Brisbane Musicians of the Week: Tragic/Athletic play The Zoo, Fri Jan 2

This YouTube video shows Brisbane Indie band Tragic/Athletic playing their song "Three Months At Sea". If you like what you hear, you can click here to go to Tragic/Athletic's Myspace page and listen free to more of their music, or click here to see two more YouTube videos of Tragic/Athletic.

Tragic/Athletic are playing on Friday January 2nd at The Zoo, 711 Ann St, Fortitude Valley, (click here for a Google Map) supporting San Francisco act The Dodos. Local band kissy trouble company will also be playing. Tickets are $40+ booking fee - click here to order.

For full information on what's happening in Brisbane music each week, check out Scene Magazine's Gig Guide.

Brisbane YouTube: Street Performers in Queen Street Mall

These two videos are by YouTube user 1000NIN, who is originally from Chiba, in Japan, and is now in Brisbane. 1000NIN's occupation is "influencing by music".

The videos are of three different street performers in the Queen St Mall in Brisbane City, including a bagpipe player, a Korean violinist and a guy on a huge unicycle.

Brisbane Storm Photos: Do you ever dream? #bnestorm

Do you ever dream?, originally uploaded by Garry'.

This photo of a rainbow and clouds was taken by Flickr user Garry' at Wellington Point, on Greater Brisbane's southern bayside.

If you want to use this photo for non-commercial reasons, you can do that, because Garry' has released this photo under a Creative Commons non-commercial, share-alike, attribution licence - you can use the photo as long as you're not selling it, and as long as you make sure Garry' gets the credit. Thanks, Garry'.

Photos of Brisbane Storms: Thunderclouds over Victoria Point #bnestorm

Victoria Point: Bad Things Cometh Panoramic, originally uploaded by John Worthington.

This photo by Flickr user John Worthington shows storm clouds building up before the storm last night, December 30th 2008. The photo's called "Victoria Point - Bad Things Cometh". Victoria Point is a region of the Greater Brisbane area, out on the southern bayside in Redland Shire, south of Wynnum, Cleveland and Wellington Point.

Brisbane New Year's Eve: Free Events at Southbank

Southbank is the place to be for free entertainment all day on New Year's Eve, Wednesday December 31st 2008. There's fireworks at 8.30pm and midnight, a dance party from 7pm, or a jazz lounge from 7.30pm if sitting and listening is more your thing. From 4pm there are family films, Mario Kart Wii and Guitar Hero competitions, and from 3pm there's a DJ mix of chilled beats (apparently).

There's going to be special bus and train services on the night, so click here to check out when your services are running.

Brisbane Auditions: Sun Jan 18th, "He Died With A Falafel In His Hand"

Via girlclumsy's blog:

The play "He Died With A Falafel In His Hand", based on Brisbane author John Birmingham's notorious book about just how bad living in share housing can be, is going to be on in Brisbane next March. Auditions are on Sunday January 18th at 4pm at the Brisbane Arts Theatre, 210 Petrie Tce, Brisbane City (click here for a Google Map).

If you're on Facebook, you can join the play's group here, and you can purchase a copy of the book from Amazon.com if you click here.

Brisbane Christmas Lights: The Sallaways, Rochedale

This video is of a pretty spectacular Christmas light display put on by the Sallaway family of Childs St, Rochedale. According to the info on the video, that's Sinead O'Connor singing:

The display is fully computer controlled and synchronized to music. We have over 70,000 lights, on almost 300 individually controllable channels. All the music synchronization is done by hand, and it takes about 10 hours per minute of music -- so this song took about 20 hours to do!

The music is played on speakers for viewers, but also broadcast over low-power FM (on 91.7 FM) so people can tune their car radios to it.

This year, we have decided to raise money for the Royal Children's Hospital Foundation, who work wonders for sick children. If you'd like to make a donation, visit http://www.workingwonders.com.au/ -- or if you come to see the show in person and have enjoyed the lights, pop any spare change you have in our collection tin! :-)

If you'd like to drop in, click here to see a Google Map showing where Childs Street is.

Brisbane Wildlife Photos: Lynx Spider

Lynx Spider, originally uploaded by 7thSage.

This photo is of a Lynx Spider in Brisbane - it was taken by flickr user 7thsage. And it's an awesome close-up shot.

You can find out more about the Lynx Spider at Wikipedia, or The Find-A-Spider Guide, or at Brisbane Insects.

Brisbane Art: Jugglers Art Space X-Show Opening Photos, Fri Dec 12

I went to the opening of the X-Show at Juggler's Art Space last Friday night, saw some fine-looking art, and took pictures of the crowd.

There's work from over 40 artists displayed at the X-Show. The ones that stood out most to me were by Shaun Campbell, Mark Zeidler, Merv1! and Kate Geck

Shaun Campbell has a really cute style of working. The piece I liked most of his was called "Making The Best Of A Bad Environment - Turtle".

Kate Geck had a studio installation in a small room on the upper floor. It had furry white carpet and two large, furry, vaguely alien-looking-beings each with television screens in their torsos. No, not like Teletubbies, these furry things had no arms, legs or faces, and just sat on the floor on their large bases. Weird and fun. This piece got a lot of people looking at it. You can click here to listen to an interview she did for 4ZZZ-FM in July this year about her work on the Big Square Eye project at the Brisbane Festival.

Mark Zeidler's piece, "Mi Goreng Long Time" was a stenciled face of a woman onto a piece of carton from the very best junk food that has ever been invented in time and space, Indo-Mie Mi Goreng. If you click here, you can see what the Mi Goreng cartons look like.

Merv1! had a wide, short piece called "Charles Whitman" that was full of intricate designs that looked like they took ages and ages to get right. This piece is on the top floor, in the room near the back door.

If you'd like to see the other 35 photos I took, just click here to see them at Zoom, the photo-sharing site.

The X-show is on until January 31st. Click here for a Google Map showing the location of Juggler's Art Space at 103 Brunswick St, Fortitude Valley.

Brisbane Politics: Report on Sat Dec 13th anti-Internet-censorship rally #nocleanfeed

Brisbane nocleanfeed rally from Natalie Perkins on Vimeo.


Yesterday, Saturday December 13th saw rallies across the country to protest against the Government's plans to censor the Internet. This article is going to gather all the online photos, reports and videos I can find about the Brisbane rally, which happened in Brisbane Square, the large open space in between the new city council building and the Treasury Casino, just across George St from the end of the Queen St Mall. The video above is by Brisbane blogger Natalie Perkins, and just below is the story that ran on the local ABC TV news last night:

Blogger Ian Kath made this live report, and also this one, using Qik, a service that lets you send live reports to the Internet from an Internet-connected mobile phone.

This slideshow from flickr shows over a hundred photos from yesterday's protest. People who took the photos include flickr users flickrsquared, Mighty Mullet, gnuchris2, 5cheherazad3 and definatalie. There's also some photos from Surrealist1983, max_wedge, rahook2000 and master_gopher, and a short photoblog post at the OCA Research Review blog.

I helped to organise the rally, and I was the first speaker. My preliminary report of the rally is here, and I really recommend you have a look at this discussion at the brisneyland LiveJournal community between several people who went. It's a serious discussion of what could be done better, and how to win this fight. I'd also suggest you have a look at this comment at the Strange Times blog which discusses what should be happening at a rally - it was about the Melbourne one, but the ideas there are relevant to every city. There's also an article at Strange Times which says we should go more on the offensive and take some skin off Conroy, Hamilton etc by pointing out that THEY are the ones who are sexualising children - this issue really needs to be thought about and thrashed out.


There were also online articles in the Brisbane Times, and two reports online at the ABC website - the first ABC report is here and the second report is here. There are also articles about the rally at the Off Topic With Ashley blog, and here at Public Polity, both of whose bloggers spoke at the event.

That's all I've found for now, but I'm sure there will be more photos, articles, videos and such in the next few days. So if you know of something that should be here and isn't, just leave a comment and I'll get on to it.

EDIT 1) I forgot to link to the two voice posts I put onto LiveJournal. I called these posts in live from the rally. Post One is here and Post Two is here.

2) Brisbane blogger Ian Kath has made a podcast of interviews he did at the rally. Click here to go to his blog post, where you can download the podcast.

3) Brisbane blogger gnuchris has a report on the rally here on his blog, and a short YouTube vid of the crowd here.

4) Brisbane blogger Nicole Jensen has a report of the rally with some constructive criticism. You can see it if you click here.

5) If you're on Facebook, you can see videos of Mike Fitzsimon and Tiara Shafiq talking at the rally. There are also about 200 photos at the Facebook event page for the rally.

6) Brisbane blogger Michael Meloni of somebodythinkofthechildren.com has coverage and photos of the rally up.

7) 6 photos from Flickr user Alegrya

8) Mike Fitzsimon, who spoke at the rally, has written a blog post "Cancer and Colitis vitims Condemn Conroy's Censorship".

9) Camilla Percy has 23 photos she took up on Facebook

Brisbane Art: X Show open now

I'm at Juggler's Art Space at 106 Brunswick Street in the Valley at the opening of the X Show. If you're in the area for the next few hours, come on down!

Brisbane Politics: Anti Internet Censorship Rally SATURDAY 11am Brisbane Square #nocleanfeed

Just a quick reminder: The rally against the Government's plans to censor the Internet is on at 11am TOMORROW, Saturday December 13th, at Brisbane Square (the open space across George St from the end of the Queen St Mall, outside the new city council building where the great big metal balls are - click here for a Google Map)

For more info about the rally click here (and if you're in Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, Hobart, Adelaide or Perth there's info there about your rallies), or click here if you're on Facebook.

Brisbane Parties: Creative Commons Christmas Party, Tue December 16th

Via fellow Brisbane blog Four Thousand comes news of the Creative Commons Australia Christmas party.

Creative Commons is a way for you to let other people use your work - it's an alternative to copyright. You can decide to let other people use your work in any way they want as long as they tell people that you did it, or you can let people only use your work for non-commercial purposes, or you can let people republish your work as long as they don't change it.

Creative Commons is helping an explosion of creativity happen. Their Christmas party starts at 6.30pm on Tuesday December 16th at Lock N Load, 142 Boundary St, West End (Click here for a Google Map).

Brisbane Music: boymongoose's new song "Single Girls"

Boymongoose is an Indian living in Brisbane who creates new versions of Christmas carols and releases them with great video clips. Two years ago he and his band released 12 Days of Christmas, which now has over three million views on YouTube. And a month ago boymongoose released this year's Christmas hit, "Single Girls", based on Jingle Bells:



My favourite bit is the guy playing "Sitar Hero" :D

Brisbane Photos: Cannon Firing at Fort Lytton

Canon Fodder, originally uploaded by Mr Magoo ICU.

This photo shows a cannon firing at Fort Lytton, an old fortress built in the late 19th century when people were scared that the Russian Empire might invade Queensland.

The photo was taken by flickr user Mr_Magoo_ICU. If you'd like to know more about visiting Fort Lytton, you can click here or here.

Brisbane Music: 2 Hot 4 Mt Isa

This vid is by Brisbane band The Hotties. The song's called 2 Hot 4 Mt Isa, and it picks up on some ignorant comments earlier this year by Mt Isa Mayor John Moloney.

Brisbane Style: BrisStyle Christmas Markets, Saturday 13th December

If you like handmade stuff, you should head along to the BrisStyle Christmas Markets which are on this weekend at the Hamilton Hall.

BrisStyle is a group of Brisbane craftspeople who sell what they make on etsy.com, a big site where all sorts of people sell handmade goods.

The markets are at the Hamilton Hall, this Saturday, December 13th from 9am to 4pm. The Hamilton Hall is on the corner of Racecourse Rd and Rossiter Pde, Hamilton. (Click here to see a Google Map).

Brisbane Music: 4ZzZ's Eternally Ours (Best of Brisbane Bands)

Music blog That Striped Sunlight Sound republishes some great music. At the moment, TSSS is letting you download 4ZzZ-FM's "Eternally Yours", a series that was broadcast ten years ago. The series plays some of the great Brisbane bands from 1975 - 1995.

TSSS has pubished 4 editions so far, but keep an eye on the blog as there will be more.

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four

Brisbane Art: Jugglers Art Space X Show opens this Friday

Jugglers Art Space, at 103 Brunswick St in Fortitude Valley, is putting on its end-of-year show, the X-Show, this week. It starts on Friday December 12th at 6pm.

Jugglers Art Space concentrates on emerging and mid-career artists, and the gallery is set up to concentrate on creativity rather than commercial artwork. The show will have work from about 30 artists. It's on the bit of Brunswick St that is to the north-west of the Valley Fiveways - between the main part of the Valley and the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital in Herston. Click here for a Google Map.

Brisbane Weird Photos: Grey St and Melbourne St, South Brisbane

Mini Bus, originally uploaded by Robzter83.

This photo is really weird. I mean it's a fairly mundane scene, but at first glance it looks like a photo of a model train set or something like that. I had to have a close look to be convinced that it was a photo of a real scene (and I pass through this part of town a lot).

It's by flickr user Robzter83

EDIT: I've just found out from the photographer that this technique is called "Tilt-Shift". You can find out more about it at Wikipedia, or there's a tutorial about how to do it in Photoshop if you click here.

Brisbane Christmas Photos: Scary Santa

No, no dear - really he's nice, originally uploaded by obLiterated.

Cynical flickr user obLiterated asks:

"If you were 3 or 4 or 5 and someone told you this guy was going to sneak into your house at night, would you have nightmares forever?

This inflatible Santa takes up one entire display window in Myers in the city [in the Myer Centre in the Queen St Mall - Ed], making it about 7ft high by 10 ft wide (or bigger).
And much, much scarier in real life...."

Well I guess he's not getting anything for Festivus!

Brisbane Tours: Parliament House

This video by YouTube user PattycamWatcher shows a tour of Queensland's Parliament House, including High Tea, that was organised by ABC 612, the local ABC radio station.

If you'd like to tour Parliament yourself, click here for all the details. Parliament House is on the corner of Queen and Alice Streets in the city - click here for a Google Map.

Brisbane Style: Reverse Garbage Renaissance Exhibition

Reverse Garbage is an organisation in West End that collects the things industry throws away and sells them to the public - often so people can make interesting artwork out of them.

Reverse Garbage have a Renaissance Exhibition going on right now, until December 19th. The exhibition is of artwork that is made from at least 70% salvaged materials. Some of the exhibitors are the people behind Jellygnite, Ruby2GoGo and Beckybean.

The exhibition is open from 9 to 5, Monday to Saturday. Reverse Garbage is at 296 Montague Rd, West End, right near the corner of Vulture St. Click here for a Google Map.

Brisbane Style: Handmade Handbags

Treacle Pudding reversible handbag, originally uploaded by WheresBeckybean.

I found this photo of a recycled reversible handbag when I was searching through photo-sharing website for photos about Brisbane. It's by Brisbane craftswoman Beckybean. If you like what you see, you can buy all sorts of handmade recycled bags from Beckybean's Etsy store.

Beckybean's personal blog, The Small Stuff, is here, and it has lots of details of what she's making and what she's up to. One of the things she's up to is selling her products at the Brisstyle markets on Saturday December 13th from 9am to 4pm, to be held at the Hamilton Hall, on the corner of Racecourse Rd and Rossiter Rd, Hamilton. (Click here for a Google Map).

Brisbane Music: The Cairos

This YouTube video shows you Brisbane band The Cairos perform their song "Batman". If you like it, you can listen to more at The Cairo's MySpace page (just click here), or you can click here to find more videos of The Cairos on YouTube.

The Cairo's next gig will be at The Troubadour, at 322 Brunswick St in the Fortitude Valley Mall, on December 12th. Click here for a Google Map.

Brisbane Lighting: another great photo of December 3rd storm #bnestorm

The hand of God, originally uploaded by RobertsonPhotography.

This photo is just awesome! It's by flickr user RobertsonPhotography.

Brisbane Lightning: Photo of 3rd December storm #bnestorm

Lightning, originally uploaded by jaredbazley.

This great photo of lightning from Mt Coot-tha was taken by flickr user jaredbazley

Brisbane Creatives: Pecha Kucha videos from December 3 #pechakucha

Well, I went to Pecha Kucha Brisbane volume 8 last night and it was a very inspiring time. I got to meet some people from Twitter that I've only ever met online before *waves* and got to make videos of most of speakers.

Unfortunately, I ran out of videophone memory before I got to Randall Breen of Jugglers Art Space, because he gave what was my favourite presentation of the night. Jugglers Art Space is an artist-run gallery that concentrates on emerging artists and doesn't have a commercial focus. This means they are able to concentrate on creativity instead of having to constantly think about what's going to sell.

But I did manage to make videos of 8 of the speakers. I've got two of them here. First up is Robert Riddel of RA Riddel Architecture whose speech was all about how we are going to fit half a million extra people into the Brisbane inner city area, but the phone ran out of memory with about a minute to go :(

Elliott Bledsoe from Creative Commons Australia also talked about Creative Commons and how the idea of sharing your creative work is giving a kick-start to creativity:

And here are links to the other six videos of people who spoke last night:

Graphic designer and Shillington College lecturer Tanya Ruxton

Bamboo artists Matt Hughes and Luke Prendegast

Architect John Mainwaring

Fashion Designer George Wu

Photograper Adam Sebastian West

Designer of stylish/fashionable hi-fi systems Jesse Costelloe

The next Pecha Kucha Brisbane is going to be on February 11th 2009. I'm certainly going to be there.

Brisbane Creativity: Heading to Pecha Kulcha Brisbane tonight

I'm going to head on down to the Powerhouse at New Farm Park this evening at 8.20 to catch Pecha Kucha Brisbane. Pecha Kucha "is an event where any designer, artist, architect, interactive media or alike, are given the soapbox to present their designs, thoughts and ideas." They get to speak, and while they speak show 20 slides for 20 seconds each - so each speech is 6 minutes 40 seconds. Which suits my attention span just fine.

The video above shows what went on at the last Pecha Kucha Brisbane,  from this story from the Monkwhy blog.

Brisbane Street Art: David Caruso sticker on Ipswich Rd

ipswich road , originally uploaded by openhammer.

This photo of a sticker of David Caruso looking enigmatic (he has any *other* expression?) was taken on Ipswich Road by flickr user openhammer. Openhammer has hundreds of photos of stickers - just click here to see the rest.

Brisbane Music: I Heart Hiroshima

This vid is Brisbane indie band I Heart Hiroshima performing their track "Punks" at the Brisbane Powerhouse last week.

If you like what you hear, you can find more vids of I Heart Hiroshima at YOuTube if you click here, or you can listen to more of their music at the I Heart Hiroshima myspace page if you click here, or listen to them free at Last.fm if you click here. And click here for the official I Heart HIroshima website.

Tenda McFly's Poem "A List of Things I Want To Talk About"

This poem by Tenda McFly was performed at last week's ICon Creative Summit at the Brisbane Powerhouse.

Moon Smiley photo

Here's my photo of tonight's Moon Smiley...anyone else got any? And in the name of superstition, what exactly is this a good omen for?