Perth is home to one of the best comedy scenes in Australia, however due to the sheer volume of creative talent we’re pumping out, it sometimes gets overlooked.
Individuals such as Rory Lowe are changing this, and man do we love it.
We had a chat ahead of his show’s at the Mt Lawley Bowling Club this week.

I like your shoes.
Thanks, I love Adidas, its something about the logo, the 3 stripes is nice to look at.. and everyone knows Nike is evil, I don’t think everyone knows Adidas is evil… it’s not as bad maybe.
I really like the classic look, all one colour, I got a blue pair, these black pair, a white pair with black stripes, a light blue pair and gazelles are the best.

What do you usually drink?
Red wine, shiraz actually. I don’t really like beer, its like my default, beer. If someone’s like “So you want a beer i’m like ‘yeah! lets go have beers, okay,” then I’m like “oh fuck I would have much preferred to think about what I want.” Dudes just seem to do it, like lets just keep this easy and simple; *Aussie accent* “I’ve been lifting the bricks all day mate just give me whatever.”

Thats a pretty impressive impression of an aussie you did there…
I love doing Aussie impressions, it’s so much fun. Aussies love Aussies, Aussies love laughing at bogan Australia, it’s actually so funny, but it is just such a weird thing – everyone acknowledges it, everyone takes the piss out of it, even bogans are like, “bogans are fucked” haha.
Like how does this cycle end?! They acknowledge it! They are like “yep were bogans, we love being bogans,” so well maybe we should just accept that they are bogans.
Everyone assumes they’re rednecks, but like the Australian version, but its so much more. I love a good bogan, just having a conversation with someone you didn’t know was a bogan. Half way through your just like “OH MY GOD TELL ME MORE THINGS.” I’d rather talk to a bogan than a vegan anyway…
“What did you do tonight? I did some skids and punched a guy then like we had a big BBQ and set some shit on fire,”
Then the vegan guys like, “Oh yeah I sat down in silence next to a candle.”

Haha so true. What do you think of the Perth comedic scene at the moment?
It’s so underrated, we have some of the best talent in the nation. Ciaran Lyons is on Triple J now – he’s just a kid from Perth who was just doing his bits and being funny and he got picked up. Melbourne International Comedy Festival put together a show called Comedy Zone and they go through all the states and put together the best up and coming comics and showcase them and put them in the gala, Tien Trang was doing Southbound and stuff, Jim Jefferies went to WAAPA as an opera singer.
The promoters don’t have the budget to targeting our demographic. People don’t think it’s an option they’re just like “Stevos bands playing, we can smoke ciggies out the back.”
Check out whats on, come have a good time.

Do you smoke?
I quit 4 days ago, but I’m not going to say I quit yet, I’ll give it a month or so, cigarettes aren’t cool.

At this point we run out of liquid to drink to I head to the bar to get us another round (wine for Rory), I leave my phone recording on the table…

I didn’t really listen to Prince, I don’t know if I really care that much, everyone thinks Prince is ‘Yeah! oh!’ they’res so many classics, there’s hundreds of classic artists, hundreds of greatest artists… I’m not going to hear them all. Theres too many. I don’t have to like prince, just leave me alone facebook.

What’s it like writing comedy?
I was watching Straight Outta Compton last night and everyone was in the studio getting down having fun and I’m like that looks sick! Meanwhile, I’m just gonna sit by myself in my room and make funny jokes.
Comedy is the most funniest thing to do in public, like you look like a crazy… your just sat by yourself writing into a book pissing yourself laughing at what you just wrote down.

I just got a burger and it just began to fall apart, stop putting so much shit in the burger, I reckon it would be sick if they made heaps of tiny burgers so like ill have 4 mini burgers for 15 bucks.
I think that’s already a thing… like sliders
Well I’m gonna come through the game strong, put this in the article, ‘Rory Lowe said sliders are coming back, sliders are the new black,’ give it 3 years and there will be slider bars everywhere and they will all be served on metal plates, because of modernism or something.

Do you like social media?
I don’t know. Some days I do. Today I hate it. Today I fucken hated it because like, the sky was all grey and I looked it my phone and oh no some country somewhere has run out of water and some guy has killed 100 people and theres no more air left and the ground is now jelly and theres no more water in the ocean and theres too many fish so all the fish are dead and now theres too much water so I was like oh man FUCK facebook today. Sometimes I say I cant do this and sometimes I’m like ‘yay awesome!,’ sometimes you post a status and you’re like ‘fuck yeah everyone likes what I said.’

I don’t get Instagram, I still don’t. I think I’ve figured it out but its not what I wanted it to be. I wanted it to be cooler than that. There was this dude walking down the street talking to his girlfriend about this picture/this picture, he goes “its just people taking pictures of their food and shoes mate, I don’t wanna see that, I don’t wanna see that what makes them think I wanna see that?”
And I was just thinking, ‘they’re not taking those photos for you’ you know what I mean? Instagram isn’t about taking photos to show people it’s about taking a photo because you wanna take a photo and that’s why somedays I like social media. It’s just a really good way for people to express themselves, a good platform, its able to connect everyone on the planet but usually its just ‘look at this cat doing this thing’ but you need that too.
I was feeling a bit blue today because of all the shit I said before but then there was this thing saying ‘if you’re sad look at this!’ and it was just this dog looking at its owner, while its owner was on a swivel chair and it was just playing that ‘all around me are familiar faces, worn out places…’ and it was just like this pug with eyes wide open because its upside down being spun around, and man it was fucking hilarious.

That Lion king video went huge.
Yeah its so strange, you know, it’s like ah really? Is that what everyone likes?!
I sent through an Aladdin one today so hopefully that goes up. I wanna do a Toy Story one. It’s not a new idea, like taking something and putting an Aussie accent on it, its not a new thing. It’s just those things where like you muck around with stuff … like you look at Alex Williamson and Frenchy  and all these big massive YouTube dudes and youre just like oh yeah just put on an Aussie accent and act like a bogan and do those things, a lot of the things that successfully go viral (esp. in aus) are things that have Aussie accents that shouldn’t have an Aussie accent,.
But those guys are funny, I don’t wanna knock them, haha next minute headlines everywhere – ‘Rory slags off everybody in the business.’

Who’s your comedic idol?
Bill Burr is the best, he is an American comic who has been out for years, he is the best. Louis CK is a game gamechanger – he did 5 specials for 5 years and really changed how comedy was made, he will be remembered more than Bill. I really like a guy called Chris D’Elia he is just funny, like theres nothing too much too it, nothing too phisolophical or analytical of society, he just says some really funny shit and I like it.

When did you realise this was what you wanted to do?
I did a gig in high school for the talent show at Aquanis and it just went well. It pissed off the people I didn’t like and the people I did like loved it, so a year later I did another gig because people were telling me to do it… so I did it and that went well. Then I did it six months after that and again it went well so from there it just became more frequent. I got some more gigs and opened up for Tame Impala at Big Day Out and that was awesome. My friends and I used to pretend we were Tame to get chicks and then it ended up we ended up being part of the crew and I saw Kev when he was back in town last and it was cool, it was just one of those things where I was like fuck how the fuck did this just happen?
I fanboy so hard to myself in secret, like one night I was hanging with Stephen K Amos and some other guys and we ended up going to Connections because they were so gay and I had to pinch myself, it was so fun.
When I met Snoop Dog, he is so tall, I looked at his chest and I just went ‘oh my god’ and there was a light behind him and I was like its Jesus! Coolest mofo, he was just in their singing Bob Marley and shit.

Check out Rory’s gig Instagram’s to Grammy’s at the Mt Lawley Bowling club running from tonight to Saturday.
We’ll hook you up with some cheaper tickets here, because we like you xo

Ooft. We really really like Claudio, a lot – indescribable vibes emit from this talented soul and although she is now a woman of the world, she originally hails from Perth.

Okay so she’s playing an exclusive intimate gig tonight at an undisclosed location, we just might have some limited edition tickets, we might not..

Give us an email on brooke@hipflaskapp.com if you’re interested – you should be.

In the meantime…

Trip Bass from hipflask on Vimeo.

Trip Loops from hipflask on Vimeo.

Trip Solo from hipflask on Vimeo.

Ah yeah.

You know we love Perth, it’s great, kinda small, but great. It is a place of countless opportunities for those who search for them, but sometimes because of the strong relationship’s already established it can be hard to ‘break the barrier’ and get some recognition.

Anyway we met with up Jasmine – a girl who is absolutely slaying it!
At only 18 years of age (while juggling a part time job and full-time study) she is launching her first print publication, ‘The Ink Grid‘ on the 16th of April at The (ever-beloved) Bird.

Her goals in putting this project together included, giving ‘support and coverage’ to creatives that may not have that leg up in the way of networks – which personally I think is great. She is providing a platform for the youth, the up-and-comings and the one’s that like to do things a little differently – lets showcase this homegrown talent.

Access the Alternative.

You may remember a little while back, we met with the crew behind ‘31 Days In‘ – they do a drawing for everyday they’re in a foreign location around the world. We LOVE these little snapshots of society so we kept in touch and turns out they’re just across the ditch in NZ and they’re doing some good things ?…

So you’re back in Wellington! We love NZ, what are some of your favourite things about NZ?
Loads! Pies, fish and chips, the beautiful landscapes, family, wind. NZ has fewer sharks than WA, so that’s pretty neat. And Wellington has been really good to us so far – Summer lasted a lot longer than we expected.

This ‘31 Days In’ is particularly different to the last… you have local musicians contributing tracks with each picture – how did this collaboration come to exist and why?
Music is a huge part of what makes Wellington such a great little city – the locals are a creative bunch, and it seems like almost everyone is involved in music production (or can bang out a tune on a ukulele). We want to start getting more involved with local creatives and communities during the 31 days travel series, adding new layers to the project in each destination, so we thought music was the way to go here. The idea was to have songs and paintings that worked together to capture the essence of Wellington: something winsome for a trip on the cute cable car; something spirited for the city’s distinct (and drafty) wooden houses; and something moody on the inevitable day that the wind destroys everyone’s umbrellas.

We sent out a few emails to our favourite Wellington musos and were totally amazed at the response — 31 awesome musicians and bands were keen to contribute a track. Contributions range from internationally acclaimed acts to underground heroes and bedroom songwriters, including massive songs from one of New Zealand’s finest labels LOOP Recordings Aot(ear)oa.

A big reason why the musicians have been keen to be involved is that all proceeds from the sale of those tracks (and a portion of art sales) go to a local charity organisation, Kaibosh. Huge shout-out to the generous musicians involved: Andrew Laking, Glass Vaults, A Girl Named Mo, Maple Syrup, Shuedet, Wellington Sea Shanty Society, Israel Starr Musiq, Fraser Ross, The Polly Johnson Set, Jet Jaguar aka Michael Upton, Finn Johannsen, Chris Tse, Daniel McClelland, Chambres, yosh, Echo Beach, LOST BiRD, Étienne de Silhouette, Cosimo, Carlos Navae, Terror Of The Deep, Kat McKenzie, Towers, Rosy Tin Teacaddy, Roseneath Centennial Ragtime Band of Wellington NZ, Full Moon Fiasco, French for Rabbits, Timothy Blackman, Lake South, Nadia Reid, Electric Wire Hustle and The Andy Gibson Project.

What is Kaibosh?
Kaibosh (www.kaibosh.org) is a food rescue service that works with local businesses to reduce food waste by collecting, sorting and then donating surplus food to those in the community who need it most. This includes food banks, refuges, children’s homes and the like. Kaibosh is the best example we have ever seen of identifying an issue and working logically to solve it – we hope this kind of thing will take off everywhere.

People can get involved by volunteering their time (which is so popular that there is a waiting list!) or becoming ‘Food Rescue Heroes’, where a monthly donation ensures that excess food continues to get to the right people. If you sign up, you also score some goodies from cool local businesses like People’s Coffee (http://peoplescoffee.co.nz), Six Barrel Soda (www.sixbarrelsoda.co.nz) and the Wellington Chocolate Factory (www.wcf.co.nz).

Kaibosh have some exciting fundraisers coming up really soon, like ‘Make a Meal in May’ where you invite your friends around, cook up a dinner on the cheap and then donate the money you would have spent going out for dinner to Kaibosh. We’re looking forward to inviting round some mates to enjoy a meal — it’s super easy and a nice way to hang out with your buddies while also giving back to the community.

How can we help?
Buy our CD! Tracks can be individually downloaded right now, and pre-orders for the 31 days in Wellington album (to be released very soon) can be made at https://31daysin.bandcamp.com.

All proceeds go to Kaibosh, so it’s as easy as buying a CD and listening to some cool tunes. Purchasing one CD is equivalent to rescuing 11 kilos of food and providing 33 meals to those who need it most.

As well as the artists featured, what other tunes have you been playing along this trip?
Zoe has had Jungle’s Busy Earnin’ on repeat for weeks now, and Tim was kept alive throughout March only with coffee and techno.
Man I love this album too!

Any funny stories/disasters happening along the way?
We lost the original painting of Day 10: City Lights. Twice. It was a minor disaster, solved first by downing a few beers and then hitting up the streets to look for it. Turned out that it sat in a post office for two weeks before we remembered it was there, and then the second time it went missing we found it in a mysterious unknown compartment under the back seat of the car.

Other highlights include getting soaked by bellyflopping teenagers hurling themselves off the wharf, admiring some incredible mullets at the Coastella music festival up the Kapiti coast, and having a print presented to Jurassic Park’s Dr Alan Grant.

Love ya work. 

By Hannah Docherty

So the Easter long weekend has meant we have been reduced to mere piles of chocolate/hot x buns wrapped in skin, meaning that although the events are still going down, alas our body weight is not.

Lucky we can ease you back into the social scene with some boutique film screenings, your date will be that impressed the pot belly wont even be a thing – promise.

The much-loved Alliance Francaise French Film Festival is back, and in Perth for 2 more weeks. Polish off your French & head down to Luna on SX, Windsor or Cinema Paradiso, with 48 award-winning French films circulating this is not one to be missed!
Our top picks include: Dheepan, a powerful drama about a family fleeing from Sri Lanka, Blind Date, a quirky romantic comedy about two unlikely neighbours and the gripping thriller Taj Mahal, based on true events of a terrorist attack in Mumbai. Closing night will include a screening of what has been called the greatest french film produced – Contempt starring the gorgeous crush-worthy Bridgette Bardot ❤
More info screening times here

If French films aren’t your thing (they should be) the awe-inspiring ‘Sherpa: Trouble on Everest’ documentary, presenting the extraordinary pressures and politics of climbing the mountain from the Sherpa point of view is screening on Saturday and Sunday at Luna Outdoor Cinema in Leedy, while Sunday arvo will give you the opportunity to catch ‘The Room,’ a bizarre and strange film that has gained a cult following here in Perth.
Head down early to grab a bean bag & beer before the show starts – hosted by Monkey Collective‘s James Palm.

PIAF Lotterywest Film Festival is nearly at an end, so be sure to check out an international film at Somerville/ECU Joondalup pines if you haven’t already! This weekend you have a choice between ‘A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting Existence‘ a ‘ quietly absurd, deadpan comic of delights’ hailing from Sweden or ‘Our Little Sister,’ a subtle family drama with an uplifting Japanese flavour.

So pretty much something to please all tastes- go on, It’d be rude not to!

It’s Saturday night, smack bang in the middle of the long weekend so pop your boots and coat on and head to Rosie tonight (26th March) and check out locals The Wheelers of Oz do their thing along side Dougal’s Casino, Regular Boys and Drage Lion.

Questions asked, Questions answered.

Here’s some light reading for you to devour on your journey.

Alex and Sam… you’ve been making music for a while together how did you guys meet?
(SAM) We met through family friends when we were young kids. It was one of those situations when you go to your parents friends house and you have to hang out with the kids at the dinner party. As we got older we started getting into the same kind of things and naturally became best mates.

So there’s 7 of you in total and most of you are in other bands, how do you figure out logistics?
It can be pretty hard to get everyone together for rehearsals sometimes but we always find a time to make it happen. Alex and I live together and have a studio in our house so we are always recording new demos. When we get together with the whole band we show them the parts and everyone puts a little bit of their flavour on top. 

The album you released late last year is titled Revivalised – what does that mean/how did you come up with it?
The first album is a mix of all our influences, so in a way we were reviving anything from the past that influenced our process, perhaps it was music or some other everyday shit.

Your songs have been described as cinematic and other writers have noted your avant gardè influence, was this intentional? Do you have an idea of how you want things to sound beforehand or is it a gradual improvised process?The Avant Gardè thing started as a bit of a joke. I studied a bit of film making and film history in my degree at uni and wrote “Avant Gardè Cinema” in our influences section on good old Facebook while i was in a bit of a film phase. I guess people read that and latched on to it whenever they asked us about our music. It’s definitely a big influence when it comes to the idea of creating something but not so much an influence to the sound of our music.
We have certain style of music that we work towards. We are able to experiment a lot and the songs continuously change as we work on them in the studio and with the band, but the original idea is always in there somewhere.

I love that concept of the photo booklet you included with some copies of the album, why did you make the decision to do this and how did you choose the images?
I love taking pictures just as much as making music and really wanted to tie the two together somehow. I was shooting heaps of photos of feet around the time that we were making the album. I don’t know why haha. Every time I processed a roll of film I noticed a had a bunch of feet photos. Lots of them were of band members so Alex and I thought they would fit paired with photos of some gear that we used on the album.  

What is your favourite track you’ve recorded and why?
A new one that we just recorded. It doesn’t have a name yet.

What’re you vibing on right now? Give us some tunes you would recommend checking out.
I always come back to Joy Division – Unknown Pleasures, I go through phases of spinning it non stop. Some other stuff to entice the ears –
Fabio Viscogliosi – il nostro caro angelo
Morgan Delt – Morgan Delt
Foxygen – Bowling Trophies
The Jim Mitchells – Planet Absorbed
Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music.

Besides the gig, what can we expect up next?
We are going to head over east and play some shows in the next few months. We are also in the process of putting together another album which will be out later in the year.

If you’re reading this at a later date, you know where to look for their future gigs, dive into those links in the meantime.

Yep.