Berlin @ Wellington

Some great music nights coming up at Mighty Mighty as a collaboration with the Goethe Institut. I plan to get to these three...

Friday 2 March - Bonaparte - Bang Bang Berlin Live show - solo new-electro-trash-punk darling Bonaparte via Bern, Barcelona and Berlin and now….The Mighty Mighty, 10pm www.myspace.com/findingbonaparte
DJ Steffen Schoeler from Berlin’s beloved quirksters dwfb. He’ll be coming straight off the plane from Berlin to Cuba St central, 12pm
The infamous Bar 25 Vodka Slide - The hottest craze from the Party Capital straight off the ice. It’s a license to pash as well as being the most fantastic way to drink vodka! www.bar25.de

[Hmm, this Vodka slide sounds like it could be amusing... Apparently it involves vodka, lots of ice, and pashing]

Thursday 8 March - Micro-pop Queen Barbara Morgenstern (Berlin) www.barbaramorgenstern.de and Fred Avril (Paris) www.fredavril.com for a night of lush sounds with “The Society For the Promotion of A Fantastic Way of Life” who’s electronic music is drawn largely from German labels including Morr Music, Monika Enterprise, City Centre Offices, Alien Transistor & Dial Records." 10pm.
PPC from 5pm

Friday 9 March - Blood Sausage, Leather and Beer featuring
Kapitan Krautrock und Freunde with German beer and sausage specials for lovers of Tangerine Dream, Faust, Can, Amon Düül

If I have only one night to choose, it's gonna be Barbara Morgenstern.

File this!

Listening to: On the Beach, Neil Young

I've taken an office in town. I've had to put all work on hold for a day to get myself into my office and I just started the gruelling task tonight of archiving my files. This is five years of files to sort through: bin what will never be needed ever again, archive into boxes what will be possibly be needed at some later date, and put aside the files I want to take to the new office. It's not a pretty sight in my dining room right now - so far there are three two-foot high piles of A4 paper that is the "bin" category, seven archived boxes of files and I'm up to T. So almost there. I'll get this cut tonight and then tomorrow is tidying day and then it's onto packing down computer gear and figuring what else I'll need to shift down to the office. Then at some stage I'll need to clean up the resulting carnage in my sunroom. I'll be glad when this is all over and I'm ensconced in my nice new office with my two friends (who are well organised and have already been there for a week). And then I'll be posting some photos, oh yes I will.

Oh and the highlight of the evening was finding something unpleasant that a cat had done behind the filing shelves. Nice.

saturday night at the movies…

Listening to: Tony Conrad. Tim Barnes. Mattin. on PSI Phenomenon (thank you Campbell Kneale)

MaoriTV has been programming pretty good movies. I just watched Daytrippers, a film by Greg Mottola. (Although in The Listener this was attributed to Noah Baumbach!) A nice indie film about an unravelling marriage and a (slightly) disfunctional family, mostly set in a family stationwagon. A wife finds a love letter and goes to her family for advice. Along with her mum, dad, sister and sister's boyfriend, she goes in search of the answers and eventaully finds the truth. The whole event happens within the space of a day, so it has the feel of a short story. It was a really neat and satisfying little lo-fi film. I really do wonder how The Listener got its facts so wrong. Mind you, I don't mind, because it was the Baumbach connection that persuaded me to watch it.

I should tune in to MaoriTV more often for their film choices, obviously. Some time ago I saw another little gem, Heater, a Canadian indie well worth watching.

I got along to City Gallery today to check out the Prospect Show with Dave. There were some good works there (of course, some real shite as well, but that will happen...) Hmm, well, interestingly the navigation menu for the show doesn't work on the Telecom site I have marked for you just yet, but hopefully it will soon. After all, the show has only just started, and sure, Telecom is meant to be the national telecommunications provider... Go figure. It was a lovely day in Wellington today, and a chance to sit in the sun and drink beer. Oh, late summer!

5 things you didn't know about me

I've been tagged by Ms Webweaver!

Here are five things you didn't know about me (and probably don't want to).

1. When I was about five my brother threw a piece of coal at my sister. She ducked. I copped it in the eye. Some little chunk of the coat actually ended up under my skin beside my eye and I could feel the little gritty thing in there for ages while it worked its way down the side of my nose till it just disintegrated and disappeared. It was kinda freaky.

2. I went through a stage at around the age of ten of pulling out my eyelashes. I don't think I was a maladjusted child, but it was a strange habit. I once had long curly lashes. They never grew back the same. I remember having bald patches in my lashes where I had pulled all of them out. I assure you, I grew out of this one.

3. I can't stand rodents. Rabbits, guinea pigs, rats, mice. They all creep me out, especially en masse. There's a guinea pig enclosure at the zoo and it makes me feel sick looking at them. I used to have pet mice as a kid and I put it down to the bad experiences I had with the little blighters.

4. My favourite pet was a goat that I got as a Christmas present when I was about 9 or 10. I loved that goat so much that one night I snuck out and curled up next to him and slept there. His name was Bilbo Baggins and when we had to leave him behind when we shifted up north when I was 14 I was pretty devastated. I would love to have another pet goat again one day.

5. I performed in an operetta when I was at primary school. I can't remember what it was called but I was one of the leads and I had to speak in a German accent. My parents thought I was great. Or so they said.

Mystification

Listening to: You Forgot it in People, Broken Social Scene

I was checking my blog stats today (not something I do very often) and found that someone in Invercargill looked at 43 pages. I don't think I know anyone in Invercargill. Maybe life is really boring down there. Maybe they were having a dull day at work. Anyway, Invercargill person, if you are popping back to see what exciting things I have been up to... well, hello there!

It's almost three in the morning and I have come to a grinding halt. I have a multitude of jobs to complete at the moment and I'm looking forward to a day of quietness tomorrow when I can get a big chunk done with no interruptions. What with it being Waitangi Day (link for the benefit of those non-NZ readers) and all, it's gonna mean no phone calls or email. Sweet.

Today I finally had my accounts guy over to get my 2006 tax return in (just a wee bit late!) I found that I had another boomer year for Parlour, but where the hell does all my money go! I mean, I don't do any overseas travel, I don't eat out all the time, I don't buy lots of fricking fancy expensive clothes. It's a bit depressing really. I'm just not a saver. This has to change! I hope to make this the year I get my financial shit together. My accounts guy has advised me to keep a log of all my spending. Now that could be scary.

Well, I reckon it's bedtime if I'm gonna have a productive day tomorrow (today?).