Herbarium of Nature

Peonies

2011-12-04T10:12:00.001+13:00

Balaclava I & Balaclava II

2011-11-05T20:20:00.001+13:00

From the Unrecognised exhibition, 2011

Tree

2011-11-05T20:19:00.002+13:00

Balaclava

2011-11-05T20:18:00.003+13:00

Steps

2011-11-05T20:15:00.001+13:00

Pug

2011-11-05T20:14:00.003+13:00

Sydney I & Sydney II

2011-11-05T20:12:00.000+13:00

From the Unrecognised exhibition, 2011.

Arboretum

2011-11-05T20:08:00.001+13:00

Sydney

2011-11-05T20:06:00.002+13:00

Newtown

2011-11-05T20:04:00.000+13:00

Newcastle Beachfront

2011-11-05T20:03:00.001+13:00

Factory Staircase

2011-11-05T20:01:00.003+13:00

Newcastle 2

2011-11-05T20:00:00.000+13:00

Wickham

2011-11-05T19:57:00.003+13:00

FBI Social- Sydney

2011-11-05T19:54:00.001+13:00

Newcastle

2011-11-05T19:52:00.001+13:00

Hydrangeas

2011-02-10T12:37:00.000+13:00

Garlic Flowers

2011-02-10T12:36:00.000+13:00

Mushrooms

2011-02-10T12:35:00.000+13:00

In my back yard.

Whanganui

2011-02-01T21:47:00.011+13:00

Just before I was due to leave, it rained constantly for two days, until the river had flooded the boardwalk. We stayed inside. It was dry ands warm when I went for my bus home.

Auckland

2011-02-01T21:42:00.002+13:00

Old artworks in Tom Henry's room

Exhibition at ARC, Whanganui

2011-02-01T11:19:00.003+13:00

These images are from my residency at ARC, in Whanganui, this January. The exhibition, "Stone Language", was structured as a sort of critique of my last exhibition, "The Holy Ridge Is Steep and Perilous", which I presented in 2010 at Cross Street.

The works were mainly constructed through techniques of collage and assemblage and were designed to undermine the idealistic and utopian discourses I had previously explored in my art. Conceptually, the exhibition focused on the hypocrisy or inconsistency of dominant societal discourses surrounding the environment; primarily in the mismatch between ideas of perfection and freedom, which are often embodied in our ideas of natural spaces, and the destructiveness of our realised, everyday lives, towards those very environments we so lionise.

I'll be putting out a zine with good photos of the works and all my explanations and planning drawings, soon.

Snapshots: From the top:

1. Packing down the exhibition

2. Stone Language, xerox collage on found materials

3. Anthem, collage, candles, sellotape, xerox images

4. The Holy Ridge Is Steep and Perilous #4, xerox collage on wall

5. The Holy Ridge Is Steep and Perilous #4, xerox collage on wall

6. Detail of Stone Language

7. Flee to Canada, computer printouts, chairs, xerox images

8. Refuge, datashow image, laptop, thirty minute loop of synthesiser, salt

9. Debris from removing Holy Ridge #4.

Pittosporum Tenuifolium

2010-10-07T12:22:00.000+13:00

Great North Road

2010-10-07T12:21:00.000+13:00

Ducks At Night

2010-10-07T12:17:00.001+13:00

Pumice

2010-10-01T16:16:00.002+13:00

Pumice's Projections

These are from the show Grouper and Pumice did at Happy on Tuesday. They both played beautiful and inspiring sets. Pumice's projections were from a rugby league game between New Zealand and Australia.

Mustard Seeds

2010-09-11T12:18:00.002+12:00

From a jar of pickles.

Construction

2010-08-17T23:24:00.001+12:00

On Great North Road. Where the Lambourghini dealership used to be.

Random Words

2010-08-17T23:23:00.001+12:00

Pembridge

2010-08-17T23:18:00.003+12:00

I had brunch with Tom, Henry and Blaine on my last day in Auckland. We ate at Revel and looked through a bin, before Tom and I went to his exhibition; Eat, Sleep, Reproduce. It was beautiful. He gave me some prints which I'll hang as soon as I can find some spare wall. Just saying.

Moss Growing on Trees

2010-08-17T23:15:00.003+12:00

Moss

Opposite the Bond Street flat. Where I stayed for three nights during zinefest. It would have been two but I was flying Jetstar; hence three. Also; hence $170 more than I had planned.

Moss

2010-07-17T16:34:00.000+12:00

Ten Pictures of a fence in Newcastle

2010-07-17T15:58:00.005+12:00

These pictures are of a fence at the back of Chris, Jenny and Wolf's house in Newcastle. We had the most amazing vegan BBQ and show there. I really like Newcastle and I want to play there more often.

Four Trees In Sydney

2010-07-17T15:46:00.003+12:00

I played two fun shows in Sydney, at Black Wire (an amazing record store) and Dirty Shirlows. Shirlows is an illegal warehouse venue with two stages and a fully functional, kick ass PA, that's twice the size of the San Fransisco Bathhouse. Take that Wellington. Shirlow Street, where it's situated, has some fairly spectacular urban blight going on but the whole thing just adds to the ambience. And Black Wire, a tiny, hole in the wall joint on Parramatta Road, has a better record selection than any store in this country. And it has cool old CoNation and My Disco posters all over the walls. Both joints come highly recommended, as does the hospitality of my dear friends Chantel and Simon, with whom I stayed.

Melbourne Photos

2010-07-11T00:45:00.011+12:00

On my first day in the central city I walked along the Yarra river from Flinders Street Station. There were lots of nice rolling lawns and old churches. The lichen is from the wall of a Lutheran meeting house and the moss was growing inside a nearby drinking fountain. The hollow, perforated steel body of the fountain was full of moss, hanging from the bottom and starting to press through the topmost hole and grow into a mat. It was really cool.

The first of these is the view from the second floor of NGV Australia. It's a little disorientating but I find the angles really arresting. And, given that I don't usually don't have much truck with self-conscious architecture, that's quite a compliment. The second is through a window at 180 Gallery, in Cremorne, where I played a really lovely show with Glen Elton's Meltin'. It's a really stark and post-industrial suburb but there's some cool stuff around.

These are some interiors from Stafford Street and 180 Gallery. I really like both spaces because they're so obviously in a state of constant renegotiation and general flux. I was a little less comfy with sleeping on the couch at Stafford after Ralph told me that the previous tenants were total junkies and the sofa was definitely there when he arrived. Awkward. Especially when you're as prissy about hygeine as I am. Their soundproof room should be killer when Paul gets back and finishes it, though.

I saw this silhouette on the way to my show at 180 Gallery. It was so strong, and cast onto the tallest marble wall. I thought of it as some sort of major omen. No shit! For serious. I know that sounds ridiculous but it's totally true.

Some Other Photographs I Found When My Computer Crashed

2010-06-10T22:47:00.004+12:00

Whiteboards

One day, last October, I was walking through design school to use their copiers. I needed to print a bunch of transparencies for a poster. The whole atrium was literally filled with a sea of computer chairs and whiteboards, hundreds and hundreds of them; piled two deep and pressed from wall to wall. I spent about half an hour wandering around and looking down at them from the top of the stairwell. It was really beautiful.

A Sketchy Garage

I was walking home one night when I noticed one loading dock, which was normally locked up, was lit with a scary green bulb and contained a huge, revolving pit cover. it was like something from one of those sketchy Hollywood torture porn films. Like Saw or maybe Hostel. It was a really unpleasant atmosphere.

Flower Petals on my Verandah

I had my wisdom teeth out last week and spent most of the last few days looking at rain through a window. I shook out some old "get well" orchids today and really liked the contrast between their brightness and the dark wood. My friend Blaine came down from Auckland to stay last night and we went buck crazy. Talking about R.A.E.D and hanging with Lucy and Duncan. Mava made me dahl and it was good. And I watched two discs of Babylon5: Season 5. It's getting pretty mystical, with the whole telepath war storyline. I'm a little ambivalent about so many near death experiences. they tend to lose something of their specialness when presented en-masse.

123448527

2010-06-03T11:53:00.004+12:00

Images from David Horvitz's Photo Project for the 2010

Xiu-Xiu Europe tour.

The latest Xiu Xiu Photo Project involves David's photos from the current tour being distributed to a range of people who will then post them on their own websites and blogs and attach a special tag (123448527), which will allow the images to be searched. These are three of those images. Searching 123448527 in google will bring up the other images, as they're posted.

Sleigh Bells

2010-05-06T10:35:00.003+12:00

This morning, it's still

too cold to get dressed.

So I'm sitting by the

window

and suddenly my face is warm

and the sun is here and

the sun is here.

While I was Gone.

2010-04-16T00:59:00.008+12:00

Basketball Nightmare

Basketball Nightmare and I played at Taylor's house, last Sunday. Taylor also did his first solo set, as You Could Talk. The party was cool but the neighbours were beefing about noise, so Eammon's solo set and the Infinite Chakra Staircase collaboration had to be super quiet. It was a weird feeling but the show was crazily intimate; out there in the yard with about fifteen people. I really enjoyed it.

I Remember Talking All Night

2010-04-16T00:53:00.006+12:00

A billboard in the rain

See: it's

slicking water off its own stoop shoulders.

and

off their tired necks and

their dry drunk eyes as well.

The Night Is Younger Than I Am

2010-04-10T18:19:00.008+12:00

I was going to jam with Eammon and Ben on Thursday evening, so we could get ready for our house party on Friday. Ben had managed to book a seminar room at Elam, so we could have projections and make heaps of loud noise. It was an awesomely good plan but Elam is a fair way from Eammon's house in Ponsonby, where all our gear was. In the end, we put everything in a shopping trolley and decided to push it all the way across town.

I was moderately ambivalent about pushing the trolley because it was quite hard and I was really tired but Eammon really liked riding on it. In the end, I pretty much just laid back and watched him get all Cool Runnings on it, for the duration. The only exception to this was when we stopped at the lights and talked really loudly about 'selling all this shit to buy some mad weight' while scratching our tums and shivering. It was a rad look. People were not feeling it.

This is the most fucked up thing ever. It's an artwork called A Midsummer Night's Scream . It's in the window of a community art space on the way to Ponsonby. It's basically a plaster skull onto which sheep's horns have been glued and into which a lightbulb has been inserted. It gave us quite the scare. Especially given we were hysterical to start with. It was about as scary as when Ben was working on his new video work, a piece that involves him swinging a lightbulb around his head on an extension cord, in a darkened room, leading to an inevitable broken glass situation. It also sometimes led to a huge chunk of lightbulb, wire and plastic flying out the door and past our heads, while we covered our faces in pitch darkness. This was more than a little terrifying but kind of fun, too.

Eammon was looking for some wood for his desk so we dragged a whole bunch of shit out of a building site on the way back home. We ended up returning it though, because we couldn't be bothered carrying it to his house to check if it would fit. At this point in the night we were inhumanly tired from the two hour jam I alluded to before. We were kind of disoriented as well, because of Ben's visuals, which used all kinds of visual recursion stuff that made me feel like I was to fall into the giant screen we were using. At one point a security guard looked in on us. They peered around the door for about half a minute then walked away. I think they were a little weirded out by the whole thing.

This is my stuff on the floor of Ben's room. I'm currently taking up approximately 20% of his floor space. And all of his couch. He and his flatmates are very understanding. And it's such a nice flat. But I'm totally worried about becoming a lame burden because guests, like fish, after three days begin to stink. I made flat dinner tonight, which should buy some time, karma-wise. We're going to eat it in the lounge, with candles. Family dinner.

The Last Week and the Last Two Days

2010-04-06T19:23:00.006+12:00

I just got back from being at the beach for four days, with my friends. We played cards, went swimming and read lots of books. It was beautiful. Now I'm in Auckland to play some shows and see my friends. I'm staying at Bond Street.

Last night, Olli, Bean and I played Cactus and Shitface with a pack of cards so worn that the back had peeled halfway off the five of spades. Olli had to drive out to Drury for two hours because Ruby was locked out of her car in the rain. Ben drank four cups of jasmine tea because he had a cold that came on so fast he thought it was hayfever. When it got late and we were really bored, he and I walked around the house with a capgun, deciding what we'd shoot. I shot the TV and the Elvis clock. Ben shot the TV and the broken clock above his door. After I went to bed in the open-plan lounge/kitchen, Toots came in at 2am and started doing the dishes.

This morning we took photos of each other in the garden. I borrowed Rebecca's bike and walked into town with Ben. We went to Elam and I drew some pictures. I rode around town and crashed into a pole in front of a guy on a fixie who laughed at me. Ben and I met up at Krishna's to get lunch then went and saw Eammon. He showed us Xavier-Rogue Angel, which was hilarious. We're going to play a house party this weekend. I biked to foodtown and got clearance hummus and Turkish bread to make an antipasto platter. It's steak night tonight. I'm not having any. We're listening to Teengirl Fantasy. It's really good.

The photo is from Ben's garden. I made it super overexposed by putting the lightmeter inside my jacket. I think it makes everything look like it's freezing in harsh sunlight.

A Collage

2010-03-28T23:19:00.004+13:00

This is one of the early pieces from the Holy Ridge series. It was part of the Christmas exhibition at The High Seas, last year but it didn't sell. I really like it. It was the first time I managed to capture the aesthetic that I used in The Holy Ridge Is Steep and Perilous at Cross Street. When I get it back, I'm giving it to Petra Jane because she took some amazing portraits of me recently. It's pretty big, so I hope she has wall space.

Three Haiku for Three Friends

2010-03-28T21:16:00.005+13:00

For B.

rain on my roof

rain on plum blossoms

friends having breakfast

For M.

on my verandah

we smelt fig, apple and grape

because it was so dark

For G.

I know; I see her

kicking pine needles

across my computer screen

Some Posters I Have Done Recently

2010-03-26T18:26:00.019+13:00

No nature photos in this one, sorry. The light has been too haggard and blue over summer, so I've been on hiatus. Instead, I thought I'd dredge up some posters I've done over the last few months. I really like making them and it's sad that they're kind of disposable-by-nature. I guess this is the start of an archive, of sorts.

Snowfield With Forest Spirits

November 2009

This is one of my favourite posters, at least, I think it's the one I'm happiest with. I drew the orb in the centre over about two and a half hours, from three to five thirty in the morning, while finishing season four of The Wire. I had to stop and have a bit of a cry at one point, when DuQuan got into That trouble. It was rough. Rough times in B-More.

Castanets, Alps of NSW and Tiger Saw

January 2010

I had intended only to design the Wellington poster for this tour but Chris Alps convinced me to do one for the whole of NZ, too. The Wellington one was probably the most trying experience of my design life because each poster was a vertical half of an A2 sheet. It took about two weeks for the copy centre to figure out how to print A2 without pixellating the image beyond recognition or trimming it in half without thinking. Terror. They turned out really well, though. It's a beautiful format.

Wednesday Basketball

February 2010

The dude on this poster is Fab Five Freddy, who is one of my all-time icons. Martha Cooper's books (Hip-Hop Files; Subway Art; Tag Town) are full of hilarious anecdotes about this genius of rap and straight up mischief. He rules. I made this one to popularise the basketball games that my friends and I play on Wednesdays at the Aro Valley Courts. They're really fun. The poster never got printed or anything, though. Which sucked.

Exhibition Guide for The Holy Ridge Is Steep and Perilous

January 2010

This is the front of the guide for my first ever solo show, at Cross Street Studios in Auckland. It was all massive collages, which you can see at:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=11638&id=100000290406727&l=aa224fc810

I hand screened a hundred of these and the process literally destroyed my shoulders. I really liked the clogging effects I was getting, though, so It was well worth it. I also did two posters for the show, one for the exhibition in general and one for the opening. On that night, I rapped as Megalex, while Bandicoot and Basketball Nightmare both played. It was so fun.

Holy Ridge Exhibition Opening

With Bandicoot, Basketball Nightmare and Megalex

January 2010

Holy Ridge Exhibition Poster

January 2010

Snowfield with Polka Dot Dot Dot, Seth Frightening and Darren Keen

February 2010

This poster is really misleading because it was printed the day before I went to Camp, where Darren Keen asked to join the bill. Which was rad. I reprinted them, with him added, but I don't have any of the corrected posters left. So you'll have to make do with this. The block print is supposed to be like a cathedral window. This was the first time I ever sold out Happy and we also had to turn about another fifty people away. It was mental- probably the best show I ever promoted. There's nothing like amazingly good musicians who've just blown up at a major festival to get people through the door.

Celebratory print for Five Years of Cupcakemonsters Zine

November 2009

I can't really believe that I've kept on making my zine for this long, considering how stressful and expensive it can be. So I decided, last year, to make a print commemorating the achievement. I gave it away with every copy of issue ten that I sold at Wellington Zinefest. The photo is of a sculpture park from St Petersburg and it's beyond beautiful, in my opinion. It comes from the same series of picture postcards I used to bookend the interviews in issue ten. I was going to make it into a Snowfield shirt but this came up first.

Poster for My 22nd Birthday

October 2009

This is my attempt at being true to my skatepunk roots. Seriously. I mean, I've been skating for a lot longer than I've been making art. My birthday, last year was "wheels" themed and people got wild on scooters, skateboards and bikes. It was so fun. The strange pattern in the photo is a kind of Moré scattering effect, from overlapping three transparencies of the same photo at slight angles. It's rugged, yo.

These Things Happened While I Was Too Busy to Be Writing Blogs.

2009-11-11T21:19:00.012+13:00

Street Art

I have my last ever university exam in two days. I'm glad that I'll be free from the strictures which my own nerdiness has imposed on my life over the last four years but I'm more than a little ambivalent, too. Routines are a nice thing. Except for my Thursday morning one, of picking my way through the vomit outside the halls, before my 7am lecture.

Flowers Inside

My mum brought home a huge bunch of some local person's roses while she was here, a few weeks back. They were the old-fashioned fragrant kind and I woke to their smell every morning for the week after. It was boss. What I liked the most was the way their petals made beautiful, delicately coloured shapes all over my desk. I took about twenty pictures of them but I'll only post one here. I am aware that other people are, on the whole, less obsessed with flower photography than I am. Which is a good thing. We need those engineers.

Tilly the Dog

I think Tilly is one of the least chilled out dogs I've met. In fact, I worry that she's afraid of life. One day, I am sure, Tilly will find true happiness in embracing all the beauty of creation with a heart free from fear. Until then she will probably stay in Izzy's room freaking out at all sorts of shit and being a very effective and beloved mascot for the Garret St flat. When she's not flipping out and trying to save herself from imaginary demons, solely by yelping. I do love her, though. She's nice.

Strange Cardboard Shapes at the Design School Library

I don't know why it was the case but there were many cardboard shapes, similar to this beautiful piece, scattered carelessly over the filing cabinets outside the design school library. I assume they were all orphans from some grandiose design project. Probably involving cardboard. Notwithstanding the absence of context, they sure were a treat to look at.

Irises at Night

My grandmother recently presented me with a range of Black Plum and Ghost irises. Word on the street: They smell like bubblegum and are probably the most beautiful flowers in existence. Not that you'd be able to tell from this photo, which I took without a flash, in a room lit solely by season two of Babylon5. Which is my favourite show at the moment. It's great because it has alien diplomats whining at each other in the future. In space.

Breaking Skateboards

Same as my last post. I really need to lose some weight or work on my style, big time. It's actually embarrassing and the man at Cheapskates now refers to me as a "Frequent Flyer". "Frequent Frier" might be a more appropriate description, given the amount of olive oil I'm using in my cooking at the moment and the effect it's had on my normally spare and slender frame. That's a low point, right here.

Chilling Out, Lurking etc.

It is my fervent belief that this will occur on Friday. I haven't actually done it yet, so this photo is probably contextually misleading. A t least in regard to the post's title. I've been reading heaps of Japanese writing from the 60s, though. In between study and all. It's super relaxing.

These Things Also Occurred

2009-10-02T22:34:00.009+13:00

Going to the Gardens

Today the sun came out for the first time in a week. There had been occasional glimpses through the overcast but this was the first time I could truly believe in sitting on the verandah or walking in the gardens. It felt so good, sitting on the bench in the maple valley, watching the sky clear. Shorts weather is coming!

A Million Snails

I found a Million snails in the vegetable garden. They all camped out under the spinach beets and came out at night to fuck with the Rengarenga. Jerks. They'll know better, though. Next year I'll plant some coriander and that'll show them. Gardening is hard when you're a vegan. Just saying. Their shells are so beautiful. I can barely find it in myself to hate them.

Flowers Everywhere

A friend remarked to me recently that I must be really happy at the moment. I just thought they were surprised to see me wearing a coloured shirt but, apparently, this time of year is peak season for people like me who don't mind getting grassy knees from taking photos of dwarf pines. They're completely right. On my walk home from school at the moment I have to try really hard not to see something beautiful to take photos of. Spring is one of those good problems.

Butt Simpson

Ryan and Sam are most excellent. Last time I saw them, at San Fran, Ryan had a Pizza around his neck. It was similar to the style one sees in cartoons, where people's heads protrude from doors or tables after acts of violence have been committed to them. I couldn't help imagining Sam had hit him over the head with it. This is her showing it to me, after their set, because I wouldn't believe it was real.

Breaking Skateboards

I broke my last deck. It was quite stupid, really. I just did a rather underwhelming backside lipslide on my rail, which ended up with me lying on my lawn and wondering a number of things. First, where I was; second, how I'd got there; and third, whether the cracking noise was my board or my collarbone. My collarbone was pretty sore at that point. I ended up feeling sufficiently piqued to take the thing out onto the verandah and record its betrayal for posterity. That would be the photo, then. I'm getting another one tomorrow, hopefully, if only to prove I don't learn well from experience.

Things That Happened.

2009-09-13T11:37:00.008+12:00

I found a new "super macro" setting on my camera.

It allows me to get even closer to the flowers. This one grows halfway up Kelburn Parade, on the left-hand side of the road. Their shape reminds me of Red Hot Pokers but the colour is much nicer.

It rained a. A lot.

As well as causing huge puddles to reflect nasty looking buildings, the rain meant I had to go without putting through a load of washing for a week. It was pretty rough. I had to wear a Mika Miko singlet, backwards, under my jacket because of the disgusting smells emanating from my grey T-Shirt. I need more grey T-Shirts. It was like winter all over again.

I went to George's House.

And I took photos of her garden while her and Hannah tried to decide who should live in their house now that Siobhan has her own flash place in Mt Victoria. Siobhan's house is super nice (although it still smells of paint).

I watched season two of Gossip Girl

Until four in the morning at Casey's flat. This view of construction work was taken from their balcony. I would like to add that I think the building's interior chasm and gantries are totally speculative fiction in their greatness. Casey doesn't like Sci-Fi, though, so I'll just say that the potted plants by the bay windows are also quite great.

The Sun came out.

Today has been really beautiful. The sky remains blue and I was woken by birdsong. I was writing an essay when I looked down and saw that my computer was refracting sunlight like a prism. So I decided to stop work on the essay and make some pita bread with lettuce, olives and hummus and sit on the verandah. It was really good. I'm watching Notorious tonight, with Hera and Carmel. It will be bad ass.

Spring

2009-08-30T22:20:00.007+12:00

Plum Blossoms

First Person Having a Nap Out of Doors

New Growth on Dwarf Pines.

Sunshine

Flowers on the Moss

Everton Terrace House Party

2009-08-30T19:42:00.000+12:00

Two weeks ago, someone told me that Teresa and I were playing a show on the 29th. I had absolutely no idea what they were talking about and assumed they were referring to the future activities of some other slam-rap two piece. As far as I knew, I'd be sitting at home catching up on the 1991-1992 season of Law and Order and eating risotto, as I often do on a holiday evening. Luckily, James Beebis saw me in town not long after this and cleared up my confusion - We were supposed to be playing a house party on Everton tce, with Bandicoot, Moron Says What? and 47Diamantes. Which seemed a much better ways of spending the evening.

Unfortunately, Teresa found herself in the Hutt, with a migraine, at about 6pm on the evening in question. Which is a pretty sad place to be, really. This meant that playing a Tengu set was going to be a lot harder than it would have appeared half an hour earlier. So, in the spirit of carefree enthusiasm, I decided to do a fully freestyled Megalex set, instead. Which meant I had to run home and furiously sample bass drops for about an hour, so as to be able to rock the show without the support of my main woman, the Kool Lady T.

After cobbling together some appropriate beats, I decided on a leisurely stroll down the hill to Everton Tce. Although I live less than a kilometre from the aforesaid location, I somehow managed to walk for twenty minutes in the wrong direction, ending up halfway down Bolton street, with no credit on my phone, after ringing about three people who had no idea where either Bolton St or Everton Tce were. Luckily, I was able to use my PrepayIOU to call Gemma, who set me right with little further ado. I soon found myself in the desired cavernous lounge, where the flatmates were burning a huge pile of old beer cartons. I set up my looper and Kaossilator in the flickering half light and reflected on how this was looking like it would be an even more exciting evening than the previous one.

Strolling Down The Hill-Plum Tree

That night, I'd partied at the Watusi until about three in the morning, while Carmel and Sam did a DJ set to an audience consisting solely of me and our mutual friend, Hannah North. It was quite intimate. We had a dope breakdown to that "I'm in the Pizza Hut/I'm in the Taco Bell..." song. You know the one. The one that totally rules. We then walked around trying to reconstruct the whole of Regulate, based on our own differing fragmentary memories. It was quite special, although none of us have the total-recall of gangsta rap which Carmel claims the entire population of Levin has somehow acquired. Before this ill breakdance session, I'd been watching Twin Peaks with my friend Casey and eating risotto. Which should come as no surprise. I do love risotto.

Anyway, I was playing first, "at 730", which, in true Wellington fashion, soon turned into 830pm. I was lucky to have Crimewave as the final song preceding my set, which put the party into a mood conducive to bouncing/getting low. It was a really fun set, during which I held a breakdance comp, won unopposed by Reuben from Bandicoot, who set shit alight. That kid has an illustrious style, no doubt! He received a Partners in Kryme 7" that I'd picked up at Slow Boat that day. I was also psyched to premiere one of the beats which Alphabethead recently gave me. It has blangin' bagpipes and, for my ender, I requested freestyle topics, receiving "the hardcore life" and "animals". I got good play out of the animals one, notwithstanding saying that I was down for dogs "because they my dogs". Ouch.

Bandicoot played after me. They are choice. The three of them play thrashing spazzcore, interlaced with Snoop and Dizzee Rascal covers. I'm deadly serious. They did a song called Âbortion immediately before Drop It Like It's Hot, which must be diversity in action. Bandicoot radiate extremely radical positivity and excitement and, in the greatest tradition of audience involvement, habitually move their drumkit closer to the crowd, facilitating total engagement and excellent times.

Bandicoot

After Bandicoot had blown the party's collective mind and realised they were supposed to play at Happy in fifteen minutes, 47Diamantes took the stage and proceeded to be excellent. I realise that I probably sound giddy at this point but I would like to say this was one of the best nights I've ever had. Just saying. Calvin and Gemma were in fine form and had Hannah and I making up a whole array of joke names in an attempt to encapsulate their brilliance. Here's the list, as well as I can remember it: Crystal Meth Castles, Blister Parcels, Sister Muscles and, finally, Crystal Arseholes. It's probably pretty evident what we were getting at; essentially, the combination of bumping beats and someone rolling around on the floor screaming their head off. Movement was as mandatory at this point as it was for the whole night. In fact, I'm struggling to walk at the moment, so intense was the popping and locking which occurred.

47Diamantes

Moron Says What? were the next to play some songs. They rose above the curse of a broken microphone in addition to putting up very well with rampant cowbell stealing and aggressive audience backing vocals well. Shouting was especially pronounced during that Wikipedia song. I really do love Wikipedia, despite getting stuck in its dystopian science fiction section for about four hours. last week. I had no sense of time passing, as well, which is kind of worrying. Well, just a little. Anyway, they dropped bombs and caused dancing to occur, leading very neatly into an impromptu Diana Rozz set.

Cowbell Theft

Gemma made excellent use of an unfamiliar synth, which had almost gone the way of the microphone by halfway through the MSW show. At some point during this part of the night, I rolled Alexandra, the MSW drummer, up in a rug before being rag dolled in it by about six helpful partygoers. Unfortunately, I was then dropped straight on the part of my back that I popped at my Cross Street show two weeks ago. Way to be good to you bad back, Alex. You Egg. I fought through the pain to rap along to two Diana Rozz songs, naming this new collaboration "Diana Boss". Because we were fully in charge. Just saying. I think this was about the time when MSW started tying each other up with tape but I'm not entirely sure.

Chaotic Lifestyle

The last thing that occurred at this most excellent party was Bandicoot's second set. It was very reminiscent of the first but possibly even better, seeing as everyone was even more sensibleness-averse than they'd been two hours previously. People were climbing on the couches, pulling around the drumkit and escaping onto the verandah, so pronounced was its ferocity. I collapsed on a couch as they finished, feeling absolutely spent and thoroughly excited, all at the same time. People were wandering about with varying flavours of glaze over their eyes, muttering about how bad ass the night had been. It was only about 11pm.

Bandicoot Again

I then strolled to Midnight, to do some Newspaper Puzzles with Carmel and chat with Blaine about the screenprinting we'll be doing next week. Carmel and I finished the Code Cracker and were about two thirds of the way through the Target when Duncan rolled up with about fifteen million people from his house party. Our collective mind put the puzzles through a wall and then Zane drove everyone home. It was a cool night.

Auckland

2009-08-19T10:01:00.000+12:00

I was riding on the bus to Symonds St when Eammon told me to look up. The cherry trees were clustered so close that their blossoms had rained a vivid pink lake at our feet: a pink stain spread a hundred metres down the street. flitting past us, the turqouise roof a car was speckled in high relief, with the flowers burning from its cool depth. I craned after the beautiful riot as long as the windows held it, then looked straight ahead. The city was lit by a light washed clean, while morning's rain faded past the sea.

I felt so free in Auckland, stranded the moment I stepped from the bus. It's a return to childhood: to be stripped of the weight we bear when our foreknowledge holds surprise at bay. I Watched this strange town unfurl around each corner and resigned myself to new choices opening where routine normally spread.

The day before was Auckland's zinefest. I'd dragged myself from my traditional safety-net of obsessive work to spend a day in a town where, last time, I'd spent six dollars on a milkshake and offended a bus driver. These things mean a lot to me. I'm not the most carefree of travellers. On arrival, I caught the bus into town and, after becoming lost between the top and bottom of K Rd (ending up by Greenlane hospital), I arrived at Cross St Studios, an airy, high-ceilinged space with a hand-built shantytown extending back from a clean gallery area. A whole crew live in
this strange utopia, behind gib walls and found windows, and run the most exciting collective I've ever seen in this country. I pray Auckland's building inspectors lead busy lives. It's a gem too precious to lose.

for the next four hours I sat at a table, selling zines and meeting new friends. The event's pleasantness was second only to my delight at discovering the range of vegan eateries within running distance. Time and again, I'd 'pop out to get some change' and return with some rad Thali and left over coins from a ten-dollar bill. I also presented a symposium, the last of the day, on "zines as freedom of expression". A topic whose po-faced seriousness seems second only to my own. Anyway, it went nicely, with a whiteboard and all the other stuff (such as pens) which are dear to my teacher heart. The others were presented by excellent people such as Bryce Galloway, although I was too stall-bound to attend them. The day closed with the zine of the year awards- rewarding my dear friends, Heather and Zach, for 'Neighbour Cats #2', a truly awe-inspiring piece of sustained brilliance and attention to detail. After receiving a heart warming honourable mention for Cupcakemonsters #9, I celebrated with a bowl of chilli tofu from that Japanese restaurant whose name I still can't remember.

I tried to sleep a little, knowing the three hours I'd had on Friday would ill-prepare me for my show at the afterparty. Sadly, I failed in this honourable mission. First, I lay on the concrete floor of the screenprinting workshop, using my jacket as a pillow. Then I slept on the couch by the zine library, with Mikey's blankets. Then I went into the kitchen and Nick made me a gin and tonic and we talked about skateboarding. I finally got to sleep at about 1230am, half an hour before my set, which led to frantic comment among the organisers about my having "coma-ed out". which was pretty great. I had a cup of peppermint tea with Tessa and Eammon and then jumped up for some slam-rapping and electro-type behaviour. It was super fun.

Eventually, via about four bands and other excellent things which I can't wholly remember at present, Eammon and I found ourselves waiting for the Night Rider to Mt. Roskill, seated next to a young couple who were getting to know each other. The bus company obviously thought we'd been waiting for the three a.m. and thus declined to send the two. Which is a good step towards environmental sustainability, I guess, except that we caught a cab home, instead. I slept in Liam's room, which ended up being kind of recursive because there was a poster with one of my photos of him on it, above the bed. Slipper the cat did his best to keep me up for a party, uriously clawing the carpet and raising little puffs of wool which floated in the light of my phone as I tried to figure out what the hellish noise was. He didn't try hard enough.

Liam's room has no curtains and I woke bathed in light. Regan was playing Dan Deacon in the kitchen as he made me a cup of jasmine tea. It was wholly nice and I drank it while Eammon and I caught the bus to town and watched seas of cherry blossoms cover the streets of Mt. Eden. My back-ached from concrete bruises, three-day jeans sagged around my knees and the cigarettes of others lived on in my shirt. I was so happy.