The Thousands

Thursday July 16

Issue 035 - no rejection

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Cover photo by Andy Nowell. If you would like to submit a cover shot email daniel@rightanglestudio.com.au

What:
Kill Your Darlings - Issue Two

Where:
Online here

How Much:
$18

Launch:
Thurs July 15, 6.30pm. The Wheatsheaf Hotel, 39 George St, Thebarton

Melbourne seems to be the primordial soup from which new literary journals in Australia spring forth. The latest is Kill Your Darlings, a quarterly publication, showcasing commentary, interviews, new fiction and reviews. Having just completed my masters in creative writing, I look to these journals like they're the cool kids who might one day accept me as one of their own - maybe even go joyriding down Thunder Road with them, or dance at the malt shop. I don't, however, enjoy reading every published submission - short fiction especially grates: metaphor after simile after added flourish of irrelevant detail. I digress. To my utter delight, Kill Your Darlings doesn't pose as Literary or inaccessible.

Its creative non-fiction pieces, including commentary from Ruth Starke and Benjamin Law, don't mince words, and Samuel Rutter's short fiction piece, Comfort Inn, keeps a steady bleak, contemporary tone throughout. The interview with Philip Pullman, author of the His Dark Materials series and his latest controversial book, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, lets the author extrapolate and explore his ideas and process without excluding the reader. Kill Your Darlings is not a clique; it doesn't pitch at a specific youth' or academic literature crowd. It pitches right down the middle and hopefully continues to hit home runs every season. That reminds me, I better go send some stuff to Danny Zuko now. Running gags in reviews? Now there's something to hate.

By Sam Rodgers

What:
Royal Headache 7"

Who:
Royal Headache

On:
R.I.P. Society Records

Two Shows:
Thurs July 15, 9pm. The Metro, 46 Grote St, City. With Bed Wettin' Bad Boys, Hit The Jackpot and Terrible Truths. Fri July 16, 9pm. The Exeter, Rundle St, City. With Bed Wettin' Bad Boys and no Action

Sydney's Royal Headache could be Australia's finest garage power-pop band. It seems that every song they write is infectious as hell, taking sugary '60s garage hooks and blasting them through your speakers with punkish fervor and velocity.
 
Opening track Eloise' is the one that incited frenzy on Pitchfork, and if your misanthropic punk mate scoffs at the exuberance of the "nah, nahs" in the outro, chances are they're the only good thing that happened to him that week.
 
'Girls' is amazing - brittle guitar riffing set to an uptight and agitated punk beat. Singer Shogun lets loose with a soul-inflected holler that completely hits the mark. Hard to believe on paper (or screen), but you'll get it once you hear it. This lo-fi recording is scratchy and blown-out, making it sound like an old and weathered single that's been left out in the sun a few times; it suits the tunes perfectly. If you like the Buzzcocks, Ramones or the Undertones, pick this up now, and then ask them to play your next house party.

By Lee Parker

What:
Christian Lock

Where:
Greenaway Art Gallery, 39 Rundle St, Kent Town

When:
Opens Thurs July 15, 6pm
Runs until Aug 22

How much:
Free

Contact:
gag@greenaway.com.au

Image:
Christian Lock, Seductress, 2009, synthetic polymer paint and oil on canvas

View map

I rode my bike in the rain today. Yeh that rain - the torrential rain that is assaulting Adelaide right now. It was horrific. All my clothes got soaked, my shoes flooded and some corpulent bastard driving a 4WD honked his horn at me just for kicks. Somewhere along the ride though I had some kind of epiphany. Ok, it wasn't really an epiphany, but rattling along on my precarious pushbike in a gale-force storm made me feel insignificant but in a good way. Large bodies of water tend to do that.

As well as being a painter, Christian Lock is a surfer. So I imagine he would be familiar with that horrifyingly romantic feeling of being overwhelmed by swathes of water. When I look at his deliciously glossy paintings I get a sense of the rhythm of the ocean and the way a painter's body moves when they attempt to instinctively replicate that. I'm talking big, black shiny abstract paintings - swift, chaotic brush strokes and huge still areas of paint indicating hazy beings.

I know it's raining a lot so I hope you have a car you can drive to this opening in. Because it wasn't really that sublime riding my bike in a hurricane.

By Chloe Langford

What:
TOPSHOP delivers

Where:
Shop online

When:
24-7

How much:
Delivery to Australia 7.5 pounds flat. Standard delivery 5-7 working days
 

With everything world-wide-web' from cybersex to dating roulette, why shouldn't you now be shopping more online these days? If you've been spending your pocket money on any sort of fashion magazine in the past five years, then you'd be a fool if you had never heard of TOPSHOP.
 
It doesn't really matter who brought our attention to TOPSHOP, whether it be Aggy Deyn and her long pins sticking out in one of their oversized knits or the oldie but still a goodie, Kate Moss - in all honesty, with TOPSHOP you can say you hate everything about mainstream fashion and claim you're truly an individual.
The good news? (If you haven't already heard - it's been available for a while), TOPSHOP delivers to Australia at the very reasonable price of around $15. You can browse endlessly in the online store, and purchase fresh from London anything from their cosmetics line to exclusive boutique label. You no longer have to wait for Jetstar to go on sale to get a pretty little frock on your back, and what's more awesome? Twenty people you know probably won't already own it.
 

By Angela Jhang

What:
The Runaways

Where:
In cinemas from July 15

Watch Trailer:
Here

Win:
Thanks to Hoyts, we have 5 dbls! To enter, email win@fivethousand.com.au with the subject line Publicise the music, not your fucking crotch!'

The Runaways is startlingly textural: sunbleached California light; squalid, dim interiors; juicy, glossy satin and eyeshadow. And it dramatises the central ironies of its eponymous '70s all-girl band. Singer Cherie Currie (Dakota Fanning) and guitarist/songwriter Joan Jett (Kristen Stewart) believed in rock's freedom and subversion, but were exploited for their youthful sexuality. Likewise, Floria Sigismondi's ambivalent film celebrates feminine toughness, but also glories uncomfortably in jailbait lesbo antics.

Scripted by Sigismondi from Currie's memoir, Neon Angel, it focuses on Currie and Jett. Both Fanning and Stewart are excellent, uncannily playing on their public personas: Stewart's inarticulate sullenness and Fanning's child-star eagerness to please. As the Runaways' truly appalling producer Kim Fowley, Michael Shannon reminded me of a potty-mouthed, misogynistic Mark Holden. "I was gonna form a band of dwarves," he tells a Mercury Records exec, "but their hands were too small. They couldn't hold their instruments."

As a rise-and-fall rock pic, The Runaways is unexceptional. But it's a winning meditation on that excitingly liminal era as glam gave way to punk. Both genres offered their fans ways to break away from the mundane, and The Runaways is a gorgeous cautionary tale about the limits of such transformative fantasies.

By Mel Campbell

What:
Phuong and Seb's Belt Co.

Where:
Online at Phuong & Seb's Belt Co.

Contact:
phuong@phuongandsebsbeltco.com, seb@phuongandsebsbeltco.com

How much:
From $70 to $130

While running the risk of being somebody who ejaculates all over themselves at the merest mention of design, I think there is something exciting about people who produce one thing and produce it well. Phuong and Seb are two such people. These guys make belts and they clearly don't fuck around. Even the language of their belts gives me little frissons of pleasure: 'Leather Keeper', 'Curved Tongue End', 'English Nickel Buckle', 'Double Butt Cow Leather' (tee-hee). I don't want to come over all hyperbolic but this may represent the platonic ideal of belting.

If one were inclined to take it to the next level, Phuong and Seb offer the ability to make custom orders, using any combination of materials and colours available with the option of personalised initial inscription. Let's face it, a belt with your initials on it exists on a plane of bad assery occupied only by Steve McQueen and the ability to consistently identify what scent a woman is wearing. The way I see it, belts are basically hats for your genitals. So ask yourself, do you want your junk to look its best? If so, these belts are for you.

By Kane Daniel

What:
Eggless Dessert Cafe

Where:
162 Goodwood Road, Goodwood

When:
Wed - Sun, 8pm - late

Contact:
(08) 8272 0777

View map

Before discovering Eggless Dessert Caf my sleep was plagued by nightmares involving Morrissey, myself, and one of us being publicly berated for suggesting we get desserts from a place that smells like burning flesh'. In these dreams my idol would humiliate me in the middle of the street, onlookers would scornfully shake their heads at me and the occasional radical would tell the Moz to punch me in the face. It was embarrassing to say the least.

Fast forward to now and these once were nightmares have morphed into heartwarming fantasies. Morrissey and I seat ourselves at Eggless and talk about a myriad of things whilst eating our sticky date and raspberry pudding and almond latte cheesecake respectively. He commends me on choosing a vegan/ lacto-vegetarian establishment for our meeting and says he likes the fact that the menu changes monthly because he always gets to try something new. After a brief discussion on quiffs he tells me a Smiths reunion is in the works and I get all giddy like a schoolgirl. It's usually about then that I wake up and realise it was all a dream... again. Here's to hoping dreams come true. 

By Mugagga Kaggwa

What:
It's a secret

Where:
For them to know and for you to find out

When:
Sat July 17, 10am-12pm

How much:
Free

Knitters. Embroiderers. Jewellers. Illustrators. They're a shifty bunch. Sly. 'Crafty', you might even say. (Ugh). They've got a little something planned for this weekend, only no one will know where until the day of the event. It'll be more pop-up than a pop-up shop and will be over sooner than you can say 'knit one purl one', or in my case, 'AAARRRRRGHHHH, KNOTS, I'M NEVER KNITTING AGAIN.' 

Anyway. 

Once that friend who knows that girl who dated that guy for a little while finally texts you the address (or you just follow the instructions), I expect proceedings to go little something like this, perhaps with some retina scanning and fingerprint detection thrown for good measure. Then again, it might just be a group of men wearing trenchcoats with the goods hidden safely inside their lapels. Or a collection of cardboard boxes stacked conspicuously by the side of the road. Or even just a small gathering of lovely people in a park somewhere.

In any case, it's a secret - so keep your mouths shut or you'll find yourself with a knitting needle in the eye or on a date with a soldering iron. Those crafty types can be vicious, y'know.

By Stephanie Lyall

What:
Work Shop Jumble Sale

Where:
151 Hindley St, City

When:
Sat July 17 & Sun July 18, 11am-6pm

How much:
Free

Just the other week we made a spiel about two new spaces via Renew Adelaide, - The Reading Room and Work Shop - but why should we just leave it there? This stuff needs momentum, and momentum we will try to give. If you didn't get the whole Work Shop shtick, well, it's a little room on Hindley Street with four lovely designers making and then selling the fruits of their labour. This weekend they are having a vintage jumble sale, probably with some of their own creations amongst the recycled too. You should totes get along. - DG

What:
The Vitals Book, Zine and Crafty Affair

Where:
Waterside Worker's Hall, 11 Nile St, Port Adelaide

When:
Sun July 18, 10am-4pm

How much:
Gold coin donation

Port Adelaide. Home to urban decay, fishing, periphery urban development for greedy yuppy investors, some of the finest meth labs seaward of the mighty North, ghost tours, the excellent Porthole Records, and an incredible weekend market. But that's not all. Down in a charming old hall sits Vitalstatistix Theatre Company. If you've never been, you should jump on the 254 bus (stopping off at Arndale, Mansfield Park, and an amazing Pho place) and make a day of it. This Sunday, perhaps? Vitals is doing their Book, Zine and Crafty affair. With books, zines, and craft. - DG

What:
tokyo.street, Jonathan VDK

Where:
Dragonfly, Victoria Square, City

When:
Opens Wed July 21, 6pm
Runs until Aug 24

How much:
Free

Jonathan VDK offers 'photographic services', but his work isn't resigned to just the commercial, Mr VDK likes to get his art on too - thriving on the inspiring and natural. 'tokyo.street' is his photographic exploration of the streets of Tokyo where he recently spent some time. The flyer suggests candid and spontaneous imagery of the people and streetscapes of this mad and wonderful city, and what better place than Dragonfly.. photography, edamame and sake anyone? -DG

Saying skateboarders are into their style is like saying Dylan Moran likes the occasional tipple. They're OCD-style obsessive about the shape of their boards, the cut of their shirts, and the width of their laces.

Pass Port Skateboards make awesome gear that belies the fascistic design-snob tendencies of any creative who spent their formative years rolling around getting dirty in abandoned car parks all night (on a skateboard we mean). Cool, classic, trend-free pieces any post-skate rat bag would be proud to wear. And their hard goods routinely flog nautical and travel puns (which are endlessly amusing), with iconic graphics and even a smart little cruiser (the 'Cruise-Her' board). Available online.

Even if you can't land a switch 360 flip, you can keep it real (frickin' poser) with our Pass Port Prize Pack; a pair of 'Poor Mans' sunglasses, a killer beanie (with or without balls) and a snazzy coin pouch.To enter, just answer the following question:

Which one of these is NOT an actual skateboard trick

a. bigspin fakie crooked grind

b. boneless one eighty sweet chili twister

c. kickflip backside nosepick

d. melancholy to fakie

To be in the running send your answer, AND postal address to win@fivethousand.com.au, winners will be notified by email. Subscriber only entry. Not a subscriber? It's free you willies! Sign up here.