Fresh and Raw

VB RAW has been launched and I have to say I respect their advertising tact. It is educated and it has adapted to social media trends and best of all, it is respecting it's target consumer. Super short surveys to assist in their data collection with the promise of some free beer (upfront as a promotion for a new, to-be-launched beer) is the simple starting point. Promise delivered as not only did I (and punk monks Raen, Davey and Kate) receive some free beer but an elaboratively presented 6-pack delivered to my door (not once but twice as I was not home the first time) with an invitation for more in return for feedback.

VB Raw is very "now" with all natural ingredients, targeted at under 30's and not bad tasting (certainly better than VB original). Production Design is always enough to win my heart: each bottle wrapped in lush green tissue paper with stickers and in a recyclable printed box! Snail mail gifts tickle everyone's fancy, no?

It seems the war for the most original marketing campaign is on and beer is where it's at. The recent birdsvshumans campaign targeting blogs and sites popular and culturally significant locally, has WOWed Punk Monk's in Sydney as AWOL MONK'S blog was specially selected. Again with beautiful production design, personally created boxes with clues and links, and cryptic graffiti cleverly located around the town a follow the white rabbit/choose your own adventure live game is born with intention: figure out the product to be launched. In this case it's Toohey's 5 Seeds alcohol cider.

Read about the truth about birdsvshumans in its latest phase courtesy of Vic at AWOL MONK here.

This emerging innovation of marketing via the prompting of word of mouth promotion is right up my/Punk Monk's ally. Interaction and involvement is the way of the future, as TV ratings continue to dwindle, internet networking thrives but even more so as diy taken to a street level is continually revived, both have culminated to form a super breed of information sharing and experimentation with "Your Kind Needs You" as slogan.

Whilst both beers tasted okay and had some cool ideas behind their marketing, they set the precedent for better developed ideas in the future (and some nicer looking bottle design). They succeed merely by the fact that people like myself are using the forms set out to advertise them, to re-advertise them- twitter, facebook and blogging. Though I question myself assisting big brand names such as VB and Tooheys (that I don't even really drink) but inspiration appreciated!

Thanks for the free drinks!

Teddy Bear's Picnic

The guys who restored a little of our faith in the Sydney art scene again (post: Cosmic Peephole) put on a very curious little event recently attended by some Punk Monks Alex, Kaitlyn, Kate, Felix and Michael.

Space|space became a cocoon for anti-nostalgic delight this week as this little bear did go down to the woods (and got a small fright). Stuffed teddys hunted and mounted as trophies decorate one wall whilst a particularly yonic spaghetti kaleidoscope twists and turns upon the other. There is a Warhol-esque pyramid of tinned spaghetti (curiously foreboding and ominous) beneath a set of tweaked childhood photos of teddys ripped open revealing spaghetti insides.

Most of the already quite cosy shed space was occupied by a large pink inflated pillow with another quite yonic opening. Informed that we were to go inside this pillow, which I did not dare until I'd consumed enough beer ( just in case I was to be met with the fright promised if you dare enter the woods...) we watched as people delved in and squeezed out in what appeared to be some warped form of rebirth.

The fright came early however, as we were all quite distracted and jolly from the comical womb entry/exit and the surrounding vibes from what was a cool bunch of people, resounds is Lamb Chop's famous and creepily catchy tune "This is the song that doesn't end (yes it goes on and on my friends..)" and out burst two over sized rabbit/bear (?) heads on smaller white jumpsuit clad bodies bearing silver tongs. They dance eerily as bystanders sport some classic nervous looks almost more comic than the act itself. The purpose of the tongs is revealed as heaps of spaghetti is pulled from the pockets of the jumpsuits and forced upon each other's faces. "Ooohs" and "ughhss" follow and then the earlier distributed plate's printed prettily with little rabbits are suddenly dirtied with slops of spaghetti from within the creatures stomachs.

Eventually the crew lessens as the performance settles and left are enough to fill the floaty womb cramped with a dozen giggling, giddy peoples, housing a stuffing fight paramount to tearing apart the insides of a teddy bear. The Arc funded alcohol steadily in consumption, childish antics ensue- stacks on, more stuffing battles, wine fights and some very poorly tasted joke swapping. I missed out on the inevitable spaghetti fight but with my hair matted with bits of white fluff and wine seeping through my jumper, the night had already exceeded all expectations.

Much credit to Haidee Ireland and Eric Davidson of space|space collective for thinking outside the square and putting on an interactive mind warp of a night which said "stuff the reputation of art shows as boring and/or pretentious, let's have fun!"

Tina and her treasure trove

Alex and I set up our magic shop-esque zine stall at our first zine and makers market at TINA (in Ghetto Town- a carpark..) a few weeks back. Being behind the shop was a surreal and exciting experience, the most valuable gain that of being part of a lovely community of mostly diy lovers. We brought with us our full collection of ALGAE RHYTHM back catalogues, Know Your Mushrooms, Snippets (mini-zine bundles--> one young man exclaimed "wooooh there's some crazzzzzzy shit goin on hereee!!!!!") and matchbox treasures. More excitingly, we launched two new zines (made just days before) entitled Future Portal Artefact and My Celium (File A) as well as the Snippets mini-zines: (click on any images for larger preview..)



Future Portal Artefact was born from A.R 0.05: PORTALS. Each algae groover was given a playing card in their portal survival pack and asked to find the double of their card (located in a guest book in the future portal). Each was to write to themselves in the future, as themselves in the future or to just make a mark. The result is this (possibly my favourite zine so far and very popular at the zine fair):

My Celium (FFFILE A) shows photos tweaked by our good selves, of punk monkers and some fragments of hosted events. It's light hearted with "My Celium!" slang for geekspeak "My Bad!" Celium is also the base of a mushroom clump, forcing them together as a family. This will hopefully become a series!

We shared our table with Newcastle sick chicks Sarah, Hannah and Lisa- very cool, laid back but painfully hilarious girls who were also kind enough to let us crash on their sofa for the weekend. Sarah's 2 zines Time Based ticket feature true stories of Sarah, the freak magnet and bizarre encounters with locals on buses, at bus stops or on her way to get the bus.


Our favourite part of the day was playing Swapsies. We didn't want to go home with a bunch of our own zines- we wanted people to have them in their houses and we wanted to add theirs to our growing collection. So Alex ingeniously hung a SWAPsies sign around his neck and we waited for the offers to come to us. Easy!

* To our suprise a seven year old boy offered to swap his 2page 10cmx5cm zine WEATHER BOOK hand drawn in led pencil and featuring a tsunami and a torpedo and a small picture with the words "oh no" on them. Genius! Too clever for us because he ended up donating it and discarding our inferior zines.
*My good friend Irnin from Irninology had a mixture of crafts and her first zines. Devastatingly (but awesomely for her) she sold out of The Western Line featuring "Will the real slim shady please shut up" and other stories of her mostly unpleasant Sydney Western line train adventures. Luckily we were able to swap some zines for one of her beautiful postcards and her pocket zine The Post Modern Photographer's Manual.


*oh but you were so sweet, a stream of consciousness rambling on beautiful typewritten pages was offered up to us by a quiet, young man (not sure of his name) wandering around the stalls. Very mysterious but very lovingly made.


*The good people over at UTS Writer's Society gave us 3 of their Streetcygnes and a recipe book! They were a little overwhelmed by "how much was going on" in our zines, thrusted at them in bulk but pleasantly grateful we responded to their swap call.


* The beautiful Rizzeria co-op from St. Peter's led us to their table by our SWAPsies sign to do a swap. Emergency Poncho was donated, a hilarious tribute to the rain poncho, printed by the famous Rizzeria printing press in gorgeous greens, blues and oranges. "I'm experiencing emergency poncho envy!" We also snagged a beautiful black and white poster of a magical but dark wonderland, portal-esque landscape and told we must come use the riso stencil press ASAP (and by god we must!)


*Sarah, a pretty young lady from the stall opposite ours wandered over to us, telling us she'd been trying to see what was happening over at our stall all day but had really poor eyesight. But with Alex's sign on, she had to immediately come and swap some zines with us! Her two zines blew me away: King of Hearts featured old photographs of lovers matched with verses from 'The Song of Songs' and her second small square zine (both hand sewed at the spine) was a letter to different people she knows (Dear Greg, you look like a bounty hunter, Dear Jonathon, the reason you were so good at mario64 was because tim was playing behind you (you're controller wasn't plugged in)). So sweet! We gave Sarah five of our zines including Future Portal Artefact because it also had a playing card on the front. Sarah then became our favourite person when she rocked back over to our stall with a little gift- a small zine on pretty yellow paper which folded out onto an illustrated picture of alex with his swapsies sign around his neck. She said she really liked to draw beards.


*Famous Sydney zine-ster Vanessa Berry bought one of our zines ( which was pretty damn exciting). She was wearing an amazing spotted outfit and looked intently at each of our zines trying to decide which to get. She chose Future Portal Artefact and politely thanked me. We've seen her zines sold at MCA and had to go and get some for ourselves. They are perfect- June Graveyard is about her journey with her mother to Sylvia Plath's grave- exquisite!


* I wanted to show you three of the free zines we got from the fair. Firstly WordPlay, a Melbourne Collective's collation of poetry, hip hop and spoken word from live WordPlay events. A luscious coloured zine, funded by the Literature Fund of the Australian council. Hilarious: see 'The True Story of Easter.' The Other is Nano Works, the 2008 Nanoworkshops from TINA showcasing some amazing talent and also showing off the Rizzeria printing press's beautiful work once more. Along with Above Water (free creative writing selections book), Melbourne Uni union really show us up!

*double click to read this page in particular (= hilarity)...

The TINA fair was a success- we sold about 40 zines, swapped about 15 and gave away about 15 to zine libraries around the country (such as Newcastle's Octapod and Melbourne Uni student union zine library). Where is Sydney's zine library?? I also got to see about 3 willies as the girls toilets weren't open and the boys continued to use the urinals whilst we waited.

Lastly, heres a sneak peak of our next zine Moss Jig, all hand illustrated and with haiku's, poems and sentiments.

.....................

NUUUUUUUUUUUUU

NO NO NO!

You're at the wrong place!! BUT IT'S ONLY A RECENT CHANGE.

I'm here:

here

here

here

here

here

shiny happy...!

Born In The Doorway

My new blog, even more half naked (??) and now borderless and crowned by my algae rhythmic peacock splattered legs and AWOL MONK'S trademark fetish astro turf! Hooray! The grief imposed on me by my last blogspot's seemingly random broken link issues and image display refusals pushed me to the limit but unfortunately blogspot gives the most user control out of the big names so it retains its hold upon me. Alas a slightly different URL and a new beginning!

What better way to begin than by plugging Punk Monk Propaganda's newest upcoming adventure: BORN IN THE DOORWAY. The Factory Theatre will provide housing for a playground event featuring a bunch of bands including Hailer and The Prayer Circle plus lashings of psychotropic liquid light love from Punk Monk's own Kate and Alex.

Ask Not What Your Gig Can Do For You......

This event is about collaboration, interaction and beautification. We invite you to bring along those ideas whirl pooling in your minds and with the inspiring grooves splatter some life and colour into what promises to definitely not be a traditional live music night.

"We are not a passive audience, and we don’t think you should be either. Art doesn’t need to be a one-way broadcast from the stage to a faceless crowd. We believe in happenings where the multi-directional creativity between every person in the room is unleashed and allowed to play free." (Kate Taylor, Punk Monk Propaganda)

We've just been at TINA and we are excited about experimenting with fresh ways of converging new media artforms and correlations, lo-fi/dyi dreamweavings and interacting soundscapes and live, spontaenous creativity. We are excited about the new and unknown.

Everyone is guarunteed involvement but a callout is on NOW so if you have some sexy skills or you're as excited by the vibe as we are (looking for anything that challenged perceptions/experiments with interaction, is pretty, clever or relevant, then check out further details or contact me direct: clare@punk-monk.com. Collaborators get in free!!

Come engage in a live diy sculpture of recycled goods Reverse Garbage style, discover alternative guerrilla activities to take home and colour our city with, help us rebirth the traditions of snail mail, mix tapes and hand made books. Leave your mark all over the factory!

Make this something you actually go to.

Tickets here or at the door or keep your eyes peeled for comps and giveaways such as here.

(poster design by Punk Monk's Felix, photos from Hopetoun Hailer+ liquid light gig, Algae Rhythm 0.02: Psychochemical and Canadian Film Festival: Know Your Mushrooms event)

I've had too much to say lately so I haven't posted anything...

Secluded desk

sad yellow girl

a tear drop.

Falls

from glass

like melted icecubes.

Leftover rain

stuck to eyelashes

drips.

ALGAE RHYTHM 0.05: PORTALS

ALGAE RHYTHM 0.05 will focus on transportation through time, into familiar and foreign memories, lands and fantasies. It is about storytelling (what we know, what we have experienced and how it has shaped out present being), creation (how we can express our story and what it means to us) and prediction (we have an idea of what we are here in the now, but what might we be like in the future and furthermore, in a different universe?)

Supernatural forces may be conjured, our former selves may come back to haunt us or that one sought moment of clarity and purpose may rise to the surface.

Feel free to interrogate the deities on topics such as fate, purpose and why things are as they are. Feel free to leave this time-space for another or step into the skin of an alternate you.

Clare Devlin- Mahoney presents an interactive installation experience, a portal journey complete with map and kit and the opportunity for you to leave your mark all over the shop.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind will feature upon the borrowed walls up and over the shed roof whilst sipping on all you can drink GINGER RHYTHM (home brewed alcoholic ginger beer) courtesy of Civilised Pig (Dan Simmonds).

Other secret suprises will present themselves as we spend the night opening doors and unlocking treasure boxes. You won't go home empty handed as lovingly hand crafted zines and gifts are showered down on you with glitter!

$5 donation covers a minute portion of the money spent to give you what we hope is a magical experience. Something to eat/drink would also be swell.

RSVP please! Easiest way to get on the limited number guest list is to go to the secet facebook group ALGAE RHYTHM

and request to be added!! No FB? It's okay, just e-mail me (see below).

The Punk Monk Propaganda-ists.

NEWSFLASH: This A.R will feature a bunch of artists and their spin on PORTALS.

A LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS- installations and artbits (AND GROWING):

Alexander Papasavvas
Clare Devlin- Mahoney
Irnin Kahn
Manuela Owsinski
David Hadley

...more to be announced.
WANT TO CONTRIBUTE? e-mail me at clare@punk-monk.com.