If the drab decor of your local butcher is getting you down, we’ve found you the ultimate solution. Victor Churchill in Woollahra, a suburb of Sydney, is a meaty experience that will leave you spinning with wonder. Think custom-made copper and glass shelving, rich timber wall panelling, a marble slate floor and a floor-to-ceiling glass walled cool room.

The place is a meat lovers paradise, offering guided tours, meat preparation classes and, of course, first class meat. It’s probably best to leave your vegan friend in the car if you decide to visit. Roll the window down for them as well, because you might just want to stay inside for a while.

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Looking at the front of this Victorian terrace, many people would pass it by without a second thought. Being part of a conservation streetscape, not much could really be done to the facade. This, however, is completely untrue for the inside of the home, which has been dubbed Skylight House. Designed by firm Chenchow Little, the interior is minimalistic and uses concrete, glass and wood to effect.

The floor plan has been flipped around, moving the central living area to the top floor to allow for light and amazing views through the multitude of windows and skylights. Possibly my favourite part, though, is the mature banksia tree which stands in a central courtyard, tying nature to the house in a beautiful way. [Follow me on Twitter @cormy96 and Instagram @cormy096]

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We know that you all love to party, so it’s with great pleasure that we announce the return of OutsideIn Festival: an amazing day of mind-bending music at Sydney’s Factory Theatre. Curated by Astral People and Yes Please, last year’s inaugural festival saw a sold out crowd get down to the likes of Flume, HTRK, Smoke DZA, Collarbones and Shigeto. Thom Yorke even turned up to see what all the fuss was about! OutsideIn will take over Sydney’s Factory Theatre on Saturday September 21, 2013. [Follow me on Twitter @cormy96]

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Last week we were hanging out at Sydney’s Optus RockCorps to bring to bring you all of the action from in the crowd and backstage.

While we were there, we got the chance to chat with The Potbelleez about why they got involved in RockCorps and how it was performing to all of the volunteers.

LAEM: How is it being one of Australia’s biggest dance acts?
P: You might have to ask The Preset’s that (laughs). Ah look I dunno. You can’t really put a price on the size of what you’re doing until you see a crowd like that (montions towards the dance floor). We just work really hard and try and make music that people want to dance to that we love. I can’t really answer that questions (laughs).

LAEM: What made you guys want to get involved in RockCorps?
P: Ah look. I think just what RockCorps is; you know giving back to the community. Everybody has to earn their ticket and it’s just effort. To be asked to be involved was just such an amazing gift. We jumped at the chance!

LAEM: What project did you guys take part in?
P: Well I thought we were going to go help some sick kids or something but we ended up weeding a forest (laughs). It’s good though. There was like three hundred kids there and Fitzy and Wippa from NOVA and it was just a really, really good day. It was hard work but it was worth it.

LAEM: Have you found the vibe to be good from the crowds and volunteers?
P: Definitely! You can just tell everybody’s got the vibe from doing the projects and they’re all here just releasing. Working for a ticket is a very good thing to do – everyone has been getting right behind it.

LAEM: How was it playing tonight?
P: Ah man look, the reaction was crazy. I suppose we’re the only full dance act that played and the kids these days with the EDM… they went absolutely ballistic. We enjoyed the shit out of it (laughs).

[Follow me on Twitter @cormy96]

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After a hard time working to earn their tickets, the Optus RockCorps volunteers were certainly an excitable bunch. Having to push my way through the packed out line of music lovers waiting to get in, I somehow found my way to the crew entrance and walked into the pavilion.

What I saw in front of me was amazing: dazzling lights, a shiny RockCorps sign and a throng of screaming fans running to the front; all to the tune of DJ duo The Faders. It seems everything was set for the night to be amazing.

First up was Australian legend Guy Sebastian. Taking to the stage with a simple acoustic guitar, Sebastian’s set soon exploded into an full band extravaganza including back up singers and a trumpeter as hits such as “Like It Like That” and “Get Along” crept into the set. Playing both guitar and piano and dancing along onstage, Sebastian revealed why 10 years after being a reality TV hopeful, he is now one of Australia’s biggest stars.

The set closed with the rap filled “Battle Scars,” which really got the crowd involved.

Next up was Australia’s very own party power-house The Potbelleez. Obviously they were up for a good time and so was the crowd because true magic happened as they bounced onstage.

Exercising an insane amount of energy and jumping all over the place, lead singer Ilan Kidron showed everyone how to party as the crowd really got wild. Closing number “Don’t Hold Back” was quiet a sight; 5000 volunteers letting their hair down after some good hard work.

British emcee Tinie Tempah soon appeared onstage to a pack of screaming fans and was for me one of the most impressing acts of the night. Jumping straight into the catchy rap sounds of “Frisky”, Tempah showcased a number of styles throughout his set and shook the backstage area with bass line after bass line.

The biggest act of the night was yet to come though – Irish pop-band The Script were the final act to take to the stage and definitely stole the limelight. Bursting onto stage, lead singer Danny O’Donoghue soon found himself down in the photographers pit interacting with the crowd; a truly wonderful experience for adoring fans. Trust me, the whole crowd was in love.

Give, get given. It was a simple concept but it sure delivered. Hopefully we’ll see further RockCorps projects like this in the near future.

[Follow me on Twitter @cormy96]

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Mmm! I’m loving the caffeine fixes at Antidote, just as much as I fancy their bakery treats and chilled green teas. What’s more, the place is aesthetically pleasing. There’s no impersonal counter when it’s ordering time and the baristas greet you by name and approach you when your order is ready. Definitely not your run-of-the-mill, dry morning coffee experience.

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Australian electronic music got a kick along this week with the arrival of boutique record label Plastic World, helmed by former Future Classic label man, James McInnes, and Vic Edirisinghe, part owner of cult touring/management group Astral People (the guys behind this little gem), Plastic World is all about pushing forward-thinking Australian music on an international scale. Each release will be pressed on a limited 12” vinyl run and will showcase high-end examples of domestic talent. Keep an eye out for the label’s debut release from Sydney duo Alba (formerly Albatross).

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The Opera House and Samsung Electronics Australia recently announced a three-year partnership and collaboration that will transform the Opera House using Samsung’s state-of-the-art technology. The two brands will work together to enhance the Opera House experience through the addition of interactive digital display screens, new mobile technologies, and a multimedia education facility.

To celebrate this innovative collaboration, the Opera House and Samsung Electronics Australia have announced a major competition that will give the public access to the iconic Opera House sails for the first time in history. Competitors can submit images of life in Australia, and on April 23, coinciding with the launch of Samsung’s GALAXY S 4, the Opera House sails will be transformed into the winning portrait. Fun, huh?

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Last week we were hanging out at Sydney’s Optus RockCorps to bring to bring you all of the action from in the crowd and backstage.

While we were there we got the chance to chat with The Script‘s lead singer Danny O’Donoghue about why the Irish trio got involved in helping out the community and how Australian crowds were treating them.

LAEM: How are you guys finding it over here in Australia?
D: We love it! You know it’s like a home away from home. Every crowd that we go out in front of seem to be singing the songs louder then we are; it’s a nice problem to have. A lot of us have family here as well so it’s great being here!

LAEM: What made you guys want to get involved in Optus RockCorps?
D: The actual premise of it was just brilliant, you know the fact that you can give and get given. I think it’s a great concept because so often in this world you give and you don’t get anything back in return. By just giving a little bit of your time you also get that feel good factor.

LAEM: What volunteer project did you guys take part in?
D: We were involved in painting a youth club. We went down and we spent 4 hours down there. We weren’t working as hard as everybody else (laughs) because we were shooting a TV program at the same time! We got to paint a mural on the wall though and we painted the rules of the youth club as well. We also played basketball!

LAEM: What was the spirit of the volunteers like?
D: Amazing! Amazing spirit! Nobody’s out there because they’re feeling sorry for themselves – they all want to make a change and make a difference. It’s great energy to be around, especially because they’re all young people. Young people are like dynamos; just point them in the right direction and you can light up the whole town.

LAEM: What can we expect from your set tonight?
D: Just fun! We know everybody’s been working hard all week. We came to party and we know they did as well so that’s what you’re going to get!

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Sydney has a stack of natural beauty: amazing harbour views, swathe of beaches, and while there’s plenty of shopping and nightlife, there’s untapped potential for a greater cultural and creative focus.

Melbourne, we all know, does this so well that it inspires us all to be better.

Now, in fairness to Sydney, when events are put on, they’re done extremely well; think Mardi Gras, Vivid Festival, the Sydney Festival. But there isn’t enough general day to day creativeness for my liking… It’s bubbling under the surface, but hard to find.

In Melbourne, the vibe is attractive, in your face, and gives the city a cool edge. Sydney has that too, it’s just visible in smaller bursts.

So here’s my idea: one of my favourite parts of Vivid Festival each year is the lighting of the Opera House sails.

Perhaps we could take that idea and evolve it into a more regular, daily or weekly event. Let’s light that baby up every weekend.

Maybe we could also install more changing, temporary art around the city… We do Sculpture By The Sea pretty well, so why not take it further?!

Oh, we could also stop ripping up rainbow crossings (that was anti-creativeness at it’s finest).

Sydney has so much potential and I’m sure other Sydney folk have some pretty good ideas as well. What would you do to make Sydney a more cultural and creative city?

SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE | Facade projection from urbanscreen on Vimeo.

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Denver five piece, The Lumineers, have been creating quite a buzz lately with their debut album reaching gold certification not only in Australia, but in the UK, USA and Canada, as well. With this in mind, I wasn’t surprised to find out that their first Australian show had to have a venue upgrade due to overwhelming demand.

It was obvious that the crowd was excited before I had even entered Sydney’s beautiful Enmore Theatre. There was a buzz in the air and the sold out crowd seemed responsible for it. Walking inside to an already packed out floor space, I pushed my way towards the front.

The Lumineers burst onto stage with jubilant grins on their faces, picked up their instruments and swung straight into the insanely happy, foot stomping sounds of Submarines. All was well for the first few bars until a spot of trouble reared its head. The cause? A hired keyboard which didn’t want to play.

After two failed attempts and a “fuck it”, the five piece jumped straight into a guitar driven version. We were also treated to the early arrival of a new song identified on the setlist simply as Duet.

In fact, the whole show was a treat – for both the crowd and the performers. For their first ever Australian show, the Colorado folk band were surprised by the rousing response they received. They even asked that we be quiet while they played an acoustic tune, using the natural acoustics of the theatre.

Set highlights included a stripped back performance of Slow It Down, which featured only Wesley Schultz and Jeremiah Fraites (the two founding members) on stage, and crowd favourite, Big Parade.

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We love this new initiative from the City of Sydney and its Lord Mayor, Clover Moore. Sydneysiders are invited to contribute their ideas to make the city a more cultural and creative city. As Moore says: ‘Can we inspire an even richer creative culture? How do we make sure creative people can afford to live and work here? What persuades people to get involved, go out to shows or invest in local work?’

This will be the City of Sydney’s first cultural policy, and as such, they want to make sure they get it right! The consultation period for the Creative City Cultural Policy Discussion Paper ends on 31 May. To have your say, go to their website. But let us know first what ideas you have for making the beautiful city of Sydney an even more culturally rich place by leaving a comment below this post.

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Until recently I didn’t realize you could become a loyalist to your barista. If you’ve discovered one good coffee roaster, where’s the need to discover another, right? Wrong. I now know what it feels like to “cheat” on your barista. Corduroy is much more than your typical hole-in-the-wall espresso joint. Nestled on Foster street in Surry Hills (between Tios of late night Tequila fame and the old Hotel Hollywood) a Little Marionette family gem has been quietly going about their business for the last year or so.

Opened by Marionette roaster, Ben Stronach, and managed by Nigel Park, the espressos pack a punch as do the avocado and smashed eggs on sourdough and the scrumptious little chocolate tarts. Everything at Corduroy is effortless and chilled, right down to their slow cooked sandwich of the day. It looks like there may be no going back.

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The Works Sydney has recently unveiled the largest cooler in the world. The 36-by-15-metre cooler stocked with giant Jim Beam “cans” was constructed at the Bondi Icebergs pool. The cooler was filled with approximately 2 million litres of water, more than 500 giant “ice cubes” and 33 Jim Beam “cans” that measure 1.9 metres in diameter and 3.9 metres tall. The cooler will be used to film a TV commercial due out in April.

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We’ve long been big fans of Leonard Mattis and his unique approach to hairdressing and art presentation. His studio space in Sydney’s Surry Hills is a clean, white and minimal breath of freshness into the often boring world of “hair cuts.” We caught up with Mattis for a quick chat about his latest art photography collaboration with Grace Cassio and why hairdressing to him is about a lot more than the actual chop.

LAEM: How did you and Grace Cassio come to collaborate?
L: I met Grace at the ‘Pieces of Me’ solo exhibition by Lexi Land held at the Studio in September 2012. We hit it off, exchanged details then earlier this year I asked her to shoot the interior of the studio for me. Not long after, I had the idea for the hands series and asked her if she was interested in shooting that as well. She loved the concept and we shot the next week.

LAEM: How did you come up with the concept?
L: The concept came about while I was cutting a client’s hair. I often focus on my hands and their movement in a meditative kind of way when cutting. There is such a fluid elegance to the way the hands and tools engage, so I thought it would be great to try and capture this.

LAEM: How did you get into hairdressing?
L: I grew up in the East of London, but then moved west to study Business at Westminster University. The West End totally consumed me, and living there I became a lot more aware of people, fashion and music and the way they interacted with each other. I left university half way through my second year and started looking for work but didn’t have much direction. I bumped into a friend on East Ham High Street, she was working at the local salon. We hung out for a few hours, I met her boss, and she offered me a job off the cuff. The rest is history!

LAEM: Tell us about your studio.
L: The studio is what I like to think of as a hybrid space fusing form and function, it primarily operates as a hair salon then multi-tasks as a commercial art gallery providing a rare cohesion of local emerging artists and high-end styling. The studio is tucked away in a tranquil, hidden location in the heart of Sydney’ creative hub. The crisp white walls and floor serve not only as a backdrop for showcasing artists but also my personal taste for design and all things minimal.

LAEM: How do you think art and hairdressing connect with each other?
L: I think it’s natural for art and hair to connect. Like art hairdressing represents ideas and thoughts. We create shape and form around bone structure on each individual client. Initially seeing the end result with our minds (during the consult), we then create with our eyes, hands and tools.

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Spanish Magic are a rad underground music label from Sydney. Selling a bunch of stuff at Vox Cyclops in Newcastle until they shut down, Spanish Magic releases are now most easily accessed via their online store. Dropping everything from noise rock to trippy electronica, you can always expect to have new musical worlds opened to you when checking out any items in their catalogue.

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Marna Hattingh is a Cape Town-based artist, active in the art world since 1999. She is also a well known children’s book illustrator. As a contemporary South African artist, Hattingh works forms part of the new school of expression. There may be elements of an African-ness in her work, particularly the use of colour, but she operates outside of any category. Her daily life experience of living in Cape Town is what informs her work. And her comments are subtly embedded in a deeply layered style. She works in a range of media including drawing, painting, print making and sculpture.

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RockCorps is starting to kick along nicely here in Australia. With The Script, Tinie Tempah and Guy Sebastian taking to the stage in a matter of months, we had a chat to RockCorps CEO Stephen Greene about all things volunteering and music. LAEM: You’re the CEO of RockCorps. How did you gain that position? SG: There were 7 of us that started the company a little over ten years ago. We were all friends that were working and living around Los Angeles; it was just after the 9/11 terrorists attacks. We wanted to do something positive that was based around music, had a youth focus and we wanted to kick it off in New York. I guess I became CEO after drawing the long straw while we were sitting around a table discussing it (laughs).

LAEM: How many RockCorps events have you produced since you started?
SG: We’ve done over 40 concerts and had over 135,000 volunteers so far with around 500,000 volunteer hours. Australia is the eighth country that we’ve done it in, but over the last few weeks we’ve seen that it will be one of the best yet. The enthusiasm of the volunteers has been great!

LAEM: Are you surprised about how the idea has grown and spread all around the world?
SG: Yeah we are! We weren’t sure if it was going to actually work when we first started. We wondered whether people would be up for doing volunteer on that scale for concert tickets. It didn’t make it easier that our first event was in Radio City in New York; it isn’t a small venue. We were either going to fail big time or do something spectacular and luckily it was the latter. We then had a feeling that RockCorps wasn’t just an American thing and that there could be global applications. We certainly could never have imagined this.

LAEM: Do you pick out the activities that the volunteers participate in?
SG: We do. Every volunteer project is done in partnership with a not for profit organisation. We don’t know the issues intimately in a place like Sydney, so we tap into the local knowledge and learn from the people that really do. We like to set up relationships between the volunteers and the organisation as well so hopefully it continues when the concert is over. We also do it to cover a really wide range of issues.

LAEM: Do you have a favourite project that you’ve been involved in that comes to mind?
SG: Yeah! When people’s bikes get vandalized or stolen in New York they are often just dumped because they are missing parts. The police used to just scoop them up and chuck them in a dump somewhere. However, this non profit collects them and then put the parts together in a warehouse in Brooklyn before giving them to kids who can’t afford to have a bike. We think it’s very inventive!

LAEM: In regards to the musicians that come on board, do you find them supportive of the cause?
SG: Well we wouldn’t want to work with someone if they don’t get it. We want them to be enthusiastic because part of the booking requirement is that they do four hours of volunteer work too. Working with a-list talents is never the simplest thing but when the artists and managers hear about it, it’s not an easy thing for them to turn down.

If you want to find out more or volunteer, check out RockCorps.

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Established in 1913 by Harold Chapman Jr., the Original Doll Hospital is located in Bexley, Sydney and is now run by the third generation of the Chapman family. Well-stocked with replacement parts, the hospital staff perform miraculous repairs on toys beyond dolls, such as teddy bears and rocking horses. The hospital recently celebrated its 100th anniversary.

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We sat down with Sydney artist Judd Shoppee – the man responsible for painting a mural in just four hours at Sydney’s Hordern Pavilion for Optus RockCorps – to ask five sneaky questions. Loose, simple and fast, that’s his motto and it’s definitely how our chat felt.

LAEM: How did you get into painting murals?
J: I’ve always been drawing and painting since I can remember but I eventually started doing graffiti (back when all graffiti was sick artwork taking hours – days, not just “tagging”). I’ve always hated working small and when my girlfriend let me paint on her bedroom wall, I guess it was the first time I painted a mural. I just kept going from there.

LAEM: You seem to do lots of work focused on surfing. Is it a passion of yours?
J: 4shore (sic).
LAEM: Someone’s punny.
J: I grew up in Manly and I’ve surfed since I was a kid. It cures all ailments.

LAEM: You do everything from sketch to detailed photoshop work. Do you have a favourite medium?
J: It would definitely have to be paint; as big as possible! In fact I’ve always dreamed of painting a whole side of a high rise building. At the moment I’m into “slap the paint on” though. Loose, simple and fast.

LAEM: How did the opportunity arise to paint for Sydney RockCorps?
J: It was word of mouth I guess. I basically submitted a concept and was chosen. I was so stoked!

LAEM: What do you think the greatest bit about the RockCorps project is?
J: It’s a great way to give people the opportunity to have fun helping their community, in a cool way. They’ll also get to meet new people and attend a free epic gig. Right on!

Want to know more? Stay tuned for more RockCorps content on Lost At E Minor.

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