This week The Front Gallery and Café is displaying an exhibition designed to encapsulate its standing as a newly seven-year-old venue. As part of its ongoing birthday celebrations, The Front asked anyone who cares to to submit a work of any shape or size with one proviso: that it speak to their love of the venue. Visit The Front now to find out what kaleidoscopic mongoloid love-ejaculate that resulted in.
Locals Fun Machine have had more than their fair share of text in this magazine already, as has the venue they’ve chosen to host their single launch: the White Eagle Polish Club. Get down there on Friday July 6, 7:30pm, to catch them with Mustered Courage, Trendoid & Alphabet and Vulpes Vulpes. The sound system in the Polish Club has tended in the past to rough the fine edges off good live acts like a fart off polite conversation. Here’s hoping something’s happened to close the gap between how these bands should sound and how they do.
This is a good week for hip hop at Transit Bar. Friday July 6, 8pm, sees Transit’s Soul Be In It night hosting what their PR goons call ‘Canberra’s only night dedicated to soul, funk and hip hop’. The Buick crew are holding the reins on this one and it’s free. And on Saturday July 7, 8pm, the bar hosts original four elements Australian hip hop act Def Wish Cast. They’re not for everyone but if true hip hop means anything to you then Australia doesn’t have a truer hip hop act. Read: they’re old, they wear clothes made for black people, they have criminal histories. See our feature on page 29 for details.
Wednesday July 11, 8pm, sees interstaters Per Purpose hook up with locals The Fighting League and Danger Beach to scorch every last remnant of stoner-picked foam from the less-than-curbside-standard couches in The Phoenix. The Fighting League should still be perfecting the fundamentals of their debut, Tropical Paradise, and catching them before that material skulks off their set list would be wise.
Transit Bar has quietly sprung a new indie/electro series, Nite Society, and they’ll be pulling down Unearthed up-and-comers Millions on Saturday July 14. These guys look about as compelling as a merkin but the buzz around them is firm; run your fingers through it and get back to me with an authenticity reading.
Ex/semi-locals Agency Dub Collective (page 24) are coming back to Canberra with their latest EP, Dubby Riddim, on Thursday July 19, 8pm, with Sub Detonator. Word is they’ve mellowed out since their early days. Coax these stooges back from the edge with a bottle of gin and a slap in the teeth.
In a recent twist, Smiths Alternative Bookshop has announced it’s for sale only six months after mounting a concerted effort to turn from a comfortable, odds-and-ends book hole into an intimate, licensed venue. With waxed armpits and a vanilla-scented gooch, this biddy is courting. Part of her second wind are the Paperback Sessions, aimed at intimate encounters with seasoned songwriters, and their next installation on Friday July 20, 8pm, sees Abby Dobson appearing. For more information see the feature on page 22.
And that’s all the local stuff I care about.
ASHLEY THOMSON
editorial@bmamag.com
