BUT WAIT…

More than pleasure lurks below this subject matter. We live in a time where food shortages are a reality for big parts of the developing world. We are also subject to changing government controls on the way we grow and share food. What place does the Corporation have in all this? What is your opinion?
 
From the downright dirty, earth covered and deformed, to the clean and chemically treated—we once again require your delicious wordiness on the matter.
 
We encourage you to go forth—create, collaborate, write, draw and submit to our fifth issue.
 
Take the word food wherever you want to. Think outside the box in terms of your piece, its genre and your comfort zone. Be daring. We look forward to every art and word feast that will soon be appearing in our HQ inbox. Each piece should be no longer than four A5 pages (about 1200-500 words).
 
Send us a proposal for your piece by Monday, 30 January. All we require at this stage is a few lines telling us the direction you’d like to head and what genre you are going to tackle. From there, we will let you know whether your piece will be included in Issue #5, with final submissions due on Friday, 9 March.
 
We eagerly await your tasty proposals…
 
Ali, Megan, Katie & Shalini

Important dates

Proposals due: Monday, 30 Jan 2012

Final submissions: Friday, 16 March 2012

Launch: Friday, 11 May 2012

Well, well…what a great launch we had on October 29, 2011 at The Parlour in Preston.The weather was terrible but it did not deter the 180 plus people who turned up. The life-sized blow up elephants were a great decoration at the entrance of the venue. Special thanks go to Brian at the Parlour for being so accommodating, Ben from Horror Sleaze Trash for doing the photo shoot, BJ Morriszonkle and Pony Face for being the live music entertainment, Raul Sanchez and Bodie Jarman for DJing, Matt and Clay for being sound techs, Jeff Sparrow for giving the rousing speech on the importance of little magazines and officially launching the new ‘animal’ issue, all the helpers with the bar/BBQ, and also Kate Griffin who took some great photos of the night along with the photo booth with costumes designed by Two French. You can check out the photos on our facebook page or flickr page.

If you were unlucky enough not to make it to the launch and so didn’t get a copy of the new issue, check out our stockists to see where you can get one. BUT for the next month (Nov 16-Dec 22) we have a special offer – if you email us at deathofascenester@gmail.com with the request for a copy of Issue 4, we will give you a copy of Issue 3 absolutely free! Think of those xmas presents you’ve been trying to figure out .

To stir up some launch frenzy, over the next few weeks we interview the people who will be speaking and performing at DOAS’ Issue #4 ‘ANIMAL’ launch. We selected these folk to be a part of the reformatted launch program, as we felt they best represented our contributors: sassy, politicised and in-your-face.

For the final instalment of the launch interview series, we speak to Si, from the dark beauty that is Pony Face. Here’s when you thank this city’s broody skies for festering such talent. Lucky for you, they’re playing the DOAS launch tomorrow, Saturday 29 Oct 2011. See you all there…

How important is writing and literature to what you do as a musician? Do they cross over for you? Literature and music come together like a bass line and a beat—they enhance and embrace each other. You can have one without the other, I suppose, but there’s elements of either of them in the other, for instance you can hear stories, settings, situations and characters in instrumental bands like Dirty Three and Silver ray, God speed and Michael Nyman. There are also rhythms and percussion ascensions in Al Ginsberg, George Orwell.

What/who are your biggest literary influences? Can we hear any of them in your songs?
I hope so, that would be good. I rip off lines all the time, on the last album, I stole a good line from Rumble fish, it’s in the song ‘Devil’ and if you pick it you get a prize. On the record we’re in the middle of at the moment, there is a William Burroughs-ish mode— on the song ‘Disco cops.’ I didn’t notice it at the time, [but]re-reading Junkie, I noticed all these cool character names and this low-down swing groove that’s ominous and dangerous…there are similarities.

We are excited that you are playing at the launch of ‘ANIMAL’ - will you have any particularly animalistic overtones to your set on the night?
Doubt it.

I’ve always wanted to have a tail.

Anthony (bass) has always seemed apish to me.

What is your favourite lyric, either of one of your songs or someone else’s, and why?
I enjoy misinterpretation, I think it is essential to art, and I’ve only recently been converted to putting written lyrics on album sleeves, but I suppose you can choose to read ‘em or not. Gillian Welsh’s words are choice cuts. I get a little more out of Revelator each time I hear it.

I have no idea what the story in ‘Gigantic’ by Kim Deal is about, but her voice is so seductive—no idea who or what she’s talking about. There are so many possibilities.

Most of the Pixies songs I have no idea what they are about…I love them, I don’t need to know what anyone else thinks they are about.

Favourite lyric this week is Obla dee obla da.

www.ponyface.com.au

Sisters Simone and Elyse Morahan are the creators of indie clothing label Two French. Vinyl-bag bomber jackets, 7” tutus, a dress made from playing cards—and if that ain’t enough for your recycled-couture hankering, ultra-desirable French silhouettes might have to do. They make the kind of clothes that make you not want to tell anybody about, so you can rock up looking kick-ass and leave bitches coveting. Put on a prop, courtesy of Two French and get your mug snapped by Kate Griffin at the photo booth, this Saturday 29 Oct 2011 at the DOAS Issue #4 ANIMAL launch.  

Where and when do you sew?
We have a room in our home which we call our ‘studio’.  We try and work in there after we come home from our respective jobs …but instead we usually end up dancing around, drinking and cracking hilarious sleep-deprived immature jokes.

What do your momma and papa make of your fashion pursuits?
They’re very supportive folks, and sometimes help us out when we’re all out of ideas on how to put something together. Our Momma sews and our papa builds roads. I think somewhere along the line we got things mixed up which is why we’re now trying to build a dress made out of a bridge and a bridge made out of a dress.

Was making clothes out of vinyl bags and playing cards just a whimsical coincidence?
Both pieces were inspired by different circumstances: one from an artist invitation for a themed exhibition and the other from a stupid conversation that turned into a stupid idea and a stupid project.

The playing cards dress was brought on from a Saint One Twenty ‘Alice in Wonderland’ themed exhibition. As people were dressing up we didn’t want to make an exhibition costume that would blend into the crowd—it didn’t.

On the other hand, the vinyl bag jacket was a stupid conversation. We love Thornbury Records, and we had so so many vinyl bags. Joking or not, it’s hard to tell, Clay from Thornbury Records suggested we make something. Within the 30 minutes it took us to get home, we had the whole thing sorted.

And where in the hell did that skirt come from, you know, the one on the blog? It’s bloody beaut!
That all depends on which skirt you’re talking about. We have a 7” vinyl tutu (see above in stupid conversation explanation) that went along side the vinyl bag jacket.

Or we have an actual skirt made from fabric! That came from everywhere. Our Alfred Hitchcock love, a random two month feather obsession, a stumble into another direction and of course G&T.

Who is the risk taker? Do you fight?
 I think we’re both risk takers, but we take turns, or just try and push it onto someone else. Just ask our lovely model for the vinyl bag jacket. And do we fight?!  Are you kidding, of course!! But it’s mostly stupid.

What can we expect to see at the DOAS launch?
You can expect us to supply a gateway, to unleash your inner animal, converse in stupid conversations and probably make some sleep deprived, immature, ‘Be Your Own Pet’ jokes.

twofrench.tumblr.com

griffinphotography.com.au

To stir up some launch frenzy, over the next few weeks we interview the people who will be speaking and performing at DOAS’ Issue #4 ‘ANIMAL’ launch. We selected these folk to be a part of the reformatted launch program, as we felt they best represented our contributors: sassy, politicised and in-your-face.

We’re pleased to have the delightfully eclectic one-man band BJ Morriszonkle at the DOAS’ Issue 4 launch. He will be supplying your animal ears with sounds that have been described as ‘…exploding coconuts, falling anvils and [like] getting chased around by cartoon characters.’ DOAS gets the low-down on BJ’s inspiration – Italian Flash Gordon, and his rightful distrust of birds…

www.myspace.com/bjmorriszonkle

With your playing the upcoming launch of Death of a Scenester, Issue 4 ‒ how do you relate to the theme ‘Animal’ musically?
Well I’m sure anyone up close to me on the night will attest that the curious smell wafting out and around them is sub-human (I’m a smelly dude). I’m obsessed with animals actually; I have songs about dying circus mules, giving a greyhound a pocket full of dead bees, mysterious forces stirring up birds, lying down before packs of wolves etc. I like to make some of my tunes sound like moments of excitement in some sort of kooky, out of control barnyard. I love animals, except I don’t trust birds, one bloody bit. You can’t look in their eyes and falsely imagine human qualities.

Everyone has their own lyrical style, how would you describe your own? Are you more story, more comment… or somewhere in between?
Lyrics are another craft entirely, as opposed to music craft. I haven’t developed or explored that craft much at all, so my lyrics are usually a hot potch of more impulsive statements or just a bunch of descriptions that the music will prompt me to conjure up. So not stories really, I try to paint a picture of something and if someone imagines a story out of that in their own mind, then great. I sometimes feel uncomfortable about the comments I make, like who am I to make statements about anything? I’m no authority….. I suppose I’m an authority of my own existence though. I like to think the more decent lyrics I write, almost, tie together under a particular theme or mood, but usually I’m just inarticulately sprawling around, my sense that the world is fucking stupid. I sing with a lot of vibrato and a little bit out of tune. Terrific!

Music is a beast all its own. How would you describe this monster in all its wild splendour?
The best kind of music is human with all the quirks and flaws and stupidities of a genuine human being. Or anything truly creative or bad enough that you can’t argue with it. Music is probably like some great mass of liquid ‘coz it seems it can swallow people up or spit them out and we can stare into it or float upon it yet can’t quite grasp its objectives and capacity with our minds. Yes, it certainly is a beast — it’s fucking wild and it’s unforgiving.

Are there any books that you consider travelling companions on your musical journey so far? What influence have they held over you as you’ve gone about your creative life?
I’m not much of a reader really. I did pick up a ludicrous stack of 60’s Italian Flash Gordon comics from an op shop recently. I can’t read Italian but it’s heaps of fun trying to read the bloody things and pronounce the words (really passionately, in a stupid accent, late in the middle of the night). I think there are pows, zaps, oomphs, clangs and aooowhiees in my music. I have found the Columbo TV series on DVD extremely influential in my creative process and well I’m always listening to conversations and trying to remember the dumb and the poignant shit people convey. I read a quote once (dunno who’s words), that went something like ‘the strongest desire an artist ever knows is to create a world in which everything is as they imagine.’ That sort of stuck around, that one.

To stir up some launch frenzy, we are interviewing the people who will be speaking and performing at DOAS Issue 4 ‘Animal’ launch, over the next few weeks. We selected these folk to be a part of the reformatted launch, as we felt they best represented our contributors: sassy, politicised and in-your-face.

Jeff Sparrow is editor of Overland Magazine and the main man in the collaboration between Meanjin and Overland: publishing forum Meanland. He also co-wrote Radical Melbourne 1 and 2, published by Vulgar Press. We are very pleased that he will be speaking and launching DOAS’ fourth issue on 29 October 2011.

Meanland is a collaboration between two much loved literary journals with rather different audiences. What has been the main goal of Meanland from Overland’s perspective? Have any emerging writers from the Overland camp benefited from this union?

For us, Meanland has always had a number of goals. One is to generate discussion about the changes the industry is going through, since there’s clearly a public interest – even concern – about what’s happening to reading and writing. But it’s also about helping us think through our own practice. Meanland has meant that the staff at Overland have had to engage with all the arguments circulating about what publishing might become and that’s been vital in us theorising what we’re doing now and what we hope to do in the future.

And, yes, a large number of people have published, blogged or spoken under the Meanland banner now and quite a few of them have been ‘emerging’.

We’re excited that you’re speaking at the Issue 4 launch. Is your involvement in the ostensibly underground literary scene a nod to Overland’s mission to support emerging writers? Do you think the underground has to necessarily remain ‘underground’?            

Well, I’m excited, too!

To be honest, I don’t really like the category ‘emerging writer’.  It’s a metaphor that implies a straightforward career trajectory that, in many ways doesn’t really exist, since in a country like Australia, there’s nothing to ‘emerge’ into (hardly anyone makes a living by writing). More to the point, it begs the question as to why the ‘emergence’ of a writer is necessarily a good thing. It seems to me much more useful to think about the kinds of writing we’d like to see and then focus on aspiring writers who are working on that, rather than simply fetishising the creation of ‘new writers’ as if we were discussing cars rolling off the assembly line.

‘Underground’ writing seems a more meaningful category, if by that we mean work that’s politically or aesthetically oppositional. Overland’s about encouraging that: we’re not necessarily about fostering new writing for the sake of it.

No, I don’t think the underground (defined as above) should remain underground. If you’re producing work opposed to the mainstream, you want that work to be as widely circulated as possible, so that your critique can lead to genuine change. The progressive movement might be underground at the moment but that’s a problem, not something to be celebrated.

What still gives you the biggest kicks as an editor?

Unexpectedly finding work by someone you’ve never heard of that says perfectly what needs to be said.

What in your opinion has Overland maintained and changed with respect to its ethos over the years? Any compromises?

Overland emerged out of the Communist Party in 1954, only three years after the federal government had sought to make communism illegal in Australia. In other words, at its inception, it was a pretty brave project and one unequivocally committed to creating a different kind of world.

I’d like to think that’s still the ethos today.

As for compromises, well, every writer knows that the work you end up with is always a pale shadow of the work you tried to create. But, hey, that’s art.

meanland.com.au
overland.org.au
vulgar.com.au/rm

Also don’t forget that TINA festival is coming up in early October. DOAS will be there with bells on.