Top Awards

Vittoria Coffee Restaurant of the Year: Marque

Emirates Chef of the Year: Martin Benn (Sepia)

Plumm Wine Glasses Best New Restaurant: Manly Pavilion

Navman Best Regional Restaurant: Lochiel House, Kurrajong Heights

Star City Professional Excellence Award: Peter Doyle (est.)

The Sydney Morning Herald Silver Service Award: Alon Sharman (Arras)

Louis Roederer Sommelier of the Year: Matthew Dunne (Aria)

Brown Brothers Wine List of the Year: Rockpool Bar & Grill

Small wine list of the year: Spice Temple

Regional Wine List of the Year: Margan (Broke)

The Josephine Pignolet Best Young Chef: Jason Saxby (Quay)

Vittoria Legend Award: Michael McMahon (Catalina)

Sydney Fish Market Best Seafood Restaurant: Fish Face

Dan Murphy’s Best BYO Restaurant: Il Perugino

Coopers Sustainability Award: Margan (Broke)

iPhone App People’s Choice Award: Tetsuya’s

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The drinking and depravity continued throughout the day, into night, until I could no longer sit still. I was thinking thoughts a man shouldn’t think. The full moon was high and the mist was lurking, draping itself with seductive ease across the beautiful, dim night. I’d been listening to the debut album from Melbourne band The Graveyard Train for hours, possibly days. Who could be sure? I was hypnotised, entranced. I left the safety of home and lurched forward, shuffling down the street, towards the cemetery. All the while the words were ringing in my ears, rattling around my mind in the swirling oblivion of possibility:

I shuffle on down the street.
I can’t help dragging my feet.
Got my two arms leading the way.
And all the people there stop and say…
‘Let’s move like a mummy!’

And so it began; my night in the cemetery, esky of well-stocked beer held tight, howling at the moon about dancing to the devil’s drum, taking witches out dancing and children burning alive. It was tremendous fun, but maybe you had to be there. I was in another world, I was deep in The Graveyard Train and there was no way out. My raised head and out-stretched arms silhouetted against the murky, moon-lit cemetery as I cried out more of their words in wicked delight.

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There’s a little place you need to know about.

La Boheme, in Grote St, Adelaide, was once a tobacconist and is now a perfect little salon replete with cabaret shows, gentle live music and a witty cocktail selection to make you cry ooh-la-la.

Cheeky burlesque on school nights, funk tunes spun from decks perched on piano tops on the weekend and local artists hang their work on the damask papered walls. Yes, it’s nothing if it’s not bohemian.

This intimate little, shabby chic distraction is Adelaide’s slice of gay Paris. While the clever staff shake up an American Beauty or an Absolut Hulk ($15), they will banter and flirt you into giddy smiles.

With a wear-worn chesterfield that stretches the length of the room, a rockabilly barman who hands you your receipt complete with a rose for the lady and a French-singing guitarist, there’s nowhere else you would rather sip absinthe in the city of churches.

36 Grote Street
Adelaide SA 5000

Article written by Estelle Pigot

The communities of Sydney need to know about the ‘Public Land Grab’ attempt that is about to occur under our noses!

Come to this first Community Forum and find out how to stop this and why. Get informed. Be inspired. Have your Say!

** Heaps of great SPEAKERS **
– on Business, Urban Planning, Arts Industries, Health & Tourism…

Help draft a public proposal for an Arts precinct and help keep The Old Kings School in Public Hands for a new heritage friendly cross-cultural and ecological precinct – for everyone in the Parramatta City region.

** ITS TIME! for State Arts infrastructure in Parramatta.

More info:
Support here: http://www.petitionbuzz.com/petitions/oldkings

10am – 12pm, Friday 28th of January

Jubilee Hall, (next to Parramatta town Hall)

The communities of Sydney need to know about the public land grab that could occur under our noses! Come to the Community Forum and find out more. Have your say and help draft a public proposal for an Arts Precinct, and help save the Old Kings School!

The Big Issue is a fortnightly, independent magazine, which is sold on the streets around Australia. It’s a high-quality, general interest publication that features arts and entertainment, humorous columns, current affairs, lifestyle, personal experiences and there own particular brand of irreverence. The editorial team is headed by Walkley Award-winning journalist and author Alan Attwood.

The magazine is sold by authorised vendors on the streets of Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Canberra and regional Victoria. Vendors come from a range of backgrounds including mental illness, homelessness, long-term unemployment, intellectual and physical disability, drug and alcohol dependency, family breakdown and others suffering from social isolation, such as refugees.

Get onboard & buy an issue, it’s an awesome read!

The State Library of Western Australia announces the Call for Entries for the 2010 Western Australian Premier’s Book Awards including a new category, the Digital Narrative Award.

Entry is open to books, scripts and digital narrative which have been published/produced between 1 January 2010 to 31 December 2010. To be eligible authors must be citizens or permanent residents of Australia or whose work has Australia as its primary focus. The closing date for entries is 5pm Monday 31 January 2011.

There are 8 categories in the Awards: Fiction, Non-Fiction, Children’s Book, Writing for Young Adults, Poetry, Scripts, State Library of Western Australia West Australian History Award and the new Digital Narrative Award which recognises the use of new media in storytelling/writing. An additional Premier’s Prize of $25,000 is presented to the overall winner, chosen from the category winners.

Prize money is made available by the Western Australian Government. The West Australian History Award is sponsored by the State Library of Western Australia. Short listed entries will be announced in June 2011.

The National Maritime Festival aims to raise the profile of the Maritime Centre Newcastle and increase community awareness of the vital importance of our Maritime heritage. At its simplest, the National Maritime Festival provides a welcome spectacle and a day of entertainment and involvement for many, many thousands of Novocastrians as well as visitors from interstate and overseas.

The Australia Day Maritime Festival provides for education, cultural integration and community involvement while enhancing the use of maritime facilities. The annual National Maritime Festival leaves a lasting legacy of pride and enjoyment of our Harbour City of Newcastle. The National Maritime Festival is a chance for you and your family to experience a day on Newcastle harbour celebrating my story, your story, and our story .

What: Newcastle Australia Day Maritime Festival 2011
Where: 3 Honeysuckle Drive, Newcastle, NSW
When: Tuesday 25 and Wednesday 26 January 2011
Cost: Free

They say travelling can be life-changing. It awakens you to so many new experiences, showcasing the world in all its infinite wonder. Furthermore, it has been said, travelling abroad can make you appreciate what you’ve left behind. After some time through the looking glass last year, I came to concur wholeheartedly with both points of view. I saw some beautiful, mind-buzzing things. Perspectives changed and confidence grew. Throughout this process though, memories of the land I had left behind remained, lurking in my subconscious, alluring and magnificent, beckoning my return. I made my return just in time, in November 2010: the icy UK winter was beginning to crank and my homesickness was rapidly evolving into desperate, fixated yearning.

Walking through the Brisbane airport on my return, over-indulged in free in-flight liquor, I felt an inescapable, cinematic sense of joy. I was home, draped in beautiful summer warmth, and local band The John Steel Singers were on the radio. Rainbow Kraut, I hazily recall, was the fine summer anthem filling the halls. I didn’t know who was playing it from what radio, but I instantly understood why. It’s a rollicking summer anthem: a thrilling, joyous burst of horn-infused, psychedelic pop. It’s a song I’d heard before, but I’d never heard it like that. In the version I was hearing, the version on their debut album Tangalooma, the drums thump the earth and the vocals kiss the sky. Everything else fits everywhere in between.

‘I’m back!’ I thought. ‘Summer!’

Little else on Tangalooma propels itself with the same intensity, but the inescapable feeling of summer remains throughout. While the album hints at Brit Pop (the querying social commentary of the lyrics suggests someone here is a big fan of early Blur and their English predecessors, The Kinks) with its horns, harmonies and omnipresent jangle, its sound remains uniquely Australian. Maybe it’s the Aussie-accented harmonies, but this album just goes with beers, barbecues and cricket, the perfect Welcome Home for any homesick Aussie.

It is also, in somewhat of an increasing rarity, an album you can listen to from start to finish. I have favourites, but there’s nothing I feel an overwhelming compulsion to skip. It’s all pleasant, clever and musical. Aside from the sweetly blissful summer air that flows throughout, the overwhelming impression one gets from listening to this album is that these guys love music. Having seen them live, I know that they’re multi-instrumentalists, the lot of them, and the charming mood of their free-spirited, instrument-swapping live shows is captured here. There’s layered vocal harmonies and clever guitar flourishes buried throughout the mix. Play it loud, on a good stereo, and you’ll be rewarded.

Rainbow Kraut, as I’ve touched on already, is my favourite track on the album. There is intent in that song that some of the others, particularly early on, seem to lack. But to imply that it is the only pleasure would be wrong. From the clever jangly pop of early tracks such as Your Favourite Perversion (the lyrics for which offer a good example of the band’s balance of humour: I’ll Have You in the Dark/Or in a Misty Park/The Thrill of Getting Caught with emotional sincerity: All I Really Want/Is Someone to Call Mine/By Mutual Design), Overpass and Evolution to the beautiful, lazy, darker psychedelic later tracks (which surround Rainbow Kraut) such as Once I, Dying Tree and classic album closer Sleep, there is much joy to behold.

So if you want my advice, buy this album, then drink a beer, eat a steak, enjoy the weather, and enjoy your friends. The John Steel Singers have provided the soundtrack, the rest is up to you.

Article written by Craig Tuck.

An exhibition inspired by the dark point of reference of traditional nursery rhymes. Featuring a group of multi-disciplinary creatives, each presenting a piece to showcase their signature style. An exhibition of awe inspiring beauty, colour, textures and sinuous linework.

Anita Alcorn- Melanie Allen- Siobhan Boughton- Courtney Brims- Letitia Buchan- Peta Alannah Chigwidden- Jordan Clarke- Anna Creasy- Klaus Kinski- Milo Kossowski- Beci Orpin- Leith O’Malley- Elisa Mazzone- Suzanne McPherson- Anna Moretti- Naomi Murrell- Wendy Olsen- Lilly Piri- Nani Puspasari- Eugenia Tsimiklis- Ella Versteege- Bec Winnel- Sally Wren- Nancy Alice Wood.

Urban Cow Studio has been a mecca for artists and art lovers for the past 17 years. Currently displaying artwork from over 150 South Australian artists and designers it is a virtual feast for the senses with a new suprise around every corner.

What:
When: Now until 28th January 2010
Where: Urban Cow Studio Gallery
Address: 11 Frome St, Adelaide.
Cost: Free

Our competition for Dubmarine’s album ‘Depth of Sound’ has now closed. Thank you to everyone that entered we had an overwhelming response. The winners are listed below and your prizes will be sent this week. Thanks again to Heapsaflash for your generous support!

B.McNeil – Preston VIC
F.Marcino – Kunda Park QLD
G.Samuels – Doonside NSW
G.Paine – Leura NSW
S.Taylor – Athol Park SA
P.Pardini – Glengowrie SA