Sunshine & Grease: Blog

Blog

Free Julian Williams 7" Download 5/09/10

You can get the new JW EP Isle in multiple formats for nothing here: julianwilliams.bandcamp.com. A few spins of the title track should lift your spirits on this cold, miserable Sunday. It worked for me, anyway.

Things in the shop this week... 16/07/10

By Pat.

Lots of new stock arrived from overseas. And a bunch of great DVD’s too. Second-hand, going cheap. You don’t see many of these around often.

Look out for some gigs on here late this month!

Cheap DVD’s. All are second hand, in great condition. Most are Region 2 or 1. Please be sure your DVD player can play foreign DVD’s.
Some are quite rare around these parts. Going cheap, too. A single copy of each available. Be quick.
Contact me on hi@sunshinegrease.com to secure any of this stuff.

Nostalghia $20 Andrei Tarkovsky
Ivan’s Childhood $25 Andrei Tarkovsky
Mirror $25 Andrei Tarkovsky
The Andrei Tarkovsky companion $25 Sokurov/Marker/Tarkovsky & Tonino Guerra
The Steamroller and the violin $25 Tarkovsky’s first feature, made while in film school.
The Sacrifice $30 Tarkovsky (double disk)
Stalker $30 (double disk)
Solaris $30 (double disk)
Andrei Rublev $28 Criterion edition
Agony $35 4 hour feature by Elem Klimov about the life of Rasputin
Le Mépris (Contempt) $25 One of my favourite Godard films. Great soundtrack. Starring Brigitte Bardot, Michel Piccoli, Jack Palance and Fritz Lang.
Tout Va Bien $28 Godard Criterion edition with extensive notes
Alphaville $28 Godard Criterion
A Woman is a woman $28 Godard Criterion
Band of Outsiders $28 Godard Criterion
Weekend $25 Godard
Valerie and her week of wonders $25 Chech new wave classic by Jaromil Jires
If $35 Double disk criterion Lindsay Anderson film starring Malcolm McDowell
Fires on the plain Criterion Japanese film by Kon Ichikawa
Satantango $40 Three disk Béla Tarr set
The films of Alejandro Jodorowsky $40 4 DVD and 2 CD box set (US Version)
The Face of another $25 Teshigahara film with great Takemitsu soundtrack. Comes with extensive notes and special features.
Brazil $28 Criterion edition
The Loneliness of the long distance runner $18
Testimony $20 Tony Palmer’s film about troubled russian composer, Dmitri Shostakovich.
Demon Seed $18 Stars Julie Christie.
Little Murders $18
Performance $18 Donald Cammel and Nic Roeg
The Ghost Galleon $18 Blind dead collection
Mill of the Stone Women $18
Deatdream $18
Liquid Sky $20 (Plenty of extras)
Tombs of the blind dead $18 Blind dead collection
Hard Eight $18 P.T. Anderson US Edition with extras.
The Conformist $20 Bertolucci masterpiece.
Night Tide $20 Dennis Hopper’s first film. By Curtis Harrington. Originally released in 1963
The Passenger $20 Antonioni film starring Jack Nicholson and Maria Schneider

Zond – Self Titled CD (RIP Society) $16 Long awaited debut lives up to this powerhouse’s
live reputation. Only $16!

Anthony Pateras and Robin Fox – End of Daze CD (Editions Mego) $32 Amazing album from a few years back. Out of print and hard to find.
Robin Fox – A Handfull of automation cassette. (Editions Mego) $20 New album by the bearded one. On cassette, no less! Already out of stock at the source.
Whitehorse – Document 250407 cassette $10 (Sabbatical/Sweatlung)
Awesome heavyness from 07 line-up of Ramez Bathish, Mark Groves, Pete Hyde,
Rob Mayson, Simon Taylor, Yeap Heng Shen.

Krystoffkrvstoffiston – Crumbling Nationss/Toads of Babylon cassette $7(BTX0019)
Melbourne evil ghoulish weirdness.

Cured Pink cassette – Self titled cassette $10 (Sabbatical) Industrial misanthropic noise rock from Brisbane.
Witnessed 3 incredible shows by him this week. The cassette is limited to 50 copies and mixes field recordings, electronics, guitar, drums and vocals to incredible effect.
Really impressive recording.

The Spring Press

Bruce Russell – Antikythera Mechanism LP $28 First side, 2 pieces recorded at West Space
last year. 1 is a duo with Marco Fusinato. Amazing. Side B is recorded in NZ. White Vinyl

Psychic Ills – Astral Occurrence LP $28 Beautiful Vinyl limited edition by Brooklyn Psych outfit.

Albert’s Basement
Michael Zuliki has just put out his best batch. 3 new smoking releases.

Blank Realm – Deja What? CD-R $10 (Albert’s Basement)
6magick9 – Cassette $10 (Albert’s Basement)
Lost Animal – Cassette $10 (Albert’s Basement)

Michael Rodgers – Twilight Birds: 21 minutes of audio, 7 colour photographs, printed envelope and Postcard. Edition of 150. (Lost Lights) $16
Beautiful guitar tracks mixed with field recordings. In lovely hand numbered packaging.

US Girls – Lunar Life 7” (Atelier Ciseaux) $12

Beaches – In a while/Halve 7” $10 (The Sky was white)

Wasted Truth Tape $10 (Reaction Psychotic) Now defunkt duo of Sean Bailey and Harriett Morgan.
Re-issued in stunning red edition.

sacred Bones Records

Gary War – Horribles Parade LP $29
Factums – Flowers LP $29
Factums – The Sistrum LP $29
Nice Face – Immer Etwas LP $29
Nerve City – Sleepwalker EP $27
Daily Void – the Eclipse of 1453 EP $27
Vermillion Sands – Miss my Mum EP $27
Zola Jesus – Stridulum EP $27

Time-Lag Records – Sorry about the price on these. The shipping really bit me hard.
All these records are heavy vinyl, in really nice sturdy sleeves. The way records
should be.

Stephen David Heitkotter S/T LP $48 This album, made some time before 71,
by a man who reportedly ended up in an asylum, rocks and rolls in a freewheeling
way, better than most. The instrumentation, (possibly all played by the loner,
Heitkotter) weave and dodge each other in ecstatic circles, while Steve spouts
rock’n‘soul sermons that are the perfect come-down from the technicolour flower-fuckery
of the late 60’s. Don’t get me wrong. This record isn’t so much of a downer, as it
is a revelry for the end of the world. Definitely one of the best private press
re-issues I’ve ever come accross.

Lula Cortes – Rosa de Sangue LP $48

Patron Saints – Fohhoh Bohob LP with 7” $50
PATRON SAINTS, THE ~ FOHHOH BOHOB ~ lp & 7inch (TIME-LAG 039/040)
deluxe and exact official reissue of one of the rarest & most unique gems of the 60s private press psychedelic underground. home recorded in a suburban new york living room over just a couple weeks in 1969 by three enthused teenagers, and then self released by the band in an edition of only 100 copies complete with hand assembled covers and booklet insert. dreams of rock stardom may have faded quickly, but from such humble beginnings these kids totally transcended their limited resources… an album overflowing with naive creativity, huge ideas, deep bedroom mysticism, and more then a hint of stoned teenage humor, not to mention a rather unusual assortment of instruments and some very unconventional but brilliant “studio” maneuvering. two singers/songwriters both with wonderfully deep, poetic & introspective lyrics and unique voices, chiming 12 string & electric guitars, unusually cool use of piano, crude drum kit, autoharp, banjo, tambourine, subtle bursts of fuzz bass, off kilter unison vocals, washes of reverb modulation, weird tape edits, and a seriously one-of-a-kind vibration. there’s truly been nothing like it before or since… highest quality production throughout with better then ever master tape sounds and warm analog mastering, audiophile 180gm vinyl, exact reproduction of the original heavy weight cover with front & back mind-blowingly cool crude black & white art just like the original, exact reproduction of the thick insert booklet with gold printed covers on multiple colors of construction paper. plus a bonus 7inch of two essential tracks intended for the original lp but left off due to time restrictions, complete with colored construction paper picture sleeve and lyric insert. without a doubt, the definitive reissue of this lost masterpiece. released in full cooperation with founding member eric bergman. strictly limited to 1000 copies.

Bo’Weavil New arrivals and re-stocks.

Tetuzi Akiyama – Pre-existence LP $30
Donald McPherson & Tetuzi Akiyama – Vinegar & Rum LP $30
Donald McPherson & Tetuzi Akiyama – Vinegar & Rum CD $24
Zadik Zecharia – Kurdish Melodies on Zorna CD $24
Born Heller – S/T LP $34 Josephine Foster & Jason Ajemian. Beautiful folk rock.
Anne Briggs – Sing A song for you LP $34
Roscoe Holcolm – The High Lonesome sound LP $34
Reines D’Angleterre – Les Comores LP $34 Collaboration between Ghedalia Tazartes/Jo/Él-G.
Brotzman/ Wilkinson Quartet – One Ninght in Burmantofts CD $24
Robbie Basho – Bonn ist Supreme CD $24
Sharron Kraus – Right Wantonly A Mumming CD $24
Meg Baird, Helena Espevall and Sharon Kraus – Leaves from off the tree CD $24
C Joynes – God feeds the Ravens CD $24
C Joynes – Revenants, Prodigies and the restless Dead CD $24
Black Flowers – I grew from a stone to a statue CD $24

Second Layer

Ramleh – Valediction CD $22
Lasse Marhaug – The Quiet North CD $22
Evan Parker / John Weise – C-Section CD $22
Skullflower – Malediction CD $22

Tomorrow Night: Reverse Engineering Opening. 9/06/10

By Lach.

Please join us for the opening of this group exhibition of work by young artists from Australia, South Korea and Thailand curated by Royce Ng and Daisy Bisenieks. Thursday June 10th 6-8pm, here at Sunshine & Grease.

The opening night will feature a musical performance by the artists using the home made instruments and sound system created for the exhibition.

Some more info.

Speaking of Lectures... 1/06/10

By Lach.

Here’s another thing worth going to at RMIT. Tomorrow night!

BRUCE RUSSELL

Against architecture: detournement as a psychogeographical tactic in underground culture

Public lecture
Wednesday 2nd June, 2010
Drinks from 6:00PM
Lecture 6:30-7:30PM in RMIT University, Landscape Architecture program, Building 8, Level 11, Lecture Theatre

Guy Debord is famous for espousing both the study of urban psychogeography and the practice of detournement as revolutionary tactics in culture. In this lecture Bruce Russell adduces theoretical and practical evidence from sources as diverse as the Situationist International, Walter Benjamin, Andy Warhol, Andrei Tarkovsky and Throbbing Gristle to argue that re-purposing the architectural wastelands of industrial capitalism is not merely a necessary evil of avant garde cultural practice, but in fact a secret weapon in the arsenal of cultural insurrection. One interpretation of Debord’s ideas might see architecture itself detourned in a collage of ruins – rather than utopian new drifting cities being built in the sky.

Bruce Russell is a practitioner in sound, who since 1987 has been a member of The Dead C. This genre-dissolving New Zealand trio mixes rock, electro-acoustics, noise and improvisation in equal measures. He has also been active as a solo artist, and directed two of New Zealand’s vanguard record labels, Xpressway and Corpus Hermeticum.

He is currently studying at RMIT towards a doctorate in sound. This seeks to establish a theory of the social utility of improvised sound work, building on Guy Debord’s critique of the commodity-spectacle, Walter Benjamin’s reflections on time and commodity fetishism, and Karl Marx’s theory of value.

He is also programme leader in Information Design at the Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology.

YEAH.

This week at Sunshine & Grease and elsewhere. 1/06/10

By Pat.

Music improvised & otherwise:

Thursday June 3 at 8pm
Francis Plagne / David Palliser
2 Solos 1 Duo

Friday June 4 at 8 pm
Infinite Decimals – The sound of Numerals
Dylan Matorell – A little chaos
Eko Eko Azarak – Ritual
Dominic Kavanagh – Inventions.

Presented by Audio Actions

Saturday night, S&G will be attending the Branden W. Joseph lecture presented by RMIT school of architecture.

Saturday June 5 2010
Drinks: 6-6:30pm 8.12.01
Saturday night lecture 6:30-7:30pm 8.11.68 (Lecture Theatre)

BRANDEN W. JOSEPH
The Roh and the Cooked: Structural Film, Actionism, Paracinema

Branden W. Joseph will discuss the travels of Tony Conrad and Beverly
Grant throughout Europe in the early 1970s. Their itinerary, and the
transformations in Conrad’s work upon his return to the United States,
sheds light on the particular “crisis” of experimental cinema at the
time and the manner in which it was (temporarily) overcome. Revising
current understandings of the notion of there being “two
avant-gardes” (as Peter Wollen famously put it), an examination of
Conrad’s development and his interactions with Malcolm Le Grice,
Wilhelm and Birgit Hein, and Otto Muehl will outline another line of
avant-garde development. Drawn from Conrad’s personal archives and
other research, this talk covers material that is not included in the
author’s recent book, Beyond the Dream Syndicate: Tony Conrad and the
Arts after Cage.

Branden W. Joseph is Frank Gallipoli Professor of Modern and
Contemporary Art in the Department of Art History and Archaeology at
Columbia University and an editor of the journal Grey Room (MIT Press).

Acid Casualty, Caught Ship and Francis Plagne. Tonight at the Empress 19/05/10

By Lach.

Tonight at the Empress, Sunshine & Grease presents Acid Casualty, Caught Ship and Francis Plagne. That’s Wednesday the 19th of Mai! $7 to get in. Spread the word!

A Few We Now Pause For... Opening Photos. 15/05/10

By Lach.

Good times. I was a little worried that the rain and the big hoo-ha in the city might dampen things a little. But no.

A few more. The show is open until the 29th.

Big Weekend 11/05/10

By Lach.

While the weekend just gone kinda bushwhacked us both, I think it was worth it:

Shoeb Ahmed knocking out some blissful drone n clatter with Snawklor on Thursday.

Tom Hall playing at the launch for his split tape with Aaron Wallace on Friday night. From my vantage point the audience appeared to be pretty tightly bound in Wallace/Hall spells for the bulk of the evening.

Pissypaw at the aB Your Colla Compilation launch on Saturday.

Might even be my favourite weekend of events at S&G so far.

The gigs were busy but that’s not what really fucked us in the end. It was finishing this:

Yeah! Finally! Signpainting is HARD.

LOADS more photos of everything over on Flickr

This week at Sunshine & Grease! 6/05/10

By Pat.

Thursday: Snawklor & Shoeb Ahmad at Sunshine & Grease.

Friday: A. Wallace and Tom Hall release what they think are their best recordings yet!! On Sunshine & Grease, at Sunshine & Grease.

Sat: A…lberts Basement launch Your Colla, the colour of mounds comp. At Sunshine & Grease, featuring live performance by Barrage, Jason Heller, Pissypaw and Nite Jewel!!! (Ok, joking about nite jewel. But heaps of others playing too! More info at AB website. Whew!

Victor's Show. 19/04/10

By Lach.

Thanks to everyone who’s come down so far. The opening was particularly awesome, with not one but three spectacular sets from the Charles Ives Singers. We got a bunch of video, and we’ll put it up here soon.

The show is a dense collection of 20th Century avant-garde artifacts, including books, records, pamphlets and other printed ephemera, original works by Victor, friends, family and peers. Artists from all over the world are represented. Much, if not most, of this stuff you will never see again anywhere.

Browsing the collection and chatting with Victor reveals a complex web of fact, fiction, chance encounters and personal connections forged through art and music.

Victor himself will be hanging around for the duration of the show, and is more than willing to play the role of (somewhat-unreliable) narrator as you make your way through the archives.

Here’s a few choice cuts with commentary culled from Victors’ notes.

The CONCORD SONATA of CHARLES IVES

"Manfred Reinelt was born in Leipzig in 1932.
He recorded the Concord Sonata in 1960 for
DDR Radio and was played on air same year.
He committed suicide in 1964.
The Concord Sonata LP was produced in 1989, not long after the wall fell."

P.R. SMITH/PLASTIC PEOPLE OF THE UNIVERSE

"P.R. Smith was drawn to Prague from London
during the Velvet Revolution of 1968.

He documented the underground music scene &
this standard 8 splicer was a critical tool.

The band, Plastic People of the Universe along with P.R. Smith,
were jailed by the communist regime for their subversive creativity.

All his standard 8 films were destroyed by the communist regime.

The splicer came via relatives to Caulfield in the early 80s."

subREAL

"Formed in late 1980s in Bucharest
Calin Dan, Iosif Kiraly & Dan Mihaltianu are subREAL
Profound exploration of Romanian society with special
Emphasis on folklore/brandy-culinary links."

THE GLOWING PICKLE

"The Glowing Pickle was a club in the Brunnenstrasse in the former
East Berlin founded by Canadians Gordon Monohan &
Laura Kikaulka in 1993.

A green membership card was acquired with your first drink purchase
& with it a glowing pickle stamp.
You got rewards for a full card, such as ex-stasi surveillance equipment.

The only music played in this garage bar was the Exotic Trilogy:
Caravan, Quiet Village & Taboo.
1,000s of versions were sought out from original vinyl records.

Cassette tapes were made & sold, by them, of this music.
One 10 inch EP vinyl record exists of a spinoff of this music by
Gordon, Laura & friends.

The Romanian artist, Dan Mihaltianu, tried to pickle a watermelon
& run an electric current through it at the Glowing Pickle.

The Glowing Pickle got its name from a little glass money box with a
pickled cucumber inside which was braced between two electrodes.
A coin deposited into the slot completed the circuit to illuminate the pickle:
Hence, "The Glowing Pickle!"