The Thousands

We're sending this issue through squinty chlorine eyes, lounging in teeny weeny bikinis by the side of a sharehouse paddle pool. But once we've tanned ourselves into handbags, we'll be out to farewell first loves and graze on veal to fatten up for Spring - unless the veal makes a musical plea to save its hide.

Covershot by Ash Pederick. Send us a visual memento from your pool of awesomeness.

Perth muso Mike Litton has a wild head of curly blonde ringlets, the kind lots of little kids start out with but that evolve into something darker and more restrained as they grow up. The fact his wild child hair has stuck with him into adulthood is a trait that is indicative of Litton as a person, and his music-making as Cow Parade Cow: unrestrained, swirly and fun.

Up until recently, CPC has just been Litton in his bedroom, crafting tribal-infused, psychedlic pop (check out his album To The North) that you’ll love if you’re a fan of the sounds of that other animal, Panda Bear. Mid last year, Litton rounded up a bunch of local musos for some seriously fun performances; being present at one is like being part of a big hippy jamboree. Together with local act Goodnight Tiger, CPC are the winners of Path To Laneway, which means they have got a coveted spot in the line up of this Saturday’s Perth Laneway Fest. We stole Litton away from his steel drums to chew the cud.

Danielle Marsland: Hey Mike, what’s up? Sorry I forgot to call you before. I don’t have a diary yet for this year, maybe I should buy one...
Mike Litton: Well, the good news for you is that I think we’re going to try launching a calendar! A Cow Parade Cow Calender!

DM: A ‘cow’ lender? I will hold off on the diary purchase now I know this!
ML: Do you know what I started last week? A guest book of my life.

DM: Like those things people write in when they’ve had a good time at a hotel?
ML: Exactly. So if I hang out with someone one-on-one, they have to write in the guest book when they leave.

DM: Awesome! Who’s written in it already?
ML: (laughs) Um…a girl who I had a one night stand with! That was an interesting entry. read more

Justin Heazlewood is back with his clever, caustic, ha-ha words. You know, the Bedroom Philosopher: Northcote hipster tram glasses sideburns YouTube guy. These words don’t rhyme and don’t have chords, so they’ve been popped into a risographed, blue-fonted book (printed by A Small Press) with Leigh Rigozzi’s playful cartoons and the occasional band snap. This collection of tour diaries shows Justin at his most remorseless. Guess who he’s picking on this time? Justin Heazlewood.

Sure, there are the stabs at the towns, the venues, the food, the annoying fans and the annoying not-fans, but the main target here is the man who wrote the damn thing. Mind you, this is no ‘humblebrag’ musician confessional. Instead of sordid accounts of groupy sex and group groupy sex, Justin mopes over his ex-girlfriend, ‘pashes’ a girl who almost steals his glasses and botches a sexual advance at a house party. Instead of accounts of heroic drug consumption, near overdoses and chemical-induced flip-outs, Justin tries to moderate his intake of alcohol and cigarettes and, after snorting a little bit of what might have been speed, pees his bed. It’s just a ‘humble’.

There are prima donna outbursts, nebbish episodes and meditations on the never-ending search for lols as validation. But Justin doesn’t want your pity. Justin wants your laughs and your laughs he will get. He has mastered awkwardness, elevating personal unease to an art form through humour, honesty and solid writing. His apt observations and witty turns of phrase will leave you with nothing but admiration for the self-loathing, bed-wetting novelty songwriter.

Some might consider it a wasted youth, but thanks to the years I spent with my face buried in poorly written fantasy dross, I can identify even the most obscure mythical creatures. Griffins? Hah, child's play. Basilisks? Yeah, I read Harry Potter too. Try the Manticore on for size.  How about about the Catoblepas? Or the unlikely Hippalektryon. It's from this lineage of the medieval grotesque, the fantastical stitching together of beasts, that the multi-artist exhibition A Magnificent World springs.

Pia Bennett, Joshua Fitzpatrick, Thea Constantino, and Anna Nazzari have produced works that unpick the relationship between the grotesque, the sublime and the unknowable.  They use various mediums - found images, drawings, paintings, pyrography, sculpture - but produce work towards a common goal.

Academically, it's an investigation of why the art of a bygone era was so obsessively focused on bestial mythology and miraculous sorcery.  But it's also just a great excuse to draw wicked imaginary creatures.

A vague memory I have of first year uni involves timidly descending a staircase in a seedy part of Wembley (yes, Wembley has a seedy part) to a dungeon filled with strange mechanical implements and the glare of a man who seemed to have much too much in common with a goblin. This particular quest was not in search of fellow dungeons and dragons role-play buddies, but for a similarly essential item by which to expose my angst in thinly-veiled metaphor: typewriter ribbon.

By gum! If only I'd known then that out in the sunshine of William Street there was a no less eccentric, but completely goblin-free store from which to purchase the elusive inky material, and every other stationery item my nerdy self could require.

Sicari Stationery humbly proffers a slightly ramshackle assortment of items: 30c domino-style erasers, tartan pencil cases, dusty to-do lists, mini aquarium paper holders and the famous $1 cans of drink! It's a small offering, but everything you need is there, so there's no need to be paralysed by the burden of choice of the stationery mega-stores. And no need to be scared of fanged goblinoids either, unless they come visiting from Wembley.

There are many valuable lessons to be learnt from Patti Smith’s autobiography Just Kids. Always sit in the Hotel Chelsea lobby if you can, Bob Dylan or Andy Warhol will no doubt pat you on the head. Make tie racks from crucifixes. Be skinny. Don’t hustle. But my favourite is: write, don’t type. Writing is creating whereas typing is just for kids.

It’s something NZ-born, Sydney-based Amy Kaehne has probably taken to heart in her AW collection inspired by the dreaming bohemes, the scheming starlets and Patti-esque poets of New York’s 60s and 70s. Past ranges have looked to the Velvet Underground, Jack Kerouac and the wild western beaches of New Zealand. Conformity obviously does not score well with Amy … right back to her days sporting co-ordinated kindy outfits down to matching hair attire (peep a pic here… so adorbs!)

For ‘Just Kids,’ my favourites are the chunky cord trousers, the dip-dyed slips, the magic pouch-like velvet dresses – can you have lived through the 90s and not love all those things? Correct answer, you cannot. Most of us may have missed the Smith-Mapplethorpe zeitgeist, but if we suit up just right, we can pretend. Just like kids.

Steve McQueen’s beautifully crafted drama recalls Drive and not just for transforming Manhattan into the same gritty, jaded demimonde as Refn’s Los Angeles. There should be an APB going out to intense, blue-eyed loners across America: “STAY AWAY FROM CAREY MULLIGAN SHE WILL PIERCE YOUR STYLISH SHELL OF URBAN ALIENATION AND FLOOD YOUR METICULOUSLY EMPTY LIFE.”

Here, Mulligan is cabaret singer Sissy, who shares with her brother Brandon (Michael Fassbender) a troubled past that’s disturbing for only ever being hinted at. In a key scene, dense with meaning, she turns ‘New York, New York’ into a haunting torch song as Brandon watches, eyes aglisten, with his cocky boss David (James Badge Dale).

The production and costume design underline that whatever 'bad place' these siblings have escaped has forged them as opposites. She’s brittle, warm, hungry for intimacy and bleeding vulnerability; he’s smooth, cool, chasing isolation through his compulsion for anonymous orgasms, and shying from a coworker, Marianne (Nicole Beharie), whom he might actually like. Sure, Fassbender’s wang appears in the first five minutes, but for me the siblings’ interdependent antagonism was more poignant and intriguing than Brandon’s overdetermined ‘depravity’. I found the film’s ending subtly hopeful.

Thirty year-old French director Mia Hansen-Løve’s The Father Of My Children was one of the highlights of 2010's French Film Festival. With its slow-building characters and an overly naturalist script it was one for the cineastes, but had a beauty and richness of feeling you’d struggle to find in a more traditional film. Hansen-Løve’s latest effort Goodbye, First Love is impressive for much the same reasons.

The beautiful Camille (Lola Creton) is a 15-year-old jaded with teenage life: she finds reason to live only in lover Sullivan (Sebastian Urzendowsky), four years her senior. Sullivan is a free spirit and takes off to South America for a year, telling Camille to ‘forget him’. She takes it pretty hard (we don’t blame her – Sullivan is a total babe) but four years later is killing it at French architecture school, and has moved in with her wealthy, silver fox lecturer (echoing Hansen-Løve’s real life love with film director, Olivier Assayas, whom she met when she was 17 and he 43). But then Sullivan comes back on the scene, and revokes the whole ‘forget me’ thing - cue dangerous liaisons and teary emotional dilemmas.

Goodbye, First Love is a delicate and affective film, with Hansen-Love's direction knowing but unpretentious. In a similar vein to recent indies Norwegian Wood, Blue Valentine and Like Crazy, it's a non-happy ending driven inspection of first love's folly turn complex, without the benefit of age's perspective.

If too many meals at cheapo roast duck houses have made you miss the part where the waiter lays the napkin lovingly on your lap - you know, flicks it out and then lets it float delicately down to your thighs - Galileo Buona Cucina is your knight in shining amoré. These guys - by 'guys' we mean every member of the wait and kitchen staff in the place - really know how to turn on the charm!

This place is definitely not for vegetarians, although fishocrits can have their tastes well satisfied in the form of salt-crusted salmon steak. The most succulent highlights on the menu are definitely of the meaty variety, but seriously, everything here is delicious and well-priced. We recommend starting with veal meatballs, and ending with profiteroles, and taking the thick-accented advice of whichever delightful mains your charming Mediterranean waitperson suggests.

From The Young Ones to John Birmingham, share houses persist in pop culture as an unavoidable rite of passage: leave home, be broke, live with strangers. Former bandmates Karen san de Miguel and Mattie Aitken created the North Perth No-Name Historical Society to pay tribute to share houses. During their public pop-up stall tribute at the Beaufort Street Festival 2011, they offered the public a chance to browse items donated by various share houses: a plastic ‘crystal’ skull, a block-mounted Beethoven 2 poster, a Moby Frisbee, etc.

On a balmy night only alleviated by jars of ice-cold green cordial, Karen and Mattie sat on a carpet floor to discuss their project’s ongoing evolution, North Perth Sharehouse Museum V.2.

Tristan Fidler: What inspired you to create a museum for share houses? For most people, a share house is a transitional space...

Karen san de Miguel: That’s really the reason why you should document these spaces because they’re transitional and they don’t last very long. Because they’re like a brief flame, a brief candle in the wind. They flicker out and that’s why they’re worth preserving because they’re so brief.
Mattie Aitken: I guess shared housing or student living gets romanticised a lot and sometimes it’s over-idealised and sometimes they’re places people want to forget, because they’re quite dramatic periods, a lot happens in them. And that can really go both ways. Very memorable positive experiences and very memorable negative experiences.
KsdM: That’s a really good answer, Matt! I like that better than my answer.

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Performer Rachael Dease’s mind is always lurking about in morgues and cemeteries. Both with her band Schvendes and their black-clad cabaret, and with the Small Mercies, Sweet Graves of her operatic murder ballads. It’s no surprise, then, that Dease got way into the murderous accounts of Sydney’s real-life underbelly through the 20^th century forensic photography of 'City of Shadows' and was inspired to write some songs, which she is performing at Fringe World. Each to their own, as they say.

The Fringe Festival has proven Perth knows how to flirt up a storm with the underground, but our romantic staying power will really be put to the test when the amazing PIAF programme kicks into gear this week and offers us more dates with the arts in one month than we’ve had all year! Super Night Shot follows a story made in our own city, starring our own citizens, an hour before that night’s show. Renegade theatre-making, rabbit-mask-wearing collective the Gob Squad present us with an awesome snapshot of love and passion that’s as visually shaky as the real experience.

Traditional masculinity isn't really my bag. I mean, when something around the house breaks down I can give it a cursory whack, but if that fails to right its wrong I'm off to the shops to buy a new whatever-it-is. Dosh Luckwell's solo show is a film noir dismantling of that traditional manhood. As Perth's premiere erotic spoken word artist makes his theatrical debut, expect a sexually charged plot, a heap of outlandish alter-egos and an irreverent take on gender essentialism from a bloke in a dress.

The basement home of Fat Shan Records has been through a lot. First it was Blowfly Records. Then it was the retro record cave Beat Route. All the while, good, rare, independent music has been at this location's heart. Having added a music studio into the mix a while ago, Fat Shan's have had bands recording out the back and tunes for sale out the front, not to mention regular instore gigs. So it makes sense that they are launching as a proper label at Fringe World this week. Sam Perry, Sugarpuss and The Flower Drums are up for a few tunes - head down the steps and bear witness what will be one killer local label roster!

When I was five, my family hired a campervan we went on a disappointing (by a five year-old's standards, anyhow) tour of New Zealand: the beaches had rocks instead of sand and snow didn’t taste like ice-cream. Perth-based Anything Is Valid Dance Theatre are turning the bad rep of campervans right around: they’ve devised an intimate dance piece that is set and performed entirely in a caravan. 'Life In Miniature' reflects on the magnified human experience that evolves from a long period on the road. By a 25 year-old’s standards, the whole thing sounds incredible.

Look at these weirdos. Just look at them. It's The Suitcase Royale! Couldn't you just get all Sarah Bernhard in The King of Comedy on them? Couldn't you just plotz you want to sit in front of them so bad? Us too. The Melbourne-based rag 'n' bone act are returning from a wild and successful stint in the UK to charm the pants off of everyone in Perth: theirs is truly a signature amalgam of performance, music, comedy and raw, pheromonal appeal.

All my friends aren't getting married, but they do seem to all be moving to Freo. Maybe it's because the sun is shinier there, the smoothies are smoother, and there's shops like Willow & the Bowerbird to spend all the money they're saving by buying their wholegrain in bulk.

Perched on George Street, Willow & The Bowerbird gather lovingly re-beautified vintage furniture alongside new ranges of Bison Ceramics, Polli jewellery, Oktoberdee bags and lots of other pretty things. Walking into their East Fremantle store you can rest your little wings amongst their collected treasures, and pick yourself out some favourites. If you're worried about scorching your bare feet on the walk home, try a pair of super comfy Salt Water Sandals to cushion your way around our sister-city's port-side paradise.

Pop in to 78 George Street, or you can check out their Facebook page here. Thanks to Sarah at Willow & the Bowerbird, we've got a $50 voucher to giveaway to spend in the store! To enter, just answer the following question.