Jelly is a weird thing! Like what is it? (It’s collagen) It’s just……..if I had to analyse this; it’s weird because it’s a really basic dish. It’s so basic that it has been made in different forms since ancient times and in many cultures. But it’s also so basic that it seems like….elemental. It’s a basic property of food that can be coloured, flavoured in any way to create a dish that is futuristic, because it is almost entirely man-made. So anyway….let’s look at some jelly.

1. Retrofuturistic Aspic Dishes: Salad Suspended in Jelly

Aspic salad used to be a quintessential American salad. What happened? Why do we no longer eat all savoury and sweet foods in jelly form? Well for one, it’s disgusting, and two, dieting fads started to incorporate eliminating sugar rather than just fat. Therefore, the jelly, which was really just an excuse for sugar, fell by the wayside.

2. Jelly Coca-Cola Bottle

How to make the viral jelly recipe that took the internet by storm:

3. Edible Slime

Another internet sensation: making large quantities of slime out of gummy bears and marshmallows and then playing with it and eating it. I would eat like 3 kilos of this stuff:

4. Rainbow Jelly

This looks so beautiful and it’s not hard to make, it just takes a long time to wait for each layer of jelly to set. Kids would lose their minds over this stuff for sure.

5. Whole Watermelon Jelly

This person has invented a way to improve a watermelon! Previously this was not thought possible.

6. Ultimate Vodka Gummy Bear Jungle Juice Jacuzzi

This is not a drink, this is a jacuzzi. This thing has got so many gummy bears and so much vodka in it it’s unbelievable. Man, if I go to a party where they have this one day, I will feel like my life has been worth something.

Are you bored of your city? Do you think you have seen and done it all? How about turning your whole urban environment into a massive game arena. This is sure to give you hours of fun or at least non-boredom.

People Watching

‘People watching’ is a big thing it turns out. It’s just when you watch people from a distance—without influencing them. If you search people watching on Google you will find loads of info on the topic including:

• Is it creepy or a violation of privacy to people watch?
• Best people watching stories
• Countless hours of live streams of just random people going about their day
• The sociology/philosophy of watching people from a detached perspective
• Guides to being better at people watching e.g. how to interpret body language

It really is fun to watch people and try to guess what they are doing and their whole life story from just the way they look when they walk down the street. You can even use your imagination and try to make up stories for them. But the moral questions start to come into play if you start making fun of people. Another thing is the risk of getting busted. This is one of the fun things about this game in my opinion because you have to try to be discreet or else things can be very awkward.

People Watching Bingo

There are many variations of people watching and you can literally spend hours and hours just watching people and doing all this. See What is your favorite "People Watching" game? on r/AskReddit—my favourite is ‘people watching bingo’ in which you must do a good deed for the person who gets a certain amount of points based on criteria. E.g. looks like a nice person (+5), funny hair (+10), bright clothing (+10). If they get enough points you can go up and give them a random high-five or something!

People Guessing

You can try to guess things about people. Like: dating or friends, age, male or female etc.

Some of these are getting bad actually . . .

Ghost World

This one’s a bit controversial so play at your own risk and with your own moral scruples. If you’ve seen Ghost World (2001), you may guess what this game involves. You just find an interesting person and follow them for a bit and try to imagine their life. The girls in Ghost World decide a couple they see in a diner are satanists but they don’t pursue these two. They end up investigating, pranking and getting deeply emotionally and romantically involved with this other ‘bookish’ guy but this is way further than you should take it. Obviously, you can see how this is like ‘people watching’ but takes it further by secretly following. Do this in the daytime, not to small girls and try to never get busted or you may get scare someone. Yet as far as I know this is not illegal . . .

The Floor Is Lava

The floor is lava and you will get burned unless you only walk on the cracks in the pavement, or hop from thing to thing and don’t touch the ground. Great for attracting unwanted attention!

The ‘Loudness’ Game

Often known by another name; the ‘loudness’ game involves saying something as loud as you dare to and the person wins who can say it the loudest. The word said is usually a male part . . .

Talk To Random People

This one requires a bit of courage, because it’s surprisingly difficult to break the barrier and talk to someone who is a stranger. But you get to talk to some new people. I like giving homeless people a dollar and having a deep and meaningful conversation with them about their life. A lot of them are very generous with what little they have and have a very relaxed attitude about money which may account for their predicament.

Try And Get Lost

If you know your city like the back of your hand, then this will be a struggle. Also, it’s even harder considering that you are making the conscious effort to get lost and hence you are actually in a heightened state of awareness of your directions.

Only by getting lost can you truly find yourself (lame).

Eat Lunch In A Tree

Get takeaway or a drink and enjoy it while sitting in a tree in the park. There is nothing better.

Hang Out In The Nicest Lobby You Can Find

Enjoy luxury beyond anything you can afford. You can try to eat your food here also but I think they will kick your ass out of there.

Hang Out On The Top Of A Tall Building

It’s hard to get on the tops of most buildings, but if it has a carpark on top (like of a supermarket) you can surely get up there and enjoy the view.

Pick A Random Station On The Train Map With Your Eyes Closed And Go There

This one is not guaranteed to not be boring actually . . . And make sure that you can easily catch a train back . . .

We all know that we taste with our eyes. As the saying goes. We watch cooking shows and never make any of the recipes. We have had green ketchup when we were younger and probably didn’t like it. We have reluctantly eaten plain-looking foods that turned out to be delicious; and eagerly eaten fancy restaurant foods that turned out to be rather ordinary. In all of these instances, the connection between seeing and tasting becomes extremely clear.

Synaesthesia

Some people have a condition called synaesthesia in which there is cross-over between the senses. So when they hear numbers, they may see numbers; when they see numbers, they may see them as being coloured. This is a fascinating phenomenon that is more common than you may think.

Many people have grapheme-colour synaesthesia which is associations between alphanumerics and colours. I myself have this a bit but not to the hallucinatory extreme; it’s just a mental association between 1–red, 2–yellow, 3–green, etc. that is hard not to make whenever I think of a colour. You might just be noticing this in your own thinking right now. We may even have the same colour associations because a common theory is that these associations are made in childhood from coloured fridge magnets.

But there are far more extreme cases of synaesthesia than this. The singer Lorde perceives colour when she hears music and she uses this as a guide when creating her music—she creates the right colour/s for each song. And some people have reported musical notes and mathematical shapes literally flying at them from the source of music when they hear it. And interestingly, in 2008, the first cases of the rare touch-emotion synaesthesia were discovered. A woman experiences depression when she touches denim and another woman experiences disgust from dry leaves.

From all these examples, most people can find some less extreme relation to their own experience. We all get feelings when we touch things (e.g. fluffy → nice). What this says is that we are all synaesthetes to some extent. In fact, science says that we are all born with synaesthesia, but for most our neural pathways become less overlapping as we mature. And this provides the scientific basis for why we can taste colour. Also, why we can ‘see’ tastes (at least in our mind). It makes eating more interesting to know this . . . 

Other Senses Involved In Taste

It follows from this that all the other senses should then be involved in taste as well. And in fact they are all involved and you may have noticed this. The affinity between taste and smell is actually more oft noted than taste–colour. For instance, the main reason why airline food is so bad is because the dry atmosphere of a plane decreases our sense of smell. The ability to study the other senses is a bit more confused because emotion also affects hunger and touch (the texture of food) effects the detection of flavour by the tongue, but you can experience the synaesthesic effects in a non-scientific way just by playing around and trying to mess up your mind.

So What Do The Colours Really Taste Like?

According to research, yellow is obviously lemon; orange is orange; red is raspberry because we now associate it with raspberry-flavoured lollies and drinks; green is apple; brown and black are earthy-rich-smokey-chocolatey kind of flavours; white is creamy-milky; and that leaves blue and purple . . . 

Blue and purple are not colours commonly present in food and hence they don’t have strong flavour associations for us and definitely not genetically engrained associations. I might have some weak associations of purple–grape, blue–blue Gatorate flavour, and this is mainly from Gatorade. This is one element of why the ‘tastes like purple’ TV trope is so punchy: because purple doesn’t have a clear association as to what tasting it would be like.

E.g. *character gets knocked on the head* “I think I just tasted purple!”

Experimenting With Colour-Flavour Synaesthesia

Here are some experiments with your own sense of colour-flavour synaesthesia that you can do at home. These are guaranteed to be fun and tasty.

Pure Flavour

Experience a pure sense of flavour possibly for the first time in your life—almost completely distinct from any of the other senses by eating while blindfolded and even while holding your nose. Is it as tasty? Does it taste different? You can try it when you don’t know what the food is going to be (with the help of a friend). Can you tell what food it is?

Pure Colour

Put food colouring in water or on shaved ice. Can you taste anything? Give it to a friend. Can you convince them it has a little bit of flavouring in it?

Extreme Synaesthesia

Colour your dinner some gaudy colour like green, purple or blue. Did you just ruin your meal?

Margherita Waffles with Bacon Ice-Cream, tomato, mozzarella and basil
Is this ironic?

In my last article I made a passing comment that ironic food virtually doesn’t exist. Cooking is an artform, yet it lacks one of the core tenets that is driving our postmodern era: irony.

There is barely a thing such as ‘ironic food’ because this would be disagreeable to the senses. No one would eat an oil-soaked cheeseburger that fell on the ground as a satire of McDonalds. It would be more gross than funny.

But now I’ve reconsidered it and actually, I think irony actually has influenced contemporary cuisine. It has always been present in bad food in an unintentional way, but now, people are making ironic food on purpose. Can any of it actually be good?

Unintentionally Ironic Food

The most obvious way that food can be ironic is unintentionally. This is not irony used to make some snide po-mo jeer. It is far from the intention of the cook.

Here are some funny examples from the net/random thoughts:

• Dairy causes osteoporosis
• Vegetarian beef
• BBQ sauce is vegetarian
• A worker at the Coke factory may have put Pepsi in a can and the person who drank it did not notice
• The widespread belief that the ‘home-cooked meal’ is better than restaurant-quality food, because it isn’t restaurant quality
• Too much of anything is not good for you. Even water
• Chinese takeaway sauces contain gelatin. When you think about it, you are eating chicken with Mongolian jelly sauce
• The foods that taste the best are generally the worst for us. However, there are some foods that are really bad for you that also don’t taste nice. Like if you eat Grade F meat that is mostly fat

Intentionally Bad Ironic Food

This is the category that you can’t find at ‘any good local supermarket’. It is a rarity created for YouTube videos mainly then chucked in the trash.

These hipsters made ‘real’ food with Play-Doh. . . . and ate it! They made Play-Doh spaghetti bolognas and a Play-Doh hotdog with the little Play-Doh knife and roller you get in the pack.

The most ironic thing I think is not just that this is food that in a doughy way resembles food, and is actually labelled ‘Do Not Eat’ on the packet, but that all kids actually do eat Play-Doh, and all viewers will remember the taste in their mouths as they watch this video. The best comment is like: “it tastes salty”. This channel is actually one of the vanguards of ironic cuisine. They have made other videos like ‘Will it cereal?’ and ‘Testing the Shower Orange Craze’ that will leave a bad taste in your mouth. In a funny way.

Most ironic foods are not found in restaurants, not even in service stations. They are to be found in shocking never-again YouTube videos. The best counterexample I can think of is Gobstoppers—the childish ‘treat’ that hurts your mouth and is an exercise in tedium. But kids aren’t complex enough to eat it ironically, only childish adults do that. It is more of a test of manhood.

There are some other great ironic food videos. This guy made a 200lb+ giant gummy Burger King Meal. It’s huge (!!!!!!), made with bag fulls of pig fat (gelatin) and tastes disgusting. He chops it with a samurai sword. This guy makes heaps of great ‘food challenge’ videos that if you want to get academic, say something about American society also. E.g. ‘FIZZIEST DRINK IN THE WORLD CHALLENGE (EXTREMELY DANGEROUS)’

Actually Good Ironic Food

But this part of the article will blow your mind the most. Ironic food that is actually good food. Doesn’t that make it not ironic? These are foods that are ironic because they actually are delicious. And we love this, because it creates some surprising foods.

There are some food combinations that seem awful and strange, but that always surprise with the first bite. Peanut butter, marshmallow fluff and pickle sandwich is one of my favourites—because the sweet pastey flavours are cut through with the tang of pickle. French fries dipped in chocolate sauce is the classic salty-sweet combo that parents do not want you to know. Watermelon and feta cheese is a Greek secret that not many people know about. Olives and white chocolate is a complex delight. Strawberries and balsamic vinegar will invigorate you, and may become your next salad recipe. And chocolate + chilli + bacon goes without saying.

‘Deconstructed’ foods were mentioned in the last article, but the irony inherent in this was left unmentioned. In fact, the postmodern concept of deconstruction is almost unimaginable without irony. This Tokyo pop-up restaurant used McDonald’s as its ingredients to create fine cuisine (that is nevertheless, quite funny). It serves Big Macs with added vegetables along with silver cutlery. It is the sit-down restaurant of celebrity chef Masayo Waki. The entree is quite avant-garde—a gelee of McDonald’s vegetables (lol) suspended in gelatin and served with a French fry Vichyssoise (soup). The irony needs not be pointed out: this food is actually good.

Then there are the everyday examples of food irony when one food tries to imitate another. We have biscuits in the shape of an ice-cream, ice-creams that taste like biscuits and etc. The irony is that we can’t just have biscuits that taste like biscuits and that’s it. In our advanced era we need foods that taste like other foods. It is doubtful that they taste as good as the original foods, but they are listed in the ‘good’ category because people want them. And the reason is that they add variety to our life. ‘Wow, I wonder what a hotdog’s take on nachos will be like’ ‘Hmm, that was what I expected. Not great’. But I’m still drawn to try every permutation of food-imitating-another-food. There are countless and I think that this is one of the key ways that the postmodern era is alleviating our boredom which as a reasonably intelligent species was always one of our main problems.

Contemporary cuisine has been turned on its head and reconceptualised many times over in the modern era. Numerous new cuisines or culinary movements have emerged at different stages in the last 60 years. It is interesting to consider how the food world has reflected the greater world of art and culture during this time. For if it has, then this stands as a testiment to the claim that cooking is a true artform.

Traditional Cooking

This is where it starts—in the pre-modern era, almost all cooking was within the traditional cultural cuisines: Indian, Chinese, British, Italian, etc. And of course, these were more authentic than the cultural cuisines that we enjoy in restaurants today.

The essense was local ingredients, simple techniques, high nutrition and low wastage. And this is still the most common form of cooking today. If you grow up in a family stemming from Teochew China, then boiling fishballs in a seafood broth with noodles will be a simple dish that is very familiar to you.

The fish balls have ground pork in the middle

The art-world equivalent is folk art. The indigenous artforms of the cultures of the world have the same elements of locally sourced materials and simple techniques. For instance, the Norwegian people traditionally carved sticks into ornamental calendars.

Haute/Nouvelle cuisine

Haute cuisine translates as ‘high cooking’ in French. It is the cuisine of upper class establishments that was enjoyed by the aristocracy in 17th century France. It was elaborate, expensive and exotic. It was largely responsible for France’s reputation worldwide to this day as the center of culinary innovation. Haute dishes were appreciated for their subtlely, lightness, innovativeness, spectacular presentation and complex flavours.

The cultural equivalent is ‘high art’—the aspiration of so much of the artistic canon throughout the 19th centiry. It was art that was sophisticated in technique and qualities enough to be appreciated by the upper class, cultural elite of that era and contrasted to popular culture. For instance, the literary equivalent of an asparagus soup with duck foie gras may be T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land.

‘Contemporary Cuisine’

‘Contemporary Cuisine’ is the generic term for a new cuisine that has arisen to prominence in the modern Western world. It draws influence mainly from traditional European cuisines, but also incorporates the full gamut of international influences. It is the parts of each cuisine that appeal to most people basically, combined into one cuisine. You won’t find broiled duck giblets or pickled oysters in contemporary cuisine. You will find steak, bearnaise sauce and a side of pasta. Just this everyday RSL club dish incorporates three European cuisines.

In the broader cultural world, contemporary cuisine comes under the banner of Modernism who’s rally and cry was epitomised by the poet Ezra Pound: ‘Make it New’. Contemporary cuisine is not traditional; RSL club meals weren’t eaten before the advent of RSL clubs. It doesn’t try to be traditional, it tries to be tasty and enjoyable by everyone, and in the spirit of modernism, it regards this as forward progress—improvement. So next time, you may choose to pair your steak with a Mondrian painting.

Fusion Cuisine

Fusion cuisine begins our foray into the postmodern era. By fusing two or more traditional cuisines for interesting effect, the idea of modernist progress is subverted. This is more playful, unexpected and at times random. It is not just the best parts of each cuisine extracted and then used repetitiously like mass production.

Fusion dishes can range from Japanese noodle-burgers, dragonfruit souffle, bacon-and-egg nachos to Indian-spiced fried chicken. Sweeping lists like this are often used to portray the diversity that is resulting from multiculturalism and global interconnectedness rather than the creation of a world monoculture.

Taco-Japanese rice fusion dish

The artworld equivalent of fusion cuisine is postmodern art that takes delight in clashing influences sources together in a new context. For instance, Che Guevara by Andy Warhol recontualises the Argentinian Marxist in a new American comic light quite incongruously.

Fast Food

McDonalds, KFC and Pizza Hut are so deeply embedded into postmodern culture that they are symbols widely used in postmodern artworks to represent it. Fast food is an advancement of the ethos of modernism: it takes the tastiest aspects of all cuisines and if they work, it repeats them over and over again. You have eaten a thin, crispy McDonalds french fry over and over again.

But the reason this is not modernism is that the level of branding that surrounds this food blows the reality—of that it is just food, completely out of proportion. It symbolises comfort, happiness, America, affordability, quickness and also some negative aspects that the media has imparted. It is impossible to think of a Big Mac as just a burger. It is a Big Mac.

One key difference that distinguishes food from other art forms in the postmodern era is that it lacks irony. There is barely a thing such as ‘ironic food’ because this would be disagreeable to the senses. No one would eat an oil-soaked cheeseburger that fell on the ground as a satire of McDonalds. It would be more gross than funny.

Molecular Gastronomy

Molecular gastronomy is the application of scientific methods to food. Molecular gastronomists seek to improve flavours by studying their chemical properties and by using scientific instruments and ingredients like centrifuges, dehydrators, enzymes, gelling agents and liquid nitrogen. They have produced ‘deconstructed’ forms of traditional dishes in which the flavours are maintained, but are imbued into different forms. For instance, this is ‘eggs benedict’:

They have even created new foods entirely like Adam Melonas’ signature dish ‘Octopop’ which is octopus cooked at extremely low temperatures and texturised using transglutimate and orange and saffron carrageenan gel.

This field also has some exciting offshoots like molecular mixology (beverages) and Note by Note cuisine (creating foods entirely from pure compounds like sucrose and amino acids).

Molecular gastronomy is still firmly rooted in the postmodern movement. The term ‘deconstruction’ is actually directly borrowed from a term in postmodern philosophy, visual art, literature and architecture.

Here is ‘deconstructivist’ architecture:

It recombines traditional featrues in new and interesting ways. And molecular gastronomy goes even further than this into the unbounded realm of postmodernism—it creates new experiences that have almost no context in classical cuisine. Like try situating this Paul Salvator Goldengruen artwork in a historical context:

With gourmet food culture on the rise in Australia, and everyone becoming their own favourite food critique on social media, there is really no reason to get caught by surprise by a terrible dining experience.

In the age where a meal isn’t complete without a perfectly framed selfie of you in front of it, there is endless amounts of too-honest feedback floating around on various apps to help you decide which restaurant is perfect for any one occasion.

By comparing the 3 most popular venue review apps, Zomato (Formerly Urbanspoon), Yelp, Trip Advisor and Eatability, we’ll determine which one is most relevant for Sydney-siders in search for a good meal.

For this comparison, we’ll go with Frankies Pizza, a popular pizzeria and bar in Sydney’s CBD that welcomes a diverse crowd from everyone from punk rockers to CBD bankers.

Zomato (Urbanspoon)

The recently acquired and extremely popular Urbanspoon has now become Zomato, meaning that they have a large database of existing users and reviews which is great for getting an accurate view of the business. The site has combined the old reviews and ratings from Urbanspoon to create an extremely comprehensive database of opinions over the last few years. Even though Zomato hasn’t become as known as Urbanspoon, all their traffic directs to the new site, which is strikingly similar to the old one, make it an easy transition for existing users. The sites main goal is to make sure nobody has a bad meal, focusing on gathering as much information on a restaurant as possible, encouraging pictures and in depth reviews from users.

Score of 3.9/5 based on 60 reviews

Full Menu

254 pictures of the venue and the menu items

Eatability

Eatability is a restaurant review platform that has a very bloggy vibe and focuses on producing content which focuses on current food trends, while offering users a chance to review their experiences, using an out-of-10 score. Users base their score on 8 subcategories from the food itself the ambience and location of the venue. The site is less popular than the other options, although the comprehensive reviewing interface is a dream for the food critics out there.

Score of 7.2 out of 10 based on 10 reviews

No Menu

No Photos

Yelp

Yelp is the market leader around the world when it comes to restaurant reviews. From personal experience, the app is extremely popular in America and is almost a household name. The site uses a 5 star rating system and allows users to review all forms of business, not limiting itself to food and drink, leading to a huge user base worldwide. Yelp, similar to Zomato, is quite popular and well known, so a lot of users turn to this platform to impulsively give a venue a bad review, but among these reviews there are plenty of helpful opinions to help you make your dinner decision easier.

Score of 4/5 stars based on 60 reviews

Full Menu

19 photos of the venue and menu items.

TripAdvisor

Trip Advisor is widely considered the most reliable review platform. The users tend to be fairly well travelled and have a bit more experience with different cultures which allows for fairer and more comprehensive reviews that are a bit more in depth than the usual ‘terrible 0 stars’ review from an annoyed customer.

Score of 4/5 stars based on 103 reviews

No Menu

11 photos of the venue and menu items

So which site is the best for you?

It all depends.

Zomato and Yelp have a large user base which is reflected with a fair amount of reviews and a lot of photos for future customers to get a better idea of what to expect. Eatability, while isn’t as popular, uses a comprehensive rating system which lets foodies shine when providing distinct reviews while keeping a professional focus.

While all the sites have arguments for themselves, Trip Advisor seems to be the most reliable platform with the most reviews and a more in depth user base. As Trip Advisor focuses on businesses on a worldwide scale, the diverse user base allow for a large range of perspective and often times, more sensible reviews.

Give them a go for yourself, with Facebook connectivity available,  you can be a published food critic in no time.

Well this is what a slightly agitated female with access to the internet would do in a situation like this right?

Last night I accompanied one of my girlfriends to the Australian Brewery in Annangrove or Rouse Hill or wherever the hell it is, which at this point is really not too relevant. I’d been to the Brewery before a couple of times, accompanying friends, and whilst I’ll admit it’s really not my thing, it’s usually a pretty fun night. Considering it was a Playboy themed night, we were anticipating it to be quite a while until we would make it to the front of the line to actually get into the venue, and by the time we joined the line at 8pm, we were ultimately out onto the road with a mile to trudge.

I feel it necessary to now point out that at the time, I was wearing high wasted jeans, a cropped t-shirt, a denim jacket and platform shoes, so in other words, showing not too much skin. My friend was wearing a jumper, shorts and wedge high-heels. Again, nothing too revealing.

So, this is where I think, it gets particularly interesting. The line was moving considerably. Not at a fast pace, but fast enough to keep everyone satisfied. By the looks of the place, it was over capacity by 8.30pm. So like (presumably) everyone else, we were waiting in the line, getting kind of shitty, but what could we do? So we continued to wait. And a pattern began to emerge. Groups of girls for about 15 minutes at a time walked straight past the line, around the corner and into the joint. The pattern? Their lack of clothing and/or (in most cases “and”) their somewhat skimpy playboy “costumes”. Now I have no problem with this. Women can do what they want, dress how they like, it’s their life, they have a choice. However I feel it extremely necessary to point out the real misogyny here.

I’ll even bold this because I think this is actually really disgusting.

Women were being hand picked and selected from the crowd to be given immediate entry into the premises.

Now the only problem with this, is that the people who were hand-picking them, were 9 times out of 10, sleazy MALE security guards who accepted any form of cheap flirts and sultry glances that were cast their way. But only if they were from a skinny girl in a tight dress.

And I really think this is a problem. Because in a world where women are trying to find empowerment in places that men can’t and find their own place within equality, we are still being belittled and reduced to be judged for our looks and the way we present ourselves.

My friend and I waited in that line for an hour and a half. It was not until we snuck in with a group of these girls at 9.30 that we actually made it inside. We witnessed groups and groups of probably hundreds of girls all up being escorted to the front of the line, and not once were we addressed for being female. I even politely asked a security guard how much longer he thought we would be waiting outside, to be given an utterly blank look and then to be blatantly ignored.

But, like those girls, we still paid $20 entry. Like those girls, my friend bought a drink. Regardless of who you are, money is money, and for a business, does it matter so much what stereotype of women you have enjoying your facilities? Because at the end of the day, we all pay to get in. We all pay to have our drinks. We all pay with the same money regardless of our looks, gender, ethnicity, background, beliefs, amount of clothes we choose to wear, and everything else that somehow stereotypes women to be different.

I must say I was extremely disappointed in the way this was approached, and it’s sad to see a place that thrives off of the youth of Western/North-Western Sydney sink to such extreme lows. I felt that this compromised the reputation that the Brewery had (for me and my friend at least) and I think it’s disappointing to see such old-world and constraining views being placed upon groups of young adults.

(Written 18/4/2014)

From her childhood, Sarah Thompson has known that she wants to play music. It took her a couple more years to realise that she wanted to pursue it professionally. High school has seen Sarah begin to write and perform originals, as well as shoot sky high to debut at the third slot in the Triple J Unearthed High competition. Sarah dignifies herself with a powerhouse voice, one of huge intensity. She’s begun taking her sound around the beaches, playing local shows and such with her band compiled of some of her best mates.

Myself and photographer extraordinaire Bec Martin, traveled to Manly to talk with super bubbly Sarah about how it is balancing her school life with her music life, as well as chatting about the exciting year 2013 was for Sarah, what with the launch of her Facebook page and the sudden surge of love she received from the Triple J Unearthed community.

Check out Sarah on Facebook

Sarah Thompson Insights

Caitlin: So you’ve had a pretty stellar year this year. Gig wise you did quite a lot of stuff. I remember seeing on your Facebook that big thank you post to everyone.
Sarah: Yeah, I really needed to do that, because so much happened and I needed to tell everybody thanks, because you don’t get a chance at every gig. But oh yeah, it was really crazy last year.

Caitlin: What would be your favourite moment of last year?
Sarah: I entered Unearthed High last year. I didn’t get in as a finalist, but, when I got there, my song debuted at number three, like it jumped straight up, with so many downloads. And I was like “woah, this is crazy”. And just from that, I didn’t just reach people from the beaches, but I reached people all over new south wales and into other states! Definitely a huge thanks to all the people who’ve promoted for me in Queensland, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia; I wouldn’t have dreamed of these things that I’ve achieved! It’s just been really cool, and I’d say that everything kind of panned out from there, so I’d say that would be my highlight.

Caitlin: Oh yeah, that would have been such a good start to the year too.
Sarah: Yeah, this was like the middle of the year. So I dropped my Facebook page, like a month before I entered, and it suddenly just went nuts.

Caitlin: I’ve noticed that you’ve got a really diverse sound in your tracks, as well as having such an amazing voice too. So how did all of this begin for you? When did you start to realise music was your thing?
Sarah: I’ve always done music. It’s just always been a thing since I was really little. I don’t know, just always singing about. But then I started taking it seriously, about the beginning of year 10. I’ve been writing for ages, doing in school stuff and out of school stuff, but I’d never been like, woah, I should do music as a career. And you know, I had my first gig down at an open mic night at the library in Manly, and didn’t even do any originals, just did all covers. I guess that’s how it all panned out.

Caitlin: Yeah, you’ve got quite a range of originals as well. What’s the writing process like?
Sarah: No song is quick to write. Some people are like “I wrote this song in an hour”. I’ve done that once and I still have that song, but some of the stuff that you hear that I’ve recorded would stem from writing random riffs when I’ve been jamming, and been like “Ooh, I should use this.” I had gigs coming up so I wrote them as quick as possible. It’s really cute; I live near Manly Lagoon, so I walk down with my guitar, and I sit down and just write. I’ve got a place. I can’t sit down and write in my bedroom, it just doesn’t work. I’ve tried, and nothing happens. So I write there, and that’s where those songs are born. But then, I’ll have the basics, and then take it to band practice. I’ve got 3 people in my band, Sean Niven, Dakota Urbiztondo and Ryan Trestrail; they’re my 3 main boys. And we take it to prac, and I go, hey, I wrote this song, and then it turns into an original.

Download Sarah’s tracks free on Triple J Unearthed

Caitlin: How’s it been, as a solo artist, working with a band?
Sarah: It’s good. You still have all of the creative freedom that you want, but these guys, they just get me. And plus we’ve been mates for a bit, so I guess when you’re working with friends, they kind of know what you want, and it just all works.

Caitlin: I also noticed you include some pretty iconic Australian bands in your influences, like the Jungle Giants, Snakadaktal. Are there any lately that you’ve been listening to that have particularly caught your eye?
Sarah: They’re all kind of the same for me, like Australia wise. I’m definitely really into other stuff as well, like I’d say Young Maverick, Last Dinosaurs, The Jungle Giants, Ball Park Music. Then I also take influence from people overseas, I listen to a lot of Two Door Cinema Club, Arctic Monkeys, and just like chuck it all together. I take influence really from everything I listen to; radio, artists my friends show me, like even metal inspires me in some of my writing, it’s really weird.

Caitlin: Yeah, I think that’s what you need. Diversity; especially when you’re writing.
Sarah: Yeah. For a few months there, I was in an all girls pop-punk band. And, that went nowhere. So, I quit that, and now I’m focused on this.

Caitlin: Do you have any recording plans for 2014?
Sarah: Yeah, over the last six months since I released the first two songs, I’ve written so much more. The sound’s changed a tiny bit, not too much, but I just want to get some of the stuff out there. Money-wise, it’s going to be hard. I’ve got year 12, so I’m not going to say I’m going to try and record and then do my hsc. So I’m not going to say EP or anything, but maybe if I have time, I’ll chuck in like a single or something.

Caitlin: Do you have any gigs or anything coming up?
Sarah: I do. My next gig is on the 22^nd of March, at Club North Manly, which is going to be good, it’s going to be fun, and it’s all ages, so bring your mum, your dad, your grandma.

Caitlin: Do you have any plans to pursue music after school?
Sarah: Definitely, that’s why I started it all when I was in high school, because when you leave school and you haven’t been gigging and writing, and when you decide to leave, you’re like oh wait, maybe I should do music, and no one knows who you are. It’s so hard to do the climb. The music industry is so tough. Even though I had a massive jump when I first started, and got really high, I’m trying to ease it, so that when I finish, I can just go hard, and hopefully, make it a bit bigger, instead of you know, just playing around the beaches.

Caitlin: Alright, to wrap this up, if you could tour with any three bands, who would it be?
Sarah: I’m going to speak on behalf of what my band would say. The first one I would say is Primus. I would say for myself, somebody really fun, that’s going to be crazy the whole time. Tame Impala. That would be sick. And, somebody big, with massive stage productions. Coldplay. I would tour with Coldplay.

Check out Sarah on Facebook

Check out Bec Martin Photography

Image courtesy of Boudist.com

From the dramatically underwhelmed response of Big Day Out’s potential punters alike to listless last minute lineup cancellations, I think it’s pretty safe to say that it’s been a bumpy twelve months for the team over at the BDO headquarters. The Big Day Out usually prides itself on being one of, if not, the biggest music festival in Australia. It caters to all aged patrons, and tries to be as diverse as possible when considering acts to book. 2014 played the immense spectrum of Australian and international talent alike, with the lineup featuring the likes of the reggae-rap combination of Snoop Lion (aka Snoop Dogg), local Western Sydney hardcore boys Northlane, Swedish absolute heart-starters The Hives, and Perth’s favourite psychedelic outfit, Tame Impala. I went along to the Big Day Out, timetable in hand, notepad in my bag and with the knowledge that there would be more short shorts than I could comprehend slinking about before me.

It’s interesting to me, going to the BDO a couple of years back, and seeing the difference in the two shows. 2014 seemed… empty. Not literally, but there was some emptiness to the atmosphere, like there was a huge gaping hole in the day. This didn’t really stop the music though.

The day went from early morning face-melting riffs and head-banging drum beats from I Oh You 2-piece DZ Deathrays, to an even heavier set from I Oh You boys Violent Soho. I’ve got to say, I Oh You are totally killing it right now. Violent Soho kept their sea of fans on their toes, opening with Dope Calypso, and seeing the set out with favourites Covered In Chrome (HELL F*** YEAH) and Tinderbox. The experimental madness continued with Alaskan outfit Portugal. The Man and Perths’s own psychedelic favourites, Tame Impala. Live, both bands delivered some crazy jam sessions, centred on a single riff. As the day rolled forward, it was actually pretty clear that the only thing making BDO seem different from any other BDO was the lack of atmosphere. The bands were fantastic, and all had energy.

Swedish absolute nuts, The Hives, put on their “best show ever” (as they probably say at all of their shows), and proceeded to put on probably the punchiest set I’ve ever seen. Arcade Fire backed that up with their transcendent tendency to make a ten-piece band on stage feel like an absolute orchestra; they had almost every instrument under the sun on the one stage. Breaking up the day, hardcore connoisseurs, Deftones filled the JBL Essential stage with the sweet sounds of screams from the band and the crowd itself, and Australian dance prodigy Flume, dropped sounds to a rowdy crowd only capable of the boiler room.

Big Day Out 2014 was good to me. I saw the bands that I wanted, wasn’t pushed and blocked out by those purple-wristbanded, short-wearing, flower-adorning girls and their gaggling clans, and enjoyed the show. I just can’t shake this feeling, that this huge gaping hole in the day is only the start of the decline of the Australian festival scene.

Jody are this cool new “inner west mope rock” band with some excellent music making skills. Their shows are packed with a tonne of energy, paired with some pretty skilful instrumentals, and possibly some of the best bouts of showmanship I’ve seen in a while. Their energy and sound is nothing short of refreshing, and definitely sticks true to this ever-growing indie-power-rock culture emerging from Sydney’s inner suburbs. Jody are set to record and release an EP in the forthcoming year, and will heed this with a heck of a lot of shows. Be sure to catch one.

I sat down with the boys from Jody to talk about their upcoming schedule, share some light-hearted banter and reminisce on some of the highlights of the past year. My photographer friend, Bec Martin, came along with me, and she is responsible for all of the photos attached to this article.

Check out Jody on Facebook

Jody Insights

Caitlin: How would you guys describe your sound?
Dom: I don’t think we have an individual sound. I think we all collectively take influence from a whole bunch of different sources.
Matt: The best way to put it would probably be alternative.
Dom: What did you write in our first bio? Bone crunching mayhem indie? Or something like that?
Matt: Yeah, that was when we were going to be a funk trio.
Dom: Oh, actually, I would describe us as inner west mope rock.

Caitlin: It says on your Facebook page that you guys started with a “furious rendition of Radiohead’s ‘Paranoid Android’”. Do you have any other major influences that you would consider?
Dom: Well, yeah, I guess Radiohead would definitely be one. I know we all really like the Arctic Monkeys. But then, individually, we all have certain bands that we would love to sound like, I mean, I really love The Replacements.
Mason: The Gaslight Anthem
Matt: I’ve always been into really abstract and experimental beats and flows.
Nick: The Wiggles, Kanye West.
Dom: But Nick likes poppier stuff, like San Cisco. So we all have different influences.

Caitlin: That’s cool. You’ve got all of the different aspects of the music world in there. Also, 2013 saw a pretty big year, what with heaps of gigs, a few radio performances, and you played at a few parties too. What would be some of the highlights of the year?
Matt: Well, we got to work with Jake Stone from Bluejuice. He’s been our producer. Well “loosely”.
Dom: He’s a friend of ours, and I was like hey, come down and help us record, and he pretty much said “Yeah, sure.” So we did our single with him, and we mixed it at his [place]. I think my highlight was when we were mixing, and we got hungry, and he took me on his motorbike to go get dumplings.
Mason: I think Melbourne was mine.
Matt: We played on the 5th of January last year at a club in Melbourne, it was pretty sick.
Dom: Just being a touring band was something that we’re all excited about. Gig wise, we played at The Lair at the Metro Theatre twice. We just played a whole bunch of gigs, and that was definitely a highlight.

Caitlin: Okay, so you’ve got heaps of highlights. What do you think was your biggest achievement?
Matt: Well we got played on FBi radio a few times.
Mason: Then that bizarre Canberra radio station too.
Dom: When radio stations would message us being like “Hey we’re going to play your song,” that was pretty cool. Because it made us think that it wasn’t just our friends that listened to our music, and that people are actually listening. Like it’s cool having 20 of your mates at shows, but it’s nice to see that other people appreciate your music too.

Caitlin: For sure. Do you guys have any recording plans for 2014?
Matt: Absolutely. We’re going in towards early to the middle of the year, and we’re going to record our first EP. So, we’ve got a pretty cool plan with that.
Dom: We’re going to go down to the coast and rent a house for a week, and just sort of live there, and make the EP. We want to get away from the recording studio, and go and do it in a live space. Just have fun with it as well.
Mason: Live recording would suit us.

Caitlin: What’s the writing process like? Do you have a certain way that you go about it?
Matt: It’s usually either myself or Dom that comes up with the riff or chord progression, and then we build over that. One of us usually writes vocals for it.
Dom: There’s a couple where I do the chorus, and Matt does the verse, and literally, even with that, you don’t even know what you’re singing half of the time. It’s just half and half, like it’s completely split in a sense that whoever sings it, gets to write the lyrics.
Matt: These guys romp in their rhythms [Mason and Nick].
Dom: Yeah, Mason and Nick; they have complete input over their parts as well. So, it’s a pretty even writing process. Matt and I sort of write the bare bones, and these guys, [Mason and Nick] definitely add on something that makes it a real song.
Matt: It’s always done in the same rehearsal space. If a song’s not working within 10-15 minutes, it’s out. We won’t work with it again.
Mason: We just get bored.

Caitlin: So, what’s coming up in 2014 for JODY? Any major plans?
Dom: Yeah, we’ve got two [gigs] this month and one in February. Hopefully we’ll get to play, if not a tour, but a whole bunch of Sydney shows at places like The Vanguard, maybe even Goodgod [Small Club], places like that. Just cool spaces that will have us.
Matt: We’ll try and get a few support gigs around the place, see what we can come up with.

Caitlin: And to wrap it up. If you guys could tour with any three existing bands, who would they be?
Mason: Should we have a quick meeting on this one?
Jody: Fidlar, Mayer Hawthorne, and One Direction. Harry Styles is a fox.

Check out Jody on Facebook

Check out Bec Martin Photography