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