Jagged Little Pill

Theatre Royal

Sydney, Australia

December 9, 2021

After having been heralded in the US and accolade decorate with Grammy and Tony Award winning Broadway musical, inspired Alanis Morissette’s ground-breaking albums, the musical Jagged Little Pill finally carved its way down under to incarnate with an all-Australian cast under the guidance of Associate Director Leah Howard at the beautiful, recently restored and refurbished Theatre Royal.

Inspired by the themes of the seminal rock album of the same name by Wesley Willis’ favourite, i.e. Alanis Morissette, Jagged Little Pill proves to be the visceral stage adaptation of a story centred around the imperfections of a suburban American family, which is invigorated by a vibrant choreography.
 
Musically embracing an array of different societal voices that are at the very core of Jagged Little Pill and not merely being a carbon copy of Alanis Morissette’s story, it follows the narrative of hope springing eternally and healing being facilitate at the core of where people convene and open their hearts to break down barriers.

What I found refreshingly charming is that Jagged Little Pill does not pretend to be more than it is – which is essentially a contrived, and hyperemotional yet great evening of engaging entertainment with a cast that is bound to excite both Alanis Morissette aficionados and fans of the respective album as well as musical buffs with a weak spot for histrionics, touching on a comprehensive portfolio of topics such as drug addictions, sexual assault and the resulting trauma, chauvinism, burn out, misogyny, gender identity, the implications of social media and everything in between.

Fast paced in nature, adolescent and immediate in tone, flanked by shifting video screens and devoid of subtleties, Jagged Little Pill is punctuated with snarky one-liners that fit in perfectly with performances that are painted with broad brush strokes to convey the angsty dispositions of the protagonists.

In essence, deepening pop into drama, Jagged Little Pill is an exquisite, joyfully sincere and character rich mood piece that exemplifies that commercial pop and musical theatre can come together as a melange that finds itself perfectly calibrated story, positioned between the furious intellect that informed the original songs of discontent and Broadway sensitivities.

Friendly Fire: The Audio Experience

The Station Museum of Contemporary Arts

Having hosted a wide ranging array of comprehensive exhibitions from all corners of this earthround and informed by their mission statement and commitment to free speech and freedom of expression, The activist Station Museum of Contemporary Arts has established itself as the preeminent haven in Texas for exhibiting local, national, and international artists, with an emphasis on fine arts that reflects cultural diversity and supports civil society issues by offering a forum for Texan artists to collaborate with their international equivalents.

Friendly Fire was an exhibition that anticipated the implications of the Trump-era and grouped artists together to raise questions about survival in a new dystopian post-factual era by disseminating critical thought.

Amongst others, the exhibition featured art by Forrest Prince whose contribution questioned if turning the back to society’s woes caused by the government in favour of another institution is the way to go. 

Jesse Lott’s figurines raised questions about how the history of a culture shifts and changes through gentrification and how it impacts on the DNA of a place as a result to the extent that the texture of a location is affected.

Robert Hodge’s installation Few of My Favorite Things shed light on the exploitation of black angst and racism.

As with Station Museum’s previous incarnations, curation played a vital and active role in that it helped to give birth to previous unnoticed content by the way individual seemingly unrelated artworks communicated with one another, thereby creating new meaning and encouraging the public to become actively aware of the lives of others to better question our society’s morality and ethics. 

The catalogue of the Friendly Fire exhibition came with a beautifully genre-bending Audio Experience vinyl record. 

Curated by Robert Hodge, the record compiles the music of the exhibition centred around themes like how black civilians are handled without care and with military precision and showcasing the fact that most of the participating visual artists are also gifted musicians in their own right.

Friendly Fire adds another interesting facet to Station Museum’s diverse offerings, which includes e.g. multi-medium collaborations like the operatic film and installation that was created in collaboration with the Democracia collective to give birth to their Gesamtkunstwerk ORDER, which resulted in a tour de force response to unjust capitalism and oppression by engineering interventions in public spaces paired with the subversive disruption of the cultural grammar of opera in a bid to not merely preach to the converted to portray the omnipresent narrative of profit and exploitation in our society.

Oceania Burger Special

Belly Bao

This instalment of our burger specific series will zero in on the combination of two of my favourite cuisines, i.e. burgers and Asian.
It was during my stint in China that I first developed a weak spot and appreciation for steamed buns or baozi (包子), which essentially is a complete meal conveniently stowed away in a white, warm, soft bun and which at least in mainland China is traditionally based on a pork base. 

The continuous process of creating a bao has always appealed to me, starting with the meticulously timed mixing of the yeast-leavened dough via the steaming process to the idiosyncratic smell the bamboo baskets imbue on the final product. 

Paired with vinegar, chili and garlic pastes, it constitutes a fantastic take away treat that I frequently helped myself to after letting a long day culminate with a visit to the local markets.

During travels to other Asian countries, I discovered local variants, e.g. the Malaysian halal ones filled with your choice of curry and quail eggs or the ones in Indonesia, which curiously enough at times also include chocolate, sweet mung bean paste or marmalade, or the Philippine meatball and flaked tuna filled variant, at times containing cheese, not dissimilar to what is proffered in Thailand. Needless to say, Japan has perfectioned its own version on the bao, adding its own twist.

Given my appreciation for the humble bao, I was intrigued when I learned about Belly Bao, i.e. an eatery specialised in fusing the DNA of original Taiwanese baos with the concept of burgers (resulting in the portmanteau “baogers”, i.e. a cheeseburger napping between toasted bao buns) to Sydney.

What might sound like novelty territory could not be further from it, as every single item off Belly Bao’s menu I have sampled proved to be on point and a culinary delight: Having originally emerged out of the context of Sydney’s mythical and much fabled about Good God Small Club, Belly Bao’s team has refined alchemy over the years and established itself as a veritable insider tip for both sophisticated and fussy foodies as well as aficionados of substantial savoury fair.

Located in Sydney’s suburb Newtown, Belly Bao’s expansive menu features a range of burgers, baos in their original form as well as noodles, fried chicken, desserts and much to my delight, amongst other offerings, Japanese whiskey and one of the better IPAs Australian’s craft beer scene has to offer – what better accompaniment could there be than an OZ-Japanese boilermaker.

The texturally fantastic baogers are soft, squishy and fluffy and as dangerously moreish as the soft shell crab filled baos and the soft bao / slow braised beef short rib baos. One is well advised to exert some moderation as those beauties go down too easily, 
Needless to say, ordering dessert was way too much, however, it proved hard to say no to what is being announced as “two cheesecake spring rolls served with vanilla ice-cream and house made berry sauce”, which tasted exactly as indulgent as what it sounds like – an exorbitantly decadent culmination of a great meal.

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image from company website

The Formative Years

Die Goldenen Zitronen 

When Die Goldenen Zitronen first incarnated in the mid-1980s, it proved to be difficult to find their simple melange of early punk rock, comedic lyrics and at times angry lyrics aimed at rejecting what the music industry stood for and its formulaic structures of rock anything less than charming.

Things got interesting in the early nineties when their album “Fuck You” saw them develop and refine their sonic emissions further, before 1994 saw a quantum leap in terms of their musical evolution with the release of “Das Bisschen Totschlag”: Musically they no longer based their endeavours on punk and persiflage but experimented with a wide array of styles, e.g. noise, hip hop, electro and a veritable nod to bands like Captain Beefheart and Gang of Four.

Their album “Economy Class” was a pivotal one as it shocked their die hard Hamburger Schule fans with its improvisational jazz, before they focussed on electronic instrumentation on their funky “Dead School Hamburg” album, which saw the advent of collaborations with Peaches and bands like Chicks on Speed.

What started in the specifically Teutonic sub-genre of “fun punk”, had become an extremely profound, imaginative and thought provoking political band with their music having evolved to being agnostic of any musical boundaries.

Die Goldenen Zitronen remain a band that channeled its frustrations with the status quo to fuel the expansion of their dissonant sound, which has always been ahead of the curve and whose often cynical output does feel timeless as it has aged gracefully, with the issues and conversations it tackled still being ongoing, e.g. the dismissal of right-wing brutality, racism against immigrants, the implications of consumerism and general fear of the unknown.

Over two decades after the releases of their albums, they still hold up and stick together surprisingly well, with coherence achieved through their unique energy, unpretentious charming amateurism, righteous anger, powerful messaging, satire and subtle bursts of anger.
 

Punk and Style

Citizen Wolf

As Nick Cave quipped during his brighter moments: “A gentleman never talks about his tailor” and given that his dishevelled Birthday Party days are long left behind, paired with the fact that he has perfectioned his style with bespoke Chriss Kerr designed suits and his trademark unbuttoned shirt look, he should know what he is talking about.

It has always puzzled me how punk and traditional tailoring seem to at odds in most people’s minds, especially since punk was a movement that could have not been designed as a more uniform one with its leather jackets, ripped jeans and boots combo. 

One might argue that it lacked sartorial flair and was more subversive and rebellious in nature than other youthful underground phenomena, however, one can argue that it was still about dressing up. Essentially, the DNA of the punk look as we know it could have not been more artificially designed as its rebel aesthetic was essentially incepted by the fashion creating duo that was Vivienne Westwood and Malcom McLaren, whose emblematic provocative distressed fetish inspired edge eventually created “punk” archetypes before they infiltrated haute couture and subverted the establishment.

Fashion and the art behind tailoring has always fascinated me and I have had the fortune of visiting designers during my travels to learn more about how their collections come about and the meticulous approach to design.

When it comes to wardrobe staples like shirts, there is nothing that beats a good fit, which can make more than merely a subtle difference and on my search for new gear, I came across a local business that goes by the name of Citizen Wolf.

What intrigued me from the get go was Citizen Wolf’s mission statement, i.e. their endeavours being centred around affordable carbon negative on-demand production for a sustainable fashion future and their intrinsic drive to break the fashion industry’s addiction to overproduction.

Ushering in a new era which has the promotion of a healthier relationship with the clothes we wear at its core,  Citizen Wolf has pro-actively re-engineered technology to create custom fit garments for any body shape, only producing them when an order is placed.

Now, how does it work?

A bit of research revealed that Citizen Wolf has created what they refer to as their trademark Magic Fit algorithm, which no matter if you need a tall-fit tee or a bit more room than standard sizing provides, will ensure that it fits your frame: 

First, you choose your style—from tank top to turtleneck; then your fabric—organic cotton, hemp blend, or RWS-certified Merino wool; then your favourite colour from a wide and diverse colour palette. 

Using biometric data distilled from close to two million data points, Citizen Wolf creates a mathematical model of your body, which serves as a basis to create custom-fit garments faster and more accurately than a human tailor could.

While I had my concerns at first, what materialized was exactly what I had hoped for in terms of sizing with the added benefit that the fabric is pre-shrunk and made to stay in the shape you purchased it. An added bonus is that they offer the free option for further alterations and tweaking.

By upcycling any offcut fabric waste into quirky totes and scarves, they break the mold of how things are done in the fashion industry in a sustainable and affordable manner and what could be more punk than that?