Pay only for the music you play.
Stuart Watters is a Director of Morph TV and consults for Nightlife Music.
With the ongoing publicity surrounding public performance tariff increases, there has been a strong focus on compliance for both venues and music suppliers. This is a matter which I am both personally and professionally involved in and passionate about. For the record, Nightlife Music is a client of mine and I have a long history of working with record labels and more broadly in the music industry.
Rolling out better design
Matt Mullins is a partner in Sand Hill Road hospitality group
We’re almost finished designing our next renovation — a double-height garden room at the rear of the Prahran Hotel. Obviously drunk or high or both when they conceived it, the guys at Techne Architects are planning on stacking massive concrete water pipes on top of each other nine metres high, filling the outside edge with glass, building booths on the inside, and making stairs and landings that let you walk up into each pipe, from where you can sip beers and eat burgers, looking down into the garden on the inside and the street on the outside, wondering why no-one ever thought of it before. That’s right, it’s never been done before. Anywhere in the world. And guess what? There’s a reason it’s never been done before anywhere in the world. Its f**king expensive! Architecture that’s never been done before anywhere in the world tends to be very, very difficult. Cos until it’s been done a few hundred times, no one quite knows how it works.
POP-UPCYCLE
posted in: Backchat on August 4, 2011
Cafe Culture is running an Upcycling Competition at Saturday Indesign. Upcycling is the honourable process of converting waste or unwanted materials into new products. When trash becomes treasure. So if you can dream up anything better than a clock plate, send your design — can be a CAD drawing, or even just a hand illustration, to entries@cafeculture.com.au by 5pm Friday August 5th. You could win a Bose Beosound Docking Station or an iPad.
Spice Market spiced things up last night with a second birthday bash. Celebrity guests included Vince Colosimo, Hamish Blake and his housemate Haydo, Temptation model Chelsea Butler and Ruby Rose hitting the decks — as in, DJing, not overindulging. Though the Mumm champagne was flowing all night, as were the signature cocktails using owner Dean Lucas’ own brand of vodka — 666, made in Tasmania — and Greg Malouf’s canapés were delightful. And in the centre of one of the circular booth seats was a sparkling birthday cake just begging for a burlesque bust-out.
St Katherine’s Descends On TV
posted in: Backchat, Local, Restaurant on April 28, 2011
St Katherine’s:
26 Cotham Road, Kew
(03) 9207 7477 or www.stkatherines.com.au
George Calombaris and Shane Delia’s newest venue, St Katherine’s, is about to open. And apparently next week will see the restaurant open live on TV, which wouldn’t surprise anyone I’m sure. St Katherine’s is a combination of the two chef’s heritages, with both Cypriot and Turkish/Lebanese food on the menu. Richard Hallam of Your Sound Investment has been installing the audio system for St Katherine’s. Hallam is a regular cohort of Calombaris, fitting out all the audio systems in his ventures so far, except for the Belvedere Club. Site visits to Mykonos would have stretched the budget a little too far.
Royal Wedding On A Plate
posted in: Backchat, Restaurant on April 20, 2011
(03) 9690 1958 or info@middleparkhotel.com.au
While women both sides of the pond that indulge in the odd flip through a trash magazine coo at the prospect of a royal wedding, most men are hoping the young Will & Kate don’t royally screw up their Friday night footy plans. However, there are two gents that are getting right into the spirit of things. Chef Paul Wilson and British compatriot and head chef David Marshall, have decided to dish up a meal worthy of the Queen at the Middle Park Hotel. For three nights of the Royal Weekend, starting on Friday the 29th of April, Wilson and Marshall will be serving a replica menu selected by the Queen Mother herself for the royal family dinner following the marriage of Prince Charles and Princess Diana. And how do they have the inside line on that particular meal? Well a younger Wilson was part of the catering team, and has searched his memory banks for this nostalgic, edible memento. The meal will set you back $95, and commence with a Lobster Mousse Balmoral served with King Prawns and sauce Americane. Other dishes include Welsh Lamb stuffed with truffles, pommes princess Anna and sauce soubise, champagne sorbet with Scottish raspberries and Souffle Lord Rothschild. To cap it all off is coffee served with Friandise, the Queen Mother’s favourite friandise being grapes dipped in caramel.
HomeAway, Super Bowl Ad
posted in: Backchat, Video Watch on March 4, 2011
In a radical departure for this column, Video Watch switches channels to the world of TV advertising. And where better to sample the delights of said ads, than the ultimate showcase of TV advertising — the NFL Super Bowl. It’s at half time of the Super Bowl where some of the best, most innovative, most expensive ads of the year are given their debut. No, you won’t find any shouty spruiks for book clearances or half price rugs during the Super Bowl, it’s playtime for the world’s biggest marketing speculators.
Hurricane, 30 Seconds to Mars
posted in: Backchat, Video Watch on January 5, 2011
Eurgh. There’s no way to intriguingly weave a review of Hurricane that will leave you guessing and tantalised. Quite simply, Hurricane is the worst music video ever produced. It’s one of the most tortuous 13 minutes you’re likely to spend. If you thought Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut was breathtakingly up-itself, then you ain’t seen nothing until you’ve seen Hurricane.
Are You Rich & Can You Ride a Horse?
posted in: Backchat on January 5, 2011
Polo. Please help me to understand.
From where I’m sitting, polo is a horse picnic. It’s a day at the races without the bogans.
So why does it have hoity-toity connotations? People have ridden horses for eons. Dozens of civilizations around the world play a version of polo. Head to the high steppes of Central Asia and you can watch a far more skilful game of polo played by maniacs on Arabian steeds, belting the shrunken skulls of their enemies around a dirt pitch. Wow. Now that’s worth rolling out of the beanbag for.
U Smile, Justin Bieber
posted in: Backchat, Video Watch on November 5, 2010
I’ve been putting this moment off for months now, but no more. The Video Watch spotlight wheels around to be confronted by something even brighter: the incandescent visage of a cherubic Justin Bieber. Why the change of heart? Well, clearly there will soon come a time when Justin’s voice will break and things will be very different. Not so long from now — and who knows, it may already have happened — a follicle of facial hair will pop out from his air-brush cheeks — as unwelcome as a podgy/pimply groupie in an otherwise applepie coterie of teenage beauties — changing Justin’s life forever.
