k5k, Incredible Hexadecibels with Creassault, It's Always Last Tuesday Somewhere, Beatmeter @ Wine Cellar, 6th January 2009

This was a last-minute kind of show; Eiterherd was still in the country, and word was spread by text message that possibly he was going to play again.

First up was k5k, who played a live noise set with his Nintendo DS. This was backed with some visuals created by Guy 7U?, freshly delivered to NZ by Eiterherd. Really entrancing stuff, but violent. I sat and drank the beer k5k had bought me, and sank into my chair; my head whirling with these evil fantasies I've been having lately, aided by noise and violent visuals..........

Next up I got to play, using P.P. Flo's laptop and Traktor software setup to mix up all my latest dupestep bass riddims and so forth. People sat and listened. I assume the visuals were still running. Add visuals to your music and people become like TV zombies.

Next up was the TV zombie specialists, Incredible Hexadecibels with Creassault, making up for their unperformance a few nights ago. Every time I see them they've tweaked the visuals a little bit, but basically they've been doing the same show for over a year now. Still, there's always a new audience; tonight I guess this is for Eiterherd's benefit, so he can go back to Austria and rave about them to his colleagues.

There had been speculation of a Dubya Children Eaterz performance, but Creassault had to go home to bed, and took most of the hardware they were planning to borrow with him, so that scuppered that. Instead Beatmeter took to the decks with a stack of 7"s, playing some weird kinds of music quite unlike his usual sets of breakcore.

Eiterherd didn't end up playing. I ran into an old acquaintance of mine; said "Hello", told her I was here to see some noise and breakcore out in the back room. "So breakcore's a kind of music?" -- "Yes, it's like .. uh .. jungle .. or um ... IT'S BIG IN EUROPE!" That seemed to be explanation enough; that's what I'm sticking to as an explanation from now on...

Then I cruised outside and talked to P.P. Flo and Eiterherd, and slowly we inched further and further towards and then inside Area 26 where P.P. Flo lives, and Eiterherd showed us some video on his laptop called like Good Copy, Bad Copy or something, about sampling and copyright, and then Rewa and some dubstep DJ arrive also, and we all move out on the balcony and sit smoking and listening to Xian and in the case of those who were drunk, talking shit; and then suddenly it's all over, because P.P. Flo has work in the morning.

Eiterherd, 8bit kidd, k5k, p.p. flo, beatmeter, softsmell - Whammy Bar, 3 January 2009

Somehow in early 2009 everything was coming together; not just one but three top international artists coming. And first up is Austria's Eiterherd. P.P. Flo and Eiterherd are on the door, and Eiterherd is introduced to me.

I go and sit at the bar, drink some water, slowly realise that no one is going to buy me a drink tonight because they seem to be getting a steady supply to Eiterherd instead.

Softsmell, aka Rewa, is playing. I find out later it's her first solo show.

8bit Kidd I've never seen before. He plays Nintendo style music. So, not exactly hardcore, but interesting, listenable. I look over to Eiterherd to guage his reaction, and he seems to be enjoying himself. I start thinking about how interesting it must be to go to different cities and hear the kind of stuff other people are making.

Beatmeter played his usual breakcore set; I haven't ever told him, but he's good - he always plays a really solid set of premium breakcore in a way that no other DJ I've seen here does. I guess it's because he's got a good selection of vinyl that he brought over with him from the UK, or maybe because he's only a DJ, not a producer.

k5k played an awesome set, the best I've seen from him in ages. I believe this is mainly due to him playing his own material off his last album "Fakecore Fakecore Fakecore", which sounded incredible over this soundsystem. I guess that fact he was working at Whammy Bar and basically used their soundsystem to test the album while it was in production helped. To be honest it was the first time I've ever felt the bass in that venue.

Eiterherd followed k5k, and k5k turned up the volume, and it was great. Different. New. Very high quality. I danced and danced. I can see why he has this reputation; I can see why European breakcore is so much stronger than what we have here.

Incredible Hexadecibels were supposed to play, but there was some dramas with laptops or projectors or software or something and it just didn't happen all night. I sit at the bar again, drink some more water. I assume P.P. Flo was playing at this point, or maybe that was actually when Beatmeter was playing. These shows start to blur together after a while when it's always the same people. That's why it's so great to have international artists come to play here. Anyway, I'm left fully excited for the artists still to come...