Thursday 2 February, 12.01pm. In another coup for Speakeasy Cinema it has just been announced they’ll be screening The Ballad of of Genesis and Lady Jaye at ACMI on Monday 5 March at 8pm alongside a Q+A with Genesis Breyer P-Orridge (Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV). The documentary concerns P-Orridge and his artistic partner, muse and lover Lady Jaye; their surgical attempt to become one pandrogynous being, an account of life lived as art. Or maybe you are just not interested in meeting someone William S Burroughs called “the only person I’ve ever met who I had hero-worshipped.” Tickets will be available from ACMI on Monday 6 February ($30 +BF).
Wednesday 1 February, 2.34pm. Mark W Free just left our studio. What was he doing here? Making us coffee. What do you think? Makin’ black coffee from implements out of his backpack is like a nervous twitch for this guy. He has to do it. And he has been doing it at his Black Coffee pop-ups which have been popping up at an infrequent rate over the past year or so. No more infrequency though. Mark will be in operation from this Saturday and every Saturday after in varying locations for the rest of his life.
The launch of this life-long commitment will happen at Patricia Coffee Brewers, 493-495 Little Bourke Street (enter round the back via Little William St) this Saturday from 9am to 5pm. Next weekend it will be at Parts and Crafts Auto Zine, 13-23 Faraday St, Carlton. And the week after that? Who knows. Keep updated. If you are interested in having Mr Free do a Black Coffee pop up at your home, wedding, bah mitzvah, whatever, get in touch with him markwfree+blackcoffee@gmail.com. He just bought a postie bike so can pretty much go anywhere.
Tuesday 31 January, 3.42pm. You guys, normally we wouldn’t tell you about a party in Sydney, except this one has a ticket competition that includes flights. Vice are launching Rdio, which is basically an unlimited, on-demand social music service from the makers of Skype. It’s based on cloud access, meaning you can listen to whatever you want (over 11 million songs and more coming) on your smartphone or iPad, in your car or online. You can build your own playlists and friend lists through Rdio as well as Twitter and the Zuckerbook. Anyway, check it out. (Also we started an account this week – Arthur Russell TOP OF THE LIST)
The launch party is called Chateau Rdio and it’s happening this Saturday 4 February from 7pm at Bondi’s Beach Road Hotel. The line-up includes Das Racist, Canyons, Alpine, Collarbones and Jonti, plus DJ sets from Twin Shadow and Austra. You can enter to win tickets here (they’ll know you’re from interstate by your postcode and put you in the flights draw). When you enter you get the option of a free Rdio trial. If you don’t want to enter but you’re into the music thing just go straight to rdio.com and sign up for a free trial there. (PS: We just rang and asked how to pronounce it and it’s arrrr-de-oh. Like a pirate.)
IMAGE: A picture of Das Racist.
Monday 30 January, 4.00pm. The Ursa Art Foundation is a contemporary art institution based in Brisbane. The Ursa Prize was created to enable the projects of young and emerging artists from Australia and New Zealand by offering up an annual award of 2000 big ones (AUD) to an individual who has demonstrated excellence in their creative practice. Entries are now open for the 2012 Ursa Prize. If you are a photographer, painter, illustrator, graphic designer, digital artist, sculptor, jeweller, textile designer, fashion designer, potter, glassblower, or printmaker AND you are under 30 by the closing date for entries (9am, Monday 16 July) we think you should enter! For more info, check out their website, Facebook, or Twitter.
Monday 30 January, 12.23pm. All thieves are bastards but bike thieves and guitar thieves in particular are extra bastard faces! Dick Diver are a band who ooze good karma so it’s especially sucky to hear that Rupert got his guitar stolen over the weekend. If you see a fender telecaster tobacco burst with maple neck hanging out in Cashy’s or on Gumtree please let the band know. It’s similar to the guitar pictured below, but with black edges – see Rupert playing it here. They also took some pedals (a black RAT distortion, a Silver Janglebox and an Ibanez Chorus Pedal). If you see them around let the band know: dickdiverband@gmail.com.
Friday 27 January, 2pm. Heide Museum of Modern Art and Harvest Textiles will be co-hosting a screen printing workshop on Sunday 26 February (10.30am-4pm at Harvest, 512 Lygon St, East Brunswick). It’s part of Heide’s 30th birthday celebrations, so the aim is to “draw inspiration from the concrete poetry works in the exhibition Forever Young and create unique concrete poems that will then be printed onto three 100% linen tea towels.” (We’re pretty sure that’s three teatowels each. We hope it is, anyway.) This one’s a bargain at $115 for the day (other one-day screen printing workshops at Harvest tend to be $170). Small class though, so phone 9850 1500 asap if you’re interested.
Friday 27 January, 10.30am. ACCA‘s annual bookshop sale is on. Get in there and get 20% off all ACCA publications. This is a great way to bone up on artists you pretend to know about – especially if you get a set of catalogues from the annual NEW exhibitions dating back to 2003. Those guys in the old NEWs are famous now! Also, as an introductory offer, they might as well be setting fire to the current Pipilotti Rist catalogue for $16. Ends 30 January.
Friday 27 January, 9am. The good people at Melbourne BikeFest have launched their 2012 program. It might seem like it’s been a long time coming, and it has! Because they changed the annual date from December to February, so they skipped 2011. This year’s festival will run from 17 February to 17 March and present more than 30 events including the fierce Better By Bike design comp, the ol’ favourite Bike Runway, a three-day market at Birrarung Marr and a new interactive Road Harmony project incorporating hilarity by Oslo Davis on takeway coffee cups. The full program is now online. Don’t forget to click on ‘satellite program‘ because that’s where it gets into the real nitty gritty. Like knitting, and a full moon Yarra River expedition and naked people.
Monday 16 January, 9.43. Joe Miranda and our friends over at the Hard Workers Club (beware, endless photo clicking) are putting together an event called the Independent Photography Festival, which we’re pretty stoked to be co-presenting alongside Parts & Crafts and the HWC’s sister site Tourisms. It’s happening in Melbourne from the 2nd to the 8th of April, and right now submissions are open for the inaugural IPF Photo Prize. All accepted submissions will be exhibited as part of the IPF 2012 program with prints on sale to the public by silent auction – and all proceeds from works sold returned to the artists.
Joe says, “We’ve also asked some of our more local friends to help us create a set of relevant and righteous prizes for our three prize categories (Judge’s Panel 1st & 2nd Place and a People’s Choice Award) and we’re gunning for a couple more big boy prizes to add to the mix, so until we have all that locked in, we’re holding back on what’s on offer, but rest assured we’ll look after you. We might try and make a publication of the work after the event, too.”
Click through here for the photo submission form, keeping in mind it’s a call out for printed images rather than digital files. Entries must be posted and received by Thursday 1 March, 5pm. But stay tuned for more IPF program updates before then.
IMAGE: By Ben Goddard
Sunday 15 January, 10.15pm. You may remember us banging on about the Tote calendar. The idea was first floated in 2010, then revived in late 2011 when Amanda P re-issued the call-out for photos. Now, without warning, it is here. Twelve months worth of black and white images celebrating 30 years of The Tote, a one-page introduction and Tote history by music writer Patrick Emery, boxes with the dates marked on them and a handy hole to hang it up with. Get yours for $15 from the Tote front bar.
Submitted by Robert, The Thousands cat reporter – seen here scoping out the Tote last week.
