The Blackmail » 2010 » February

Elephants Never Forget

gabe — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 03:16:53 +0000

Text: Alice Cavanagh Images: Vanishing Elephant

It’s just shy of two years since they started, but it would be fair to say that the boys behind Sydney based menswear label Vanishing Elephant, have assisted with the much needed return to gentlemanly style that has infiltrated today’s fashion. Their signature aesthetic is one of classic tailoring and simple styling, creating a refreshing alternative to the distressed denim and fluoro colour blocks that have been rocked by every Tom, Dick and Harry for far too long. And for Felix Chan, Arran Russell and Huw Bennet this is only the beginning.

Alice Cavanagh: So, I realise that I already know this but what is each of your roles in the brand?

(Silence)

AC: Wow, this is a good start.

Arran Russell: Well, I am the Vanishing Elephant Dancer…

Huw Bennett: OK I’ll start. Huw Bennet, Sales.

AC: You don’t have to say your name; I will recognise your voice when I transcribe…

HB: Huw Bennet, International Sales, National Sales, and Creative.

AC: You need to explain what is involved.

HB: OK well I sell the clothes to wholesale accounts and I manage some of the international accounts, which Felix and I are still handing over to agents and distributors. I help Felix with the
creative and design process and I guess I also help with the creative behind the scenes stuff, like instore promotion and all that business.

Felix Chan: He is very talented.

FC: Felix Chan, Pisces, 27 and single.

AR: (laughs): We’re all Pisces by the way and we are all 27 and single.

FC: Yeah right.

AR: OK, I’m 33 and single.

FC: I overlook the creative, but we all work on it pretty evenly and then I handle a lot of the back end.

HB: You’re logistically money minded.

FC: Yeah, plus I manage the collection timing etc with Arran.

AR: They tell me their ideas of what they want to do and how they want it done and I take it from there: spec it up, take it the factories, get it made and deal with the whole
production process, until it lands in store.

AC: How did the label come about?

AR: To support a crack habit, that is the off the record answer.

FC: I hate this question.

HB: Felix had the idea of Vanishing Elephant, and then I came on board. (dryly)

FC: Arran was always involved

HB: I came in at the eleventh hour.

FC: Huw came on board just as we finished our first collection. It has become much bigger than we expected. It has taken the majority of all our time and our focus. So now it is the three of us, more or less full-time.

AC: What did you all do before this?

HB: I was a sales agent – I had my own agency.

FC: I also was in sales with Incu, in the distro area and before that I used to do the buying for Incu with Vincent Wu – the best menswear buyer in the word, self-proclaimed (laughs).

AR: I had my own brand for a while and worked on other brands designing and producing.

HB: And you still have a vodka business.

FC: Arran has a vodka business.

HB: Although they don’t sell it upstairs at Moncur…

AR: But we don’t talk about that.

AC: Has fashion always been your main interest?

AR: Yes since I was a little boy, three-years-old, wearing my sister’s clothes…

HB: Not fashion, but clothes… the industry. Not so much forward fashion.

AC: OK, so considering how well the brand is doing…

FC: I didn’t even get to answer that question.

AC: Well do you want to?

FC: No, not any more since you skipped right over me.

AC: OK good.

AR: Ohhhh.

AC: Considering how well the brand is doing and that it would be fair to say you don’t have technical training in terms of fashion design etc. What has been the most challenging thing so far?

AR: Speaking Mandarin.

AC: Do you speak Mandarin?

AR: No.

HB: I guess everything coming together, being cohesive. Is that right?

FC: Yeah. I don’t think that whole – ‘we don’t have a technical background’, has hindered us. More often than not it has helped us. I mean we are not trying to invent anything or create
anything that is abstract, completely high fashion or artistic.

HB: All the designs are classic silhouettes and shapes. I guess it is just making sure the process to get that classic shape is followed through, whether it be the fabric or timing – just making sure everything comes together. We really only have our shit together now though, this season.

AR: Design is about five per cent of our business really. A lot of people don’t realize that, they think it is this glamorous thing but it is not.

AC: What has been the highlight so far?

HB: I guess the highlights are still to come. This year we will get to be a bit more adventurous with how we present the label and we are working on collaborations – that will be very exciting.

AC: Can you talk about them?

HB: Not yet, but there are some amazing collaborations to come.

FC: It’s been a pretty good ride so far. There have been a lot of ups, not too many downs, so I don’t think there is not one thing that stands out, every season there are really good moments.

HB: Even simple things, picking up new accounts, getting feedback from retailers that everything is retailing well. You know that we actually always get a smile from the retailers when they talk about sell through. It’s not like we are pushing a wheelbarrow with no wheels.

AC: What are you ultimately trying to achieve with the brand?

HB: I guess it’s to create menswear pieces that are quite classic but still have some apsirational point to them, um and it’s about being able to wear what we see are apsirational pieces, that are sold at an affordable price.

AC: Would it be fair to say that in essence you guys are the Vanishing Elephant brand? Do you design with yourselves in mind?

HB: It sounds like a bit of a cliché, but yeah what we make we ideally like to wear. I don’t think we make it because we think, ‘I need a pair of green trousers, so let’s make green trousers.’ It’s more like — ‘that’s cool that colour, or we definitely would wear that.’ And I guess you can see from the current collection that there it is starting to look more like us. There is that little grandpa cardigan that is really Felix.

FC: Yeah, it’s starting to reflect us more and more.

HB: Our aesthetic is becoming more and more popular, so we are pretty lucky.

AC: You guys all like music, if Vanishing Elephant was a band, which band would it be?

AR: The Proclaimers.

FC: Queen (everyone laughs)

HB: No Sunnyboys.

AC: OK that is a real mixture.

FC: No for me personally it would be Fleet Foxes/Grizzly Bear.

HB: Mine would be Sunnyboys mixed with Yeasayer.

AR: Mine would be I don’t know, cause I don’t really listen to music.

FC: His would literally be Queen.

AR: Giggles.

HB: His would be The Avalanches mixed CD.

AR: Ha! That is the only thing I have on my iPod.

AC: What is the ultimate plan for the brand? What is the next move?

AR: Focus on North America.

HB: Yeah, I guess there is a lot of growth there. We are talking more and more now about UK and Europe, that is sort of the next frontier. Also this year we have an art project with General
Pants, which is going to be great, we really want to do an event of some sort and I guess — I don’t know if it is worth mentioning — but we keep talking about doing an S-H-O-P.

FC: What does that spell? I think it is just consolidating in Australia, we are pretty happy with where we are at, so apart from what Huw spelt out – I won’t spell it again – we are happy. Getting our processes right for overseas as well, because at the end of the day, that is where we really see the brand.

AC: Last question. If not this – and if you could be doing anything with your day – what would you rather be doing?

AR: Fuck all.

HB: I would be playing striker for Bayern Munich.

AR: I would be retired.

HB: Retarded? (Arran laughs)

FC: I would be a food critic.

Check out the latest from Vanishing Elephant

Next story: Old Norse, New Tricks – Dave Ladd & Stephanie Anderson

The Future

gabe — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 02:04:47 +0000

Text: Gabriel Knowles Images: Scott Lowe

Not many of us are lucky enough to do what want most of the time, the Utopian dream so coveted by many is lived by few. Photographer Scott Lowe isn’t living the dream exactly, but by his own admission these days he only does jobs that he wants to do. And in doing so he’s been able to retreat and take stock of what’s actually going on around us.

Take a look back into the future…

“I’d been doing a lot of thinking, spending heaps of time alone when I first moved to New York from Sydney. It was quite intentional… I needed to grow in certain parts of myself.

This series is a reaction against consumerism and a return towards the spirit of the human being, a sense of community, social and environmental responsibility, an appreciation for what we have at this moment, it’s my concept of the future. My fantasy.

Using your mind’s eye, visualise what you think the future should look like. What do you see?

More than what it is, seeing these pictures should tell you what I think the future is not. It’s not more, more, more; it’s not an extreme change right now; it’s not being cooler and having better stuff and it’s not an aspiration to consume.

…or maybe I’ve just been thinking too much.”

Scott Lowe

Next Story: Community Service – Jonathan Boulet

Old Norse, New Tricks

tristan — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 14:30:02 +0000

Text & Images: Tristan Ceddia

Standing taller than most and occasionally dressing like nordic tourists from the late 70s, Dave Ladd and Stephanie Anderson create a boot load of interesting stuff. He is big into sign writing and publishing zines whilst she is a model maker and animator, and together they had a modest studio named He She It They I. Rumour has it they once stretched a tin can phone between their apartment and that of a friend, as a very temporary mode of communication. There have also been whispers they hid a weed plant in an exhibition they had last year. Tristan Ceddia visited Dave and Steph in their Kings Cross apartment to talk about what other worldly things they have brewing.

Tristan Ceddia: So tell us a bit about yourselves? What are your backgrounds?

Dave Ladd: I studied illustration, practiced graphic design and worked in film and branding in the UK. Most recently I’ve been working in advertising. All via graffiti, collecting, building and sawdust-creating. I come from a family of makers and I guess that’s what I want to do.

Stephanie Anderson: I grew up in country NSW, public schools, all pretty normal I thought. I had great parents that I didn’t appreciate at the time, and a brother who was way too good at everything. We watched a lot of Muppets and Monty Python.

My family were also makers, but quite dissimilar to Dave’s, who are really proper craftspeople. My fam were more make-shift. My mum made us a lot of awesome things from MDF, like a two storey dollshouse with a lift, and she has encouraged every single thing I’ve believed in, especially Dave. Awww…

As well as making ferris-wheels for birds out of painted tin cans, my dad self-tinted the windows on at least one of our vans – using what I’m sure was just ordinary school-book contact. He also designed and made a prototype of a cruelty-free mousetrap on my request. I wish I could go back and appreciate all that now. Education wise, I’ve studied Communications, and also Fine Arts at COFA, did a year of Fashion too, and somehow managed not to obtain a degree.

TC: Steph, you work a lot with model making and stop animation. Are you formally trained as an animator or is this something you have taught yourself? Do you work commercially in animation?

SA: Um, I don’t know if I’d say I’m formally trained exactly. And I’d be kidding myself to say I am an animator. It’s such an incredible craft and skill.

When I was at COFA, animation was part of our time-based art course, and it was what I really loved. So we learned a lot about animation, were shown lots of amazing works I’d never have seen otherwise, and we were encouraged to have a crack at making animation using any means available, but it WAS art school after all, it was about the concept more than mastering the craft.

In my first or second year there, I found a roll of 16mm film print in a skip and took it home and scratched into some frames, no doubt just after having been shown the work of Paul Winkler or Len Lye. I then spent hours and hours, longer than I’d ever spent making anything, and had no idea what it would look like. But when I saw it projected, it was nearly 30 seconds for me, of absolute joy.

I’ve only really recently come to realise that same joy in making three dimensional objects, creatures, characters. I mean, tangible 3D, not digital. It’s that same expectant anticipation, waiting to see something cast in silver, or fired porcelain.

TC: I know collectively and independently, you both do a lot of creating, what is He She It They I all about?

SA: I love it when Dave tells stories, whether it’s about his mum and sister, or a news story or a childhood tale of he and a best mate, the characters featured are always ‘Your Mate’, ‘Chopsy’, ‘Knackers’ or the like, and he has a great way of just swapping out the gender unintentionally: “So Knackers is showing me his car, and she says-” “She?” “No He, Your Mate”.

DL: Don’t listen to Steph, she’s easily confused.

SA: He really is…

DL: He She It They I. is the everyman. I don’t mean the Aussie Battler, just that what we make is accessible. It’s not intentionally Low-Brow, Kustom or any one specific thing. We want everyone to be involved and they can. Dick jokes included.

TC: You have recently put the HSITI blog into drive and I know Dave, you been working on some new zine projects of late, what else do you have in the pipeline?

DL: Zine-wise we have a group zine called TOTEM that I want out by the end of February. Full of rad usual-collaborators plus a few new and exciting faces. We’re def def definitely working on something by the incredible We Buy Your KIds, and Matt Sewell and I have been threatening to make something together. Steph’s bro Otto is putting together what up until now has been a technical question mark, but we reckon we’ve resolved it. So yeah – that too.

We’re in the process of launching a small range of hand-made and cast silver jewellery (a sneak preview of which you’ve shown here). Stephanie’s leading the charge on that – I’m just fannying about, learning from her.

The blog is a work in progress too. It’s as much about our friends and those we admire, as us, but it all relates pretty much to exactly what we’re doing at that moment.

TC: Steph, you have gained a notoriety from your hamburger zines. I heard they were picked to be featured in a book recently?

SA: Hehehe. It was a funny turn of events spanning two annual MCA zine fairs, and it’s fun that it’s still playing out. I had my first attempt at making a zine for Dave to take to the Fair in 2008. I didn’t really take it seriously. I was a bit disrespectful of the zine culture to be honest.

Our house was full of coloured card and paper left over from recent jobs. I stapled together an arbitrary bunch of different colours and textures, cut some out in shapes and put a hole punch through it, and that was it, my zine. Then I went, oh that looks kinda like cheese, and that looks like a tomato sauce splat… and then I sat up the rest of the night with Dave and our friend Benzo, checking the massive pile of paper for ingredients (lettuce – green tissue paper; bacon – translucent textured salmon card) – and made my burger. It was so lovely when the amazing Sonny and Biddy ended up buying it. Wow.

Following year I made mini-sized ones. Put a little more effort into them, and it’s these which (I hope) will be featured in a book sometime this year, yes! Very flattering and exciting.

And following on from that, I’m making some jewellery, pendants. Burgers and some other bits too, sandwiches, cheese on toast, pears. All food related I just realised. Jeez.

TC: Your show Making Friends last year at China Heights gallery brought together a fun/pun mix of graphic design, model making, art, typography and plant life. Did the show come together and play out as expected?

SA: Looking back at early sketches I was surprised to see that some things actually did make it in, but I don’t think we really set out to create a specific thing. We’re probably both too scared of failure, or too lazy to work towards a goal in that way.

But it was amazing, the whole experience, and in that sense it wasn’t at all what I expected. I didn’t expect to enjoy the process, or the opening night, or to come out of it feeling so inspired that I carried armature wire around everywhere with me for the next couple months, just in case I wanted to make something.

We also had the very horrible experience of losing a wonderful and close friend of ours just before the exhibition. We were glibly dealing with notions of friendship and love and death, and then suddenly the plants growing or dying in the corner of the room had enough gravity to make me cry. Mark and Ed (of China Heights) were awesome, they were never stressed, or never showed it, not even with me crouching all day in the corner with those plants.

DL: It started as something and end up another thing. Some things surprisingly remained, but I don’t think we would have ever made what we originally discussed. It was an incredibly organic process and again, surprisingly without hiccups, too much stress or arguments. Fuck knows what we did right. Or wrong.

Like Steph said, Mark and Ed were a great barometer and sounding-post, working with us to make it happen smoothly and on-time, but also to have fun doing so.

Making Friends was an exact mirror of our relationship and mindset at the time: Friendship; loss; collaboration; celebration and ultimately, growth.

TC: Your works reference an eclectic mix of vintage style design, illustration and animation. Do you feel you represent these themes in the design process also?

SA: Interesting question actually, and I don’t even know if you are addressing me at all here, but it has made me think, in some instances it seems the processes we’d use are so far removed from traditional methods, I mean, digital cameras, scanners, retouching programs. But I’m reminded by the multiple cuts and grossnesses on my hands that we’re frequently hand carving, cutting, sanding, polishing – so i don’t feel like we’re very tech savvy or tech heavy.

DL: Um, I guess none of the crafts we use are new. Gocco, Riso, drawing, sculpting and casting. Even the animation is as basic as animation can be without being a flip-book.

We don’t have a great deal of room to work or abundant resource and I guess this dictates what we make: If there was a kiln accessible and nearby, Steph would make more porcelain. Steph really drives the different things we make and I usually tail-in on whatever materials she’s using – until I lose interest. I’m happy doodling and stapling and trimming.

Lo-fi processes usually produce lovely results – like seeing the maker in the made. I adore and reject modernism in equal parts, although I wish I could design like the current modernist designers in the UK. I can’t, but I can look at their work for hours on the internet and put it folders by hand.

TC: Dave I know you are heavily into hand done sign writing and truck pin-striping. What is the attraction here?

DL: Truck pinstriping is, to me, part of our national identity. The scrollwork, colour-ways and dedications are all done in a uniquely Australian hand. Traveling to visit our grandparents as kids, we’d drive up Cement Hill (in Brighton, South Australia) and there’d be a procession of semis alongside us. I distinctly recall asking my parents what function these scrolls had. I couldn’t believe they could be simply decorative.

I barely notice the trucks themselves and – besides the craft – don’t particularly like the aesthetic tone of US-style striping. Australian trucks and their scrolls are a beautiful masculine/feminine dichotomy.

Signwriting, like pinstriping, is a living thing. Never perfect, the artist’s hand is present and the type-forms make so much more sense in an environment built for humans. Signwriting allows the corner deli to have it’s own voice, it’s own character and it’s own identity. We called our corner-shop the Green Frog Deli ’cause it had a green frog painted on the hoarding. So rad.

Signwriting isn’t two weights of Helvetica or copy/paste design. No matter how old, faded or poorly painted, it’s intrinsically live communication.

TC: You both collect vintage souvenirs from around the world. From what I gather, there is an underlying Nordic and Alaskan theme here. From what comes your obsession with the northern regions of the globe?

SA: My dad was Canadian, with a Finnish mother. He was in the Airforce, so had spent time travelling about before moving to Australia. He used to have lots of funny little Viking/Eskimo/Gonk figures that I coveted. But he was also averse to snow, vowed never to see it again, and didn’t up to the day he died (from melanoma!). Hence when I met Dave I had never seen snow, and I was as averse to sun and heat as my father to snow.

I knew Dave a little when he came to Berlin where I was living, for his work with the Edinburgh Film Festival. Their next stop was Oslo and he convinced me to come along to see snow. Which I did. And did. That whole experience certainly cemented the Nordic thing.

There is also the Velvet Underground song Stephanie Says, and the fact that Dave used to write Alas, as good pointers toward Alaska.

DL: The pattern, form and colour used in Nordic and Scandinavian design is incredible. It is linked to a tradition of hand-craftiness and is immediately recognisable as such. Nah, it’s just rad in the North.

TC: What does the future hold?

SA: Making the most of our current situation and the fact that we are both inspired. Just wanna make, make, make at the moment – while that moment lasts.

DL: North to the future!

He She It They I

Next story: Max Health – Health

Max Health

gabe — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 14:16:42 +0000

Text: Gabriel Knowles Images: Health

It seems odd that during this day and age a band could still trace their success back to a cassette tape. Californian noise rockers Health are one band that can claim exactly that.

“We never directly met the people who did our label but it was through DIY touring and leading people we met to this cassette tape we had for sale on the Internet through this small label run by a 16-year-old kid who lived in the desert. That tape made its way to this guy in England who was a fan of ours and this band we know were touring Europe and stayed with this guy who played them the tape and they told Jake from Lovepump United. It turned out it was the fifth or sixth time someone had told him about us so he got in touch from there.” Bassist John Famiglietti recounts of how they managed to get in a position where a label would help them record and possibly even sort out some tour accommodation.

There may be glimpses of subtle punk undertones in their latest offering, Get Color, but that’s not what draws comparisons to punk legends and DIY pioneers Black Flag. It was the bands willingness to hit the road without really knowing if they had a place to play or stay that brought those.

“There’s been this history ever since the time of Black Flag with bands booking shows all over the US and then staying in some kids basement. It was much easier for us though because Black Flag pioneered it. It’s much easier to set up shows via email.” Famiglietti laughingly acknowledges.

“Those DIY tours, no matter how small or ridiculous or grueling, through them is how we made our connections and met our record label and everything that came later. And so many friends that we met in the DIY days are now in successful bands or doing this or that, all the friends we made there were incredibly huge for the band.” Famiglietti goes on. “Even in England where we had this ridiculous idea to do a DIY UK tour and on that tour we met important press people who championed our band and allowed us to get a foothold in London.”

Their DIY aesthetic can be firmly traced back to their roots at the seminal Los Angeles venue, The Smell. A stalwart and beacon for getting things done with limited resources for over 20 years, The Smells reputation has regathered momentum in recent years thanks to the likes of No Age, Captain Ahab and a core group of acts who have shown a dedication to regularly filling the place.

“All over the States there are DIY venues that are traditionally illegal, converted warehouse spaces and The Smell is one of those places in LA that’s very professionally run by this guy called Jim Smith. It has always been a Mecca and what the scene is based around, there are other venues but The Smell has always been there.” Famiglietti explains.

Health are such a quintessentially cross-genre band you can almost see them shuffling mp3′s, like so many of their peers, the influences and pigeon holing terms come think and fast. There’s their industrial side, the side that saw the quartet troupe around on tour with Nine Inch Nails for a while there. But then there’s the slightly disco infused and electronic pop aspects that somehow find a way to sit amongst the obligatory no-wave, post-punk injections. A dose of melody coupled with some deliberately ambiguous lyrics and you’re just about there.

“Our music isn’t lyric based, we don’t want personal lyrics that tell a specific story. We don’t want people to relate to a song in that way, we’d prefer people to take in the music. It’s also makes the music more universal. We don’t think it’s necessary to know to enjoy the music.” Famiglietti offers before admitting that future records are likely to include copies of the lyrics due to such a strong demand.

Despite that he feels that the band have been able to retain a sense of timelessness to their music by drawing the focus away from the vocals, in much the same way that Krautrock forerunners Neu! have done.

“We had dinner with the guy from Neu! in Hamburg, all of us were at the same table and he was mentioning these Neu! records because we were talking about how we wanted to do something with no bass and he was telling about all his records that had no bass. We actually didn’t realise it was him until afterwards though!” The bassist pipes up excitedly, even if the details of the day seem exactly etched into his memory.

And what ever happened to the original tapes? “I don’t even have one of those tapes anymore, at the time the $5 for gas was more important.”

Health are touring nationally from February 24 until February 27, 2010.

Health

Next story: The Trillenium Bug – Y3K

The Trillenium Bug

gabe — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 14:02:53 +0000

Text: Melissa Loughnan Images: Y3K

Y3K opened in June 2009 and in just over six months has made a powerful impact on the Melbourne art scene. Initiated and run by artist-curators Christopher L G Hill and James Deutsher, the gallery operates through a project-by-project open model encompassing solo and group exhibitions, retail, publishing and events across multidisciplinary platforms including art, architecture and design. Y3K engages with independent and represented artists, other art spaces, programs, initiatives and institutions nationally and internationally. Fundamentally, the gallery explores open-ended creative thought not just bound to fine art. Joining the leagues of The Narrows, Hell Gallery and Lamington Drive, and before them, Uplands and Neon Parc, Y3K offers yet another alternative gallery model and set of ideas at this time of creative insurgence and rise of independent art spaces in Melbourne.

Melissa Loughnan: Could you give me some background on Y3K, how and why it started?

Christopher L G Hill & James Deutsher: We had been fierce rivals during our shared time together at the VCA in the early 2000s, but begrudgingly decided to come together and do the last show at CLUBS Projects Inc. in December of 2005. Through late night installs, micro-vegetable gardens and bubbling rock pools of water we made the decision to be friends and continue to evolve projects together. Y3K came out of World Food in a way, which was a fourth floor panoramic studio in the Melbourne CBD. We, along with Joshua Petherick, Annie Wu, Liv Barrett and Saskia Schut, started the place as a convivial space for practices of design, publishing, curating and art. Over the three years there Nick Selenitch, Matt Hinkley, Simon Taylor and others also worked in the space. We continued to develop a collaborative art practice, which was an active investigation into the roles artists and communities organise, so there was a strong curatorial or inclusive element to our joint outcomes, like the show we did in 2007 called SD&C (Sub-Divide and Concrete) at Joint Hassles. The show consisted a series of sculptural works that we produced together.

Included in each work was a monitor and DVD player with a video work playing. For the video works we curated/invited Hao Guo, A Constructed World, Kain Picken and Rob McKenzie, Saskia Schut, Nick Selenitch, Dan du Bern and Bianca Hester. It was a way of negotiating a collaborative art practice and a collaborative open-ended curatorial practice with a lot of trust. For a while we were talking about how to transfer this kind of trust to a gallery situation, to provide a space that we saw was non-existent in Melbourne, where artists were supported and conceptually engaged by ‘gallerists’, where there was an open freedom for young artists to exhibit alongside established artists, and for local artists to show with international artists. It was also about a desire to break down a certain level of professionalism while increasing commitment or engagement.

There were artists who we had a lot of interest in but who would not foreseeably get the opportunity to show work in Melbourne due to the poor collecting culture of international work and the necessity for dealer galleries to cover their professionalism, like risk management or something. So in that way setting up Y3K was about providing opportunities and seeing what could happen. We wanted a space that could address each project as an individual entity; conceptually, practically and financially; and also somewhere that could not only facilitate a diverse range of arts practice but also a diverse range of cultural practices including design, architecture, dancing, film, object and text culture, relationships and getting drunk. I guess we were talking about these ideas and then the possibility of a site to physically realise the space came up, so we committed to the project in June 2009. We both continue our various other projects outside and inside Y3K.

ML: Y3K is not just a gallery. As you’ve mentioned, it also incorporates retail, studio space and other creative platforms including architecture, fashion, design, and events. Could you tell me about the philosophy of Y3K and its open model?

CLGH & JD: As the space between art and life merges this situation is appropriate for the way we live today. To quote Hao Guo, “Today, how artists or designers get resources, practice and operation are very different than before. So to simply use time and areas to compartmentalise are unpractical techniques.” Of course these areas operate in different contexts, however we are trying to generate a more fluid situation where they can interact in a way that is interesting. The idea of an open model is one that allows us to create our own situation with artists.

We are not an Artist Run Space in the conventional Australian or even Melbournian sense where proposals are called for and artists are expected to sit their own shows, we disagree with this proposition. We are not a commercial gallery, however we can operate commercially. We do not sign artists however we strongly represent them during their time with us. This flexibility as well as our personal relationships with institutions and galleries in Melbourne and abroad allows us to occupy a unique position. We have and are continuing to work on projects with Uplands Gallery, Gambia Castle, The Narrows, Vitamin Creative Space, Next Wave Festival, The State of Design Festival and others. So making the culture between ‘cultural institutions’ more productive is very important, which comes back to the art and curatorial role we were exploring before Y3K and how the role of the facilitator works. Retail is super interesting, the relationship between product, objects and people’s lives simulate the relationship we share with architecture and design and hopefully the space we can create for art.

Another exciting project taking pace at the moment is the hosting of a new bookshop, World Food Books, which comes out of a long-standing desire between Joshua Petherick and James Deutsher to present a tightly curated selection of international arts and culture periodicals, magazines and titles which are currently unavailable in Melbourne to a local audience. The store is mobile but will take residence at Y3K for the next 18 months. So this is another way to keep a dialogue with the world-at-large, which we are all engaged even if distances are great. Given our history of open studio spaces at World Food, it only seemed natural to establish a working space at the gallery. So the open model is about trust and exchange and seeing what happens.

ML: Y3K has a strong web presence through the Y3K blog, Y3K Projects blog and the Y3K and What? Archive. Could you distinguish between the various categories of your online presence? What is the difference between an Exhibition and a Project? Is it a matter of onsite and offsite? Or does a Project not necessarily have a physical manifestation? What role does the Radio section serve, what are you aiming to achieve through it? And why did you feel it necessary to separate your online presence through these three blogs?

CLGH & JD: The idea for the blogs was something like cheap design, to produce a site that had a considered and autonomous feel on a democratic and free/accessible site like blogger. The Y3K blog operates like a website in that it has some kind of navigation system to various pages; exhibitions, projects, shop, radio and more. They are all the same site with consistent formatting and navigation, however to achieve this kind of navigation on blogger each section needs a new address and therefore a new blog.

The ‘exhibitions’ are the shows we host at the physical gallery space in some kind of an exhibition convention. The ‘projects’ are ongoing works which interact with the gallery like Pat Foster and Jen Berean’s desk, the S.I.B.L.I.N.G.- designed door or the table cloth Kit Lee made for his show here, which then became an ongoing game in the space. Also some upcoming off-site projects will be documented here. The Y3K ‘radio’ was initiated by Christopher L G Hill and Joshua Petherick and is another forum for a different kind of speech or interaction, to present download-able, rare, curated selections of music, anti-music, spoken word, audio art works and more. Online presentation is really important, it is how we view exhibitions and projects internationally, that way of keeping in contact.

So it is important to have a space that has that kind of archival presence. Y3K and What Archive? is a blog that began from our involvement with the A Constructed World initiated project SPEECH and What Archive? that seeks to examine the way we archive and how it affects our relationship with the present; who-saves-what and on behalf of who. So it is a much more flexible site where studio visits, installation, sound, dinners and casualness is presented. Sometimes it is very active for a few weeks and other times it is dormant for a while, as opposed to the consistency of formatting and more direct archival and documentation of the Y3K site.

ML: So what can we expect at Y3K this year? Can you give me a run down of your program and the activities/events that you have planned?

CLGH & JD: Jota Castro, Puttying walls, drinking tea, emails, dancing, Simon Taylor, Dylan Stantham, new artist show, sex show, building a pavilion, ffiXXed s/s 2010, Stolen Library Project, Daniel Munn, film screening week, Kate Smith, Liv Barrett, moving house, Eames chairs, Next Wave, building, cloths, tapes, publications, CD-Rs, stickers, dinner, trippy tacos, Mouving, collage, vacuuming, shoes, bags, screw, DJs, mopping, mopping, touching up, Veuve, Nikos Pantazis and Ardi Ganawan, Kain Picken, Rob McKenzie, Daniel du Bern, Ben Tankard, Group Shows, Sean Peoples, Joshua Petherick, working out what to put in my Lanvin shoe box, coffee, plants, Hong Kong, backpacks, Mont Bell, Uplands Gallery, Krystoffiston, Gauntlet, plinths, chairs, nails, magazines, The Age, planting, platforms, ridding dirty, blog, hair styles, Vitamin Creative shop, Tweety pie, reading the funnies, Gambia Castle, repairing, mending rifts, pottery, flowers, trees, jahjahsphinx, coca cola, basket ball, t shirts, hangings, Moffarfarrah, Riots, concrete, openings, bottles, rubbish, May, rock climbing, catwalks, records, tacks and pins, brushes, clothes, sculptures, dancing, compost, printing, paintings, buckets, ciggies, drinks, fruit, tablets, semiotext(e), photocopies, desks, universal, abstracts, laziness, dresses, galactic locksmith, greatest hits, The Narrows, blinds, photos, bracelets, DVDs, gala, naps, rice cake, storage, SPEECH & What Archive?, washing dishes, World Food Books, taking notes, studios, meetings, interviews, internet, cats, thesis, Clouds, catalogues, newsletters, renovations.

Y3K Gallery

Next story: Ye Don’t Say – Yeasayer

Ye Don’t Say

gabe — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 14:02:46 +0000

Text: Gabriel Knowles Images: Yeasayer

Yeasayer are a band that hold an enviable position of being as revered by the traditional, printed matter critics as they are by a new wave of numerous, vociferous and exclusively digital critics. The release of their first album All Hour Cymbals, an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink effort pegged into the world music category that actually sounded good, was lauded far and wide as fantastically progressive record. But with success comes expectations and with their second record Odd Blood days away from release there’s a good chance die-hard fans are in for a shock, least of all because Yeasayer scraped together the money and time to get some decent production this time around.

“I felt like some people wanted us to recreate the first album and we could have done that and made it for $1000 and taken the money that the label gave us. But we really wanted to take that money and say OK let’s pour it into this album and make a step up that shows that we care and produce the hell out of it.” Anand Wilder explains from the bands base in Brooklyn. “I don’t value some lo-fi, cheap sounding aesthetic. If you’re going to do that just use a four track.” Despite their penchant for traditional instruments from the world over Yeasayer are far from purists, admitting that most of their music is composed on a computer and if they can achieve the same result digitally then that’s their preferred technique.

Pockets lined with money the band headed to upstate New York and decamped in Woodstock to set about recording an album in the very same house they were living in, thanks in part to a conveniently located basement studio. “It was great, it was a lot more luxurious than the last one which we were doing all ourselves and then at the last minute we had five days to mix the entire record. This one was four months were we didn’t have to work day jobs so we could get perspective. And then we spent some time touring where we were able to test out some of the new songs live and figure out if songs needed a bass line here or some live drums there.” And with songs in the bag they headed back to Manhattan and got Odd Blood properly mixed. The result is a more polished and cleaner sounding album that Wilder is bullishly standing by.

“We didn’t really care what people thought. If you think about it too much then you might start pandering too much. We thought how can we screw with people expectations? So we thought people are probably expecting another psychedelic, acoustic, folksy kind of camp fire song album. So how can we flip that on people and say this is the same band but maybe we’re playing this guitar part with a synth now and maybe the drums are a lot louder and more rhythmic and maybe the vocals are a little louder. We were playing with expectations and trying to come with something that was aesthetically very different than the last album. We would rather do something very different and completely fail have people think we’re hacks than repeat ourselves and have people pat us on the back for making All Hour Cymbals Part Two.” With early reviews alerting fans that they have indeed taken a different tack do they still not care what people think? “I read some things, I feel like it might be a love/hate record which is fine with me.” Wilder admits.

Prior to recording Odd Blood there was noise from the Yeasayer camp that the new album wouldn’t contain any songs longer than three and a half minutes in a concerted effort to move away from the sprawling sound that marked their debut offering. In the end though, only three of the ten songs on the new album made it under the mark.

“I think rules are meant to be broken, that was one of the things we set out to do. Write shorter songs and produce songs in a sparer way and not go overboard with layering. We have a few songs under 3.30 which is exciting for me. It was really trying to pick a style and stick with it or break the rules entirely.” Wilder responds before explaining further.

“I think we retained the multi-layers but I think on this one you can perceive the layers a little bit better. It’s a little more audible, there’s more clarity to the sounds whereas the last one you had this idea that there was a lot of things there but maybe you couldn’t hear them in the hazy mush of reverb. We wanted to make a much drier sounding record, something that was more along the lines of our live show, that would have more live energy and the prominence of the subby bass and the percussion coming to the fore and also the lead vocal being more defined and not covered by harmonies.”

So with their endevours to delve into a poppier sound complete, it doesn’t seem too far fetched that they’ve got something planned for next time around. Which Wilder confirms.

“I’d like the next album to have zero repetition whatsoever and really only have three or four elements going on at one time. Or maybe just have one element that’s replaced by another element. Or maybe just abandon song structure all together and put out an ambient record. I feel like we’ve left ourselves open to do whatever we want, I think if we put out an album of folky protest songs I don’t think people would be completely surprised.”

Odd Blood is out on February 9, 2010 through Spunk

Yeasayer

Next story: Brazil And Back – Dallas and Carlos

Brazil And Back

gabe — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 14:02:33 +0000

Text: Caroline Clements Images: Dallas and Carlos

If you think there’s something fishy about Dallas and Carlos, you’re right. Lucky for these two beach babes, the kind of fish they are pedaling is a little more glamourous than the average fishmonger, at least it looks that way. Caroline Clements talks to the accessorising ladies of Dallas and Carlos about eco-friendly fish skin from Brazil coupled with golden bling, and why Kanye West is so influential.

Dallas and Carlos is an accessories label by Katherine Etheridge and Jess Constance. They are old friends from school, and after reuniting beachside in Brazil early in 2009 they began Dallas and Carlos as a way of extending their crazy Brazillian lifestyle. Though it doesn’t sound like there was ever a dull moment anyway – before their meeting in South America, Etheridge was working as an interior designer in Sydney, Constance was a fashion stylist in New York.

The name Dallas and Carlos comes from when they were living in a small island in the south of Brazil called Florianopolis. They were living in the middle of town on the island in two separate apartments. “In Brazil, apartments are given names. I was living in a block called DALLAS and Jess was in a block up the road called CARLOS. Every morning we would chat and she would ask, ‘what’s happening in Dallas?’ and I would ask ‘what’s happening in Carlos?’, and that’s how the name was born.”

Dallas and Carlos seem to be talking it all in, and are highly receptive of their surrounds. “Our staple pieces are influenced by stuff we see on the street, hear in a song, a dance move we see in a club, or a image on a street sign post. Then we try to interpret what we see and turn it into wearable accessories.” This includes traveling, people, street culture, music, postmen, and old TV shows and films. This season was designed in Miami so was all about neon lights, fluro 80s and 90s clothing, wristbands, MC Hammer, Cuba and Kanye West. Which leads me to my next thought, what is so influential about Kanye West? “Our first weekend in Miami we were part of Urban Fashion Week where over 350,000 ‘urbanistas’ come to South Beach to get their ‘urban’ on – it was insane. Our apartment was fitted with sound proof insulators to use for this weekend so that the bass wouldn’t bring glass shattering to the floor. Kanye feautured highly over the weekend and his songs became part of the Miami beach soundtrack for 2009.”

Dallas and Carlos are currently based in the Victorian beachside town of Sorrento, and upon meeting Etheridge my immediate impression is that she is one of those people you just know was born with a beachy swagger. “We dont go a week without finding oursleves next to water.” And like the good business woman that she is, she is decked out in Dallas and Carlos, and lots of it. “We mostly wear our jewellery but love to layer in old vintage unique pieces or the odd piece by another designer or artist. We prefer to see how jewellery can be grouped and layered together, rather than individual pieces,” she adds.

The SS10 collection has recently been released, and materials include pieces made of 24-carot gold plating, rope, Italian nappa horse mane hair and fish leather. The fish leather comes from a company in Brazil that uses the process of tanning by-product animal skins. That is, they only work with the skins of animals that are first and foremost consumed as food. The tanning of these skins is basically a recycling process, as they would otherwise be discarded. Through this process, the skins are transformed into leathers that have a soft, malleable and resistant surface. “The company we get our skins from have formed part of the e-institute in Brazil – the first organisation that works with environmentally friendly and sustainable materials – we are really happy to be involved with them.”

Dallas and Carlos

Next story: The Blackmail’s Books – Best Reads of 2010

Overarching Concept…

gabe — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 14:02:20 +0000

Text: Oliver Georgiou Images: Kris Moyes

Director and artist Kris Moyes is best known for his unique and dynamic music video projects for artists such as Sia, Beck and The Presets. While spending a couple of weeks in Sydney recently I got together with Kris to, amongst other things, create some Strata-cut animation. When the time came to shoot, Kris created a lighting rig by precariously placing a lightbox, on top of a cardboard box, on top of a chair, clamped to a half-full 1.25 litre water bottle sans lid, situated next to a $10,000 camera on a tripod. It was at this time I realised that Moyes takes a refreshingly resourceful and intuitive approach when it comes to navigating his projects.

Walking the streets of Darlinghurst late one night we got talking about the bones of his work.

Kris Moyes: When I was young I broke our home stereo by ripping out the guts and accidentally breaking the circuits before our mum came home from work. I didn’t get a chance to put the broken circuits back inside the box by the time she came home so I had to store it under my bed and place the empty shell in the cabinet to give the illusion that nothing was missing. I forgot about the parts under my bed until the following week but luckily she never turned it on in that time so I never got into trouble. To this day she doesn’t know I did that.

Oliver Georgiou: Was it a curious or destructive intuition that bought you to do that?

KM: Well, I like to know how things work. I have never liked to look at manuals when I get a new program or piece of hardware. I like interacting with things intuitively.

OG: Tell me how that intuition stems into your work.

KM: You and I were talking the other day about copy stands. I know enough about copy stands to know their basic design and function. With certain things, once you get the fundamentals down you can change it to suit you. I did this small commercial for Ministry of Sound which features artwork represented as pixels, only, the pixels were the ends of coloured match sticks. So I had to design a specific copy stand to allow the match sticks to stand upright.

For me the end result was not as interesting as the process. Working with the model maker that built the stand was far more interesting as well as lacing it up with fishing wire. It was essentially a base made out of metal that had perforated holes at two-millimeter intervals. There were two layers of holes, one on top of the other, to allow the match sticks to stand completely vertical. I had to string it up like a tennis racquet. My girlfriend at the time helped me out and that whole process, it was very entertaining. The fishing wire had to be poked through one hole and in order for it to lace it all the way through we had to open up the apartment door and my girlfriend had to walk all the way down the stairs with a 25 meter long piece of fishing wire. The process of lacing up just one hole required two people and a shit load of walking to avoid the wire from becoming entangled. We had this joke where the moment that she walked out the door with the end of the string she would be like “goodbye” and I wouldn’t see her for ages, then she would come back and say “I’m home”. That was very funny.

OG: When you are dealing with an agency, producer or client, do you let them in on what you are doing as far as creating these things? I’m sure a lot of people would start to freak out if they didn’t exactly understand what you were doing.

KM: I guess there are clients that would rather not know (laughs). It really depends on the mind of the person and how much involvement they would like. Some just want to know what the idea is and whether or not it’s going to look good. If I can convince them that it will then I gain their trust and they leave me alone to get on with the job. In the case of Ministry of Sound commercial I had a lot of conversation with my client Andrew Jackson because he was actually really fascinated with the whole process and understood the technical complexity. I think you interviewed him before. He totally understood what I wanted to achieve and even went as far as offering help, but I couldn’t really do that to him. I thought it might be crossing a line.

OG: Yeah, I guess turning your client into the gofer isn’t a good way to go.

KM: Yeah (laughs). Also, I did a series of petri dish experiments, which was pretty much a science experiment. I assembled a retort stand with a clamp that held a funnel, which had a rubber tube attached to it which travelled down a glass dripper that I used to control the size of the flow of liquid, whether it be a drop or a full gush. Below the dripper was a Petri dish and underneath the dish was a camera point directly up. That apparatus was used to create a series of chemical reactions with an array of painting products.

These experiments were initially intended for an Iron and Wine video, however, I fucked that one up after spending five months perfecting the technique, making mistakes and discovering new ways of improving the actual technique. After that job sadly died, I put the experiments on the back burner but later found a way to pitch it to Franz Ferdinand. I got to use the experiments in a different way but because Alex Kapranos didn’t feel it represented the band the way he imagined, the video was shelved after it was fully completed. I suddenly found I had the freedom to represent my work in the way I felt most happy so I exhibited them as a series of photographs for an exhibition at Monster Children last year and later turned the footage into a two minute film with a score made by my brother for an exhibition in Los Angeles called Main Street held at Space 15 Twenty. From that exhibition I was contacted from this woman in San Diego who was running a screening and invited my to have that work and the Cut Copy ‘Going Nowhere’ video screen alongside the work of John Baldessari for an exhibition that’s focused on the concept of the role that colour plays in art.

OG: Going back to curiosity and the way that you research and discover things, the first clip you made was ‘Are You The One?’ right?

KM: Yeah, before that happened I discovered DIVX compression in .AVI files and when downloading a Jet Li film. If you open up an .AVI file in quicktime in that codec and scrub along the timeline with your curser, the image will disintegrate like a… err… like a…

OG: Digital splat?

KM: Ha! Right. But when you stop doing it and suddenly hit play, that splat which is a frozen image will somehow managed to stick itself onto the contours of whatever the form is underneath so when the form moves it will have this frozen splat attached to its contours. Suddenly you will see a head turn or a hand move across the screen but the splat will be attached to the contours like textured skin. It was crazy when I first saw it and no one had thought to capitalise on this technique, so it ended up as a motif in Are You The One? But more than that, this video was essentially me trying to make a showreel that the world could see. It was a montage of the best things I could do. I shot, stopmotion, 2D animation, this image disintegration technique, live action etc.

OG: There was also, I don’t know if it was stock footage or not, but footage of reel to reel machines, transmitters, surveillance cameras, it felt almost like the history of moving visual transmitting media.

KM: Yeah man, I shot it all. The over arching concept was if you could explore all the possibilities of who the “One” is, then this video is the result of that investigation. Are YOU the one? As in are you a golden child represented by the 3D ultrasound baby? Ha! That is actually stock footage. I didn’t shoot that. I got it from a doctor in Israel. I emailed him and he gave me the rights to use one of the clips off his website. I sung the lyrics myself, cut out my lips and motioned tracked it on the child. Are you the JUAN? The Hispanic car jacker played by my friend Felix with a fake moustache, or are you the ONE? A graphic representation of the number one using an array of thin objects from a cow bone to a tie. It was really fun.

OG: Along your travels have you found a personal favourite medium?

KM: I don’t have a personal preference to a way of making things. I feel like if I do the same thing often I end up losing respect for my work. I learned early in the game the value of the work is in the concept, so I focus on that first and when I am really happy with it I focus on carving an interesting creative pathway to navigate through the project. The architecture of a project is really fascinating to me. If you start at day zero and it takes 30 days to finish a project you are traveling through time on a particular path to reach the end destination. Most people choose the fastest way, a straight line. But where is the fun in that? It could be a curve or box steps or an elephant. You can determine what the outcome is by the way that you navigate through the creative path. I think I experience buildings in a similar way. There are so many amazing types of buildings. There is one that I think is only ever going to remain a concept but it would be amazing if it was ever built. They are planning to build a rotating tower in Dubai which has independently rotating floors, like a helix.

OG: I guess Dubai has the money to make it happen but I like the doing attitude when it come to architectural projects over there, like the Palm Project, a wildly insane project when you consider that it’s just sand in the ocean.

KM: It’s so cool that things like that can exist in the world, whether or not the Palm Project actually does sink or the Helix Tower is a failed project, you’re never going to know until you try. I guess that’s also the thing that excites me about approaching the creative process in different ways; you could fail but so what if you do? The results that you could get from a failed project could be more dynamic and interesting than a safe project where the results are pre-determined. You and I both know from the sausage animation we are doing right now is full of mistakes and it’s all beautiful. It’s really incredible considering neither of us have done something like this before.

OG: You have to cut the sausage to know what’s inside.

Kris Moyes

Next story: Elephants Never Forget – Vanishing Elephant

The Blackmail’s Books

gabe — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 14:02:09 +0000

Text: Kat Hartmann Images: Google

By way of preparing you for what’s shaping up to be a prolific year in independent publishing, we have put together a list of books you’re probably going to want to get your hands on this year, aka our Ones To Watch List. Thanks largely to our friends at Melville House and McSweeney’s. So, without further ado, may we present to you – in no particular order – The Blackmail’s Books for 2010.

1. Richard Yates by Tao Lin

A little while ago we chatted to Tao Lin about life, literature and his upcoming release. With the hype expanding and the release date growing ever closer – we’re currently looking at some time this September – this “tightly plotted page turner” centring around a girl and boy in a relationship – which, incidentally, has virtually nothing to do with Yates himself – is likely to be an indie hit.

2. The Beaufort Diaries by T Cooper

Just when it seemed that post-postmodernism had gone and taken all the fun out of originality, that new thought was dead and creative pastiche was the only, decidedly dull way forward, T Cooper had to go and publish a illustrated novella that’s is not only tough to explain, it also features a polar bear going green in Hollywood. Original thought – 1, post-postmodernism – 0.

3. The Clock Without a Face by Augustus Twintig, Eli Horowitz, Mac Burnett and Scott Teplin

Not since the Choose Your Own Adventure series has a book asked readers to become so actively involved in the reading process. 12 emerald-studded numerals have been buried across the USA (in real life, folks). They are destined to become the property of those who discover them (seriously, they’re actually out there somewhere). The secret of their location can only be found within the pages of this whodunit novel, set in the depths of Ternky Tower. Add ‘thirteen floors, twenty suspects, and over fifty mysteries’ to the real-life treasure hunt and you’ve got yourself one heck of an adventure.

4. The Instructions by Adam Levin

Lord only knows who on this wide earth has feet big enough to fill the literary shoes of the late David Foster Wallace, but author Adam Levin (not to be mistaken for the Maroon 5 singer, Adam Levine) seems determined to give it a try. And so, the comparisons are abounding. The Instructions houses a plot overflowing with religion, revolution, messianic tendencies, romance, violence and intellect. A rather epic 900-page work.

5. Aurorarama by Jean-Christophe Valtat

After it was described to us as “a steampunk novel that takes place in a frozen version of Venice”, we decided we didn’t really need to find out anything else about this book to know we already love it. Steampunk? Seriously? Amazing. Call us sci-fi nerds, geeks, losers even. We care not; we love anything fantasy based and set in a time where things are powered by steam. For those of you who need to know more – those not as easily sold by compound words as we – Auroraoama is a novel drenched in history and combining elements of anticipation, sci-fi and adventure. Satisfied?

6. Eat When You Feel Sad by Zachary German

We like debut novels. They reaffirm our faith in the endlessness of the literary cycle. Being as steeped in the whole ‘new beginnings’ element as they are. Zachary German is a contemporary of Tao Lin so we suspect we could bury ourselves neck deep in supposition about his life and works – particularly this one, should the need strike. It does not. Here are a few things we know for certain about German: he’s been known to pen the odd book-event review for his publisher, he likes to write poems with seemingly superfluous names for 3:Am Magazine and, in the past, some people have published rather retarded reviews of his book. Eat When You Feel Sad is due out February 9.

7. Half a Life by Darin Strauss

Sometimes things happen that, even though they are out of your control, end up controlling your life. Darin Strauss’ life has been shaped by one such event; the death of a schoolmate whose bike was struck by his father’s Oldsmobile while he was behind the wheel. Strauss is now 36-years-old and, despite the fact that the event was ruled an accident the victim’s parents have chosen to sue him. The book explores what it is to have half a life completely changed in one tiny moment.

Next story: The Future – Scott Lowe

Community Service

gabe — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 14:02:01 +0000

Text: Gabriel Knowles Images: Dana Rogers

As far as precocious talents go, Jonathon Boulet is up there. Sure he’s no Beethoven, but A Community Service Announcement is as good a rendition of a pop song as anything else released recently and Beethoven wasn’t as young as they say when he got his start. And unlike the concerto masters of yesteryear Boulet didn’t immediately take to the piano, taking flight to the tallest tree he could find when faced with his first piano lesson aged five. Fortunately he clambered back down and ended up taking those lessons.

“I started playing drums at 10-years-old and got a keyboard in high school and started really making music then. The keyboard had a four bar loop on it so you could put down a drum pattern and then put down a bass over that and then a couple of other things over the top of those. So I’d start making four bar loops and taking things out and then putting them back in. It was kind of like a Garage Band really!” The softly spoken and somewhat retiring Boulet begins.

“Eventually it spawned into actually recording and then I got better at recording and it all kind of snowballed from there. As I started recording I got better at guitar so they kind of helped each other.” He continues. “I started out with one microphone so I had to figure out the best place to put that on a drum kit to get everything into the microphone. Eventually I’d learn a bit more and think ‘oh I probably need more microphones’ so I’d buy something and learn how to use it and then the quality would get better and better.”

This collection of musical paraphernalia continued until eventually Boulet had enough to set up a studio of sorts, which he did, in his parents garage at their home in Sydney’s suburban north-east. “It’s a pretty standard garage, it’s almost a two car garage although I don’t think you could really fit two cars in there.” The 21-year-old deadpans. “It’s covered in mix and match carpets and the walls are covered in mattresses and sheets and egg cartons. It’s quite cosy and nice.”

The spot where he recorded all of his self-titled debut album is also fast becoming a musical haven of sorts for those close to Boulet, including local band Parades whom he also plays drums for. “There’s a lot of gear in the garage now, it’s not all mine but it means if a band wants to come and record here they can. There’s a lot of borrowed gear that hasn’t been reclaimed yet, I’m kind of the storage guy but I get to use it.” The multi-instrumentalist enthuses before humbly downplaying that very tag.

“I play two instruments well and the rest I’m dodgy at. I’ll give anything a try though, right now I’ve got a clarinet and a trumpet in the garag and I’m very, very slowly trying to get my head around those. The trumpet is so hard, it’s all in the lips and how tight they are. It’s ridiculous, I just don’t get it.”

In the past Boulet has admitted to hating pop music, labeling it as “the devil” but as he entered the ripe old years of teenagedom his stance softened and he learnt to embrace pop after realising it needn’t be so shameless. These days he’s happy to refer to his output as alternative-pop but that belies the presence of the folk, electro and pure pop components that make it more than just the sum of its parts.

With his first album unintentionally recorded over three long years Boulet has had to change his approach for the follow up and face the pressure of having to write. Although he claims that he’s been unphased by the prospect and in fact has already begun to whittle the list down and is thinking about how best to arrange them all.

“I’m leaning towards all fast songs so it’s just relentless, so you listen to the album and it’s non-stop good times!”

Jonathan Boulet is touring nationally from February 12 until March 13.

Jonathan Boulet

Next story: Over Arching Concept, Underlying Apparatus – Kris Moyes