Concrete Playground

 

artfreeWe Buy Your Kids Trials

Saturday, 17th October - 6AM
@ Monster Children Gallery

More inclined to pet a black cat that crosses their path than break out in heebie-jeebies, artist duo We Buy Your Kids have long been fascinated with the darker side of the astral plane and its ad hoc ethos. Having built up a comprehensive body of illustrative work that has...

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artfreeperformingplay2042: Art On The Street

Saturday, 24th October - 4AM
@ Newtown

As the community of Kings Cross tries in vain to hang onto its bohemian legacy with memorial plaques on the foothpaths (often more a walk of shame than a walk of fame), the other side of town will be reveling this weekend in their ongoing state of creativity. Newtown, that...

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freeplayDanks Street Festival

Sunday, 25th October - 5AM
@ Danks Street

You'd be hard pressed to find someone in Sydney that doesn't love a block party, so imagine the glee that this conjures every year — a catered block party. A street in Waterloo, Danks is famous for its restaurants such as Danks Street Depot and Fratelli Fresh, and once a...

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musicJoanna Newsom

Monday, 18th January - 6PM
@ Sydney Opera House

Hailing from somewhere between California and a mythical, fallen city, Joanna Newsom extends far beyond the usual ethereality of harpists, basing her songs in a strong sense of narrative and boot polish charm. Having risen from little-girl-never-really-lost ranks through tours with Drag City labelmate Will Oldham, Joanna Newsom has released...

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musicPavement (USA)

Thursday, 4th March - 7PM - Friday, 5th March - 7PM
@ Enmore Theatre

WOWEE ZOWEE. When news hit mid-October that Pavement were reforming for an international tour, there was a kind of hush all over the Twitter. That is, at least in the little world occupied by those of us who worshipped pop tidbits such as the Pacific Trim 7" (not the CD...

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playSydney Food & Wine Fair

Saturday, 31st October - 12PM
@ Hyde Park, Sydney

I first visited the AIDS Trust Sydney Food & Wine Fair in 1993, and not even the embarrassment of running into my English teacher and her girlfriend (at that age, the thought of teachers having personal lives was incomprehensible) could dampen the hungry spirits of my mother and I. Having...

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musicPurple Sneakers NYE House Party

Thursday, 31st December - 7PM
@ Manning House

New Years Eve. It's still two months away but the pressure has started to build. Falls Fest has sold out, the Opera House is selling tickets to their $895 party, and a few people I know have already discussed "just having a quiet one", knowing full well they'll panic on...

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artfreeplaySculpture by the Sea

Thursday, 29th October - Sunday, 15th November
@ Coast Walk

One would be hard-pressed to find an outing more quintessentially 'Sydney' than the Bondi-to-Bronte Coast Walk, its length punctuated by winding markers that give the impression that it may well be endless. Instead, it is merely endlessly beautiful, particularly now that the decking has been extended and refurbished.There is perhaps...

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artfreeMartin Sharp Sydney artist

Saturday, 31st October - Sunday, 14th March
@ Museum of Sydney

Plundering the depths of Martin Sharp's personal collection, rumoured to be  labyrinthian in its documentation, the Museum of Sydney has unveiled an exhibition comprised of some of Sharp's most iconic works. Martin Sharp Sydney artist is a retrospective that spans the artist's life to date through imagery, much gathered from...

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musicCrayon Fields album launch

Friday, 6th November - 8PM
@ Spectrum

No matter the weather, Melbourne's Crayon Fields are an instant clearing of the clouds. Good vibrations taking a sunbath, and if you peel away the initial innocence, probably a skinny dip to follow. The slight incongruity of their sound to their era, with nods to luminaries such as Dennis Wilson...

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freeplayGlebe Street Fair

Sunday, 15th November - 10AM
@ Glebe

For the past 26 years, the suburb of Glebe has been hitching up its harbour-lined skirts for a party every November, and so have all the locals. The reason behind the party? Why, to celebrate itself of course! Stretching for a kilometer down the main drag, the Glebe Street Fair...

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performingBurning Daylight

Thursday, 12th November - 8PM
@ CarriageWorks

Long the stuff of leaden machismo and a symbol of tough love, the sacred image of the cowboy has an almost equally long history of being skewered in art. From Andy Warhol's 1968 feature Lonesome Cowboys to 2008's Japanese cult cinema hit Sukiyaki Western Django, the tale of the lonesome...

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filmAntichrist

Thursday, 26th November - Wednesday, 13th January
@ Chauvel Cinema

As soon as the title card appeared on-screen — a hand-painted "Antichrist" in manic scrawl, with the final 't' incorporating a female symbol — my usually objective back was up. The films of Lars von Trier tend to rub the viewer the wrong way, but this one has a little more...

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performingConcord

Wednesday, 11th November - Monday, 30th November
@ Sydney Opera House

A trio of performances, Concord is dramatic, charming and sharp, occasionally all at once. Annually, the Australian Ballet presents a triple-bill to display both important repertory or reworked pieces and new works in a diverse setting. The three presented in Concord could not be more disparate, and yet their differences...

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artRupert Bunny: artist in Paris

Saturday, 21st November - Sunday, 21st February
@ Art Gallery NSW

Though he both arrived and exited his life in Victoria, it was Paris in which this much beloved Australian artist flourished. Between 1885 and 1933, Bunny lived in France, for the most part with his wife Jeanne Morel who appears regularly in his lovely paintings. Of course, the word 'lovely'...

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travelmusicplayHigh & Dry Festival

Friday, 27th November - Sunday, 29th November
@ Camp Wollimi

Sydney may be a delightful city in which one spends their time, but, let's face it, isn't it nice to get away too? Especially when you don't have to travel too far to get to something as rewarding as this year's High & Dry Festival.Only two hours north of Sydney...

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musicSongs album launch

Thursday, 26th November - 8PM
@ Oxford Art Factory

"Songs is the Greatest Album I Have Heard This Year...and quite possibly this decade. Not that music is a competition, you understand. Ten stars. A hundred stars. A shimmering, cascading universe-full."And so begins noted music critic Everett True's recent review of the album that is being launched this Thursday at...

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musicKes Band

Saturday, 5th December - 8PM
@ Spectrum

When you possess a singing voice as endearing (and idiosynchratic) as the ringleader of Kes Band, Karl Scullins, it seems almost criminal to release an instrumental record. And yet, the orchestration of Kes Band II, the eponymous group's second album, is so beautiful, you forget to miss it. Luckily for...

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artfreeThrough the Eyes of a Muse: The Photography of Pattie Boyd

Thursday, 26th November - 10AM
@ Blender Gallery

Reading about Patty Boyd's life in a one paragraph summary causes two basic emotions: polite pangs of envy and sheer out-and-out, green-eyed jealousy. Having made her mark in London modeling for the likes of David Bailey and Mary Quant, Boyd was cast as a Beatles fan in the 1964 film...

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performingAn Evening with David Sedaris

Saturday, 16th January - 8PM
@ State Theatre

I once stood in line for a really long time to get a book signed by David Sedaris. During the wait, he proposed that smokers go to the start of the line because they've been getting such a bad rap lately. When I, a non-smoker who had to stay at...

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filmWhere The Wild Things Are

Thursday, 3rd December - Wednesday, 27th January
@ Various cinemas

With the patience of a nine year old (that is to say, none at all), it feels that the world has been holding its breath for Spike Jonze's screen adaptation of Where The Wild Things Are. Finally, it's time to let it out with a mighty howl. Jonze (Being John...

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musicThee Oh Sees

Saturday, 5th December - 8PM
@ Oxford Art Factory

A band plays by the side of an American highway in a music video. The musicians look kind of catatonically into what they're doing on a grassy patch, oblivious to both the traffic and the camera. The music they're making is catchy and familiar with a great big wash of...

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performingJohn Waters: This Filthy World

Tuesday, 2nd March - 8PM
@ Concert Hall

I'm pretty sure we could just run the title to this event and a link to tickets and it would sell out in a heartbeat, but the very occasion of director, writer and raconteur John Waters (aka the man who brought the term 'teabagging' to mainstream lexicon) appearing at the...

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musicYo La Tengo

Wednesday, 17th February - Thursday, 18th February
@ The Basement

How is it that a band can form in 1984 and still sound as fresh and invigorating two and a half decades later? What's more, Yo La Tengo just keep getting more interesting as time, records and tours pass by. Let's all applaud the news then, shall we, that Yo...

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artfreemusicperformingCirca 1979: Signal to Noise

Saturday, 16th January - Sunday, 24th January
@ Seymour Centre

Much has been celebrated about the post punk and new wave scenes of New York, LA and London, but what of Australia? The exhibition Circa 1979: Signal to Noise, presented by Modular Records with the Sydney Festival, seeks to address this by uncovering and sharing information about the experimental local...

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musicJohn Cale

Saturday, 16th January - 8PM
@ Enmore Theatre

John Cale co-founded The Velvet Underground with Lou Reed.Well, that should be reason enough to want to see him, but if not...He's worked with such luminaries as Brian Eno, Terry Riley and Kevin Ayers, appeared on Nick Drake's beautiful Bryter Layter and participated in the first ever performance of Erik...

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filmNowhere Boy

Saturday, 26th December - Wednesday, 20th January
@ Various cinemas

The words, "The Beatles" are never uttered in Sam Taylor-Wood's debut feature film Nowhere Boy, and, for the most part, neither are the screaming girls that the phrasing conjures. That's because the film focusses intensely on John Lennon's life aged fifteen-eighteen, an intimate portrait of a specific time period rather...

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filmBright Star

Saturday, 26th December - Wednesday, 20th January
@ Various cinemas

There's a moment in Jane Campion's (The Piano, In the Cut) latest film Bright Star, wherein Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish) lays on the bed, light streaming through the window, a summer breeze gently rushing up her long voluminous skirt. The camera lingers almost a little too long, and one is...

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musicplaySlopfrenzy

Saturday, 2nd January - 5PM
@ Civic Hotel

January 1st is a bit of a doozy when it comes to a party (it's always either a really bad idea or a really bad idea), but by January 2nd, things are on the mend (a little). By then, you're up and walking, feeling a little disheveled perhaps but fine,...

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artplayThe 80s are back

Sunday, 13th December - Wednesday, 1st December
@ Powerhouse Museum

Bleached perms. Feathered earrings and feathered hair. Acid-wash. Ra-ra skirts. Rayban Wayfarers. Swatch watch envy. Eyeliner for all. Crop tops over leotards. Bangles, tons of bangles. They may be 80s cultural cliches (or a list of what's actually in stores right now), but they're cliches for a reason: fun. The...

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musicFrida Hyvonen

Thursday, 11th February - 7PM
@ Paddington Uniting Church

News that Frida Hyvonen is touring Australia in March shouldn't have arrived via email. A bone-white silk banner bearing the details flown through my window, held aloft by the heavy beaks of a couple of blackbirds would have been more appropriate. Frida deserves that kind of pomp and ceremony; live...

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musicRufus Wainwright

Thursday, 14th October - 8PM
@ Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House

Master of the implied jazz hands, Rufus Wainright returns to Sydney in October to play an intimate man-and-piano show at the the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall. Son of the equally famed Kate McGarrigle and Loudon Wainright III, and brother to Martha Wainright, Rufus has a daunting musical pedigree, which...

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musicBrightblack Morning Light

Wednesday, 7th April - 8PM
@ Oxford Art Factory

Hanging for some peyote-infused psychfolk, tinged with communal love vibes and the sounds of the desert winds as interpreted by swirling organ tones? Turns out you don't have to go to New Mexico, because New Mexico is coming to you this autumn, thanks to Mistletone.A collective based in NM's rural...

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performingThe Sleeping Beauty

Friday, 11th December - Wednesday, 23rd December
@ Sydney Opera House

At the end of each year, the Australian Ballet rests its commitment to the groundbreaking and the contemporary, and visits the comforts of festive fantasy. Even for a devotee of the abstract in dance such as myself, by December I ache to be lost in snow falling from the glittering...

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filmBroken Embraces

Thursday, 17th December - Wednesday, 20th January
@ Various cinemas

With its nods to noir filmmaking and the comical and popular Spanish culebrones style, Broken Embraces unravels through the eyes of the charming and troubled main character Harry Caine née Mateo Blanco, played with a great sense of world-weariness by Lluís Homar. Harry Caine is an ex-director come screenwriter with...

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musicCANCELLED - Mistletone Xmas Party

Friday, 18th December - 3PM
@ Serial Space

It's the season of the Christmas Party, and though many nights are currently filled with them, and livers are busily trying to repair themselves all over the city, it's safe to say not many offer (worthy) live music. The Mistletone Xmas Party boasts no photocopier remorse the next morning, and...

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artfreeplayMythic Creatures: Dragons, Unicorns & Mermaids

Monday, 21st December - Sunday, 23rd May
@ Australian Maritime Museum

I was about just verging into adolescence when my parents took me to Loch Ness. It was painful attempting to keep up that despondent, outsider teen thing when all I could think about was what if we actually saw her. Nessie, I mean. She didn't pop up but I did...

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musicDevendra Banhart

Sunday, 24th January - 8PM
@ Metro Theatre

Rejoice with beaded tambourine, clap with cooing castanets, follow the pie-in-the-skied piper to the Metro Theatre this January, for he, leader of the weirdie beardies doth return. It's been a while between kombuchas that Devendra Banhart came to town, and that's a shame because his show at the Petersham RSL...

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musicKaki King

Saturday, 3rd January - 8PM
@ Annandale Hotel

If you're not already an excited fan, what you may know about Kaki King is that Rolling Stone named her a "Guitar God" in 2006, and that most live reviews could be filed under: 'guitar tech drool dream'. I'm not kidding. She plays acoustic, she plays electric, she plays lap...

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musicYeah Yeah Yeahs

Thursday, 8th January - 7PM
@ Hordern Pavilion

It's been eight years since Yeah Yeah Yeahs released the still totally exciting self-titled EP (seriously, dust off Art Star!). A whole lot of time and tours have passed since then, but not the wide expanse of albums one might expect, which only makes each one all the more of...

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filmDario Argento Film Festival

Friday, 26th February - 8PM - Friday, 19th March - 8PM
@ Chauvel Cinema

"The only thing more terrifying than the last 12 minutes of this film are the first 92", so states the tagline of the Dario Argento film Suspiria, and, unlike the tagline of 2006's Wicker Man remake ("some sacrifices must be made"), it's true. Speaking of sacrificial lambs, Suspiria will be...

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artLiving Treasures: Jeff Mincham

Saturday, 21st November - Sunday, 31st January
@ Object Gallery

The fifth recipient of Object Galleries Living Treasures title, Australian ceramicist Jeff Mincham is a craftsperson of the highest order. Since he first exhibited his work in 1976 at Adelaide's famous Jam Factory, Mincham has continued on with his dedicated practice for over three decades, working, exhibiting and experimenting with...

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filmFantastic Mr. Fox

Friday, 1st January - Monday, 1st March
@ Various Cincmas

A sly father figure with a good-humoured but nevertheless illegal penchant for the ways of the underground; a maternal force who reluctantly accepts her partner's shortcomings in light of his somewhat mystical charm; children with dry, almost adult senses of reasoning; Bill Murray and a soundtrack appropriated from the jukebox...

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musicA Hole in the Sky

Friday, 22nd January - 9PM
@ Good God Small Club

You know those beach movies from the fifties? The ones starring moondoggies and beachbunnies, with synopses like "four boys, intent on making records in a big surf competition, meet four girls intent on marriage"? Well, imagine that but the girls have a bit more ambition, and the film is set...

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artfreeBear Witness

Monday, 18th January - Friday, 19th March
@ Parramatta Artists Studios

Bear Witness is the artistic output of Ehren Thomas, a multimedia artist, DJ and filmmaker from Ottawa Canada. He remixes appropriated images and sound to create video assemblages that speak of his interest in the portrayal of aboriginal people in mainstream media. A member of the Cayuga Six Nations that...

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filmScorcese Classics

Friday, 26th March - 8PM - Friday, 16th April - 8PM
@ Chauvel Cinema

Right up there with "yeah, baby!" from Austin Powers, or Jerry (I haven't even seen the damn movie but I know this line) Maguire's "show me the money", Taxi Driver's "you talkin' to me?" is a movie quote I need NEVER hear again, except if it's Robert DeNiro in a...

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musicAntony & the Johnsons

Sunday, 31st January - Monday, 1st February
@ Sydney Opera House

On their own website, Antony of Antony and the Johnsons writes why he dedicated their most recent album The Crying Light to the dancer Kazuo Ohno. "In performance I watched him cast a circle of light upon the stage, and step into that circle, and reveal the dreams and reveries...

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musicThe Pains of Being Pure at Heart

Sunday, 21st February - 8PM
@ Oxford Art Factory

I don't know how many times I have listened to The Pains of Being Pure at Heart's self titled record (upwards of 100, it feels), and read about them in a hefty amount of 2009 Best Ofs, but I had no idea they're from New York. I had them pegged...

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filmThe Agony & Ecstasy of Phil Spector

Wednesday, 10th February - 7PM
@ Event Cinema, Bondi Junction

Phil Spector is a creative genius. And, yes, a convicted killer. The documentary The Agony & Ecstasy of Phil Spector was filmed after his 2007 murder trial which resulted in a mistrial, and would be taken back to court in 2009 where he would be sentenced to 19 years in...

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musicWooden Shjips

Thursday, 11th March - 8PM
@ Annandale Hotel

HEAVY JAMS, MAN, HEAVY JAMS! That's what Wooden Shjips create from their psychedelic pocket of San Francisco, and lucky are we that they are bringing said jams to Sydney for the first time. As if no time had passed between the end of the summer of love and 2010, Wooden...

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musicMy Disco

Friday, 12th February - 8PM
@ Oxford Art Factory

Known for their "angular", "clean", "repetitive", "art rock", "experimental noise rock" sound, when I caught My Disco live a few months ago at the Melbourne International Arts Festival (they headlined and sold out the same enormous venue Fischerspooner played the night before), I was pleasantly shocked to hear a bit...

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musicDeerhoof

Tuesday, 9th March - 8PM
@ Spectrum

Deerhoof is a troupe of glorious daytrippers, big smiles and off-the-wall styles. At this point, they are the longest-standing musicians signed to iconic record label Kill Rock Stars, and their longevity is something we should be thankful for every day. Especially when it comes to tour time, because this band...

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artfreeDaniel Johnston: Dead Lovers Twisted Heart

Thursday, 28th January - Saturday, 13th February
@ Monster Children Gallery

Whether you came to Daniel Johnston via a precious dubbed cassette passed on as a young teen, or seeing Kurt Cobain consistently wear a "Hi, How Are You?" T or even by hearing Casper the Friendly Ghost on the Kids soundtrack, he is a much loved figure in an increasingly...

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musicPlayground Weekender

Thursday, 18th February - Sunday, 21st February
@ Del Rio Riverside Resort

CLICK HERE FOR SET TIMESYou know that feeling after you see one of your favourite bands. You clap for an encore and the band obliges but then after that it's over. You muddle about with your friends trying to "keep the vibe," trying to push through that initial moment of...

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filmMardi Gras Film Festival

Friday, 12th February - Saturday, 6th March
@ Various cinemas

Perhaps you're not the parade type. Maybe you're not into public displays of affection and/or glitter coated abdominals. Perhaps you're more like me and happier to sit, eyes agog in a darkened cinema for a few hours. The annual Sydney Mardi Gras festival is all about being out and proud...

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freeplayMardi Gras Parade 2010

Saturday, 27th February - 5PM
@ Sydney City Streets and Parks

That evangelical buffoon Fred Nile needs to realise something important: nobody cares if his prayers for rain on Mardi Gras Parade night are answered. Whilst the queer community may still be persecuted in the same fashion as witches, it doesn't lead to melting into a little puddle (err, umm, is...

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musicDinosaur Jr.

Thursday, 11th March - 8PM
@ Metro Theatre

This is a band that fans would feel need no introduction. If you are a fan --> ticket details over to the right there, but you've probably snapped one up already. If you're not a fan, may I ask, what have you been doing all this time? They started in...

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filmfreeHymn to Beauty Film Series

Wednesday, 3rd March - Sunday, 18th April
@ AGNSW

As kimono clad onlookers a few floors above traipse around the Hymn to Beauty: The Art of Utamaro exhibition ogling delicate ukiyo-e woodblock prints, rest your weary geta clogs in the downstairs theatrette. Hymn to Beauty focuses on the "floating world" captured in Utamaro's work, glimpsing into the luxurious new...

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artUp the Cross: Rennie Ellis & Wesley Stacey

Saturday, 20th February - Sunday, 8th August
@ Museum of Sydney

There was a note stuck to the back of a Darlinghurst bus stop seat. "ROSE," it read, "Gone up the Cross. Ring me! Trevor." The year wasn't 1970, it was 2009 and I was on my way home from a bookshop opening. I don't know if Rose ever found Trevor,...

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musicThe Bats

Friday, 23rd April - 8PM
@ Oxford Art Factory

Did you see The Bats on their sold out Australian tour last year? If you did, please don't get in touch to tell me how incredible they were. I know, I know, one of the best shows you've ever seen. As vibrant as ever, you say. I geddit! Zip the...

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filmThe Red Shoes

Thursday, 18th March - Thursday, 1st April
@ Chauvel Cinema

Seeing the restored print of the 1948 Powell & Pressburger classic The Red Shoes is like seeing it for the first time. And, if it really is your first time taking it in, how I envy you! Following two and a half years of restoration work propelled by Martin Scorcese,...

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artfilmBeautiful Losers Shorts

Saturday, 27th March - 4PM
@ Chauvel Cinema

Combining the intimacy of a slide show and the insight of a director's commentary, Beautiful Losers Shorts is a truly special one-off presentation this Saturday afternoon at the Chauvel Cinema. Presented by Monster Children Gallery as an extension of the 'Simulacrum' exhibition which runs from the 25 March-17 April, this...

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artSimulacrum

Friday, 26th March - Saturday, 17th April
@ Monster Children Gallery

On a personal note, I wrote my thesis on the value of objects, a rigorous discussion about the traces of a human hand, of essence, of aura. Should a reproduction be cast aside as worthless? I know, right? Yawn. Well, it's something curator Aaron Rose must have been tossing around...

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filmKick-Ass

Friday, 9th April - Wednesday, 9th June
@ Various cinemas

Superheroes are generally a special breed; they're physical or genetic mutants seeking revenge or protecting the world (often both). What if, however, a superhero was just the guy who has a locker a few doors down from yours, the kind of teenage dude who obsesses over internet porn and caped...

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filmCoco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky

Thursday, 15th April - Saturday, 15th May
@ Various cinemas

It's no coincidence that the words amorous and amoral sit so closely together in the dictionary, and Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky explores this sentiment through the passion of an affair between its two title characters. It opens in 1913, with Coco (Anna Mouglalis) attending the Paris debut of Stravinksy's...

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musicplayTiki Taboo

Saturday, 17th April - 8PM
@ Oxford Art Factory

Do you like pina coladas? Getting caught in the rain? Do you like making love at midnight, in the dunes on the cape? If just one of those things is true best dust off your grass skirt this Saturday, because the Tiki Two are throwing a clambakin' shindig for your...

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performingThe Silver Rose

Friday, 9th April - Thursday, 29th April
@ Sydney Opera House

Following last year's fantastic season, The Silver Rose is a fittingly powerful way for the Australian Ballet to usher in 2010's quartet of performances. Originally commissioned in 2005 by the Bavarian State Ballet, the work was conceptualised and choreographed by Graeme Murphy with Janet Vernon, whose style is evident throughout....

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filmAudi Festival of German Films

Wednesday, 21st April - Sunday, 2nd May
@ Chauvel Cinema

Now in it's ninth year, the Audi Festival of German Films returns to Sydney with 30 features to thoroughly sate your Deutsch-longing while you wait for Oktoberfest to roll around again. Ever more successful each year (last year's drew record crowds), the festival is the kind of two-week event where...

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musicPikelet

Thursday, 29th April - 8PM
@ Oxford Art Factory

It may be easy to throw around words like "magical" and "wondrous", but I'd be remiss not to employ them when trying to describe Pikelet's sound. It's not polite psych, however, it's swirling folky pop made limitless by the use of live looping and a veritable carpet bag of instruments...

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filmThe White Ribbon

Thursday, 6th May - Tuesday, 6th July
@ Various cinemas

As with most of Michael Haneke’s films, a chill hangs in the air of The White Ribbon, the constant threat of upheaval eventually lulling you into a tired state of alertness. Narrated by a fumbling but sympathetic school teacher, it is the story of a fictional German village over the...

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musicTortoise

Saturday, 8th May - 8PM
@ Manning Bar

No matter how much the term ‘post rock’ may still continue to irk, Tortoise are the influential people to blame for forcing some underpaid music journo to unleash it onto the post-Krautrock-progressive-experimental-instrumental world all those years ago. A band comprised over time of members of Slint, Sea & Cake, The...

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musicThe Chills

Saturday, 15th May - 8PM
@ Oxford Art Factory

For a band so — well loved doesn't quite cut it — adored, it seems shocking that the Chills have only released a handful of records, but the standard of each one is so high that it seems to run into the hundreds. One of the very first bands signed...

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musicBoris

Friday, 28th May - 10PM - Saturday, 29th May - 10PM
@ The Studio, Sydney Opera House

Were it not for the fact that I was completely hypnotised by Jim Jarmusch's Limits of Control in the cinema last year, I would have raced out at some point to check who was responsible for the incredible soundtrack: Boris. In an issue of British experimental music magazine Wire, Jarmusch...

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musicBardo Pond

Tuesday, 1st June - 8PM
@ The Studio, Sydney Opera House

Bardo Pond make huge washes of explorative sound, using noise elements of distortion and drone to carve out space and time. Does that description make me sound like an acid casualty? So be it, because I'd be well at home in the Bardo family. Any band who, since they formed...

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musicUte Lemper

Wednesday, 19th May - 8PM
@ State Theatre

Remember the heavily pregnant, naked woman in Prêt-à-Porter? No? You should rewatch it; it's better than you remembered. Said heavily pregnant, naked woman is also a chanteuse with a longer discography than the Sinatra family combined. Famous for her renditions of the songs of Kurt Weill, Ute Lemper has had...

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artSin City: crime & corruption in 20th-century Sydney

Tuesday, 11th May - Sunday, 22nd May
@ Justice & Police Museum

Sydney's past of gamblers, bookers, prostitutes and pimps is revealed in this exhibition which picks though fragments of good times and ugly truths.

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musicJónsi

Monday, 2nd August - 8PM
@ Enmore Theatre

It's only been a few months since it was announced that Icelandic band Sigur Rós had thrown in the ol' towel, also known as "indefinite hiatus", so the tears might still be fresh enough to wipe dry with the news that lead vocalist Jónsi is coming to town. Having formed...

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performingCoppélia

Tuesday, 4th May - Saturday, 22nd May
@ Sydney Opera House

It's so rare to sit at an event of any kind, and silently wish for it to never end. Such was the case with the Australian Ballet's latest production, Coppélia. A joy to watch, and, given the mix of mime and traditional ballet, a pleasure to dance. At least it...

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musicCrayon Fields

Saturday, 29th May - 8PM
@ Oxford Art Factory

No matter the weather, Melbourne's Crayon Fields are an instant clearing of the clouds. Good vibrations taking a sunbath, and if you peel away the initial innocence, probably a skinny dip to follow. The slight incongruity of their sound to their era, with nods to luminaries such as Dennis Wilson...

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artperformingBodytorque.á la mode

Thursday, 27th May - Sunday, 30th May
@ Sydney Theatre

Sometimes it's the costumes as much as the dancers and choreography that linger on in memory long after the red curtain drops. Those night sky print dresses in Coppélia! That magical black sequined cape from The Sleeping Beauty that swept the entire stage! Both of those pieces have effectively rendered...

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performingStephen Fry

Tuesday, 27th July - 8PM - Wednesday, 28th July - 8PM
@ Sydney Opera House

Who hasn't thought about spending an evening with Stephen Fry? Certainly he seems more intelligent than you, dear reader, and me, too. Probably far more charming at least. What would you do that night? Have him discuss how a love of Oscar Wilde helped him attune to this sexuality, or...

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musicRichard In Your Mind

Saturday, 3rd July - 8PM
@ Spectrum

El Tropo jams aside, it's hard not to crush out a little bit on a band who promote their album by placing little, handmade paper-mache volcanoes on a few lucky street poles around Darlinghurst.

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filmThe Runaways

Wednesday, 7th July - 8PM
@ Event Cinema, Bondi Junction

Don't be nervous, Runaways fans: this film certainly does the band justice and Stewart and Fanning are wholly convincing as two of the most important women in rock history. See it complete with a live Cherie Currie Q&A at Popcorn Taxi tonight.

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musicSally Seltmann

Friday, 23rd July - 8PM
@ Oxford Art Factory

Her breathy vocals and playful melodic twists are a delight on the stereo but more so in person. Having just returned from a US tour, Seltmann will launch a record with special guests Parades and Kyu.

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musicFabulous Diamonds

Friday, 23rd July - 8PM
@ Spectrum

In a sea of three-piece bands taking dingy stages right now, I'm glad that Fabulous Diamonds remain a suitably polished duo. Sure, their songs are a trial to back-announce on radio (they’re all untitled), but what's a small moment of on-air discomfort when the song is so sublime? Alongside building...

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artfreeplaySculpture by the Sea 2010

Thursday, 28th October - Sunday, 14th November
@ Bondi to Bronte Coast Walk

Each sculpture on display at this much-loved annual outdoor exhibition responds to the landscape in which it is situated, offering a kind of site specificity that one doesn't often get to engage with in such numbers.

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