Spreadeagled in dental chairs, all throbbing teeth and spindly hearts, a world of you await their fate. Were 4 buxom dentists to rollerskate into the room, gorilla costumes bulging beneath their white suits, their name badges would probably read : “Al, Chris, Henry & Rich”, and no doubt, they’d be carrying buckets of homebrewed anaesthetic. Indeed in an oft sterile world of Lectronic music, tis a pleasure to come across such musical moonshiners as those at weviestonder.com. Putting the ape back in apocalypse, ladies & gentlemen: ‘Wevie Stonder’.
title="I was surprised to find out Wevie Stonder was a band.." alt="wevie stonder" />

if you were to play on a desert island (eg Australia ) what could we expect?
A> Sight akin to a village idiots festival of music & mime.
C> Marsupial interference.
H> The unexpected.
R> Something like when stunts go bad rocking all over the world live in Pompeii.

Do you have any quarantine issues when touring?
C> We only interfere with indigenous lifeforms in their own environment, so no.
H> The monkey and the rat seem to get us through customs every time with no problems, sometimes we have a 2m cock which tours with us and that has caused slight delays.

What’s the Wevie Stonder approach to ‘music technology’?
C> If it ain’t broke chimp it.
H > Sort of backwards on a gently curving trajectory with butt cheeks spread.
R> Best foot foward, start as you mean to go on, shoot from the hip, and leave the arguing to someone else.
A> I do it.

And how does the animal kingdom integrate into your creative processes?
C> Like a shoehorn. Without its curved assistance we’d all be in our socks staring at footwear.
H > Ask not what the animal kingdom can do for you but what you can do for it.
R> Chickens were quite keen ducks and geese a bit slow to respond.
A> It is a constant source of inspiration.

What do you know about Australian wild-life?
( sample true story: Just this year, 22 year old Luke Tresoglavic was snorkeling off a beach near Newcastle when a ’small’ wobbegong shark bit into his left leg. Unable to remove the feisty ‘little’ bugger, Luke swam 300metres to the beach with the shark attached to his leg. Unfortunately the two sunbathers on the beach were unable to pry the shark’s mouth open, and so Luke got into his car, wedged the shark against his gearstick and drove to the local surfclub – where the shark was drowned in freshwater and removed from Luke’s leg. True story~!! )
C> I’ve seen the photos. Boy took it in his stride like a trooper.
A> Strewth.
H> You fuckers!!! we were wondering where our manager had got to.

How’d you get David Attenborough to rap about baboons for you? ( I mean it sounds so much like im
C> It sounds like him but it is actually his younger brother Ronald. Got him cheap as chips.
H> We bummed him.
A> Henry
R> No comment

Obviously a movie or at least telemovie is in the works, given your emphasis on storytelling -who stars in it, and what’d be the major themes in a Wevie Stonder film?
H> A gay version of mad max starring your good self.
C> A musical serial killer Buddy Cop movie in which the killer ’shines’ his (French Philosophy professor) victims to death with Brasso whilst singing tunes from “Fiddler On The Roof”. Hopefully we’ll get Burt Lancaster to play the lead (if he isn’t dead.? Think he might be dead… Even better, the killer is already dead before the start of the film! OK scrap the whole idea. Back to the drawing board).
R> The darts musical.
A> Starring Eric Bristow.

Dispel the myths – Wevie Stonder are actually members of Monty Python &/or the Goodies?
C> No, we are in fact Bernard Manning.
H> Them’s fightin words boy!
R> No, you got that wrong.
A> Henry was in the goons tho’.

The most common emotions felt in the Wevie Stonder backstage spa?
C> Before a gig, gladness. After a gig, baldness.
H> Nausea, colonic cramps& continuous ejaculation
R> Bother
A> Pity

Which 3 websites bring you nearest to tears?
H> www.getalifeferfucksake.pissuparopefuckstick.com
R> world beard championships, dogsincars.co.uk, and the other one
A> weviestonder.com, but not for that reason.

Your major skateboarding influences?
H> Your momma.
R> Something to do with a dream Russ had, better not go into it.
A> boredom

What sort of things do Wevie argue about?
C> We can argue about absolutely anything.
H> Who can drink the most, whos taken most drugs and which of the Wevie quadruplet twins really won the speed skating junior championships back in 88′
R> Diamonds and pearls.
A> Bass players & singing.

Next up – a cabaret-dub album with WEEN, or something I didn’t imagine?
C> A re-invention of the historic Swiss Cheese Industry.
H> Ask Ween.
A> Austalian tour (Go on), new album for Skam, dvd, T-shirt & shorts set, mugs & a darts musical.

What have you learned about pop music lately?
C> That it’ll probably outlive me. More’s the pity.
H> It taught us everything we know but not everything Herb Alpert knew.
R> Love it.
A> Am still learning.

On many top ten film lists, The Magnificent Seven & The Seven Samurai often get nods, winks, mentions. Both are tales of poor villages who recruit seven gunfighters / samurai to defend themselves from attack by big bad bandits. Tales surely suitable for today’s little computer people, dwarfed as we are by global events and public relations budgets. But while film was a fine medium for the twentieth century, today we need joysticks to properly engage with culture. And so it is, that these inevitable reflections of years gushed past, are framed within the humble computer game.

Why Not Pac-man & Pac-Girl?
Change the physics of the universe in your computer. Fight disasters both realistic and fantastic. Control the atmosphere. Simulated environments offer seductive levels of control and relaxing entertainment. After all, 3DWorld has promoted electronic handclaps and glowsticks for over a decade now. And yet the multi levels and powerpills of yesteryear have gradually been replaced with more complex and sophisticated challenges and rewards. These are well represented by the next seven additions to the popular sims series.

SimDNA:
Design environments and ecosystems. Create and modify plants and animals at the genetic level. Explore a ‘Genetic Playground’, manipulating the genetics of both plants and animals to determine whether these new species could survive in the Earth’s various environments. Like the last paragraph, a few phrases straight from a sim_promo, this time from simlife. Now that we’re in the big 21C however, we’ve got a whole new range of activities such as : industrialisation & monopolisation of the food chain, patenting what we think are the useful genes, increasing pesticide use facilitated through genetic modification, cloning ethical cans of worms, GE supermarket sweep, and everybody’s favourite: glow-in-the-dark-pets. The game is generally considered over when more than half of the world’s unique species have been coloured coca-red & white, when tomatoes are able to swim out of the frozen food aisle, or when the Monsanto CEO loses the key to the safe containing all DNA recipes, during a particularly drunken night out ten-pin bowling.

SimBanksy:
” I am actually smaller than most people imagine, and at twenty three I can’t really see myself getting any bigger. Perhaps that explains my anger especially towards policemen who have a minimum height requirement to join up. I am small, but I could still turn your lights off with one punch” – so sayeth the infamously anonymous UK stencil artist Banksy on his new fandangled piss-take slash at the art world. Banksy watch is an obvious feature, utilising aerial satellite photography to follow a tracking device connected to Banksy’s spray cans around the UK. Visitors are invited to browse and rate a bunch of posers beside various Banksy stencils and funny quotes, in a section aptly titled ‘How Banksy Am I?’.
“All I can say is that being beaten to a pulp by faceless riot police is only slightly less dangerous than hanging precariously off the side of a disused bridge in old street, with a spray can in one hand, and pack of king-sized Rizlas in the other,” replies another of the potential Banksy’s. Like most anti-consumer & establishment sites worth their salt, the chance to buy something is never far away. In this case, it’s the quite plain but effective, “Arrest me, I’m Banksy” t-shirts that look more and more interesting on people, the less interesting they look themselves.

SimGandhi
Mohandas Karamachand Gandhi, one of the most influential figures in modern social and political activism, considered these seven deadliest traits to be the most spiritually perilous to humanity: Wealth without Work, Pleasure without Conscience, Science without Humanity, Knowledge without Character, Politics without Principle, Commerce without Morality, Worship without Sacrifice. This game is a first person shooter, and features excellently rendered medical grade close-up, many car chases and a high degree of automated crime rampage.

SimBrew:
Like a good Ozi-Batla, you need to keep plenty of kangaroos in the top paddock when you’re considering the fine art of home-brewed beer. For example, if you could pulp and squeeze a millimetre of goodness from every one of the the 3D mags ever published, you’d still be just a little shy of a long-neck. Which’d be just right as it turns out, what with greed being one of the seven deadlies and all, because it’s always the people trying to squeeze in too much liquid and too much sugar to increase their alcohol content that end up having to call the fire brigade because one bottle has broken already sending foamy shards of glass everywhere and twenty remain. Save yourself 30 or so longnecks and drag and drop $100 onto a nearby brewshop for a kit. This’ll provide all necessary tools for fermenting your beer, and for determining when to remove the liquid from your vat and bottle it. You’ll be looking at around $12 a pop after that for enough beer to fill around 25 long necks each time, a wait of around 3 weeks, and maybe another $5 for a nice handkerchief to wipe the silly grin off your face. A word of warning: if someone nearby exclaims: ‘dear jesus in a sparkly rubber thong I can’t help myself’ – move quickly to defend your well earned beverages.

SimPopulation
When pondering the scale of humanities recent population spurts, an early, near knee-jerk reaction often occurs : “We’ve gotta stop them having kids in Asia.” And remarkably, India & China between them have 2 billion people, one third of the planet’s humans. However, the relative impact of population is what counts, and Australian, American or Western Countried births will have between 25-50 times more impact than that of a child born in India. Or if it’s easier to imagine, we are 25-50 times more obese than others on the same planet. This is a particularly tricky game to manage, given the planet’s been swelling by around 70 million people every year since 3D magazine started. Contains a bonus challenge level where you to get shoot the old people who are causing too much of a drain in western countries where the average age keeps getting older.
Cheat Tips: Press ‘Option’ & ‘Delete’ to Add contraceptives to Coca-Cola’s secret recipe.

SimSmog:
Funnily enough if cars could smoke cigarettes we’d be better off for it. Rationale being that cigarettes seem to tie up a very large chunk of our health system, and if we could get some of the automobiles to smoke instead of us, we’d soon be wheelin them onto those wheezing programs where they have to breathe through a hole in their muffler, we’d likely lose a lot of them quickly, and have less third world rainforest cut down for growing tobacco or for drying tobacco by firewood. This game ends when all players are wearing gasmasks.

SimCashCrop (also known as SimShady)
If in doubt about the exploding global influence of hip-hop over the last 700 issues, cast your mind back to Eminem’s little know early nineties movie: Seven Miles High. I mean practically no-one raved about that, and nowadays hip-hops reach even sees playas droppin science at dentist school. Check the fangs at www.goldteethusa.com, “the world’s leading wholesaler of removable gold and platinum teeth.” I was lucky enough to find out about this most premium website while visiting Hobart recently, after the Herd, Lab Rats & TZU left a giant hip-hop footprint on the wharf and a Hobart homey left his XXL magazine behind on the floor. Man, lemme tell you – the glitter of studded teef can almost blind you in Tassie. But anyways the movie, some respex to the hard-luck story behind Seven Miles High, which saw Eminem struggling to start a farm in Rwanda, and he nearly didn’t make it until all the other starving farmers saw and realised that his was the poetic struggle and chipped in to help him, and then all the emotional music kicked in, but most people couldn’t see what was on the screen because they was so upset, which is maybe part of why the film doesn’t get as many shout-outs as it should. Peace out~!

And given you’ve learnt so much from the past, and will learn so much again in the future, here’s an easy way to remind your future self about how naive you probably are now: www.futureme.org – which let’s you set a date in the future for a message of yours to be sent to your email address ( or someone elses? Eg give yourself 4 weeks to tell them about the crush, because you know it’ll be in their inbox by then…

Female cane-toads can lay up to 10,000 eggs a year, and as an introduced pest, are rampantly out-hopping many of Australia’s East coast native animals. While real-time video software isn’t breeding at quite that rate, almost daily developments in the field bring with them new strategies for survival in today’s multi-platform, multi-protocol, soft&hard-ware vidi-yo environments. A particularly adaptible addition to the real-time video application list is Isadora ( mac & soon PC ), made by Mark Coniglio of the Troikatronix dance choreography group ( NY).

Adaptations
Honed from a decade of experience working with live video and dance isadoraweb.jpgperformer’s, Isadora is a ‘graphic programming environment’ for interactively controlling digital video in real-time. While those familiar with ‘patch-based’ software such as Max/MXP & Jitter, Nato & Pure Data will easily understand the Isadora framework, it takes a bit of work for the rest of us to understand the way it’s components can be connected and utilised to create customised video applications. With a little mental grease expended though, Isadora can then offer a vast array of possibilities for controlling live video – with the keyboard, external controllers or triggering devices, or even by dancers or video analysed movements.

How It Works
On the Isadora ranch, things be modular. That is, it contains over one hundred basic building blocks such as video FX, number generators for oscillating values, outputting to screen or recording to disk, midi controllers, sequencing environments, sound frequency analysis etc. It calls these blocks/ modules ‘actors’, and keeps them in a ‘toolbox’ in a panel on the left. Each ‘actor’ can dragged from the ‘toolbox’ into a ’scene editor’ ( a large window in the middle ) and sequenced and connected with other ‘actors’. A ’scene list’ at the bottom of the screen allows the user to move from ’scene’ to ’scene’ or switch between their arrangements of ‘actors’. Linking the video output of a ’scene’ to the video projector ‘actor’ will show the end result on a small window called the ’stage’, as well as outputting that to a projector. With these basic principles however, very complex and sophisticated processes and interfaces can be built, allowing very refined mouse keyboard or midi control of digital media files with customisable effects.

For those who would be challenged by it, Isadora comes with a very comprehensive 200 page pdf manual, which helps you set up your preferences correctly for your system, integrate midi interfaces, investigate the power of various modules and how they might be connected, and read about related principles for controlling digital media in real-time. A decent amount of help information is also embedded throughout the program, and the very responsive community of Isadora users is always on hand to diagnose or offer suggestions for each other’s software creations.

Chameleonics
Some of the different ways Isadora can be used then, include :
-Dance performances ( dancers can interactively manipulate sound and video in real time)
- Interactive Installations ( extensive MIDI input and output control, video tracking of an object’s position within a frame, audio analysis )
- Post-Production FX
- VeeJayism ( create your own interface, quick selection of clips by thumbnail, switching various complex processes on and off to minimise computer overload )

Advanced Features
-Can send/receive data over a computer network, allowing ‘remote control’ & interaction / feedback.
-Live camera input
-Sound Input – Use sound volume and/or frequency to modulate any parameter.
-Record Output Feature – Record Isadora’s output to QuickTime movie.
-Non Real-Time Video Processing – Record Isadora’s output slower than real-time, allowing for full resolution and high frame rates.
-3Dmax objects – import 3d shapes, map video onto them in real-time and move and zoom, tilt the object while video plays on it…
-DV Camera Transport Control – Tell a camera attached to the FireWire bus to play, stop, start, and locate.
-SDK – Create your own Isadora modules in C or C++.
-Free Frame Support – supports FreeFrame, an evolving, open-source standard for video-processing plugins.

What You Need
$US 350, a little patience & either:
Mac – MacOS 9.2.2 or later with CarbonLib 1.5, or MacOS X 10.1,5 or later
PC – Isadora for Windows is currently in alpha testing and requires at least Windows ME. Demos soon.

Verdict
Wonderful and well executed addition to the real-time video software field, and a great example of bridging the gap between artists and programmers. Versatile as you the time you put into it, and offers both an intuitive interface and progressive depth.

See Also : VJ Software round-up

Blindfolding strangers is always fun, and as any good gimp’ll tell you – tis also a gentle reminder of how much our eyesight can dominate. Witness the blindfolded peeps always in need of warnings about little things such as steps, intersections, low-hanging branches, cliff-edges, train tracks etc etc. On the flipside, cinema can reveal much about our reliance on sound to explain the world. Nice then, given that we’ve come from musicians playing along to silent movies, to be hearing a blossoming of improvised sonics to film in 2004.

Chokkas: Asian Dub Foundation Vs ‘La Haine’
Brimming with 2,3 or even 4 thousand hooded herbalists, the Sidney Myer Dust Bowl recently hosted a stellar performance by the Asian Dubbas – a live soundtrack gorgeously tempo-tuned to the unrelenting tension of the French feature film ‘La Haine‘. After dusk, the 9 or so Dubbas gently shuffled onto stage and with a minimal introduction, began tweaking their instruments along to the giant black & white cinematography unfolding above them. From the get-go, the Dubbas locked into the film’s tense core and accentuated the drama, added a consistently tasty and contemporary feel to the urban surrounds and characters on-screen. Alongside the drop-jaw camera choreographics, and the film’s potent social agendas, the Dub_sonics oozed flair and style.

This film bites – and rarely loosens its grip all the way to it’s brutal punchline. Part of the experience hearing a live soundtrack to it then, is that you become so immersed in the grit and drama, your awareness of the band performing ebbs and flows, in and out. Does this mean the musicians are doing a good job if you don’t notice them? The Dubbas were never in juxtaposition to the vibe of the screen, only rising up and down with intensity, albeit with a widely mixed melting pot of musical flavours well suited to an inner-city French cosmopolis. When the action cranked, they heightened the electricity, added a gnarly momentum to events, and then on-cue with a sudden scene change, switched effortlessly to another mood, other atmospherics. Bam – it’s over, the credits roll, and with the film’s themes echoing in your head, the Dubbas rock it out a few songs more. Sublimely executed. Wah-spect to all involved.

BloodSukkas: Nosferatu gets a workover.
Another film with bite, and a long-time favourite of soundtrakkas, vamp_flick Nosferatu has been given sound at various festivals by the likes of Frost (melb), one of the Biftek kittens & Lawrence English (Bris). More recently it was given a work-over and re-shooting by Melbourne VJs kos vs game_over @ their ‘Floating Point’ AV event. Sound was given the live tweakery by Melb bleeptronic artist Isnod. Gorgeous black and white shadowplay mixed with inevitable blood-reds, and the moods oscillated between a-z grade horror as the local actors alternated between looking like they were pissing themselves with fun, having a great time biting necks, and looking more suitably morbid and morose. In this case the video clips were all being triggered live, so the live soundtrack has more chance to influence the pacing, or to suggest a change. In the end, a nicely crafted set of spook.

NunChukkas
While someone may improvise a future soundtrack to vomiting catho-lick girls… what I mean to reference here is the kung-fu kru of Sydneyside live improvised soundtrakkas, Sub Bass Snarl – who deserve credit for their fantastic drop to The Running Man @ The Metro, linking the sound FX in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s killer gameshow with a grindy drum n bass. No doubt this was seasoned from the many improvised soundtracks that went down when Frigid was @ the Dendy in Martin Place. Never made it there myself, but the hills have ears, the hills have ears.

Some 60% of the world is covered by water, with underwater mountains taller than Everest, and places of immense pressure where sunlight never reaches. I mention this for no other reason than to remind of the pretty weird and alien creatures lurking in our oceans. They have some online too.

Disinformation
Founder of this cult-like ‘gateway to the underground’, Richard Metzger, said a long while ago, ‘New media is a great way to make money out of old media’ & seems to be finally reaping ye olde rewards. In other words, the Disinfo site which boasts a vast collection of links to ‘news, politics, conspiracy & weirdness’ has been busy moving into print publishing and broadcasting. ( Note – the site was edited until recently by Melbourne’s Alex Burns ( www.livejournal.com/users/alexburns). And so we see spawned : a series of investigative anthologies, distribution of a range of provocative books, and even a Channel 4 UK series focussing on counterculture interviews, also now available on DVD.

DVD Hi-lites
The Disinfo DVD bites nicely, rabidly, weirdly, charmingly. Like some sort of psychedelic car salesman, presenter Richard Metzger guides interviews through a range of New York’ s twisted underbelly. It’s typical Disinfo seduction : sex, drugs & rebellion – ranging from the freaky carnivalesque to counterculture esoterica, from investigative and confrontational journalism through to some kind of darkened, voyeuristic showbiz. Illuminatus! author Robert Anton Wilson is the sharp-witted interview subject you’d expect and there’s even a John Safran McDonald’s piece thrown into the mix. (Apparently Richard saw the unaired in Oz piece, and loved it ). The two discs contain more than six hours of viewing, and the companion book of interviews is also pretty classic, complete with colour photos.

Compilations
You Are Being Lied To: The Disinformation Guide to Media Distortion, Historical Whitewashes & Cultural Myths,
edited by Russ Kick
Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Howard Bloom, Douglas Rushkoff, Peter Russell, and other boys tackle hallucinogenic toads, hacking, bible codes, big bangs, species extinction, George Bush, female serial killers, the Columbine massacre and the cloning of humans.

Abuse Your Illusions: The Disinformation Guide to Media Mirages & Establishment Lies,
edited by Russ Kick
Neglected information regarding the September 11 attacks, antidepressants & suicide, Mormon racism, Panama & Wall St, Islamic censorship, flouridation, resurrection and government-sponsored anti-drug ads and the real story about the founding of United Nations & more.

The Disinformation Guide to Magick and the Occult,
edited by Richard Metzger
Aims to ‘redefine occult anthologies and a huge array of magical essays for a pop culture audience’. And so the usual suspects are lined up : Terence McKenna asking about alien contact through the smokable drug DMT, Mark Pesce exploring the relationship between spellcasting and computer programming, Grant Morrison explaining how YOU can become a practicing magician, Erik Davis dissecting H. P. Lovecraft, Robert Anton Wilson reflecting on the similarities between Crowley and Leary, Genesis P-Orridge recounting personal memories of his magical education under William Burroughs and Brion Gysin, Hakim Bey on Sorcery and Occult Terrorism etc etc.

MicroCinema
Some of the more tenacious deep sea critters are also the smallest, and at www.microcinema.com they digs deep in the service of independent short films. Browsing the site you’ll find a ‘totally sick’ range of short films that Microcinema exhibit and distribute on behalf of artists to festivals all over the world. Particularly successful are their ‘Independent Exposure’ compilations ( available on DVD ), which are regularly scheduled to screen at International venues the year round. Alongside the festival circuit, Microcinema have started a fledgling DVD Label which has already started to release collections of short films. Two discs I’ve managed to glimpse through their site, ‘Urban Visions’ & ‘Signal Drift’, are a mixed bag. Signal is a meandering audiovisual portrait of a ‘day’ with old colorisation and chroma keying tools that tires quickly, but Urban is a better compilation of shorts – with the inventive panoramic by Pierre-Yves Cruaud & fantastic squidgy animation by GG Tarantola as stand-outs. More micro to come.

Like pop songs with modem sounds, today’s underwear on the outside brigade have short-shelf lives. Perhaps we just don’t need costumes anymore. Maybe ‘We don’t need another hero, we just need to know the wa-ay home’? Or maybe our short attention spans require not costumed monoliths, but mere splinters / fragments and tangental heroes? Let’s see…

“I mean, who are you when u dribble on the pillow? Stripped of achievements, titles, names, costumes… who are we?”
“Are you still bitchin about the molecular similarities between kryptonite & viagra Superman? Move on already…”

True or False – Lara Croft appeared as a centrefold in a Playboy magazine a couple of years ago?

Why is Wonder Woman’s pop-up bra is always the first item off in super-hero strip-poker, no matter who plays?

Supa_hero Welfare Conversation:
“Given your current aim of super-hero work is perhaps unrealistic, can you name 3 other careers you might be willing to apply for? For example, would you be prepared to consider promotional work for cleaning products?”

The Inspector Gadget episode with his new vibrating ‘hello kitty’ extension was banned in the States, but is immensely popular in Japan.

Can you remember the sitcom blunderness of Maxwell Smart & 99? They also featured in feature film along with an ingenious plot device – a nude-bomb which disintegrated people’s clothing.

Samantha Fox was the only female singer of the 80s to have her own strip poker game on the commodore 64.

If in doubt as to which year, the original and incredible hulk was runner up to Arnold Schwarzenegger in the World Bodybuilding Championships, don’t hestitate to borrow the quite illuminating documentary ‘Pumping Iron’. Not only will it clear your doubts, it also features a nice scene of the current Californian Governor kicking back after his win with a large plate of chicken wings and a fat scoob that he draws back on deeply.

A friend has changed his name by deed poll to ‘A.Human’. For his friends and family he plans to continue to using his birthname, but he hopes that someone, somewhere within a corporate or government institution, will notice his little political statement amongst their bureaucratic noise.

Alan Bamford emailed this mobile_phone tip:
* To check your Mobile phone’s serial number, key in the following on your phone: star hash zero six hash as (*#06#)
* A 15 digit code will appear on the screen. This number is unique to your handset.
* Write it down and keep it somewhere safe. Should your phone get stolen, call your service provider and give them this code.
* They can then block your handset so even if the thief changes the Sim card your phone will be totally useless.
* You probably won’t get your phone back, but at least you know that whoever stole it, can’t use/sell it either.
* If everybody did this, there would be no point in stealing mobile phones.

Have you got a copy of that song ‘Australia don’t become America’ or anything by Jacko? Contact Spanky : wadox@laudanum.net

Berlin bondage shops now carry ‘German Cannibal’ potato peelers.

‘The Greatest American Hero’ is one of the highpoints of the late twentieth century artform known as ‘bluescreening’, whereby a twisting, flapping, caped male is filmed against a blue background and then composed against an urban sky on the way to assisting a citizen ( often a damsel) in distress.

Captain Condom’s colours have faded. However, some people earn a living, wage, status in society, by managing shops whose entire stock is made up of actual thin latex devices for combatting unwanted pregnancies and diseases, or related novelty products referring to these devices.

Twenty people were sitting high in a large branched fig tree just outside the fences of beside Melbourne’s Myer Dust Bowl, as Lee Scratch Perry & Mad Professor whipped up a mighty dub_storm recently. Though none of them were authorised supa_heroes or festival attendees, they nonetheless had the best view and seemed to thoroughly enjoy Lee Scratch Perry’s attempts to build crowd empathy by proclaiming his emergence from, and love and respect for ‘The Pussy’.

Just this year, in February like, 22 year old Luke Tresoglavic was snorkeling off a beach near Newcastle. Despite the town’s industrial reputation, the beaches of this coastline are quite remarkable and it’s probable that Luke enjoyed a clear view of the under_ocean spectacle. At least that is, until there was blood everywhere – caused by a ’small’ wobbegong shark biting into his left leg. Unable to remove the feisty ‘little’ bugger, Luke swam 300metres to the beach with the shark attached to his leg. Unfortunately the two sunbathers on the beach were unable to pry the shark’s mouth open, and so Luke got into his car, wedged the shark against his gearstick and drove to the local surfclub – where the shark was drowned in freshwater and removed from Luke’s leg. True story, and most surely, supa_hero of the week.

Apparently they don’t serve up German Blood Sausages on the menu too often, in the coastal nooks and crannies just below Sydney. Not that this has in any way stunted the growth, or wearied the smile of remix rascal & one of cut and pastries finest : Guy / 7U?.

Hows a boy in a beach-suburb south of Sydney end up on the UK’s ‘musically absurd’ V/VM label?
My love affair with v/vm was long and drawn out like an eternal flame. I met him during the T.I.N.A festival a couple of years back after sending him packages for a few years – he let a whole mess of us sleep on the floor of his lush hotel room for the weekend. The Dual Plover fellas put on a show for him in Sydney at which they were kind enough to give me a support slot where I was ‘discovered’ so to speak.

What’s the cannibal scene like south of Syd?
The cannibalisation of popular culture or the eating of human flesh..?? I guess they go hand in hand really, both are healthy in my opinion but always remember vegetarians taste better.

What do you like about your Rank Sinatra album, CHAIRMAN OF THE BORED?
The pure emotion I have poured into these timeless classics. Some may think I’m taking the piss, but it really is from the heart, I think, or hope that comes across on the album.

Some of your favourite Rank Sinatra lyrics?
The line from “never tear us”, a track I did with null object – ”if i hurt you I’ve had far too many beers”

What attracts you to poultry?
As a child I kept all manner of poultry,back in the old country,Goulburn. And I guess the birds have gone but the sentiment remains, you just can’t keep a good bird down. See my sy:co offshoot label Goulburn Poultry Fanciers Society, the name in itself is appropriated so it’s rather fitting for the label.

What’s been happening in System-Corrupt-ville?
its ridiculous just how much is going on at the moment. Highlights in the coming months include, Toecutters debut album, Maladroit’s new 12″, the second GPFS comp and Rainbow Crucifiction our annual christian trance party.

What weird things have u got in the mail lately, and where can people send you more?
I love snail mail it holds a special place in my heart along with a lot of other redundant technology. I recently received the most incredible mail I’ve ever received, a 70’s McDonalds instructional manual for the Ronalds they used to have imprisoned in every store – its a strict guide to applying Ronald’s costume and make up with lines such as “The fact that he is a corporate spokesman should not overshadow his “clownness”", the Ronalds are free today but the memory remains. people can send expressions of weirdness to po box R420 royal exchange 1225 nsw australia and I will usually send back a package of miscellaneous debris.

Weirdest webpages ou’ve come across?
Google “hats of meat” – hands down fashions finest moment.

Web-plugs for your various guises?
www.systemcorrupt.com in the artists section under Goulburn Poultry Fanciers Society, 777? and Rank Sinatra
www.victimedemode.com tshirts and other tomfoolery
http://brainwashed.com/vvm/indexsubmenu1.htm v/vms test records

Wassup with the new act – DJ Rainbow Ejaculation & when’s the next show?
Some new material I’m working on, unrelenting arse pumping gabber, I’m surprised I wasn’t booked for mardi gras, no sydney shows as yet but keep your eyes peeled.

P.L.U.R
77something

How would u like it if I stick you in a jar half the size of u, glued ur ass to it and fed you thru tubes for the rest of ur life and use u for souvenirs? Thanks to a one-time profiling of the infamous ‘Bonsai Kittens(.com)‘, my inbox enjoys regular, almost weekly propositions from such clever cats. Given the diversity of this internet thing obviously makes it difficult to trust, forcing people to weigh up differing opinions, even make up their own minds, here’s a quick tour of duty through hoaxville.

www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net
This gets first mention because it’s the URL i find myself cutting and pasting for people most at the moment. Like many hoax sites the integrity and passion of the author can often overwhelm the reader, club them into a corner with statistics and convincingly persuade them to transform their ideas and beliefs. Thing is, unfortunately this site doesn’t seem like a hoax – it has a convincing range of supporting evidence – and remains provocative whether it’s overall premise is accurate or not. In fact, it makes the rest below seem like deckside amusements on the titanic. Organised into a succinct 5 page argument with embedded links, this one’ll be hard for you to forget. But first…

People Who Fall For Hoaxes (& Email me )
You can read more of such comments on the old way backmachine archive of my bonsai kitten piece ( bonsai kitten vs chunk 666 ), but here’s a sample of souls tortured for lack of access to a better list of hoax de-bunkers ( or a search engine, bless their weary fingers). Errors included to emphasise the passion and pain felt during writing:

“I’m so speechless it is so tasteless! omigod! u losers! piss off from the little defendless kittens!”

“Would you like us to shove you in bottles, you dirty ingrates?! Think about that. If you dont stop shoving kittens into bottles, i’ll find you and shove you into a bottle! ”

“Wot do u see wen u look in da mirror? when u introduce urself do u like da sound of ur name? hav u made ur mother proud? do u feel satisfied wen u look bk on ur life? i seriously think dat if u wud reply positively to ne of these questions, then u shud be shot. u r da sick twisted scum of the earth.”

“U no what soon there gonna start doin this to other animals like dogs and maybe even human babies. If i ever come across one of u guyz i would fuckin torture u till u fuckin died b cuz this is cruel and u wouldn’t like it if u were one of those animals. I hope all u guyz go to fuckin jail for the rest of ur lives and get fed thru a tube. U no what im gonna become a cop and do that just to u guyz b cuz thats what ur doin to them u FUCKLIN ASS HOLES!!!!”

“God made cats they way they are for a reson and it is wrong just to we shape the how would u like it if we shaped. you bonsai kitten hates are ass holes and and fuckers and all u bonsai kitten hates can go to hall and u guys are every word in the dook.”

“This is just sick. Even tho it is protrayed as a joke the faintest idea of bottling a cat to shape it is sick. You have no idea the kind of mutilation you are doing to cats. There is no reason a cat should be put in a bottle and be forced to grow into some abstract shape causing health problems and sever damage. Anyone who supports this in any way is beond sick, to sick for words.”

“Even tho it is protrayed as a joke the faintest idea of bottling a cat to shape it is sick. You have no idea the kind of mutilation you are doing to cats. There is no reason a cat should be put in a bottle and be forced to grow into some abstract shape causing health problems and sever damage. Anyone who supports this in any way is beond sick, to sick for words”

& Then there are the kitty-hoax aware who post comments such as :
“Thought you might like to know about how to make kitty milkshakes – detailed instructions here…. dare you not to click….
http://images.cavakillaz.com/PTK.htm ” – Cat Milkshake Maker

The Museum of Hoaxes
www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoaxsites.html
Here’s a site to end the pain of many kitten lovers, as well as those in doubt about whether the poor Nigerian businessman who needs a helping hand is in fact sincerely offering you a special deal in return for helping his innocent self and family. A few other hoax sites seem hoaxes themselves, mere database shells hoping to snare a few straying surfers such as skepticalskoundrels.com, which delivered the following Search Results for: bonsai kitten
” 1. EBay.com – Save Money and Buy Bonsai Kitten On Ebay! ”

www.urbanlegends.com is another comprehensively catalogued hoax debunker, however it’s search function doesn’t work and you have to sift through manually. Very large collection though. On the topic, the duckbilled platypus was originally deemed a hoax by scientists of the time, and although proven otherwise, it may well become one again given current numbers.

‘Sound fonts’ would be familiar to the musically inclined as a way of downloading new sounds to your soundcard. In a reader’s world though, ’sound fonts’ are a way of embedding strange accents and unusual voices into text and stories. For example – the slightly nasal & hyperactively high pitched voice of this Rumpelstiltskin interview. To get a bit closer still, with this most comically perplexing medieval travelling jester, maybe try reading while standing on your head, inside a washing machine or hanging from a hills hoist.

What’s been happening in Rumpelstiltskin World lately?
I’ve just come back from doing a 3 week solo indoor tent show called…’Higgledy Piggledy’,at the Adelaide Fringe Festival. I got 2 really good reviews from the main music street press magazines which was uplifting by crikey!

When did you realise you were meant to be a jester?
I guess i was a bit of a goose most of my upbringing. Always getting things muddled up,also being a bit of an introverted classroom clown & also travelling around to & fro like a bit of a wildcard helped pave the way for me to follow the path of jesterdom. I guess it just came naturally & thought if there is any clown character I feel akin to, it’s definately the role of the jester. I certainly feel at home with the essence of the fool. My earliest performing memories would of course be just playing around as a child,when the play world was so vivid that I didn’t even need a real audience. My imagination would just let my toys enjoy watching me. My first epic jestering marathon stint was at the Byron Bay Music & Arts Festival in 1994 (I did an 11 hour show). In 1995, i did a 10 hour show & in 1996, a 16 hour show.

How many countries have u performed in now?
I’ve now performed in 31 countries & travelled to 58. So far my faves would be Poland, Slovenia, England, would like to do more of Ireland, Portugal, Spain, sometimes Belgium, Holland, Scotland, Australia, Switzerland & Austria, had a good time in Greece.It’s really hard to say sometimes as I like them in different ways for different reasons.

Which countries respect buskers the most?
That can be a tricky question to answer as well…because some countries pay buskers better, but doesn’t always mean they enjoy them more than poorer countries do. Usually northern European & Germanic countries have more money than Southern/Mediterranean or Eastern European countries but with warmer countries, people tend to really show their appreciation in a more open way… at times.

Your longest ever continuous performance?
24 hours nonstop was my longest by jingles. I was the last act one night of the Renegade show at the European Juggling Convention in the Netherlands in the No Fit State Circus Tent (Welsh Circus Tent)… & they had to delay the Renegade show the following night so I could do the full 24 hour show. Don’t think it will be easy to do that again. The circus tent was full for the last 2 hours & I certainly got a surprise ovation after everyone counted 10 down to 1(whilst the clock ticked round til the last tick to make the full day on stage for the kangaroo fool).

And the secret of your stamina?
I don’t know. Just keep going! I didn’t even have one puff of a skinny racing horse one puff screamer which is a little ironic since i was in Holland. I guess it was just still having an audience for the whole way. I did eat… but not really that much.

A superhero you’d like to have a unicycling juggling duel with?
Either Mr Magoo,Daffy Duck,Gonzo or Catweasel? Oops!None of them are superheros. What about Roger
Ramjet?Does he qualify? Ok! I’ll make it easy! The riddler. Maybe it should be a question match with instead?

What singer would would suit your unique voice in a duet?
Probably almost certainly it would have to be Tiny Tim?

Rumpel_plans for 2004?
I’m just about to embark on a 3 week solo indoor comedy show…’Scrambled Eggs’ at the Melbourne Comedy which will be in the Pony Club 68-70 Lt Collins St Melbourne. March 25th til April the 18th. It’s a semi-autobiograophical, wildcard journey show which is also an extraordinary visual & aural extravaganza. Includes slide show of photo’s & drawings & video projection, toys galore, musical toys, silly music & surprises.

Seen recently in Melbourne: an almost ferocious flock of pigeons completely covering a boy who in turn was completely art prank covered in bread-crumbs and wearing these weird Japtech googles that gave off the tiniest flickerings of light. No idea what he was watching, but here’s a few other options for your eyeballs.

www.microcinema.com
- Has probably one of the largest DVD libraries of short and experimental films in the world, where you can browse and then order unusual bits like ‘Tales of Mere Existence’ by Lev ( see www.ingredientx.com ), which has Lev dry-narrating his way through a series of daily blunderings, ponderings and brutally honest reflections on his ability to meet women and assimilate into society. All of this is illustrated literally, by filmed live drawings ( by Lev who is a comic artist ) on tracing paper of the characters and events involved. Lazily lo-fi but on the money anyway.

On another bent, the Films of Brent Simon compile a gorgeously shot collection of abstract yet evocative shorts – gentle xylophonics guiding silhouetted camera edits, a narrated remembrance about the ‘girl who would do anything’ and high school hard-ons, experiments with multiple voices, on-screen ‘windows’ and high-speed photo copy outputs. There’s hundreds of such films to browse through, so the microcinema compilations might be a good place to start.

Zen TV
A DVD retrospective of Ninja Tune videos has seemed inevitable given their emphasis on the visual as well as audio, and now that it’s finally arrived, they’ve amassed quite a body of work to choose from. And so the DVD delivers thirty something tracks such as Coldcut & Hexstatic’s infamous ‘Timber’ chop-up of greenpeace footage, a range of Funky Porcini gems, the Sesame Street & Pointer Sisters Pinball Number Count cut-up by DJ Food, the home-made colours of Neoptropic & plenty of other animations, clips & AV collages. All up tis a tasty mix, with an exclusive 60 minute audio mix and an extended Hexstatic Video mash-up – though the Hex boys recent live av ‘party set’ in oz seemed a bit flat & jukeboxy.

illegal-art.org
“Borrowing from another artwork–as jazz musicians did in the 1930s and Looney Tunes illustrators did in 1940s–will now land you in court. If the current copyright laws had been in effect back in the day, whole genres such as collage, hiphop, and Pop Art might have never have existed. The irony here couldn’t be more stark. Rooted in the U.S. Constitution, copyright was originally intended to facilitate the exchange of ideas but is now being used to stifle it.” – illegal-art.org

Compiled from an exhibition showcasing a range of creative approaches to copyright, this is quite a cool DVD showcasing a madcap collection of ‘art and ideas on the legal fringes of intellectual property’. Pieces range from Brian Boyce ‘State of the Union teletubby remix’, a bizarre ‘Barbie Audition’ where a narrator tries to get his way with an auditioning Barbie, to a Tim Maloney & Negativland look at Disney characters – apparently featuring much footage made after hours by a Disney worker. The highlight for me though, was Todd Hayne’s grainy retelling of Karen Carpenter’s battle with fame and anoxeria, and eventual death – all re-enacted in 70s film colours by stopmotion barbies. Also exhibited, but missing from the DVD and worth catching if you can, are Craig Baldwin’s “Tribulation 99: Alien Anomalies Under America” – a skewed history of United States intervention in Latin America and a satire on conspiracy thinking, and “Iraq Campaign 1991″ – a phenomenal collage by video artist Phil Patiris who cleverly & powerfully transforms network news footage, clips from Star Trek, and sports coverage into a ‘critique of the media/industrial complex’. Check the site for more info, as well as many related articles and audio downloads.

Links Of the Week:
www.archive.org
Massive library of freely available online audio and video, as used by artists such as People Like Us and Cold Cut. And you can also upload your own works there ( free web storage anyone? ).

http://alternatives.toddverbeek.com
Showcasing alternatives to All Microsoft Products, by someone with an obvious bee in their bonnet about Microsoft’s prices, privacy compromises and quality.