The Wellingtonista

Author: mitch

April 16, 2008

Who Watches the Watchmen? WE DO!

Super­hero com­ics fans should press their best uni­t­ards this week in pre­par­a­tion for Armaged­don, and like­wise indie and under­ground com­ics fans should pull out their cop­ies of Hicks­ville for sign­ing, as the NZ Comix Week­end is set­ting up shop on the 19th-20th April at the South­ern Cross, Graph­ic and Spaceth­ing.
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There are talks, jams, stalls, sem­inars and exhib­i­tions – provid­ing a homegrown coun­ter­point to the big budget pulp cul­ture-fest over at the TSB Arena (although some of the Comix Week­end artists are also rep­res­en­ted at Armaged­don)
Details and links after the jump…

mitch
Uncategorised
5 Comments
March 27, 2008

Have You Seen This Spam?

Fol­low­ing on from a tid­bit in Mike’s last post, here’s some Thursday night hobo coun­try gar­age enter­tain­ment for you!

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Delaney Dav­id­son plays at the Mighty Mighty tonight to release his album ‘Rough Dia­mond’ (out on loc­al label Stink Mag­net­ic), and unveils his Ghost Orches­tra for the very first time … fea­tur­ing a real live voo­doo rhythm sec­tion as well as banjo, brass, viol­in, lap steel and accor­d­i­an. The band played and talked on Nation­al Radio last Sat­urday, and are doing a small num­ber of shows before Delaney heads off over­seas again in April. The Wrong­do­ings play sup­port, before they (we?) lose bass play­er Justin to the big wide world, also in April.

The gig kicks off at 8:30 but as a warm-up Issue #4 of loc­al design magazine The Nation­al Grid will be launched in fine style by voo­doo guru Dr Eric Vornoff and tract­or affi­cion­ado Boss Christ, from 5:30. #4 and back issues are avail­able at spe­cial prices, and there’s talk of a limbo con­test that the Wel­ling­tonista’s own Anna Dean has been banned from enter­ing.

Mighty Mighty, Cuba St, 5:30/8:30 tonight
and the gig repeats with extra flair on Fri­day night too.

mitch
Events / Music
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March 18, 2008

Everything AND the Kitchen Sink

Some Wed­nes­day night party good times for you all, in cel­eb­ra­tion of the new-ish Kit­chen Sink event guide site…
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Come early (doors are at 7:30pm) for goody bags and a seat!

mitch
Events / Music
0 Comment
February 22, 2008

Knocked Up Dead Skunk

There’s a lot on in the cul­tur­al cap­it­al tonight but my com­pletely biased pick for the even­ing’s enter­tain­ment has to be Loud­on Wain­wright III at the SFBH.

Sup­por­ted and accom­pan­ied by one of his daugh­ters, Lucy Wain­wright Roche (half sis­ter to the more fam­ous Rufus and Martha), Wain­wright is bring­ing his sing­er-song­writer folk-rockin’ gui­tar to our shores on the back of last year’s album Strange Weirdos: music from and inspired by the film Knocked Up. Yep, not only did Loud­on III sup­ply the music for the movie’s cre­at­or, Judd Apatow (who made Freaks and Geeks, so he must be cool), but he also acted in the movie – play­ing a gyneco­lo­gist.

Wain­wright’s most fam­ous for songs like ‘Dead Skunk’(1972) but along­side his music­al career his act­ing has been tick­ing along for some time; the two strands suc­cess­fully mar­ry­ing when LWIII played singing sur­geon Capt. Spauld­ing in M*A*S*H.

Intrigued? I am. And in the interests of full dis­clos­ure: my band, the Wrong­do­ings, will open for Loud­on tonight, on the eve of our Auck­land debut at Lady­fest ’08.

Doors open at 9, tick­ets avail­able from Tick­etek, Real Groovy or on the door at San Fran­cisco Bath­house.

CUNNING LINGUISTS: if you can tell me what it’s called when you add a “III” to your name I’ll be dead impressed either at your lin­guist­ic know­ledge or your mad google skillz – the closest I could get to it is that it’s some form of pro­nom­in­al suf­fix. And it’s driv­ing me crazy.

mitch
Events / Music
7 Comments
February 11, 2008

Firerockets at Night

Explo­sions in the Sky!
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The latest instal­ment in a semi-reg­u­lar Wel­ling­tonista series on the thriv­ing loc­al tour­ing cir­cuit for inter­na­tion­al bands sees the instru­ment­al rock good­ness of Explo­sions in the Sky hit­ting Wel­ling­ton for the first time tomor­row night, bring­ing their fire­crack­er of a live set to the San Fran Bath­house.

Praised for the cine­mat­ic grandeur of their albums and the intens­ity of their live shows, the Tex­ans have come a long way since their incep­tion as a post-rock four-piece in 1999. The band has also been appoin­ted as the cur­at­ors for the 2008 All Tomorrow’s Parties fest­iv­al line-up.

Fus­ing bit­ter­sweet gui­tar melod­ies with crash­ing bouts of noise, Explo­sions in the Sky have garnered a strong fol­low­ing among fans and crit­ics alike, with Tiny Mix Tapes labelling them “the only instru­ment­al post-rock band that mat­ter­s”. Rolling Stone com­pared their most recent album, All Of A Sud­den I Miss Every­one, to the music of the Kronos Quar­tet, but with “big amps and John Bon­ham in the back”, and inter­net giant Pitch­fork Media touted 2003’s The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place as “the per­fect test­a­ment to art-rock mastery.”

Show details after the jump…

mitch
Events / Music
3 Comments
December 5, 2007

Jealous Girls and Bad Kids

I keep mean­ing to post about all the fant­ast­ic inter­na­tion­al gigs that are about to hap­pen in Wel­ling­ton as sum­mer kicks in, but what with the 2AWA and Blams fever, the launch of CHOICE magazine, the golden weath­er and the party sea­son, I’ve been a bit slack.

So it is with some urgency that I draw your atten­tion to two shows com­ing up in the next week:

Gales­burg presents The Gos­sip and Palo­mino presents Black Lips

The Gos­sip play this Sat­urday night (8th) at the San Fran Bath­house with loc­als Cor­tina, and Black Lips at the same ven­ue next Tues­day the 11th with Knife Fight.

Tick­ets avail­able from Slow­boat Records, Cuba St.

Read more after the jump about both bands and sup­ports…

mitch
Events / Music
1 Comment
November 2, 2007

Summer in the City Suburbs

You’ve got to love the effect a sunny day has on people – I’ve seen more smiles on the streets of New­town today than I have done the entire 6 months that I’ve lived here.
And speak­ing of New­town, time to give props to a loc­al icon,The Adelaide…
Once the infam­ous Tram­ways Hotel, and stick­ing res­ol­utely to the “small­town pub” vibe and decor, the Adelaide has quietly rein­ven­ted itself as one of the best places in town to see bands play for around the $5 mark. Cheap beer, great mir­rors in the ladies’, flash­ing lights behind glass bricks at the counter and under the stage, pool tables, pub meals … one day I’ll devote an entire post to how much I love unpre­ten­tious hos­pit­al­ity. But the point of this post is to announce the inaug­ur­al Sat­urday Mat­in­ee at the Adelaide – just in time for the return of the golden weath­er!
Details after the jump…

mitch
Events / Music / Suburbs
1 Comment
October 26, 2007

Swiss on Wry – Saturday at Mighty Mighty

As the new­est mem­ber of the glit­ter­ati set col­lo­qui­ally known as Los Wel­ling­tonis­tas, I would like to draw read­ers’ col­lect­ive atten­tions to one of this week­end’s music­al high­lights:
Lone­some Cow­boy Wan­der­er Delaney Dav­id­son, formerly of Switzer­land (via Christ­ch­urch), returns to New Zea­l­and to share his prim­it­ive rock ‘n roll folk with Wel­ling­ton.
This Sat­urday night the Mighty Mighty hosts Delaney, his lap­steel, and his friends the Wrong­do­ings of Wel­ling­ton County, and Wair­ar­apa Wolf­man Boss Christ.
Delaney was the NZ mem­ber of Pan-European cab­aret nois­enik folk­sters the Dead Broth­ers, once described as “more or less what’s left of a sym­phony orches­tra after their car crashed”. The Wrong­do­ings are a twis­ted coun­try four­some; and Boss Christ is a spec­tac­u­lar half-man, half-wolf, all-blues, prim­it­ive dynamo.
Sat­urday 26th Octo­ber, 9pm at the Mighty Mighty
$10 entry

See you there!

mitch
Events / Music
3 Comments