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Behind every great ninja is a pair of Feiyues…

Originating in Shanghai in the 1920s, Feiyue (meaning ‘flying forward‘) was taken over by a band of French sneaker afficiondos in 1995 who, inspired by street and urban culture, remodelled the brand to produce a new range of footwear that is simple, practical and comfy whilst maintaining a minimal but sleek aesthetic.

Our good friends at Acclaim Events and Acclaim Magazine, a Melbourne-based publication focused on local and global street culture are set to launch Feiyue at QV’s No Vacancy gallery this week. The launch will showcase the new season’s range as well as Aro, an exhibition of works by Steph.Cop (a French artist and Feiyue collaborator) and sneaker ‘reinventions’ of the brand by visual artists from Singapore and Australia, including Melbourne’s own Drew Funk, Tom Vincent and Prism.

Launch night: Thursday 03 February 6.00pm-9.30pm (free entry)
Exhibition dates: 03 February – 10 February
Venue: NO VACANCY Gallery 34-40 Jane Bell Lane, QV (enter from Russell Street)

For more details, check the Acclaim website or view the flyer.

All Images Copyright Feiyue

It’s always great watching a band relax in front of a hometown crowd at the end of a tough slog on the road. The sense of comfort and relief is unmistakable and makes for a genuinely warm, enjoyable performance.

And so it was as the Wagons rolled into Melbourne for the last show of a long national tour, waving goodbye to the Tarago and hello to the studio. Frontman Henry Wagons, sipping from a hefty glass of red, was beaming onstage. The lively showman, whose rad little beard couldn’t hide his constant smile, promised a party and wholeheartedly delivered.

It was a tight set consisting mostly of tracks from the most recent album, The Rise and Fall of Goodtown. The band opened with ‘The Gambler’, and kept up the energy early with ‘Drive till Dawn’ and ‘Love Me Like I Love You’. After touring the material for more than a year it was well and truly polished and the group played wonderfully together.

Wagons is undoubtedly at his best when he’s able to jump around and let loose, and his deep, husky voice lends itself especially to grimy country riffs and jocular lyrics. So the show did lull a little during ‘Alone With Me’ – a kinda cheesy attempt at something slow and sentimental – and veered somewhere else completely when bassist/drummer Si the Philanthropist took to the mic to rap, which was so out of place that I couldn’t help but giggle.

Still, the band never took itself too seriously and was obviously having a ball on stage – easily enough to carry these rare odd moments.

The Corner was also treated to a taste of the new album. This particular track, ‘I Blew it’, was written while the band was touring with US alt-country sensation Justin Townes Earle, and it showed. The bottom-of-the-bottle ditty about lost love had a knee-slappin’ tempo and sounded a little twangier than the rocky Wagons of old, but the crowd enjoyed it. A sign of good things to come.

Covers of Elvis’ ‘Never Been to Spain’ and, later, The Wayfaring Strangers’ ‘Willie Nelson’ won the loudest responses of the night. “We just want you two sing two fuckin’ words,” roared the frontman during the ode to the 70s country icon, and the rowdy audience was all too happy to oblige.

The band finished the body of the performance with another singalong fave, the cheery ‘Goodtown’, before briefly disappearing offstage.

Wagons kicked off the encore sans band, with a spotlit, acoustic ditty about his home municipality, ‘Waverley’; the audience shared a good ol’ chuckle over local references to knives at the train station and mischief in Jells Park. The band returned for the much gloomier ‘Pamela May’, which took the mood down a notch, but powered home with the spirited ‘Jail, It’s Hell’. Wagons ran around collecting every mic he could find, yelling madly into them, as the band belted out their final big sounds.

A fitting, high energy finish to a show that should tide over Melbourne until the band emerges from the studio.

It’s easy to wander round the BDO and see where the music, mood, booze, cigarettes and wild horses take you.

After thrashing around Melbourne taking in Australia Day adventures to Tullamarine Airport, a BBQ in Port Melbourne and my own place in Richmond, there’s nothing like a good honest bounce in the sun, and both The Hilltop Hoods and Dizzee Rascal threw this one up, out and bandy like a muthafucker. Both teams showing that successful and adventurous hip-hop trips further than East and West Coast America. The Hoods ‘Chase that Feeling’ (pretty much an anthem for Australian Sports advertisements in 2009) created dust clouds from all the bouncing, while DR’s ‘Bonkers’ (along with anything else off Tongue in Cheek) sent the crowd into an ape-wild frenzy.

After that it was a case of ‘How the girls won and where it got us..and how the wild things shook their sweet things and where it took us’. Lily Allen stepped up first with her endearing and chaotic, pocket rocket version of Mick Jagger’s swagger. Draped in an Aussie flag and puffing on cigarettes, her cover of Britney’s ‘Womanizer’ sonically shuffled and roared out of the smoke before evaporating into ‘Fuck You’, a song directed towards racists and prejudice in general.

Not sure who or where filled the void between the acts above and below…possibly sets by Jet and Ladyhawke, but I can’t be too sure; I went for a drink and got cornered in the ADZ (Allowed Drinking Zone) while confusion and fumbling with tokens went on. Ah shit, I remember – somewhere at Lilyworld I watched Blowfly wrecking ball the shit out of the O’Jays’ ‘Love Train’.

The crowd pleasing associated with other bands of the bigger stages gets old and leathery after a while so an artist unhinged and boot deep into crowd baiting is what makes a festival worthwhile. Enter Peaches — a firecracker of perverse confrontation and costume changes. A dirty, glitterball, gutter-punk Lady Gaga. Or whichever of the two XXXXs came first.

Peaches ripped through her set with outright bravado, macho showmissship and prevailing gonzo oddities filled with electronic bips, bops and cyber-hops. Particularly the songs ‘Billionaire’ and ‘Set it Off’. By the end of the set, Peaches had convinced a decent amount of the crowd to remove most of their clothing. Having since seen the movie ‘Whip It’, Peaches show in memory seems like a roller derby in full tilt – always on the tipping point between blood, cum and 911. In short, the lady’s a badass.

Outside, while the dying rays of the day fell down around the venue, the Boiler Room began to remind everybody that the sun also rises and the beats from the tent filled the air with booms, moods and shudders. A dog fashion disco indeed.

A good day for all…including a few of the horses.

Thanks to Jim Beam and Coke, Philip Morris Products, the female genitalia, 100% paper hats and no sleep for fuelling this BDO adventure.

Perhaps I give too much credit to emporiums suffixed with ‘warehouse’, but I expect that a pharmacy that sells prescription drugs to be able to understand the most basic of grammatical concepts. I mean, these guys have the power to dispense codeine but can’t understand you don’t put an apostrophe on plural nouns?

If that wasn’t bad enough, they’ve neglected to include a question mark on what has become one of the clumsiest sentences to ever adorn a shopfront window. How do colds and flus save money this winter? It’s like they got one of their retarded, drug-addled Sudafed addicts to pay off his increasingly large debt by doing odd jobs around the store. One of them had to be this.

Naturally, a prim older sales assistant – a true Chemist Warehouse devotee – had the brainflash midway through dying her increasingly prominent post-menopausal mustache that white paper inside the window simply wouldn’t make their point strongly enough.

‘Stop! We need pink paper. And on the outside of the window- take that!’

Thankfully, some brilliant like-minded individuals, instead of shaking their head and angrily writing blog posts, took advantage of its vulnerability, and rectified said problem.

These grammar police deserve to be saluted. Smith street thanks you.

The Herd
Hi Fi Bar
June 13, 2008

It’s quite entertaining to watch a sea of white guys (myself included) dancing enthusiastically to hip-hop – the stern faces, full-body lurches up and down, and awkward hand movements.

But when you’re confronted with the dynamic eight-piece arrangement employed by Aussie hip hoppers the Herd, it’s difficult to stand still. Complete with acoustic and electric guitar, bass, clarinet, plenty of mics and – my personal favourite – a piano-accordion, the Herd live is as compelling aurally as it is visually.

Last week’s show at the Hi Fi saw the band energetically spruik its new release, Summerland. The album features more of the group’s genre-challenging, funky, hip hop beats, and from the politically charged single The King is Dead, through the light party track Zug Zug, to the biting reworking of Aussie bush ballad Toorali, it made for an exciting live experience.

But there was plenty on offer for those who hadn’t yet snagged a copy of the newbie. Hits dating all the way back to the 2001 self-titled debut were pumped through to an eager audience all too willing to participate.

We Can’t Hear You, Unpredictable and 77% were big crowd favourites, and a powerful cover of Redgum’s I was only 19 pulled everyone together for a highlight arm-in-arm sing-along.

The band finished off with a fresh take on its popular ode to the fish and chip shop, Scallops, which sported a new, jazzy feel. It sounded great, and topped off a very solid performance that is sure to keep fans happy ’til the next round of shows in August.