The Thousands

‘Tis three days before Christmas, and all through our city
Many things are happening, and most of them pretty
Some discs made of magic and tapes made of noise
Make terrific gifts for the girls and the boys
So skip past this rhyming, down to our first HEAR
We hope you enjoy our last issue of the year.

Covershot by Darren Mok. Rock out like Darren and send us your covershots.

There's something about Nick Allbrook's voice, combined with his general way of being that makes you want to touch him, but know that you can't. He emits that glow of something that's only going to be here for a while. Not in that dying-at-27 thing - I'm sure he'll live to 100, growing a whispy beard down to his kungfu slippered feet - but he looks and sounds like he's only just part of the world, and if you get too close he might explode into a cloud of rainbow coloured, cosmic dust.

Cam Avery's physical self and musical sensibilities on the other hand seem embedded deep down into the earth. A woodland creature of the satyr variety, with a sure-footedness that permeates everything he does. Every instrument seems to mould itself to his will, and apparently any piece of sporting equipment too. Did you hear the rumours about him playing golf with Alice Cooper and frisbee with Kirsten Dunst? No doubt he kicked both their asses.

There was never any doubt that these two getting together would create something of mythic proportions. And so it is - the album Big 'Art is exactly what anyone who digs all their other projects could have hoped for.

Only available digitally until a vinyl release in 2012, the album is still the best possible present for anyone with a psych pop bone in their body.

Clever cats Taco Leg and Dave West manage one magnificent pun to summarise their cross-continental cassette project Pauline Manson. Taking the famous loons of their respective abodes - red-haired redneck Pauline Hanson in Australia and cult leader Charles Manson in the US - they put out two sides of a tape, recorded on each side of the equator; 999 in San Francisco in 2010 and Washed To Oblivion in Guildford a year later.

In any case, the world of play-punk is full of wit and whimsy and if everyone took themselves too seriously, bands like Beat Happening wouldn’t exist, if they didn’t take themselves seriously enough bands like The Fall wouldn’t have happened. Incidentally, each of these groups leave their indelible mark on Pauline Manson, which carries on both of those bands’ inclination towards primitive instrumentation and post-punk messthetics which masks a screwed up sense of humour: 999/Washed To Oblivion is full of songs about how to get by during the GFC, drunk dads, crushed souls and shitty life choices – all veiled under a rowdy clamour of guys who don’t give a toss. Sounds like a party to me.

Between 1973 and 1981 Tony Edwards worked for Australian surfing magazine Tracks (here's what it looked like back then). According to reports, what he did there was "embrace the worst excesses" of the era, give everyone doobs before they went on the radio - and drew a comic about a foul-mouthed yobbo surfing pig called Captain Goodvibes. Now the surfers at Flying Pineapple Media (who you might remember as the publishers of Peter Troy's journals, To The Four Corners of the World) have gathered together every Captain Goodvibes strip published over those nine years and turned them into a book - with historical anecodotes from Tony, original Tracks cover art and correspondence (including a complaint letter from Barry Humphries).

This is a massive document - 400 pages - printed on rough comic paper that you just want to smell, then colour in, then rip out and frame. But you wouldn't do any of these things because Captain Goodvibes is a legend who should be respected and feared. He's also loveable, though, as former Tracks editor Phil Jarratt observes: "Over time [Tony] gave Captain Goodvibes a gentler, more whimsical, even caring side." It seems crass to compare this cult Australian creation to an American project, but fellow fans of Dave Carnie-era Big Brother Magazine and how little it gave a shit will understand how excited I am when I say Captain Goodvibes has the same thing going on. But Tony did it first!

I commend the Captain to any of you who want to experience a time capsule of Australian, Whitlam-era surf culture - and what it's like to be friends with an overweight top banana swine.

Back when I was a kid (sheesh, how old does make me sound?!) the local corner store was a magical place, crammed full of comics and candy and brightly coloured treats. It was a one-stop shop of all the best bits life had to offer.

Corner Store in Fremantle works on pretty much the same concept: if you were to pick and choose all the highlights in your life, mash them all together, this is what the setting would be furnished with. Be it pom-pom foot rests, ornamental decoupage stag heads, white light scottie dogs, medicinal glass jars or even that must-have tepee, it seems this is the place where such curios congregate.

Naturally, Corner Store has gifts galore just in case you’ve left Christmas shopping to the last second. Which we know you have by the way.

You know what's silly about the silly season? This rap. It's pretty silly. Also silly is trying to do a billion things - finish your work, go to parties, bake, buy things, catch up with people - before D-day hits. We want to help things be less silly for you all, but we can't cook you biscuits through our computer or meet your Uncle Leonard for brunch.

What we can do, is help you use the few precious days left before Christmas to purchase some awesome goods from the best of Perth's independent retail stores. We took photos and put in prices so all you have to do is breeze through the shop doors and hand over the sweet cash monies. Easy!

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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!'

It’s no revelation that brunch is a meal to be enjoyed between breakfast and lunch, and definitely not before 10am when throngs of cyclists offend the senses in their butt pads and clippity boots. Duende understand that breakfast is an all-day offering and even allow for those of us who don’t emerge for the first meal of the day until a time now known as brinner (4pm). If the stress of commandeering a table at that other café proves too much for you in your Sunday-morning state, we suggest strolling across the road to Duende.

Sit behind the newly extended bar, sip a locally roasted brew and make friends with the bottles of welcoming succulents. The breakfast menu is heavy on the savoury, but we forgive them because of the corn fritters. Good lord, the corn fritters! Golden patties of crunchy sweetness topped with flecks of hot smoked salmon, masterfully trimmed asparagus and the crowning glory; a perfectly poached egg. Cutting into that little beauty and watching the yolk drizzle on your fritter whilst surveying the lycra-sealed crotches from the other side of the road is definitely worth crossing for.

I tend to date girls from Fremantle because for me their openness and lack of pretension serve as a refreshing yin to my jaded and cynical Mount Lawley yang.That same kind of Fremantle vibe permeates through Who's Your Mumma, which alongside La Cholita, makes up the recent one-two punch dealt by Harvest owner Clint Nolan smack bang into the face of Perth's bar scene.

Roughly furnished with exposed fittings, concrete floors and beachwood booths; Who's Your Mumma is an unwound locale perfect for a night of drinking and conversation or even a light meal (try the Ras-el-Hanout duck, it's unbelievably tender). I went there on a Wednesday night and the place was buzzing with a total cross-section (not too young, not too old, not too hip, not too juggalo) of Freo society all getting involved with the choice selection of cocktails and huge selection of wine (like 160 different types) on offer.

Basically, if Who's Your Mumma was a Fremantle babe, I'd totally date her and take her home to meet my actual Mother to answer that particular question once and for all.

Martinis are made up of two things: gin and vermouth. But for some reason, they sound a lot more complicated. Christmas and martinis are similar, in that regard: most of Christmas’ frills and silliness can be broken down into two basic things: consumption, and excess. But there is a third, more positive ingredient that can be added to Christmas! And that’s a dash of social consciousness. Here are some ideas - get drunk on good will.

Buying fair trade doesn't mean everything's coloured green or brown. There's plenty of places to Christmas shop where you can actually feel good about what you're buying, knowing you're not contributing to the general pillaging and sweat-shopping of the world. Save on plastic by using reusable shopping bags and save on trees by wrapping your purchases in newspaper: old science magazines or copies of National Geographic also make awesome wrapping paper and make you look clever. Better yet, give presents that don’t need wrapping, like vouchers for ‘experiences’ - a picnic in the hills, a trip to the beach or an afternoon drinking cider on the porch. Or just give, full stop: give blood, give money, give your time.

If you’re concerned about the amount of trifle going into the trash, organise a Boxing Day Leftovers Lunch, where everyone brings a plate of their finest leftovers to share. It’s not just food consumption that can be reduced: cut back on petrol by jumping on your cruiser/fixie/bmx/inert lump of metal and riding it to every gig, Christmas party and New Years event you've been compelled to attend. Everyone looks good on a bike, and you'll also be making sure Santa actually has a place to hang the stirrups next year.

Christmas parties thrown by record labels are always the best kind. They’re looser, louder and more lubricated than your office and family ‘do combined, with a higher ratio of friends than creepy distant family and colleagues. And the presents? No more scented candles – Heartless Santa will be delivering sets from Injured Ninja (plus their new 12”), French Rockets, SmRts, Apricot Rail and the almighty Electric Toad.

It’s a well worn yuletide ritual in our household that following the turkey and stuffing, young and old retire to the lounge room to be regaled with stories told many times before by family members who don’t recall having told them any times at all. This kind of thing won’t happen at Barefaced Stories whose talented wordsmiths will be whipping out nothing but new, knockout anecdotes. To up the ante the Barefaced crew have roped in some of Perth’s best musicians to transform Barefaced into a narrative and musical extravaganza. Expect wild tales, killer tunes, and not a 'back in my day' in sight.

Do you have plans for the night before 'the night before Christmas' yet? Staying at home watching TV Christmas specials with your Mum is not a real plan. A real plan is to spend the night dancing like an animal at an Alice In Wonderland themed mini music festival. Wonderland will see Cut Copy, Sparkadia, Bag Raider DJs, Tim & Jean and Strange Talk take to makeshift stages in the lush and arty surrounds of the Fremantle Arts Centre, which will be dressed up in a plethora of amazing decorations. It's going to be a warm night, the bar will be open, and everyone gets a free animal mask!

I’m not quite sure if SEAMS’ obsession with magic/the occult is tongue in cheek or for realsies. On the one hand they have photos like this on their Facebook and write lyrics like ‘get lost in the frost of the golden dawn’. On the other hand SEAMS wunderkind Lyndon is exactly the kind of mysterious dude who you could totally imagine (and I often do) running naked through the forest chasing his spirit animal (which is a mongoose). Debut label release Magic Circle showcases not only their considerable musical chops but also their love of magical circles.

Sure, experiments are how science tests hypothesis but in everyday living experiments are how we test our boundaries. Like testing the boundaries of logic by reading about The Philadelphia Experiment and whether we believe that the US Navy actually experimented on a battleship to make it invisible. Or testing our eardrums by going to The 459 Experiment where eight righteous bands (Frozen Ocean, Electric Toad, Clean Living, Brown, Mandible Jaws, Goat, Pat Ca$h, and Javier Frisco) play across two stages in a back bar at The Rosie to blow the walls apart like a thunderous battleship. Test yourself before 2011 is over by submitting your ears to this experiment, quick smart.

Don’t colour this in. Your steady hand and your deluxe 72-pencil Derwent box set don’t mean jack when it comes to Dylan Martorell’s Possible Worlds 2 Poster Book. Put down the Kingfisher Blue and the Vandyke Brown and let’s just talk. Have you ever put a pencil to a sprawling non-Euclydian migraine or the remnants of an aquatic hallucination? Have your textas ever graced an Arabian bazaar where a sweater-wearing cat peddles fruit, beverages and electronic equipment? I didn’t think so. You’re out of your league.

There’s plenty to look at though (no touch!). The posters belong to a foreign place where animals do as they please, reality and perspective be damned. Bees unwind on swings, bunnies read books about magic and cats mount up and ride on the darndest things. It’s as cute and immaculate as a deftly wrought cupcake. Mind you, there’s something in this cupcake that's making me feel weird and woozy. Also, if you want these posters on your skin, you’re up for a riveting tattoo experience - the hairline details will cramp even the most experienced tattooist’s hand, while the staccato, Morse code patterns will tickle you to the point of chuckles and wee.

Lamington Drive Editions and Sunday Morning Designs have only printed one thousand copies so stick the posters on your wall and, yes, step away from the pencil sharpener. Buy it here now for $35! Or attempt to win one by answering the following question.