We Recommend: Your Friday Freebies
Junkee-endorsed bits and bobs to make your weekend better, including a podcast, some music, some YouTube comedy, and politics (in both leaflets and numbers form).
Each Friday, our contributors send in a bunch of (legally) free stuff they’ve come across this week, to help you waste your weekend. You’re welcome.
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EP: Chivalrous, by Joyride
Recommended by: Alexander Tulett (‘You Need To Stop Playing Candy Crush Saga‘)
Rowan Dix aka DJ Joyride: presenter of FBi Radio’s rap show The Drop, live DJ for Spit Syndicate, bassist for The Winter People, purveyor of all things wavy, and general man-about-town. He also has a helluva voice, and just released a brand new EP of piano-led RnB slow jams, topped with a healthy dose of synthesiser and an on-point guest verse from Drapht.
It’s nice to see a talented local take advantage of the groundwork laid by artists like Miguel, and add their own distinct flavour. It sounds like there’s a heavy Stevie Wonder influence here too, so this should appeal to modern and classic RnB fans alike. Very lush; pour a glass of red to this one.
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Numbers: Numbers
Recommended by: Ben Jenkins (‘Dear Howard Sattler…‘)
Numbers are really excellent. It’s rare that a number will make a gross joke on a menu, or an inexplicable reference to neckwear in a speech, or just be a boorish, obfuscating dick. When it comes to politics, numbers are a super fun way of getting information without the filter of someone’s dumb face delivering it to you. Sure, numbers can deceive, numbers can skew, numbers can be used to prove virtually any point. But there’s something comforting about raw data in a time of uncertainty and spin. To that end…
The Tally Room: Great source of information about the upcoming Federal Election. Stats on past races and detailed info on each electorate and candidate. It’s run by a former Greens candidate, but it certainly doesn’t show.
Antony Green’s Election Blog: Antony Green, like Neo, pretty much sees in numbers. He’s ABC’s election correspondent and King of the Dorks. There’s a fun little page in here where you set a desired election swing, and watch the carnage unfold.
Greg Jericho’s Grogonomics: Greg Jericho likes graphs. Like, really likes graphs. After writing a bunch of pieces for The Drum and his own blog, the Guardian Australia finally gave him his own column. Be warned, though, it’s pretty graphic. LOL.
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YouTube: Bob Odenkirk on Paul F.Tompkins’s SpeakEasy
Recommended by: Matt Roden (‘Mad Men 6.1: Damned If You Do, Damned If You’re Don‘)
Some booze company pays comedian and dapper-dan Paul F. Tompkins (Community, Bob’s Burgers, innumerable podcasts) and other Hollywood people to chat. Thanks!
We’ve enjoyed Alison Brie’s meme recreations recently, but this episode is a lovely catch up between master and student, as Paul’s old Mr. Show with Bob and David boss, Bob Odenkirk, stops by for a chat. They catch up on Bob’s new Breaking Bad fame and his kids, but mainly it’s just a great opportunity to see these two have a chat almost 20 years after they first met and worked together. Paul still seems nervous around his old boss! Find out what the insider movie term “green-screen” means and other rad tidbits, as they pun their way through an “only-slightly” alcoholic chin wag.
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Compilation: After Dark 2, by Various Artists
Recommended by: Rob Moran
Italians Do It Better’s resident tear-dropped dude, Johnny Jewel, is pretty generous. Earlier this week, he put up the label’s entire brand new compilation, After Dark 2, on their Soundcloud page for a free download. It features a bunch of slinky, shadowy, breathy-voiced new tracks by the label’s faves Glass Candy, Chromatics, Desire and more, and should make a nice soundtrack to your Saturday night, if you wanna drive around all solitude and satin jackets.
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Online TV: Network Awesome’s ‘Women of Punk‘
Recommended by: Eliza Sarlos (‘Could Quotas Solve Triple J’s Gender Problem?‘)
Not wanting to dwell too much on events past, but I can thank the listeners and voters of triple j for one thing: last weekend’s Hottest 100 reminded me of how much great music by women was ignored in the poll, and then some. While digging through my record collection and doing my own personal countdown of the best songs of the last 20 years, I remembered this wholly excellent site.
Network Awesome is essentially just some really well-curated YouTube clips; let them cull for you, and enjoy almost 400 videos on a range of topics. ‘Women Of Punk’ is their week-long special that explores the role of women in punk music, from the ’70s until now — it’s been all Revolution Grrrl Style Now! on my lappy this week, and I couldn’t be more grateful for it.
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Podcast: Throwing Shade
Recommended by: Nic Holas (‘Lessons We’ve Learnt From Game Of Thrones‘)
If you tend to one bone this weekend, let it be your funny-bone. Throwing Shade is a weekly podcast by ex-Current TV alumni Bryan Safi and Erin Gibson and it is fu-nny AND politically progressive.
They promise to “take a look at all the issues important to ladies and gays…and treat them with much less respect than they deserve.” Along the way, they have amazing guests (like Twitter genius Louis Virtel) and riff on topics like feminism, gay rights and Michael Douglas-lingus.
The whole thing is a big loose mess, but Gibson and Safi’s UCB pedigree means you are in very capable hands.
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Film Clip: ‘Papaoutai’, by Stromae
Recommended by: Alasdair Duncan (‘Jesse Eisenberg Is The Greatest Jesse Eisenberg That Ever Jesse Eisenberg’d‘)
I’m going to be honest with you, I didn’t know who Belgian singer Stromae was until yesterday, but his newest single, ‘Papaoutai’, has all the ingredients necessary to become the next ‘Gangnam Style’. It has a striking video and killer dance routines, along with banging beats and a super catchy melody.
Okay, so the dance moves in this video are a bit more complicated than ‘Gangnam Style’s hop-hop-lassoo steps — I can see it taking way longer than two minutes for Ellen to learn them on her show — but they’re damn fun to watch.
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Website: Election Leaflets
Recommended by: Erin Turner
How batshit crazy are the people involved in this election? This batshit crazy (I always suspected that the Liberal Party was a freemason-controlled evil organisation that prays to Satan).
Election Leaflets aims to collect every flyer, poster and hand-scrawled rant from the 2013 election period. If you don’t have the pleasure of living in a marginal seat, this could be the only way you’ll find out that “Dr Do-Little” is a current MP, or that “A Coalition of Queers Does Not A Government Make!”
I personally like the Liberal advertisement, which depicts our PM as a very sad egg.
There are hours of self-trolling fun time to be had.
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Tune: ‘Stagger Lee’, by The Collins Kids
Recommended by: A.H. Cayley
You should join the Norton Records group on Facebook. Not only do they have awesome artists on their roster like The Pretty Things, Link Wray, Hasil Adkins, Andre Williams and T. goddamn Valentine, but they also apparently haven’t worked out how to set up a Facebook page (or just don’t want to, they’re fuck’n rebels, man). This means that whenever someone posts something awesome in there, you get it in your feed! Spammy, you might think, but I’ve been in this group for about two years now and it’s always been gold.
Case in point: getting turned on to The Collins Kids this week. Jesus Christ, man. That kid! Sure, his sister Lorrie (real name Lawrencine because Papa really wanted a boy, hey) is pretty good — but that fucking kid! Ten years old! Larry fucking Collins, man!
Anyway, there was no point writing any of that because the first YouTube comment already got it right in the bullseye: “Wait… did that kid just invent punk rock?!”
Larry fucking Collins!
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