Well well, just when you thought that you couldn’t be unique anymore cause your friends had discovered all the secret places you usually shop, Keith and Lottie go ahead and start something revolutionary.

Whitegoods provides a ‘blank canvas’ so to speak, for artists and designers, but also for us common people.
“Whitegoods will carry a range of customisable apparel, accessories, designer vinyl toys, babushka dolls and heaps more. In addition to these products, Whitegoods will offer a badge making service and short run digital fabric printing, making one off and low run prints a feasible reality.”

The store opened officially on Wednesday the 27th of August and there was a celebration of sorts as well as an exhibition. Pics! (cause I did end up going)

Whitegoods is actually located just above Keith and Lottie.

Anyway check out their website

I admit to having a big electro-crush on Yelle. With a bubblegum-synth sound and a tongue-in-cheek range of 80s outfits to match, she certainly deserves her stage name (the feminised form of an acronym for “You Enjoy Life”).

Yelle came to fame after posting a track to MySpace which implied that a certain Parisian hip hop artist lacked length (and she wasn’t talking about track-times), which was to later become her first single, “Je veux te voir”. With some production by good friend GrandMarnier (worth checking out for his remixes), it garnered plenty of MTV play and then went onto last year’s album “Pop-up”.

Check out the video for “Ce jeu” for a taste of Yelle’s style, both musically and dress-sense.

Capitalising on her unique couture is a Facebook Application allowing you to send pictures of Yelle to your friends: Yelle ♥ gifts
And for those on MySpace: myspace.com/iloveyelle

Trying to get away from music here - let’s delve into another artform, unfortunately appreciated to a much lesser extent than music.
I’m introducing Lloyd Hughes - a photographer based in Perth.

I’m not an expert in photography, but my dad is a wedding photographer and I’ve gleaned a few things from observation. Photography isn’t just clicking a camera and capturing a scene or a face - there’s so much more to it than that. When you bring art into photography, you aim to bring out more in subject and matter.

I believe Lloyd Hughes does this - personally I think his photos are amazing. They have a certain vintage feel about them, which really appeals to me. The colours can be so vivid, or faded and dramatic. Either way he makes it work. Lloyd Hughs is a cool guy. eh takes photos and doesn’t afraid of anything.

Buy some or have a look.

lloydhughesphotography.com
deviantart
Myspace
Blog

Every year, the American Library Association (ALA) hosts Banned Books Week, to bring attention to censorship and some of the amazing books that are often its victim.

For reference, the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books from 1990-2000.

“An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.” - Oscar Wilde

I’m sure very few will miss the Goosebumps series should they be pulled from shelves, but the fact that most of these are re-instated in American public libraries restores my faith in the future of children’s education and literacy. Were the holes in the shelves left by the absence of some of these remain unfilled, they would spell out ‘literary crisis’.

My advice? Check out the list, remember and appreciate the ones you have read and find some to read while you still have access to them

Here’s a brief list of books that strongly shaped me, have piqued my interest and/or have been added to my contraband reading list:

3. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
4. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
6. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
13. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
14. The Giver by Lois Lowry
17. A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck
37. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
39. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
41. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
43. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
47. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
52. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
56. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl (who could refuse a child the simple joy of Roald Dahl?)
57. The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell
62. Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
65. Fade by Robert Cormier
66. Guess What? by Mem Fox
69. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
70. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
84. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

And you thought we lived in enlightened times.

(Other ALA books banned from at various times include 1984, The Diary of Anne Frank, Fahrenheit 451, Twelfth Night, Ulysses, and the list goes on…)

double your pleasure, twice as nice

Voltaire twins: “Perth’s freshest electro outfit” - as said on last.fm. These guys make some really catchy dance/pop/indie/electro music and hence that’s probably the reason they’ve been up there on the triple J unearthed charts.
They played a few weeks back at the Horror shop, and currently Jaymes Arthur Voltaire. Aka Teen Wolf is also doing some DJing from time to time (he did some work this saturday at the Horror Shop).

Have to check out these guys.

>>One of the most endearing things about the Voltaire twins is that they also have their own facebook account (named the Voltaire twins) and you can see what kind of concerts they go to, what they dig and what kind of people they are. It’s cute.
And you gotta love the way they dress.

So yep. Check them out and support our own home grown talent.

Facebook Profile
Facebook Page
Last.fm
Myspace - download free tracks here, gogogo

I haven’t done one of these in a while, but I thought a little snippet in the latest peta2 E-mailout tied in quite nicely with charmedquark’s last post:

Win Signed Black Kids Stuff!
[peta2] catch up with Owen from Black Kids to chat about music and why he went vegan. Check out the video, and enter to win signed Black Kids prizes!

I don’t know if it’s just me but I feel that the musical side of this blog is tending toward electro-indie.
Unfortunately this entry isn’t an exception. =D

Everyone’s talking about the Black Kids - Rolling stones named them as a band to watch in 2008, their ads are all up over last.fm etc.
Haven’t found myself a fan of this indie pop/rock outfit, just didn’t hit the spot with me. However I found an awesome remix of ‘I’m not gonna teach your Boyfriend how to dance with you’ that really made an impression on me. You decide whether the original’s better than the remix.

Get the Remix here (at the bottom of the post)
Watch the original -

Now for the Black Ghosts - great stuff, just brilliant. A joint project between past members of Simian and The Wiseguys, they already have a fair bit of experience behind them. The duo aims to be Gothic;

Gothic (adj). (often initial capital letter) noting or pertaining to a style of literature characterized by a gloomy setting, grotesque, mysterious, or violent events, and an atmosphere of degeneration and decay

This is as opposed to gothic as a genre of music. This has a lot to do with the childhood of both members of the duo. So check out the vid of Any Way You Choose to Give it ->

If you’re itching for some remixes though, check out Missingtoof’s collection.

Hi guys. I don’t think I’ve ever addressed our readers personally in a post before, I’ve always pretended I was speaking to a faceless body of people and gone with that.
However, I felt that since Vegan Alternative Perth has been growing and is continuing to grow, it was time to address our readers.

So, we’ve gone from a small blog hosted on wordpress to a fully fledged, self hosted and designed blog run by a team of people - albeit small. We’ve organised everything better so hopefully readers can find posts old and new that interest them - and not only that, we’re currently working on a directory which will be a more effective means of helping the denizens of Perth find indie/vegan places to go.
If things go well, this’ll be live in a week or so, though it will still need to be populated with listings.

And if things get better we’ll get a few pages explaining veganism for you guys (”like, where do you get your protein from?”)

So show us some love! We’re doing this for you. We know you’re out there reading and poking around, but we rarely ever hear from you. Feel free to become a fan of us on Facebook, let your friends know and feel free to email us!

Also remember that Wordpress lets you comment on any post that you want. So shout out and have your say. We’re a fluid thing, your suggestions can shape the way we grow.

Anyway, take care guys. We love you. =D
xx charmedquark

“Obsessively chosen Band line ups from perth and abroad, aligned with the grandest of DJ’s Playing the classics alongside the hottest new selection of underground indie rock music, all compiled with passion to make you dance to the death and shake your skulls off.
The Horror Shop is an environment, forged from the underground to cater to a whole new breed of kids with a passion for party…So come, sell your soul and become a part of THE HORROR SHOP.”
Sounds enticing doesn’t it? It should be. The Horror Shop is an awesome setup, facilitating the promotion of awesome local and Australian indie bands.

Opening last week with a lineup that featured Ichi the Killer, Boys Boys Boys, Wales, and Bamodi, The Horror shop is set to terrify this week with The Voltaire Twins, Shock!Horror! and Team Sport, alongside local DJs Brendan Jay, DJ Bloody Skull and ‘RTR’s main music man’, Dave ‘the Cutter’ Cutbush.

So. Every Saturday night from ten till late, upstairs at Shape (that’s 237 Hay St). Check it out.

Event on Facebook
Official Website

As the demand for morally and environmentally superior alternatives to the norm has increased, so has supply. With “green is the new black” as their driving motto, plenty of companies have gone to town, fashion industry included. Don’t expect an inferior product if you let your ethics do your spending, though. It’s possible to get some high-quality, fashionable - even boutique - outfits and accessories from designers who’ve decided they don’t need conventionally-farmed cotton, mass-produced plastic, silk, wool, leather or sweat-shops to make their wares.

“Cutting-edge fashion with a clear conscience.” - THTC product information.

If you want to support environmentally aware, fair trade, vegan-friendly designers (or need to find out why you should) say hello to stylewithsoul.com.au with its bevy of designer skirts, pants, jackets, footwear, accessories and intelligent T-shirts.

Formerly THE place in Perth for conscious consumers, Ethical Threads in Subiaco shut its physical doors this year in favour of the virtual. A physical shop-front can only cater to the locals able to make it in during business hours, whereas an online presence services a greater number of online shoppers and is theoretically less energy-intensive, and therefore greener.

As reward for running a physical shop, these guys know their products, and the companies they source each one from: every item and supplier has its own profile. If can’t find what you need to know, require help or are looking for something not listed on the website, Clarissa is there to help (via the “Contact us” page) and is more than happy to respond to your question or free-form poetry.