B.entertained Issue 29

26 • B.ENTERTAINED www.bendigoweekly.com.au Bendigo Weekly – Friday, March 25, 2011

scienceARTVS

AUSTRALIAN electronic pop trio Art vs. Science are ever-strengthening their hold on the Australian music scene, with successful single fol-lowing successful single, and now � nally, a debut album, The Experiment.

Reviews have been a mixed bag and some of the songs on the album are very, very strange but the sales � gures are a clear indication that everybody loves it none-theless.

Just missing out on the #1 spot on the ARIA charts

to Michael Buble, Art vs. Sci-ence drummer Dan Williams couldn’t be happier.

“Number 2 on the ARIA charts was a big surprise, we’re so stoked,” Williams said.

“There are songs on the album that we wrote nearly three years ago, so it’s great to � nally have it out.”

Two singles have already been released for the album, Finally See Our Way and Mag-ic Fountain, while their videos are renowned for their enter-tainment value.

“We love doing videos. Sometimes we write a song as an excuse to make a video!” Williams said.

Overseas at the moment tackling the US, the boys will be returning soon for the

Groovin the Moo festival tour, making a stop right here in Bendigo.

This isn’t Art vs. Science’s � rst GTM either; their stint at the 2009 edition was actually their � rst ever tour as a band.

Williams assured us that the band is very excited about the regional dates.

“The rural crowds are al-ways great. It’s not like the city where there’s a festival every weekend, so we’re ex-pecting it to be amazing” he said.

Funnily enough, they were the bottom billed band at Groovin The Moo.

If the recent Future Music Festival billing is anything to go by, we can expect the boys to be much further up the list

this year, a testimony to how far the band has come in such a short period.

“On the Future bill it goes Ke$ha, then us, then The Pre-sets. We started the band around the same time that The Presets released Apoca-lypso, and that album was massive,” Williams said.

“It feels really strange sharing a stage with them at a festival, let alone being billed above them.”

It would be fair to say that there isn’t another band on the planet similar to Art vs. Science and it’s something that Williams attributes to a freak accident.

“We started o� wanting to be like Daft Punk or Justice, then it took this odd form that

sounded nothing like either of those at all,” he said.

Performing isn’t the only reason Williams loves music festivals.

“Most of my wardrobe is made up of stu� that has been thrown on stage,” he said.

“I never get a chance to buy clothes, so most of the stu� I wear is stu� I have found at festivals.

“I actually get excited for festivals for that reason, new festivals = new clothes. I have nearly 30 pairs of sunglasses.

“I should start a shop.” If you have any clothing

that you want to see in their next music video, you should try throwing it on stage at GTM – you never know!

jake schatz

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Friday, March 25, 2011 – Bendigo Weekly www.bendigoweekly.com.au B.ENTERTAINED • 27

Saturday March 26Purple Day. Supporting Epilepsy Around The World. Buy a regular or large cappuccino or latte from Gloria Jeans and 50 cents goes to raising epilepsy awareness.Majorca Old Time Dance. 8pm -12 midnight, music by Family Rhythm. Admission $8, good supper. For further information contact Val on 5461-2215Cancer Council Victoria Open Garden Day. 10am-4:30pm at 25 Emmett St, Golden Square. Entry by gold coin donation.Strath-Haven Aged Care Garage Sale. 8.30am to 12.30pm, enter from Lowndes Street opposite Bargains Galore. Trash and Treasure, Arts and Crafts, books and magazines, household items and cakes and slices and a sausage sizzle.Uncle Bobs Club Monster Charity Garage Sale. All money raised helps sick and disabled children of Victoria (all good must be sold.) 8.30am at the rear of the Uniting Church, White Hills, all vehicles enter via Bobs Street.Sunday March 27Peter Sheahan’s Walk Up Afternoon of Entertainment All proceeds go to Palliative Care Auxiliary. 2pm to 6pm, at the RSL Club, Havilah Road, Bendigo. $10, meals from midday to 2pm, and

6pm to 8pm. Afternoon tea supplied, lucky door prizes. Bookings on 54422950 or 54463805.Quarry Hill Primary School Centenary Celebrations of the Peel St. school building. Re-enactment by sta� and students. BBQ lunch, tea and co� ee, entertainment, and o� cial plaque unveiling. Period costume and any memorabilia, newspaper cuttings and photos welcome Assemble at 10.45am at the site of the original school at 32 Olinda Street. Contact the school on 5443 3537 to RSVP.Bendigo Night Slimmers 40 Year Celebration. All past, present and future members are invited to join us for a light afternoon tea. 2pm to 5pm at Alawara Centre, 27 Bay Street, Golden Square.  Contact  Sue on 0408995131Health and Harmony Day. Community fundraiser for � ood a� ected rural Victorians. Relaxation and Crystal Mandala workshops, Sonic Healing, stalls and prizes.$10, kids under 12 free. 9.30am to 4.30pm at the Kangaroo Flat Senior Citizens from 9.30am to 4.30pm.Contact 0449913375.Wednesday March 30Daybreak Men’s Night An interactive workshop on stress and mindfulness. 6pm at Daybreak, 22 Lawson Street, Spring Gully. $15 (inc BBQ and drinks). Bookings essential on 5441-1814 or email [email protected]. Contact Garth on 5441-1050Thursday March 31Bendigo Regional Genealogical Society’s General Meeting. 7:30 p.m. at the Uniting Church Hall, Church Street, Kangaroo Flat.  Guest Speaker Mr Michael Lewinsky on Albert Jacka VC. Visitors most welcome.

seven daysin association with KLFM radio

96.5 FM

Friday, March 25

Basement BarRowan Blackmore and Band9pm, FREENewmarket HotelTony, Shaggs and Special Guest9pmBridge HotelSoulchild9pm, FREETheatre RoyalRosie Flores and band featuring Ash Davies and Rick Plant8pm, $33Old Hepburn HotelUntapped8.30pm, FREEHorvat’s Wine BarAdrian Deakin6pm, FREEJennie Brown and Jude Russell Trio8.30pm, FREEPugg MahonesAdrenalin11pmSaturday, March 26

Newmarket HotelDraconis Infernum, Belligerent Intent and Evil Intent9pm, $8Basement BarUrban Creatures9pm, FREEBendigo Folk ClubAndy Irvine and Rens van der Zalm8pmCambrian HotelRewind9pm, FREEBrian Boru HotelMick Coates and The Allnightlongers9pm, FREE

Pugg MahonesThe Grinners11pmShamrock Hotel KynetonTriggerman9pm, FREEHorvat’s Wine BarCab Saveloy6pm, FREETangevator8.30pm, FREEOld Hepburn HotelHepburn Springs Folk FestivalSee venue for detailsSunday, March 27

Basement Bar‘Open Mic’ with host DeanoFree, 5pmMarong Family HotelUrban Creatures12.30pm, FREEGolden Vine HotelSunday Session with Bel and Jon4pm, FREEBridge HotelTaylor Sheridan2pm, FREEGoldmines HotelOld Buzzard Medicine Show3pm, FREEOne Tree Hill HotelItchy Bits2pm, FREEHorvat’s Wine BarYoung Werther6.30pm, FREEOld Hepburn HotelWax Lyrical- Open Stage4pm, FREETuesday, March 29Golden Vine HotelJam Session8.30pm, FREEThursday, March 31Golden Vine HotelJam Session8.30pm, FREE

gig guide

in brief

the art of food, wine and song IT’S all happenin’ in Heathcote this week-end.

Starting tonight, The Art of Food, Wine and Song, an art exhibition with a twist,

will be held at Flynn’s Winery.Local artist Kath Caroll, who is also

the head chef at Flynn’s, will showcase her work while renowned opera soprano, Brenda Kinsella, will perform a selection of arias.

So come down and experience the ambiance of Flynn’s and hear and taste the creativity on display.

The action then moves to the precinct of Camp Street and the RSL Hall for the Heathcote Connect Event on Saturday.

Clowns, snake handlers, a junk fashion competition, trikes, live bands, children’s storytelling and indoor bowls are just some of the attractions available, promot-ing health and well being.

Taking place between midday and 4pm, City of Greater Bendigo Mayor, Cr Rod Fy� e, will o� cially open the event at 12.00pm. A free barbecue lunch will also be available.

red roverCOMEDY is back in Bendigo tonight at the Shamrock Hotel with the monthly “Red Rover” comedy night.

Taking to the stage will be

American comedian DeAnne Smith (pic-tured), a regular visitor to Australia for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival since 2008. Smith has also been a regular feature on Good News Week.

Also on the bill is up and coming Aus-sie David Quirk and English funnyman Je� Green. Tickets are $25 and available from the venue. Doors open 7.30pm.

THE majority of the romantic comedy Hall Pass follows the Hollywood formula of its genre that has worked and not worked for countless of similar movies.

However, the only factor that makes this predominantly unexciting project dif-ferent is that it is sprinkled with “out there” comedic moments that are intended to shock the audience.

The moments by screenplay writers the Farrelly brothers along with Pete Jones will certainly jolt the audience with their crude content that will divide those watching into “it is funny” or “it is vulgar” categories.

To me they are the only saving grace with the rest of the project being pedes-trian and never rising above mediocre.

The script manages to demean men as well as women and centres on two husbands who have been let o� their mar-riages for a week, and received a “Hall Pass” by their respective wives, who are tired of

their constant obsession with ogling pretty women.

The husbands are played by Owen Wilson as Rick and Jason Sudeikis who is Fred. Their wives are more believable and are played by Jenna Fischer as Rick’s part-ner Maggie and Christina Applegate who is Jason’s wife Grace.

Owen Wilson polarises movie goers into “love him” or “hate him” status and will not change any opinions in this � lm.

The other leads deliver as required but it is sad to see talented Christina Applegate in such a lacklustre role.

There are a couple of mildly funny sup-ports by Stephen Merchant (from the UK ’s The O� ce) and Joy Begar (from talk show The View). Australian Nicky Whelan (from Neighbours fame) passably plays Rick’s Hall Pass love interest, Leigh.

The Farrelly brothers have had suc-cess with � lms like Dumb and Dumber and There’s Something About Mary but have also had spectacular failures like Shallow Hal.

While Hall Pass slots into the centre of the spectrum, it is its portrayal of men as hopeless sexual predators and women as long su� ering partners that grates and is stereotypical of the genders.

The ending is predictable and the screenplay lessons on marriage are hack-neyed and trite.

Good all round production values are hampered by the poor script.

Don’t rush out to see this � lm. It may have some value on a really rainy winter’s day as a DVD watch. However, I’d rent it, as Hall Pass is not worthy of a second viewing or being part of a personal movie collec-tion.

robert gibson

review Movie: Hall Pass (MA)Starring: Owen Wilson, Jason Sudeikis

out of 5

I COULDN’T be prouder right now of our great friend Crikey – you can call him Chris Kennett – as this weekend his very � rst children’s story Alpha Monsters is being launched.

Chris is actually a great poet but only those of us who are lucky enough to be on his Christmas card list would know this. So, he’s now written a fantastic rhyming story of a boy helping to � nd a monster’s teddy by tracing back over his day and all the various letters of the alphabet he meets on his way. It’s funny, bright, educational and it rhymes. Hooray! There’s none of this changing in rhythm or frustrating “half rhymes” you frequently get in kids books these days. It’s interesting and his pictures are as fantastic as always.

Scholastic loved it so much there are other stories now in the pipeline. I’m thinking of having a t-shirt made that says “I knew him before he was famous”. But, I’m more than happy for you to join the bandwagon now. So buy up and get some for your present box whilst you can get them signed by local Bendigo boy, my friend � rst, Chris Kennett. Reviewed by Nicole Murphy

pick of the week this week’s top 10

Alpha MonstersChris KennettScholastic

1. Batavia Peter Fitzsimons2. Jamie’s 30-Minute Meals

Jamie Oliver3. Saturday Big Tent Wedding

Pary Alexander McCall-Smith4. Wise Man’s Fear Bk2

Kingkiller Chronicle Patrick Rothfuss

5. Letters & Numbers 2 SBS6. Letters & Numbers SBS7. Daughters-in-Law Joanna

Trollope8. Afterlife Bk 4 Evernight

Claudia Gray9. Only Time Will Tell Je� rey

Archer10. Jungle Clive CusslerSupplied by Dymocks Bendigo

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Her large-scale drawings hang � oor-to-ceiling, often in multiple panels and two to three metres wide. They take her several weeks to create. Her small frame is dwarfed by lengths of paper which she crawls over, her images taking shape under her hand.

Moreover, Noela’s images are of epic landscapes discov-ered on her travels. Starting as pencil outlines, they gradually evolve into striking, intense charcoal drawings.

The smudgey medium of

charcoal is a liberating one for Noela.

When we meet at her Golden Square studio – “the nerve centre” she calls it, di-recting me to it through a beautiful garden – a long im-age of Milford Sound in New Zealand greets me.

Her pictures are “a lot about beauty and power”, she says, and “less about people.”

It’s fair to say that Noela possesses a fatal attraction to landscape; it’s where she � nds peace, mystery and the sublime.

“For me landscape is the most beautiful thing outside of normal experience. I am over-awed and excited by it, and this comes into the work,” she explains.

“I’m interested in the sub-lime – when you are over-whelmed by something from your position of safety.”

Right now a survey of her work created between 2000 and 2010 occupies a vast

space at the prestigious Art Gallery of Ballarat. Curated by director Gordon Morrison, the exhibition is entitled Territory.

The title isn’t only a refer-ence to the places she’s been and illustrates.

“It’s also about a sense of place,” says Noela. Growing up in Gippsland in a farming fam-ily very much preoccupied with gardening and growing, a sense of identity and place was instilled into Noela at an early age.

“I respond strongly to dra-matic landscapes, like misty mountains. I see a metaphor there; the hidden aspects of our own lives, drama, inten-sity, di� usion, hiding reality, contrasts,” she says, the latter very much re� ected in her gi-ant charcoal drawings, a veri-table adventure in black and white.

Noela also spends much of her drawing time creating grey atmospheres, spending hours smudging charcoal on

paper, until her hands are en-tirely blackened.

While her work is big, No-ela says there is simplicity in her technique.

“It’s paper and charcoal; a simple and direct statement,” she says. Coming to � ne art study and a professional art career after raising � ve chil-dren, Noela – who has a PhD from Deakin University – says “I have very much developed my own way of doing this. No-one else is doing it in this way, which is what appealed to Gordon (Morrison) when he selected the work for the exhibition.”

Noela is proud of her ac-

complishments, especially of her studies and her work, which has evolved over de-cades.

Her doctorate – unsurpris-ingly – was about the way people respond to landscape. “I’m really interested in the way people read into things from their past experiences. This happens with landscape as well.”

Having lived this time in Bendigo for 11 years, Noela is hoping that locals will jump in the car and make the jour-ney to Ballarat to see Territory, which is on until April 25.

After all, it is hanging in one of Australia’s great art gal-

leries, with a curating policy that actively supports artists from the region. “The sta� are tremendously supportive” nods Noela.

With work 10 years in the making, and 3 years for the show to get o� the ground, is this a big moment for Noela?

“I’m relieved!” she con-� des, “and just happy that there will be people there to share that moment with me.”

Territory by Noela Stratford at Art Gallery of Ballarat, until April 25. www.artgal-leryofballarat.com.au

Visit Noela online at www.noelastratford.com

territoryepic

megan spencer

EPIC is the best way to describe work by Bendigo artist Noela Strat-ford.

DRAMA: Turning Point by Noela Stratford

YOU know the joke about a zebra being a horse de-signed by a committee; well an alpaca may well be a camel designed by an aesthete. Or a goat (apologies to Brenda and Paul at Capricorn Cottage) designed by a hygienist.Here is a list – admittedly supplied by someone who breeds these ex-traordinary creatures – of alpaca attributes:

* they are environ-mentally friendlier than sheep or goats because they have a pad foot with toenails, not hooves

* they can breed all year round but they will only give birth in the ear-ly part of a day that is less likely to rain so that the babies, called cria, can dry out before nightfall (how smart is that!)

* they will bond with chooks, as well as goats, and protect all their gang against foxes, which they will chase at a clipping 60kms an hour, trample

or smother by dropping to their knees and low-ering their substantial chests on the predator

* they are browsers and grazers but will re-spect fences

* the alpaca will yield � bre for most of its adult life (they can live to 20)

* they poop in neat piles, convivially

* you can even eat them, and the meat tastes like veal, even from an oldish alpaca

That last attribute is given a little reluctantly by Karin Flynn who, with Chris Kirtley, runs Red Balloon Alpaca Stud in Woodvale.

When you know an alpaca by name, and can identify its little foibles and mannerisms, you are not in a hurry to eat it.

Karin admits, how-ever, that she has become rather partial to goat, once she overcame the same initial reluctance, so she is not against eating alpaca, per se.

Red Balloon is a rela-tively new stud, devel-oped in the past three or four years. In 2007, Karin and Chris purchased a

� ne herd from Karin’s aunt and uncle, the Hal-pins of Seymour, which included a couple of most desirable males.

Red Balloon is build-ing on the breeding ex-pertise of the Halpins, to create a herd of white Huacaya.

They have 60 breed-ing females at the mo-ment, and they are aim-ing at 100. Right about now, 35 cria have arrived, or will soon arrive; the males will be run for at least a year, maybe two, before being assessed for their breeding capacity.

If they are castrated, they become guard-al-paca. Farmers (from big to hobby) are beginning to prize the wethers for their ability to guard herds from foxes and dogs.

Karin told us all this about the amazing al-paca in the lead-up to the Chrysanthemum and Goat Festival at Bendigo showgrounds across the Easter weekend.

Because the wethers can prove helpful looking out for the kids in a goat herd, festival organisers Brenda and Paul were

keen to get the alpaca community involved in this, their inaugural fair.

Red Balloon was named after the lovely French � lm of that name, chosen because, like the little boy’s balloon, the alpacas “seem to know what you are up to, but they’re not pushy, and they’re quirky”, says Karin.

Ask her if there’s an alpaca down-side, and all she can think of is the fact that, with the crowd they have at their place, toenail-trimming can take a fair amount of time.

The other down-side, not for Red Balloon, but for all the rest of us soft-hearted people who take a look at the alpaca’s funny face, with its sweet smile (they only have bot-tom teeth) and long eye-lashes, is that you really can’t get just one - not if you want a happy alpacy.

“They are herd ani-mals, and get very lonely when they are alone,” Karin says. redballoonalpacas.comAll Breeds Goat Show, at the Bendigo Showgrounds, April 23 and 24: info 0438 439108.

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Friday March 25th Soul ChildSunday March 27thTaylor SheridanFriday April 1Toli Wana DuoSunday April 3The GrinnersFriday April 8Soulchild

Friday April 15Andy Garlic DuoSunday April 17The MockbellsFriday April 22SoulchildMonday April 25The Mockbells