november

ON THE COVER

2 Crumbs

4 biscuit Diary

6 Debate: Should we try to prevent the extinction of red heads?

8 Online Christmas Gift Guide

14 HipsterMattic Extract

18 Introducing: Trish Stenzel

20 Featured Artisy: Ed Dyer

24 Fashion: Black Bride

30 Style Sopotters

32 Food: Red Wine, Pomegranate and Chocolate Sauce

34 Music: Kill City Creeps

36 Travel: The Rockies

38 Crafty Folk: Snowfawn

40 Short Story: HipsterMattic extract continued..

Photographer: Sarah Robertson Model: Laurie Robertson

EditorJil Hogan

Creative Director / Co-EditorSarah Robertson

Web DesignRowan Hogan

Layout and DesignJil Hogan

PhotographySarah Robertson, David Yeow

ContributorsBree Umbers, Erin Radford, Scotty Harms

Advertising & Marketingadvertise@biscuitmagazine.com.au

www.biscuitmagazine.com.au

biscuit magazine is free and issued monthly. Email contact@biscuit magazine.com.au. ABN 33 407 496 992.

No part of this magazine may be reproduced without written permission from the copyright holder.

NOVEMER 20112

KABUL KIDS

Catch Kabul Kids at China Heights Gallery in Sydney’s Surry Hills between Friday 18th - Sunday 20th November.

Kabul Kids came from a photography project that was undertaken in 2009 by Sydney-based freelance photographer Palwesha Yusaf, aiming to shed light on the perspectives of children in conflict situations while providing a creative outlet to the children of war-ravaged Afghanistan.

The result is a stirring collection of images from a group of six talented young orphaned Afghan photographers

CALLING ALL MUSICIANS

Want to know more about signing record deals, record production, management, music licensing, festivals, overseas markets, publicity, touring, promotions, budgeting and more?

Head to Face The Music 2011 in Melbourne at the Arts Centre on November 18 and19.

The fourth annual conference offers those trying the crack the music business direct access to industry personnel and current professional level information. There will also be opportunities for attendees to develop the skills needed to operate competitively in the Australian music market.

Over 100 of Australia’s most influential music figures will be all under the one roof, and leading musicians and songwriters including Paul Mac, Georgia Fields (pictured) and Henry Wagons will lend their time of offer first-hand advice

Tickets $40 ($30 conc) for one day or $60 ($50 conc) for two days.

Face The Music 2011. 18 - 19 November 2011, the Arts Centre, Melbourne.

www.facethemusic.org.au

crumbsClick

to

buy

Image: Ibrahim

, Untitled, 2009, 35m

m film

negative

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ATTACK THE BLOCK

Attack the Block is a fast, funny, frightening movie that pits a teen gang against an invasion of savage alien monsters. It turns a London housing estate into a sci-fi playground. A tower block into a fortress under siege. And teenage street kids into heroes. It’s inner city versus outer space.

From writer and first-time director Joe Cornish and all-star producer Edgar Wright (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Shaun of the Dead) comes an irrepressibly high-spirited pop culture whirlwind. Snagging the coveted Midnight Feature award at SXSW for best cult film,

Attack the Block is pure, unadulterated fun, careening between gritty suspense, wry humour and out-and-out alien slaughterfest, South London style. Stars Jodie Whittaker, Luke Treadaway, Nick Frost and introducing John Boyega, Alex Esmail, Franz Drameh, Leeon Jones, Simon Howard, Jumayn Hunter

In Cinemas December 01.

WINTo win yourself a double pass to Attack The Block, visit www.biscuitmagazine.com.au.

Good luck!

Click me

NOVEMER 2011

biscuit diary

until 20

Attack The Block hits cinemas. Turn to page 3 to win a double pass!

Sony World Photography

Awards. Sydney Opera House.

Until November 20, 2011. Free

admission.

Remembrance Day

Support Mo Bros and Sistas around the country as they embark on Movember. au.movember.com/

NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2011

18-20Catch Kabul Kids at China Heights

Gallery in Sydney’s Surry Hills. See

Crumbs for more.

21-27

Enjoy a week of sun, surf and cinema at the 2011 Gold

Coast Film Festival.www.gcfilmfestival.

com.

15Brooklyn indie-

rockers The National play at

TheBarton Theatre. Visit www.myspace.com/thenational for their full list of tour

dates.

11

1

4 NOVEMBER 2011

25th Annual Brown Brothers Wine & Food Festival 2011, Milawa

Vineyard. 10am - 5pm. Visit www.

brownbrothers.com.au/ for more.

19-20

www.biscuitmagazine.com.au

this month we're loving...

5

Christmas has never been this decadent! Make the wait for Christmas absolutely delicious with this Koko Black Advent Calendar. $45.

The Havaianas Slim

range at w

ww

.havaianas.com

.au.

Summer fruits are hitting the stores!!

Click to

buy

Click to

watch

NOVEMER 20116

debate

Should we be trying to prevent the extinction of red heads?

www.biscuitmagazine.com.au 7

YES NOShould we be trying to prevent the extinction of red heads. Absolutely! Can you imagine living in a world without The Weasleys or Gilbert from Beauty and the Geek.

I'm not a science mind, so exactly how we prevent this from happening is well beyond my thinking ability - images of red head breeding programs spring to mind - "yesterday, a chinese red head breeding program saw the successful birth of two healthy baby carrot tops". Woah.

I hope it doesn't come to that.

Red hair is caused when an MCR1 gene mutates (thank you Google). This mutated gene is also a recessive trait. So apparently, it takes both parents passing on a mutated version of MCR1 to produce a redheaded child. I don't like those odds.

From what I've read, it is suggested that there may not be any red heads left by the year 2060. Already a rare breed and with recessive, mutating genes being our only hope - we may need to start on the science behind red hair pretty soon to keep us here a little longer.

I know, it's evolution. It's what Charles Darwin was talking about. The strongest survive, the weakest die. The traits that don't help our species are bred out and we evolve into creatures that can withstand anything. But does it have to be so black and white and cold and David Attenborough style?

Sure - having red hair has it's disadvantages. The sun is our natural enemy, so I guess if we were still running around outside chasing our dinner then yes, I'd probably be on the otherside of this debate. But it's 2011 - sunscreen has been around for many years and if the sun happens to sneak up on us, then the aloe vera plant has made its handy way into a bottle.

Red hair is a sign of classic beauty. It stands out. It's fierce and will be forever fashionable. It's different, it's unique and thanks to Google - I now know, quite hard to produce.

Should we try and prevent the loss of this mutated MCR1 gene, definitely. It's not a matter of survival for the human species, we're set up in houses now and vitamin D comes in pill form. We should try our hardest to hang onto red hair - it's just so pretty.

"Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead" - Lucille Ball.

It's not that we should not be trying to prevent the extinction of red heads, it's that we SHOULD be preventing the extinction of the human race as a whole.

Unfortunately Mother Nature likes to throw some curve balls into the mix now and then, and much like height, excess body hair and a shitty metabolism, the red headed gene is a just another one of those things we need to be careful of.

The read headed gene for a start is a genetic mutation. But instead of being able to heal on command or shoot webs out of their wrists, our ginger friends are blessed with higher rates of skin cancer, wrinkling and sunburn due to the red pigment in their skin being an inadequate filter for sunlight.

Preventing the extinction of the red headed gene would be only hanging onto a genetic flaw which causes these effects in people. And is this seriously something we would wish upon anyone?

I have nothing against the color of course. In particular celebs like Florence Welch Christina Hendricks have really put the hue back onto the map. But with the advancements in hair colouring (and by advancements I mean the fact that you can buy any old color in a box at your local supermarket), there's every way for people to achieve the look without the negative side effects.

But in all seriousness, do I really think we should actively get rid of the red headed gene? Of course not. It's got genocide written all over it.

And at the end of the day - I need to look out for the best for my own children. The disappearance of young red-heads would inevitably make the playground a far more dangerous place for the blondes and brunettes.

by Bree Umbers by Anna Fairbrother

8 NOVEMBER 2011

Snowman Available in Milk, White or Dark. From $16.

Click to buy

Online Christmas Gift Guide

www.biscuitmagazine.com.au 9

Make Hey! by Pip Lincolne. From Lark $29.95

Koko Black Stocking. $32.

Click to buy

Click to buy

NOVEMER 201110

Click to buy

Tea Towels. From Young Republic. $12.

Click to buy

11www.biscuitmagazine.com.au

Oli and Ole Men's Leather Wallet. Austin $85.00

Oli and Ole Women's Bag. Lily $160.00

Click to buy

Click to buy

NOVEMER 201112

Oli and Ole Women's Leather Wallet

MiaMia $115

Click to buy

AURA by Tracie Ellis apron

Ikat Spot apron in Indigo $29.95

AURA by Tracie Ellis apron

Inka apron in Caviar $29.95

Click to buy

Click to buy

www.biscuitmagazine.com.au 13

Tetris Small Candle Holder. From Young Republic. $14

The laser cut jewellry tree. From Young Republic. $85.

Click to buy

Click to buy

NOVEMBER 201114

Hipstermattic by Matt Granfield

Your exclusive extract from HipsterMattic, by Matt Granfield

www.biscuitmagazine.com.au 15

Unlike shoes, haircuts and pants, tattoos cannot be changed with the season. It’s therefore not surprising that up until relatively recently tattoos and fashion existed on two different and completely separate sartorial plains. Tattoos were for gangs, sailors and outlaw motorcyclists—fashion was for middle-class people with enough money or desire to change their wardrobe every year. At some point early this century the latter embraced the former and tattoos became intangibly, indelibly, irrefutably cool.

‘Cool’ is, of course, in the eye of the beholder. Maori warriors thought tattooing their face was cool, and it was, because they were Maori warriors and they killed people for a living. If they could scare people off before they had to do any killing it saved them time and hassle and they could get to the feasting earlier. Maori warrior tattoos on Maori warriors are, as an example, very cool. Maori warrior tattoos on people who aren’t Maori warriors are not.

For a tattoo to be hipster-cool it has to meet a range of criteria—some vague, some distinct. There are a few hard- and-fast rules and the first of those is that a tattoo has to be original.

The first person to tattoo a butterfly on his or her lower back was doing something noteworthy and inspired. As were the second, third, fourth and fifth Lepidoptera fans. The one millionth person to tattoo an insect above his or her behind was merely following the crowd into the butterfly house. The same can be said for non-Asian people who get Asian symbol tattoos, people who can’t remember what star signs they are so they have to write them permanently on their backs and those who so feared for the safety of their upper arms they hemmed them in

with barbed wire. Trends cease to be hip once they are adopted by the mainstream. If a large portion of the tattooed population has a tattoo, that tattoo is not cool.

The second hard-and-fast rule is that to be hipster-cool, a tattoo must have either artistic or ironic merit. It needs to be a unique creation of beauty, or a satirical comment on something completely random. Picking a tattoo from a coffee-table book in a backstreet parlour is not cool. Getting your art school friend to painstakingly draw you a tribute to the native fauna of an eighteenth-century English rose garden and having that emblazoned on your shoulder in a marathon six-hour session with a lesbian ink artist named Irene is cool. Drawing a moustache on the back of your index finger so that when you place your finger on your upper lip you look like Salvador Dali is also cool.

The third hard-and-fast rule is that if your right arm looks like it once belonged to Admiral Horatio Nelson, you are almost certainly on the right track. Sailors were the first westerners to popularise tattoos and that makes their designs the most retro. Retro is cool, so anything with an anchor, a swallow or a ship is a good start. The bigger the better.

The rules regarding what not to do are equally important. Symbols of nationalism are completely out of the question— hipsters are too laid-back and left-wing for that sort of pride. Quotes are OK, in that a tattoo paraphrasing something Jack Kerouac or Oscar Wilde said is cooler than no tattoo at all, but words aren’t generally seen to be trying hard enough. Tattooing your postal code to your body is an admission that you regularly get so drunk you forget where you live. This is not to say hipsters don’t regularly get so drunk they forget where they live, just that they keep their addresses stored on their iPhones rather than their

shoulder blades.

I was beginning to realise, as I considered these rules, that in order to become the ultimate hipster, I was going to need a ginormous tattoo. Nothing short of mural depicting a pirate with an ironic moustache sailing on a ship made of swallows anchored to a rose garden covering my left arm was going to suffice. Virtually all my friends had agreed too—I’d taken a photo of my arm and put the call out on Facebook for recommendations on the ultimate hipster design and everyone had the same opinion—bigger was better. For someone who feared blood and needles this was daunting. Frightening even.

I’ve always had issues with leaking platelets. I’d fainted half a dozen times in my life from the sight of blood, from the thought of giving blood and from having blood tests. It wasn’t something I’d completely grown out of either.

The most recent fainting episode was only a few years before when I’d been on tour with a band. I’d been suffering a heinous bowel infection with a 40°C fever and there was more foul liquid coming out my back end than there was flowing out the mouth of the River Ganges. We’d made an emergency truck stop three quarters of the way between Melbourne and Sydney and after some colonic explosions that would make even the Unabomber blush I noticed that what I was wiping away wasn’t light brown but dark red.

My aversion to needles meant I was never going to study medicine but I’d learned enough about human anatomy to know shitting blood in a filthy service-station toilet on the side of the Hume Highway was as close to a medical emergency as I was going to get for a while. It didn’t take long for black dots to star t forming on the edges of my vision and they quickly turned into a plague of darkness. I woke up as my >

Chapter 8: The Ultimate Hipster Tattoo

Imag

e: C

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of A

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& U

nwin

16 OCTOBER 2011

head hit the door in front of me and found myself eye to eye with a drawing of somebody’s sizeable junk, the phone number of the apparent owner and a description of services he would gladly render if you met him in the cubicle at ten pm on any Thursday night. It nine-forty-five pm; tomorrow was Friday. I had to get out of there and fast.

Head shaken and intestines stirred, I had stumbled back to the van, explained the issue and suggested to my bandmates that someone might call a helicopter to take me to the nearest medical centre. They wanted to get some beer first and said I’d be OK, but let me have the front seat as a gesture of goodwill—it was the only one that reclined. I insisted I was dying, possibly within the hour, so our trumpet player Jake, whose uncle was a doctor in Western Australia, made a phone call to Broome and put me on speaker phone so they could record the conversation. His uncle volunteered to work in remote Aboriginal communities and had been working in rural medicine for years. Being the only doctor in an area the size of Belgium he had attended to more broken limbs, oil rig accidents and car crash victims than I’d had hot dinners and he wasn’t taking my case particularly seriously.

‘What’s the issue, mate?’ he said. I explained, much to everyone’s mirth. ‘And how long have you had diarrhoea for?’ I told him it had been for four days and that I’d had a fever initially but that had subsided. ‘Have you noticed any blood in your stools until just then?’ I said no. And that I’d been checking, so definitely no. ‘Well, you’re not dying. If you were dying you’d be in pretty serious pain and you wouldn’t be talking to me. You’d be on the ground moaning.’

I assured him I was dying.

‘This blood you’re talking about. Was

it bright red, or just a reddish tinge?’

I told him it was bright red. ‘So, as if you’d just cut yourself ? ’ I said yes. ‘Mate, you’ve been wiping your arse constantly for four days, it’ll be red raw and you’ve probably pushed a vein out a little bit from all that shitting. All you’ve done is just opened up a little cut on a vein on your bum. You’re not dying. Take some Imodium and try not to wipe your arse as much.’

I asked him to assure me I really wasn’t dying.

‘You are not dying,’ he said, before adding, ‘you are, though, a big sooky fuck. Don’t ever get a tattoo.’

The rest of the band members were by then all laughing so hard we nearly crashed. I’d always guessed I wasn’t the toughest nail in the woodwork but I didn’t necessarily want certified medical advice to prove it.

Getting a proper hipster tattoo was going to require some serious hardening up though. It was also going to take a lot of commitment. I wasn’t good with commitment: that was why I was on this quest in the first place. But I had no choice—a giant tattoo was the only way to ultimate hipsterdom.

But then, one Saturday morning as I was about to head out the door to meet a tattoo artist for a lengthy planning session involving an ornithology encyclopaedia, a copy of Treasure Island and a giant ship in a bottle, I had a call from a hipster friend I’d met at a party a few weeks before. I’d explained to her that I was on a quest to become as hip as possible and she’d been very supportive of my cause. She’d been in Berlin for a week so she’d only just seen my call-out on the internet and was ringing to stop me before I made a massive mistake.

‘Dude,’ she said over the phone, almost panting. ‘Triangle!’ ‘What?’ I said. ‘Get

a triangle tattoo. That’s the ultimate hipster expression. Anchors are so 2010.’

This sounded very similar to what Lulu had said when I was getting her fashion advice. I asked her what she meant.

‘Google it,’ she said. ‘Go to Google and do a search for “triangle tattoo”—you’ll see more hipsters there than if you searched for “ray ban fixie animal collective crowd Brooklyn”. And I just read somewhere that geometric patterns, in particular triangles, are about to be everywhere in fashion, so you’re about to be so in. And then of course, totally out. You’ll definitely be very in for a little while though. And the good thing is, when the rest of the world is finished with the triangle fad, you can move to Tasmania and you’ll be at the cutting edge again.’

I thanked her and hung up.

I opened my laptop and did the search. She was right. Triangles were starting to pop up everywhere. I sent her an e-mail by way of thanks and then noticed Hipster Radio Station Ex-Girlfriend had also e-mailed me that morning.

Hey, hope you’re doing OK—I saw your tattoo callout on Facebook but didn’t want to chime in or hassle you, but you should totally get a triangle tattoo. Google it. Take care and send me a picture. xx. This was too serendipitous to ignore.

I did some more searches and realised they were both onto something. Triangle tattoos were where it was at. They were so en vogue that a hipster band called Yacht had even gone to the trouble of publishing their official triangle tattoo policy as a PDF download on their website.

www.biscuitmagazine.com.au

I quote:

Y△CHT heartily supports the wearing of all tattoos, if their value is significant to the wearer. However, for those who desire a tattoo which directly references YCHT, we would like to lay out some guidelines regarding that which we consider to be ‘acceptable use’ of the YCHT iconography.

Regarding the value of a Triangle tattoo, consider this. In a single figure this symbol may both reveal and conceal, for to the wise the subject of the symbol is obvious, while to the ignorant the figure remains inscrutable. The Triangle is such a rich symbolic figure that any dimension of value can be placed upon it, depending on the wearer’s needs, spiritual evolution, and aesthetic concerns.

The YCHT Triangle tattoo is equilateral. It is not filled in. It can be inverted in any position desired and can be inked in either white or black inks. It cannot exceed, in size, a dimension of three inches. If the Triangle exceeds three inches, it cannot be called, technically, a YCHT tattoo. However, we do not discourage it.

The standard ‘YCHT Triangle’ tattoo is recommended for those who wish to remain oblique about the reference, those who understand the potent symbolic power of the triangle, those who are concerned with geometry, and first time tattoo-ees. If in doubt about which tattoo is right for you, consider the Triangle.

This was too good to be true. The ultimate hipster tattoo was nothing but a small, simple geometric shape which would take all of a few minutes to emblazon into my skin. There were even instructions and a style guide.

My decision was made. Now it wasn’t

Click to

buy

Continued page 38...

17

NOVEMER 20111218

introducing...Photos: M

arianna Massey. M

UA

: Emm

a Spotswood. M

odel: Carm

en Hurley

Introducing.... Trish StenzelWe chat to Trish Stenzel, the brain child of Wanderlust Clothing...

You originally designed swimwear for Miss Fancypants. Why the change to travel clothing?I consider myself quite a free spirit, having travelled, lived, and worked in various parts of the world. Before I made the jump to fashion design, I held a corporate marketing position that involved a lot of international travel that also included corporate customer entertainment. I am a firm believer in travelling light but was always struggling to find a suitable wardrobe to take with me and often vowed that 'one day' I would design a range of travel friendly clothing.

Tell me about Wanderlust. Wanderlust is a retro-infused lifestyle

collection specifically designed with travel in mind. Perfect for layering, dressing up or down, it will take you from day to night, from plane trip to beach, to bar and beyond. The collection features timeless pieces made from travel friendly fabrics. Many designs are multi functional, giving you many different looks from just the one garment. The collection does not follow trends, rather, it is specifically designed to transcend seasons. Each carefully designed piece is aimed at becoming a well loved staple in your wardrobe and your travels for years to come.

Why do you hand make your pieces?It all started with the swimmers that

I tend to make-to-measure. I found most gals are a different size on top in comparison to bottom, so it made more sense to offer a make-to-measure service. This also gave a more personalised service and enabled me to really get to know my customers. I really loved that aspect of connecting with my customers and found they really appreciated the fact that I handmade everything, that it was not mass produced.

Where can people find Wanderlust?

My Wanderlust collection is sold online www.wanderlustclothing.com and also once a month at the Olive Tree local artisan and design market in Newcastle. I am also part of a lovely co-operative design store called Makespace in Newcastle, were I sell my collection and man the shop on Tuesdays.

When did you first know you wanted to be a clothing designer?

I was always interested in fashion and design from a very young age. My mother was a seamstress and worked as an outworker for many designers in Wellington, New Zealand (where I used to live). This was a big influence for me. She taught me to sew too. Back them my parents did not see fashion design as a real career option so I studied commerce instead. The dream to become a clothing designer was always there though. It was ignited again when I lived in Germany where I worked in the fashion industry for a number of years in sales. But it was only in 2009 when I finally made the leap!

What has been the best piece of advice you have heard?

Follow your dreams and trust your instincts!

www.wanderlustclothing.com

www.biscuitmagazine.com.au 19www.biscuitmagazine.com.au

Click to buy

NOVEMER 201120

Ed Dyer

When did you first know you wanted to be an artist?I must've been about 8 or 9 when I decided I wanted to be an artist - well more a cartoonist and illustrator. It was also around that time I decided I wasn't that much into sports and other rigidly organised childhood activities too.

What's your day job?I'm the resident cartoonist at Luna Park Sydney, where I've been since 2008. Aside from that I freelance and study Digital Animation at JMC Academy.

What is your favourite medium to work with?Mostly just a pencil and paper, it's fairly inexpensive and it can really help if you need to back up your files.

How does creating your works make you feel?I get a kick out of it, makes me laugh.

Who are you inspired by?I was a typical 90s kid and I grew up with a lot of low brow alternative weird, watching a lot of cartoons and as an animation student I do to this day. The animated work of Don Bluth, Bill Plympton, Steven Silver and John Krisfaluski (Creator of Ren and Stimpy), Mystery Science Theatre 3000, Liquid Television, Beavis and Butt-Head. Comics like The Far Side, Calvin and Hobbes or basically anything I'm Googling at the time.

www.eddyer.com

Images courtesy of Ed D

yer.

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featured artist

NOVEMER 201122

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featured artist

NOVEMER 201124

Black Bride

Photographer: David YeowModel: Anna NguyenStylist: Krissie CaoMakeup & Hair Artist: Jacqueline KalabNail Artist: Sara Wong

Dress from www.kianavintage.com. Nail Art by www.sarawong.com.au. Accessories & headpiece by Krissie Cao

www.biscuitmagazine.com.au 19

fashion

26 NOVEMBER 2011

Left: Dress: long lace dress by Ika Yuni of www.desaku.com.au. Crown: by Rose Brinkley of www.rosebrinkley.com.ccessories are stylist's own.

Right: Black velvet dress & fur stole www.kianavintage.com.Accessories are stylist's own.

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fashion

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26 OCTOBER 2011

23www.biscuitmagazine.com.au

fashion

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Left: Laced sleeves bodysuit & lace maxi skirt www.kianavintage.com.Accessories are stylist's own.

NOVEMER 2011

style spotters

Jasmine Juliet

ASOS DRESS. SHOES CUSTOM MADE IN INDIA MELISSA JACKSON DRESS. SHOES VINTAGE.

Captured in Melbourne

30

www.biscuitmagazine.com.au

Louisa Shamini

DRESS FROM A MARKET IN LONDON. SHOES GREEN WITH ENVY.

H&M TOP. PANTS FROM MELBOURNE MARKETS

splendour special!

31

32 NOVEMBER 2011

Red Wine, Pomegranate and Chocolate Sauce

By Erin Radford

sips and nibbles

You only need to be able to stir to make this complex-sounding sauce. It’s easy to put together and is a sophisticated finish to cake, ice cream, fresh or poached fruit... Or less sophisticated eaten straight from the jar.

Ingredients

• 2 cups of red wine, preferably a fruity merlot or cab/shiraz/merlot blend

• 2/3 cup white or caster sugar

• 1 heaped tablespoon glucose syrup (you can get this from the supermarket)

• 2 tablespoons pomegranate molasses (available from delicatessens, middle eastern supermarkets and nut shops)*

• 2 tablespoons Dutch process cocoa (available from specialty food shops – you could also try a good quality cocoa)*

• 40 grams dark chocolate (preferably something good quality – min 55 per cent cocoa solids)

Directions

• Put the wine, sugar, glucose syrup and molasses in a saucepan and bring to a simmer, stirring to dissolve all the sugar and syrups.

• Simmer with the lid off on low heat until the sauce is reduced and has the consistency of a thin syrup (it will thicken a lot as it cools). This will take a little over an hour, so pour yourself some of the leftover wine and go watch tv.

• Once it has reduced, take the saucepan off the heat and add the cocoa, whisking to combine and to ensure that there are no lumps.

• Add the chocolate, stirring thoroughly to combine.

• Let it cool, then pour into an empty jar and refrigerate. If you find the sauce is too thick once it has cooled, add a tablespoon of water, warm the mixture in the microwave and stir.

Notes: Pomegranate molasses, relatively common in Middle Eastern cooking, is amazing – it’s also great for dressings, dips and marinades.

If you like making deep, dark, chocolate desserts, Dutch process cocoa is a must-have.

Imag

es: E

rin

Rad

ford

.

NOVEMER 201132

Kill City CreepsClick me to listen

We chat to Daniel Darling, vocalist and guitarist from Sydney band Killer City Creeps.

musicHow did Kill City Creeps come about?

Well we’ve been friends for years. I was overseas for most of 2010, and when I got back I wanted to start a band – I’d written a few songs. So I contacted Mon, Amy and Nina. We were at a party and just chatting and I told them I had this idea for a band and it was kind of just a chilled thing. And we were like, ‘Yeah let’s just have a jam,’ and we did two days later. I knew when we did the first few bars, I was like, “Ok, this is definitely going to work.’ Then we just started practicing a lot and then we became really tight as friends and that obviously affected the music in a good way.

How would you describe the band in three words?

Well three words – I think ‘Kill City Creeps’ does it pretty well! But um… I guess ‘rock and roll’.

How would you describe your sound?

I think that’s a really hard question. We definitely have a consistent sound and we try not to mess with it too much. Like we don’t use effects or anything like that. It just kind of happened – I knew in my mind I just wanted to be a rock ‘n roll band. I like fuzz and I like organ sound, and we keep it very simple as well – we don’t get too complicated. It’s from that traditional sense – like plug in and play.

Your music has a very 60s feel to it – what sort of music did you listen to growing up?

Yeah the 60s thing has been a constant for me. I think it’s definitely to do with the production values of that music – the songwriting is just phenomenal, especially from the mid to late 60s. I think that’s where pop music really developed. I guess in my teens I listened

Click to

watch

to more well-known groups, like The Doors and The Beatles and those sort of groups, and then you just dive deeper. I remember going to Red Eye Records and specifically asking for more obscure music from that era. I remember hearing 13th Floor Elevators and The Seeds and other American garage bands in the headphones and going, ‘Ok, this is my calling.’ But everyone in the group has different influences and I think everyone brings them forward in the way they play. So individually we’ve all got a very specific style but it all just works together.

Tell me a bit about your upcoming residency at the Beresford Hotel during November.

We’re playing every Saturday and it’s free to get in. We’re really excited about playing – we played there once before and we had a lot of fun and they treat us very nice. We’ve got some cool support bands and we were able to choose our them which was great. Everybody should come!

Any plans to visit the rest of the country?

Definitely. Next year we plan to go interstate – we’re already supporting The Damned in January, and after that we definitely want to play as many places as possible. I’d like to go to as

many places in Australia, because I don’t think enough bands really do it these days, it’s like you just play the major cities but I’d be really keen to play the little places in between.

‘I Got A Letter’ is getting a lot of airtime at the moment – when was the last time you got a letter in the mail?

I get them all the time but they’re just boring letters - just bills and bank statements. I got one - it would have been quite a few months ago. It was from America, and that was really lovely. It was hand written! I’m pretty lazy at sending out letters. I write a lot of letters, but sending them is the hard part. I guess it’s just the new age, we can type it and send it and it’s there. It’s kind of a shame, I think there’s something really romantic about letters, it’s much more personal. I look at it like when you used to make mixed tapes. There was something that was so much more personal about that, cause you had to listen to it in real time and it’s not like now where you just pop it in iTunes and drag it over and you burn it to a CD!

Kill City Creeps have released the debut self-titled EP. Check them out at Beresford Hotel, Surry Hill NSW on Saturday 5th, 12th, 19th and 26th November.

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NOVEMER 201138

The

Rockies

travelThe Canadian Rockies – just the name conjures up images of peacekeepers on horseback, snow-capped peaks, and forests that are home to elk, bears, mountain goats and cougars.

Those looking for the stoic, flat-brimmed Mountie at least are going to be disappointed; today's Royal Canadian Mounted Police drive a Ford and dress like every other cop in the world, saving the bright-red garb for ceremonial purposes. But the impossibly vast natural wonder within the Rockies, situated in the west of Alberta, remains true to everything you've heard about.

Our drive along National Highway 1 from Calgary International Airport comes to a stop at the gates of Banff National Park. All visitors - whether camping, staying in town or passing through - pay to enter the park in a vehicle.

A charming, if tourist-oriented alpine town in early fall, Banff provides an excellent base for tourists wanting to view the best The Rockies have to offer, while avoiding the higher prices and lower availability of peak summer accommodation.

One of the best ways to see many of Banff National Park's features is by bus tour. A fresh overnight shower clears to mostly sunny for our Saturday morning departure from Banff. Our first stop is at Johnson Canyon, and it’s an easy start to the day; a short 20-minute hike up to the lower canyon rewards visitors with a huge waterfall gushing out of a rock face and a first glance of the beautiful blue water - created by sedimentary dust - that is a trademark of the area.

If you've ever seen a postcard of Canada, there's a good chance it's of Lake Louise. A beautiful still lake, emerald in colour, she is guarded by an early 20th century chateau at the northern end and Mount Whitehorn to the south. As the focal point of Banff National Park, and with a

sizable village formed behind it, Louise is now trapping DSLR-wielding tourists at an alarming rate. Still, as you walk the surrounding trails, it's impossible not to be lost in the incredible beauty of the place. Perhaps even more incredible is that the lake's namesake, Princess Louise Caroline Alberta, never visited this jewel of the Rockies.

Just behind that one jewel is another. And if breathtaking can be summed up as a place, Moraine Lake is the definition. No postcard, painting or photograph can truly capture what you’ll see. Multiple shale peaks, all huddled together around a lake that is the bluest of the blue.

For day two, we drive from Banff to Jasper via the Icefields Parkway, a 300km stretch of road that boasts some of the best driving scenery in the world. Closed in the winter, it is home to endless high-elevation peaks, gorgeous lakes and pristine forests. At higher elevations, green tree branches become covered in snow, gently receding to reveal fall colours of yellow and orange as we descend towards the primary gas stop at Saskatchewan Pass.

The colours again change as the elevation of the road leading to the Columbia Icefields increases - mountains become diamonds piercing the sky, and the landscape turns a glistening white. From the warmth of our car, we traverse the glaciers that have formed around the national park and feed its many lake systems.

Athabasca Glacier is so close to the highway that some visitors simply walk onto it - we are more cautious, choosing to take a guided tour onto it via a massive snow tractor called the Ice Explorer that can carry its passengers up and down the sheer grades. "That's not the way to do it," our guide says, pointing at some of the spontaneous hikers in the open as we pass. "No safety gear, not enough warm clothing, no way to get off if they get

in trouble. But, people do it anyway!"

Athabasca is like a whole different world. In a matter of minutes, we had gone from the relative comfort of the visitor's centre and surrounds to having a snow fight on a thick layer of translucent blue ice, covered in an even thicker layer of snow; our guide estimated an outside temperature of around minus 10. "The ice isn't actually blue - it's an optical illusion," he says, describing the effect as a combination of light hitting the mountains around the glacier.

Away from the glacier, official hiking trails range from sedate to challenging, though all carry an inherent danger: multiple species of bear call the Banff and Jasper parks home. Close to sunset and near our stop in Jasper, our right-hand lane suddenly became jammed with traffic; fears of an accident turned to elation when we noticed each car had an arm stuck out the window, capturing on camera a black bear foraging with her cubs. That’s just how the Canadian Rockies work – it’ll meet your expectations, and then totally raise them in a moment.

By Scotty Harms

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We chat to Bonni Barker, founder of eclectic homewares brand, Snowfawn...

Click to buy

Snowfawn

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crafty folk

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Tell us a bit about your background – what path led you to do what you do? I studied interior design at De Mont Fort University in England and have been working as an interior designer for the last 5 years. Needing an escape I taught myself how to illustrate and it went from there. A few online shops asked me to produce some fashion illustrations for them in London and Sydney. I had always been fascinated with time; my first college project was to design a watch. So I started to sketch ideas for clocks I made a few prototypes then crossed my fingers and uploaded them onto the Internet..

Tell us about what you create.I create unique and whimsy homewares. At first we concentrated on clocks but we have expanded to include magnets and coasters. Hopefully in the future we will be able to add lighting to the list.

What’s your favourite piece that you’ve created? The cuckoo clock. It has been the most popular design and has had the most media coverage.

Where do you get your inspiration? My childhood is the main source of inspiration so I am constantly thinking back to what made me smile... Apart from that I buy a lot of magazines and constantly surround myself with design.

What’s your creative process like? I hand sketch my design idea then convert it to digital format. I then prepare the pattern to be cut. Once the material has been cut, I spray it and assemble the pieces.

www.youngrepublic.com.au/snowfawnhomewares

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40 NOVEBER 2011

a matter of what tattoo to get, it was a case of when.And that time came sooner than I thought.

As it turned out the drummer from my old band had been writing songs with a new group and their first gig had been in my calendar for a while. He lived an hour south of me on the Gold Coast and the show was slated for the upcoming Friday night. They were first on so I’d helped them load in. A crew of friends and fans had turned up so we all went to get a bite to eat and then found ourselves standing outside a Subway restaurant with an hour to kill before they started playing. There was an airbrush tattoo stand next door and a couple of kids were throwing Skittles at seagulls and flicking through the skulls and roses trying to convince their parents to let them have some ink for the evening.

‘Who wants to get a tattoo?’ a friend named Jesse suddenly asked out of the blue. ‘I’m going to get one, who wants to come?’

‘An airbrush one?’ I asked, looking over at the kids, one of which had stopped throwing Skittles and was now throwing a tantrum.

‘Huh?’ said Jesse. I pointed. ‘Oh, no, ha ha, I didn’t even see that. No, a real one, there’s a dozen tattoo parlours around here. I created this design the other day and I want to get it done. It’s only simple so it won’t take long.’

I asked what it was. ‘It’s a triangle,’ he said.

My eyes boggled. ‘Are you for real?’ I asked ‘Yeah, it’s like a triangle with two slightly elongated sides.’ He drew it on his arm. ‘It means you make a mistake here,’ he pointed, ‘you go backwards for a while, and then you wise up, change direction and come back to

where you started but go on further than you did before. It’s like a circle, I guess, but in triangle format.’

I’d heard all I wanted to hear. ‘Follow me,’ I said, dragging him by the arm before he changed his mind. ‘I know a place.’

The place I knew had shut and had been replaced with a multinational, multi-storey, multi-shade-of-grey car park, but it didn’t take long to find another tattoo parlour up a side street which, in the not too distant past, had been a swamp. It smelled like the cleaning closet of a hospital, which was encouraging, but the tiled walls reverberated with the buzz of two sadistic electric mosquitoes.

We asked if they could fit us in that evening. They could. ‘Draw them up and come back in half an hour, we’ll have everything ready,’ the guy behind the counter said.

He gave us a piece of paper and a pen each. I drew a triangle. Jesse drew a triangle. We handed them back. The guy looked at them. He’d been expecting something a little more elaborate.

‘OK, they’ll be $110 each,’ he said. ‘And I’ll need a $50 deposit to secure your spot.’

It seemed like a lot for a triangle, but who was I to put a price on geometry? I handed over the cash in return for a booking slip. Pythagoras would have been proud.

We returned at the appointed hour. I told Jesse I was going first. I was shaking. I didn’t want to wait and watch while he got his in case I passed out.

I went in and sat down.

‘Triangle?’ said Brad, the tattoo artist, going over a piece of paper which had

my details and a disclaimer stating that I wasn’t under the influence of alcohol, under eighteen or planning to sue them if my arm fell off.

I don’t know how good Brad was at tattooing people, but if a casting director was ever looking for someone to play the bouncer in a cage-fighting club frequented exclusively by pirates, he would have been a shoe-in for the part. He had more ink than I had skin.

I nodded.

‘Been doing a few of those lately,’ he said. ‘What does it mean?’

I said it was a hipster thing. He asked me what a hipster was and put on a pair of latex gloves. I explained. He nodded.

‘Like all the cool kids?’ he said. I said yes. ‘This your first time doing this?’ he asked. I said it was and asked him if it was his first time too. He liked my joke. ‘Hold your arm out,’ he said. I laid out my arm, as if about to donate blood, and he started wiping it with disinfectant solution before applying the transfer of the tattoo. It was in the right place and looked kind of cool. I held it up to show Jesse. He gave me the thumbs up.

‘This is really going to hurt,’ he said, dipping the needle in ink. ‘You’ll probably pass out from pain. Try not to let your head hit the tiles.’ I looked down. ‘They don’t bounce as well as they look.’ He was smiling. My arm was trembling.

‘How long do you think it will take?’ I asked. ‘Mate, three minutes,’ he said. ‘If that.’ Three minutes was good. ‘You ready?’

‘Let’s do this,’ I said.

He hovered over my wrist with the needle. It was now or never.

...continued from page 15

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short story‘You know what other culture was into triangles?’ he asked, with a wry smile, raising an eyebrow.

Bang. The needle went in, I winced a little bit and the feeling was pretty much exactly as I’d guessed it would be. It bit like an iron wasp dragging its arse through my arm.

I wasn’t sure where he was going with this. ‘The Egyptians?’ I said.

He shook his head. ‘The Nazis.’ He was holding my arm now so I couldn’t pull away.

I nearly jumped out of the chair. ‘What do you mean?’ I demanded. He was already halfway along the first side. Aryan pride was so not cool. ‘Yeah, a pink triangle meant you were gay,’ he said. I was slightly relieved. I thought he was about to tell me Hitler had a pyramid on his ankle. ‘That’s not pink ink you’ve got there is it?’ I asked. ‘Yeah.’ He said deadpan, looking over beside him at the piece of paper with my signature. ‘It says ‘pink triangle’ here.’

I smiled.

‘Oh well, at least if I don’t have any luck tonight I can head over to a gay bar. Hello boys.’

He smiled. It was very obviously black ink, but it was a good joke.

‘What did a black triangle mean?’ He worked away and thought for a bit. ‘I think it meant you were an alcoholic,’ he said. That was ironic. That was good. ‘No, wait, it meant you were mentally retarded.’ ‘What?’ ‘Yep.’ The other tattooist across the room laughed and looked up from his work on a girl’s ankle. ‘Been doing a few triangles lately,’ he said. ‘What band is it?’

I said there was a band called Yacht which had it as a symbol, but it was more of a hipster thing in general.

He looked confused. ‘What’s a

hipster?’ he asked.

Brad answered him before I could speak. ‘You know, like all the cool kids,’ he said, pointing at me and Jesse in turn.

The other guy nodded and went back to his ankle.

Two sides were now finished. It had taken all of two minutes. I looked back at Jesse, who was filming. I smiled and he gave me another thumb up.

‘Almost done,’ Brad said. ‘Doesn’t hurt that much does it?’

It didn’t. It didn’t tickle, and I was glad I wasn’t getting a sleeve. Another minute of this and I was going to be happy to get out of there.

Brad buzzed away for a bit longer, carefully going over the last line.

Extract taken from the book HipsterMattic by Matt Granfield (Allen & Unwin, $24.99), available from all good bookshops.

‘Done.’ And that was it. I had a tattoo. And not just any old ink—the ultimate

hipster body art. I didn’t even feel slightly faint. To the contrary, I felt bold. Perhaps even a little tough.

‘What are you up to now?’ Brad enquired. He wrapped some tape around my wrist and told me how to take care of it.

I told him I was going to see a band. ‘Oh yeah, which band?’ he said. I thought for a bit. ‘You wouldn’t have heard of them,’ I said.

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NOVEMER 2011