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…