Crocodiles

The dark side of the Cal­i­for­nia sun is about to shine on us as San Diego duo Croc­o­diles begin a series of shows in NZ this week– kick­ing off at SFBH this Wednes­day Decem­ber 2nd with sup­port from Welling­ton swamp-dis­co leg­ends Thought Crea­ture.

For the unini­ti­at­ed, Croc­o­diles songs began sling­ing across the Inter­webs after No Age named the band’s song “Neon Jesus” as one of their Top Ten shred­ders of 2008. Unprompt­ed, the for­ward-think­ing Fad­er Blog post­ed two more stun­ner tracks, ’I Wan­na Kill’ and ’Sum­mer of Hate’. The influ­en­tial Stere­ogum named them “Band to Watch” and described them as “The Vel­vet Under­ground swing­ing Jesus and Mary Chain.”

Croc­o­diles’ home­town San Diego is a sleepy mil­i­tary town, stuck between Tijua­na and the bright lights of Los Ange­les, but it isn’t Surf City, USA. Hells Angels, jocks, drug casu­al­ties, and the med­icat­ed rich pop­u­late the beach­es, and while war­planes rum­ble in and out of the naval base. The kids here are bored. Charles Row­ell and Bran­don Welchez played in var­i­ous bands (includ­ing The Plot to Blow Up The Eif­fel Tow­er who played some mem­o­rable shows here in 2005) before the duo struck out on their own as Croc­o­diles. They quick­ly self-released a 7″ sin­gle and used it as an excuse to escape their tarpit home­town. Croc­o­diles album ’Sum­mer of Hate’ is born of the alien­ation and frus­tra­tion fuelling their ini­tial pair­ing.

Pre­sales for this show are a ridonku­lous $23 for an inter­na­tion­al act, avail­able from our friends at Good as Gold, Real Groovy and undertheradar.co.nz. But act now and you shall receive a dou­ble pass for the even more ridonku­lous price of free!

The Verlaines and the VBC!

Woo hoo — this is going to be a big one.

Pre­sales are avail­able now for The Ver­laines — live in Welling­ton at SFBH on Wednes­day Decem­ber 9 (which just hap­pens to be my birth­day — thanks guys!)

Hav­ing just released a new album ‘Cor­po­rate Moron­ic’, don’t miss the chance to wit­ness one of the great Fly­ing Nun bands, who haven’t played here for ages!

It’s also the VBC Christ­mas par­ty!  

Pre­sales $20, avail­able now from Real Groovy, Under the Radar + the VBC.

 

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.

Kia Ora

Hel­lo dear read­ers of the Welling­ton­ista!  This is just a quick note to say hel­lo to you all, as I have recent­ly been enveloped into the fold (?) and will now be inform­ing you all of upcom­ing events I think are worth your time via this here blog.

A lit­tle about me – I work for The San Fran­cis­co Bath House, and also pro­mote oth­er shows across this fair city (i.e. at oth­er bars). Usu­al­ly I have a good deal of insid­er info regard­ing tick­et sales, sup­port bands, rumors of upcom­ing acts and gos­sip in the form of unusu­al rid­er requests and sto­ries of bad behav­iour and debauch­ery that inevitably go down when peo­ple + music + liquor come togeth­er. All to share with you!

There are a cou­ple of gigs need­ing spe­cial men­tion com­ing up, but I will post on those sep­a­rate­ly soon…

Nice to ‘meet’ you all, and thanks to the Welling­ton­ista team for the warm wel­come.

 

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.

Mighty Mighty Crack

Remind me nev­er to sit on the stools at Mighty Mighty again with­out wip­ing down the seat first.

Lightning Bolt are here! Tomorrow night!

Some­body just asked me what Light­en­ing Bolt are like.

I said: take the White Stripes and feed them, force them through the eye of a nee­dle which is made frmo some­thing which looks like Cream’s farewell live gig Albert Hall 1969, push them all the way through to the oth­er side in a place where every­thing’s in the red and the sound becomes an envelop­ing 4‑dimensional bear hug choke-hold stran­gle dead­ly embrace, where the stone inveades yr bone and

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[video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Hcw1C1AzQI]

Wednes­day 25th Novem­ber in the mid­dle of the floor at San Fran­cis­co Bath­house… tick­ets avail­able from Slow Boat Records and Under The Radar… updates and more info from Gales­burg.