A quick reminder about Beans, appearing on Sunday night at SFBH in Cuba St. (previous post here.) Support is from fmr-Trinity Roots-man Riki Gooch’s Eru Dangerspiel outfit, and DJ Alphabethead!
Tickets are $25 and available from Slow Boat Records or Under The Radar… updates and more info from Galesburg.
Altmusic is proud to present Chris Watson, a founding member of influential experimental music groups Cabaret Voltaire and The Hafler Trio.
Watson is now one of the world’s leading sound recordists specialising in capturing the sounds of wildlife and natural phenomena, and he currently records for and makes programmes for BBC Radio 4’s Natural History Unit.
In 2006 Watson was awarded an honorary Doctor of Technology by the University of the West of England "in recognition of his outstanding contribution to sound recording technology, especially in the field of natural history and documentary location sound."
Chris Watson puts his microphone where you can’t put your ears.
In a performance you might hear the unearthly groaning of an Icelandic glacier or the voices and rhythms of the Humboldt current around the Galapagos Islands.
Tomorrow night, you will experience a Live Soundmap of Red Rocks as recorded by Watson and a team of local recordists.
Chris Watson at the Adam Art Gallery
Saturday 10th October at 8 pm, $10
Workshop at Fred’s at 4 pm, earlier the same afternoon
For more information about Chris Watson’s extensive audio career: ChrisWatson.net
Beans (aka Mr Ballbeam)- MC, worldwide maverick and global raconteur, is set to soon be shakin’ our minds, asses and possibly tectonic plates later this month of October.
A restless shifter, finder and pusher of boundaries — artistically, lyrically, sonically, Beans has been creating and perfecting his own style for over a decade, solo and as one quarter of seminal (and recently reunited) New York hip hop group The Antipop Consortium. Ever relevant, Beans teeters on the edge of the hip hop avantgarde, leading the charge against mediocrity wherever it exists. Inquiring impulses and relentless questing lead him to find others also seeking, collaborating and touring with kindred spirits as varied as they are amazing – Holy Fuck, Battles, Radiohead, DJ Shadow and Public Enemy to name but a few in a long list.
[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7oMG81awEY]His most recent album, Thorns (2007) twitches, glitches and snaps with beats that run the spectrum from minimal growl to tongue-in-cheek cheesy, sweetly sleazy, while his words are angular and confessional, going for the jugular of reality — politics, sex, death, love, and music. The stuff that matters, that moves.
Prepare yourself to be moved, and in a pioneering spirit venture forth to listen, watch, shuffle, nod with arms folded, and maybe, just maybe even dance to Beans.
Sunday 25th October – Wellington – SFBH – $25
Support from Eru Dangerspiel & Alphabethead!
Tickets are $25 and available from Slow Boat Records or Under The Radar… updates and more info from Galesburg.
In the 2009 Budget, the National Government announced an 80% cut in the funding provided to schools throughout New Zealand to run night classes or Adult Community Education (ACE).
In 2010 all school ACE funding will be replaced with a new approach that reinvests approximately 20% of current school-based ACE funding to re-focussed priority areas, such as literacy and numeracy. It is likely that there will be only a small number of schools receiving ACE funding for 2010 and beyond.
– Budget 2009 Fact Sheet [PDF, 42 Kb], available on the TEC Website
In essence, this decision will spell the end to over 100 years of night classes in New Zealand, and somewhat unsurprisingly the Community Learning Association through Schools organisation has organised a march tomorrow (Tuesday 4th August) in protest.
(unrelated protest photo via KiwiFrenzy On Location)
Join the march against the funding cuts to ACE, leaving from Wellington High School (from Gate 4 at 249 Taranaki Street) at 2.15pm. March down Taranaki Street, along Dixon and Victoria Streets, through Manners Street into Willis Street, down Lambton Quay, and arrive at Parliament around 3pm.
Wellington’s "ol’ faithful" taxi-cab company Combined (or Wellington Combined Taxis to give them their full title) have gone through a bit of a transformation in the last 12 months or so.
With the arrival on the scene of new "green" player Green Cabs (about whom we have written — and been witness to some controversy — in the past), I guess they were faced with the choice of adapting, or get added to the bottom of the endangered species list.
Happily (for them, us, consumer choice AND the planet that we share) they chose the former.
Read on after the jump to find out what they have been up to..
[EDIT: comments were inadvertently disabled on this post, but they are now enabled.]
According to a story in the Dom Post today, a Greater Wellington regional council report up for debate this week suggests closing the least-used stations in the region (Muri and Kenepuru stations on the Paraparaumu line). Council transport and access committee chairman Peter Glensor said the council and KiwiRail would decide early next year whether to close Muri station, and would consider the future of Kenepuru.
[Slideshow via hadleywood’s album of Wellington Railway Stations]
Apparently while passengers make about 16,000 trips on the Paraparaumu line each day, only 26 people use Muri during morning peak-travel times and 22 use Kenepuru. That’s not a lot, and its easy to understand the argument behind ditching them. However, in these times of climate and environmental concerns, it’s hard to get behind the (potential) closures.
[more after the jump]
The loveliness of one of New Zealand’s best-ever pop bands The Puddle is manifesting at Happy on Saturday night.
They’ve even got a video for a single off one of their new albums:
[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Q3hhurq5Fo]Support from Marineville. Happy downstairs cnr Vivan and Tory streets.
Just a quick reminder: Stockhausen’s Mantra! Sunday, 6 pm, Hunter Council Chamber, VUW Wellington.
There will also be a pre-concert talk by Robin Maconie at 5 pm in the Hunter Lecture Theatre. Tickets: $5/$10/free for students.
More here.
The Wellington Town Hall is rated amongst the top ten in the world for acoustics [citation needed], and this was a significant argument in the 1970s and 80s when the demolition of the Town Hall became a possibility. The organ in the town hall is 104 or so years old and is reknowned worldwide for being one of the few Edwardian organs in the world that has survived to the present day without alteration.
Once again Wellington City Council is running a free Organ Concert Series on Sunday afternoons featuring our City Organist, Douglas Mews, and other guests. After a spell in Europe checking out a myriad of baroque instruments and playing the occasional organ recital, Douglas says he’ll be full of inspiration and enthusiasm for his concerts on Sunday 9 August and 6 September.
[the details after the jump]
As Wellingtonians, we love dub, right? [citation needed] Sometimes to a fault, even? [citation needed] Anyone else remember that famous review a few years back in Pavement magazine of some local outfit that read:
More effing trumpet-dub from Wellington
Anyway if its to your taste, there’s some serious dub trickery coming down in the next couple of weeks…
[the details after the jump]
