Posts Tagged ‘south western Sydney’
I love all of you
Annie & I saying bye to Marie on Oxford St after we saw The Wahas play at Spectrum on a Wednesday night.
Seeing Galija play at a Serbian venue in Canley Heights with Jasmina, Nikola, my sister and her friends. I was sick and didn’t have a good time but the music was beautiful. & I had Kitty Power on my side!
More photos from our lazy day at Stanwell Park.
Hyde Park day.
Adventures in Liverpool with Jasmina & Nikola.
10th December
This is me attacking the Birthday Boy.
Wednesday
Wednesday was my friend Drazen’s 20th birthday. It was also the day my Canadian cousin Vlado’s older brother Zoran came to Australia. There are three brothers, the sons of my dad’s brother, and Zoran was the only one I hadn’t seen since I was a baby and therefore too young to remember him. He’s about 30 now and he’s an artisteeee. It could be the age difference, or maybe just a personality clash, but I got along with Vlado much, much better. They’ve both gone to New Zealand now. They slept over at our place before my dad drove them to the airport in the morning. So I hung out with them during the day before heading over to Liverpool in the evening to see Drazen for his birthday.
I met up with Nenad at his place in the fucking ghetto (seriously, that area of Liverpool makes me feel like I’m stuck in one of those tales-of-inner-city-American-life movies), then we walked over to Black Rose where we met up with Nikola and Jasmina. Drazen’s family was having dinner and his annoying-beyond-words brother came outside to have a cigarette and insisted on sitting with us and questioning us like a teacher on what we’re doing. He made a snide remark about me being an Arts student. I didn’t make any comments but seriously…he’s one person that really shouldn’t pass judgment on others. Anyway. We ended up having a few drinks at Legends….which has been cleaned up and is now called Macquarie Hotel and is a shiny gambling hellhole really. Sasa, Mark George and Bodin joined us also. Then off to this little barbeque area behind Drazen’s building to smoke. Sasa left, we convinced Mark George to smoke weed, Bodin still refused (and refused to let me dress him up in tight jeans) & Nikola and I ‘officially’ started talking again! Fun times. Then we drove around a bit, ended up in some park in Carramar, Bodin and Mark George left, and we drove down to a lake in Lansvale. It was actually quite nice considering its location. Really quiet and peaceful and completely unexpected…I mean, a lake!
It was a good night.
Westie Wednesday
Wednesday
(Nenad & Nikola with Nenad’s lightbox / Nikola & Sasa / Art, feat. Jasmina)
First, I went to the dentist and got FOUR teeth fixed. Which cost, oh, only $460. One tooth was so fucked up that no matter how much of the numbing stuff he injected me with, I still felt the pain when he started drilling. The next day my mouth was so sore from the needle jabs to my gums. The four teeth took so long, I started to get really bored and restless towards the end. Was really glad to leave!
Then later on I went to an exhibition of works by design students at Lidcombe TAFE which featured the work of my friend Nenad. Jasmina, Nikola, Mark George & I drove there. I almost got into a bitch fight with Mark George in the car when he said that Arts is a pointless degree but I chose to ignore him instead. Some people are just not worth arguing with. When we got to Lidcombe TAFE, we met up with Nenad, Nenad’s brother Milan, Sasa and a really amusing dude whose name I forget. Free beer, Latin dancers, lots of work to look at, coming up with various ways to embarrass Nenad, etc. It was amusing and I sort of started talking to Nikola again which was really nice because I sort of miss hanging out with him. Plus, I rarely see my friends-from-the-ghetto these days so it was kind of nice overall. I dubbed the day Westie Wednesday. We were delayed in heading back because Nenad had to give a cheque to the DJ, then finding the way to Newtown where they were dropping me off was difficult, so there was a lot of driving involved, but luckily we’d swapped Mark George with Nenad!
In Newtown, I met up with Zig at The Vanguard where we were supposed to see Tim Freedman play – I was supposed to be reviewing for Faster Louder. As though I didn’t despise The Vanguard enough already, I get there and the awful old bitch at the desk says she doesn’t see my name anywhere on any list, and does not care for the printed out email I show her from Faster Louder. She was so unpleasant. Faster Louder have since said they’ll email them telling them they were very unprofessional! I wasn’t too heartbroken because I really hate that venue, but I heard a few minutes of Tim playing and it was just so fucking lovely, I wish I’d been there. Instead, Zig and I went to Newtown Thai II for dinner which was very good, then wandered down King St, caught a train to Central, hung around waiting for Zig’s bus, then both headed home. Eddy Avenue at night is a really scary place to be.
+ My rather awful review of Circlesquare’s Songs About Dancing and Drugs is up on The Dwarf: have a look.
So police think they have the authority to kill a minority
Last night I went to one of the best gigs I’ve been to in a long time. Sydney music…seriously, it’s fucking incredible.
Leesy, Jo & I are from the WEST SIDE.
Zig & I are obvs raging lesbians.
I like to stalk Annie.
Annie & I headed to the city on a train that seemed to be headed to Eternal Damnation. The lightning and thunder and dark dark sky were all pretty frightening, especially when stuck on a really old train. But we made it out alive except that when we got to Central, it started raining like a motherfucker out of nowhere and we had to hang around waiting for the rain to calm down. When it eventually did we made the uphill trek to the Hopetoun (where we met up with Zig) and by the time we got there, were pretty much soaked. Fuck this weather! It’s the worst when it’s hot AND raining.
First, The Vignettes played and they were awesome, as always! As someone later said “he’s a great little guitar player, isn’t he?” They’re so much fun to watch and their music is great. Go down to your local JB Hi-Fi and grab a copy of their EP Out of Home, On Our Own. I assume Red Eye should also have some copies. It’s really good. Or come to their next gig and you could get a copy for free! I did the mailing list rounds for them after they played and gave away a bunch of copies of the EP.
Then Leesy, Jo and two of their friends whose names I’ve unfortunately forgotten rocked up. Leesy brought her grillz, yo! Her ghetto alter-ego is Rude Boy and last night she wrote a new song on the back of Feels Like Friday #8. I feel so honoured to have been part of the process! BALLZ DEEP!
Chaingang played next and they were really, really good! The singer’s stage presence is just amazing. I’d seen them once or twice before but I was never as impressed as last night. Despite the ridiculous heat inside the venue (seriously Hopetoun, some air-conditioning would be nice. Or a fan at least!), they put on an incredible show. I’m so excited to hear their future recordings.
Then the headlining act of the night – The Wahas. It’s no secret that I love this band and think they’re pretty much the best band in Australia at the moment. They just get better with every gig they play. This was their first headlining gig and it coincided with their End of the HSC celebrations. And it was fucking amazing! Seriously, this was the best gig I’ve ever seen them play. They were INCREDIBLE. The set was a nice mixture of new and old songs, with the highlight being “Cheap Stuff” (that ending is brilliant) and the fact that they played “Loads” (I think it’s called) made me happy. Just…wow, they were so, so good! If you haven’t seen this band yet, WHAT THE HELL MAN?!
After the gig, we hung around outside the Hopetoun being ghetto for a while and then we all headed home. The rain before just made me really unwilling to do anything afterwards except take a long warm shower and sleep.
On the way home, Annie and I got stuck in Merrylands. When the train doors opened at the station, a guy ran out yelling “HELP! HELP!”. The train had to stop until the guards and drivers figured out what was going on. All we knew was that some guy was bleeding all over the place, claiming to have been attacked in the last carriage. There was a lot of confusion, paranoia on my part, boredom and annoyance at the mystery of what happened. Annie and I befriended a girl on our carriage who was coming home from work, and two kids outside the train who had come from the last carriage but hadn’t heard anything happening. One of them thought I was someone who went to her school and then it turned out we knew some of the same people. The Serbian community in the south-west is rather small…
After quite a while, the ambulance and police arrived. The police ran through the train, looking like they were desperately trying to put on an image of importance but seeming rather incompetent. They ran straight for every Samoan kid on the train, demanding to see their tickets, asking them questions. They completely ignored us. We could have murdered someone and they wouldn’t have asked us a thing. Apparently girls aren’t violent. Oh and it could be all this N.W.A I’ve been listening to, but – racial profiling, anyone? It couldn’t have possibly been the white girl and her Vietnamese friends, nor could they have possibly seen a thing; let’s harass the Samoan kids, they must be the violent ones. If they figured we didn’t hurt anyone, that’s annoying but sort of understandable, but the fact that they didn’t ask us a thing, nor check our tickets like they did with those kids is just fucked up.
All photos by ANNIE LY, except the one I took as I was stalking ANNIE LY…
