It is a really nice portrait. Well not quite a portrait. You know what? I’d like to recreate this image someday with a friend. I think it is very cool.
It was posted on fffound which is an image sharing site. So sorry, I have no idea where to credit this to.
Bang Bang Eche came back to stay for around a week, give or take a few days of them disappearing to play some other shows around the Greater LDN.
So they arrived on Friday while I was at work… I asked T’Nealle to bring my camera to Kokos where they were playing.
Later on I found they took a few snaps with the camera before delivering it.
This is Sheridan, their tour manager. He has a good blog which chronicles their tour across Europe.
http://thegospelaccordingtopapafox.blogspot.com/
Koko’s is very red. You can’t tell how red in these pictures.
After the sound check we went wandering round the backstage area of Koko’s. It was a crazy maze of doors and stairs. The Bang Bang Eche dressing room was at the top of the longest set of stairs
It was pretty quiet early on, Koko is such a massive venue I guess it would have been hard to tell how many people were there, but by the time Polka Party and BBE took the stage things were pretty busy.
Liz and Maria were in the crowd. Meg had decided not to stay in honour of being able to catch the last tube home.
Maria had a package for Charlie from Kim which had been sent to her house.
They spent a lot of time dancing with it in the crowd.
After a while, in my slightly vodka educed state, I suggested that the package didn’t seem breakable and we should just throw it on the stage so we didn’t have to carry it round.
After the show, we found Dan and Rory too, so we decided to drag our team of Kiwis backstage and have a little New Zealand appreciation party.
So I went to see one of the ‘Proms’ performances at the Royal Albert Hall on a sunny Sunday afternoon. It was pretty entertaining. They are recorded for BBC radio 3 and played on the TV in the evenings.
The one I went to was pretty abstract and weird. It was a piece made about anti-religion. The choir sung pretty weird sounds as opposed to words.
West Ken tube station. (I think)
So I have a new job.
I’m listening to the Flaming Lips doing Pink Floyd’s Dark side of the Moon. Its quite cool.
I spent a fair bit of time today also listening to the new Band of Horses, Broken Social Scene and some of The Low Anthem- my SXSW discovery… and uhh…. new Eels, and Michigan by Sufjan Stevens.
This is one of the good things about my new job.
I suggest if you’re after a mellow album to wake up/fall asleep to, Sufjan is the way to go.
So after this whole Earthquake thing, Chile decided to have a telethon to raise money to help itself. The telethon was titled “Chile Ayuda a Chile” (Chile help Chile).
Now having grown up on New Zealand telethons, I expect a level of cheesiness and overall celebrities doing stupid things for money. In recent years telethons have been boring and drawn out, with an overall lack of entertainment value.
To my surprise; in Chile, a telethon is an extravaganza of epic proportions and the celebrities are actually… well … famous.
We had finally made it to Machali, driving south was a long journey. It usually is a very quick trip, but the detours due to broken highway were still in place.
The queues were long, and by the time Pauli and I made it to Rancauga it was dark. There were piles of rubble outside every house. A lot of “danger, keep out” tape.
We had a couple of big shakes during that night, and I was thankful that we were in a structurally sound house. The next couple of days were the same. Cristi arrived on Saturday. She arrived in time for the telethon. The show launched at 10pm with a song and dance number which set the tone for the whole event.
Lucia and Pauli prepared snacks and drinks. (Pear-Chocolate pie, and pisco sours)
snack
Michelle Bachelet encouraged her people to raise their flags outside their houses in honour of the dead. So early in the morning we did just that.
We watched the telethon on and off all day.
As the telethon neared an end, it became apparent that they had exceeded their goal of 30 Million US dollars, and the tally was closer to 60.
We drove to Santiago that night, with people waving flags from motorway overbridges, and every car with slogans written on them. We passed a convoy of trucks delivering supplies to the badly damaged South.
It was amazing. Something that made me feel a level of pride I had never felt in New Zealand.
Incubus
Wellington Town Hall, Wellington, New Zealand March 22nd 2002
We thought that 7 would be a reasonable time to show, Especially after last year, going to powderfinger, who pretty much and no queue at all, and we ended up milling round for ages, then cause there seemed to be sweet fuck all people, we got in first, and wandered round inside for a while,
But that’s another story.
So we wandered around the side of the town hall, past the ugly but strange fountain (I swear this city is full of them!) And basically went “holy fuck”. there was a queue spanning the entire length of civic square,and bending round to go up the steps that lead down into the square. on top of that, lots more people where arriving, and there where various people milling round inn groups too. Lisa and I looked at each other and commented that we didn’t think incubus would have been this popular. ahh well I guess we where wrong.
We made it in the third group of people they let through the doors, but we where greeted with the surprise of metal detector checks, and pat downs, on top of the usual bag search… hahaha…
Lisa and I had trouble to refrain from fits of laughter during the experience. well i certainly had my hysterics watching lisas face while she got checked.
Once inside the town hall we found ourselves a moderately comfortable position second row from the front,
Behind 4 very eager looking Korean girls. after sitting through two of the worlds most boring hip hop DJ’s, i mean i didn’t think most support acts just sat down put on records and had a cigarette… hell i should have been their support act… 
i could have done that, i did suggest to lis that we get on stage and shake our asses, and it would be more entertaining, but she declined.
The crowd went absolutely nuts when Incubus came on, I can’t say too much about the actual content of they show, lacking knowledge of their songs, except for a few things.
Whenever Brandon Boyd walked over our side of the stage, the Korean girls went nuts, and the fourteen year olds beside us, would start yelling for Brandon to “take it off” to which we laughed and smiled. After Brandon Boyd, did indeed “take it off” he sang part of Britney Spears “I’m a slave for you” very funny. The audience, minus myself and lisa knew the words to every song. which was nice.
Flying Nun 21st Birthday
Betchadupa, The D4 and Pan Am at Indigo Bar, Wellington New Zealand July 27th 2002
I arrived too late to catch Pan Am’s set… not really much of a dissapoinment on my part, but my company, was most upset to miss their performance, but all cannot be pleased, however….Betchadupa andTthe D4… what a show!
My ears are ringing an alarming amount right now… mental note…do something about that for future gigs…..
We arrived down at Indigo at just after 10:30 because we had all been glued to the TV watching the elections… mmm thrilling….
anywaaaaaaaaaay…. after our thrilling wee gathering to watch the elections, Lisa and I ventured down to Indigo to see Pan Am pack up…. The D4… are certainly the “rock and roll motherfuckers” they claim to be… fucking awesome…. pity about their absolute munter fans… I swear someone was going to loose their balls if I got stood on or punched in the breasts one more time…but then again, bands can’t really choose who becomes their avid followers.
I would definitely recommend the band though…. hopefully without munters. Dion their guitarist certainly has no fear of meeting his munted crowd head on though…. finishing their last song, by climbing into the crowd with his guitar to play his solo… nice…
Now to Betchadupa… as always putting on a good show… although Liam’s voice seemed a little strained through “Life will be the same”. They opened with the punchy “Move Over” which went down well as a starter… followed by “I Want It”, the fantastic (but a pity it didn’t make the album0 “Drowning”, and the first album’s single “Sleepy News”, “Filthy McNasty”. They certainly pulled things up a notch when lauching into the single from their first self titled ep “Awake”. They rounded that off with a mellow and as I said, slightly strained “Life Will be the Same”, and other non album gem “Rain”, then finally pulling things back up again to full throttle with “Bits”, “Man on my Left”, and “Empty Head”.
Of course, the closers were Supa Day and Drop D, and their encore consisted of a mass “jam” and a cover of the 3D’s outerspace… just like the last time I saw them actually.
Either way… they are as brilliant as before… the audience as usual full of teenage girls who all want Liam… but well …. what did you expect?
World Series-New Zealand Music Showcase.
Fur Patrol, Carly Binding, Stellar, Che Fu and King Kapisi at The St. James Auckland November 24th 2002
I first up was subjected to Carly Binding .. shes a good singer… but well… not really my thing. She had one song which I found very reminiscent of Mariah Carey. It was however nice to see her enjoying herself on stage, unphased by the big time music exectives upstairs watching over the performance. However, her set, was mostly un-memorable.
The Furs came on afterwards. By this time the St.James had filled out a bit more.
They opened the set with Fade Away, which soon had people rushing down the front to dance along. This song is awesome as a set opener.
There was a guy standing next to me who turned around and asked the girls on the other side of him who the band was. The girls replied, “You don’t deserve to be here if you don’t know. They are fur patrol and they rock.”
Next up was Little Heart. When Julia opens up her mouth to belt out the chorus, the audience stopped and looked up at her with wide eyes … “Just keep breaking you’re little heart…”
This was followed by two more new songs, both of which were nice and loud and very rockish, a style which the furs music has been tending towards since the release of the heavily pop saturated song Lydia.
Counting Upside Down was the most memorable song of the set, Not just cause its a great song, and is sublime to listen to live, but because just before the chorus, julias top, which was a white thing with a tie around the neck, came untied, she was wearing a black boob tube underneath. Of course in true style, she carried on singing while doing it back up. Then while she was standing close to her guitar amp during that cool feedback bit, she cracked up laughing.
At the end of the song, Julia yelled out asking something like “wheres my mother at times like this” then went on to reference her top which had come off and how her mother would say “you’re not going out of the house dressed like that.”
The last song, of their short but sweet set was Get Along. There was an excellent moment during this song, when Steve, Julia and Andrew all pulling off the same stereotypical rock stance. Proving yet again that Fur Patrol are so very rock and roll
after the Furs I watched King Kapisi who put on an average performance compared to other times I’d seen him play.Mainly due to having some technical problems, but Dj Logical managed to hold it together. His MC’s were a little silly at times though, giving the feeling that they were somewhat un-needed.
Then Stellar, who had the crowd jumping and singing along. I always have found them to be quite average, but last night they proved to me that they can really pull it off on stage. The highlight of their set was Bastard (what you do), in fact that song was stuck in my head all the rest of the night and this morning.
At the end of their set I decided it was time for me to go, as I had to catch the last boat home and if i missed it I would have had to spend the night wandering round the city-not fun.
so I didn’t see Che Fu, or Dave Dobbyn, both of which I would have loved to see due to my boat related time constraits.
Sleepers Union
With Dragstrip and Addendum, at Bar Bodega Wellington October 24th 2003
Arriving at a gig at 9:30pm and then having to wait 2 hours before the bands start is always a bit hard to keep enthusiasm for, but tonight, the headliners were worth the delay.
The opening act, a soloist, by the name of Dragstrip, was quite straining. Almost putting me off completely. He spoke over rambling guitar in an angst-ridden tone trying to create a storyteller style. It just didn’t work.
Thankfully, following him was a three piece by the name of Addendum. Their raw ambient sound scape filled Bodega, attracting the crowd who was sitting round either drinking at the back or watching the rugby to turn around and listen.
The one thing noticeable with Addendum is that even though their songs had steady and even flow, the expression on the face of the drummer and the guitarist was sometimes one of surprise directed at the keyboard/vocalist. Giving the impression they didn’t really know what was going on, either way, if that’s the case musically, they covered it up well.
Finally, after midnight, Sleepers Union took the stage. Oozing professionalism you’d expect from these veteran musicians, they played flawlessly. Sleepers Union’s live band, a 5 piece looked a little cramped on the reasonably small Bodega stage. Keyboardist, Mark Anderson was mostly hidden behind everyone else, and Dave Yetton sometimes looked uncomfortable standing centre stage. A cramped condition aside, every song was seamless. Of note was the sublime “Psilocybin Boy”, with Simon McLaren’s haunting vocals soaring through the bar. The big hit of the night was the essence of the perfect pop song, “Giant Spheres”. Causing some of the older members of the crowd to really get their groove on up front. All up, a special musical experience, which is only touched upon by their album.
