The Thousands

Cornersmith has a shit-hot fit-out and Papillionaire is in a shit-hot building. Overachiever Kenzie Larsen arts with seafood and Redfern is accurately reinterpreted in Black Capital, instead of its actually boring namesake. Also, there's something oddly shared between ice-cream sammiches and camp b-movie gore. Right?

Cover image by Damien Bright. Be deadly like Damien! Send your cover snaps to alex@rightanglestudio.com.au

The kooky queens behind Butt Magazine recently announced their latest issue shall be their last, and while gays everywhere mourn the passing with shrines of poppers and back issues of Drummer, it's nice to know there are newcomers able to fill the hole Butt has left. Little Joe issue 3 is an inspiring jolt of same-sex creative juices as they apply to the film world. But straight folks needn't feel uninvited, since, in the words of another beloved queer publication on ongoing hiatus, "You don't have to be gay to get it".

Editor Sam Ashby digs deep beneath the footnotes to true obscurities; director David DeCoteau talks about his (hilariously) homoerotic horror films; articles on and full color photos of camp b-movie gore maestro Andy Milligan (he shot his films and sewed his costumes at home!). The cover story features frank, funny Bronx-bred 8mm auteur George Kuchar, who was interviewed just weeks before he sadly passed away.

There's also a tribute to Times Square when it was sleazy, a Mike Mills zine (extracted from his Drawings From The Film Beginners book) and way more, all beautifully articulated in prose and pics. I know I raved about Little Joe #2 not-that-long-ago but if Issue 3 sold out before you could buy a copy, I would never be able to show my face at the Gay Mafia meetings again.

From scrappy pop band to slightly less scrappy pop band. The growing interest in these Melbourne guys - Tom H, Tom R and Leon – helps sustain hope in Melbourne's local music scene. While Tom H's deep baritone timbre on earlier 7” releases had many likening Woollen Kits to Beat Happening (a descriptor that has been unfairly overused), new songs such as 'Always' and 'Be Your Friend' are brilliant in their simplicity.

If it was the early 90s, Spin magazine would no doubt be calling this 'slacker' rock. And yes, it has a loose and relaxed feel, but there is also an honest charm to the dual vocal harmonies and snappy drumming. The opener 'Sloan' is about a junkie who used to come into Tom R's cafe. 'University Narcolepsy' is an ode to all who have fallen asleep during a lecture.

The guys used to tell me that they had a stronger following in Sydney then they did in their home town but a song like 'For You' is too good for regionalism. It's universal in its awesomeness! File under 'Great Aussie pop albums' and place in the milk crate alongside your Twerps, Royal Headache and Dick Diver records.

Late last year our friends from Pat and Stick, invited us to tour their ice-cream sandwich making facility in Tempe. Ice-cream sammiches! Of course we gathered a crack team for the excursion, then made Willy Wonka-references, mooting who would display Veruca Salt tendencies, and who would be Mike Teavee. Turns out we were all Augustus Gloop.

OK, so we thought we were getting the royal treatment, but the little factory is actually open to the public. Plus, everything is available for wholesale purchase with no minimum order, which is even better once you realise that Pat and Stick share the space with Pepe Saya who make cultured butter and homemade desserts.

Well, we did get the royal treatment. We got to taste EVERYTHING. Highlights included the espresso lace ice-cream sandwich (which we saw being handmade), eating wedges of the butter on bread like it was cheese, and taste-testing a new product - a raspberry panna cotta. They asked for our feedback, then nodded and wrote our answers down. We all found that it's important when doing this kind of product testing, that every time you are asked a question, to take another spoonful, just to be sure.

We all got a stick of Pepe Saya's butter to take home and tried to out-do each other with what we cooked with it. Alex won. He cooked BACON IN THE BUTTER.

Next time you make the Ikea pilgrimage, a block away, load up on iced confections too. Official hours are 9 to 5, but if they're there and producing, then they're happy for you to see, try and buy. And we encourage you to TRY IT ALL. They know the way to our wallets is through our stomachs.

Kenzie Larsen apparently believes the adage about how it is busy people who get things done. She makes art and theatre and custom t-shirts. She was a third of that installation Grand Chasm that was on at Firstdraft last year that I kind of really want versions of installed all through my future home; she was a Director at Locksmith Projects while their gallery space and publication were still a thing; and her name pops up in conjunction with things like The Imperial Panda Festival, The Penguin Plays Rough Book of Short Stories, and Cab Sav at the Melbourne Fringe Festival.

This show is titled like an explanation of what you might want to eat when hungover. It's Just Everything, you know? It's drawings and sculpture and video and it's made out of lots of things, including Play-Doh and seafood alongside somewhat more usual but most interestingly assembled 'ingredients' like splodged paint and wooden boards and piles of magazine. The works in this show are all studies on topics like 'excess' or 'destruction' or 'perspective', and in typical Larsen fashion they all seem like collages regardless of meaning. There's a layering-up process going on here, whether of objects or of texta-strokes, and the different elements of each piece aren't internally resolved but turn into wholes-more-than-the-sum-of-their-parts. If this 'Everything' seems overwhelming, simply remember that It's Just Everything. Like, NBD.

Where Ian Fleming’s espionage is flip and glamorous, John Le Carré’s is dreary and cynical; George Smiley is the anti-James Bond. Still, director Tomas Alfredson (Let The Right One In) wrings unexpected elegance from the ugly ’70s using beautifully composed, observational shots and camera movements. In Alfredson’s hands, the MI6 offices – “the Circus” – become suffocating brown panopticons whose tea-sipping inhabitants scrutinise each other’s smallest gestures, squirming with fear that their secrets will come to light.

Control (John Hurt) suspects there’s a mole in the Circus when agent Jim Prideaux (Mark Strong) is disastrously ambushed in Budapest. When rogue field agent Ricki Tarr (Tom Hardy) seems to confirm this news to his supervisor Peter Guillam (Benedict Cumberbatch), retired spy George Smiley (Gary Oldman) is persuaded to unearth the mole. Who’s working for Soviet spymaster Karla – thuggish Roy Bland (Ciaran Hinds)? Suave Bill Haydon (Colin Firth)? Conniving Percy Alleline (Toby Jones)? Or urbane Toby Esterhase (David Dencik)?

The plot’s intricate, but it unfurls lucidly, with plenty of tension and evocative micronarrative moments in which bewildered spies reveal the sacrifices and compromises they’ve made for their work. Perhaps the removal of Smiley’s final illusions makes him the perfect investigator.

How do you display your jewellery? On a doily? Hanging off a ceramic cat's tail? In a musical box with a spinning ballerina? How old are you? Twelve? Do you ever want to get laid? Is this an intervention? Yes. Do I want to you to crack? Yes. Why? You gotta hit rock bottom before you can reclaim your life. You need to stop taking late night visual merchandising tips from *EFFY Jewellers Since 1979* on TVSN. You need Stämpel.

Stämpel is a Bendigo-based sustainable homewares and jewellery label by Andrea Shaw. She uses 100% upcycled materials including timber off-cuts and paint chips to hand-craft necklaces, vases and jewellery wall hangers. Owning a piece of her goods feels like the first time you bought a 'grown up handbag'. This is a transitory period in your life. At first you'll resist, but once you see Stämpel's Recycled Timber Jewellery Hanger on their online store you'll know exactly what you have to do: Feng shui your jewellery collection. In fact throw it all out.

The road to jewellery emancipation is difficult, but thanks to Stämpel it'll be made a little easier.

Step out of the way all you other 159 bike shops in Surry Hills - Papillionaire sells Spokey Dokes and that ain't all. The Melbourne-based vintage-Dutch-style bicycle company has finally rolled into Sydney with it's simple, non-intimidating loot.

Parked on the corner of Albion Way and Bellevue Lane, Papillionaire offer two frames: a men's 'Classic' racer-style bike (with a half chain case so you don't have to roll one pant leg up), and a women's 'Sommer' Dutch step-through. Both have 3-speed internal hubs which are super low maintenance and easy to use. Of course they aren't strictly gender specific, and you can completely customise your chosen frame. Colour, mudguards, tire colour, saddle (leather is an option), grips (leather also an option), toe clips (for all the hectic riders), rear carrier, basket, wings (nah kidding).

And then you can go one step further and accessorise! There are one billion Nutcase helmets to don your head with, lights, bells with tacos and pizzas on them, flugel horns, tool bags, and handlebar mirrors for checking out how damn well your Latte coloured Sommer complements your skin tone.

Smiths of black metals, gold and locks may all do a fine job of their trade, but Cornersmith has crafted the finest in the business of corners. Theirs is the product of the alchemy of neat white tiles, herringbone parquetry counter, marble-top tables and an open kitchen cooking, bubbling, plating and bottling.

This alchemy rewards those with the inner strength to keep their nose down as they head along Illawarra Road, past the heavens' scent wafting from the open doors of Vietnamese restaurants (imagine yourself in that scene in The Neverending Story where men must pass the Sphinxes to get to the Oracle. "Don't start to doubt yourself. Be confident.").

You must keep your nose down and your eyes on the prize and you will be rewarded with a perfect cup of Mecca coffee, and a sandwich, maybe cheese or meatloaf, with a house-made pickle or relish. Maybe some sardines. And a jar of bread and butter cucumbers or jams to take home, whatever they're currently bottling.

If only all corners were crafted this well.

Redfern. Not a place named - as I long assumed - after an abundance of red coloured native flora (to my great disappointment, exclusively red ferns do not exist, but are merely a seasonal colour), but rather less poetically after the colonial surgeon William Redfern.

Sydney Festival is suggesting that a more appropriate descriptive phrase for that suburb we know so well is the 'Black Capital' of Australia. Black Capital is celebrating the diversity of contemporary Aboriginal theatre. I am Eora and Walk a Mile in My Shoes have already raised the bar high but for the more financially constrained (read: dirt poor) amongst us there's still plenty of excellent (read: free) stuff on.

In the belly of that enormous concrete elephant that is Carriageworks currently reside seven caravans. Travelling Colony functions as a reversal of the history of Indigenous people being in circuses and on display. The zig-zag hand-painting of the caravans by Brook Andrew is a “mantra for the hypnotic nature of history and what we don’t know”. From the outside, there’s something of a trippy Magic Eye about them. Better still you can perch inside and listen to stories from some of Redfern’s key characters.

There’s also an exhibition across the way celebrating the 40 year legacy of the National Black Theatre at 181 Regent Street, where the playwrights Kevin Gilbert, Robert Merritt and Jack Davis were creatively birthed.

It's all rather more interesting than a non-existent mythical fern.

Sun Araw is what your yoga teacher should be playing, it's what you should be listening to when being palmed in the face on the bus to work, it should be piped out of your therapist's mouth, it's the best response to your uptight boss. The best thing ever would be huge speakers on top of every building and the new record, Ancient Romans, broadcast over the entire city for all ears to enjoy. It'd be all deep breaths and inner peace. Road rage and crime rates would drop through the floor. This is spiritual shit.

Last time Odd Future came here they ended up in Brisbane where they copped racist taunts. Could everyone please attend and remind them that those bogans aren't representative by going SUPER SUPER HAM thx.

One third of Yeah Yeah Yeahs (or just one 'Yeah'), Nick Zinner has concocted a kind-of-concerto-that-dabbles-in-electrics piece, based on Vivaldi's Four Seasons. 41 Strings features Hisham Akira Bharoocha (Soft Circle, Black Dice, The Boredoms) and Ben Vida (Soft Circle, Town and Country, Bird Show) and the Australia Youth Orchestra, and it bucks and bows with intensity. Actually, it reminds me of that awesome Kronos Quartet score for Requiem for a Dream, but with mercifully less 'ass-to-ass' action.

Over summer Dynamite sorta threw a house party where some jerk lifted a laptop. Way to ruin both a party and someone's livelihood, jerk. Silver lining of this is, Dynamite are hosting a party this Friday with all proceeds going back to the laptop's former owner. RAM-A-JAM is that night. Captain Franco, Count Doyle, Radge and Marcus King on decks (with a possible guest set from 'Nerd Life'). The vibe is: summer. The music is: summer. The drinks are: on special.

Thee Oh Sees' 2011 album, Castlemania provided my soundtrack for a winter trip to Melbourne last year. How strange the honking of maniacal geese (as a friend described the burst of horns in 'Stinking Cloud') sounds within Melbourne's orderly grid. Thursday night at the Annandale on a steamy summer eve should suit their notoriously loose and set-list-free live show. Thee Oh Sees! Supported by Straight Arrows!

In December, our google-eyed tumblrowsing led us inevitably to this pair of shorts. Just look at them! It's like you got carpet burn on a magic carpet.

They're called the Aladdin Walking Short and they're by a New Zealand label called Sly Guild, which was started by three brothers "who see themselves in a bit of a ghost town when it comes to manufacturing locally for a streetwear market that is ruled by pre-made then print tees". So they're doing it all themselves, including cutting and sewing everything in house.

They've got a lot of new stuff in their online store now including some incredible shirts (our editor has bought one due to it being "clubwear in the resort-iest sense"), t-shirts, tanks and some classic camper style 5-panel hats.

Chad from Sly Guild has sent us over one of the Wellsgreen Fivers. A hand-made summer floral hat that must be won soon before it is stolen from our office. Buy it here for $69 NZD or go ahead and roll the dice (answer the following question).