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