The Complete Adventures of Curious Georgia

Where were you in 1978?

You can see Joe Strummer writhing about on the stage’s wooden floorboards at The Roxy, surrounded by broken bottles and upturned amps. A photograph of Plasmatic’s Wendy O. Williams captures her flinging herself about the smoke, albeit without her infamous chainsaw and shaving cream.

Del Bozzio, from early 80s band Missing Persons, preceded Lady Gaga as the purveyor of crazy costumes. She often performed wearing little more than metallic plates and duct tape. Then there’s Su Tissue who fronted The Suburban Lawns, most acclaimed for their 1979 album Gidget Goes To Hell. Her vocal style is often attributed to merge Yoko Ono with Daffy Duck.

See Ann Summa’s Roxy and Whiskey A Go Go galleries and read about everyone in it here.

Can you turn your pyromania into art?

All you need to unleash your inner pyromaniac is a camp fire and a bunch of dead sticks. Scott Marr has taken this obsession with setting things on fire to actually create some seriously interesting art. Like a phoenix out of the ashes (oh God, we sound like a bad motivational video), Marr’s works combine a serious of techniques that we normally associate with the mentally deranged.

After drawing the outlines of his intricate, sinewy pieces, he uses a series of blow torches and soldering irons to singe layers off the canvas. This technique is called pyrography, and is a recognised art medium. Just don’t tell the arsonists.

Get flamed here.

What happens when you take Roy Lichtenstein to a full moon party?

Drunk girl on beach: “His name was Bundit Puangthong, and he’s this Thai guy who’s living in Australia now, and he does these weird mashed up traditional Thai paintings with monkeys and elephants and Gods and spewing dragons and stuff. Except, they’re not really Thai… They’re more like.. Woah!” she emphasises. “And there were these parts that were like Roy Lichtenstein! And others that were like D-Face! And, and, and, Tin-Tin was there too!!”

Patting her condescendingly on the head, you say it’s probably time for her to go home. She’s clearly pinging off her nut. Art like that doesn’t exist.

Well, not until you click here.

What songs define Brisbane?

(my first article on Everett True’s new publication, Collapse Board)

You know those mornings when you stumble out of a warehouse as the sun is rising, grasping for your belt and your dignity? The mornings where you can’t remember the name of the person you’ve saved in your phone under ‘MAGIK HANDS’, nonetheless where your keys are?

Brisbane locals DZ are like that glorious strip of bubbling fried bacon that make your hangover worth it.

Still soaked from the beer and other relative juices from the night before, ‘Gebbie Street’ will remind you of where you have been. Like a welcomed slap in the face, its driving melodic thrash and backbeat undertones will bring you to a slow rise. It’s a song gurgling from a street in Brisbane notorious for its slow burn house parties and face-scraping skate hills.

Building off the success of the duo’s DIY fuzzy punk beginnings and subsequent run ins with the Queensland police department, this is the latest single off their debut EP, ‘Ruined My Life’. They’re playing a good handful of shows in the next month, including a Parklife slot. The plan is to get themselves over to New York, where the parties are bigger and there are more young girls’ lives to ruin. That is, if they’re allowed into the country.

Original article here.

What is your weirdest sex dream?

Balint Zsako must be having some seriously funky cheese and a whole plate of oysters to himself before he goes to bed. Because this Canadian artist’s watercolour doodles (we mean that in both senses of the word) really are quite disturbing. The Hungarian-born artist sets up visual tales of lust and longing, and very, very, very, very, very long penises.

It makes that dream that I have about Bert Newton and his toupee seem a little bit more normal.

Compare yours to the gallery here.

What memories are etched in your mind from childhood?

New York artist Scott Hunt draws stuff good. Real good, like. What is this I don’t even.

Hunt’s subjects take on many different forms, from transvestite ballet dancers to deluded children brandishing decapitated heads. He plays vaguely with theme, drawing out stories through the order that his work is presented. The image of a nun with the police carrying a limp man would not be as powerful and as intriguing had the image preceding it been an eerie shot of a man being baptised. It felt just a little too Jeff Buckley. 

Check them out here.

Did you have a big night last night?

Sometimes you wake up in the morning feeling a little groggy. As you prise your crusty eyed noggin from the pillow, all dizzy with hangover, you stumble over the cat and towards the bathroom. You look into the mirror, and the site before you has you rushing to the toilet. That can’t be your face, can it? It’s all puffy with alcohol, with deeply embedded creases from the pillow lining your cheeks like shonky train tracks. Your eyelids are swollen, and the whites of your eyes are tomato red. One doesn’t even really open properly.

Simon English’s paintings are a little like the reflections that you see those mornings in the vanity mirror. But unfortunately, these paintings don’t have Berocca and a sauna to set them right.

See your Sunday morning reflection here.

Are they geisha or ghetto?

Black is the new black – you only have to look at the pasty Anglo boys that hang around outside Subway trying to dress like they’re Jay-Z to see that.

Merging Japanese geishas with Harlem harems, Iona Rozeal Brown takes the piss out of the obsession to be something that you’re not. They paint their faces black instead of white, corn-row each others’ hair, and wear kanji-patterned hoodies.

Keep reading and see the mashups here.

Is Numskull Australia’s answer to Ron English?

I interviewed Sydney’s graf-God Numskull the other day. You know the deal. If you want to read the interview, you’re going to have to read it on Lifelounge. If I post it in full here, they will pelt me with comically sized inflatable donkies and relinquish my microwave privileges.

He has a show opening later this month at the newly launched Lo-Fi Gallery in Sydney’s Darlo. It’s a great space with radical curation. Thou shalt tap that shit.

What do transexuals do during their days off in Barcelona?

The most shocking part of Paola de Grenet’s photographic series? They’re normal. Really, beer-in-front-of-the-TV normal. They live with their grandparents, they cook Christmas roasts, they hang pictures of their parents on the walls… Are you disappointed? There are no rollerskating midgets, no naked slumber parties, and no walk-in wardrobe of candy thongs. Although, one of the girls has a serious bling collection that could rival Flava Flav.

Do you actually want to see/read more? Sure you do. Right here.