22nd of October.

Take a trip,

Tym Yee (Managing Editor & Advertising)

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lo cal LET ME IN is a powerful, stylish and captivating retelling from Cloverfield director Matt Reeves that is based on the highly acclaimed Swedish novel and film Lat den Ratte Komma In (Let the Right One In).

To secure 1 of 10 double passes to see LET ME IN at either Dendy Newtown or Dendy Opera Quays, tell us in 25 words (or less) how far would you go to keep a friend Email us at info@spitpress.com before the 21st of September and we’ll pick the most creative answers as winners. Let Me In opens October 14.

View the trailer at www.dendy.com.au

SPIT BU text/ tunes

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Mama Kin, the WA soulstress, has had a spectacular year. With the release of her debut album Beat and Holler, international dates with Gurrumul and the John Butler Trio, not to mention a nationwide tour with The Cat Empire, the femme fatale of foot-stomping, swampy soul is capping off 2010 with her very own national headline tour. Celebrated for her honesty, vulnerability and spunk, Mama Kin’s songs and stories have captured the hearts of fans across the country. www.mamakinlive.com

Tiger Translate is a mash-up of music and art presented by Tiger Beer. Established in 2005, Tiger Translate fuses music, art and interactive entertainment. Call outs for submissions are open for this year’s extravaganza. http://www.tigerbeer.com.au/ tiger-translate

BUCKET

Whiskers Lane is a fashion accessory and jewellery label based in Sydney and specialises in one off designs using vintage fabrics. Jodie Etchells is the designer and creative force behind Whiskers Lane, which combines her love for craft, family, vintage fabrics and whiskered friends. The Filled With Love necklaces are guaranteed to make anyone you know feel all warm and fuzzy inside. www.whiskerslane.com.au

The Peats Ridge Festival is held in the beautiful Glenworth Valley just an hour north of Sydney for 3 days over New Years. Peats Ridge is NSW’s largest music and camping festival. Known for its intimate vibe and world class entertainment, Peats Ridge is a world leader in sustainable events and hosts an array of amazing music, arts performance and exhibitions, a dedicated children’s festival, workshops, markets and much more. With a line up that includes; Angus & Julia Stone, Trentemøller (Live) [DENMARK], Built to Spill [USA], Freestylers [UK], Shout Out Louds [SWEDEN], Born Ruffians [CAN], Lightspeed Champion [UK], PVT, Washington, Cloud Control, Freq Nasty [UK], Space Invadas and more, don’t miss out!

Check out www.peatsridgefestival.com.au for more details & tickets.

Notorious - Roberta Lowing Ironically enough, I knew next to nothing about Roberta Lowing’s novel Notorious before it was placed on my desk by The Spit Press. Any fear of its intimidating size was swept away within a few pages; the story pulls the reader along with immediate intrigue. Lowing weaves a tale of complete mystery – the length of the novel passes and we do not know the protagonist’s name.

Broken families, looting, romance and the diary of a poet combine to form a story well worth your

The Lost and Forgotten Languages of Shanghai Ruiyan Xu Li Jing, a successful Chinese businessman, falls victim to a gas explosion. A shard of glass lodges in his head resulting in aphasia – a loss of language ability. His Chinese is gone, and all that’s left is the stuttering English he learned in an American childhood. The novel follows the spark between him and his English-speaking doctor, Rosalyn Neal, as they discover that the power of love transcends all language.

time. Highly recommended.

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Love letters Dear The Spit Press Team,

Dear Spit Press

Dear Awesome Spit Press Team,

Oh hi,

I love reading every issue you guys have put out thus far! A friend of mine had an issue before I had read it myself and for reasons unknown a deep jealously ran through me...

I forget the last time any print press issues have garnered this much anticipation or excitement from me.

I’m new to Sydney so, Opera House and Harbour Bridge aside, I’m seeing the city through fresh eyes. I have no idea what’s happening on a Saturday night, where to find the best sushi, or who serves the smoothest cup of coffee. This has led me to hoover up every flyer, magazine and everything in between.

I got handed your issue 3 and instantly fell in love. My favourite article was Caitlyn Adamson’s My Disposable Buddy. Only a few months ago I began to buy disposable cameras and I have fallen completely in love. Similar to you, at first there was the occasional “Don’t you have a digital camera?” or “Go back to the nineties”, but once they saw the wonderfully nostalgic products they soon realised their folly.

There is nothing sweeter than getting your developed film back and flicking through the prints with a mix of sheer anticipation and accomplishment. All I can say is keep up the awesome job, and I look forward to reading future issues!

I feel like this is one of those moments in your life when things perfectly align. I’d just come back from a year in Canada, and I was drifting around Sydney trying (and failing) to get a sense of the creative potential that simmers below the surface of this city. ‘You should check out Spit Press,’ a friend said. ‘They’re new and into creative stuff and it might help you find what you’re looking for.’ So I made a mental note to check your paper out. And wow!

Spit Press people, you’re pretty amazing. I dig your aesthetic and your editorial direction and your incredibly positive attitude towards life and the city. The positivity thing is important: after going away and coming back, I have really conflicted feelings about Sydney and I really want to rediscover whatever this city has to offer.

Keep up the creativity!

Ashton

It was during one of these deep cleans, that I discovered Spit Press and I’m so glad I did. I found Issue 3 inspiring, informative and a damn right excellent read. You’d be hard pressed to find a publication like this in London. In fact, London needs you! Bringing together the arts in this patchwork fashion adds a new dimension to my view of Sydney.

Love from, Hats off to the Spit Press Team!

Jesse Beck

Cass

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Cloud Control Blue Mountains 4-some Cloud Control have had a pretty sunny year so far. With their name on the bill of almost every upcoming festival, they give us a new excuse to don the zinc and singlet tops, and get festive. Annabel Berry spoke to the very polite and very lovely Ulrich Lenffer about life on the road, the Australian music scene, and the possibility of a guest appearance from Mother Lenffer.

A: You’ve spent a lot of this year touring on the road, is it difficult for you guys?

How do you make sure you don’t kill each other?

so it just stuck, and it describes it, and I like it.

U: Kill each other!?

A: Do you think to say thanks you could pull her up on stage one show and maybe let her play the spoons or the castanets?

A: Well, are there any rituals you have for time out?

U: Hey well she is Spanish, so getting her to play some castanets is an option!

U: We don’t need time out! We’re just great you know? We have fun! I mean you gotta get into the right head space and stuff but there’s definitely no killing each other… ever. I mean it’s my sister, I’m not exactly going to kill my sister am I?

A: There’s no denying that the Australian music industry is really hot at the moment. Is it encouraging to be part of such a successful music scene right now?

Or can it feel a little competitive and somewhat intimidating?

A: Speaking of family, is it true that your Mum came up with the title Bliss Release for the album?

U: My mum’s always trying to get in on the game, cause she loves us. She’s like “yeah you know, they’re my kids, and I own half the band” - it’s pretty funny. Most of the time we’ll be like “ok mum”… but this one time she sent me through a message and it just had a list of ideas, and some of them

U: Definitely not competitive, definitely not intimidated. I think it’s great. I really think it’s great. You look at Sydney, and there are so many great bands coming out. There is a momentum, there is a vibe around the place, I think. And that can only mean good things for new venues opening up and that sort of stuff. And when you travel all round Australia you realise that each city has its own vibe and different thing going on. I just wish Australia was smaller. We were in London just recently

were pretty bad, but one of them we were kinda like “hey we really like that!” and

and you think, you can tour the entire of London in a week, and you’d be able to play

to the whole population. Whereas in Australia it’s like 6 months if you’re driving, and several weeks if you’re flying – it’s just too crazy.

A: If you could go on the road with any band, who would you personally like to go with?

U: I’d probably like to tour with The Who. Mainly just because I wanna see how crazy Keith Moon is. That guy is a nutcase.

A: So whats next for you guys? Is there another album in the works?

U: We’re having a bit of downtime at the moment but we’re doing all the summer festivals, and then we’re going back to the UK in November probably to play some shows with Local Natives and do our own tour. And then back to Australia to play some more festivals in January. Then we’re probably going to relocate to the UK next March.

A: What are the essentials you always take on the road with you?

U: I’m pretty low maintenance really. So I just take undershirts and underwear really, and like one pair of clothes! Oh and some noise cancelling headphones. That’s a must!

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On the Road Picking up and leaving with no bags and no plans is something many of us dream of, but most never do. Some inspiration in the form of Jack Kerouac’s classic novel On the Road might be just the thing to turn dreams of the open road into a reality. India McDonough writes Famously claimed to have been written in a mere three weeks in 1951 on a continuous roll of typewriter paper fashioned by Kerouac himself, the original version of On the Road was written in barely punctuated free flowing prose, with names unchanged (Kerouac based his characters on his friends) and including scenes that were considered too sexually explicit to be printed. This manuscript was heavily revised and edited before it was first published in 1957. Although the tags ‘beat writer’ and ‘beat generation’ came later, Kerouac is considered one of the pioneers of the style, which was born through emulating the sporadic rhythms of jazz music. On the Road races like a steam train full of free loading hobos- full steam ahead and jumping endlessly from one thing to the next, leaving you breathless and at times overwhelmed, but is also so conversational and meandering that at times it feels as though Sal is sitting in your lounge room having a chat.

Poetic, beautiful, and above all real, On the Road is a bombardment of words, images, people and places, saturated with ideas and philosophies that make you think and scenes that never quite leave you.

This largely autobiographical novel chronicles the spontaneous trips taken by Sal Paradise, a fictionalised version of Kerouac himself, and Dean Moriarty, modelled on Kerouac’s friend Neal Cassady, also a writer and poet of the beat generation. Other writers of the time featured as characters include Allen Ginsberg (Carlo Marx) and William S Burroughs (Bull Lee).

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Although each character is definitely insane in ways, it’s the sort of insanity you’re kind of jealous of, because these kinds of crazies have the most fun. And, of course, it’s easier to give the finger to ‘the man’ when you’re already on the fringes of society.

Praising everything that opposed the American Dream, the attitudes of the characters were not widely held at the time of its publication.

However over time they have come to mean something to a whole new generation of people. Sal and Dean’s constant quest for IT - that sensation of being completely in the moment, just ‘digging’ things for what they are - is enough to change anyone’s way of thinking about life. IT, for the uninitiated, is that tingle down the spine moment when everything aligns. Or, as Dean puts it, “Here’s a guy and everybody’s there, right? Up to him to put down what’s on everybody’s mind. Time stops. He’s filling empty space with the substance of our lives…” IT might be harder to find these days. Smokey, boozy jazz clubs full of improvising musos are few and far between. We might have to look a little further for the type of perfection Sal and Dean find in a musician so in-tune with his audience that he seems to play what they’re thinking. Maybe we need to log off Facebook and have a conversation, or get off Youtube and go to a live show. The connection between people is what it’s all about. In an age obsessed with technology and possessions, maybe some time on the road is just what we need to rediscover what matters.

In the end, it’s not what you’re looking for that’s important, but the act of looking itself. “…everybody knows it’s not the tune that counts but IT.” Driven more by people and relationships than by events, what we love about this book is the characters. We understand their motivations.

We know why Sal feels changed after drinking whisky with a bunch of drifters in the back of a truck. We get why they stay up all night talking because there’s too much to say to sleep. We understand their desire to live life to the full, even if in their case they go a little far. They live the way we wish we could. We relate to their rejection of crappy jobs, the frustration that comes with the need for money, and their need to find beauty wherever they can. Most importantly, we get their taste for a good time - especially when it comes to Dean. Everyone wants to know a Dean Moriarty. Yeah, he kind of sucks a bit as a friend at times, but he’s great to hang out with and you know you’ll have a great night with him… even if you don’t quite remember it. He’s the philosophical guy who’s so smart he’s kind of crazy, the one who makes you think, who makes you want to experience life 100%, who you’d travel across the country to party with for one night, even though you know he’ll probably leave you high and dry to take some chick home. You can even forgive him when he leaves you sick and delirious in Mexico, or steals and dumps five cars in two hours. But although his way of looking at the world and the carefree way in which he moves through it is enviable,

no one actually wants to be a Dean Moriarty. Kerouac manages to create such a sense of loneliness and vulnerability at the centre of such a crazy and intense character that Dean’s ghost will haunt you long after you finish reading. And we might see in Sal the naiveté of someone who so desperately wants to be accepted by the ‘cool kid’ that he lets himself be taken advantage of again and again, but we’re all familiar with wanting to be around the person who the party seems to follow.

Following Sal and Dean as they hitch hike, drive, walk and party their way across America is enough to inspire anyone to run with an impulse and take to the road with no plans and no stuff. Maybe don’t quit your job forever and flee all responsibility, but the idea of the freedom to concentrate on the things that make you happy with nothing to do but whatever you want to is definitely enticing. Being broke, hungry and dirty seems to be a small price to pay for the experiences they have and the people they meet along the way… not to imply that every road trip has to involve being broke, hungry and dirty. Who cares where you end up; it’s what happens on the road that may just teach you about yourself. The brilliance of this book lies not only in its pioneering style that’s still emulated today, but also in its continuing relevance to anyone trying to find their place in the world.

While booze soaked speeding and hitch hiking may not be the best idea, hitting the road with a close friend or two and no expectations definitely is.

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Feature Artists: Primavera 2010

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A gallery that usually hosts artists and works of international scale, another staple of their annual calendar is dedicated to young emerging Australian artists - a 10 year tradition that The Spit Press is very excited about. Jonathan Villanueva heard from four of the featured artists.

AGATHA GOTHE-SNAPE 1) Could you tell us about your current piece in Primavera?

I have 3 pieces really - Katie (the curator) wanted to demonstrate the breadth of my activities.

I have a powerpoint presentation (TRUEFALSELOVECONSCIOUSNESS); a series of gouache posters/paintings (FEELINGS); and a performance activity called cruising, which is the result of my collaboration with performer Brian Fuata (our name is WrongSolo). I guess if you boil it down each is really about my navigation of feelings in day to day life recording them, moving through them, and I guess representing them through language and colour. I really wanted to deal with making all these intangible aspects tangible, or at least find ways to make us aware (myself and my audiences) of how we are always negotiating and navigating through territories of feelings. It’s autobiographical, but I hope it speaks to people in a more general way than that. In one way my works are about being able to find spaces (like the hole in my head) and deciding what to fill

2) What are some of the challenges you face 3) Why do you work in the medium you as an artist in Australia, and particularly a do? What does this allow you to express young artist in Australia? over the others?

Its a weird invisible job - being an artist - you work it out the more you do it. But I have a feeling there will always be a sense of dealing with the unknown, even when I’ve been doing it for 50 years! You have to be resourceful and happy to be poor sometimes (most of the time).

You have to learn to deal with people judging you and the reality of putting stuff out there (bad reviews, whispers, accolades, gossip etc). You have to work out your own logic and do it. I think you also have to understand that things ebb and flow - sometimes there are lots of demands on you, and sometimes there are none. A lot of what happens (‘opportunities’) comes from other people’s perception of you, which changes according to trends, fashion and whether you deliver the goods! It’s allconsuming. But at the end of it all you just have to stick to whatever is really going on at the time and deal with the consequences of making your work about that. And in terms of being a young artist in Australia, I think it’s OK. them with - colour, emotion, objects, ideas.

You have to think about how we relate to the Cruising, on the other hand, is about how we rest of the world and find some ways to work physically navigate these spaces - in particular, out what’s current internationally (magazines, the gallery space. We run workshops on Internet etc), and then find some way to not cruising and people come to define it for worry about that. It’s the centre periphery bind themselves. It’s part situationist derive, part I guess. But I think Australia is a great place to wander, part mindfulness and part sexy! We make art - it’s challenging being an artist here, like to make people aware of the very subtle visual art isn’t a cultural priority so you have to dances we are always doing in public (and really want to do it.

I don’t work in any particular medium, more across mediums. I work intuitively and conceptually and use whatever medium seems most appropriate at the time. I like powerpoint because its limitations are productive... it’s simple to use and everyone knows it as a program. There is nothing alienating or even mysterious about powerpoint, but because of that I think it’s always a surprising medium.

Also, I can make text animations even though I’m really bad at using computer technology.

And there are all the sound effects and crazy transitions any artist could ever want. I work with gouache paints because they are direct and graphic, like powerpoint they are a limiting medium. And in terms of performance, I think it’s really important for me to always be interrogating the upcoming moment, and performance- or live activities offer me the space to do that. My room in Primavera is as much about the WrongSolo activity, cruising, that unfolds in there as it is about the objects. Everything is always changing (even in a museum!), no moment is the same, and liveness can take that into account.

private) spaces - navigating spaces of desire, voyeurism, culture, politics and power.

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EMMA WHITE 1) Could you tell us about your current piece in Primavera?

My work in Primavera is a few different works.

The video, Reproduction, which is a stopmotion animation of a model of a piece of paper going repeatedly through a photocopier, is something I made when I was getting into stop-motion. I think I like stop-motion because you build up your image slowly over time and its emergence as an illusion of movement is so magical. I like working with things that are really ordinary and recognisable, and just tweaking them a little bit. I really like making these industrially produced things by hand; you’d be surprised by how complex a pencil sharpener is, structurally. So many different planes. I like the contrast between these hard things and my soft materials Conceptually I’m very interested in production and productivity.

It seems to me that’s how most people are occupied most of the time; working, producing, consuming. I want my work to appear at the intersection between that system and free will. The objects I’m making usually imply a process that is being undergone, they’re often tools, they should comment on kinds of doing. They’re quite reflexive because a lot of it ends up being about making art.

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2) What are some of the challenges you face as an artist in Australia, and particularly a young artist in Australia?

3) Why do you work in the medium you do? What does this allow you to express over the others?

The main challenges as I see them are managing working for money and making work. I work three days a week, and it means there are a lot of days where you can’t clock off at all and that can be exhausting and put a lot of pressure on things like relationships and family. I think the commercial art market in Australia is a bit small and (with some notable exceptions) somewhat conservative, so it might be a worry for my practice to rely on sales for all of my income. But juggling a (part-time) day job, the loss of time for and momentum towards the goals I have for my art practice is the price of that. There are artists in Europe who don’t sell objects or pictures at all, and they make their living. Another challenge, and this might be specific to the big cities - it certainly applies in Sydney, is that the cost of rent makes studio space so difficult to get. Groups or organisations who have been funded to offer affordable studio spaces seem to offer them for three month periods. Those residencies can be great, I’ve benefited from that model, but I feel like a secure, affordable studio space is something I need to keep for longer than three months. Shifting everything all the time is just too disruptive to the continuity of your practice. Councils like Marrickville, Parramatta, and I think Waverley have some great programs that offer studio spaces for artists, but the City of Sydney doesn’t seem to subsidise any, even though it’s obvious that we pay the highest rents in the country. This is part of why I mostly make small work; I’m making it at home. So yes, money.

I work in a variety of mediums. It just worked out that I ended up with a lot of ‘things’ in the show.

I’ve been using polymer clay (a craft product a bit like hardened plasticene) because it’s very user-friendly, you bake it in your oven at home and if you make small objects it’s not expensive. I don’t have ideological reasons for choosing that material though, it just depends on what I want the work to do. Conceptually I’m mostly dealing with representation across different forms, and at the moment I’m doing a lot of combinations of photographs and objects; the objects are like ‘expanded’ three dimensional pictures of the things they represent, and the photographs flatten the objects and make them look ‘realer’.

I’m really interested in doing more drawing, and more video animation, and painting too. But painting seems very hard to come at because it’s got so much history. I tried making paintings but I got hung up on genres. Making a polymer clay model of a painting, it didn’t matter if it was a model of a good painting, as long as it looked like a painting. That’s given me my first taste of abstraction. The clay I use is a bit like using acrylic paint that’s three-dimensional. I work a lot with colours, mixing the colours together to get what I need like a painter would, but because the objects are ‘realistic’ that part of the process kind of disappears, the way good editing in film disappears and you just see the story. I like working in any medium that allows me to work with my hands, or juxtapose things together. My practice is kind of that exactly; make a thing, put it next to another thing and see how they play off each other.

AKIRA AKIRA 1) Could you tell us about your current piece in Primavera?

2) What are some of the challenges you face as an artist in Australia, and particularly a young artist in Australia?

3) Why do you work in the medium you do? What does this allow you to express over the others?

I’m interested in working with ‘everyday geometry’, the kinds of shapes that exist in seemingly mundane objects. Be it the sphere found in a roll-on deodorant, an eraser that also works as a 3-D puzzle, or the gentle curvature in a bar of soap, I find the particular combination of functionality and form really fascinating. For Football No.5, I made a resin cast of an Adidas football, which was then painted with automotive paint. With its extremely glossy surface, I try to shift the emphasis from sporting equipment to a set of strange geometries.

Until not that long ago, footballs used to be made of pentagons and hexagons.

With the advancement of technology, the balls now consist of fewer and fewer panels. As a result, an object that we think we are so familiar with obtains a renewed sense of speed and velocity. Maybe they will one day be completely spherical with no seams on the surface?

I don’t know what it’s like to be an artist in any other place so I can’t really tell what may be specific to Australia. Trying to explain what I do as an artist to people who are not particularly interested in contemporary art is the biggest challenge, I suppose. Once I mention the word ‘sculpture’, the question that everybody, and I mean EVERYBODY, wants to ask is: “So, what kind of medium do you work with?”

I primarily work around the ideas of sculpture and painting. I use some materials ‘sculpturally’ or in a ‘painterly’ fashion. Yet I’m a little detached from the idea of strict disciplinary boundaries. I think a lot of people are nowadays. I’d like to think of them as tendencies rather than pigeonholes that I may put myself into. I prefer to engage with a variety of materials and processes individually.

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ALASDAIR McLUCKIE 1) Could you tell us about your current piece in Primavera?

2) What are some of the challenges you face as an artist in Australia, and particularly a young artist in Australia?

3) Why do you work in the medium you do? What does this allow you to express over the others?

I have two major works in Primavera. The first, ‘The Highest Mountain Peaks, Right before Dawn’ is a scene depicting a flood of biblical proportions, where the highest mountain peaks are the driest and safest places left to perch on. Gathered on them are men and women in doomsday costumes confessing their possible final thoughts and fears, mighty trees twist and turn in the wicked wind and an assortment of animals stand on their hind legs, splashing around in the flood water or just waiting for their next meal.

The second work is in two parts, they’re called ‘There Ain’t No Fear In This Forest’ and ‘Rider’. These works are sort of a direct reaction to the themes in the first work. They depict a strange new assortment of flora and fauna popping up and growing out of the wreckage of the first work. The works show a

I think most of the challenges I have are self produced, or at least the interesting ones are.

Challenges like positively moving forward with my practice, learning new techniques, pushing the content of my work, great things like that.

There are external challenges I suppose, but I don’t dwell on them, I just focus on my practice. The terms ‘emerging’ or ‘young’ artist, for example, are terms that I just don’t think about. I believe that you put as much stock in those sort of things as you want. I don’t put much stock in them so they don’t mean that much to me.

Drawing has been a constant process, specifically with the humble biro pen, in my practice. I’m confident working this way which I find really helps when starting a project, from a mental point of view if nothing else.

I also employ a number of craft techniques, and more recently have been dabbling with printmaking techniques. I tend to work in an incredibly meticulous way, so having a number of different approaches to making my works help keep things new and interesting. If it was only drawing that I used to make my work I’m sure my hand would have dropped off through constant use by now.

cast of characters from the new world that is born out of the destruction of the old world.

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O N THE ROAD THE SPIT PRESS PRESENTS

Proudly supported by Magners Cider

$

15

THE EMERGING ARTIST FESTIVAL

An evening festival of music, art and literature to raise funds for The Spit Press and celebrate emerging artists in Sydney

OCTOBER 22ND AT THE VANGUARD NEWTOWN, SYDNEY

FEATURING: MUSIC FROM

LEROY LEE

THE

MAPLE TRAIL

JACK CARTY & CHUMPY

JACK KEROUAC LUKE CARMEN OF

& ORIGINAL READINGS FROM

PENGUIN PLAYS ROUGH

ART BY

PIGEONBOY

&

RAH! COLLECTIVE

Winner: On the Road poster design competition.

By Matt Lauricella

www.spitpress.com

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Greedy Hen

Multidisciplinary design studio and art collective Greedy Hen are complimenting Sydney’s music scene with epic, fantasical and fun-infused artworks. Chumpy picks at their brains

C: What/who inspired the name Greedy Hen? GH: From the treasure trove of our collective minds, you know, just your old-school late night banter resulted in the name.

did a performance called When Face Move Mountains where he got 500 volunteers to collectively attempt to move a mountain using shovels)... the list is endless really.

C: Typeface you overdose on and why?

C: How do you make the distinction between an art collective and a design studio?

GH: Our background is in Fine Arts and so the way we look at things, the way we talk about things conceptually is informed by that. We’re just a couple of Artists that happen to do a whole lot of things and get excited about a number of different mediums. We don’t like to limit ourselves with boundaries; we make art, we illustrate, we work in graphic design, we direct music videos, we make gig visuals, we make objects, we animate. Basically we cover so many different areas it seems a little archaic and stuffy to put ourselves into a box.

C: Who/what influences and inspires Greedy Hen? GH: We get inspired all the time. And then we get really excited about our ideas like little attention deficit kids on red cordial. We’re really into dusty old records, shiny new records, old books, new books, the work of Simon Evans, Marcel Dzama, Yokoland, Dane Lovett, Nous Vous, Nathaniel Russel, Francis Alys (who

GH: All of Katherine’s hand made ones.

They’re a little bit humorous in how crummy and warped they are, but for some reason they just seem to work and look totally aceballs, especially the ones hand cut from paper.

we got to do their album artwork and the music video for the song There’s Nothing In The Water We Can’t Fight. We also really love seeing Jack Ladder play. His ever evolving sound seriously knocks us flat, he’s goose bumps good. Also, everyone’s vibing on Seekae at the moment.

C: Mac or PC? Why? GH: Mac because we like the sound it makes when we press the On button.

C: CMYK or RGB? Why?

C: What has been Greedy Hen’s most challenging project?

GH: Film clips are the most challenging as the turn around is tight and the pressure is on but they are extrememly rewarding. Seeing our work in that context and working with the band is pretty ace. It’s like creating a little world that you can be absorbed by and immersed in for 3 minutes and 30 seconds.

C: Greedy Hen have done artwork for some solid local bands. What are your thoughts on Sydney’s latest talent?

GH: We’re sure it’s the same in other towns, but there’s this really fun comradery in the Sydney music scene. We’re really into the new Cloud Control record Bliss Release, so it’s quite rad that

GH: RGB! We prefer RGB because it’s warmer and is a smaller file size.

C: What’s lined up for Greedy Hen in the near future?

GH: We’re directing a new music video.

This one will feature some miniature model landscapes and tiny cities made entirely from paper and watercolours. We’re also doing some live gig visuals using an overhead projector, acetates, shadow puppetry, and ink that will be projected behind Cloud Control at their gig on October 15th at the Metro.

We’d also like to try to fit in an art exhibition some time towards the end of the year. www.greedyhen.com

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A Meaty Discussion Sally Rawsthorne puts forward the case for giving your steak intake a break.

Before you read this, know one thing: I’m not calling myself a vegetarian. I eat fish, sometimes chicken and if nothing else presented itself in a life-or-death situation, I’d eat red meat. So don’t go thinking I’m a vegan, bi-curious Newtown dweller with short hair.

But I do identify (aside from the short hair, bi-curious Newtown dweller who’s a strict vegan bit) somewhat with this oh-so-innovative stereotype. I honestly believe that there are a lot of advantages in limiting your meat consumption.

I don’t have ethical problems with little baby animals being caged, beyond those of most people. Picturing small creatures being uprooted from their mummies like in that scene from Babe purely for the sake of my tastebuds doesn’t exactly fill me with joy. But if it bothers you, then do something about it. Put your money where your mouth is (or, in this case, don’t put your money anywhere near the butcher’s).

If this has given you food for thought then check out Jonathon Safran-Foer’s ‘Eating Animals’. I guarantee you’ll pause the next time you go to bite into a Big Mac... surely you could cut down just a little bit? Remember how sad you were in Babe?

Talking pigs aside, I admit, I am a bit of a tree hugger. I like to consider the impact of my actions on the future of our planet before making them. And you know what? Eating meat is bad news. The other day a Facebook group suggested that a vegetarian in a big fuck-off hummer releases less overall carbon emissions than a meateater in a hybrid. After a quick Google, I feel confident enough

to put that in print. But honestly – even if you’re a masochist and don’t care about the baby chickens, spare a thought for the earth?

(NB – This reasoning need not apply if you drive a luxury car, voted Liberal or live on the North Shore).

Urban Dictionary.com defines an economic vegetarian as “Only eating vegetables because you can’t afford to buy meat.” And come on, you’re reading a free publication, for Christ’s sake. Surely that $10 could go towards something better than a fillet mignon?

Further more, you’re hip, right? Super trendy? Well, I’ve found that I’ve derived some serious street cred in adjusting my vintage wayfarers and drawling “Nah, I don’t actually eat meat...”

However, said street cred is immediately undone the minute you admit to consuming baby chicken foetuses on hangover Sundays.

But seriously, it’s guaranteed to impress the types that read this publication and frequent Kuleto’s.

Another thing – we don’t need it! As my mother constantly informs me, meat, particularly of the red variety, is “part of a balanced diet.” Aha! According to my naturalist (who is the healthiest person I know), we eat way too much meat. From an evolutionary point of view, humans only ‘require’ meat weekly. Yet most of us eat it at least daily. Hmmm.

I end this rant (somewhat hypocritically – I had prawns for dinner) on an appeal – just think about it. I’m not saying anything particularly new or innovative, and maybe it’s been said before, but we should all consider it – why so much meat?

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Bound to be read When Miss Helen - of ‘Fly Away Bird’ fame - sat down with Jared Kelley to discuss the wide community of self publishers, he had no idea that he would want to go home that day and start his own pen filled, photocopier driven, publication journey.

When Helen said “There’s something beautiful about having you, a page, and a pen”, I stopped dead in my gear grinding interviewer story driven mind and sat, gob smacked, because, as obvious as the statement seems now, it was just true.

In a world consumed with crisp, clean, bright and blinding OLED displays - could there really still be a place for the hand drawn character and the printed word? Apparently, in the artist’s vernacular, yes.

Ranging from tiny to huge, hand drawn type to typeset, and cute-yet-ominous to the overtly serious - zines are expressionist journals.

Image, text, and creatively driven morsels of the direct inner workings of their creators’ minds.

After I was presented with a veritable bouquet of these works to pour over, I was beginning to see the truth for myself: self-publishing was the bastion of terrestrial communication. In other words, one of the few things still separating us from complete consumption into an iPad screen.

“I started in 1996 when I was a little angsty teenager, I was doing it because it was a really good way to communicate with other people because there wasn’t really a community of people I could relate to where I lived, and you could make this thing on paper and mail it to people and they would mail theirs 22 | THE SPIT PRESS | www.spitpress.com | ISSUE 4

to you, and you could go to record shops and buy them,” Helen nostalgically related, sitting with me, a little nervous at the idea of being interviewed for this otherwise usually subdued craft. In keeping with her fellow-zineists, Helen’s zines have focused on, well, whatever she is thinking about - letting it evolve - “there’s no deadline” she says, and that seems to be the point. Content on your own terms at your own pace for your own audience.

In the world of exhibitions-turnedpublications and back again, this notion of myway or the highway publishing has soldiered on with photographer Conor O’Brien and his narrative driven work. Publishing five print works with a sixth to come, this initial method of solely communicating the photographs he was exhibiting through print seems to have evolved into a dedicated medium for his work. “I’ve always been committed to having my work available in publications, so I started by making self published booklets to go with exhibitions I had organised. Then Serps Press came on board and for a few years they published small self cover books for each body of work I exhibited,” adding further into a method of control that only self-publishing seems to afford, “They were still artist books because I had total control over the design and layout.”

O’Brien also seems to echo Helen in the communicative value of artist books, “Exhibitions allow you to engage on a physical level with the work which I’m very interested in. But books are intimate, they can be posted all over the world and you can pull them out whenever you want and revisit them.”

It seems self publishing is asserting itself as a backlash to our screen drenched society, but an honest assessment would show many small and short run publishers use the web to clue in audiences that may not have been available before. The strength appears to lie in the medium and the intimate connection between holding these delicate, crafted works in our hands. In Helen’s words, “When you’re on the Internet you’re just gobbling up, feasting on this information - hoovering it all in - but when you’ve got zines, they’re harder to get, which makes them more precious, and the handmade aspect is beautiful”. It is truly a medium of unique communication that no conversation could take the place of - “As a friend told me once when receiving a zine from me after months of little communication, ‘It’s like having all of these windows into parts of your life that I’ve missed out on’ - in a little hand crafted, curiously connected, book”.

Time Flies Caitlyn Adamson talks a little bit about why everybody loves a montage.

I’m an easy going kind of gal. I like the little things. Like spam in a can cooked with a little bit of salt, brown tequila with lemon and when it comes to sitting my sweet ass down and watching a film, an appropriately placed montage with kick ass music.

The montage, which is French for “squeezing lengthy amounts of reality into a 3 minute scene with a power ballad”, was made famous by 80s classics and audiences’ natural support for underdog story lines. Let’s take a look at some of my favourite examples.

The Sport/Training Montage: Usually involves shirtless main characters sweating and lifting heavy materials that compliment their perfectly chiselled abs. These faultlessly placed montages depict how quickly one can work out in order to become a total stud and winner.

Because winning is always the most important thing of all.

Found In: Refer to all sports movies ever made. Ever.

Soundtrack: Classic power ballads, if in doubt, use Eye of the Tiger.

Makes you feel: Exuberant, inspired and like fist punching the air.

The Love Montage: Working in two parts, 1) the happy beginnings and 2) the brutal break up. 1 usually involves long walks on beaches, dinner dates in attractive lighting, inaudible amounts of laughter and Barry White inspired love scenes. Sooner or later resulting in 2, with brooding faces, glazed eyes, litter filled apartments, empty alcohol bottles, emotional outbursts and regrettable messages left on answering machines.

Found In: Almost all rom-coms. Hell, if a rom-com doesn’t have one of these two montages, I’ll probably be questioning its street cred.

Soundtrack: Anything that plays on “Love Song Dedications”.

Makes you feel: 1=totally love stoned, 2= bitter and disdainful while reliving your worst break up experiences.

The Makeover Montage: My personal favourite, when the fugly out of place gal (or guy...rarely) – who isn’t actually that unattractive

in the first place – gets a makeover and realises that the only way to become popular and loved is to become totally smokin’! Just kidding, kids. These montages usually result in a touching inner and outer change for all characters who have an emotional epiphany about self worth. Now if that isn’t montage magic I don’t know what is.

Found In: Old school chick flicks. Think Sixteen Candles, She’s All That and Clueless.

Soundtrack: Pop. So much pop it’s unhealthy. A pop overdose.

Makes you feel: Awesome in the pants.

The Money Montage: Also known as the success montage, this combination usually involves copious amounts of money, suits, sunglasses, fast cars, chicks, a casino, a midget, drugs and huge mansions. Characters turn from paupers into pimps and probably kill a hell of a lotta’ people to do it. But it’s ok, it’s in a montage.

Found In: Scarface and every other ganglord film to follow in its despicably amazing footsteps.

Soundtrack: Rock and/or Roll. Drums and bass.

Makes you feel: Like punching someone’s nose, stealing their wallet and yelling “Who’s your daddy?!” Bad arse.

While there may be plenty more montages in the montage family: the driving montage, the cartoon training montage, the growing up montage, the life flashing before your mind montage - just to name a few, the real beauty about this fast paced sequence is the magic they bring to the audience. Whether it’s watching the fat chick become less fat and popular, or cheering for the athlete that never gave up, they bring you in with their tantalising music, like a moth to the flame, and leave you in a state of 3 minute, fast paced bliss. If only reality had montages, then who knows, I could be a world champion athlete/ drug lord/heart breaker/motor cycle rider/nerd transformed into a hottie in the span of 3 minutes instead of waiting a lifetime to achieve something...Sigh.

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Megan Washington Megan Washington is multi-faceted awesome.

Lynne Xie had a laugh speaking with her and – sometime in between getting busted for googling her research mid-interview and breaking the news that she’s actually dating the guy Megan had casually called a retard – she stuffed up the technology and didn’t have a record of anything Megan had said. But she was gracious enough to make time for another interview and, with recording equipment checked and double-checked, Lynne had the chance to speak to her...again. This time about playing the festivals, a lack of TV and being mistaken for a lesbian.

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L: You’ve been touring a lot lately, when you’re on the road what’s your favourite type of audience member?

M: I really like audience members who are engaged and noisy. Not chatty but who yell stuff out at you and really become part of the show. Sometimes you get some great crowds where someone will yell something out and it becomes an in-joke for the entire show. And then someone else will yell something out about it a couple of songs later, you know what I mean? It’s actually like a dialogue and not just a one-way diatribe from me about my position on the world.

L: What are some things people have shouted out in the past?

M: Oh, “I like my lesbians hot.” This one guy came up to me after a show – he was very drunk. It was in Port Macquarie I think and he was like, “Listen, listen – you sing okay, but you’ve got to give this whole lesbian thing away”. And I was like “What do you mean?” and he was like “You know, this whole lesbian thing. It’s so 90s, it’s so 90s.

You could be a really pretty girl if you tried.

You’re throwing your looks away.” And I just didn’t have the heart to tell him that I wasn’t a lesbian! I think he just assumed that because I was wearing jeans and a beanie and cause I wasn’t trying to look pretty that I was a lesbian. It was really funny.

L: In terms of live performance, festivals are obviously a pretty special type of concert and you played at Parklife in September and October this year.

L: Yes! I actually have the Parklife line-up in front of me now! [unlike the previous interview in which Megan busted me googling it as we spoke.]

M: When I’m home when I’m not touring the last thing I want to do is sit in front of the TV. I know it sounds really like, holier than thou, and I don’t mean to sound like that but I’d much rather listen to music or read a book or go see my friends. I mean, I’ve lived without television for about four and a half years now so it doesn’t even register on my radar anymore.

M: (laughs) Wow, that’s amazing. You’re so prepared!

L: Have you seen your own performances on TV shows?

L: (laughs) How will you be tailoring your performance for the upcoming festivals?

M: I saw Spicks and Specks because I was at my parents’ place when it went to air and they were watching it cause my parents are very proud and supportive. But I haven’t seen Good News Week and I haven’t seen Rockwiz, although I think that’s on the Internet somewhere. That’s not my job to watch myself though – that’s weird.

M: I did.

M: Well at festivals you don’t have a lot of time and you don’t have a lot of dynamic freedom. So if you’re playing on an outdoor stage, some weird folky ballad just won’t have the same impact. We don’t change the songs but we do change the set list.

I think I was telling you yesterday as well I get a bit drunker cause I do want to be able to reach out and have a little bit of bravado. It’s kind of daunting playing with a festival. Because if you were ever going to get compared to another act, it’d be at a festival.

People are all “Oh I liked blahblah but I didn’t like blahblah or blah wasn’t as good as blah”. That’s kind of scary.

L: How did you respond?

L: Yeah, that’s understandable...

M: I said, “Thanks so much for the advice.

Have a nice night.”

L: Oh that’s lovely...

M: There’s been some pretty funny stuff – I told you about that guy who was doing backflips and he was stealing all the attention. So I just got him to do it onstage during one of my songs and the crowd was cool. There are heaps of ways to deal with different types of crowds.I think a lot of people don’t give the crowd enough credit. The crowd really does make or break the show. You can play the shit out of it but if you haven’t engaged that audience or if you haven’t made them feel part of what’s going on, it’s not… you know, shows are not a vanity project. It should be about an exchange. And creating something which is the sum of me plus the crowd.

L: Fair enough...

M: Otherwise it’s always basically the same: you gotta’ play good, don’t fuck up, don’t say anything really dumb. They’re kind of my rules.

L: You’ve also had heaps of success from appearing on TV shows like Spicks and Specks, Rockwiz and Good News Week.

M: Yeah it’s actually ironic that TV has played a part in my journey or story or whatever you want to call it, because I don’t own one. I don’t know if that’s poetic or ironic, or I don’t know what that is but it’s probably worth noting. It’s funny to me.

L: So why don’t you have a TV? M: Um. Well, I don’t want one…

L: You mentioned your parents are really proud. Do they still come to your shows?

M: Yeah my parents went to Splendour!

The older I get the more I realise that my parents are awesome. Definitely two of my favourite people in the world. They’re so not stuck. You know, I think a lot of people - as they get older - get stuck in a certain way or they get stuck in a certain time, but my dad just got a twitter account yesterday and he’s like 69. I hope I can be that free as I get older.

L: Do you think you have that same quality of fearlessness?

M: My mother never said anything as straight up and down as “be fearless” but both of them told [Megan’s sister] Sarah and I that we could do whatever we want. And if you want to do something you don’t have to do it the way everyone else has done it or is doing it. You can do things your own way in your own time. And it’s definitely advice that I’ve put into practise.

For example with the making of this record I don’t think it’s usual for people to put out three EPs and take three years to make an album! But that’s what I needed.

So that feeling has always been very innate, that I just need to do stuff the way I need to do it.

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L: Do you plan to release another album soon? Or will you take another few years and take some time off?

M: No way, I’d go crazy. I’m going into the studio tomorrow to start working on stuff.

You’ve got to understand that making this album went from being an activity to being a lifestyle. I did it for such a long time – it became my lifestyle.

L: So you’re going to get straight back into it?

M: I can’t not do it. What else am I going to do? I have no life skills, I don’t know how to do anything else.

L: I know you used to dance when you were younger. You’ve got that to fall back on!

M: Well, I just want someone to put me in musicals. I just want the phone to ring and I want it to be Baz Luhrmann saying, “Meg, I have a tiny role for you in my new 1920s flapper musical”. And I’ll say… “Thanks, Baz”.

L: That’d be awesome. Have you been involved in much musical theatre before?

M: I did a lot of it as a kid. You know, a lot of dancing and lot of acting a lot of that kind of stuff. Never really writing I was always a singer. I didn’t start writing til I was in my late teens and early 20s. I did high school musicals and stuff but I never got to be in a professional production or anything. But I’m just waiting for Baz to call me. I’m just waiting.

L: You should get in touch with him. I’d love to see a Washington-Luhrmann production.

M: He will call me. I can feel it in my bones.

I don’t know if I’m just projecting but I feel like if I’m certain enough that he’ll call me, he’ll call me.

L: Well you know, this is going to go in print. Maybe Baz will read it. Baz Luhrmann, we’re talking to you now – give Megan Washington a call.

M: Yep, just call me. Just to say hi or whatever. I need you in my life.

Washington’s debut album I Believe You Liar is out now. It’s righteous.

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The Writer’s Way “They danced down the street like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I’ve been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centrelight pop and everybody goes ‘Awww!’” (On the Road, Jack Kerouac) Steph Lentz explores This is an eerily accurate articulation of my wish for an extraordinary life. But I shirk the thought of looking into the histories of tortured genii like Jack, afraid that there I may find an element of experience common to all people that could prompt me to abandon the shores of reason and ordered living...for the sake of art. So as I consider the lives of the anguished Romantics and Sylvia Plath, Kurt Cobain, Virginia Woolf and Jack Kerouac, the tragedy sinks in: possessing the ability to articulate the human condition so poignantly apparently makes you either want to take your own life, or renders it an ephemeral whirlpool of insanity. For their existential angst, we gain art of a wicked calibre. But isn’t there something a bit weird about celebrating inimitable prose, melodic rock that makes me shiver, the vivid poetry of a gritty Massachusetts native, all brought to us at the price of psychological normalcy? That “the poet is made of nothing different to the ordinary man: he just feels the same things to a greater degree and has greater power in expressing them” (Wordsworth) worries me, considering the ends of folk like Plath and Cobain.

The dark cloud of enigma that shrouds such champions looms low, like thick smoke in a dim bar; candid women laid out in languid repose, heavy jazz and heady notions make me want to

write words, heart-rending chords and poetry. I’ve brought an inky pen and a piece of yellow-ish paper, ready to go hell-for-leather with that bad boy, yearning to end up with something nonchalantly light-weight, but profound, ready for the archives which will last to posterity, where fellows like Kerouac are immortalised in first editions. But I don’t have it in me. That’s probably because I am not (yet) jaded, not insane and not on drugs. No offense. It’s just true.

Forgive me for my remissness, but it appears that the most ethereal art is drawn in golden threads from the most messed-up minds.

So, it seems that it’s not mere verbal acumen that makes magic.

Although, some of the things I’ve read and heard and seen have left me breathless simply because they issued from reticent wordsmiths, saturnine gentlemen and connoisseurs of good form who found the answer blowing in the wind of quotidian dullness, and illuminated it with a little imagination. But instead of preponderating cliches, I’ll wait until something moves me today, tapping into the darker aspects of my nature and producing in me all manner of emo sentiments, encrypted in flowery language. I’ll quickly write it down and have it published. One day when I’m dead, it will be thought of as rare and brilliant. All in a day’s work.

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Leroy Lee “If you hold a guitar for long enough, something is bound to happen.” Tommy Faith spoke with Newtown’s music native Leroy Lee The acoustic folk songs of Leroy Lee have been a source of real recognition for the Newtown local. With airtime on national and overseas radio, international support slots and performances at venues as noteworthy as the Sydney Opera House, one could be forgiven for thinking that Leroy Lee has a strong publicity team working in the shadows but this couldn’t be farther from the truth.

“One of the hardest aspects of the whole deal is promoting my own music. I have my own record label called Paper Sleeve Music, so I have to be pretty pro-active in the way I go about getting my music to people. It’s worth the effort though. I really enjoy the music side of it; I meet a lot of folks and have conversations that I wouldn’t have had if I was still a gardener. Though the same can be said for my gardening years.”

Leroy Lee is a story of humble Australian beginnings and they manifest in both sound and word. Lyrically central to his gentle, acoustic and sometimes folky tracks is the idea of the homegrown, the backyard and the local – the personal experience. When asked what his songs were about he delivered the cheeky response, “Three to four minutes. Nah, well they’re about anything and everything. Drawing Smoke is a hazy reflection of missed opportunity. I usually start with the music, I noodle till my brain shuts up. Lyrics are different, they happen when I’m walking to the bus stop. If you hold a guitar for long enough, something is bound to happen.”

The movement from simple noodling on guitar to playing before an Opera house crowd was an organic process for Leroy Lee. “I’ve always written little songs, it’s how I learned to play. Someone shows

you a few chords and you make something. This was pre-internet remember. Back then you’d have to walk five miles barefoot through bindies for half a “Hey Jude” photocopied on the back of a Telecom bill. More recently though I met producer Brendan O’Brien (aka Melvin Tree) during a guitar session for the Jeff Buckley and Nick Drake tribute albums, I showed him some of my own songs and he said he’d like to produce them and that I should be the guy who sings them.”

Both Nick Drake and Jeff Buckley had a significant bearing on the formation of what is now the Leroy Lee sound, so his involvement in their recent tribute albums is a natural step. Lee cites artists as diverse as Tool, Dylan, Jeff Lang, Joni Mitchell and even comedian Bill Hicks as his most remarkable influences. “My music has elements of folk, blues, rock and maybe even some classical ideas. But I’m not a ‘Singer/Songwriter’. That’s a style they should call S&S, like they did with Rhythm and Blues.”

Regardless of genre or style, attention is being paid to Leroy Lee. A number of American radio stations have been giving serious airtime to his debut album and recently Leroy was handpicked to support Ireland’s The Swell Season on their Australian tour. What’s next for Leroy Lee? “Record a new EP then an album. Also, I’m producing an album for a great songwriter named Simon Bruce.

Check him out!”

You can find Leroy on facebook at www.facebook.com/ leroyleemusic and myspace at www.myspace.com/leroyleemusic.

Or better yet, come meet the man at our ‘On The Road’ festival at The Vanguard on the 22nd of October.

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An Alternative Route We welcomed spring and took a trip through The Maple Trail. Sam Johnstone writes

For ages now I’ve wanted to drop everything and hit the open road.

You know, like in the movies (not movies, movie – Almost Famous) and just let life unfold before my very eyes. But we all have our complications, commitments and responsibities which make that great escape so intangible. Whilst I’d love to drop everything, get in the car and leave, there are some specific things that are stopping me. Petrol costs money, lots of money – and I’m broke. Road trips should be taken in a van, and only in a van – and I drive a Corolla. But what I have discovered are some tunes that will almost get me there.

It’s part of Australian folklore that every road trip needs a good tune, and I’m not talking about that redonk ‘I’ve been everywhere man…’ song. I couldn’t imagine anything worse. What I can imagine however is the afternoon sunlight streaked across my face, mottled by the branches passing overhead as I drive north with a couple of mates and a loot of red wine, cheap beer and of course copious amounts of goon. Did I mention I’m all class? We’d be travelling light in an old school Kombi to the beat of The Maple Trail.

The Maple Trail are one of those little gems, the diamonds in the rough whose tunes seem to resonate perfectly with a summer breeze, sand in shoes and nights with friends that blur into a wave of nostalgic bliss. Hailing from the cozy Blue Mountains, The Maple Trail tuck themselves away and record their sweet tunes in the comfort of their living room. Doing no wrong with their intense collection of strings, harmonies, brass, harmonicas and poetically inclined lyrics, these four laid back dudes are the definition of Folk.

Dig it? Luckily for you they’re playing at On The Road, the official Spit Press creative festival. Come on down, drink some wine and soak in all kinds of noises that will make you want to get up and drive, spontaneously, into the promises of summer.

Grab your tickets to On The Road at www.thevanguard.com.au 22nd of October. www.myspace.com/themapletrail

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The Ultimate Paradox Keeping up with the Jones’. It seems that the older we get, the more we can validate this age-old saying.

Jess Auckett writes about being alternative.

We live in the age of the inverted triangle – a hierarchical halfrevolution. So whether we are keeping up with the Jones’ or the Kardashians, the point is we are keeping up. Past the conventionalism of following the currents of popular fads and predetermined trends to their expiry date, we instead, in a desperate bid for identity and individuality, find ourselves taking a stand against conformity in an effort to create a cult following based on something controversially unpopular, and turning it into something of inconceivable trendworthiness. So what is the key to popularity by your own merit? The answer is simple: be alternative.

The days when ‘cool’ - simultaneous with hitting puberty actually meant ‘cool’, are long gone. Apparently the world isn’t confusing enough for our successive generation, they now must adapt to the fact that being cool is merited by a carefully mastered case of ‘un-coolness’. They are living a paradox before they even know the meaning of the word.

You open a magazine and find the globalised trend of ‘geek chic’, sported by the likes of serial oddballs Chloë Sevigny and Alexa Chung. Where once the adornment of suspenders was a characteristic that caused schoolyard bullying based on stereotype, it is now a runway essential for some of the fashion greats. We once again tuck in our shirts, swear by skin tight jeans, no matter the sex or sexuality, and wear oversized spectacles – just because we can. We wear skinny jeans until they are a worldwide craze, and then switch over to the much more accommodating flares, all in the name of being different.

The fashion industry I’m sure has never been given such a work

out; jumping on an uprising craze, only to have to change direction as a consequence of having commercialised the latest underground trend.

It’s when a band loses all credibility upon becoming ‘mainstream’ that we know the times are changing. Does anyone remember that being a concern during our mindless obsession with the Backstreet Boys and Britney? From local beginnings to underground concert venues, it’s about the carefully concealed brilliance of an alternative sound.

I miss the simple life. Not the one in which Paris and Nicole debut their innately groundbreaking intellect (note the absence of capital letters - and the sarcasm), but the one in which being globally recognised as ‘cool’ meant being herded like sheep from one unhealthy obsession to another, initiated by one person who mustered up the self-entitlement to dictate such a following. When being in the minority, whatever minority, was the definition of ‘uncool’ and meant consequential judgment. Don’t get me wrong, my opinion on bullying of any kind will always be offthe-charts in its disapproval, but - like the televisions of our parent’s days - you either had black, or you had white. Cool, or uncool. Accepted, or unaccepted. Just as “Oh my gosh I love your skirt” (line taken from one of the most quotable movies of our generation – Mean Girls), meant “Oh my gosh I love your skirt.” Is it any wonder we can’t keep up?

As this illogical phenomenon sweeps the world, we find that by choosing to be in the minority we are joining an ever-growing majority, who have chosen the same course of individualism. So as you go out there to leave your own mark, appreciate the irony of knowing that millions of others are leaving theirs’ in the same way. It’s the ultimate paradox, isn’t it?

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Feature Gallery: China Heights Perched high in the low end of the city, this gallery provides much more than a great vantage point. One of the founders, Edward Woodley tells us about the space he help build and the challenges it poses.

SP: When and how did China Heights start?

EW: Mark Drew and I created our gallery in 2004. A year earlier, we had started the studio, and took the opportunity to convert the spare space on our premise into the gallery. We’ve gone through various changes and formulas with the gallery, but after 2 years of trialing different methods we found that the format of doing 2-3 shows per month worked best for us. During June of 2008, we moved the gallery to the commercial/high street location of Crown St, Darlinghurst, keeping the existing studio/ gallery location. Towards the end of 2009, a new annex style gallery was completed at the original warehouse location, with all events returning to Foster St. SP: What was it like starting a gallery in Sydney? Did you find much support? Was it hard to get off the ground?

myself created the studio. In that time we’ve offered space to friends and fellow artists/ designers, to share the financial burdens of setting up a studio - rent and other overheads. Over time, these additional parties have changed and lessened.

Through our evolution and success, the need for extra bodies has dwindled as business has expanded.We developed the gallery in stages, so the process wasn’t forced. We had the opportunity to expand organically to satisfy our needs.

SP: Describe China Heights’ curatorial direction/selection process? Does it have one?

EW: The gallery has a rigorous proposal process, and hand picks its exhibiting artists.

SP: The weekly turnover of exhibits means you have a much higher frequency of artists come and go - why do you schedule like

SP: What’s the hardest part about running an independent gallery?

EW: Managing the various tasks and duties. This problem is overcome by delegating responsibilities within our network of volunteers and staff.

SP: You’re an artist yourself, do you get to practice as much while running the gallery? Do you ever exhibit yourself?

EW: I don’t get to practice as much as I’d like, but that’s a sacrifice I’ve decided to make to be a curator. I have shown in several group shows at China Heights, but as a solo artist I exhibit elsewhere.

SP: Sydney is often slagged off as a cultural desert, nothing but beaches and babes. We obviously don’t believe this - what’s your opinion of Sydney’s art scene?

this? What does this enable?

EW: The studio and gallery have been entirely funded by us, with no additional sponsorship from governments or corporations.We have been given free alcohol for our openings sometimes, but that’s about it for sponsorship breaks.

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EW: The opening reception of China Heights’ exhibitions is the key night for the showcase. By having a high frequency of exhibitions, 2-3 shows per month, the gallery has the opportunity to display a broad range of artists.

EW: As Sydney has a large population there is great variety of all aspects of life.

There’s a thriving art/creative community with hundreds of galleries and studios situated only moments from the CBD. www.chinaheights.com

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How Typical Holly Friedlander asks, what good comes from defining someone?

Our generation is known as the most heavily medicated generation, not necessarily because we are the sickest generation, but because some people are no longer capable of dealing with those who show a degree of difference. Despite some saying we live in a much sadder world, this underlying need to categorise individuals is purely an attempt to control the inexplicable. Sevenyear-old kids are being diagnosed with ‘depression’, while those that have an overly imaginative mind are recognised as having a ‘learning difficulty’. Since when is it common practice to try and categorize those who show originality and zest?

Perhaps we label because we are too insecure not to. Those who continually stereotype are too scared to break out from the conformation of society, away from their strict adherence to a perceived image. This putting down of others to justify self, perpetuates uncertainty and fear: a constant, gnawing fear of self-expression.

Not only do we all too readily jump on the categorization bandwagon, we also turn into labelling enthusiasts, eager to base a person’s character on their job title, degree and relationship status. Successful businessman? Check. Masters in Accounting/ Finance/Business? Check. Single? Why, what’s wrong with him?

We don’t just give the labels, we also let ourselves dictate people by the ones they’ve already earned. The great fault of this is that we become close-minded. Our senses shut down and accept only our projected image, putting up blockades to any other perspective.

While this might have no impact in the short term, in the long term, you might be missing out on something great. Perhaps if you look for a moment longer, under the surface you shall see the glimmer of gold shining through the silt.

I believe the most powerful thing someone can possess is the inability to be defined. It is not only refreshing, but opens up doors and will lead to a life of distinction and difference. The human character is an enigma - a mixture of personal experience, environmental influences, values, beliefs, perception and opinion, all hidden by a somewhat unrelated surface. Who’s to say the outside always reflects the inside? Who’s to say that the girl wearing Docs, all black clothing and has an assortment of facial piercings doesn’t also read Jane Austen on the weekends and dreams of one day becoming a flight attendant? Or that the boy who spends every afternoon hidden at the public library isn’t into 70’s hip-hop and has an unhealthy taste for cheap wine?

As a wise friend once told me, “your perception is your reality”.

Thus, taking a moment to see the best in the people surrounding you should make for a much happier life. A life filled with creativity, diverse insight and differing opinions, delivered by people who have been given the chance they need to shine.

To those constantly dealing with people who are still learning to be open-minded – take it with a grain of salt. Yeah, those labellers might not know you very well, but hey, they sure as hell recognise that you’ve got something special. Embrace it because one day they’ll realise that they missed out on something great.

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featuring

Lavender Roast Pork with Baked Apples

The thing I miss most when on the road is a home cooked meal.

On a recent road trip, Zabrina and I made a point of stopping off at any road side stalls or small city towns to sample the local’s best and freshest produce. We sampled local fruit, veggies, honey, wine and meat that was all so fresh and delicious I daydreamed about permanently moving to the bush to have this on my doorstep. But alas, this was not my home, but rather my home away from home.

Whilst it is easy to order take out or nibble on dehydrated snacks, this meal will really make your one night home homely.

Share this meal with friends whilst sampling the locals finest produce.

Make sure to pick up a slab of roasting pork at the local butcher, homemade honey, apples straight from the tree and some lavender stolen from a bush on the side of the road. The waft of roasting Lavender Pork will fill the nose and belly with a comfort only a home can bring, so give this a whirl.

Love Sophie and Zabrina (Head photographer at The Spit Press)

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Lavender Roast Pork with Baked Apples Ingredients: 2-2.5kg Roasting Pork 1tbls Olive Oil ½ cup Sweet Cider 3tbls Stringy Bark Honey 3 large handfuls of fresh Lavender (roughly 25 stalks cut from the bottom) 8 medium sized Green Apples Method: 1. Preheat oven to 220 degrees.

2. Score the fat of the pork with a sharp knife and rub the future crackling with salt.

3. Take the leaves off the lavender stalks and put aside.

4. With a small knife, create roughly 20 pockets in the sides of the meat and push lavender flowers inside. (Exactly the same as garlic pockets in roasts, but with lavender.)

5. Peel and cut 4 apples into silvers and line bottom of baking tray.

Place Pork on top.

6. Whisk oil, cider, honey, lavender leaves and two chopped lavender flowers with a fork and drizzle over pork.

7. Quickly put roast into oven and cook at 220 degrees.This initial heat will create the pork crackling, you will be able to see the fat bubble and brown. After 10 -15 minutes reduce heat to 150 and cook for a further 1hr 30 minutes.

8. With 20 minutes to go, place your 4 whole apples in the roasting tray to cook and place the remaining lavender stalks on top of the roast. This will add fragrance and cook the apples to perfection.

9. Allow the meat to rest for 5-10 minutes.

10. Serve with a cold glass of cider.

Creative Profile: Ben Briand

Will Kuether peered into the mind of one of Australia’s most refreshing filmmakers

Ben Briand is a Sydney based Writer/ Director whose creative journey is certainly paying off. In the past three years, his eye-catching visual work has won him the major prize for the Optus ONE80 Project with MTV, Best New Director accolades for his advertising campaigns, and online and festival buzz for three well-received short films. To top things off, only weeks ago he welcomed a new baby girl into his life.

Ben has definitely been a busy man and it appears he wouldn’t want it any other way.

As one of the directors at leading production house Cherub Pictures, Ben sits alongside the likes of Andrew Dominik, Samantha Lang, Cate Shortland and John Curran. Some would say he’s in good company.

His journey began at a very young age, acting, performing and working at the local video store. He recalls, “All of a sudden the greatest thing to me was at the end of a shift was being allowed to take home a new release. And for a kid that was relatively introverted, that was fantastic.”

His secret to being a prolific filmmaker stems from a strong DIY attitude that he developed in his teen years. “I had a trade off with my high school, that I could borrow

the video camera on weekends, as long as I’d film the Rugby matches.”

As a student of Sydney’s College of Fine Art (COFA), Ben studied alongside the likes of Kris Moyes, Andrew Liversidge and Matt Dooley. “We were doing time-based art, a degree coming at the moving image from a gallery perspective. We were looking at performance art, people like Mathew Barney, we loved this stuff and were really intrigued in where it was going.”

Ben’s shorts Castor & Pollux and most recently Apricot showcase his transcendence from the world of fashion and advertising and into his distinct style of short and dreamy film narratives.

His latest, soon-to-be released short, Some Static Started deals with themes similar to his prior work, although he has changed the genre. While Apricot is treated with a sense of sweet nostalgia, this Lynch-like journey into dream and memory plays more like nightmare.

When asked about his use of light Ben said, “There are a whole series of textures, light being one of them, that I feel are a much more powerful tool than a line of dialogue.

There is this sort of tactile quality, that if you can use it on screen, and use it effectively, it’s

a real short cut to the audiences emotions.”

Ben’s tools of choice are all final; Final Draft for writing, Final Cut for editing, and performing the final grade on the film. His look is carefully considered, one could say painterly, and this final touch appears to be his preferred part of the process. “I’m not sure if they’ll let me do that when more money’s at stake, but I hope so, cause grading’s the most fulfilling part for me.”

Ben is the first to admit that being creative is about making mistakes and taking chances.

“I try to remind myself to treat every project like an experiment. There are some projects where you fall over and say that really didn’t work in the end. It doesn’t matter; you get up again and try to explore the same ideas in another way. It takes the pressure off when you treat it like an experiment.”

With the arrival of his new daughter, Ben revealed one tip he would give if she were interested in pursuing filmmaking.

“It’ll be something that someone told me many years ago. They said to just keep making things, and I think that they are absolutely right.” www.benbriand.com

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The Cat Empire Touring on the back of their new album, Harry from The Cat Empire, spoke with Serena Or about what it’s like on the road, veggie gardening and eBay. S: So tell us Harry, what inspires you?

H: Well our band has been together for over ten years, so not necessarily the same things from ten years ago. A lot of us started as live jazz musicians, so the live shows definitely inspire me; the elements of risk and opportunity. After such a long time touring, it’s great that we still maintain that ability to improvise.

balance; really ruin your emotional state.

Being on the road is like a bubble, kind of like a groundhog day. But whenever we go on tour, someone puts on On the Road Again by Willie Nelson and Homeward Bound by Simon & Garfunkel.

S: Whats the first thing you do when you get home?

S: I guess that’s what has helped in the long run.

H: Often it’s simply; go to sleep. Recently I’ve gotten into veggie gardening and (lowers voice) I can’t say this too loud, but my wife lets all my plants die.

H: Totally. Some of them have evolved this almost psychic ability to communicate, its somehow this advanced level of improv.

S: She’s got a black thumb...

S: Telepathic now?

H: (laughs) Close to it. It’s like a secret language that the drummer, the bass player, the keyboarder and the whole band understand, but no one else speaks.

S: Tell me, what’s it really like being on the road?

H: We definitely miss friends and family.

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H: Well she not quite as obsessed as I am.

Often coming back home is about salvaging what is left of the garden. Domestic stuff, because being on the road you haven’t done house stuff for so long and you kind of miss it.

S: Any regular hangout places when you’re in Sydney?

H: I’m really into jogging and my favourite thing about Sydney is this jogging track.

You run around Coogee Beach, through this cemetery, past these cliffs, down through Bronte Beach then it comes down at Bondi Beach. Its one of the best runs in Australia.

S: I’m getting a picture here of you being a bit of a health nut.

H: Well, I guess I’m on my way towards being a big health nut. I started out being a big nut and now I’m working on becoming a big health nut.

S: An advance copy of your latest album ‘Cities’ sold for $200 dollars on eBay. Given your decade long experience in the industry, where do you think the future of music is heading?

H: Hmm, well really there is a difference between the future of music and the future of the music industry. I think it’s important to remember those two things are very different beasts.

The music industry has only been around for the last 100 years with the ability to record music. But music itself has been around since the dawn of human civilisation. I guess if we didn’t have the industry we might be a little less materialistic.

But having said that, I love that I can make a good living off being a musician.

Maybe I won’t be able to one day. Maybe we’ll go back to musicians jumping on horses and travelling to the next town and singing for their supper.

Van vs. Wild “When Mitch first mentioned it we thought ‘Oh yeah, that will happen’ but it was only a few weeks before we left. He contacted me and told me he was taking 6 months off uni and going to Darwin and wanted someone to come with him. I thought, of course I’ll come. We decided to up the anti and get Tom and Charlie involved.”

Uni students Mitch Donaldson, Rowan Trouncer and Tom & Charlie Bangs left their lives in old Sydney town to chase the open road and embark on a journey of campfires, good times and peculiar characters.

Travelling in an old tradie van for 3 weeks, the fellas roamed from Sydney to Darwin via Canberra, Melbourne, Adelaide and everywhere in between. A “unique experience, a must do” left these four mates with a camera full of outback adventures and a memory of life changing experiences. A picture tells a thousand words.

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“I’d say 90% of the people were Grey Nomads. You set up and then you sit down, relax, and then they all sort of come out of their vans and gravitate towards young people. It was always the older men…I think their wives pushed them out of their caravan and told them to talk to us.”

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“This champion walked up and saw our jerry-can and asked if he could borrow some water. We said sure, then we looked up and he had his bong out and was filling it up…with his 10 year old kid on his hip. But the kid didn’t blink an eyelid, he was obviously quite used to it.”

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“Be tolerable of other people. Prejudice was thrown these people are going to hate me, but they end up

“If we had gone the way we planned, we would have missed out on some of the best parts. You just hear it from people travelling in the opposite direction which are the best places.”

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“We’d stop and set up and it would take about an hour. Then other people would roll up in their ‘Hiltons’ and press a button and it would just unfold. It was cheating; it wasn’t real. What we were doing was definitely real. The best camp sites are where you just turn off the road and drive for a kilometre...”

out the window. You’d go to some terrible pubs thinking being the nicest guys.”

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“It was a fairly unique travelling experience that I didn’t expect to be doing at our age. Look into your own backyard before you look into others. It was a pleasant surprise.”

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Creative Failure We each sat with our faults festering inside of us. Waiting for them to be our downfall.

Kurt with his ‘addiction to commas’. Nicola with her melodramatic use of cliches. Jad with his constant unanswered sociological questions. And me with my endlessly long and often senseless sentences.

Edwina Storie writes

“Be prepared to fail” she had said. “To fail and be turned down over and over again.” We had been warned. Sitting in the final writing tutorial of our degree, our tutor attempted to strap our egos with bullet proof vests, to arm us against all criticism, all loss, all work left unread and forgotten. They were job aspects we would have to weather with a war cry. I had looked around the class of twelve wondering who’s writing careers would be a success, and who’s would fade away into a series of HECS dept repayments. Who would make the New York Times Best Sellers list, who would be a news journalist for a country newspaper, who would be an author of countless incomplete novels, who would write hundreds of press releases before moving onto a different industry. Copywriter, author, B2B reporter, PR agent, scriptwriter, biographer, poet, editor. There were plenty of occupations we could take on. But with a multiplicity of options come all the more opportunities to fail.

Creative failure of the artful word, or any form of artistic expression, is tied into a business of betting. You formulate your subject and strategy. You mold a composition through an almost agonizing articulation of expression.

You struggle so painfully with the process that your brain feels as though it swells within your skull. And finally you complete it. (Although it is never a matter of being perfect but rather as refined as you can fashion within the time frame.)You then submit it for approval by an editor, a board of judges, or a million Internet surfers. It is a gamble on your talent. You place your bets on your hopeful belief that maybe this is something you are good at, that you

could be recognised for, and heck, even make a $25 pay check with. Only to be knocked back once again. After rejection, where do you find the inspiration to fail again?

Having recently taken some of my first steps into the world of the published writer, failing is something that seems to come with the job description. With creativity and ideas come people who disagree with your creativity and ideas (thank you big scary international publishing houses). Yet after having your writing knocked back, or worse – ignored, finding the energy and the passion to give it another shot, even to start a whole new piece, can be like running with bullet wounds.

You ignore the infected thoughts of “should have this” and “didn’t that”. You get your shit together, drag your self to your desk, and open your laptop. You stare at the new document on the screen, with the white page image glowing in its bare emptiness. Still the page lies naked in front of you. Waiting. The text mouse blinks, waiting for you to put the keys to work. But to write another article just to be lost in the oblivion of an editor’s Inbox? To lose against acclaimed published authors in a poetry competition? To get bombed on your blog by comments advertising Viagra? These are the scars of creative failure. But rejection is where better writing grows from.

Failures are not something we really showcase. We hide these missed goals as dirty secrets of insufficiency. I could rattle off a list of my own, which are cards I would rather keep close to my chest. There are some pieces of writing that I have put my heart and soul into before they are cut, edited, and

frankly butchered to a shadow of original.

On hearing of the need for trimming I feel as though my first born’s limbs are being cut off.

They are no longer the work I crafted from love, sweat and writer’s block.

Yet failing is something you can improve at. To really succeed in failing is to turn failure into an artful talent in itself. To develop a motion which allows the rejection to strengthen your work, where it becomes the channel of developing a strong writing voice that can withstand the muffles of editors and judges.

After all, the knock-backs of creative failure are reliant on subjective opinion. And the successes too. Our failures and achievements rely on the validation and disapproval according to others’ opinions of our own efforts. So it’s just a matter of re-arming yourself and replacing your bets.

Failing allows you to be grateful for the war wounds and the pieces of writing lost in the battle. They make for great tales of survival. We need these rejections because whether it be writing, sculpture, painting or dancing, we always yearn for improvement.

We need challenges. Otherwise our creative voice would remain monotonous and predictable, lost in the Inbox of other submissions. Without blunders, and mistakes, and rejection, our bad spelling and clumsy faults would remain stagnant in our work, weighing down the words.

And when it comes to the failings that shoot deep into your heart, the ones that fracture your ego and make it hard to breathe, these wounds make the victories mean so much more.

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Records in review

Myth & Tropics

Arcade Fire ‘The Suburbs’

Flying Lotus ‘Cosmogramma’

By Adam Byrne

By Adam Byrne

By Nick How

Sydney’s ‘Myth & Tropics’ are reasonably new to the local rock scene, but they’re already creating some waves. The three piece have an interesting and mature noise of their own.

On this 5 track demo, first time frontman Marc Dwyer’s psych-pop vocals naturally swagger over these dark, energetic and fuzzy guitar riffs. Think The Stooges crossed with a possessed B52s. The songs ‘She’s Medieval’ and ‘Promised a Good Time’ have a classic sound as though they were recorded in the 80s. The songs are almost cinematic, I instantly thought of a scene from Robert Rodriquez’s film ‘Sin City’ for some reason (but that may be just me). This is an impressive debut. Be sure to make a note to see them live, or listen to the songs at www.myspace.com/mythandtropics.

There’s no doubt Arcade Fire’s ‘The Suburbs’ is one of the most highly anticipated albums in years. The band kind of disappeared and left the music world wondering where they would venture next after the brilliant ‘Neon Bible’. This album will take a couple of listens to get where the band is coming from. Arcade Fire leave their big band attack behind and go down the road of slower paced ballads, from more of a singer/songwriter angle. The album does build to a climax and still has plenty of trademarks throughout. Win Butler sings of adulthood, frightening youth and their bleak future.

Naming album highlights is almost too hard, so I’ll go ahead and say it’s one big highlight.

Arcade Fire continue their streak of brilliance and are not far from jumping to elite status alongside the likes of REM and Radiohead.

An instant classic, it won’t be long before this band is a household name.

Flying Lotus (aka Steven Ellison) is nephew to Alice Coltrane, but when listening to his material it’s quite obvious he is of the Nintendo generation rather than that of the smoke filled Jazz clubs of the 60’s. Flying Lotus has covered an awful lot of ground since I first came across his music on Adult Swim cartoons. With connections to J Dilla and Stones Throw, he got various other projects under his belt before moving onto ‘Cosmogramma’, and it’s obvious he has taken his art to an even higher and if possible more abstract level.

‘Clock Catcher’ is the track that will catch the listener by surprise and scatter one’s thoughts into musical oblivion, while ‘Pickled!’ ram-raids through with a Squarepusher-style bass sound.

‘Cosmogramma’ is the album that finally reveals Flying Lotus’ genealogy of jazz as an essential part of his art, while subtly allowing him to pull out some of his influences. Whether it be Thom Yorke (who guests on the album), or the nods to Squarepusher, Ellison seems to have allowed his influences to breathe life into his own material without paying too much fanboy homage-ry.

Flying Lotus has made serious advances in electronic music, and with an album that transcends genre, listeners should embrace him with open arms. It’s becoming more and more clear that Flying Lotus isn’t just a hot current talent but a name to watch in the next decade, while he takes music to new and beautifully warped levels.

(Merge)

46 | THE SPIT PRESS | www.spitpress.com | ISSUE 4

(Warp Records)

Something Fishy Do you ever feel like talking to somebody random and super friendly about a CD purchase?

Maybe you’re in the mood for some in-store performances?

Or if you just want to know which artists should make it into your next Facebook status updates, then there isn’t a need for your to go anywhere other our favourite little music mecca.

Michael Wong-See spoke to Liz Thomas at Fish Records in Newtown to get that sacred local record store experience.

M: What’s playing in the store now?

L: Koko Taylor: I Got What It Takes - a customer recommended it to me a few weeks ago and it’s been my Monday morning record for the last few weeks. She reminds me of Tina Turner, which can never, ever be a bad thing.

one door closes, another one doesn’t always open. I guess I expected to see a sudden dramatic change with the abolishment of the POPE Law last year, yet we saw The Hopetoun, The Abercrombie and Qirkz all close their doors. There are simply not enough venues to support the amount of talent.

M: What’s been the most popular album or artist recently?

M: What do you guys do for the community that places like HUM or JB HI-FI don’t do?

L: Lately it’s Arcade Fire. The Florence & The Machine debut is a ridiculously strong album that just continues to shift week in week out.

Releases through independents have been doing well, with Joseph Tawadros and Eilen Jewell both top-sellers, plus there’s a lot of love for the Aussies - Clare Bowditch, Cloud Control, Washington, The Jezabels, Sia and Ozi Batla are customer favourites.

L: I think the main point of difference is that we’re an independently owned store. The people you see behind the counter are the people running the shop - we all get in and get our hands dirty and I think this allows us to have a more meaningful and loyal relationship with our customers. There’s a total DIY vibe - we’re like a family and each treat the store like it’s our own. We’re actively involved in the local community - we’re friends with and supply music to a lot of the local businesses, sponsor the Popheads Trivia night and program the music for the Sydney Roller Derby bouts. Customers feel comfortable to come in just to have a chat on their way home/to see a movie/whatever - they even bring us baked goods (Choc-fudge cake please).

M: How would you describe the Sydney music scene at the moment?

L: Frustrating. There are little pockets where things are happening, like the Red Rattler, and the new room at The Sandringham was worth the wait, but it seems to be a case of

M: What sort of people do you get in the shop? Is there one particular social group?

Or is it a fairly even spread?

L: Our position on King St and the breadth of our product range means we attract an incredibly diverse customer base. On top of chart and back catalogue titles we’ve an extensive range of, and access to classical, a well-stocked reggae section, blues and roots, musicals and showtunes and vinyl. More often than not people can find what they’re after or we can order it without them having to go to a specialist store.

M: Any exciting things happening in store that we should know about?

L: We kicked off in store performances again a few months ago with a Darren Hanlon show - a great success that saw some pretty questionable bongo playing from the audience and a frenzy for the free cupcakes.

We’ll be posting details of future in stores on our Facebook so keep an eye on facebook. com/fishrecordsnewtown www.fishrecords.com.au

THE SPIT PRESS | www.spitpress.com | ISSUE 4 | 47

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48 | THE SPIT PRESS | www.spitpress.com | ISSUE 4