New­town DIY darlings, zin­esters and the tini­est music ven­ue in town, Spaceth­ing, have launched their web­site. The site has pho­tos, an events cal­en­dar, DIY and zine‑y links and details of their retail, pub­lish­ing and music dis­tro busi­ness arms and of course the lend­ing lib­rary. And pan­das. And a free tet­ris game!

In a nice loc­al segue, the pic­ture to your right is taken at a Knife Fight single release held in Spaceth­ing’s teeny back room – with dan­cers in the alley­way – and the oth­er item I have to bring to your atten­tion is the Stabs play­ing at the Adelaide tonight. The Adelaide is, of course, across the road from Spaceth­ing; and tonight’s loc­al sup­port is none oth­er than Knife Fight, play­ing their second-to-last show before they leave town. The Stabs recently played Aus­trali­a’s inaug­ur­al All Tomor­row’s Parties (ATP) fest­ivals, at the invit­a­tion of cur­at­ors Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. The Mel­bournite Stabs have brought their cityside pals The Twerps with them to play tonight’s gig too – and some of you might recog­nise a Twerp as one of our own ex-pats, formerly a Bat­rider. Small world. 

Spaceth­ing: 171 Adelaide Rd, New­town : spacething.co.nz

The Stabs, The Twerps and Knife Fight: 9pm Thursday 5th at the Adelaide, 114 Adelaide Rd, New­town

You don’t have to be a train­spot­ter or J‑line com­muter to be inter­ested in the redevel­op­ment of the John­son­ville Line (though it undoubtedly helps). In any case, you should­n’t miss your one and only oppor­tun­ity tomor­row to walk the tracks between Crofton Downs sta­tion and the Wadestown cross­ing loop. High­lights include spec­tac­u­lar views of the gorge and a couple of spooky tun­nels to explore.

For a sneak peek, here’s a video of the jour­ney, com­plete with alarm­ing squeaks and rattles and run­ning com­ment­ary by an over­ex­cited tod­dler, taken just before renov­a­tions began in earn­est.

Clips of the rest of the trip are view­able over on You­Tube, and you might also be inter­ested in some pho­tos of pro­gress pos­ted over at Sky­scra­per­City.

You will of course remem­ber how last year the Phoenix Found­a­tion’s gig in Frank Kitts Park was voted Best Live Per­form­ance at the TAWAs? Well this year, the Starry Nights con­cert on Feb­ru­ary 19 (dur­ing Web­stock!) will fea­ture the mag­ni­fic­ant Fur Patrol, and of course since Miss Rat­pony is such a fan, we have this gif as a gift for you: 

… but Fringe ’09 is just a week away, and there’s a lot to get excited about. We may have missed out on the chance to see some Aris­to­phanes under the wharves, but here’s a couple of oth­er things that we have our eyes on.

Lies and Oth­er Stor­ies Before Bed had a sneak peak/fundraiser event at Mighty Mighty last week, and it looks to be a riot. It will com­bine film and anim­a­tion with live per­form­ance in the cozy sur­rounds of the South­ern Cross, and with a plot that involves scary hal­lu­cin­at­ory chil­dren, swing­ers’ parties and a European seductress it seems like just the sort of real­ist­ic kit­chen-sink drama that we can all relate to. Or maybe that’s just me.

The music­al line-up looks strong this year, too, and there are plenty of acts worth sal­iv­at­ing over, but … oh my cir­cuits: We Are The Robots! Dis­astera­dio and TVDisKo will be famil­i­ar to many of us, but when you add in Hamilton’s most cha­ris­mat­ic exports, The Trons, you know it’ll be a night of mech­an­ic­al may­hem to savour. More info and You­Tu­bu­lar good­ness over on Mukuna. I’m not nor­mally a fan of gar­age rock, but when the band looks as if it’s actu­ally been built in a gar­age, that’s anoth­er story.

Update: there’s been a slight change of line-up for We Are The Robots, with Heat Like Me repla­cing Dis­astera­dio.

The Domin­ion Post ran an piece yes­ter­day entitled Wel­ling­ton Cup Day fash­ion win­ner dis­qual­i­fied

He was judged the best dressed man on Wel­ling­ton Cup Day, but now a stew­ards’ inquiry has put Johnny God­inet back with the also-rans.

The Wel­ling­ton gym own­er, who has links to chief cup day spon­sor Terry Serepisos, was stripped of the title of Rem­brandt Man of the Car­ni­val after it was found he failed to enter the event prop­erly.

Heav­ens to Betsy! He was­n’t wear­ing a hat or a tie! The com­ments on Stuff are divided on his out­fit, but the Fly is merely sur­prised to note that it appears that it is 1993 and Trillini is now open for busi­ness again…

 via Spleen…

I was on the Mt Vic bus yes­ter­day after­noon, and there were two very loud young men in the back seat behind me.

“Lin­coln was gay you know.”

“No way.”

“Yeah, he fucked men bro.”

“How do you know?”

“It’s know­ledge, bro.”

If you’re already on Twit­ter, we ima­gine that you already know that the Wel­ling­tonista has a twit­ter stream.

Well now like a moth to a flame, the Masked Bar­fly has decided to get in on the action with its own brand of insider gos­sip. If that’s your thing, fol­low the fly!

This week­end Auck­landers Los Hor­ies vis­it Wel­ling­ton (via ten­a­cious teeny Wan­ganui ven­ue the Eye of Night) to cel­eb­rate the release of their debut long-play­er What’s the Time!?

The title comes from drum­mer Kim’s pen­chant for wan­der­ing out from behind the kit – often tak­ing parts of it with him – to eye­ball the crowd and demand the same ques­tion of them; the cor­rect crowd response being, of course, “It’s Hor­ie time!!”.

They’re bring­ing Palmy’s tract­or enthu­si­ast and house party king Boss Christ, and are joined by tough-talk­ing loc­als Knife Fight – 2/3rds of whom relo­cate to Mel­bourne in March, so catch them while you can.

Sat­urday 31st Janu­ary

The Adelaide, Adelaide Rd, New­town