Author: kowhai

Sax Pack — The Mack is Back

Remem­ber this guy and all of those drums? (Inci­den­tal­ly, all of those drums will be turn­ing Kora up loud this Fri­day). 

Or per­haps you remem­ber him as that crazy, sexy, cool guy play­ing veg­eta­bles at Fringe last year (win­ner Best Music and Best Solo Show at 2009 Fringe Fes­ti­val).

Adam Page is back at Down­stage this Sun­day along with three more sax­o­phon­ists, as the Adalaide Sax Pack, fea­tur­ing some silky vocals from Welly’s Lisa Tom­lins (Shapeshifter, Fat Fred­dy’s Drop, Rhom­bus, Trin­i­ty­Roots).

Billed as:

4 world class Sax­o­phon­ists, 1 HUGE quar­tet sound, stacks of the cheesi­est music you know you love but choose to hate.

This girl is look­ing look­ing for­ward to the cheezy ’80s cov­ers and being a vocal mem­ber of the rau­cous fun-time crowd.

Come along, it isn’t that expen­sive and will be down­right fes­tive (in a good way).

Details and a taster after the jump.

Buy Enjoy

Not that we want you to wear your­selves out before the T4WAs on Thurs­day, but we thought it would be only fair to tell you that Enjoy Gallery is hav­ing a cut-price art bash in time for Christ­mas. 

One hun­dred and twen­ty five dol­lars or less for a nice piece of what you fan­cy at the annu­al Enjoy gallery art sale, fol­lowed by the “unof­fi­cial Welling­ton X‑mas ART BASH”: X‑mas par­ty at Watusi.

What: Enjoy gallery’s annu­al art sale Buy Enjoy (details of artists on the face­book invite)
When: Tues­day 15 Decem­ber from 6.00pm
Where:  Enjoy Gallery on Cuba (map) and after par­ty at Watusi (map)

100 Dollar Bills Y’all

Tonight from 6.00 until 8.00pm This­tle Hall is hold­ing their annu­al $100 art sale. 

Sup­port the artists, the venue *and* get some­thing unique for the impor­tant peo­ple in your life just in time for Christ­mas.

Check out pic­tures of some of the pieces for sale here.

Aeon — Wellington in Flux

Bren­da from NZ On Screen alert­ed us to the the fact that Richard Sidey’s short film Aeon is now avail­able to view on the site:

Welling­ton is giv­en the Bara­ka ‘time-scape’ treat­ment in this short film by Richard Sidey, made while study­ing at Massey Uni­ver­si­ty. There’s no char­ac­ters or con­ven­tion­al nar­ra­tive, but the life cycle of a city is cap­tured in a Koy­aanisqat­si-like com­pi­la­tion of day and night-time scenes. Clouds scud by in hyper-time-lapse and slow-motion, and Welling­ton land­marks (har­bour, buck­et foun­tain, tur­bine etc) are seen anew, cut to a sound­track by per­cus­sion group Strike. The tone poem won best stu­dent film at the Amer­i­can Con­ser­va­tion Film Fes­ti­val 2007.

Update: Embed­ding is now enabled via NZ On Screen’s very own exter­nal play­er.  Ka pai.

Lover’s Tiff — Oh Wellington we could never stay mad at you for long

“The qui­et doors, which led to Welling­ton’s morgue, were off Tarana­ki Street.”

Thus begins Rowan Sak­er’s mur­der mys­tery nov­el Lover’s Tiff, which, right from the word go, wears its set­ting on its sleeve.  Fit­ting­ly for such a Welly-focused read, a preprint copy was flicked Welling­ton­ista’s way for a review pri­or to the book launch. Lover’s Tiff is Rowan Sak­er’s first nov­el, writ­ten after a recent return to Welling­ton after nine years liv­ing in France.

The book launch is tonight (Wednes­day 25 Novem­ber) at Turn­bull House from 6.00pm until 8.00pm.

This is a mur­der mys­tery firm­ly with­in the pulp tra­di­tions of the genre: com­plete with tough but square cop who will nev­er be hip, the smart mid­dle-class girl who turns into a fer­al and some­what slut­ty dropout, and all the twists you would expect in the hunt for her killer that takes us to Palmy, the Hawke’s Bay and all across Welling­ton.

Elastic Solids

Tonight at Deluxe Cafe is an open­ing fea­tur­ing new works from Paul Bradley.  Many of the works are paint­ed on used cof­fee sacks stretched over recy­cled wood­en win­dow frames and there are also some prints from a new series of screen print­ed draw­ings.

So far I have only seen him in his incar­na­tion as a VJ, so it will be inter­est­ing to see what he can do with a cof­fee sack.

What: Elas­tic Solids Art open­ing (details here)

Where & When: Deluxe Cafe, 8 Kent St from 6.30pm tonight

Woven Tales of Ink, Silver and Silk

Tonight is the open­ing night of a very spe­cial — and I sus­pect some­what whim­si­cal — art/fashion show at This­tle Hall. 

Jew­ellery, fash­ion, illus­tra­tion and photg­ra­phy will be exploit­ed for the pur­pos­es of sto­ry­telling and fan­tas­tic escape.  Craft 2.0 goers will recog­nise Minu from the stalls and I for one am look­ing foward to see­ing her “inter­de­pen­dant and inter­con­nect­ed met­al city and night for­est”.

When: 17th Novem­ber 5.30pm (fash­ion show at 6.00pm)

Where: This­tle Hall on Cuba Street

“Come, Ven­ture into a tale of fan­ta­sy; Where mys­ter­ies unfold, Illu­sions take hold,.

Explore hid­den mean­ings, trapped beau­ty, In the depths of Escape…”

 Details from the press release after the jump…