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Spanish Film Festival

Palace Cinema

Sara Baras: All Her Voices

Sydney, AU

April 29, 2017

With food, live performances, films and drinks the 20th edition of the Spanish Film Festival in Australia was welcomed at Palace Norton Street under the ambassadorship of Spanish celebrity chef Miguel Maestre.

Program highlights included performances from Penelope Cruz and 2013 SFF guest Maribel Verdú, an award-winning thriller. Taking out four awards at the 2017 Goya’s including Best Film and Best New Director, the much anticipated debut feature from Spanish actor Raúl Arévalo The Fury of a Patient Man.

The festival kicked off with the sexy and daring Spanish box office hit Kiki, Love to Love (Kiki, El Amor Se Hace). The third film from director Paco León, this funny and complex comedy explores love, sex and marriage through five interwoven stories taking place over a long hot summer in Madrid.

In addition to the films, the festival featured a range of unique special events, one of which was the Flamenco documentary Sara Baras, All Her Voices, which was accompagnied by a Flamenco performance.

The highlight of the evening was the documentarry on the iconic and diminutive in statue, Sara Baras, which shed light on her passion an drive for Flamenco.

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Photos by KAVV

Red Hot Chili Peppers

Amalie Arena

Tampa, FL

April 27, 2017

It is hard to believe that three of the four members of the Red Hot Chili Peppers are all in their mid-50s. The band bounced to the stage at Tampa's Amalie Arena on Thursday, April 27th to the tune of "All Around the World" putting many bands half their age to shame. Flea, Anthony Kiedis, Chad Smith, and newest member Josh Klinghoffer were on point, touring in support of their 2016 record The Getaway and making it look easy. The ever-charismatic Flea dressed in a mix-match of pajama prints, and a vest of old pillow cases twirled his fingers around the neck of his bass in a whirlwind of movement while Klinghoffer and Kiedis danced around him reminiscent of an ancient ritual with the ever steady Smith keeping the funk tight.

With a setlist heavy on their new record and the 2003 classic By the Way, the band did offer some movement in the form of the Funkadelic cover of "What Is Soul?" and The Beatles classic "I'll Be Back". The show was electric, tight, and fun with a killer stage production and the Chili Peppers providing a Ph.D education to the Tampa area on how a rock show should be presented. Take note kids...

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All photos by Brian Furman

Amongst Ruins (Snake Eggs Hatch)

Old Fitzroy

Sydney, AU

Presented by Poor Tom's Gin & Mark Blumer, and supported by Playwriting Australia and ambassador Louis Nowra, Michael McStay’s short play Amongst Ruins (Snake Eggs Hatch) takes place in a post-apocalyptic, famine and poverty stricken environment and sheds light on war profiteering and the moral dilemmas along with the resulting human conflict and lack of integrity that come with its territory.

With the motive circling around (enabling) killing people for profit and the backdrop of a war torn city, McStay seems to have not only drawn influences for the story, but taken more than a few pages out of Orson Welles’ The Third Man.

The play is less about casting a moralin infused judgment but rather highlights that there is really no difference between us – no matter which side you choose as we are longing for forgiveness, because we too have committed both great and mundane evil by compromising morals in order to survive instead of being willing to die to maintain our integrity:

McStay seems to go with the allegory that morality in wartime is currency under inflation.

Greek and epic styles, e.g. Sophocles’ Antigone, seem to have had a profound influence on the writing of the narrative based on time, space and plot and how all the individual factors tie in together within the confines of forty minutes: It goes straight to the point and does not waste an awful lot of time with nuances or subtleties.

Amongst Ruins also incorporates Brecht-esque components, i.e. Mutter Courage, with the merchant in Amongst Ruins being Mother Courage before her kids were born.

The cast comprised of Cecilia Morrow, Zoe Jensen, Amy Hack, Ryan Carter and Jack Crumlin play well off each other and their delivery radiates intensity. Another Red Line Productions emission that keeps the high standard the Old Fitzroy is known for.

Amongst Ruins (Snake Eggs Hatch) will run April 25-May 6.

Helmet

Manning Bar

Sydney, AU

April 29, 2017

Helmet finally returned to Australia in 2017 to celebrate their third and was is considered to be their most experimental album Betty from start to finish, which was originally released by Amphetamine Reptile Records as a double 10”.

Betty is built on Helmet’s trademarked hypnotic, earworm, crunching riffs infused breaks galore and based on a solid foundation of pounding, driving drums, but features a broader approach compared to their 1992 major label debut Meantime, with its forays into mastermind Page Hamilton’s indulgences blues and jazz, the latter of which he has a master’s degree in composition in.

Given Hamilton’s musical reach and expertise, it its almost surprising how much Helmet has stuck to its formula with Betty being the only slight derivation, where Hamilton infused the songs with a bit of melody and meandered different territories.

While Helmet live has always been a force to be reckoned with, the dynamic time signature changes, textural diversity and range of tunings the songs of Betty were recorded in along with the band expanding their songwriting approach, playing those songs seemingly poses a challenge the band enjoys as they power through it, with Hamilton mastering the passages that in recorded form have distorted vocals.

Helmet is a not a band of pomp or big (or any) any words: Stoically they plough through their set with the audience of the night, of which the lion’s share has come out of the woodwork and live show retirement, approvingly bopping their heads and celebrating each lick of what has been labeled “thinking man’s metal”.

Apart from Betty in its entirety, the second half of their set Helmet offered renditions of their other hits but also from the newest emission, Dead To the World.

The evening was testament to the timelessness of Helmet’s oeuvre – one that in terms of influences has sent massive waves in both directions.

One would need to flipchart to illustrate how pervasive its influence has been since the mid-90ies: Be it in terms of groove metal for outfits like Pantera and Sepultura, mainstream darlings like Queens of the Stone Age, Tool or even softer bands like Weezer and the Smashing Pumpkins, via hardcore and post-hardcore acts like Quicksand and Orange 9mm, as well as sludge and dirtier calibers like the Californians of –(16)- or Floridians Cavity, as well as the math-metal genre in general have been heavily influenced by Helmet.

Tonight’s show demonstrated in an impressive manner that Helmet’s no-frills approach is still captivating its audience in a live environment.

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Photos by KAVV

The Hodgetwins

Factory Theatre

Marrickville, AU

April 25, 2017

The Hodgetwins, Virginia-bred identical siblings Kevin and Keith Hodge, are “social media personalities” and operate a variety of YouTube channels, where they mainly dish out solicited, unadulterated, improvised, on the cuff advice in comically altered voices on sex, love and life their massive fan base asks for via e-mail.

The shtick, which constantly makes themselves laugh, worked so well for them, that apart from promoting their supplement range and fitness channels, they decided to take the show on the road and bring it to Australia as part of the Sydney Comedy Festival.

Their No Filter tour is their attempt at establishing themselves as stand-up comedians and thereby change the perception of them.

The show is narrative driven, spiked with personal observations and detailed depictions of their relationships, their experiences in the professional world and growing up in under poor circumstances.

Despite relying heavily on scurrilous jokes and their bodybuilding aesthetics, their stand-up set does show promise, with nuances shining through that indicate that the deployment of anecdote and recountment of common experience in the vein of Bill Burr or the trenchant observations and storytelling of chief Richard Pryor have had a massive impact on how they tackle and structure their live incarnations.

The siblings have quickly earned a cult following online and the reception Australian audiences greeted them shows that they have an appeal that is not confined to North American territory.

It will be interesting to see if they have the tenacity to refine and evolve their stand-up shows and unique interaction, which is currently heavily based on what has become their comedic catchphrases, low hanging fruit, i.e. employing colourful vulgarities, and their edgy sense of humor.

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Photo sourced from performer website