Interview: James Young

“I’ve always been lucky. In advertising we would get paid a fortune to map a vision and a strategy for a business, none of which I’ve ever done for myself. My attitude has always been, be positive and let it fall in your lap. That’s always worked for me. Surround yourself with positive people and energy and wait for the phone to ring.” - James Young

James Young MC's at Cherry Rock festival

There's something very reassuring about being in the company of James Young, co-owner and public face of Melbourne rock institution, Cherry Bar. It could be the years spent in advertising, the constant repetition of my name while we’re chatting, making me feel more like a trusted friend than an interviewer. But I'd like to say that it's the bravado and confidence that rock music brings, and the man has rock ‘n’ roll running through his veins.

It's a Thursday night, just after 9pm. Cherry is empty save a few staff members, a techie setting up sound equipment on the small stage and a couple of barflies who look like they've decided to get an early start on the weekend. I wander in and take a seat at the non-service end of the bar. It’s so dark that, for a moment, I worry that I won’t recognise the man that I’ve come to speak to.

 James: “It’s unfortunate that you can operate a bar for fourteen years without a solitary noise complaint and then a new residential building moves in and, instantaneously, under the current laws, we’re too noisy for them.”

Young and I are sitting on a cushioned bench in the smaller back room of Cherry discussing noise restrictions. This room has no doubt seen a fair share of mischief over the years, but tonight its staff only. Somewhat ironically, we’ve managed to interrupt a barman enjoying the peace and quiet of an early break with his head stuck in a Stephen King novel.

James: “The issue of live music venues being threatened by new residential developments is the biggest issue in music globally at the moment”.

Young speaks, absentmindedly pausing to adjust the large AC/DC ring he wears proudly. In retrospect my fear of not recognising the proprietor seems foolish as I take in his jewellery, leopard print suit and white cowboy hat.

Our bartender friend departs for quieter ground with a wave goodbye as he continues.

James: “Everyone’s worried about it because with physical CD sales dead, playing live is the new revenue for bands, their performance and selling merch and all the rest of it. It’s also their university, playing live is how bands hone their craft.”

Noise restrictions are something this man knows a lot about. with the recent closure of the Palace Theatre and a new residential apartment block currently under development less than 20 meters away from Cherry’s front doors, it’s a subject very close to his heart.

James: “My business partner ‘Lazy Pete’ is really worried about it and I’ve met so many well-meaning, passionate music lovers in Melbourne who are all worried about the future of Cherry, too. Actually, they’re more worried about the bar than I am.  I’m quite a positive and optimistic person and I believe that every year presents new challenges in your life. You’ve just got to suck it up and deal with it. This is just another thing that we’re going to have to deal with."

“I book over 1,100 local acts a year for Cherry, we’re open seven nights a week, have live music seven nights a week and I’m knocking back around 2000 bands a year. There are just thousands upon thousands of bands in Melbourne and what they want more than anything else is the opportunity to play in front of people. They want more venues where they can play and, as I like to say, over my dead body will Cherry Bar be closed. We might have to make some modifications but Cherry will be here and I will fight for the death to protect our late licence. To be a world-class city these days you’ve got to be a twenty-four hour city.”

Young is passionate about the contribution live music makes to a cityscape, citing the appeal of destinations where music can be heard on city streets at all hours. He’s also quick to point out the obvious contradiction in selling the appeal of an apartment based on the culture of the site while then endangering that very culture by virtue of drastically altering the scope of the bar’s current operations. As it is, it looks likely Cherry Bar will no longer be able to operate with its current 5am license.

James: “The people who are about to move into these apartment blocks bought them based on promotional materials that said ‘join the culture of AC/DC Lane’. I think one of the beautiful things about this bar is standing out the front with the doors open and the music bleeding into the laneway while you’re smoking or talking to friends, picking up or just enjoying the night air. I think it’s a beautiful thing to have that music coming out and it will be unfortunate if we incubate that sound and close the double entrance so that everything is contained within. International guests and tourists don’t want to come down and just take a photograph of a street sign to say that they’ve been to AC/DC Lane; they want to experience it. And that experience is music and live rock ‘n’ roll.”

The door to the backroom opens with a squeak and suddenly we’re joined by a cameraman and sound recordist, here to film Young for his regular ‘Cherry TV’ slot, broadcast weekly on the popular Cherry Bar Facebook page.

 Before he leaves me to start filming I ask a question about social media and its impact on the bar.

James: “You can write media releases for Cherry Bar and distribute them nationally, but I made the discovery that all I really need to do is post it on the Cherry Bar Facebook. These days online content gets picked up by the mainstream media, who are trawling the internet for interesting stories. All we’re trying to do is say, ‘come here for a drink if you think this way, because this is where live music-lovers hang out’. If you’re following our feed and enjoying it, then maybe you belong and are part of the Cherry family." So far it seems to be working.

Interview: Jeffrey Phillips

"When it’s not for work, it’s all by hand – all ink and nibs. That’s what made me fall in love with drawing and that’s why I can still do it.”

-       Jeffrey Phillips

It really is incredibly difficult to walk away from an introduction to Jeffrey Phillips. Makers first bumps in to him at the Festival of Steve, note book and fountain pen in hand, hired to work this crowd as a live illustrator – a little side line business the “reformed financial advisor” squeezes in during time not spent working on his commercial illustration jobs.

He’s a great guy with whom to strike up a conversation. Jeffrey is open, gently humorous and inquisitive. Much like the drawings that, on this particular Saturday evening, fill his notebook: caricature-style portraits in black ink that capture completely aesthetics and character. The drape of a young designer’s scarf and its wearer’s serious intent; the poker-faced trio at a green felt card table; the bearded suave ‘tude of a couple of the Oscar Hunt boys dressed to impress.

Jeffrey: “I’ve always been a doodler. I would spend my evenings drawing and learning how to use different pens and fill up sketchbooks with, in hindsight, just horrible, horrible stuff. People would say, ‘Man, it’s too late to do something different now, isn’t it, yeah it is’.”

It explains much of the energy surrounding the man that Jeffrey, without fuss or fanfare, went ahead and did it anyway.

Jeffrey: “Someone said, ‘I’ve got someone who’s doing a short film and needs some story boards’, and I said, ‘What are story boards?’ and then one thing led to another and work just picked up from there.”

Speaking with the artist is a lot like this. Nothing harried. No stress. He’s intelligent but not pretentious, observant though not judgemental. Rare qualities. It's as if he’s somehow identified the portal to his own slipstream and just stepped right in.

Perhaps it’s being so in tune with his own creativity that enables Jeffrey to garner such insights in to his studies. He is quick, challenging himself to spend no more than a glance before sketching from memory with his beloved fountain pens – an ease of use he found growing up as a boy in Mumbai where this instrument was standard issue in the schools he attended until moving to Perth, age 14.

And while his insights are acute, his gaze is forgiving.

Jeffrey: “You can get quite a lot of personality from drawing, unlike a photograph which just depicts that still scene. If someone is really loud and flamboyant, you can express that a lot better, exaggerating an action or a piece of clothing. If they have a big nose you can make them have a really big nose. If they are tall, you can make them loom over. It is opportunity to embellish and bring out aspects of character in a scene."

Analysis aside, his live illustrations are, Jeffrey explains, an opportunity to continue bettering his craft. The digital focus of most all commercial illustration means these forays with pen and ink serve as a constant series of mini tutorials.

Jeffrey: “I’ve always done it as a way of practicing my skills, trying to get better at getting as much information in a snapshot and then just being able to draw without too much thought or planning. I can draw you even if you’ve wondered off.”

The morning marches on and his shared warehouse studio space begins to buzz with the arrival of fellow artists and creatives – these people with whom he has come to share a space.

It’s an enviable scene: light-filled, the room’s interior pulled together by someone with an eye for warmth and character, from the copper wire fairy lights to the arresting over-sized bird sculpture. Someone paints in the corner while a writer sits down in a corner to peck at her keyboard.

Jeffrey sees Makers of Melbourne to the door and the joy and pleasure of his company follows, even as his last words fall out in to the light of day.

Jeffrey: “It’s a very interesting dynamic to get paid for something you would do anyway.”

Street Style: Andrew

The Makers of Melbourne street style team stopped Andrew on a late Saturday afternoon in the Melbourne CBD. His Alfred Dunhill traditional leather holdall & the tailoring of his Balmain peacoat were dead giveaways that here was a man who appreciated quality, even when dressing for a casual day out. Andrew's leather & canvas boots were handmade in Istanbul by Helm & his jeans were from PRPS.

The Event: Men's Biz Store Launch

Proof of the enduring rebirth of niche men’s retailing was there for all to see within the historic context of Melbourne’s Royal Arcade last night. E-tailer Nathan Jancauskas took a cut-throat razor to the red ribbon opening of Men’s Biz, a bricks-and-mortar store designed to showcase the retailer's range of high-end men’s grooming and shaving products that – until now – have only been accessible via the company's online platform.

Nathan Jancauskas

Designed by interior architect, Sarah Cosentino, Men’s Biz runs a chic apothecary aesthetic courtesy of floor-to-ceiling New York subway-style tiles and reclaimed timbers. Brass fixtures and fittings provide the sheen. 

Nathan: “Online is great in so many ways, but we got to the point where we had so many clients wanting to come through our Richmond warehouse to experience the product that we felt establishing a physical space was the next step. So many of the products we have are available exclusively to us, so for men to be able to smell cologne and experiment with shaving creams became essential – and that’s not something that can be achieved with online.”

Shop 49, Royal Arcade, 335 Bourke Street, Melbourne VIC 3000

mensbiz.com.au

Interview: Inge King

Rare is the artist whose expanse of career is laid before the eyes of the public with a retrospective shown at a gallery of international standing. Even more rare is the artist who is still alive to receive the acknowledgement. But then, explains National Gallery of Victoria curator David Hurlston, 98-year-old sculptor Inge King has never been someone content to live a life of mediocrity.

David: “It’s one of those weird terms that is over used but, in terms of Inge, it is hard not to call her a living legend given the role she has played in the development of sculpture in this country in the modern tradition.”

Inge arrived in Australia in 1951 and still lives in Warrandyte in the Robyn Boyd-designed home she shared with her late husband and fellow sculptor, Grahame King, since 1952.

She is an artist who David describes as being free from adherence to specific schools of artistic theory, instead moving between eras spent working in the realms of both figurative and abstract sculpture. 

'Forward Surge' 1972 by Inge King at the Melbourne Arts Centre

David: “She is hard to pin down in that sense. Once after a trip to Northern Australia she did a whole series of bronze cast birds, inspired by the great flocks in flight. In the ‘60s you look at the steel assemblages and the welded steel abstract sculptures. In the 1970s she was much more refined but still abstract and in the 1990s she went back to figure with her bronze casting.”

The unbroken years of her work have only recently come to an end, with Inge remaining a working sculptor in to her 90s: just prior to the exhibition’s May launch, she remained active in overseeing the creation of her monumental sculptures, one of which arrived prior to the showing in the back of a truck straight from the fabricator.

Yet while age may have thrown a net of limitations over her physical artistic practice, Inge still very much retains a bonded connection to her endeavours.

David: “She was in yesterday with some of her friends and she went for a bit of a walk around; she is amazing in that she hasn’t lost any of her mental agility and remembers everything. Inge was recalling dates of works off the top of her head and they were precise every time. It goes to show the investment she has.”

INGE KING Constellation is showing at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia at Federation Square until August 31. Entry is free.

Rings of Saturn, 2009 Heidelberg, Victoria

Interview: Paul Cox

“The real things in life are to be kind and to be creative. Everything else, forget it.”

-       Paul Cox

Film maker Paul Cox in his Albert Park office

There is an innate contradiction apparent in the world of Paul Cox, the man who – over the past 40 years – has become one of Australia’s most distinguished international filmmakers. It is a contradiction inherent in the former sentence:

“…one of Australia’s most distinguished international filmmakers…”

 Note the reverse italics.

Makers sits with him during the gloom of a late autumn day in the Albert Park office that has long served as his professional, and only slightly more recently, personal home. Across the road, children play in a schoolyard and mums with prams walk by, take away coffee cups in hand. The small gate to his front path is discreet and goes unnoticed.

The second great tell.

For a man who has received both distribution and critical claim across Europe alongside a host of international retrospectives celebrating his extensive ouvre of humanist films (including celebrations of his work at the Telluride, Istanbul and Calcutta film festivals), mainstream Australian awareness around his importance is pitifully lacking.

A travesty when one considers the airplay given to any D-grade celebrity willing to parade themselves before commercial television cameras for the most asinine of reasons. 

Still from Paul Cox film 'Exile' 1994 - Winner of AFI Award for Best Cinematography & nominee for the Golden Bear award for best film at Berlin Film Festival

One gets the feeling it is a travesty that has very much contributed to Paul’s current view of the world that – at times – resonates with a sense of frustrated despair.

Paul: “There are so many people out there who spend their energy on creative bullshit – on things like fashion and what they wear and displaying themselves in that way. I have been making my films for many, many years and they have never hit the jackpot in Australia because they are very European and I have always looked at the world in a global sense. I was probably the first person that made a love story between an Australian woman and a wog, a Greek man (Kostas 1979) and people were wary of that – all the funding came from outside of Australia. Here I don’t really exist. I have the odd fan, of course, but since my transplantation I really couldn’t give a fuck anymore. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter at all.”

The transplant of which he speaks is the replacement of his cancerous liver (“on Christmas Day, it’s a bit pathetic”), the need for which brought him within days of facing death and has since become the central tenant of his latest film, currently undergoing its final edit. (He is, in fact, drawn out of the editing room the day we visit.)

It has been fictionalised, of course, and its themes broadened, though Paul today does not give too much away other than to say some filming takes place in India (“the earlier years I spent in Indonesia and India were where I grew up”) and – that if more people were conscious of the gift of transplant – many lives could be saved.

In some way it appears as if this could be the film that brings Paul’s lifetime of observance of the internal geography of human spirit and emotion – most often viewed through the behaviours of flawed characters – closer to home.

Not that there hasn’t been other instances of autobiographical influence in his films. My First Wife (1984) is very loosely inspired by Paul’s own marriage breakdown, while the magnified gaze placed on mortality, love, emotional and social corruption and life’s meaning throughout all his films – not to mention his total intolerance for mindless violence on the screen – is deeply informed by a childhood spent stepping over rubble and dead and dying bodies in the Netherlands following his birth in 1940 in to a Europe overtaken by World War II.

But underneath all the shortened patience for the cultural stupidity of modern life (Kardashians anyone?) rests a deep love for people and creative expression – for the possibility inherent in us all as seen in the eyes of a small child before social conditioning and expectation takes hold.

He is the ultimate humanist in that he fully understands mankind’s foibles – our current irrational obsession with celebrity and fame – but continues to love us all anyway: it is there, in his push to keep facing us with ourselves through his films, like a patient father who will (despite our ignorance and faults) forge on ahead, lantern of awareness held high, that he might show us a different way.

Paul: “I take life quite seriously. I think it is a serious matter. When people say, ‘enjoy what you do’, when people ask you to be happy… I think happiness is for fools. How can you be happy when there is so much unjustness? What is needed is a degree of contentment to do your work and be satisfied with what you have. To not want – that is essential.  And to be able to give.” 

The Event: Limedrop Store Launch

Limedrop's Clea Garrick

There’s been a lot of movement in Melbourne’s fashion and retail scene of late, much of it controversial: H&M’s big move in to the GPO that saw displacement of a host of independent retail brands, not to mention this week’s headlines focussed on fashion labour laws and wage debates.

But shifting landscapes also allow for new growth, and the opening of designer Clea Garrick’s first permanent retail space for her much-loved local label, Limedrop, at the base of the Nicholas Building certainly signifies the unfurling of a new frond.

Clea: “This is such an iconic Melbourne creative space because of its continuing history housing artists in its studios upstairs, and we really want to be part of that. It’s our flagship store and, with the big retailers moving in to the Melbourne market, you get this same-same of interiors that – while gorgeous and on trend – sometimes feel that they don’t contain the brand essence.  For us, it was important that the space could be a blank canvas for our collections while maintaining an openness to fun and colour and the idea that anything is possible: we wanted to make that the signature handwriting of Limedrop.”

The expression of Clea’s brand and retail philosophy has resulted in a design utilising the best of the building’s bones – the Art Deco balustrade, curved concrete walls and brass door hinges – while keeping the rest somewhat stripped back. Character is there, of course, in a softening vertical garden and the geometric shapes contained within racks that reach to the ceiling, drawing the eye up to lighten and expand the space.

It is indeed a backdrop well suited to showcase the designs characterised by Clea’s use of electric digital prints and silhouettes that communicate both Limedrop’s contemporary styling and strong sense of playful irreverence.

Clea: “The nice thing about having a retail store is having a sense of permanency. It’s taken a lot of thought, but the result has been well worth it.”

Street Style: Anthony

Et Al Designer Anthony Capon

Anthony Capon has been designing for Melbourne fashion label Et Al since 2008.

The Season 2 Project Runway winning designer is the personification of what Et Al is all about - relaxed monochromatic tailored style that couldn't be the product of any other city but Melbourne.

Anthony is wearing all Et Al pieces with the shoes a collaborative teaming of Rollie x Et Al. His vintage bowler hat was a gift from his housemate.

Interview: Dion Horstmans

Dion Horstmans portrait by Jay Harrison

As Makers writes, cranes are getting down to business in Melbourne’s Collins Square. For the next few weeks, workers will be putting in place a 91-piece steel sculpture weighing some 59 tonnes – it is Super Sonic, the latest in a line of striking public works by Sydney sculptor Dion Horstmans.

Known for his beguiling use of shadow, lines and silhouette, the one-time prop maker who worked on a host of big budget American films (“I left film after ‘Superman’ in the early 2000s, I was disillusioned by the industry”) has birthed new life as an artist whose affinity with Melbourne runs deep.

Indeed Flinders Lane Gallery was the first to pick him up in the wake of his career shift following gallery director Claire Harris’ chance encounter of an email Dion sent containing images of his work. His strong signature struck a chord.

Since then, Dion has gone on to become a veteran participant of Sculpture by the Sea while another of his works, Tron, arrests the eye on the ceiling of Boheme at Bondi Beach.

But Super Sonic is, for the one-time fishing boat worker, a whole new kettle of fish.

Dion: “Super Sonic is based on a F-18 fighter jet at the moment it breaks the speed of sound, hence the name – it’s the sonic boom. I imagine the wings partially fragment to expand and transform… going up… we’re using cranes… it’s a beast.”

Horstmans' sculpture 'Super Sonic' undergoes construction in Collins Square. Photo provided by Hassell Studio

Growing up between New Zealand and the Cook Islands, Dion’s work is heavily influenced by the tribal motifs that surrounded him as a child. As he explains it, the strong geometric element now present in much of his art has developed in response to a keen interest in ethno-graphics.

Dion: “I started drawing and moved in to 3-D forms about 18 years ago. The geometric works that I’m playing with now happened in response to these: I was drawing inspiration from tribal figures and patterns, the figures became large square panels, then they became uniform shapes placed randomly within a grid, then they became lines… push it a little more and they become stretched and elongated. It’s a journey, I’m enjoying it. Two steps forward, one back.”

One could argue there is very little on the backward slide for an artist that has not only found his passion, but a responsive and engaged audience.

The artist himself confesses to finding intense pleasure in both the creative and constructive process, the hot metal flying: “It burns, it hurts, it’s loud, it’s aggressive – I liken it to war. The noise rattles me, the grinder vibrates in my hand… I love it.”

That such a cacophony produces works of enthralling elegance inspires a great curiosity that will make his an important addition to what Dion himself refers to as Melbourne’s “iconic public art scene”.

Super Sonic is scheduled to be finished installation by end June.

A piece from Horstman's 'Voltage' 2013 exhibition at Flinders Lane Gallery

photo by Hannah Edwards

‘Voltage’ at Boheme in Bondi. Photo by Jay Harrison

The Event: The Unseen Beatles Exhibition

'Paperback Writer' 1966 by Robert Whitaker

It was a bit of happenstance that brought British-born, Melbourne-based photographer Robert Whitaker in to contact with the Fab Four during their unforgettable 1964 Australian tour. Having snapped manager Brian Epstein for a piece later published by a journalist friend in the Jewish News, Robert went on to – not only meet – but become established as the in-house photographer for Epstein's NEMS Enterprises, at that point managing a host of big ‘60s music names: Gerry & The Pacemakers, Cilla Black and the Beatles among them.

But it was with the Beatles that he found his niche, travelling with the band for two years to shoot the mega group both on and off the stage, capturing them in moments of super stardom and off-time intimacy.

For the next month a series of Robert’s works will be in display at Mario’s Café, the local Melbourne spot once frequented by the photographer. Pictures begin with the 1964 Aussie gigs and end with his iconic shot of the meat-clad Beatles – the infamous ‘Butcher’s Sleeve’.

On show until June 29, these rare signed photographs will be on display and up for sale.

The Unseen Beatles, May 28 until June 29, on show at Mario’s Café, 303 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy.

John Lennon in Anchorage, 1966 by Robert Whitaker

The Beatles in Cliveden, 1965 by Robert Whitaker

The Event: Cherry Rock Festival

The Meat Puppets (USA) headline Cherry Rock 2014 

The crisp autumn weather couldn’t have been more perfect for Cherry Rock. Although sadly 2014 marks the last year that this one day festival will be held in AC/DC Lane, thanks to inner city noise restrictions. A block of apartments currently under construction less than 20 metres away from local rock institution Cherry Bar.

Kicking off at the very civilised time of 12pm with a set by The Harlots, Cherry Rock 2014 promised 13 bands on 2 stages with no crossovers. Making it easy to move from stage to stage and catch all of the bands on the bill.

The Nation Blue

Things really started picking up speed once mid afternoon hit and the hard rock loving audience was treated to performances by Bittersweet Kicks, The Nation Blue (replacing an absent Don Fernando) and one of Makers of Melbourne’s favourite local acts, Redcoats. The band closing their set with the crowd favourite ‘Dreamshaker’.

Redcoats

The two international headliners didn’t disappoint, with the narrow CBD laneway filled to capacity to witness California's Brant Bjork and punk legends Meat Puppets, who played their first Australian gig in over 20 years. The Meat Puppets treated the well-behaved crowd to a setlist of classics, including ‘Plateau’ and ‘Lake of Fire’, famously covered by Nirvana during their 1993 MTV Unplugged special.

Brant Bjork

Both Cherry Bar and Cherry Rock festival have long supported local music and the 2014 lineup was no exception. With a majority of artists on the bill from Melbourne, the continued success of the event illustrates that with careful planning and a team of organisers who have an obvious passion for live music, rock fans will continue to buy tickets to see live shows. It’s a blueprint that a few promoters in this country could learn from.

Drunk Mums

Child

Chris Russell's Chicken Walk

Meat Puppets

King of the North

The Event: Jenny Bannister Retrospective

Jenny Bannister is standing surrounded by racks of clothing in the front room of her St Kilda home. But what at first looks like a slightly over crowded sample room is anything but: hair is its customised tease, Jenny one by one picks out a host of outfits once worn by a who’s-who of ’80s and ‘90s pop stars.

There is the two-piece worn by Tina Turner with its fitted black jacket and matching kick-pleat skirt; the black collarless jacket Kylie Minogue donned for her I Should Be So Lucky single cover; the immediately recognisable velvet jacket worn by Australia’s late ‘80s answer to Bananarama, the Chantoozies.

And every piece comes with it’s own story.

Jenny Bannister Plastic Tutus, Big Top Sportsgirl Parade 1979. Photograph by Rennie Ellis

Jenny: “Helena (Christensen) used to stay at the Como with Michael Hutchence and used to love going up and down Chapel Street; I told her where to go when it came to all the vintage shops. Kylie Minogue turned up at my house in Port Melbourne to buy after finding my clothes through doing magazine shoots. Deborah Thomas was one of my customers. Kate Fitzpatrick when she was going out with Imran Khan came and bought a whole leather outfit. I think she did a vodka ad in it…”

But the walk down memory lane is more than just an indulgence for the designer who headed her own label from its launch in the mid-1970s to its wind up in 1996 – it is the prelude to this Tuesday night’s fashion retrospective, an event designed to showcase the pieces created by the designer over four decades.

'Untamed Creatures Run Amok' - Talisa Soto wears Jenny Bannister, Vogue Australia April 1984

Some 60 outfits will be paraded on the night in a charity event birthed by Jenny’s friend-in-fashion, the stylist Philip Boon.

For Philip, the event is an opportunity to bring to light a cannon of work significant enough to have found placement in museums both in Australia and overseas: as well as having pieces bought by Christies and The Victoria & Albert museums in London, Jenny lays claim to the title of most collected Australian fashion designer by our own National Gallery of Victoria.

For ticket buyers, it’s a chance to experience Jenny’s eclectic-punk fashion sensibility in all its eccentric glory. And it is eccentric, from the clear plastic punk rock ball gown that wouldn’t appear out of place in a Vivienne Westwood runway show, to the reef bikini pieced together with gold scallop shells worn by the 1978 Miss Universe finalist that wouldn’t seem out of place on a Bond girl.

Jenny: “The design, it comes straight from my imagination and in to my hands. For me it’s about creating something amazing that doesn’t look like anything else and that’s why I live on this planet.”

(L-R) Stylist Philip Boon & Jenny Bannister

But being an “art clothier” (“someone coined the term for me in 1980 when I showed at the gallery of NSW”) doesn’t always gel with the economic realities of commercial design. Though energised by fellow designers and customers who gave Chapel Street its title as Melbourne’s top retail shopping strip throughout the 1980s and in to the early ‘90s, changes to the industry meant Jenny – since shutting down her business – is more than happy to play her hand at more artistic design collaborations.

Jenny: “It was really good earlier but towards the end… The global fashion landscape has changed. It’s much more slick. Right up until the end I had customers who understood the cost of making a dress that was unique and flattering and different, but those sorts of customers are becoming fewer. Now I design for myself. The commercial Jenny Bannister is gone. I can go back to my early roots and be an artistic fashion designer.”

But first there is the retrospective. It will be, both Jenny and Philip agree, a huge night. Along with the clothing strutted to music will be an auction of one of Jenny’s one-off pieces, an art auction by venue hosts, Deutscher and Hackett, and a concert by – who else? – The Chantoozies.

Oh, and for the grand finale? Philip has made sure the runway is large enough that Jenny has space to shake her groove thing following the finale.

Philip Boon Presents… Jenny Bannister: A Retrospective Fashion Show held in conjunction with Prahran Mission and Deutscher & Hackett gallery. Held Tuesday, May 20, at 7pm. Tickets: $95. 

Tickets available through Try Booking

Interview: Rone

“I do become conscious of what I paint and what people expect me to paint. It’s good and bad: you become a slave to your style but there is also an ownership of a style that I’m proud of – that idea of sticking to you guns.”

- Rone

Rone in his new Collingwood studio

There is a moment in Rone's new Collingwood studio that catches both the artist himself and Makers a little by surprise. Seated by a window as our photographer takes aim, the scene is interrupted by a voice from the street. “Can I take your photo,” comes the request. Rone nods in good humour and throws up a peace sign. The contented street snapper wanders off, but not before thanking him by name.

“That guy knew my name,” Rone says with a grin, shaking his head a little. “It’s weird when it happens, and it’s happening more and more. It’s especially strange when it happens in other countries: I get recognised in Miami a lot, and in London because I’ve been doing a lot of promo for the exhibition.”

London 2013

Perhaps Rone shouldn’t be surprised.

More than 10 years after his beginnings experimenting with graffiti stencil art, the 30-something artist has become a fixture on the international street art scene courtesy of the stunning female faces that have captured the imaginations of all who view them.

Seductive, soft and in stunning contrast to the masculinity of the concrete spaces upon which they are painted, his choice of subject proved eye-catching for its very feminine energy.

Rone: “The idea behind the women was that everything in street art and graffiti was very macho at that time. You’d have a screaming face, or a really sexy girl or an angry looking Frankenstein guy. To have this calming beauty was different to all of that. It’s not shouting and it wasn’t over-awing, but I was painting in this overwhelming size so the piece still had presence. And, being posters, they would fall apart and decay but they still held their beauty. I love that juxtaposition, I loved how they looked on the street.”

Paris 2011

Clearly he wasn’t the only one. In the past few years Rone's success is such that he has been able to give up his graphic design day job and become a full time artist: one who has in the past few months held a solo exhibition at London’s Stolen Space Gallery, as well as painting a multi storey wall (by commission) in Berlin as part of a project with Strychnin Gallery.

Just a few weeks ago he stopped traffic in the CBD, moving in a cherry picker to allow completion on a project for Rue & Co’s newly opened shipping container dining precinct at the Paris end of Collins Street.

It is the kind of success that has allowed him (along with his Everfresh crew of likeminded Melbourne artists) to occupy a bigger and better warehouse studio space off Collingwood’s increasingly gentrified Smith Street.

That is, when he is in town at all: international invitations to various events and festivals call thick and fast. Makers catch him just before he jets off again, this time to Taiwan for Pow Wow.

Rone: “I didn’t see myself here. Go back 10 years and the only successful street art graffiti artist, the biggest thing they were doing, was a tee shirt brand. Just to be purely living off the artwork – it was impossible. I had never intended to do it. I never studied art. I studied graphic art and I was pretty happy making my income there. This was something I always did for fun and now, 10 years later one took over the other…”

Not that Rone sees his success as merely a happy accident. He has immense appreciation for the street art movement, admitting to finding something exciting in seeing people operate outside the “flow of things”, in working out their own way to creative success beyond the traditional routes of art school and under studies.

He also knows well the trials of being seen and heard in what is fast becoming one of the biggest art movements in recent times.

Rone: “With graffiti you can start right now. You don’t need any training. And while that doesn’t mean you’re good, in that sense the numbers of people playing the game means it’s quite hard to get your name out there.”

Perhaps it’s for this reason – his visibility in a field of wannabes – that one finds it impossible not to appreciate his genuine sense of gratitude. There is the grin that stretches ear to ear, of course, but – more than that – this incredible feeling of enthusiasm and glee that he exudes for the place he currently finds himself.

Certainly one gets the strong sense that, somewhere along the way, Rone has fully made the transition to legitimate artist: he is unapologetic about his preference to paint canvas for private commissions and no longer works illegally.

Berlin 2013

There is also the due diligence being given to the evolution of his style, something the painter is conscious of contemplating as he moves in to the next phase of his career. Not to mention his awareness around balancing the offers of international travel against time that must be spent creating in the Melbourne studio.

Rone: “It’s surreal. This month I had to think about whether I was going to go to Taiwan or go to San Miguel, Mexico, because I need time to paint because that’s how I make my money. So these are my problems now – my ridiculously good problems. It’s a life I couldn’t have imagined having five years ago.”

Interview: James Hunt, RÜFÜS

2014 has been good to RÜFÜS.  They blew crowds away at this year's Falls and Big Day Out festivals, scored 3 songs in the Triple J 'Hottest 100' and just spent March and April touring the US (including SXSW) and Europe.

The indie trio returns to Australia this month for their biggest tour to date, set to be their last before they relocate to Berlin to start work on their follow-up record.  On the eve of the tour, Makers spent a casual afternoon in the company of drummer James Hunt.

Rufus perform at the Australian Independent Music Awards in 2013

Hey James, can I start off by asking you for a little bit of background on RÜFÜS. How did the three of you get together?

I went to school with our singer Tyrone. He was a few years above me but we played in a couple of musical groups together. His best friend’s older brother is Jon, the other member of our band. Jon’s brother Alex is the guy who does all of our film clips so that’s pretty cool. Tyrone and Jon started writing music together in 2010, they got me on board and things just progressed from there.

Things seem have taken off for the band really quickly.

I guess things started escalating after we released the first single [‘Take Me’] off our album [‘Atlas’ released in September 2013]. After the album came out there was a series of really cool milestones. It’s very inspiring to see just how many people the album has reached. One of the biggest moments for us was playing the Falls Festival tour over New Years. The show we played in Byron Bay particularly stands out for me. There was a mass of people gathered in the natural amphitheatre, singing along to our music. It was a mind-blowing moment and very humbling as well.

I saw you perform at the Falls Festival in Lorne and I remember thinking that you were the first band I’d seen to draw a massive crowd. There were people climbing the rigging outside of 'The Grand Theatre' tent trying to get inside.

That’s crazy! I was so nervous at that show. All I remember is seeing people climbing over each other, trying to get closer to the stage.  There was an amazing vibe in the tent that day, when the audience knows the words to your songs it feels pretty special.

Rufus fans at Falls Festival 

Indie dance music is something that this country does extremely well, I’m sure you’d agree?

I definitely agree and a lot of the musicians that we idolise from the same genre are from Australia. We used to go out and see Cut Copy and the Presets. Australians just know how to nail it.

Do you think it’s because the music sounds like summer?

I think it’s just an inherent euphoria that we have. ‘Summery’ is probably a good word for it, the music we make just sounds like Australia.

How does it translate in the U.K and Europe?

We’ve only done a small run of shows over there but the response was awesome. Everyone who was coming along to the shows had a good time. We seem to be resonating on the same level as Disclosure, and we’ve been releasing different tracks with a deeper tone to echo that. As for the USA, there seems to be a big resurgence in electro so I’m curious to see how things play out over there.

Both Cut Copy and the Presets have had a lot of success in the US.

Hopefully things play out similarly for us. I don’t want to have any expectations.

You don’t want to jinx it?

Let’s just say that I’m excited to get over there, play some shows and get the album into America’s hands.

And I read that you’ll be heading to Berlin later on in the year to start recording the second album?

That’s right, we wanted to head somewhere overseas and set up our own little studio. When we were over in Europe at the end of last year we were in Berlin for about a week and fell in love with the place. Not just culturally but musically there’s a lot going on in terms of minimal electronica. It really connected with us and we’re excited to lock ourselves away over there.

Have you started writing yet or do you wait until you’re in the studio to do that?

We actually write on our laptops while we’re travelling and in transit, so we’ve all got little ideas but haven’t started writing officially. We’ll all bring our ideas together and see if we can marry our thoughts.

In terms of your live performance, you seem like quite low-key guys but will you be pulling any tricks out of the bag for the Australian shows?

We don’t really want to do gimmicky things; it’s more about creating a journey visually and musically. With the upcoming tour we’re working on the visual element and bringing lighting into the mix, really relishing the journey of the live set. The whole concept is that each song has its own world, taking that atmosphere and running with it.

That concept seems to translate with your film clips as well; they all seem to have a distinct “world”.

The visual element has always been a strong focus for us, and that comes from Katzki, the guy who does all of our clips. He really brings it visually. I guess it’s just a matter of taking that similar approach to the live show and hoping that it translates to the audience.

 Will he be involved in say, the set design or lighting?

Well we’re actually working with a company in Melbourne on the stage show but Katzki has been involved in the band from the beginning and I’m sure he’ll play some part in the upcoming tour. He’s the unofficial fourth member of Rufus. I don’t want to give away any secrets but let’s just say that the live shows will be very immersive. 

Interview: Ben Cooper

“I want to represent a good life. And there is a good life. It’s not easy; there are no silver platters. But the good life is there if you work your arse off and do the right things.”

                                                    -    Benjamin Cooper

Life is good for chef Benjamin Cooper. It’s there in his stride. In his easy smile and freely given bear hugs. No doubt today he is on a high: Makers meets him before the bustle of 80 Collins Street, tonight serving as the venue for the opening party to end all opening parties as Rue & Co. kicks off – the CBD shipping container dining precinct joining Jimmy Grant’s George Calombaris, St Ali’s Salvatore Malatesta and Chris Lucas’ yet-to-be-unveiled newbie, Kong BBQ.

 Until now associated with the kitchen that made him something of a Melbourne celebrity, Chin Chin, Benjamin has taken a step up in to the big league with a recent promotion to group executive chef managing the kitchens of Lucas’ star-studded restaurant stable: the effervescent Chin Chin, neon-lit Baby and the highly anticipated newcomer, Kong BBQ.

 It’s undoubtedly a surreal space to occupy. In a city where chefs are king and food a religion, to serves as the jewel in the crown of The Lucas Group is to breathe rarefied air: the place where talent, financial resource and good organisation coalesce to create a culinary perfect storm – with Benjamin right at its centre.

 Benjamin: “Life’s beautiful. I have three amazing kids, the best wife in the world and now I get to work with a boss that goes, ‘You’re good at your job, you’re doing really well, and here’s your next challenge.’ But it’s more than luck. There’s a fairly deep story to it.”

 By his own admission Benjamin was a wayward kid whose first head chef pulled him up by his bootstraps, helping him through depression and misdirection in part brought on by the death of his mother as he entered in to his twenties. And pull him up she did: from Melbourne he went to slogging it out in London with the godfather of Thai cuisine, David Thompson (among others), eventually returning to Melbourne to head up a host of big-name restaurants – from Ezard and Ginger Boy, to Longrain.

 If life was a fairy tale this would have been Benjamin’s happy every after. But circumstances have a way of helping us to learn our lessons.

Benjamin: “I got to the point with a wife and two kids where life was pretty full on. My wife’s mother passed away and it was too much to deal with. The industry and the backstabbing and the egos, it was all too much for me. I needed to get out and change my job in order to stay in love with my food.”

 In love with my food. His words are a caress. If ever a man’s mistress was his work, then Benjamin certainly finds succour in the act of cooking for others. He speaks of his chopping board as a “security blanket”. Certainly not uncommon sentiment from those that make cooking their living. Perhaps, then, what’s different with Benjamin is the humility with which he approaches his craft. It was a shedding of ego that could only occur at the point of near breakdown.

Approached by Sal Malateste post Longrain, Benjamin jumped at the opportunity to find a new direction only to find himself in a strange new landscape: gone was the bustle of a high profile kitchen, in its place came a position making sandwiches at a Monash University’s Clayton campus cafe. But what would have been, for others, an inglorious fall was for Benjamin the beginnings of opportunity.

Benjamin: “I remember driving to work one day thinking, ‘this is stupid, you’re a chef, what are you standing here making sandwiches for – you’ve got to turn the car around and stick it’. I did turn the car around, got 1 kilometre down the road and then there was this other voice. Only this one said, ‘you’ve got a wife and two kids and you’ve got a boss who’s prepared to pay you. Pull your head out of your arse, go back to work, earn money and make people happy’. If I was going to make sandwiches, they were going to be the best sandwiches anyone had ever made.”

And they were. Within a week of Benjamin’s psychological comeback the café had doubled business. Within a month it was quadrupled. It was, he freely admits, his defining point.

There have been others: namely, cooking his exquisite Thai-centric food for an audience of four (“a demoralising experience”) during an experimental period at South Melbourne’s St Ali doing dinners. Never one to suck lemons, Benjamin used his energy to make lemonade from experiences that could have derailed a lesser spirit.

The universe repaid him. Lucas came calling and the offer was Chin Chin. The rest is history: one smashing restaurant success, an awarded cookbook and a promotion later, Benjamin has scaled his culinary Everest. Twenty years of slog encapsulated in a sentence. Of course what this neat summation misses is the contribution the man made to the making of his own success. It was about more than simple productivity; his journey is reflective of a life philosophy that values honesty, love and discipline. It is how he runs his kitchens, and how he runs his life.

Our coffee cups at Cumulus are empty and Benjamin’s phone is running hot. Story told, he dishes briefly to Makers on the brand new barbecue he has helped to build and the 15-month quest to make the perfect kimchi, both projects centred around opening for Kong BBQ, scheduled to being trade end May. He is excited about the prospect of spending three weeks cooking and seasoning his new fire-fuelled monster, and even more eager to introduce Melbourne to the type of Asian barbecue food he spends weekends preparing for family and friends at his leafy Warrandyte home. If Chin Chin is like bringing people in to his loungeroom, then Kong BBQ is all about the experience of his backyard.

Benjamin: “For me the rewards have come from being wise enough and mature enough to recognise the opportunity in every situation. It’s not your boss’s job to make you happy, it’s your job to make your boss happy, and if you can achieve that, the happiness comes back. I go out of my way to make my boss happy, I go out of my way to make our guests happy, I go out of my way to make the people I work with happy, and go out of my way to make my family happy. That is what brings love in to my life.”