Thursday, February 25, 2010

a laneway

(Kepos Ln, Redfern)

There is a distance between you and i

Take a step forward. Then i will, maybe

So easy. Getting lost in a laneway is so easy

(It's easy getting lost is a laneway, he said)

An old road built a century ago

Narrow, for horse-drawn carts crossing paths

And you can see the other side from this side, but,

There's so much to entertain b4 getting there

Take a step forward. Then i will, maybe.







Wednesday, February 24, 2010

the romance btw us

(Denham Ln, Surry Hills)

He was lonely after the third divorce. The tears had dried and the whisky was gone.

But he took solace in the door at Denham Ln, which always opened and closed - unlike the women that were struck from his life.







Monday, February 22, 2010

birdhat...wtf?


(Hotel William, East Sydney)

I write for a living and it's hard to find a balance between the projects and side projects i'm involved in.

There are several photograhic series i have lined up and i'm squeezing time from the clock of life to give them existence.

For now, i'll leave you with something i saw while i was "being human" for about 35 seconds.

Top-centre:
"Mende loves cock"
"I just want to have fun"

Cistern:
"Birdhat" (still have NFI WTF that is. But i love it.)







Friday, February 19, 2010

+-x\=

(cnr Bouke and Phelps Sts, Surry Hills)

Sink + gin x Artaud  = The Acid Midget







Thursday, February 18, 2010

very nuanced


(Gladstone St, Surry Hills)

I found myself pissing on the wall of a restaurant well after 12am the other night. Like other men might experience, i drank too many beers and decided this little street would "do the job".

As i went for it a man brought garbage out the back of the venue. If it wasn't for some wheelie bins between us he would've caught me wet-handed.

Saw It's Free again. This one was placed over a splash of asphalt/grime.

Look at each letter in this tag; it's very nuanced, non?







Friday, February 12, 2010

you'll swear it does


Saw this bow chalk drawing near the corner of Francis and Riley Sts, Darlinghurst.

They're relatively common and you may have spotted one or two as you conduct whatever "business" you do in alleyways.

So pretty, so endearing. They're a reminder there's a gift at every corner.


But, um, if you look closely you'll swear it looks like a penis.







Wednesday, February 10, 2010

bad boy

(Crown St, Surry Hills)

Not sure why i like this, because it doesn't do much to distract me from my seeping sanity.

Might be nostalgia for Bad Boy attire paired with Keppers, Nike Air Max boots and other "hip hop fashion for white kids" from the 90s.







Monday, February 8, 2010

gerald the dog

(Esther Ln, Surry Hills)

Gerald the Dog was always agreeable. He lived in Surry Hills with his owner and was known about town for his youthful optimism and yellow skin. He stayed close to his owner’s feet around the home and up and down Bourke and Crown Sts, to defend him from harm.

Gerald was tidy and well-mannered. He always took his dishes to the kitchen, occasionally loaded them in the Miele dishwasher or even did them manually, propped on a bar stool while scrubbing in yellow rubber gloves. He always scooped his own shit too. He placed it in sealed bags and remembered to drop those turd stones (they were yellow like his skin) in the bin every night, after drinking his hot milo.

Aside from productive days at dog training school - where Gerald learnt gymnastics, Latin and classical piano – he also had an active social life filled with weekly dinner functions, dogtail parties and $1000-a-head fundraisers.

(Crown Ln, Darlinghurst)

But Gerald’s life quickly fell to pieces.

On meeting a group of hipster-puppies from Newtown that "partied", Gerald’s fortunes began to unravel.

He began drinking heavily and experimented with drugs. One night he managed to rack a five-gram bag of meow meow before "going inter-spieces" in an orge with a pink poodle, LaPerm cat and a heavily tattooed goldfish.

After partying with these puppies for a few months Gerald was expelled from dog training school, became a stray and had several bitches up the duff. He was addicted to a concoction of drugs, most notably meth, and scavenged for money as a "ladydog" outside Campbell House, giving tug jobs between methadone hits.

You might say poor Gerald’s life went to the dogs.

Woof.







Thursday, February 4, 2010

i'll make it


This was taken on King St, Newtown near the train station.

I recently took my camera through this "alternative/multi-sexual/artistic" community taking snaps and will have more posted soon.

In the meantime i need to get this hep a+b treated.


"I can't tag and i have nothing interesting to say. I'll probably 'make it' if i draw guerrilla geometry shapes while tugging myself off."

(Crown St, Surry Hills)


Saw this at Smail Ln, Ultimo. Looks like something from The Maxx.

What does it remind you of?







Tuesday, February 2, 2010

SEX SELLS

At first I thought it may have been a seasonal thing, that maybe the unseasonably cold and rainy winter months were the reason Sydney’s thriving music scene was not gaining much of an audience and that as the year warmed the punting crowd would grow. Summer has hit yet the audience sizes for a lot of the lesser known acts are still in the single digits and I feel the only solution is a drastic makeover of current indie band marketing tactics.

To inspire and motivate people back in front of the stage I have a tastefully erotic proposition. To draw in crowds, rather than employing overused and vaguely ineffective promotional tactics, lets create something more than the music for the crowds to be attracted to, a visual element as well as the aural element. A lot of Sydney muso’s are attractive people, men and women, so why not utilise this and strip back these sex symbols literally, using tasteful semi-naked promotional pictures. I mean look at members from bands like Bridezilla, Cloud Control, The Jezabels, The Scare; they’re hot! I’d want to see these guys with their kit off (the women of course) and after seeing that I’d probably feel a little closer, a little more comfortable and a little more familiar with the groups. I’m not saying lets make X-rated porn or even full frontal nudity, just beautiful depictions of the female and male form which otherwise would have been inconceivable through your usual fully clothed standing-in-an-ally-looking-grim style band promo pic. Before you exhale in contempt of the idea and dismiss this story as lowbrow filth let me clarify – this is purely an advertising based ploy i.e. the proposed uncovered pictures would be used on band web pages, magazine stories and posters. I DON’T MEAN THE BANDS WOULD HENCE FORTH PLAY LIVE PERFORMANCES IN THEIR BIRTHDAY SUITS.


The problem isn’t that the music isn’t there or that the music isn’t good, because it’s outstanding, the problem is that many people aren’t interested in going out to a club and paying a small fee to be entertained by live bands. The greater problem from then of course is that if there’s no support for a band, the bands aren’t getting paid and after a while the usual case is that the band packs it in and the scale of the music scene slowly shrinks. For example, my two bands We Stole The Organ and Yellowbird have achieved regular high rotation on Fbi radio over the past several years yet close to half of the gigs we played over those years we weren’t paid.

Problems causing this issue include a number of shifts; live music crowds shifting to new small bars and clubs who prefer to employ DJs, economic decline and the subsequent tightening of belts and perhaps more importantly a lack of artistic inspiration and cultural movements.

To explain in greater detail what I’m talking about with this proposition lets take a look at your stereotypical band member. For starters whether they are actual geeks or they’re just dressing that way as part of their look, generally this will appear slightly androgynous or sexually unadventurous to say the least. So when these same timid geeks are seen without their stove pipe jeans and deceptive floral frocks to actually possess sensual female curves or rugged manly brawn, there’s no doubt people will be surprised and excited about their next opportunity to catch a glimpse of these talented undercover hotties. I’m not saying this hasn’t been done before, I mean I’m sure everyone’s had a quick perve of rolling stone’s in vogue pop star of the time’s naked-body-half-concealed-by-a-Fender-Strat at some stage. But these figures are presented as sex symbols from day one, it’s their whole promotional sales’ point, whereas for our standard indie rocker the focus of sex is a lot further down the list of sale’s agendas.

Now I’m sure there won’t be landslide support for this idea and there’ll be some tight-collar, A-sexual ‘don’t-exploit-sex’ types out there who’ll think this is surely some chauvinist, misogynist plot to objectify women/men, but I say let us celebrate human sexuality. The premise is that an extremely leftist idea can sometimes break the mould of a stifled culture, such as the hippie/beatnik movement of the 60s and 70s. From all accounts Surry Hills is supposed to be an eccentric quasi-bohemia on the brink of a 60s/70s style acid wave, so why not ride the wave, embrace peace, love, and nakedness and maybe somewhere along this wild rollercoaster ride we will experience sudden explosive blooms in live music audiences. This not only creates greater opportunity for current bands to survive and develop but also creates more opportunity for more bands to emerge and create greater competition between them, consequently raising the bar on the overall quality of consumer music.

I hope that in this approach artists would not be seen as sell outs but seen rather as modernizing dated approaches and perceptions. So in short, lets change the image from cute and understated to sexy and outgoing and get the small band support back on track.







Monday, February 1, 2010

connect with me


These were on Devonshire St, but are unfortunately gone now.

Not sure what the glowing light in the middle is. Might be a spirit trying to connect with me.

Sort of pointless. The Acid Midget doesn't have a spirit.

x