splashing galaxies

The Hopetoun Hotel, last Friday night. Hailer, Sister Jane and Wade Jackson provided the grooves for the launch of Hailer's latest offering, Sunny Letters. It was a new way of working for Alexander and I. While we've always worked "live" having to focus on getting feeling and emotion out of the projections rather than just a pretty image was a new challenge. The forced improv meant that we came up with a whole new set of tricks, worked out a few colour mysteries that had been keeping us up at night, and generally honed our craft in an intense couple of hours.

If you want to see our improved moves, we're putting on a display at the fundraiser for the short film project Kelly's Blues at Sydney Film School on Saturday night and will be projection bombing our liquid galaxies onto some tall alleyway walls for Algae Rhythm 0.05: PORTALS.




The photographs in this post are lovingly borrowed from Fastlane's Faster Louder photoset- check out his whole set here to spot your pretty face in the crowd.

(sun)light exposure

Tonight, Alexander and I will be throwing some liquid light shapes onto the walls of the Hopetoun. The Sunny Letters Exposure is just the first instalment of a couple of holy unions between Sydney band of music men Hailer and Punk Monk Propaganda.

If you're still hungry for the sun after today's warm rays have sunk away, come and get exposed with us.

electric jug lover

I went to the first Vanquish last week. Before I start rattling about matters jug, a few observations on the Vanguard's new first-Wednesday-evening-of-the-month affair:

• Slimy Things are Australia's self-billed "most exciting sci-fi rock band". Their leading man wears a mad scientist's lab coat and there was a fellow dancing in their devoted crowd wearing a horse's head on his own crown. I can report that I, my fellow punters, and everyone that I've since shown photographs of the man-horse to all found this pretty exciting.

• Besides the floury-based $16 pizza, the specials are a classier-than-Carlton $5 beer and three different $10 cocktails, of which the Golden Eagle is my pick. I can't remember exactly what was in it and that should be evidence enough that it is worth your tenner.

• The projection behind Psychonanny & the Baby Shakers was very cool indeed. If that was you, get in contact. We could make beautiful love light shows together.

That Jug Man

My friend Filthy Lucre was the man who invited me along to Vanquish. For context, he is a music nut and will squash you like a bug in music trivia. He's also a gun at ancient mythology trivia- handy man, that Filthy.

Somewhere in the pre-Golden Eagle haze of last Wednesday night, we were talking about 13th Floor Elevators and he was saying how much he hated Tommy Hall, the electric jug player. His argument was that a jug player shouldn't have been leading the musical direction of a band as obviously talented as the 13FE.

"That jug guy... he fucked it all up. They were such a talented band- if it hadn't have been for that fucking jug guy."



I have to disagree. I am definitely buying what the 13th Floor Elevators were selling, jugs n all:



In today's electric jug researching adventures, I came across a band of gentlemen who have dedicated themselves to the worship of the electric jug and other DIY instrumentals- The Crabapple Creek Electric Jug Band. Folk out with your jugs out.

punks do it mushroom style

Last Saturday night, Ron Mann's excellent nature porn documentary KNOW YOUR MUSHROOMS played to a sold-out Red Rattler theatre as part of the Possible Worlds Canadian Film Festival. Big love to the Festivalists for inviting Punk Monk to throw together the installations for the evening. A playground like the Rattler is a treat for us, from its industrial warehouse street to its velvety lounge chairs.

On a day like last Saturday, you can find yourself on the floor of the Corner Shop studio cutting out giant fly agarics out of cardboard and covering them in alfoil while listening to Andy throw together an emergency psychadelic playlist. In the room next door people frantically fold lovingly complex zines, and the other Punks are out on wild mushroom chases and black light adventures.

Then somehow, by the time darkness falls, you have fantastical humans- most of whom you'd only met on the internet until they rocked up- turning an industrial streetscape into a glowstick accented circus fireball while video and liquid projections pulse from the road, past Clare's mushroom village textile explosion through to Michelle's experimental visual soundscape inside.















The images without Susie's watermark are Tanya Hoang's. The rest are courtesy of Susie Stavert. You can see some of Andy Finn's fine photography from Saturday on Victoria's blog awolmonk.

how I almost forgot the round rainbow mirrors

One of the girls I live with has started a new tradition of buying a new CD for herself every sunday afternoon, and it's made me want to spend more time with my eyes closed.

When I first left home it was all about books and music. I spent whatever money I could pull together on books that I would stack up against my wall because I didn't have a bookcase. Everything else went on gigs and the CDs and tshirts to remember them by. I rarely buy CDs anymore, even though I do see quite a few gigs working at The Gaelic. These days a lot of my play time is spent in cinemas, screenings or in front of a television or computer screen watching the way people make their visions move. But DVDs just aren't all that beautiful (why is that?) and the tactile artifact of the CD, and the precious way she carries them from player to player, reminded me of my parent's record collection and the way they used to talk about the magic of record sleeves and the sensitivity of vinyl grooves. CDs used to be the soulless new development in music, but now that they're mostly compared against a single iTunes line on a flat screen, any touchable musical artifact seems antiquated and a little bit holy.

The upshot is that my flatmate's been sidetracking my cinema-centric mind, and I am totally benefiting from the influx of new tunes that are wafting down the staircase. Today she turned me on to her latest obsession, The Weepies. True to my latest evolution, I couldn't help but notice their adorable video clips.

While I was listening, my grandma popped up on google chat and started telling me about the eight whales her and my papa had just seen at the beach at the end of their street in Cudmirrah. While my papa ran back to their house to get the camera and grandma just hung out on the beach watching the whales, the bus from the old folks home pulled up. Grandma said that all the elderly people were so happy to see the creatures. It might have been the Weepie melodies, but there was something about that quiet, happy meeting of the whales, my not-so-old grandma and the bus full of ancients that has meant I haven't been able to stop smiling all morning.

MIFF'd

In between dashing into the parallel-universe Melbourne podjob to smash a deadline or two, I managed to cosy into a hard-backed cinema seat and see a few flicks at the Melbourne International Film Festival last week. I've already tweeted about what I thought of the films I saw, but once more for those in the back, with notes:

Our City Dreams: interesting fem artists in NYC portrayed without any curation of thematics, narrative or location. [The film told each artist's story one after the other, in blocks that reminded me of the trapped bird feel of a gallery room. The edit was completely uncreative and jarred uncomfortably against the otherwise intriguing stories of these free creatives. There wasn't any sense of why we were in New York, which leant the film a kind of assuming arrogance that its content unfortunately did not support]

All Tomorrow's Parties: brilliant for chucking on after you've trundled home from a festival. Not so much if unmunted in a cinema. [does however contain some awesome footage of Nick Cave performing No Pussy Blues and some interesting interviews with various artists, but as a whole, a film where you could easily walk out of the room to grab another beer from the fridge and not feel that you've missed anything on your return. There was a little too much footage of wasted festival goers to keep me entertained for the full duration. Even people at festivals don't want to see other stoned people at festivals. Out of context it's just a bit creepy]

The Beaches of Agnes: memory as humble and tactile cinematic installation. Unsophisticated, in the very best possible way. [I recommend not only that you see this one, but that if you have a chance, see it in a cinema. It is designed for a cinema screen and this film feels, more so than the others I watched at this festival, like such an intimate gift when you view it as it was intended to be seen]

Prime Mover: a few decent gags hidden under yet another predictable Aus caricature comedy. Found the protagonist entirely unendearing. [This is a shame, as I was looking forward to this film. I'm really craving an indie Australian comedy that doesn't trade on jokes that died in the early 90's. Also, what is the deal with Aus films using pointless animation lately? I had the same graphics gripe with My Year Without Sex- I find it really distracting when there's no diagetic connection]

Outrage: doco outing closeted gay American senators will make you question the rights of private citizens compared to public citizens. [this one raised some serious moral questions for me. I'm an advocate of letting people come out in their own good time, and I think outing is immoral. Still, I've never applied this private opinion to public figures who have the right to decide whether or not I deserve the same rights that would be considered human rights if I was currently sleeping with a dude. It's a tricky topic, and definitely one that should be up for debate. See it.]

Outside the darkened theatres, I developed the biggest interior design crush on the MIFF festival lounge at the Forum. The blue-lit roof, strung party lights and cosy round booths all collide to make the perfect space to argue with your friends over whether or not that film you just saw had any magic to it. It's one of those cosmic holy places. If I was still in Melbourne, I would still be sitting there, smiling shiny-eyed up at the roof. I'm a total deviant for a well lit room.

So, now you know. Next time you're trying to woo me, stock up on coloured globes, gels and fairy lights.

lynching

Before July smacked me about the head and sucked my dazed form into into a seemily 24 hour a day work vacuum, Teddy and I threw a David Lynch inspired installation together lovingly for Kino Kabaret in our capacity as punk monk space magicians. Not that we had to use much punkdust to make the velvet-draped Red Rattler look Lynchy. Dermot and I also got up to some loopy video antics with tuneful performers MA on the night.

The evening also featured a trippy installation film from Dermot called in plastic, rapt. It's not available on the interwebs yet but here are some taster frames.





p.s if you haven't been following David Lynch's Interview Project, I suggest you get into. Think of it as reality television, but with interesting characters and less sadistic humiliation rituals.