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Bird Automatic - Suburbs

Sydney darlings Bird Automatic are supporting The Temper Trap at The Oxford Art Factory on Friday 11th April.

In the mean time they have a bunch of new tracks up on their MySpace, including 'Suburbs' which you can listen to above. You should go be their friend, because they are pretty darn great.

Click here to launch the Oxford Art Factory MP3 player.

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IT'S AN ART SHOW, DARLING.

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ELI ESCOBAR.

So, sure, we say that we're excited to see most of the acts who we talk about on our news page, but we're reeeaaalllllyy excited to announce that Eli Escobar is playing at the Oxford Art Factory on Saturday 3rd May.

He's well known and loved for resisting terrible fads and just dropping bombs, and we absolutely can't wait to see what he's got in his record bag when he plays here.

He has an awesome blog where he posts a bunch of stuff - remixes, YouTube videos and talk about various bits and pieces called Outside Broadcast that's well worth a visit.

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PLASTIC BAG ANIMALS!

Just when you thought that street art was starting to get a bit stale, along comes something that reconnects you with the reasons you fell in love with street art in the first place.

Prolific bloggers Wooster Collective have posted about an artist in NYC who has been making animals out of discarded plastic bags. They tie them to the ventilation grates above the subway lines so that when the subway trains rush through underneath, the animal jumps up and springs to life. Awesome.

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THE TEMPER TRAP.

We really like The Temper Trap, and we're pretty psyched that they're playing here on Friday 11 April, with solid local support from The Holidays and Bird Automatic.

Tickets are on sale now at Moshtix.com, and in the meantime you can check out the film clip to My Sun, or click here to launch the Oxford Art Factory MP3 player and check out their new demo - up for a limited time only..

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KON DING.

The good gentlemen of Kon Ding, purveyors of disco flavoured greatness in Sydney, are looking forward to warming up for Glass Candy this Friday.

They've kindly contributed this 'Mini-Ding' for your downloading pleasure.

Click here!

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THE RAVEONETTES.

The Raveonettes return to Australia for live shows in support of their new album LUST LUST LUST.

Following up on their 2005 release, Pretty In Black, the Danish distortion duo have hit back with an album more rebellious, more sinister and most importantly – more original. Lust Lust Lust explores the devil in us all but the devil has all the best tunes.

The Raveonettes released their first EP, Whip It On, in 2002 which was recorded entirely in the key of B-flat minor, and the 2003 full-length debut, Chain Gang of Love, stuck to B-flat major-making their mark on the emerging new garage-rock scene with a flair for the dramatic. Their image was pure '50s retro-cool: lanky, dark-haired Sune Rose Wagner and six-foot blonde glamazon Sharin Foo wore black leather and sat astride motorbikes. The Danish duo doused their stripped-down songs about sex, suicide, and prostitution with noisy, fuzzed-out guitar, sweet boy-girl harmonies, and sleazy surf-punk twang.

With sonic comparisons to The Velvet Underground and The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Raveonettes bubble-gum '50s pop and nostalgic kitsch has only amplified their credibility as one of indie rock's most innovative bands.

The Raveonettes play the Oxford Art Factory on Thursday 17th April, 2008, with support from Black Ryder.

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JONATHAN ZAWADA.

Jonathan Zawada, Sydney's king of design, had a rather beautiful exhibition at Monster Children Gallery in February and March this year, titled Boolean Values. For those of you who missed it, he's selling an edition of 200 copies of his catalogue from his website - with reproductions of all the drawings in the exhibition and a few extra works created just for the book.

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MY DISCO.

My Disco - You Came To Me Like A Cancer Lain Dormant Until It Blossomed Like A Rose

Melbourne trio My Disco are celebrating the release of their second album Paradise with a national tour. Recorded in Chicago at Electrical Audio Studio, sound engineer extraordinaire Steve Albini (Pixies, Mono, PJ Harvey, The Stooges) has captured My Disco's minimal, yet intricate sound perfectly.

Come see the boys on the Sydney leg of their tour on Friday 25 April – tickets available now at Moshtix.com.

Click here to launch the oxford art factory mp3 player

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COMING UP.

Click on the image above to see a bigger version of what we have coming up over March and April at the Oxford Art Factory.

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ROBYN LIVE AT O.A.F.

Amid the data mountains of hideous quality live footage on YouTube, we found a rather nice video of Robyn singing 'Be Mine' at the Oxford Art Factory, that has reminded us of how keen we are to see her at V Festival.

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ERIN FORSYTH.

Until the end of March, you can catch an exhibition of Kiwi-born Erin Forsyth's illustrations titled HEX, at Sydney's Black and Blue gallery.

Using her signature blend of hyperstylized characters, hip-hop slogans and sometimes callous symbollism; in this new body of work Erin questions the black magic and little white lies of todays visual communication. Comic, select representations of pop and religious iconography, superstitions and folklore feature throughout the works with equal weight. Clear on the descriptive level but elusive on the narrative; the result is a parody that serves to question rather than mock, a debaucherous astheticism that is seemingly familiar.

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GLASS CANDY.

Glass Candy - Candy Castle

Purveyors of the iciest disco this side of a slush puppy on ice skates, torchbearers of the neu-Italo sound and the prize horse of NYC label Italians Do It Better, Glass Candy are coming to Australia to play at the V Festival and do a couple of perfectly decadent sideshows. Glass Candy will play headline shows in Sydney on Friday March 28 at the Oxford Art Factory and on Thursday March 3 at The Toff in Melbourne.

Glass Candy have been the subject of so much internet buzz over the last 6 months that they had to get earplugs to keep the noise out, though thankfully they have some certified stone cold jams to justify the expense of custom hearing protection. The music of producer Johnny Jewel and siren Ida No echoes of 80’s synth pop, late 70’s Italo disco and the synth-futurism of the likes of Jean Michel-Jarre and Jan Hammer, with a hint of creepy David Lynch-ian feeling.

Glass Candy have been at the forefront of the sound that has become synonymous with Mike Simonetti’s New York-based Italians Do It Better label, largely due to the fact that Johnny Jewel moonlights as a producer for many of the labels acts.

Glass Candy and the label have carved out a distinctive niche that sounds like one may have thought 2008 might have sounded like back in 1972, with it’s vintage synthesizers and elegantly vacant, entrancing vocals.

Glass Candy’s atmosphere heavy, super crisp disco act is set to be one of the more interesting and progressive V Festival sideshows and one well worth your lobster.

They have a bunch of MP3s available to download at their MySpace, so what are you waiting for?

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GET MAD AGAIN.

Nan loves South Rakkas Crew

Lately - South Rakkas Crew

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KIDS TODAY.

Some of our favourite young artists – both local and international, will be exhibiting in the Kids Today exhibition being held in conjunction with the Semi-Permanent conference this year.

There’s a website with more info up at Stupid Krap.

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RED BULL ART OF THE CAN.

The Red Bull Art of Can competition is currently open for submissions of work inspired by Red Bull or crafted from the iconic blue and silver cans. The pick of the submissions are exhibited in Houston Texas this year, and the first prize is an all-expense paid trip for two to Art Basel Switzerland—the world’s premier modern and contemporary art fair.

Submissions are due by April 6, so get to cutting!

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1000 CANS.

Melbourne street artist Two has been doing his bit for the planet and it looks good. Taking inspiration from Sadako Sasaki's 1000 cranes tale the Japanese born artist has recycled 1000 spray paint cans and turned them all into separate pieces of art that are displayed in chronological order charting the progression of the 18 month project. The exhibition is being held at Global galleries, 5 Comber St, Paddingtom, from April 4-13.

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BEN FROST AT PET CEMETERY.

Our very talented friend Ben Frost has been involved in all sorts of things at the Oxford Art Factory, most recently a spoken word performance at our weekly Thursday night, Pet Cemetery.

Check of the video above, and if you’re still hungry for more, you can find out the latest on Ben Frost at his website.

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REKA ONE AT CHINA HEIGHTS.

Melbourne based artist Reka One has a show at China Heights, opening on Saturday 29th March.His blog is also well worth a visit – it’s currently sporting some great shots of Sydney street art, including the current wall at The Record Store, a business that certainly does its bit to make Sydney a better looking place.

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Got a news article? email us at news@oxfordartfactory.com

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