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The Oxford Art Factory currently has two DAs in consideration with the City of Sydney Council. The first application seeks to do away with the requirement for a trial period for late night trade, and the second one to allow us to provide entertainment during the day.

As part of the normal notification process, the OAF has come under attack from residents who are blaming us for all of the ills of Oxford Street. Both of our applications have now been called to a full Council meeting. This could put our entire operation in jeopardy if Council follows this line and then opts to increase our already onerous security regime or reduce our trading hours.

We need your help.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

1. Sign our online petition: http://www.gopetition.com.au/petitions/advocacy-for-the-oxford-art-factory.html

2. Invite your Facebook friends to our event! Send it out as a status update! Spread the word! The URL of the event is: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=138794982802568

3. Send an email to the Council, detailing your good experiences with the OAF and the positive benefits you have seen OAF bring to the live music scene in Sydney. If you're short on time, we suggest that you could paste the text from the top of our petition into an email – you can find it here: http://www.gopetition.com.au/petitions/advocacy-for-the-oxford-art-factory.html

Please CC Mark Gerber from the venue on any emails of support – markg@oxfordartfactory.com

Council Contacts:
Assessing Council officer, Anthea Kalodikis - akalodikis@cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au

Lord Mayor Clover Moore - cmoore@cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au
Deputy Lord Mayor Councillor Phillip Black - pblack@cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au
Councillor John McInerney - jmcinerney@cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au
Councillor Marcelle Hoff - mhoff@cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au
Councillor Di Tornai - dtornai@cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au
Councillor Robert Kok - rkok@cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au
Councillor Chris Harris - charris@cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au
Councillor Irene Doutney - idoutney@cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au
Councillor The Hon Dr Meredith Brugmann - mburgmann@cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au
Councillor Shayne Mallard - smallard@cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au

4. Come to the Council meeting where our DA is being discussed. The date is currently TBA, but we will keep everyone advised as to a date being locked in.

GOT A QUESTION?

Any questions and feedback are very welcome, and may be addressed to:
Mark Gerber – markg@oxfordartfactory.com

Civil Society are proud to announce the debut Australian tour of The Soft Pack. On the back of their self-titled debut album released March of this year (Pod/Inertia), and having conquered CMJ and SXSW festivals and toured with the likes of Phoenix, The Breeders, Wavves and Franz Ferdinand, Californias The Soft Pack are finally set to bring their signature no-frills blitz-kreig style of punk-infused pop to Australia.

The Soft Pack - formerly known as The Muslims - began as a collaboration of two friends, Matt Lamkin and Matty McLoughlin. 'We wanted to start a band that played simple, catchy, smart rock songs,' says Matt. 'There werent many bands in San Diego doing that at the time. So we did.'

Early on in the groups development, Matt and Matty honed their sound with a spare yet fiery mix of guitars, drums, base with Matts pokerfaced singing style. Just in time for CMJ 2008, the pair recruited Dave Lantzman (bass) and Brian Hill (drums), and the new incarnation played a raucous 11 shows as part of the festival.

Shedding their somewhat-controversial 'Muslims' moniker, that had unintentionally become a distraction, the group changed their name to The Soft Pack in December 2008. Despite the name change, the group continued their prolific release of mp3s, sell-out vinyl singles and EPs, and viral videos, scoring appearances on Letterman in the process, amongst other things.

Already garnering comparisons to the likes of The Strokes, The Velvet Underground and Eddy Current Suppression Ring, The Soft Pack is rock and roll at its apex; distilled to its very essence. Civil Society is thrilled to welcome The Soft Pack to Australia for their debut tour. Don't miss your chance to see rock and roll at its most raw, unrefined and exciting.

thesoftpackofficial.com/
myspace.com/thesoftpack
civilsociety.com.au

The first three Fridays in July will see Guineafowl and friends charm their way into the hearts of even the coldest winter snowman at the Oxford Art Factory Gallery Bar next month. Fresh from their first ever (sold-out) headline gig at The Vanguard in May, Guineafowl are getting their finely tuned gig legs well under the table at the Oxford Art Factory and have no plans on moving anytime soon. Squatters rights yall!

Guineafowl are starting to make a name for themselves with their indie-tronic quirkiness. Having been just one Guineafowl to begin with making home demos a mere five months ago, the outfit have since grown into a six-piece band with THREE guitarists no less. The band have been squeezing onto all the right stages across Sydney.

Rapidly turning into FBi favourites with much loved tracks such as Botanist and In Our Circles these OAF Gallery residency shows promise to be a rock-rollicking-good-time-hoe-down!

Special guests joining Guneafowl each week will be:
Friday 2nd July - Sooners
Friday 9th July - The Preachers
Friday 16th July - Yae! Tiger

This month, we were very fortunate to have Australian icon of street art, Phibs, paint the gallery wall at the Oxford Art Factory.

An interesting part of the process of an ever-changing wall, but one we don't often get the chance to share, is watching artists get their work up. We've seen a lot of different techniques, some more impressive than others - but Phibs blew away everyone who visited the venue while he was paintng. Watching him push images out of his brain and onto the wall was pretty special.

The good news for you is that our good friends from Keep Moving popped in to tape one section of the wall going up.

Make sure you visit the gallery during April to see the finished piece.

The Oxford Art Factory is looking for new DJs with innovative taste in music. We are on the look out for real bedroom bangers, DJs who have had little or no experience playing in front of a crowd.

We want the bedroom to come to the Oxford Art Factory, we want to witness the jams that go down in the privacy of your own homes. The Oxford Art Factory loves new music, and old music, and hearing old music played in a way that makes it feel new. We're not hung up on genres or technical wizardry, we're just after your premium jams.

If you'd like to get a gig at the OAF, please submit a LIVE mix, with track listing, and your name (and DJ name, if you have one), your email address and phone number.

You can post CDs to DEMO / OXFORD ART FACTORY, 38-46 Oxford St, Darlinghurst, NSW, 2010, or email a link to download your mix to demo@oxfordartfactory.com.

DJs who have played in other venues need not apply for this as we are only looking for fresh talent with this drive.

We may not be able to get back to everyone who submits a mix, but we promise that everything will get a listen.

Peep the new Cassette Kids film clip, filmed at the OAF.

GROUPIE MAGAZINE.

Groupie are our new friends. They run a sensational online music mag, which you can check out here.

Launched in August 2006, Groupie covers a wide range of music genres reflecting the music fan's ipod of today.

With the latest news, info, gossip, reviews and live/touring info for the music fan, Groupie is written by the cream of the music crop including Robbie Buck (Triple J), Michaella Solar-March (Fbi), Glen Goetze (A&R Modular Recordings), Sasha Perera (based in the UK), Christian Barker (based in Tokyo), Nathan Thompson (Digital media) Nicole Fossati (music scenester & Fbi radio) amongst others.

Click click over and check it out, it's good internets.

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