Tim Trainor spends every waking moment finding out what's all the gay rage in Perth right now. Events, culture and random bits and pieces from Perth, Australia.
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Viewing posts tagged ‘music’
July 13
Revisited: The Ellington
Apologies are once again in order for my sparatic updates. What can I say, I’m a very busy woman. Two weekends ago after my visit to Andaluz, my review posse stopped in for the Late Night Groove Series at the Ellington Jazz Club (web). We prebooked a table, and it ended up being an awesome closer to the evening.
I’ve previously written about The Ellington for Soho Nights (fb), their queer friendly evening. This time around though it was a different crowd, a different ’scene’. While Soho Nights is suave and relaxed, the Saturday Late Night Groove Series is energetic bop in your chair action. The atmosphere is rich, and in my lubricated state I could feel each and every person in the room tapping their feet or nodding their head in unison. One guy was enjoying things a little too much… and had to be escorted out of the premises. Hah.
As a side note, the next Soho Nights is this Tuesday 14 July !.
I don’t know too much about jazz so I can’t really give an analytical commentary on the entertainment, but even if you’re musically sceptical you will still enjoy the the grooves, funk and beats at the Ellington on a Saturday night, plus the artists are fun and engaging on stage.. Basically, I loved it.
So book a table. Now. Yes, Now. The late night series sits at 11.30pm, and you will be left out in the cold if you don’t pre-book a table.
July 5
Recap: Horse Meat Disco
On Friday night a slice of iconic London nightlife penetrated the walls of Connections and gave Perth a small taste of Horse Meat Disco. Jim Stanton and James Hillard from the original HMD club night are currently touring Australia, and to support their local appearance were a handful of Perth’s finest electronic acts along with a homage catwalk show involving our prominent drag performers.
The headlining set was just amazing, not just for the sheer funk of it all, but for bringing some much needed new music into Connections. It was also for this reason the night didn’t attract a typical Connections crowd. I spied ‘resident’ attendees of Shape and Republic, plus a crop of random others who I’m assuming discovered HMD from the posters plastered all over Northbridge.
Admittedly the crowd was somewhat sparse, but those who stuck around until the early hours were really getting into their nu-disco. I guess nobody appreciates your favourite type of music as much as you do, and I really love nu-disco, so it was shame the venue wasn’t packed out as it should have been. I point my spiteful index finger at you all and curse that you really missed out on some awesome tunes.
The catwalk show was a big gloating segment to show off some fun costumes, but seemed like a throwaway item. Actually, it agitated me that this 10 minute performance piece became the focal point for the entire evening. So much so that most of the models and ticketholders left when it finished, and before the Horse Meat Disco DJs had even played. A red flag also needs to be raised for that 1 metre x 1 metre ‘media only’ area at the end of the catwalk. How pretentious. Although, it did give my friendly arch nemesis Feminem Hygiene a good vantage point for demanding the photographers test their cameras on her… for 20 minutes. As a side note, Fem and I are back on speaking terms.
So, the conclusory comment for this event is ‘you really missed out’. The sound Horse Meat Disco brought won’t be replicated in Perth for a while yet. Connections have a number of disco nights coming soon, but I’m sceptical. From previous experience ‘disco’ to Perth gay venues means bastardised house music. It’s not the same thing. Lo and behold when I got in my car at the end of the night Triple J’s ‘The Club’ program were talking about how nu-disco is the latest fad in dance music. If it’s the latest overseas right now, it will be the latest in Perth in 12 months time.
I didn’t lug my SLR to Connections, and I didn’t try my luck with the media only area, but I did grab some nice photos of the catwalk show. See them all behind the cut:
June 18
Slab of ground disco
The flyer is so pretty. Two weeks until Horse Meat Disco (fb1 | fb2). For more info, check out my previous post.
June 12
Great news
No post from me today. Instead, watch this video of one of my all time favourite songs evaaar. The B52s are coming to Perth in December! My life is complete!
If you only know ‘Love Shack’ and ‘Roam’ you’re missing out.
June 8
Horse Meat Disco in Perth
Horse Meat Disco was very briefly mentioned in this month’s Out In Perth, but because I’m not constrained to monthly deadlines I can give you the full details now. Woo! So what’s all this business about? HMD is all for disco music - Italo, dub disco, electrofunk etc, and started as a regular club night in London six years ago. Originally aimed to adapt the trendsetting alternative parties of New York for the London crowd, it has expanded to become involved in the fashion scene, creating it’s own little fashionista melting pot. Now it’s coming to Perth.
Two of the founding members of Horse Meat Disco, James Hillard and Jim Stanton (all four founders are pictured above) will be playing at Connections on Friday 3 July from 10pm. Support acts are local electro artists Brash and Sassy, along with Petrosex (most known for gigs at Shape Bar and SEXY) plus other guests.
Horse Meat Disco describes itself as “the queer party for everyone: homos and heteros, club kids, bears, fashionistas, naturists, guerilla drag queens and ladies who munch”. Perth is their first stop in the Australian arm of the tour, and they’re being supported by Modular, so this event should get a fair amount of attention. Likewise tickets cost more than a regular Connections night: $25 + BF. For the price you’re also promised a “catwalk extravaganza”. Here’s a taste of the music:
Presale Tickets Available from Connections, heatseeker.com.au, Planet Video, 78 Records and Mills Records.
Props to Will and Jack on this post.
June 4
Perth media bits
If you picked up Xpress or Drum Media today you would have seen RTRfm’s new station lineup for 2009/10. Very disappointing that ‘Open Closet’, the community radio’s gay and lesbian music and current affairs program has been shafted. It’s completely gone with no replacement. The changes coincide with the station getting a new General Manager - email Graeme Watson to tell him it should stay.
Today The West Australian properly launched their new competitor against Xpress and Drum Media: “The Wire Magazine“. Oh boy does it stink! You get to read everything that was in our free street press weeks ago, and pay the cost of a newspaper to do it.
The copy reeks of middle aged journos desperately trying to reach out for Gen Y, and is littered with embarrassing statements like “hey wire heads” and the Art Gallery’s Art Bar being described as “painfully cool”. To top it off, the opinion page is about how John Farnham is now ‘uncool’. Who cares!
The West really didn’t think this through: Gen Y don’t buy newspapers, and The Wire Magazine has no street cred. Avoid it.
June Out in Perth is on the streets this weekend.
May 28
New gig guide + what to do this weekend
Thanks to the suggestion from my bestie David, and some hard work, I am very proud to present the only source you’ll ever need to schedule your social life: the gayrage gig guide … for gays (G4). It’s a very convenient collection of gay community, commercial and gay friendly events, plus other happenings around Perth which may be of interest to you.
Why is it better than all the other gig guides? Because I made it, fool. Actually it’s so you don’t have to go trawling through street press papers and get yucky ink all over your hands. It’s also electronic so it’s always up to date and geeks can download event details to their computers or yuppie phones. LOOK NOW.
My picks on what to do in Perth this long weekend:
Events:
- Friday: Get dressed up for the SPANK! Beauty and the Beast party (tickets and outfit required, see website) at Bar Open
- Saturday: For something different check out SEXY, opens just after midnight, Shafto Lane
- Sunday: Rozalla Live at Connections - this is a fundraiser for Pride WA!
Music:
- Saturday: If you scored tickets, check out how awesome Lady Gaga’s set, stage and costume designs are, and laugh at how bad her singing is. Apparently a group of whorish strippers are also performing at the same event.
- Sunday: Head along to We Love Ministry of Sound and pop some E, maaaan.
Shopping
- Check out the last days of the Millington Street Popup Shop: lots of trendy discounted streetwear brands: 454 William Street in Northbridge.
Arts
- Check out the Year 12 Perspectives show at the Art Gallery of Western Australia. I went last week and there are some great pieces from around WA, and some on exchange from Japan.
- While you’re there head across the road and check out the Nick Cave exhibition at the WA Museum.
- And if your brain is overloaded and needs something light, check out Lesbian Vampire Killers at the movies.
My gay picks for June (so far):
Can’t go wrong with Soho Nights on the 9th and 23rd. The launch of Love Sundays on the 14th will be worth checking out. And definitely the next SHAMELESS Party at Connections on the 20th. It’s a Viking ‘Roped and Pillaged’ theme… those spiky Viking helmets make me so horny… shit I’m original with my jokes.
May 25
An editorial correction
Oops, looks like there was a factual error in my last post. The offending laptop isn’t a Dell, it’s a Sony Vaio. Thanks to DH for pointing that out.
I’m not against the use of ‘automixing’ computer programs, I’m sure lots of venues use them. But if you rely on a laptop to play music you can’t prefix your stage name with ‘DJ’. Despite what people assume, proper DJing takes a lot of skill, a lot of time to learn and even more time to become good at (trust me, I’m currently teaching myself to DJ the non laptop way). If you don’t actually DJ, you shouldn’t be calling yourself one.
May 20
Pride expands festival line up
Today Pride WA announced an exciting new event in their Homecoming Festival line up: the Pride WA Ball. The title is boring, but the event is not. It’s a dinner, dancing and awards night to recognise the contributions individuals and organisations have made to Perth’s GLBTIQ community (I hate that abbreviation so I won’t be using it again from hereon).
The ball will be on Saturday 22 August at the Novotel Langley and will include live entertainment and the crowning of a GLBTblah ‘King and Queen’. I hope they’re not drag related. Nominations for the various awards happen between June and August, so please bombard Pride WA with many, many emails telling them to nominate me for my contribution to Perth’s very small gay media scene, plus for all that humanitarian work I did in Rockingham - handing out food to homeless bogans, that sort of thing.
Pride WA will be releasing more details closer to the event, so look out for them on gayrage. Other important Pride dates for you to enter into your electronic devices:
- Pride launch: Friday 18 September
- Fairday: Sunday 27 September - (event will become a dance party after 6pm)
- Pride Parade and Homecoming Party: Saturday 31 October
May 17
гомосексуалиста времени
I thought I would do a Eurovision post because I know of a lot of Eurovision parties happening around Perth tonight. The final was very entertaining: while the musical performances were less camp than last year, I was still glued to my set. I can’t even imagine the amount of money Russia pumped into production - the visual styling and stage design blew my mind.
Unfortunately there’s saddening news: Gay rights protesters who arranged a rally to coincide with the media attention that Eurovision brings were quickly arrested and whisked away by riot police. In fact, they arranged 1000 riot police to break up demonstration. In the mean time an anti-gay protest elsewhere in the city was given a permit to go ahead (although some of these protesters were arrested as well). Stuck in the middle Eurovision had to ignore the entire thing was happening.
But back to the competition: my favourite performances were Greece (super, super gay), Russia (very powerful), Armenia (awesome visuals), Sweden (super freaky opera singer) and Germany (for some reason they were represented by an American gay guy and Dita Von Teese! What!). Not to be forgetting Slovenia putting up a protest during the result announcements! Pure gold.
And my absolute favourite part… the host - what a hottie! If there are any guys in Perth who look like Ivan Urgant please contact me asap. Ahh Ivan… one day you will be mine!
May 15
A day off…
I’ve been a bit slack lately, and I don’t have anything huge or controversial to report right now. But, I would like to say…
Tomorrow when you go to your local place of voting, VOTE YES for Daylight Savings! Bring Perth alongside the rest of the world and give us more time to spend outdoors with our friends and family in the summer. VOTE YES!
Even if you were going to vote no, just do me a favour and vote yes this one time 
… your yes vote will help negate people getting too much of the media spotlight.
Stay tuned to gay rage, I have some cool Perth related items to post over the weekend. I’m also toiling hard to add the function to allow readers to comment on posts. In the meantime, here’s a video for all of the Perth Bears who read this blog. If you’re a fan of parody, you might want check out the original. Love when he breaks a nail:
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