The Wellingtonista

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February 11, 2009

24 Hour Arty People

So you can’t sleep right?  If the Fringe fes­ti­val has left you all over stim­u­lat­ed and you are in need of night time nov­el­ty may I sug­gest that you head to the Wat­sui tonight for the start of a fre­net­ic 24 hour art gum­ball ral­ly around Welling­ton.  Welsh artist Bed­wyr Williams is going to give us his spin on the ONE DAY SCULPTURE series by tak­ing a used sta­tion wag­on around 24 loca­tions in 24 hours, aim­ing to stack up 24 works on the roof rack by  mid­night tomor­row.

Planned itin­er­ary after the jump

kowhai
Uncategorised
1 Comment
February 10, 2009

Winds of Change

Turbine at DownstageDown­stage opens its doors for the first time this sum­mer with three new shows open­ing in less than a week!

This time last year Tim Spite’s SEEyD Com­pa­ny thrilled audi­ences with the paua poach­ing action adven­ture Paua (net­ting Spite the Chap­man Tripp Direc­tor of the Year Award in the process). Now they’re back with a re-work­ing of ear­li­er suc­cess Tur­bine, which blew peo­ple away at BATS in 2006: An envi­ron­men­tal­ly con­scious fam­i­ly have their prin­ci­ples test­ed when a pow­er com­pa­ny wants to build a wind farm in their ‘back yard’.

Tur­bine opens offi­cial­ly on Fri­day but ear­ly birds (or the price sen­si­tive) can see pre­views on Wednes­day or Thurs­day night for only $20.

Per­cus­sion-mon­sters Strike are back for one night only on Sun­day, play­ing favourites and show­cas­ing tracks from their forth­com­ing CD. Guests Lisa Tom­lins (The Eggs) and Mana (Rhom­bus) col­lab­o­rate and DJ Samu adds breaks. Strike Soundsys­tem is on Sun­day at 8.00pm.

Dan
Uncategorised
1 Comment
April 16, 2008

Who Watches the Watchmen? WE DO!

Super­hero comics fans should press their best uni­tards this week in prepa­ra­tion for Armaged­don, and like­wise indie and under­ground comics fans should pull out their copies of Hicksville for sign­ing, as the NZ Comix Week­end is set­ting up shop on the 19th-20th April at the South­ern Cross, Graph­ic and Spacething.
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There are talks, jams, stalls, sem­i­nars and exhi­bi­tions — pro­vid­ing a home­grown coun­ter­point to the big bud­get pulp cul­ture-fest over at the TSB Are­na (although some of the Comix Week­end artists are also rep­re­sent­ed at Armaged­don)
Details and links after the jump…

mitch
Uncategorised
5 Comments
February 27, 2008

Belonging somewhere

Open­ing tomor­row night at the Film Archive — Welling­ton mul­ti-media artist Sarah Jane Par­ton presents her wacky take on the future…

Well known for her beguil­ing video and instal­la­tion work (and love of lycra leo­tards) Par­ton has assem­bled a cast and crew of Welling­ton’s finest to cre­ate a sci-fi musi­cal odyssey star­ring Toi Whakaari grad­u­ates Anto­nia Bale, Anja Tate-Man­ning (Chap­man-Tripp award win­ner), and Jade Daniels, along­side the­atre vet­er­an Rose Beauchamp, dancer Sam Lahood and a bevy of young and tal­ent­ed chil­dren.

With music per­formed by a live band fea­tur­ing the mem­bers of Cas­sette under the musi­cal direc­tion of Parton’s part­ner Luke Buda (Phoenix Foun­da­tion), front­ed by the per­pet­u­al­ly hilar­i­ous Jo Ran­der­son, the show con­tains a rea­son­able degree of cyn­i­cism, off­set by moments of absur­di­ty and humour.

In this cross-genre work, ide­o­log­i­cal melt­down is immi­nent, the rev­o­lu­tion is doomed long before it begins and audi­ence mem­bers are advised to bring a blan­ket.

PERFORMANCE DETAILS
Thurs­day 28, Fri­day 29 Feb­ru­ary and Sat­ur­day 1 March at 7pm
at The Film Archive, cnr Tarana­ki and Ghuznee Streets

Tick­ets:
Full Price — $15,
Con­ces­sion — $13,
Fringe Addict — $12

Read Bran­na­van Gnan­lingam’s great inter­view about the show
here

Anna
Events / Film
0 Comment
February 22, 2008

Fly on the wall

Greet­ings: it’s The Masked Barfly here, and I’ve been keep­ing my com­pound eyes peeled for drinky sto­ries to keep you informed, enter­tained and ine­bri­at­ed. With the Fest about to kick off, and the Fringe well under way, it’s going to be a busy time out on the town for a while.

Bars near the Fowl-house and Town Hall are like­ly to be hum­ming, and while I don’t expect the luvvies and K‑block matrons to be hit­ting Blend or Down­town Local (now, that would be a scene to see!), cafes like Felix, Finc and The Lido will be crammed with eth­i­cal­ly-faux furs and rent­ed tux­es. Ponci­er bars such as St Johns will be tak­en over for spon­sors’ drinks, such as for tonight’s open­ing Ornette Cole­man, though I won­der what most of the bray­ing suits would make of the squawk­ing sax?

While there’s nowhere brand-new to take advan­tage of the free-spend­ing boomers, the fly is notic­ing a buzz build­ing around the Courte­nay Place and Blair St area, and is get­ting quite excit­ed. No, not over The Tem­per­ance (while any barfly can appre­ci­ate the iron­ic moniker, three floors of tanked-up boof­heads is not my idea of fun), but over a cou­ple of high­ly-antic­i­pat­ed and long-rumoured open­ings. UU (did any­one ever call it that?) has been closed for ren­o­va­tions, and a sneaky peak revealed the mir­rors giv­ing way to brick. That, com­bined with the appear­ance of bull­fight­ing posters in the win­dow, has me won­der­ing: could this be a prop­er tapas bar at last. And as for what’s hap­pen­ing in Blair St … well, my mandibles are sealed.

The Masked Barfly
Food & Drink
6 Comments
February 21, 2008

Cinephilia: Opening This Week

Rescue Dawn posterIn 1998 Wern­er Her­zog made an acclaimed doc­u­men­tary called Lit­tle Dieter Needs to Fly about Ger­man-born Viet­nam hero Dieter Den­gler and his adven­tures as a US Navy pilot. He obvi­ous­ly had a big con­nec­tion to that sto­ry as he has now gone back and made a fea­ture about the most amaz­ing chap­ter of Dengler’s life: the escape from a jun­gle-bound Viet Cong prison camp after 6 months of near star­va­tion. The Dark Knight’s Chris­t­ian Bale stars. Rial­to exclu­sive.

Jack Nichol­son and Mor­gan Free­man star togeth­er as two old men on their last legs in The Buck­et List, direct­ed by Rob Rein­er. It opens today at Read­ings, Empire, Light­house Petone and Pent­house. Also, from the com­mer­cial depart­ment is tele­port­ing adven­ture Jumper star­ring Hay­den Chris­tensen and Samuel L. Jack­son. Rumours that the pro­posed sequels to Jumper will be called Sweater and Pullover are sim­ply reck­less. Read­ings, Empire, Regent-on-Man­ners.

[The rest of this week’s new releas­es after the jump]

Dan
Film
4 Comments
February 8, 2008

A lovely trim

It’s upon us, Fringe Fes­ti­val time.

click to add titlefringe logo

I always love this time of year becuase you nev­er quite know what might be hap­pen­ing around the cor­ner. But you do know it’s a cel­e­bra­tion of cre­ativ­i­ty that’s tru­ly unique to our love­ly Welling­ton.

Dri­ving home today i saw art instal­la­tions being installed, and i can’t wait to go vis­it them tomor­row

My cell­phone sent ‘SECRET’ to 2343 along with my name and email so i could find out more about the Foot­note Plus fuse secret pro­duc­tion.
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My ears and eyes are prepar­ing for a 3D film plus octo­phon­ic sound at the Para­mount cour­tesy of Spar­ta­cusR.

Do let us know what you’re look­ing for­ward to over the next few days and weeks!

Sue Tyler
Festival
2 Comments
January 28, 2008

Bars and Bites

This is in the vein of The Welling­ton­ista Bar Fly-les, but I thought I’d give it anoth­er name since it’s about food & cof­fee as well as drink.

  • Have I been unob­ser­vant, or has Off­beat Orig­i­nals only just start­ed offer­ing lamb as an option in their famous burg­ers? And tape­nade as an accom­pa­ni­ment?! [insert drool­ing nois­es here]
  • The Bue­na Vista Social Club seems to have been suc­cess­ful as a cer­tain may­oral cam­paign. It has closed (rather incon­ve­nient­ly for cer­tain fringe shows), though it is appar­ent­ly due to reopen as a gay bar called S&M. No com­ment.
  • If you’ve been putting off enjoy­ing Sim­ply Paris’ excel­lent cas­soulet, patis­serie, Mer­guez frites baguettes or pain per­du by their bizarre choice of “Nespres­so” in place of cof­fee, then rejoice! for they now have a prop­er espres­so machine and Orb cof­fee. You’ll still have to put up with the twee décor and occa­sion­al­ly slow ser­vice, though the more than occa­sion­al hot­ness of their staff should make up for the lat­ter.
  • For­give me for shout­ing, but … TIKI TIKI TIKI! It’s not quite the prop­er Tiki Bar that the Welling­ton­ista have long been gag­ging for, but Mat­ter­horn are hav­ing a Tiki Bar week­end this week­end, com­plete with vin­tage tiki mugs, dry ice, spe­cial cock­tails and sil­ly hats.
Tom
Food & Drink
3 Comments
May 19, 2007

Wellington Music Month 6: a shameful secret.

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at PhotobucketSo alone among the Welling­ton­ista, I have a ter­ri­ble secret: apart from an ear­ly album from the Black Seeds, I have no cur­rent Welling­ton Music in my col­lec­tion.

None.

Not even Fat Fred­dy’s Drop.

In my major peri­od of buy­ing music, Welling­ton music for me was a bit fringe and wacky, and worst of all, not on Fly­ing Nun. There were occa­sion­al songs that caught my atten­tion: Bill Direen & the Bilders’ Do the Alli­ga­tor; that amus­ing Ele­phunk song; one or two songs from the Six Volts… and that’s about it. Welling­ton was full of arty jazzy stuff that frankly I despised.

Time has moved on — about 20 years in fact — and some­how Welling­ton’s musi­cal renais­sance has passed me by. This is not good.

So I need help!

What are the top five albums by Welling­ton bands in the last five years? Answers please: I must remove the shame­ful stain of my musi­cal igno­rance!

Alan
Music
21 Comments
May 17, 2007

Wellington Music Month 4: Gettin’ Serious

Some favourites:

The Avengers
For a time in the late six­ties The Avengers were one of the high­est pro­file rock bands on the New Zealand scene. Their song Water­pipe is one of the great­est songs to ever glo­ri­fy the joys of using water in your bong. The 1968 debut LP Elec­tric Record­ing has pos­si­bly my favourite album cov­er art ever — look how cool they are — as well as being a damn good record. They went to try their luck in Aus­tralia and broke up in ’69.

Bail­ter Space
Look — we have to let Christchurch have The Gor­dons, and The Skep­tics were undoubt­ed­ly from Palmer­ston North, but I’m going to have to insist despite them begin­ning in Christchurch and end­ing up in New York, that Welling­ton be allowed to claim shoe-gazey atmos­pher­ic noise rock­ers Bail­ter Space as its own. They were an incred­i­ble live band, known for being one of the loud­est of their era. Their gigs were few and far between, and many peo­ple still speak in hushed, rev­er­en­tial tones about the week in 1993 when there were TWO Bail­ter Space gigs. And their albums still stand up as being some of the best music to ever come out of New Zealand.

Birchville Cat Motel
a.k.a. Camp­bell Kneale. As Wikipedia sez,

although large­ly unknown in his home coun­try, Kneale has toured many times through­out Asia, Amer­i­ca, Europe, and Aus­tralia.

Daft name, and yet this one-man tran­cen­den­tal drone/noise act is sure­ly the clos­est thing Welling­ton and New Zealand has ever had to a glob­al music super­star.

Eight more, after this…

stephen clover
Music
3 Comments