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Happenings

Happenings, Music, Wellington
Winging Your Way Through The Weekend, 18-19 May
16.05.13 | Permalink | Comment?

Greetings!

Here’s our weekly run down of what’s on about this splendid city during the weekend.

The mind blowing moving image exhibition “Moving On Asia” has only a fortnight left at Wellington’s City Gallery.

Our freshest up and coming young comedians perform at Bats theatre in “Class Comedians“.

After some free film? The New Zealand Film Archive is currently hosting Samin Son TV – a self titled exhibition of Son’s time in the Korean Army. It sounds pretty interesting and is… the big ol’ price of NOTHING.

The Documentary Edge Film Festival continues.

In music news it’s still New Zealand Music Month. Lorde released the music video for Royals (below) this week – she’s going to be a superstar. The Naked And Famous snuck this single, ‘A Source Of Light’, into the webosphere off of their upcoming remixes and b-sides follow up to Passive Me, Aggressive You.

Big international drops for the weekend playlist include The National’s ‘Trouble Will Find Me’ (itunes streaming), Daft Punk’s ’Random Access Memories’ (itunes streaming) and Vampire Weekend’s ’Modern Vampires Of The City’.

Canada’s most famous (and only) astronaut Col. Chris Hadfield returned to earth this week but not before gifting planet earth another of his amazing videos. Music + science = awesome!

Happy weekending!
Happenings, Movies, Music, NZ Music Month, Wellington
Winging Your Way Through The Weekend, 11-12 May
09.05.13 | Permalink | Comment?

Brr! What a week. Floods, a (very tiny) earthquake and although the great day star showered us in splendour the mercury hasn’t climbed very high. It’s probably safer indoors with weekend warmers. We’re going for a blog in two halves today Wellington’s what’s on closely followed by a continuation of last weeks NZ music scrape over.

The New Zealand International Comedy Festival is in its final weeks and the hilarious “The Boy With Tape On His Face” performs in Downstage Theatre Friday night.

Our friendly neighbours Lower Hutt have some sweet badge making going down for Youth Week at The Dowse Gallery if you’d like to pimp your bag, hat or jacket for free. Here’s a full run down of Youth Week events in the region.

Want to get inside a navy ship and see what goes down? HMNZS Wellington will be open up for your viewing pleasure on Queens Wharf this Saturday. Don’t forget the sea legs.

There’s also a fascinating film festival in town this weekend. Documentary Edge Festival 2013 has all sorts of interesting offerings including Only The Young a study in youth and coming of age.

This week we’ll take a look at the “naughties” (2000-2009) for the weekend playlist. At times you could’ve been forgiven for thinking that music had taken a turn for the worst this decade. International offerings like Axel F’s totem to annoyance Crazy Frog weasled themselves to number one. Reality superstar competitions started to change the face of how musicians are made (you web-savvy folk may’ve already encountered Dave Grohl’s thoughts about these competitions via meme). Here in New Zealand we had a go. Yes we did. New Zealand Idol delivered us (briefly) Ben Lummis and Michael Murphy, we also got Stan ‘yous’ Walker through Aussie Idol. The decade had gems, don’t get me wrong. The star of the decade was a (then) young rapper from Christchurch, Scribe. He dominated 2003’s charts with his debut single Stand Up. Hip Hop/R&B were the champion genres across the airwaves with acts like Savage (with Swing), Dei Hamo (We Gon’ Ride), swaggy Dane Rumble in his past life act Misfits Of Science, Nesian Mystik, P-Money (who has some new stuff too!) and Smashproof. Our other genres did well with Fur Patrol, Goodshirt, Atlas, Tiki Taane & company keeping the singles chart kiwi. Some other favourites include Stellar*, Zed, Salmonella Dub, Che Fu, The Datsuns, Fat Freddy’s Drop and Anika Moa. Many of these artists albums are still lingering in our CD collection, if any take your fancy have a dig through their discographies.

Here’s a kiwi music video treasure from the decade to take us out, cue Kora and their EPIC anime video for Skankenstein.
Happenings, Music
Winging Your Way Through The Weekend, 4-5 May
03.05.13 | Permalink | Comment?

Kia ora!

Welcome to the last weekend of the school holidays. First thing’s first, pump up the volume and press play.

Marvel at John Williams conducting. Now there’s suitable ambiance may the fourth be with you! Today is Star Wars day – woohoo. George Lucas’ profound trilogy unleashed a science fiction frenzy on the world just short of 40 years ago and today geeks and not-geeks unite to celebrate the great trilogy-cum-saga. Light saber warbling and “Luke I am your father”-ing is totally appropriate today (and the other 364 days).

Nearly every day or month is a celebration to somebody somewhere. Obviously today (Saturday) has Star Wars covered and tomorrow, for instance, is Children’s Day in South Korea and Japan as well as Cinco de Mayo in The States and Mexico. Cinco de Mayo isn’t the celebration of mayonnaise I will add. Now in that vein I am proud to announce that, for those who aren’t already aware, we are four days into New Zealand Music Month. Throughout the month Teen Blog will bring you all sorts of NZ music know-how. Our libraries will also transform into venues for local musicians to perform – take that shush-fingers!

For a quick scrub-up on what exactly music month is about check out the official website here. In short though it is an epic celebration of the lads and lasses that have gifted ours and the worlds airwaves with amazing music. Over the next couple of weeks I’ll scratch the surface of some of the sweetest acts from the last few decades of kiwi music for weekend playlisting. This week we’ll start with the current decade. Globe conquering has been a bit of a pattern lately with The Naked And Famous first through the gates followed closely by Avalanche City’s Love Love Love (it was originally free to download). Many more have found international success too, especially Hamilton’s favourite child Kimbra. In our local charts Dunedin lads Six60 happened as too did J Williams & Scribe and Wellington’s Brooke Fraser. Away from the top of the charts acts like The Checks, Ladi6 and Cairo Knife Fight hungout with a huge amount of great and fresh music that is just too numerous to list here. As for new stuff be sure to keep an eye on/checkout The Phoenix Foundation, Minuit, Lorde, Shapeshifter and Beastwars.

For the duration of the month The New Zealand Herald will be streaming new and old recordings including their studio Sundae Sessions daily – a concert a day, sweet!

Finally, a video. We’re going to skip viral this week and stay in kiwi theme. Borrowing some funny from 2001 here’s Goodshirt’s Sophie. Enjoy!
Events, Games, Happenings, Internet, Music, Science!, Wellington
Winging Your Way Through The Weekend, 27-28/4
26.04.13 | Permalink | Comment?

Kia ora!

Welcome to the weekend. What to do, what to do?

If you find yourself wandering about Newtown this weekend why not check out Wellington Festival Of Circus? If having clowning & cabaret up in your face isn’t doing it for you maybe Darren Shan could keep you in theme but through the safety of bound text?

If you’re more of a performer then a watcher have you considered entering this years Smokefree Rockquest? It’s the 25th year this right-of-passage is running and man has it fostered all sorts of household name kiwi musicians. Need some inspiration? Here’s a surface scratching list of previous contestants including Kimbra and last years winners New Vinyl. Take yourself on a journey through our CD collection.

The curtain falls on Game Masters at Te Papa this weekend. The amazing exhibition that caters to almost every level of gamer was borrowed from the incredible ACMI in Melbourne’s Federation Square and includes Pacman, Space Invaders and Sonic!

New music on the playlist shelf this week includes ex-Wellingtonian Willy Moon and half New Zealand alt-indie darlings The Veils with their fourth album.

Ever wondered what happens when you wring a soggy towel out in space? Here’s the answer:

- Physics, fascinating!

That’s what’s a going down.

Fowler out.
Happenings, Internet, Music
Winging Your Way Through The Weekend, 2
19.04.13 | Permalink | Comment?

This week marks the halfway point through one of the world’s biggest music festivals. Split across two three day weekends The Coachella Valley Music & Arts Annual Festival (or just Coachella) in the southern California Desert showcases a plethora of bands from world-wining super acts to underground heroes. What’s the use in knowing that this is happening if it’s on the other side of the world you might say? This time of year heralds the festival drought for us but the Northern Hemisphere’s where the good time’s at! A whole array of fabled behemoth events spring up, taunting us from afar and while our imaginations may be tempted with envy one, at least, has decided to share itself with the rest of the world. So, if you find yourself bored in front of the interwebs this weekend or just keen to experience some big gig flavour be sure to tune into the Coachella Youtube channel so you can catch up on weekend one and take in some of the highlights (why not start with this The Lumineers set out-take>).

It’s really quite a joyous weekend on the musical front with the sixth annual Record Store Day consuming the globe on Saturday. Some of our great Wellington record stores will no doubt be getting in on the action (including Evil Genius, Slow Boat & Rough Peel). We aren’t quite a music store but we’ve got one heck of a music collection you can flick through, thousands of CD’s I tell you. One of the great things about Record Store Day is that a whole lot-a artists get on board and release some sweet merch’ or diddy’s for the day. For the full list click here, some surface-scratching favourite’s partaking include; Foals, Grizzly Bear, Iron & Wine & MGMT with this cassingle (preview only).

In brief:

To celebrate their two huge years of global success on the back of Passive Me, Aggressive You kiwi band The Naked And Famous have released their One Temporary Escape recording in San Francisco free to all.

All ages treat and Auckland Fringe Festival “Best Performance” winner Squidboy hits town at Bats in its current form on Dixon and Cuba. It’s had some sweet reviews like “impossible not to love.”

Rather get some sport going? The Hurricanes have a home game at Westpac Stadium against Perth’s Western Force – dum, dum, dum (that was a drum roll) who’s gonna win?

And of course a viral video to end the week on. Na-na-na-na batman.

That’s what’s a going down.

Fowler out.
Events, Happenings, Justin, Movies, Music, Wellington
Winging Your Way Through The Weekend
12.04.13 | Permalink | Comment?

Highlights this week; term time’s almost up, we’re seven days into having brought the sun forward for winter and apparently the rain’s coming back for a visit. Enough small talk though, here’s this week’s ender-entry to give you a two day break from the school work.

If you’re an adventurous titan, and like to work alliteratively, here are some things to do on Saturday – that start with ‘S’:

Skating takes over the waterfront in two forms. The Richter City roller derby season kicks off on Saturday night at the TSB arena in a home season battle between Smash Malice and Comic Slams. For a quick scrub-up on the ins and outs of the game look no further than Y/A novel Whip It and its sister movie starring Ellen Page.

Whip It (the movie) Whip It (the book)

Still keen on skating but not so sure about all the aggression – why not try your hands, or feet – or feet then hands, on the ice? The ice rink is in full operation on Queens wharf just a short hop from the TSB. For our older readers Blades Of Glory might be a quick introduction on how not to act on the ice but for some pointers and to figure out if you can make a career out of it why not check out some of our literature?

Okay, okay enough with the skates. I wouldn’t leap into the water at the moment on account of its chill factor but one way you could get some surfing in is by checking it this sweet free free flick by Alex Monteith at The Dowse Gallery in Lower Hutt.

And here’s a quick weekly musical digest to help shape your weekend playlist:

Pete Wentz’s Fall Out Boy graced our shores this week on the back of their latest album drop.
Kiwi band Tahuna Breaks are in town this weekend for their Shadow Lights album release tour and are currently sitting near the top of the NZ album charts.

Ever wondered how animals eat their food? Here’s this weeks viral vid’ – courtesy Mister Epic Mann;

Fowler out.
Adrienne, Events, Happenings, Pencil it in your diaries, Study
Need money for study?
04.04.13 | Permalink | Comment?

BreakOut – Scholarships and Grants FREE SEMINAR

Do you need money to study, research, or for your personal and professional development?

The Funding Information Service is holding a free BreakOut presentation in Wellington Central Library (ground floor, in the teen area). The seminar will show you how to find the best scholarships and grants for you.

BreakOut lists information on over 3800 scholarships and grants for students, professionals, researchers, sports people, and artists and Wellington City Libraries provides free public access to BreakOut.

The details:

Wednesday 10 April 2013

4-5pm, Wellington Central Library, 65 Victoria Street

No RSVP required. Just show up! (Can’t make it? Visit the Funding Information Service for info about BreakOut)
Happenings, Writing
Writing Workshop with Fleur Beale
20.03.13 | Permalink | Comment?

If you’re interested in creative writing, then read on!

The Children’s Bookshop in Kilbirnie is hosting an afternoon’s writing workshop for teenagers with the great Fleur Beale on Sunday the 28th of April. Places are very limited, so be in quick and email books@thechildrensbookshop.co.nz – you can also visit their Facebook page for more information (time, cost etc.).
Competition, Crafts, Happenings, Library Serf
Mix & Mash 2013
19.02.13 | Permalink | Comment?

The Great New Zealand Remix and Mashup Competition

“Organised by Creative Commons Aotearoa New Zealand, DigitalNZ and the National Library of New Zealand and enabled by Mix & Mash Sponsors and Partners, Mix & Mash 2013 will promote and celebrate the creative reuse of New Zealand’s common cultural heritage.

“Mix & Mash wants all New Zealanders, young and old, to tell new stories by adapting and remixing Public Domain and Creative Commons licensed content.” (more here)

Mixed and mashed entries on the theme “Stories about the Past” will be showcased in May, and there will be prizes! If you feel virtually crafty and you’re interested, visit the Mix & Mash website for dates, rules, definitions, ideas and sources of (legal-to-use) images, music, video and other data. (Note: work produced for school assessments is accepted!)
Happenings, Library Serf
Become a Youth Council Member
06.11.12 | Permalink | Comment?

The Wellington City Council is looking for new Youth Council members for 2013! If you are interested in council issues and youth-related activities in Wellington, this could be your opportunity to get involved.

The Youth Council has had a busy year in 2012, focusing on emergency preparedness and economic development. They have made submissions to the WCC, the Greater Wellington Regional Council and the Government on a range of issues, plans and policies, including on vulnerable children, public transport, the WCC’s Long Term Plan, and local government reform. Youth Council members have also attended conferences such as the Human Rights Commission’s national youth forum on cultural diversity.

Youth Council members must live in Wellington City, be 12 to 24 years old, and be able to attend meetings at 4pm on Wednesdays. Applications close in February 2013, when interviews will be held. This gives you heaps of time to think, decide and fill out the application form. You can also attend a Youth Council meeting to see the inner workings: the final meetings for 2012 are the 14th and 28th of November.

If you want to know more about the Youth Council, visit the webpage or have a look at the Facebook page to see what they’ve been up to. If you have any questions email youth.council@wcc.govt.nz.