As a special treat Kook is giving away two copies of Beth Orton’s new record Sugaring Season on beautiful clear vinyl, to two lucky subscribers to the Kook mailing list — courtesy of our friends over at Viceroyalty.

If you subscribe to our mailing list below, you may be one of the beautiful fiends who receive an email notifying you of your sweet victory and what you need to do in order to collect your prize.

Excelsior!

Ruby Frost is a songwriter out of New Zealand and she’s way better than Kimbra — A fair comparison? Probably not, but they’re both Kiwis, Kimbra is more popular, but Ruby is more deserving. Her new single Water to Ice is a kicker, like Kate Bush doing dance numbers. It’s a terrible cliched body paint photo up above, but ignore that and watch the video, I’m sure you’ll like it.

My first ever free promo show was Bertie Blackman back in early 2009 at revolver — one which resulted in me getting my first share house nonetheless — but I have ignored the woman ever since then. Although she never really disappeared from my thoughts, as I quite like her Dad’s art, this track is the first time I think she’s really done something interesting and worthwhile beyond the usual Australian mediocrity. Way less commercial than her older material, Boy is a dark tune that makes me think of Siouxsie Sioux, and goddamn it, I love Siouxsie Sioux, with a creepy creepy passion.

So, watch the clip, it was directed and animated by fellow musicians Quan Yeomans — of Regurgitator — and Celeste Potter — of Ouch My Face, and it is some great and weird animation.

Also, she’s touring supporting the Rubens throughout September and November and supporting Gotye in December.

Barack Obama is not content with being a badass in the Osama Bin Laden pwning, gay-marriage supporting and extra-judiciously killing American nationals… sense. When he was just a teenage president he apparently invented a dandy new way to smoke the ganga—awesomely called TA, or Total Absorbtion. BO would penalise those who exhaled before they reached “total absorption”, presumably with remote-controlled drones.

Not only that, ‘Bamie was part of a pot-smoking gang called the Choom Gang. No, really. That was what they were called. The Choom Gang. They went around in a Choomwagon. Again, I’m serious. Really. They also had a hippy dealer who lived in a bus and was killed with a “ball-peen hammer by a scorned gay lover.” Oh god. Yes. That happened.

What a president. Kook salutes. Source: A Users Guide to Smoking Pot With Barack Obama. Photo.

For all you green cats and lovers of delicious food out there, the AYCC (Australian Youth Climate Coalition) are putting on a sparkly little shingdig this Saturday eve to raise money for the solar re-powering of the St Kilda cult classic institution Monk Bodhi Darma. The event is going to be showcasing ethical and reworked fashion, soulful folk music, organic beer and wine and delicious vegan food with the hopes of raising money for solar panels for the quant little roof of the Monk cafe. Tickets are $35 and are selling fast, so get it on it kids. Be ethical and dance with a beer in your hand.

Buy your tickets here.

If you’re one of those great unwashed souls with a penchant for watching films, especially weird and wonderful ones that no one has ever heard of, then you should check out Melbourne Cinémathèque.

It’s a great resource for film students and students of life alike. With each screening bearing a themed focus on one particular filmmaker (April 11-24th the focus is French filmmaker Robert Presson, who’s style is described by Wikipidea as spiritual and ascetic) it really widens the eyeballs and mind. An annual membership is only $99 so if you have some money left over from this weekend’s party-fun-times/the purchase of expensive new pony skin clogs*, then you should make your way over to ACMI and get involved. Screening’s occur every Wednesday night from 7pm and they show two films in the one night, so it’s some definitive bang for your buck. I might see you there sipping some mulled wine from a thermos and discussing the symbiotic reading of various films of the French New Wave with my main man, Warwick Hogwash Esq.

* Not real pony skin, surely not.   

Designer bakeries are apparently the new du jour. And as wanky as the proposition of specialist bread sounds, the potential for deliciousness overwhelms Kook’s aching self-conciousness. A second shop of the ever-hip St. Kilda bakery and coffee-maker Baker D. Chirico has opened in Carlton on Faraday Street. Not only does it sell bountiful offerings of beautiful and tasty bread, but it does so in a way-to-funky-for-a-breadshop interior. When you first walk in you may be forgiven for thinking an alien spaceship has crash-landed in Carlton with the sole purpose of selling us their fine bread. Well I for one say we welcome our new flour overlords. If you live or go to uni nearby then you’ll inevitably make it a staple on your daily journeys. Yes, there’s no coffee machine, but then if there’s one thing Lygon Street doesn’t need, it’s another place to buy a freaking latte.

Source: Thecoolhunter.net

Deets: 178 Faraday Street Carlton.

Yank-man Pat Grossi, under the moniker of Active Child, is touring around this old-country of ours with his pretty voice, and a bunch of harps. While we don’t envy whomsoever has to tune those damn harps, we sure would like to rip his vocal chords out and proudly display them for all to see. So go enjoy the show, be merry, get crunk, do whatever… as long as its not crystal meth.

Tour Dates:

Presented by Pedestrian.

With special guest Caitlin Park.
Tickets on sale Monday 21 November 2011.

Saturday 28 January – Laneway Festival – Brisbane.

More information and tickets here.

Sunday 29 January – Oxford Art Factory – Sydney.

Tickets from Moshtix, online www.moshtix.com.au, by phone 1300 Get Tix (438 849), on your mobile via www.moshtix.mobi and Moshtix outlets.

Saturday 4 February – Laneway Festival – Melbourne.

More information and tickets here.

Sunday 5 February – Laneway Festival – Sydney.

More information and tickets here.

Wednesday 8 February – East Brunswick Club – Melbourne.

Tickets from the East Brunswick Club, online www.eastbrunswickclub.com, by phone 9388 9794 and 57 Swan St Richmond, 10am-8pm Mon-Sat.

Saturday 11 February – Laneway Festival – Perth.

More information and tickets here

Greg Gillis aka. Girl Talk is pulling side shows off the back of the 2012 BDO. While Kook does not recognise Girl Talk’s pop-noise collages as strictly musical, we do maintain that they are the best damn swell time you can have with a man half-buried in a lawn.

Saturday 28^th January

ENMORE THEATRE, SYDNEY
With Special Guests to be announced

Tickets on sale: Noon Monday, November 28

Tickets from www.ticketek.com.au, Ph 132 849 

 Tuesday 31^st January

PALACE THEATRE, MELBOURNE

Tickets on sale: Noon, Monday, November 28

Tickets from oztix.com.au, Ph 1300 762 545 and Oztix outlets Polyster – City & Fitzroy, Greville, Espy & National Hotel.

Feeling a douche chill coming on? That’s because Netflix has announced exclusive rights for airing new episodes and/or a movie of Arrested Development in 2013. Which, yes, for the short-term means the new episodes will be locked into a platform that absolutely no-one in Australia uses. But still… There will be new episodes and/or a movie of Arrested Development. One of the finest comedy series in recent times is set to return like Scipio Africanus to Rome. The cast announced something was happening at an awesome-filled New Yorker reunion roundtable (you can watch the whole thing here), but it’s nice to know there is serious backing behind them. And, an online streaming company bankrolling a niche TV show? New media landscape, etcetera etcetera.

For fans of good TV this is a welcome respite from life-altering devastation of discovering that Community has been pulled. TV-Nerds have been wandering the streets, alone and afraid, winking to imaginary cameras, waiting in vain for awkward Dean-entrances. While not cancelled—all the episodes of season three will eventually air—the show faces being canned next year unless a couple of million more people become rabid fans pretty quickly. An interesting question the pulling has raised, is why Community, a well written and genuinely funny show, has thus far failed to find a big-enough audience. Some said it was because of the show’s in-jokes, meta-humour and long-running gags. Essentially, the same thing that killed Arrested Development—it was hard to get into. But that raises the question, why do we allow dramas to have season-long arcs and slow-building stories, but not comedies?

At Kook we think Community was pulled because the third season has sucked. We get it, some crazy shit happens and the group breaks down and has a big collective argument. Stop it. Find a new storyline. And preferably, one with less Chang and alternative universes.

The silver lining is that 30 Rock is set to replace Community, and Tina Fey can try to claim back the coveted prize of Most Meta Show on TV for her little show-about-a-show. Oh, and there’s always Bored to Death. You know, with the glorious George Christopher winning our hearts with a puff of pot and wave of his hand.