23 years ago, twelve strange children were born in England at exactly the same moment. 6 years ago the world ended. This is the story of what happened next…
Monthly Archive for February, 2008
There’s been quite a controversy around Melbourne with sculptor Greg Taylor’s posters promoting his ‘Cunts’ exhibition being removed from city walls.
The bastion for all that is good and wholesome in this world, Radio 3AW has been kicking up a major raucous stink about the language and content of these posters.
And I’m glad they did, because without all the controversy and bruhaha that they are generating for the artist and his show… I would’ve never known about it!
Today Sam and I headed out to the North Melbourne Meat Market, where Taylor’s ‘Cunts’ show was on display. We were very fortunate to meet the artist himself and had a wonderful chat with him about his work and current project.
It really is a unique experience and seeing these amazing portraits that Greg has created. These are not casts but one-of-a-kind ‘portraits’ of a diverse range of females that posed for him. Truly astounding and I was blown away by the sheer personality and form of expression of each… ‘cunt’.
The exhibition runs from the 14-29 February at the Meat Market.
42 Courtney Street, North Melbourne. Open midday to 7pm. Enquiries 0449979 462
Was fortunate enough to be on the Guest List at Outré Gallery’s Niagara Exhibition last night. As per the norm, the place was packed and brimming with fun and excitement.
I hung around the aforementioned Niagara like a creepy stalker trying to get a photo op. (Sorry Niagara!) And if it wasn’t for Outré’s Martin Macintosh who I looked at in despair and said "I’m not gonna get my shot, I give up!" who interjected and asked Niagara for me. (So a big thank you to Martin!)
A bit about Niagara: Niagara materialized on the scene in the late 70’s as front person for the noise/punk band Destroy All Monsters. Fellow band mates read like a who’s who, including Mike Kelley, Jim Shaw (big time artists), Ron Asheton (Iggy and the Stooges guitarist), and Mike Davis (MC5 bass player).
Her early cover art, done in pen & ink and gouache, appear to be self portraits. Her fierce female depictions of femme fatales plumb the depths of trash culture and post-feminism. “It’s the men who cry in my paintings”, Niagara muses. She later showed ‘Warholistic’ use of colour on her large canvases and actually met Andy Warhol in the late 70’s.
Colonel Galaxy, Niagara’s promoter/body guard comments, “Niagara paints off register to make it look like a bad silk screen but she does it with such precision, people still think they’re done by machine. Warhol would love it.”
Niagara works with a high profile gallery in Detroit and her limited edition prints are sold all over the world including Outré Gallery, Melbourne. She also sings with Dark Carnival with lead guitarist, Ron Asheton.
Outré Gallery: 249 Elizabeth St, Melbourne. Exhibition runs until 11 March. More info at Outré.
From the opening blips and squeaks spewing forth from the retro game machines to your first viewing of the movie’s villain Billy Mitchell and his ego-maniacal delusions of grandeur - the first words that will come to mind are… “Are these people for real?” ‘King of Kong’ is the true story (honest!) of the battle to attain the world-record Donkey Kong high-score. You heard right. There’s people out there who really, really care about this stuff to the point where absolutely nothing else matters. God damn, we are witnessing the decline of Western Civilization before our very eyes and boy is it funny!
So what’s it all about then? Well, back in the 80’s, the aforementioned Billy Mitchell - who looks like a cross between Kenny Loggins and Nick Cave had set the world-record score for Donkey Kong. This record remained uncontested for years and years but in 2006 the film’s hero Steve Weibe breaks the high-score but his submission is denied by the official gaming commission (yeah, you read that right!) because Weibe racked up the points on a home based console. The only way the score can stand is that if it is completed inside a ‘Funland’ location. Yet, they commission quite easily accepts Mitchell’s video-taped record.
And this is where the lunacy really kicks off where we see a middle-school science teacher (Weibe) and a hot sauce mogul and (Mitchell) vie for the Guinness World Record on the arcade classic, Donkey Kong.
Insane! Stupid! Moronic! But friggn hilarious at the same time! This is… the doco of the year! No contest!
Check out the trailer here.
(Thank you to Penny Modra and all at Threethousand for the passes)
Motorhead’s Lemmy Kilmister pitches Walkers potato chips, er, crisps. Try our delicious new Marmite, sausage and tomato ketchup flavours!
Slayer was honored with a Grammy in the “Best Metal Performance” category in the pre-telecast ceremony at the 50th annual Grammy Awards, which are being held tonight (Sunday, February 10) at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Slayer was nominated for the track “The Final Six”, from the band’s 2007 limited-edition “Christ Illusion”. The song, written by Slayer’s vocalist/bassist Tom Araya and guitarist Jeff Hanneman and produced by Josh Abraham, is a chilling look at an hypothesized end of the world. The track made its debut last July as the “Single of the Week” on MySpace where it has since accumulated some 750,000 plays, an astounding number for a song that received no commercial airplay.
A visibly nervous Araya accepted the award, stating, “Thank you very much. I don’t know what to say. This is our second time. I have to thankSony, first off, for reissuing the record and putting this new song on the album, and now I’m here again — we are here again, actually. Most of all, [I'd like to] thank Rick Rubin [producer and head of American Recordings], who’s been with us, been there for us for the past 23 years, 24 years. Thank you. My wife, my two kids; Sandra [wife], Arieland Tommy. They’re here with me. Of course, my manager, who’s been with us for a good 20 years now. Well, thank you very much. Thank the Academy. Thank you.”
Slayer’s two previous Grammy nominations were for 2002’s ‘Disciple’ from the album ‘God Hates Us All’, and last year’s ‘Eyes of the Insane’, for which they took home the Grammy Award.
The nominees in this year’s “Metal” category were as follows:
AS I LAY DYING - “Nothing Left”
KING DIAMOND - “Never Ending Hill”
MACHINE HEAD - “Aesthetics Of Hate”
SHADOWS FALL - “Redemption”
SLAYER - “Final Six”
Only albums released between October 1, 2006, and September 30, 2007, could be considered for this year’s awards.
The Grammys are determined by 12,000 music industry professionals who belong to the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences.
I remember it as if it were yesterday! (And I was only feet away from the food-fight that took place!) Unfortunately the YouTube video above has only been posted in segments as this appears to be a 30 minute special edited and chopped down considerably. Major bummer but hopefully the rest of this footage will leak soon. Nonetheless, this brings back a ton of memories at what was a magic gig a lifetime ago!
They were great then. They are nothing but a Vegas act now! So sad!
The last time I saw Iron Maiden was in 1985. The band were on their mammoth ‘Powerslave’ World Tour and had set themselves up as one of the biggest bands on the planet. They were at their zenith both musically and visually.
I was also fortunate enough to get to spend several hours with the band at the infamous Countdown studios in Melbourne. The band were filming a ‘live’ version of their song ‘Aces High’ and we got to witness them shooting it approximately 10 times over and then got to hang with them as they signed everything and anything that was presented to them. I was (very) fortunate to get my Powerslave album and a bootleg LP signed by the entire band and was personally given Nicko McBrain’s sweatbands and drumsticks! (I still have them to this day… Twenty-Three years later!)
Twenty-Three years later and age has certainly not wearied the Iron Maiden boys! The show last night was one of the most high energy performances I have seen from any band in my (many) years of gig going! They tore the stage apart and had the crowd in total rapture. Quite honestly, the roar that emanated from the crowd was on of the loudest I have ever heard. It was incredible and just added to the frenetic energy that was pouring off the stage.
The ‘Somewhere Back In Time’ tour features the band paying on a revamped and updated version of their ‘Powerslave’ stage-set. Decked out in Egyptian motif with intricate and detailed backdrops, the stage looked incredibly vast and impressive at the same time.
It truly was a special gig as only Iron Maiden can deliver and just reinforced the fact that even after 30 years together - they are easily the biggest Metal act on the planet. An amazing feat.
Up the Irons!
And for the obligatory cliched look at it all, here’s The Age’s review.
Continue reading ‘Iron Maiden - Melbourne, Australia: Rod Laver Arena’
I was recently interviewed about my photography by Frame Lines magazine. (No, that’s not me on the cover!)
Frame Lines aims to be ‘Melbourne’s largest ‘free’ independent arts, lifestyle and culture magazine’. You can read more about them over at their official website.
The article on yours truly and my photographs appear under the Melbourne’s Characters section. It was great fun contributing and being part of something young and vibrant. It made me feel all tingly inside it did!
You can download a copy of the magazine in PDF format right here.
This week’s wallpaper features one of Melbourne’s coolest alleyways, Centre Place! This is usually a hive of activity during the day but at night, it is nice, quiet and positively eerie! Just watch out for the cat-sized rats, and you’ll be aok!
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