Dancehall Cinema

For those of you more inclined towards UK roots reg­gae cul­ture than euro-beats, there’s a little some­thing for you at the Film Archive this Thursday 7th.

The Archive, in col­lab­or­a­tion with NiceUp – loc­al reg­gae for­um and dance­hall spe­cial­ists – present the premiere Aus­tralasi­an screen­ing of Music­ally Mad, a doco that exam­ines sound sys­tem cul­ture and the UK roots reg­gae scene, inter­view­ing some of the shin­ing lights of the com­munity, past and present, and provid­ing an his­tor­ic­al con­text for the Carib­bean-influ­enced music­al cul­ture. The film is brand spank­ing new and Nice Up are keen to show it off to the loc­al scene, so much so that they (and their spon­sors) invite you to come down early, at 6pm, to the Archive – on the corner of Ghuznee and Tarana­ki Sts – for food, drink and social­ising pri­or to the movie screen­ing at 7pm. Read more here.

Tick­ets are on sale now from the NZ Film Archive for $8/$6 con­ces­sion, as well as avail­able on the night.

La Musique Automatique – avec une Tigre!

If you like your music multi-lin­gual then boy are you in for a treat or, indeed, un petit plaisir next week when Ber­lin-based duo Ste­reo Total hit town on Sat­urday 16th. I fell in love with the kooky elec­tro-gar­age rock-à-billy pop­stars a few years ago when I dis­covered an album of theirs that soun­ded like the B52s mixed with Peaches with a couple of Sug­ar­cubes stirred in. Their “homemade” iron­ic pop com­bines French chan­son with Ger­man elec­tronika, with a euro-lin­guist­ic twist, so that on one album you get a song that croons “j’aime l’amour à trois” then a few songs later the same track pops up declar­ing “I love love with the three of us”! You can listen to some of their new songs on their Myspace page and buy tick­ets for $30+bf at Slow­boat (Cuba St) for next week’s gig at the San Fran Bath­house.

AND they’re bring­ing JD Sampson, one-third of fem­in­ist nu-york-punk-icons Le Tigre with them, fresh from her MEN DJ/remix pro­ject and a vis­it to NZ for the Big Day Out ’08 with Peaches and Herm.

ALLONS‑Y!

Drawing Parallels

On 6th August a group draw­ing show is open­ing at ROAR! Gal­lery.

The show fea­tures work from artist in res­id­ence Yelena Bar­b­a­lich, as well as 75 oth­er artists.

(full list after the jump)…

Get out of our dreams, and into our bar

El Horno on Cour­tenay Place might suck the big kumara as far as a bar exper­i­ence might go…

… but… (more after the jump)…

Keep your sugar bowl full next month

Wellington zine artist makes home-made history

Don’t move house, be sure to feed hungry ghosts and keep your sug­ar bowl full next month. August is the month of the Ghost Fest­iv­al (15 August) or ‘Chinese Hal­loween’ – the time when spir­its of the dead vis­it the liv­ing.

Chinese fam­il­ies observe this date through Bai Shan, which involves light­ing incense, burn­ing joss papers and pre­par­ing a ban­quet to share with ancest­ors. Such cus­toms have long been observed since the Chinese first arrived in New Zea­l­and nearly a cen­tury and a half ago. They also fea­ture in an upcom­ing exhib­i­tion by loc­al artist Kerry Ann Lee – Home Made: Pic­tur­ing Chinese Set­tle­ment in New Zea­l­and, which opens on 31 July at Toi Pōneke Gal­lery.

Read more after the jump…

Pecha Kucha Night Wellington #03

The third Wel­ling­ton Pecha Kucha Night is upon us! It’s hap­pen­ing Wed 30 July at the City Gal­lery. Doors open at 7pm, the event starts at 8.20, and it’s $7 admis­sion.

A Pecha Kucha night involves a num­ber of presenters, usu­ally from the design, archi­tec­ture, pho­to­graphy, art and cre­at­ive fields, who present a slideshow of 20 images and speak for 20 seconds per image.

After the jump, check out the stel­lar line-up of people who’ll be speak­ing on the night.

Civic pride

It may not be Wel­ling­tonista Awards sea­son just yet, but here’s anoth­er chance to put in a plug for your favour­ite things in the Wel­ling­ton built envir­on­ment. The Wel­ling­ton Civic Trust Awards are com­ing up, and the trust wants your nom­in­a­tions for the best recent con­tri­bu­tions in the fol­low­ing fields:

• Build­ing
• Her­it­age
• Envir­on­ment­al
• Pub­lic Space
• Street Art

Nnom­in­a­tions close on the 18th of August, and nom­in­ated pro­jects must have been com­pleted since the pre­vi­ous awards in 2005. There’s also a sep­ar­ate vot­ing form for best new sculp­ture, and if the sculp­ture that does it for you isn’t on that list, you could always nom­in­ate it in the Street Art cat­egory.

As well as nom­in­at­ing your favour­ites, feel free to com­ment here and share your rants and raves.

Talking ’bout the weather

Appar­ently all hell is break­ing loose in the Hutt: rumours of heavy rain warn­ings abound, and mes­sages are going around offices advising people liv­ing in East­bourne to head home NOW. Cer­tainly the radar shows some nasty stuff around, the res­ult of the south­erly mak­ing its way north­wards, and the rain­fall sensors and stream flows are start­ing to pick up. If any­thing dra­mat­ic starts to hap­pen, do let us all know!

Rare treat for Wellington

I’m com­pletely gobsmacked. Just got a little sneak live pre­view of the one and only CW Stone­k­ing (Myspace) who plays the Mighty Mighty tonight.

I advise you to fight your way to the door. Wel­ling­ton’s own Slim Chants will be kick­ing things off from 9pm and Palmy’s how­ing wolf man Boss Christ will take things into the night.….. but this CW Stone­k­ing.

I think I’m in love.

Wise old man says: Self Service China

(actu­ally I’m not sure that he does, but that’s anoth­er story.)

The guy at the CHINA out­let in the Cour­tenay Cent­ral com­plex has twice claimed to me that his BBQ pork is the best in town.

The res­ults after the jump!