Getting serious at St. Andrews
An unprecedented weekend double-header of delectable contemporary music (a.k.a. “modern classical”) is about to go down at St. Andrews on the Terrace, featuring two of New Zealand’s premier modern music ensembles.
The evening of Friday May 4 sees Auckland’s 175 East in The Sleep of Reason…, a concert featuring newly commissioned works by Phil Dadson and Ross Harris, and the world premiere of Aaron Cassidy’s solo soprano sax lung-twister asphyxia.
Then on Saturday night Wellington’s Stroma present Gnarly Buttons, described as a “cornucopia of contemporary clarinettists”.
This is going to be superb. Programme details after the jump.
Let Me Lose My Mind Gratefully
Hold onto your hat and get ready for one of the most over-the-top rock n’ roll bands of all time.
Hailing from Japan, the King Brothers (Myspace page here) make it their business to somehow mash-up the elements of every vital era of rock n’ roll music and then utterly demolish it. They approximate the sound of the Germs backing Howlin’ Wolf — with his hand caught in a garbage disposal unit.
A Mighty Mighty Mighty Weekend
Not only is The Mighty Mighty one of our favourite bars, what with its endearingly gauché fit out and entertainingly gauché barstaff and wot-not, but this weekend they host two very exciting (and very different!) gigs.
Mëstar are touring their recent album Shut The Squizwot Factories Down and on Friday night (the 20th) they play at Mighty Mighty with Hot Swiss Mistress:
(Sorry for the stink photo of the gig poster but it was the best I could do with my phone-camera on the way to work this morning.)
And then, on Saturday night (the 21st), at the starting time of 9pm is the avant-punk theatrics of Mr. Sterile Assembly, with Xenu and Thee Strapons:
Alt.country at the Bathhouse
American alt.country legends Richard Buckner and Edith Frost are playing together at the San Francisco Bathhouse on Wednesday night.
There are three kinds of American folk artist: those who sit, contented, on a back porch contemplating America’s landscape and ways; those for whom its landscape and ways are something to stand against or move boldly through; and those whose America is a shadowy, impressionistic place that moves inside of them. This [latter] is the area that the sombre-voiced Richard Buckner has been exploring since 1984 –(Sylvie Simmons; The Guardian, 2004)
Beautiful Mash
We all know that in Wellington, everyone and their dogs are already busy making films of some description already, but for any aspiring film-makers not currently up to their eyeballs in digital video, here’s your chance. LOOP Recordings want you to make a video for Adi Dick’s song “Beautiful View”.
They’re providing you with nearly a Gigabyte of green-screen footage of the singer, then handing it over to you to mash it up with your own footage or animation to create your interpretation of the song. You have until the 20th of May.
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).
The Dead C are coming to town
I wouldn’t wanna put money on it or anything, but I’m pretty sure that the last time legendary NZ noise-rockers The Dead C (wikipedia) played in Wellington was when they supported Sonic Youth on their Dirty tour in 1993. And to be frank, with an utterly transcendant performance in the face of much tribulation, mopped the floor with them.
Now they’re playing at the City Gallery on Saturday night. It’s free. What the hell else do you need to know?
City Gallery Wellington is proud to present The Dead C. These noise/rock heroes who have most recently played in the UK at Thurston Moore’s All Tomorrow’s Parties festival will perform in the Gallery. Support from local band Thought Creature. Gallery opens at 7. Music starts 8. Be sure to make it to this unique performance.
Here’s a (reasonably famous) video of The Dead C on now-defunct Friday-nite music show Ground Zero in 1999, playing Sky (off what some claim to be their greatest album, Harsh 70s Reality) and talking about Suicide with the hosts:
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.
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.