MAN ABOUT TOWN

Mr Beast – Mogwai [Spunk!] Beginning with a faint piano that is slowly submerged beneath moody chords and slow, thunderous drums, this new album from Scottish post-rock outfit Mogwai continues the band’s journey away from sprawling epics towards tighter, moodier and more restrained tracks. Mr Beast tempers the band’s occasionally indulgent habits by constraining their songs in a more accessible form, without sacrificing the 'Sturm und Drang' that has long been their trademark. It’s Mogwai’s fifth studio album proper, and while it may not match the inspired sonic assault of their debut release 10 years ago, it’s still a remarkable and consistent monster. Dry Land – The Dumb Earth [uxb Recordings] Focussed around singer-songwriter and drummer David Creese, Melbourne sextet The Dumb Earth play mournfully beautiful songs populated by a spectacular range of misanthropes and murderers. Dry Land is the band’s fourth studio album. Its eleven songs coolly stroll through a landscape ...

Julia Holt – director of the 6th annual Adelaide Cabaret Festival , which is dedicated to cabaret and is the largest festival of its kind in the world; features 200 performances over 16 nights; showcases 10 world premieres; and features the likes of Mandy Patinkin (US), Christopher Green (UK), Karen Kohler (GER), Christine Andreas (US), and Barb Jungr (UK), Paul Kelly, Paul Grabowsky (AUS), to name just a few. The Adelaide Cabaret Festival runs from 9 to 24 June, 2006. Website: www.adelaidecabaretfestival.com *** Kath Pappas from AusDance (VIC) about the Australian Youth Dance Festival 2006 , being held in conjunction with Horsham’s Art Is… Festival (in the Wimmera district). Groups attending included STEPS, Restless, Fresh Bred, Extensions, Nubrico (from Wales in the UK - they have been holding dance-athons to raise the money!), Girawheen SHS (WA), Tracks young dancers (NT), Cowra Ballet School (NSW), Shopfront Youth Theatre (NSW), Melbourne Dance Theatre, and 15 loc...

Damn you, Gempires ! Damn you to hell! ;-) So, I've been tagged, which means I A) Have to tell you six things I hate about myself, B) Have to tag six other people via their blogs' comment functions, and, C) Let the tagger know that I, the tagee, have completed the meme and so that if the blogsphere does explode, it 's clearly not my fault. Okay, this should be easy, seeing as I have a deeply-ingrained sense of insecurity. Ahem. Six things I hate about me. 1) My insecurity (duh!). I get pissed off with myself every time I seek validation from someone in an attempt to bolster my sense of self-worth. 2) The gap between my front teeth. 3) The fact that I keep being attracted to straight men, despite the fact that I think I exorcised my own internalised homophobia years ago (although in my favour, I haven't actually fallen in love with any straight boys for years). 4) My utter inability to save money, even for important things like rent, bills, and groceries... 5) The flips...

Richard discovers that staging the Melbourne International Comedy Festival is no laughing matter. THIS YEAR THE Melbourne International Comedy Festival celebrates its 20th anniversary, with 233 individual events included in its broad program. For four weeks, international and local comedy superstars will rub shoulders with unheard-of hopefuls in a range of venues across the inner city, from Footscray Community Arts Centre to Federation Square. Organising an event of this magnitude is no easy task, explains Susan Provan, the festival director, and there’s certainly no time to relax once things are actually under-way. “The festival is absolute bedlam,” she says. “Meetings and administrative stuff all day every day, and then shows every evening. It feels incredibly daunting. I wake up at five o’clock each morning and think ‘Oh my god, I can’t do it all.’” Provan looks forward to the festival each year despite the stress, and believes that now more than ever it is an important cultural ev...

It occured to me as I was about to start this post, that writing about my Easter holiday activities is akin to writing an essay when you're in Grade Two or thereabouts. I could, of course, try and channel my eight-year old self to write this blog entry for me, but somehow I don't think that's either necessary or appropriate (after all, eight-year old me would probably drone on about his burning desire to be a zoolologist, and would also probably manifest fears about nuclear war instead of recounting the highlights of the weekend as he was told). You'll just have to put up with modern-me instead... Thursday night's Q + A got the weekend off to a flying start - almost literally, as I felt rushed off my feet all night. It was an insanely busy night at A Bar Called Barry thanks to the public holiday the following day - we hit capacity only 45 minutes after opening, and had a queue of up to 400 people waiting to get in for much of the night. The last of the queue trai...

Here's the setlist for the band's Melbourne show last Tuesday night, which I went to with Darren, Andrew and others, although due to the arrival of free tickets courtesy of Glenn from EMI, I ended up sitting 10 rows from the stage, with a perfect view, and with the lovely Simon Cox from Perth (a Voiuceworks contributor and editorial committee member who I first met at the National Young Writers' Festival in Newcastle in 2004): 01. Takk 02. Glósóli 03. Ný Batterí 04. Sæglópur 05. E-bow 06. Svo hjótt 07. Heysátan 08. Olsen Olsen 09. Hoppípolla 10. Með Blóðnasir 11. Njósnavélin 12. Viðrar Vel Til Loftárása 13. Hafsól 14. Smáskífa 15. Popplagið It was a great gig, and like last year's show, reduced me to tears at one stage, while I simultaneously had a huge grin plastered across my face. To make things even cooler, I got this e-mail a couple on Friday: Hi Richard Just wanted to thank you for giving 3RRR subscribers a heads up as to when the tickets were...

My guests today were: 1. Lisa Pieroni – the curator of AMCI’s focus on director David Cronenberg (running from Thursday 13 April - Sunday 23 April at ACMI, Federation Square). Tickets: Full $13 Concession $10; Six Session Pass (any 6 sessions) Full $60 Concession $48 Bookings / Further information: www.acmi.net.au or (03) 8663 2583 If you didn't grow up in the 80's watching splatter and horror films, you might need to be reminded as to who David Cronenberg is (you barbarian!). He's the auteur beind the likes of: Videodrome The Brood The Fly Scanners Naked Lunch Spider Existenz A History of Violence 2. RODNEY JAMES - Curator of the exhibition WARNING SMOKING @ Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, Civic Reserve, Dunns Road, Mornington. Telephone: 03 5975 4395 Website: http://mprg.mornpen.vic.gov.au Smoking today is a global obsession. Transformed since the Europeans first imported tobacco from the New World more than 500 years ago, smoking has become one of the w...

No really, it is: Q: How many straight edge kids does it take to drink a slab of beer? A: Just one, but only if his mates aren't around. Fnar fnar.

I've had an excellent weekend, dominated by the 3rd annual Emerging Writers Festival , which came to a close tonight. I founded the event back when I was working as the Artistic Director of Express Media , and it's been fantastic seeing the event flourish. This year it really seemed to come into its own. Huge rounds of rapturous applause to Steve Grimwade (of Going Down Swinging and 3RRR's Aural Text fame) for devising a broad, inclusive and thought-provoking program that drew in writers from around the country, and which ensured indigenous representation at almost every session; and to the Express Media team, especially Esther and Rohini, for and all the volunteers, for an amazing job. I let my hair down at Friday's opening night party at Trades Hall (which featured a stirring speech by keynote speaker Christos Tsiolkas , as well as speeches by the Deputy Lord Mayor of Melbourne, and a bigwig from Arts Victoria; and also the fun of literary speed dating, which pai...

In 2004 comedian Judith Lucy started work in the high profile Breakfast shift on Sydney radio station 2DAY-FM. By the year’s end she’d been demoted to drive time and sent back to Melbourne. Six months later, she was sacked. Most people would probably try and put such a painful experience behind them, but not Judith. She’s turned the whole affair into a comedy show, which suggests that she’s either extremely resilient, or one hell of a tough cookie. “Either that or I’m an idiot with no imagination,” she opines drolly, “who always has to talk about the things that have happened to her, and you know; considering my personal life has actually been going quite well for a change it’s just as well the career has fucked up.” Even when she was in the thick of things in Sydney, Lucy says that she was already joking on-air about doing a show called ‘I Failed!’ once she wrapped up her radio career. “I’d already come up with that title before they’d even sacked me! Maybe I’m a little more psychic t...

Here's the run-down on yesterday's show, if you didn't catch it, or if you didn't catch all the necessary details about a particular guest or guests: The Lucksmiths chatted about the band's longevity, international couch-surfing, their slow drift away from quick and easy pop songs towards more thoughtful song structures, and the launch their new EP A Hiccup In Your Happiness at the Northcote Social Club this Saturday 8th and Sunday 9th of April. Sculptor Peter Schipperheyn joined us to talk about his latest work, and Australia's largest male nude, the four metre high bronze figure, Thus Spake ... at McClelland Gallery and Sculpture Park in Langwarrin, which has caused significant controversy in the Zoroastrian community . Next up I played the interview I recorded a few weeks ago with Georg Holm , bassist with Icelandic quartet Sigur Ros , who play The Palais in St Kilda next Tuesday. Author James Bradley joined me in the stduio to talk about his latest nov...

Thanks for forwarding this one, Grebo!

WHEN MARRIAGE BETWEEN GAYS WAS BY RITE (The Irish Times, Tuesday, August 11, 1998) By Jim Duffy 7th century icon of St Serge & St Bacchus, originally from the Monastery of St. Catherine on Mt. Sinai, now in the Kiev Museum of Eastern and Western Art A Kiev art museum contains a curious icon from St Catherine's monastery on Mount Sinai. It shows two robed Christian saints. Between them is a traditional Roman pronubus (best man) overseeing what in a standard Roman icon would be the wedding of a husband and wife. In the icon, Christ is the pronubus. Only one thing is unusual. The "husband and wife" are in fact two men. Is the icon suggesting that a homosexual "marriage" is one sanctified by Christ? The full answer comes from other sources about the two men featured, St Serge and St Bacchus, two Roman soldiers who became Christian martyrs. While the pairing of saints, particularly in the early Church, was not unusual, the association of these two men was regar...

A photo of Ben Lee somehow managing to look even more irritating than he usually does. Tuesday Apr 4 12:20 AEST Singer Ben Lee was forced to cut short a performance in Western Australia after being hit on the head by a glass bottle thrown from the crowd. About time the annoying little prick was glassed. The ARIA Award winner suffered minor concussion when a bottle was thrown from the audience at the Main Break concert, held as part of the Margaret River Pro surfing event at the weekend. Oooooh, so he has an ARIA. Who the fuck cares? His music's bland and boring as shit. "I was in a whole bunch of shock and made a quick decision that I wasn't going to subject myself to any more physical danger, and ended the set prematurely," wrote Lee on his official website. A whole bunch of shock? What the fuck does that mean? Probably that he shat his pants. "But I'm OK." More's the fucking pity. Margaret River police Sergeant Scott Etherton said the ...

Featuring: MY FRIEND THE CHOCOLATE CAKE THE BLACK BROTHERS stringband style (West Papua) MEMBERS OF NOT DROWNING, WAVING WEST PAPUAN DANCERS, SINGERS, FILMS AND MORE West Papua has been in the news a lot lately. The arrival of 43 West Papuan asylum seekers on Australian shores and the discovery of a veritable Garden of Eden in the forest-shrouded Foja Mountains has catapaulted the story of West Papua into mainstream public attention. The drive that compels 43 West Papuans to make a perilous ocean crossing in a traditional canoe to seek freedom is something that we Australians as their closest neighbours should support. They have arrived on our shores speaking of political persecution, state terrorism and genocide in West Papua. This is no conspiracy: there are mountains of evidence to support their claims, from the UN to Yale University to Amnesty International. This will be a top night of music, dance and film. Come and play your part, have an enjoyable evening, and help support the c...

Richard talks with Vanessa Pigrum about an edgy new season of work being launched at the Arts Centre. As anyone with an interest in the arts has known for several years, the most exciting new theatre in Melbourne today is being made by small independent companies such as Stuck Pigs Squealing and Theatre In Decay ; and is being staged in the most unlikely venues, from dark cellars to parked cars. The big companies such as the MTC , and the established venues, have been left behind. Now the Arts Centre , long considered the home of the safe and the comfortable, is gambling that its traditional audience might also want a taste of such edgy new fair. Following the success of a short experimental season as part of last year’s Melbourne International Arts Festival , the Arts Centre recently launched TILT , a new program curated by Artistic Director Vanessa Pigrum. “We’re setting up a welcoming and safe environment in which to see edgy work,” Pigrum says of the project, which will allow ar...

Fuck me dead where has March gone? In fact, where have the last two weeks gone? Too many festivals, too much to do... I've been helping an e-friend, Charles Green, by reading his manuscript for a fantasy role-playing game supplement and providing detailed feedback and criticism. I've been to several more events at the Next Wave Festival, including: Blood Policy's superb puppetry-meets-new media hybrid Operation; The provocative and stimulating visual art exhibition The Anti-Mascot Project; The imaginative but clearly in need of script editing and/or more demanding dramaturgy/direction performance, Chronicles of a Sleepless Moon , presented by the wildly inventive The Suitcase Royale; And the frankly disappointing Pink Denim in Manhatten , whose staging, sound production and lighting were bloody good, but whose script was banal and simplistic, and whose performer seemed to have no range except 'turned up to 11'; And tonight's closing night party, which was the cl...

Cue the fanfare! Scroll the titles slowly up the screen! Yes ladies and gentlemen and non-gender-specific lifeforms, everybody's favourite Wookie has a blog* at last! Go here for gutteral fun . * Proof that some people really do have too much time on their hands...