The Thousands

Saddle up your keyboards, dude ranchers. We've got you the key(board) to the city. Make sure you have it unplugged for all the wind and the wine showers, the Bauhaus and a KICK ASS PAINTING SHOW. If you have room behind your ear, put a Palomino there. And if there's room on your shoulder, wrap Lachy Lang around your neck.

Cover shot by Edward Ounapuu. Play us a tune! Send photos to daniel@rightanglestudio.com.au

I went straight home with my copy of The Art Of Daniel Clowes : Modern Cartoonist climbed into bed and said, "Hold all my calls". Turning the giant pages slowly in silence, I occasionally let out an unintentional gasp or "sick!".

Dan Clowes makes comic books that are perfectly suited to pet obsession and bedroom consumption. He pores over his drawings with a perfectionism that rivals modern master Chris Ware. And his characters exhibit those most stinging moments of doubt, angst, neurosis, lust, passion, compassion, anger, inflexibility and hopeless romanticism - the thoughts you used to think were only indulged by your inner monologue.

'Ghost World' and the comic where that story came from (Eightball) are Clowes's most famous works, and probably his most provocative (want to know what the 90s were really like? Check out 'I Hate You Deeply'). Original Eightball art is beautifully reprinted herein, but it's only a fraction of the incredible cross section of awesome images included, from album cover and movie poster art, to OK Cola and anything else Clowes has worked on, alongside personal stuff such as childhood photos, drawings, and his annual Christmas card designs (amazing!).

Attached essays range from a new interview with Clowes, to gushing enthusiasms from comic book buffs, to a somewhat dry (though totally valid) academic analysis from Ken Parille (who co-edited an entire book of Clowes's interviews that I highly recommend).

If you are a Clowes fan you will absolutely love this book and if you are a newbie keen on a crash course, this'll do ya. In fact, I can't imagine what kind of life-hating misanthropic freak wouldn't enjoy this book, but if you can find a person that mad at the world I'm sure Clowes would love to meet them, or at least draw them.

Andrew Morgan runs People's Potential Unlimited (PPU), the Washington DC label that discovers and reissues some of the weirdest and most insane ultra-rare boogie, funk and soul from the '70s, '80s and '90s. His latest gem/find is Uku Kuut. Not a lot is known about Uku. He was born in the Soviet Union and raised in Sweden and Santa Monica. When Morgan tracked him down he was recording and producing music in Tallinn, Estonia. As an 11 year old he performed as a vocalist alongside some of Estonia's top jazz musicians and his mother is legendary Estonian singer Marju Kuut.

On Visions of Estonia, Uku produces a mad blend of funk and soft jazz. Written and recorded at his home studios in Los Angeles and Stockholm between 1982 and 1989, the album matches left-field beats with lost '80s boogie groove. All recorded on domestic and Soviet electronic gear. Songs such as 'Real Love' and 'Secret Dream' sound like they could accompany the outro of an '80s morning television program. The closing 'Right or Wrong', with its strutting boogie and crooning vocals, proves that while some get ready to bag out the Eurovision song contest not all Eastern Euro songs are lame.

Not just the name of a gloomy band, a revolutionary art school and a a typeface, Bauhaus is also a shop on Rundle Street - and in this incarnation it's a menagerie of colour and texture. Bauhaus specialises in homewares and accessories, stocking knits and candles and furniture and earrings and necklaces and ceramics and shells and textiles and wood and metals and leathers and fair trade ornaments and rugs and prints and wall hangings and religious iconography and ARE YOU FEELING OVERWHELMED YET? You should be.

It's near-impossible to exit Bauhaus with empty hands, which makes it dangerous when you're waiting around to meet people for a film or a drink at the Exeter. $1 rosary rings?! Can't get enough! It's a foolproof place to find gifts at any price, with items sourced from all over the world: Denmark via Bolivia, Sweden via Poland, Azerbaijan via Kangaroo Island (hmm) plus plenty of local goodies. Whether gothic pop, German modernism or typophilia is your thing, this version of Bauhaus will satisfy every trinketry or adornment urge you've ever had.

It turns out there is a whole lot more to Paul Simon’s Graceland album than a hilarious Chevy Chase film clip and universal childhood memories of road trip sing-alongs. In fact, the multi-generation-defining record of revolutionary cross-cultural collaboration and white feel-goodery was a case of real pop music controversy that puts recent incidents - such as West vs Swift - to shame.

Under African Skies follows Simon back to South Africa 25 years after Graceland was released to great acclaim as well as heady political criticism. Using comprehensive new and archival footage as well as interviews with peers and detractors, director Joe Berlinger tells the story of Paul’s innocent naivety in ignoring a UN cultural boycott of the apartheid nation in favour for the sake of artistic pursuit.

The soundtrack splices live and album recordings with a few references to key influences and collaborators that will likely have you fleeing the cinema for a frantic youtube, wikipedia or crate-digging session.

The Human Rights Arts and Film Festival runs from May 29 - June 1. Check out the full Adelaide program here.

As preposterous as it may seem to name a radio show This American Life, it's a fitting title for a program whose creative, personality driven broadcasts regularly grapple with the contradictions of a nation both trailblazing and conservative, individualistic and conformist, funny and solemn, arrogant and humble.

Started in 1995 in Chicago, This American Life is one of the most popular public radio broadcasts in the country. Hosted by the lovingly dweeby Ira Glass, over the years it has featured everyone from Nick Hornby to Michael Chabon to Spalding Gray and Dave Eggers.

Weird as it may seem to put a radio show on the big screen, this works. It was staged live at a theatre in New York City, and Glass says they endeavored to incorporate stories onstage that would never play on radio (like dance, for instance). The idiosyncratic programming of NPR is easy to poke fun at (like on Parks and Recreation) and there's a bit of self-reflexive humor herein (courtesy of a short film by Mike Birbiglia).

Like the best of National Public Radio, what makes This American Life - Live! so special are the rich personalities and real-life stories presented. There's a great reading by much beloved humorist David Sedaris, a terrific story on an anonymous found photo archive, and a heart tugging yet in no way naff humorous story by a blind father. Amongst many other things (I don't want to spoil anything). This is a perfect way to spend a weekend matinee.

Recognisable by its distinctive geometric frontage by Sam Songailo, which in its own way doubles as a work for the show, brand spanking new ARI Fontanelle is hosting one hell of a kick-ass art party featuring no less than 24 KICK ASS ARTISTS. Fontanelle brings you the aptly named expo: The Kick Ass Painting Show.

This is Fontanelle's second ever exhibition and the premise behind this one is playful and accessible. The Kick Ass Painting Show celebrates the work of contributors and hopes to expand audience perceptions of what constitutes painting as an art form. All exhibiting artists have contributed work that appears active, or is activated by our viewing; transformative or attempting to transform. In the case of Kick Ass, the installation of the artworks stand to further this cause. The works will seem to “speak” to one another and the audience, discussing the expectations placed upon them and how and in what ways these might be achieved. You guys can expect to be wowed by painting that appears otherwise. There’s sculpture as painting, and performance too, unusual installs where ceilings become canvases and images ooze and crawl across gallery walls.

Charles Schulz (of Peanuts) famously bought every single Esterbrook Radio #914 pen nib when they heard they were being discontinued. R Crumb won't fuck with anything but a Rapidograph technical pen. Pencils though? Voices were in unison praising the Eberhard Faber Blackwing 602. Famous users included Vladimir Nabokov, Frank Lloyd Wright, Thomas Wolfe, John Steinbeck, Stephen Sondheim, Igor Stravinsky and Chuck Jones. How many famous people use your favourite pencil? Don't make me laugh. Even the Blackwing's motto 'Half the pressure, twice he speed' is imposing and sleek in a modernist kind of way.

Then: disaster. Blackwings were discontinued in 1998. I have seen evidence of them selling for upwards of $50 on eBay. An incredibly exhaustive blog sprung up. The streets ran with graphite. People wept. Then: Resurrection. California Cedar Products bought the Blackwing trademark and started manufacturing recreations of the Palomino Blackwing 602 and the Palomino Blackwing. The former for writers, the latter for sketchers - and now available in Australia at NoteMaker. It's almost impossible to overstate the reverence people have for this pencil. Such fanatical devotion to a writing stick. But, as Ray Eames said, "What works good is better than what looks good, because what works good lasts." And sometimes what works good can even come back from the dead. It's the Jesus pencil.

Are you indecisive? Does choice cripple you, leaving you quivering in a pile of ambivalence? For me, Devo’s 'Freedom of Choice' is an anthem; their declaration that "freedom from choice is what you want" feels like it was written for me. So when it comes to choosing a nice glass of wine, which I know nothing about except that I like to drink lots of it, I fumble. Luckily the kids behind the bar at Cork Wine Café are mind-readers so there are no decisions to be made, except glass or bottle. I say bottle. The bar staff know all the wines so intimately it’s almost dirty. They also have Authentic Wine Sundays where they open up some natural wines - no additives, often organic, often unpredictable.

The wine menu at Cork Wine Cafe is actually very well laid out. It has helpful groupings of wine varieties and, for those who want everything, you can try three at a time with a tasting of small serves. Speaking of tasting, they also have a little menu of tapas-y things, which, for liquor licensing purposes, can equate to a full meal if you order enough of them. I tried whitebait, chorizo and olives. The homemade olives sit proudly behind the bar in big old jars and are pretty great. Walk in, tell them you’re thirsty and settle in.

As I was passing Mainline Drive-In at Gepps Cross the other day, I had a flashback. I was four, in my parents’ Volvo, watching Babe: Pig in The City. I was crying hysterically. “Animals shouldn’t talk,” I sobbed, eyes transfixed on the humungous screen in front of me, unable to turn away. It was one of the worst nights of my life.

As the flashback drew to an end, I steered my car back onto the correct side of the road and furrowed my brow. “This place actually still exists?” I thought to myself. “I wonder what it’s like nowadays…”. I called my friends and did some serious pleading. Ten minutes later, I’d managed to convince a group to go with me. The catch? That guy who gave up drinking due to liver problems would be designated driver; the rest of us would be drinking.

Was it legal? Probably not. Was it fun? Goddamn it was, even the guy with the bung liver enjoyed it. We saw Men In Black 3 (FYI, it sucked) but in all honesty, the movie was irrelevant. It’s weird because when you think about it, the drive-in is just a big gravel parking lot with a cinema screen and a hut at the back that sells really expensive ‘food’. It really shouldn’t be fun at all… but it is.

The screen is massive, it’s generally pretty easy to get a good ‘park’, and the ‘Kandy Bar’ and projection room look exactly the same as they did in the 50s. Come to think of it, It’s kind of like being in Grease; but modern day, and a bit bogan.

To sum things up, it’s a trip that's worth it. Even if the movie sucks, there’s really nothing like sitting on a deckchair in the moonlight, covered in seasoning from Pizza Shapes, drinking wine out of your little sister’s State Swim drink bottle.

Pink Dreams II are playing another show with their windy blow sound-maker thing (it's a sax) and their other noise making machines. For the complete and essential Pink Dreams II biography you could read this but it might not help. Halt! To more important matters. This time they are playing with a band called Rendezvous With Rama so let's talk about them. Listen to this pop-psych ditty on their Bandcamp and tell me you don't enjoy listening to the guy singing like he's about to run out of air and die at any second. Plus, the breathy backing vocals and the banjo style solo are a total hoot, too.

Alphabette and Coquettes are two fledgling bands with a penchant for Francophilic suffixes, the former sporting a teeth-rottingly-sweet front woman and the latter drawing influence from the very best of 80s new wave. A perfect combination for anyone transitioning from a 'Godard, macarons and 60s mini dresses with peter pan collars' to a more 'eyeliner, black drapes and late 80s Eastern European cinema' phase. Wild Oats have been busy in the recording studio, so expect sharp tunes, tired smiles and their signature 'just you try to think we're not adorable' swagger.

There have been a few beatmakers lurking around our fair city in the past few years, not knowing how to tell us about the large amount of talent right at our doorsteps. Finally, we’re learning, and these beatmakers are playing more regularly, and inspiring new ones to come out of their bedrooms and brave the non-virtual world. This Friday, all the finest Adelaide glitch / trip hop producers will assemble at Cuckoo for a big family catchup - Oisima, Slamagotchi, Getoblondie, Macro, and a whole heap more. Get warm on the dancefloor, and realise that however hard we try to leave, this is why we keep coming back home.

You know what sucks about nuts-on-strings earphones – everything. The way that little rock-hard, macadamia-sized plug starts to hurt your ear after no time at all. Especially if you are laying down like this.

The situation is not all nuts n knots though. When I was on the google I found this video from Urbanears to curb my well-founded headphone tentativity. The smooth voice promised my stressed-out ear cavities some pillow-soft headgear to cradle my drums and lobes. A nice fabric cord that refuses to tangle even in the most treacherous of bag interiors. The ‘closed’ headphone technology of the Plattan style also allows for absolutely no noise to filter in, and means that even the person sitting next to you won’t know you’re listening to 'Big Hard Sun' by Eddie Vedder. Hey you’re getting geared up for a big day! But if they did, say, want to listen to it with you, they could because Urbanears have a thing called the Zoundplug, which lets the person sitting next to you plug into your headphones. No more pressing temples and hairlines together for the old one-ear-each jobbie.

Get a pair at Myer or browse the wish-they-was edible colours (grape!) and buy online for $80 USD. Or, indeed, attempt to win a pair of the Plattan in grape from this very newsletter. To enter, just answer the following question.