Cos we ain’t not no hollaback girls

You know what sucks? Getting yelled at on the street (unless it’s someone yelling “Hey Wellingtonista, you’re awesome, come and have some free drinks in my bar if you like” in a non-threatening way. Please do that). So Hollaback! wants to do something about it. We’ve got your back!  Hollaback! is an international movement to end […]

Superstar DJ

Happy brings back its Vinyl Friday sessions for 2011. Our own Tom Ackroyd will be spinning his 12 inches with vim and vigour from 5.30pm (until 7.30). Here is a little information about Tom (and the other DJ on the night); “This week we have two incredibly exciting, cost-efficient DJs: GREG COBB was born in […]

K Records documentary & Mirah at Happy

A double dose from the influential and inspiring K Records out of Olympia, Washington. On Wednesday you get a chance to ‘bone up’ on this legendary label thanks to a screening of the 1999 doco: THE SHIELD AROUND THE K: THE STORY OF K RECORDS and on Thursday Mirah (one of K record’s brightest stars) […]

Sun Araw (US) w, Orchestra of Spheres Thursday at Happy

Another excellent show on Thursday, you can even make it after Flying Nun at City Gallery Wellington. SUN ARAW is the sound of the late-night party deepening to cosmic levels as you turn up the bass and fog up the place. Mantras emerge from voluminous reverb. Old-school Jamaican grooves roll deep with Afro-funk guitar. Shuddering […]

The Circuits of Happyness

At Happy tomorrow night you can hear three of New Zealand’s rising stars of minimalist electronic music:

  • Sam Hamilton
  • Angeline Chirnside aka Jane Austen
  • Nigel Wright

These artists are described in the media release as “wonderful and amazing; think the magnificent beauty of Rosy Parlane, Minit, and Rachel Shearer’s Lovely Midget project. Hell, think of the internationally reknowned Fennesz, Tim Hecker or Keith Fullerton Whitman, if you like.”

Happy bleepings

BleepThis Wednesday night at Happy, a diverse bunch of musicians will get together for a live collaborative performance called “Bleep”. They’ve all got one thing in common: they make music with machines.

And by “machines”, they don’t just mean computers. Sure, there’s the usual brace of laptops and MPCs, but the preliminary workshop also included an electric violin, an op-shop omnichord, electronic drums, analogue tape-delays, an ancient Casiotone and what looked like a genetically engineerd hybrid between a chinese stringed instrument and a mechanical typewriter. The resulting sounds ranged from delicate to frantic, but as this is an improvised collaboration, no-one (least of all us) will know quite what to expect.

Stories Told to Me by Girls, second season

Those of you who missed out on the first season of Julie Hill’s play ‘Stories Told to Me by Girls‘ should head down to Happy tonight or tomorrow (or yesterday or the day before that, if you have the technology), to catch a special return season. Laurie Atkinson’s review in the Dom is suitably gushing… […]