Extravaganza of Progressive Post-Rock
Post-rock is a done-to-death description but as a semaphore of intent it still serves a certain purpose. First coined by music-journo Simon Reynolds as a term to describe progressive music “using rock instrumentation for non-rock purposes, using guitars as facilitators of timbre and textures rather than riffs and power chords”, its use was rapidly spread during the 90s by breathless writers suddenly overwhelmed by seemingly-infinite possible music-futures. Reynolds further expounded:
perhaps the really provocative area for future development lies… in cyborg rock; not the wholehearted embrace of Techno’s methodology, but some kind of interface between real time, hands-on playing and the use of digital effects and enhancement.
… which in itself has turned out to be suitably ambitious, as in general attempts at an amalgam of real-time instrumentation and digital frippery have turned out to be a big horrible mess (with notable exceptions, of course).
Rusticity
Following the success of the recent Wellington Flickr Group’s exhibition at the Paramount, cames yet more photographic goodness from a Wellington flickr-ite legend A Different Perspective (aka Jim Henderson).
He’s putting on an exhibition of his work down at Island Bay’s The Bach café, from the 1st to the 30th of April.
To get a feel for what you might be seeing, check out his awesome flickr photostream here.
Where we’ll be
If you’re trying to stalk the Wellingtonista, and/or find something to do this weekend, here are our hot tips:
- The City Art Gallery tonight because Luke Buda is adorable and Aspen has a good track record
- The Aro Valley Fair. Perhaps you can find out for me why it seems that everyone in Aro owns a dog and/or a baby.
- Trying to find the Wellingtonista on our big night out on Saturday – it would be cheating to tell you where we’ll be, but there may be clues in these posts here.
- If the poster’s this good the Voom and The Sneaks gig should be good as well. Voom used to be the laziest band in NZ – their songs are so effortlessly pop perfection – but it seems they’ve finally got their act together after many line-up scandals.
- The Festival Italia on Sunday. Perhaps you could adopt a bad accent and try the “Do you have any Italian in you? Do you want some?” line you neglected to use on St. Patrick’s Day.
A Friday night and a Saturday morning
Down at the City Gallery on Friday night they are running another one of their Late Night Sessions, where you get to cruise around the big exhibition (this time it’s the biennial Prospect show) in relative peace and listen to lovely live music while you do so. And all for free.
City Gallery’s popular late night Friday returns. Wander through Telecom Prospect 2007: New Art New Zealand to a backdrop of independent and electronic sounds by local performers. Featuring Peneloping, Tc Wedde with Luke Buda, and Aspen.
The lovely Luke Buda is of course in The Phoenix Foundation, as is (the equally lovely) Tc Wedde. Aspen is also lovely and also known as Signer, and is one half of Over the Atlantic and one half of Skallander. And the “medium-core girl-boy plinkpop!” Peneloping also have a very good reputation as a live act. Having experienced Late Night Sessions many times before – from the point of view both of a performer and a patron – I can heartily recommend this event.
Cuba Street Carnival Feedback
Did you know that the Council supported the carnival?
Do you think they should support the carnival?
Got 2 minutes to answer those & a few other questions right here?
Supplementary question:
Are you offended by nudity at carnivals? If no, were you not outside Floriditas with half the Wellingtonista?
Then go here… and if that’s your wife/girlfriend/mother/daughter wrapped around that pole.…
Well, way to go.
Plenty to wine about
There comes a time in everyone’s life when they feel the need to leave Wellington, even if it’s just for one day. No really, it happens! And a particularly good day to get out of town, if you don’t like the colour green, or potatoes, or Guiness or drunken fake-Irish louts, would be this Saturday. So where to go to get away? How about a wine festival – after we all know, that wine drinkers are a better class of people than beer drinkers – somewhere out of town but still nearby?
Well it just so happens that March 17 is your lucky day, with not one but two festivals taking place nearby. There’s the Wairarapa Wines Harvest Festival in Gladstone (as well as the International Balloon Fiesta and the day before Round the Vines, and also the Great Wellington Wine and Food Festival in Paekakariki. So how do you choose which one to go to when they both cost $25 for an entrance fee? Take our quiz to find out.
On the ball
Get your mask ready: it’s time to party quasi-anonymously with friends and strangers at a Venetian Masquerade Ball. Champagne! Chandeliers! Canapes! Cleavage! (if the poster is anything to go by)
Stately Dransfield House in upper Willis Street will play the gracious host for “Ballo di Sciocco” on the 31st of March. The venue and the imagery may me old-fashioned, but the ball itself must be Generation Next, since it has a myspace page. Looking at the organisers’ page and list of friends, I get the feeling this will be no ordinary ball.
Tickets $120 from Madmat on 027 290 3591.
St Michael’s & Kelburn Village Fair – March 10 from 10am
The St Michael’s & Kelburn Village Fair is on tomorrow at 10am.
This will be the first one I’ve managed to catch, so I can’t regale you with tales of past experiences, but I can promise you stalls, home baking, junk/treasure, and probably an awful lot of very out of date 2nd hand university text books.
There may also be fire eaters, dancing, dancing girls, dancing bears, acrobats & tightrope walkers. I dunno, but I’m hoping.
And of course, the very attractive residents of Kelburn.
And her owner.
Hi, and Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma
Hi. I’m new here. Usually I burble sporadically and semi-coherently on Drinks-After-Work; I’m looking forward to the challenge of stepping up to the plate and making sense most of the time.
Posters for this went up last night (sorry for the stink image – I can’t find anything on the web so far):
Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma is the pioneer of the Kashmiri santoor (Indian hammered dulcimer) and was (heh) instrumental in it’s acceptance into the hallowed pantheon of Indian classical music (read about it). At 69 he is the acknowledged master of santoor; indeed he is virtually synonymous with it. Using a 100-string santoor in chromatic arrangement Sharma creates complex webs of beautiful, ethereal, shimmering sound, mounting improvisation within improvisation within the raga form, climaxing in furious blowouts with fiery tabla virtuosos and frenzied, ecstatic glissando.
He’s real good. His album Sampradaya is one of my favourite Indian classical recordings of all time. And with his debut in 1997 (also on santoor), Sharma’s son and disciple Rahul became the third part of an exceptional pan-generational santoor triumvirate. Both Sharma’s are playing at St Mary of the Angels on Wednesday the 14th of March – presumably on their way to WOMAD – with Yogesh Samsi on the tabla. They will play in an exciting Jugalbhansdi style. Bookings from Ticketek.
Party Like It’s 1971 presents: Motorik
A DJ-event at The Mighty Mighty in Cuba Mall, featuring DJ Kapitan Krautrock and DJ Name playing progressive German music from the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s…
This event is part of the Berlin Bonanza at The Mighty Mighty in March.