The Thousands

Hello, this is our last issue for the whole year! We're blowing this joint muy rapido. In the meantime see the Axemen show at Format, get some last minute gifts from local stores, Grong bloody Grong, and don't forget to decorate a tree, any tree. Thanks to everyone who helped us out and everybody who clicked. We will be back 12 January. Have a good Christmas.

Cover photo by PMod. Leave one under our tree! Send yours to daniel@rightanglestudio.com.au

Christmas is a time for over-eating, over-drinking and of course family (issues). It's not a time for art. Well, it's not a time for art exhibitions. Most galleries shut for a few weeks over Christmas, if not the whole of January. So plant yourself on the couch, let your folks load you up with six courses of Xmas whatevers and get yourself Errand Workshop - CACSA's slimline Louise Haselton publication. Or as fancy people call it, a 'monograph'.

I went to a lot of art shows this year. Errand Workshop was easily one of the best. I've been idly following Haselton's work for a few years, dipping in and out, yet to be converted. Well I'm a born-again for Errand Workshop. Instead of looking awkward or strained, Haselton's creative combinations of materials were effortlessly energetic. A delicate pair of lines drawn by plastic straws emerged from the soft pink lip of a conch shell. Yellow, black and pink straws made comical shapes above wooden tiki cups that balanced on rows of corks.

The monograph includes a colour picture of each and every work in the exhibition, organised according to the spatial logic of the gallery. On top of that you get an essay and an interview with the artist. All for ten bucks – Christmas barrrrgaaaaiin.

There's something strange about Kiwi guitar pop. The looseness, the nebulous charm, the lofty lack of ambition. And that 'watery' '80s Dunedin guitar sound (as Stephen Malkmus once put it) is infectious as ever, even in its mere echoes which, these days, seem more ubiquitous in Australia than anywhere.

None of us are complaining though. Flying Nun have more to celebrate than just their 30th anniversary; the label helped shape an entire canon. Still, there's more to the story than The Clean and The Chills and Dunedin. And luckily for us youngsters who came down in the last shower of second or third generation 'indie' rock (and for whom the word 'protest' evokes a whinging Bono), the plot keeps thickening.

US label Siltbreeze is reissuing lost Kiwi classics like they're going out of style, and Christchurch avant-rockers Axemen - whose 'Big Cheap Motel' (1984) and 'Three Virgins' (1985) are key parts of the puzzle - are touring Australia this month for the first time ever. Mark Hewitt gets a history lesson from founding members Stu Kawowski and Steve McCabe.

Mark Hewitt: So this is the first Australian tour for Axemen?
Steve McCabe: Yeah, it's ours, but actually, William (Daymond, bassist) is over there at the moment, playing in his other band. He's been over there a couple of times.

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How's this for an in-store performance! It's classic Jay Reatard. With his Stax records shirt dripping in sweat he plays as loud and as fast as he possibly can to the point where his band struggle to keep up.

Of Reatard's staggering musical output, his 1998 debut LP Teenage Hate is still the best at capturing the punk spit and snarl as seen at the Fall Out Records in-store. Originally released when Jay was a teenager, the 1998 album received the posthumous deluxe reissue treatment from venerable US label Goner earlier this year and is about to be distributed locally when the first shipment arrives in Australia this week.

With pictures and notes from the original album plus material Jay put out (an interview with himself?) the reissue also includes covers of Fear and Buddy Holly, Lil Bunnies' 'Carrot Belly Bunny Blues' and the early Beatles B-Side 'I'm Down'.

In Reatard's own songs the lyrical themes are typical of what you'd expect from a pissed-off 18 year old living in Memphis. If he's not pissed off, he's bored, then lonely, then angry again but all the while he expresses these different emotions at the loudest rock and roll volume. An astonishing performer. A classic album.

While you're running around this week like a lunatic, take a moment and STOP! Where are you buying your Chrimbo gifts from? If you answered, "I just got every single member of my family one of those Oxfam goats for a family in a Third World country." You can move right along, you already deeply understand the best side of Chrimbo. If you answered "humph", listen here. Why not have a think about where you buy from and go for the local? You know, like, from a person who owns their own independent store.

Need a hand? That is why we are here. We've asked a handful of local retailers to choose just one thing in store this Christmas and compiled them into this local buyers guide. So while you might Occupy Christmas, also consider occupying these local stores.

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What better traditional holiday entertainment than a rollicking English pantomime? This political fairytale is seasonably hilarious, and ultra-conservative British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, despite Meryl Streep’s uncanny verisimilitude, is as farcical as any cross-dressing panto dame. In 2008, the aged, demented ex-PM potters about, lost in her memories. She’s daring the audience to shout, “Your heyday is BEHIND YOU!!”

The dialogue is a scream. As Thatcher teaches her teenage daughter Carol (Olivia Colman) to drive, Carol struggles to overtake a cyclist and Thatcher bellows, “Move to the right! TO THE RIGHT!” Later, after Thatcher berates loyal deputy Geoffrey Howe (Anthony Head) for daring to spell ‘poverty’ with only one T, she overhears a disgusted fellow Tory saying, “I wouldn’t speak to my gamekeeper that way.” Periodically, her now-deceased husband Denis (Jim Broadbent) pops up as a puckish, increasingly wacky hallucination.

Are such picaresque antics what director Phyllida Lloyd and screenwriter Abi Morgan intended? Hopefully, because as a feminist underdog fable, it’s deplorably tasteless. Thatcher’s notorious career is glossed, casually spiced with archival footage of alarmingly savage police brutality, while Thatcher pontificates that she’s “done battle every single day of my life”. Retorts a brutalised Britain: oh no you haven’t!

Grong Grong came into my life suddenly, without warning. I assume that's the way they come into most people's lives. I know that many others have come across Grong Grong and never looked their parents in the eyes in the same way again.

Formed in Adelaide when the members were told it would give them easy entrance into a club if they said they were a band, Grong Grong have left an imprint on both the Adelaide and Australian punk scene. Born into the early 1980s and quickly finding themselves supporting the likes of Public Image Ltd and the Dead Kennedys, their rapid rise was cut short by a near-fatal overdose that left singer Michael in a long coma, and subsequently a wheelchair. Yet the naughties saw them return to the open arms of both nostalgic baby boomers and kids wanting something more than cute local folk bands.

The Curse of Grong Grong is a documentary by Rob Wright, who makes a pretty damn fascinating film in the space of ten short minutes. With a sweet opening involving many cats, this short film grabs any doubt you may have about graduate filmmakers and slaps it in the face. It also grabs the smallest amount of interest you may have in Grong Grong and multiplies it tenfold. It's a charming and absorbing ten minutes. OK, maybe 'charming' and 'absorbing' aren't the perfect descriptives for Grong Grong - but the effect will be a lifetime longer.

A Colony girl is said to be a jet-setting gypsy. A concoction of words like 'disheveled', 'creative' and 'natural'. She's more the girl you'd rather be yourself than befriend. By night you could be your sweet yet awkward self but by day, with the help of a bitchin' pair of Colony frames, you could be some unpredictable cat-eyed vamp. Like a sunglasses wearing super hero, in reverse.

In any case Brisbane designer Jessica Shipard is the Charlie to your angel. The Colony girl's champion matriarch. Jessica dreamed up her girl and label Colony during her years at the Queensland Collage of Art and unveiled the jet-setting femme during her design graduate exhibition. And just like a speeding bullet, stockists came knocking.

With a love for quiet luxury and good, nay, great design, Colony's first collection is made up of boldly beautiful sunglasses and scarves. Cat eyed in shape and offering 100% UV protection, the acetate frames are hand crafted in an Adelaide studio. Such craftsmanship can be seen in the geometric cut outs which cleverly reveal the glasses frame work.

For when more protection and disguise is necessary, a girl can turn to the labels' hyper coloured scarves. Sold under the collection Dawn of the Giants, the styles feature painterly digital prints on silk satin or silk wool. Perfect for when a girl needs to shield herself from the sun, bad hair days or the occasional villan.

Some guy told me that AstroTurf is dangerous. When it gets over 35 degrees (like, our whole summer), it burns you! Lucky the new Rooftop at Rocket is only open at night for now and it has super heat resistant turf, coz it’s dripping with the stuff. We can count the number of rooftop bars in Adelaide on half a hand. With Rooftop, the ’bar’ (ahem) has been raised. With a cute little bar harking back to summer backyard pool parties, and a huge-ass ‘how–the-hell-did-that-get-there’ palm tree smack bang in the middle, this could very easily be somewhere in the burbs of the 1950s. But it isn’t. It’s on a roof. Views of carparks, aircon ducts, and high-rise apartments go for miles, along with the sparkly lights of Hindley Street. From up here Hindley looks... pretty!

For now, the rooftop bar is only open at night, but it’s crying out for some more Sunday afternoon sessions. The music from the DJs downstairs is piped up on to the roof and festoons of carnival lights run back and forth like on a cruise ship. The day-glo yellow seating adds to that 50s feeling, but why not make use of that endless AstroTurf?! Lay back, grab a sangria and gaze at the stars.

Before you read any further, no, we haven't got any copies of the Anarchist Cookbook laying around and no, we're not talking about obliterating nature with a mixture of styrofoam and unnamed evil materials.  We're talking about shaking your grinch-like vibe and making strangers smile with silly decorations.

Tree bombing around Christmas time is particularly pertinent. It's easy! Just grab some tinsel, make your own decorations, or even fill some bon bons with weird surprises for passers by. We went to the cheap shop to stock up on decorations and made some some of our own by printing out hilarious pictures of people dressed in Santa outfits and gluing them to card then tying a string through the top - things like the guy from Twisted Sister, Destiny's Child, a cute bulldog, Tim Heidecker and Chevy Chase among others.

Whether you're a killjoy who likes to boycott Christmas or a lover of all things festive, tree bombing is sure to put a smile on someone's face, even if it is twisted, sister.

Sincerely, Grizzly have grown up, tightened up and lived the dream this year. What have you done? Moved home, irreversibly failed your degree and crashed your bike? At least you're not Charlie Sheen. A few drinks and a new Sincerely, Grizzly track or two are definitely not going to set you back on the straight and narrow, but you may as well see out 2011 in your signature chaotic style, right? Hold the leaf-turning until January, friend.

All I want for Christmas is a Doe performance. Seriously! And I'm gonna get it! I have a tradition of opening one present on Christmas Eve, and this year I'm choosing to tear the paper off Doe a little early. Plus, because I'm a kind and generous person and Christmas is a time for giving, I'm happy to share it with you at the Metro on Saturday night. (I also asked Santa for a cool jumper, but I think he screwed that request and is giving me Pat Lockwood's solo project instead. Just as lovely, but not as easy to wear).

Fake Tan have changed a lot since they dropped the Vol 1 cassette; a 5 track EP of sweetly youthful and melodic lo-fi garage pop about minimum chips, ice cream, and girls on the beach. Now with a revolving line-up of 16 or something friends it seems they are all about acid/caffeine fuelled jams, clarinets, bongo drums and Nyan Cat all-in good times. They're playing this show with some Floozies and Adolf Sasquatch at the Crown and Anchor.

Despite all the good times to be had on your pushie, we all know riding a bike can be a little dangerous sometimes. There are cars, they are pretty big and hard. Trucks and buses, even bigger and harder. Then there is the ground. One of the best ways to stay safe out there people - until full-body illuminated jump suits are perfected or sumo suits become the fixie rider's costume de rigueur - is to wear a helmet for your knoggin and to stay visible with some flashy Knog lights.

Knog are an Australian company that make some of the finest, most user-friendly, bicycle lighting around. They are water-resistant and so super stretchy they will stick to your bike like a lizard's tongue to a blowie. Right now they are running an art comp where you can win a bunch of Knog schwag and even a new ride, and right here we have set of super-slim high visibility Gecko lights, which you can buy online or pick up from Treadly Bike Shop, to giveaway.