battery: Bloodbox, Gho:la, k5k, DJ Suicide @ Necropolis, Auckland; Satuday 7 June

This is the second installment of battery, and as I'd missed the first, I wasn't about to miss out again. Besides, I was really curious to see electronic music at Necropolis, Auckland's legendary underground punk rock dive venue.

Things took ages to get started, with DJ Suicide playing his industrial records for ages. He's getting better at mixing; he'll go far, especially now he's picked a name for himself.

Finally Gho:la set up. They had a laptop and a synth, and some other cool devices, and continued the industrial theme. They were very good, but I was starting to get bored of all the music being in time.

So, I was happy to see k5k was DJing next. I was hoping for an all out assault of breakcore and stuff, but no. It seems like every time I see this guy DJ it's more disappointing than the last time, although I'll give him a break this time because he was only using vinyl, and I'm sure most of his good tunes must be on CDR. Eventually he played a couple of songs decent enough to dance to, but I got so bored I went outside and down the road to buy a drink.

Bloodbox eventually got their shit together, and played for all of about 10 minutes. Since they were just screaming along to their backing tape, it sounded quite like their album «structure against self», only with the vocals lower in the mix, which I thought was an improvement.

Things really wound down after that, especially when someone came up the stairs yelling paranoid stuff about the police being outside, just like every other gig I've been to here. Appearantly if I'd stayed past 01:30 I would have witnessed k5k in a DJ-battle with Suicide; instead I was home making sushi. I win the battle!

PASIFIKA FESTIVAL 2003 @ Western Springs, Auckland

I cruised down around about 12:35, with a plan to catch Nesian Mystik at 12:55. Damn, I've been in Auckland for a few years now, and I still haven't been to one of these even though I live right around the corner from Western Springs.

Actually, it was much as I expected. Crowds of people. Crowds. A whole great mixture of people. I struggle through; there's endless streams of familys, all walking far too slow for my liking, not keeping left like all the signs suggest,,,, [I'm not really into rules, but stuff like that is kinda common-sense]

So I wind up at the marquee where Nesian Mystik are gonna be playing, and I'm early, and the tent is overflowing anyway, and I catch the end of a set that I'm pretty sure was Verse II,,,, who knows,,, so I decided to continue on around the lake and see what was going down.

I was scoping everything and everyone, and I realised that all the stalls are selling these T-shirts with stuff like "Freshy" [instead of "Fresh Up" juice] on them; that's what all the young people are wearing, and I start to think that it seems that they've been sold all these racist slogans back in the form of these "culture-jamming" T-shirts, and I wonder if that's empowering, or just fucking sick,,,

I start getting really buzzed out that this whole thing is a ghoulish circus, a once-a-year event to make Pacific Islanders feel like they belong, which mainly serves instead to make them a commodity. I keep my head down and keep walking. I end up at the Contemporary Stage, and take a seat, and it seems that this is FUSA, from Christchurch.

Live bass, drums, keys and acoustic guitar, with three male MCs and a female as well. They had a very contemporary sound, a mix of hip-hop, reggae, funk and urban, lots of urban. So maybe they'll even go places. They had a great bass sound and groove going on in one of the songs, and an MC that sounded a bit like Eminem, so that it sounded very like one of his songs; I think that might mean they've got some skills.

As they got to the end of their set I cruised off, and this whole thing was starting to wear me out, but I was gonna hang around until 13:35 when the programme I had said I was gonna be seeing some jazz fusion. So I rolled over to the Arts Stage, a little place hidden out of the way,,,, I bought a drink of this interesting Tongan beverage which seemed to mainly be made of watermelon and stuff, and sat down on the grass.

It seems that I was witnessing Many Hands, described in the programme as world music. They had Pacific drums, Asian drums, Indian drums, and a female Chinese vocalist, along with this cool Chinese guy I'd seen at the Lantern Festival a little while ago, who sang and played this cool Chinese string instrument. These were all coupled with some white males, playing guitar, bass, drums and keys, in a kinda jazzy fashion. This really let the whole thing down, as it ended up sounding like white rock music rather than something cool and experimental. The mix was really shitty, the nice female vocals and a whole lot more drowned out by electric guitar. At the end of their set they exhorted everyone to buy their CD off them,,, but I wouldn't bother,,,,

Then it was sitting around as they dismantled their gear, and the next people set up their gear, and in that break we were lucky enough to get a performance by two young women who called themselves Sisters That Creep, a delightful urban piece that had them singing/rapping about how they got game over a backing tape. Great way to promote yourselves, but you perhaps picked the wrong stage.

And then the "jazz fusion" that I'd been waiting for, from a group called Soul Artistry, and I'd been seriously misled, as they launched into a version of Che Fu's «Misty Frequencies» [yawn] that they'd appearantly been lucky enough to be invited to perform at an awards event or something.

At which stage I decided that I couldn't be bothered any more, bought Rorn the chop suey she wanted and walked it back home to her.

NIGHT OF THE LIVING WEIRD: hell fuckin rumble, the cortinas, disintering diana@ valve, wellington

Friday night found me in Wellington, drinking with Rorn, my sister Lenny and my father. And so we cruised to Valve, just in the nick of time to catch the first act, Disintering Diana. This band had been really hyped to me, so I was keen to hear them.

I was told to expect noise, with crazy tape loop samples. I went up front and danced, but I couldn't really get my groove on. Live kinda Industrial-Metal beats from Tyran on drums, and distorted guitar, with occasional screams from Ben was OK, but it really needed something else: and when some helpful soul turned the tape to a volume you could hear it in the mix, things sounded halfway good: pity this happened during the last song! All up, a good first performance marred by terrible mixing and stuff: I expect good things from these two in the future.

After this I had to pop out of the venue for a while to see Rorn (who'd flagged the gig), when I came back the Cortinas were playing. I was told they're from out of town, maybe Palmerston North. It was synth-rock-pop, kinda like the b-52s, so Lenny was well enjoying it. I found I did too, even though it isn't my bag. I found a dollar in my pocket and played some Bay Watch pinball.

Next up were Hell Fuckin Rumble, who it seems a lot of people are quite chuffed with these days. I can see why. Noisey garage rock-noise played by three girls is a good idea, and they do it well. Still, it was getting late, and I had to get going.

Me and Rorn and Lenny went clothing-binning on the way home though, only to find that they'd all just been emptied. And then to get pulled up by the cops, breath-tested (I passed) and randomly harrassed (have you ever heard of an officer wanting to test your headlights?) before being let go. Maybe I shoulda stayed and seen the last band...

jungle_vomit_kore: k5k, hakaider, audioslut, males kort @ K'Road Ballroom, Auckland; 19 April

Once again a lot of problems getting it there, but even though we started late it turned out to be just the right time to get the punters. A reviewer from Real Groove magazine turned up [and appearantly wrote a shonky and inaccurate review].

Hakaider was first. His last show in New Zealand for a long time, as he was leaving for Ireland on Sunday morning, and of course he pulled out a typically polished performance.

k5k was up next, the PA was fucked and didn't really do him justice. After that Hakaider played some of his Rayden stuff, which is more mellow and Drum'n'Bass-like, "to bring it back down after k5k's crazy shit".

And then finally it was my go. My sister Lenny Sparkles had come up from Wellington especially, which was great, because it meant someone bothered to dance [the punters having been largely scared away by k5k]. I played a set I was really happy with, but unfortunately at the end of the night it turned out that the mini-disc hadn't been recording!

Audioslut followed me, with a very long set, more than enough for me and Lenny to go to the park for a cigerette and come back and still do heaps of dancing. I was quite impressed by the stuff he was playing: the bass seemed just right [i.e. pounding] for the first time all night, but that may have been because I'd had a break outside...

After he left k5k and Hakaider spent a little while battling each other, but the bar was closing and all the punters were gone, so we packed up and went home. Still, it was a bigger success than the last event, and it'll only get better in the future.

get, set, go! girl rock fest: the liva queens, the carnys [and more] @ grey lynn community centre, auckland

Yay, another all-girl event in Auckland, and this time without even using the word "punk"... The usual suspects then, including those voted cool enough to come up from Wellington, my good friends the Liva Queens and the Carnys.

Lenny Sparkles, the ghetto fabulous vocalist for the Liva Queens arrived on Friday night. There was no sign of Little Dan, their drummer. We got a text message from k5k the next morning, confusingly, because the text was from Little Dan, saying something about how he'd slept on a wooden bench in the changing rooms of the swimming pools at Auckland Boys Grammar!! Further investigation found that this particular hobo had somehow sent the text to the wrong Lenny. We got it sorted out and he arrived here at about 12:00.

The gig was scheduled for 14:00, and we mucked around for quite a while, until it became more like 13:00, and we suddenly realised we should hurry up, because it was likely that the Liva Queens would have to play first, and they still had to get drunk first. They were both very nervous, thinking about throwing it all in... playing in Auckland hasn't gone very well for them in the past... the (lack of) crowd response gets them down...

So we cruised round the corner to the community centre, and parked in the carpark. We could see that there were a few people setting stuff up, and I went and asked them, and found that somehow they'd been upgraded to playing second, and this meant that they had a whole extra half hour to get drunk.

So the next step was to walk to the alcohol store, where we got two dozen beers and a bottle of whiskey. It was at about this point that I realised I was the sober driver and that it might just be a long day...

Anyway, by the time the Liva Queens were due to play, they'd both had a few drinks, and quite a large crowd had built up. The third member Lisa Lucifer [also in the Carnys] came out to find them and get them to soundcheck. The equipment was set up in a room that opened up onto a playground, which in turn opened onto the carpark. They'd put signs on the gate into the playground telling people to go around the front of the building: so that they could charge them $10. I wasn't gonna pay that just to see my sister play, and cruised through the gate with them, looking like I belonged. I was very nervous of incurring the wrath of these feminist punk-type girls.

They took a long time, as Little Dan had to drink a few more beers, and Lenny had to go have a smoke. I took a few photos, and encouraged Little Dan to warm up playing breakbeats and jazzbreaks: he'd been joking about sabotaging the performance with them. Cobra Killer was playing on the PA: the album is four years old, but somehow because they toured they're somehow a little popular here now.

Anyway, the time came. Lenny really hates that because they're always one of the first bands, noone will dance for them. It makes her nervous and think that noone likes them. I can't help but concur with her: it's pretty much a diss not to dance for a band. So I made an effort to dance [as I always do] like they were the most exciting thing since 9-11, and luckily some of her friends bothered too. None of the Auckland crowd though: they just stood there.

It was a good set, really quite tight, especially considering that they hadn't practised since they last played in Auckland several months before. And then we were out of there, and more drinks were had. Rorn had picked up some strange gothic guy who had a large tin filled with very nice stuff, and the party was really rolling.

Our friends from Wellington would drift over to us between the bands. Adam was excited to see Crystal and the Teenage Beauty Queens, which I gathered seemed to have the Sound Laydee drumming for them (???). By the time they all came back from that, Little Dan was vomiting in the bushes.

They took off to Vicious Irene as well, very excited, and from what I could hear from where I stood they might have been quite good: but really, who knows... Things were getting a little messy as everyone was becoming quite wasted, and suddenly I had this feeling that I should go inside. I met Tyron coming out, and he said that yes, the DJ I had seen setting up earlier was playing now, and he was playing Aphex Twin. This I was most interested in seeing, and, being unable to work out how to open the gate, I strode around to the front and boldly walked through the door right in front of the people collecting money.

He was playing Bomb20, as I'd somehow suspected he might, and I danced my mad style in the almost empty room, which drew strange looks from the few people who walked through. I was trainspotting, watching every record as he pulled out DJ Scud, Patric C, and Atari Teenage Riot on his very new and expensive looking decks. His records weren't very obscure, and his mixing was pretty atrocious [that is, one song stopped, there was a pause, and then the next one started], but he obviously had some sort of interest in Hardcore Electronic, because you can't exactly buy those records in the shops here. He would come out from behind the decks occasionally, drinking his cheap beer and listening to the sound: which, being a guitar-orientated PA, had no bass and did the tracks no justice.

At the conclusion of his set I was keen to talk to him, but Rorn intervened. But then he ended up coming and talking to the strange goth that Rorn had found, and so it was that I met Trevor, the gothic DJ. He was a little drunk, but I managed to explain to him that there was a small Hardcore scene here in Auckland, and it turned out that he'd heard of k5k, Anti-Kati, and A-Klass Rekidz, and was keen. I told him to send an e-mail if he wanted to meet up sometime...

Anyway, Little Dan was still very sick, and Rorn and Lenny were starting to look like I should get them home. Lenny was keen to stay and see the Carnys, who have now reached the stage where they command second-to-last position, but we decided that it really wasn't a good idea. We carried Little Dan into the van, and then cruised off home.

We dropped him off on a couch where he fell straight back asleep, and then went out to get some food. The evening was spent very quietly, and that was the end of that.

Shapeshifter @ QE II Square, Auckland

Natas was visiting A/K, and so I cruised downtown with him to catch Shapeshifter. He was well keen. We arrived just in time to catch the end of Greg Churchill's set. He's a very good House DJ, he really had the crowd jumping. Why not? The council had made it free again, as part of their ongoing Dancing in the Streets campaign.

We braved the cue in a conveniance store to get some water, and came out as the MC was introducing Shapeshifter. We moved into the crowd, waited a few songs and then moved a little deeper, and eventually found ourselves in a gap, centrestage, where we got down to dancing. I was looking around, at all the building surrounding the square, and I suddenly got really paranoid of snipers on the rooftops: I keep thinking at the oddest moments that it's suddenly gonna be the start of the New World Order. I also noticed that you can only see about 11 stars in the sky when you're downtown: that's just shitty.

Shapeshifter were very good, playing as a four-piece live Drum'n'Bass combo. A drummer, and three guys twiddling nobs and playing synths; one who occasionally played guitar, and one who spent most of the first half of the show playing saxophone.

They played well to the crowd (the figure we were given was 4500 people), dropping in lots of sax breaks. It was kinda pop and derivative, covering lots of different variations in jazzy Drum'n'Bass, but the crowd was lapping it up. And these guys were obviously skilled musicians, as they kept up their pace, building up at the end with an MC going bananas, lots of rave-synth breaks, and a fat bass sound. Of course I was thinking that I would have chosen to turn the nobs just a little bit further and make a noise, but these guys knew their audience and were aiming for a popular sound, so I can see why they didn't.

Appearantly the album is nothing on their live show, so maybe see them if they're in your town.

peaches, cobra killer, the pussies @ FU, Queen Street, Auckland

Both me and k5k saw posters for this a week or two in advance, but we'd both thought "Surely that can't be the Cobra Killer, from Germany, formerly on the legendary DHR label. Must just be some Hard-Trance DJ with the same name". Two days before we discussed the possibility of it being a coincidence, and so we checked the FU Bar website, and found that it WAS them.

So, on Thursday night, me and k5k and Edward Denton headed downtown. The tickets said 23:00, the bar's website said 22:30, so we were a little disappointed when we arrived to find that we'd have to wait until 23:30.

This meant sitting on Queen Street, luckily not too full of munters. Eventually we cruised back to the venue. We walked in, and were assaulted with a throng of people. They did not look like your typical FU Bar crowd: instead of ravers, there were a few Punks that I recognised (the anarcho-feminist ones), and a whole bunch of "alternative" types with their dreadlocks and funky clothes. The dead giveaway was that they were all at the bar being drunk rather than being on raver party drugs.

While k5k went to the bar to talk to people he knew, me and Herr Denton went down the back and found a seat on a large sub. k5k presently joined us, and we got to sit lamenting the DJs music choice and discussing the likelihood of anyone who is here actually having any idea who Cobra Killer (or Peaches for that matter) are, considering that there is no coverage or distribution of German hardcore style music in this country. There could obviously have been lots of people who were in the know, but considering how much it was promoted on student radio and the way that the crowd looked like students... Not that it really mattered, they were about to find out at any rate.

So anyway, first onstage were the Pussies, a local band that I'd never heard of. Either everyone was already really drunk, or a lot of them were friends of the Pussies, because the crowd went really wild. They were a four-piece all-girl band. A vocalist, synths/backing vocals, mellodica/backing vocals, and a drummer. Maybe there was more of them: they were kind of obscured by a pillar that was holding up the ceiling; maybe they had some other instuments too. All their songs consisted of synths that sounded like Type O Negative, and either the live drummer or a drum machine playing the same beat right throughout the song (when the drum machine was going the drummer just sat there playing a tambourine or looking bored). The mellodica was mostly too low in the mix to hear, and vocals weren't too hot either. Still, they sounded like a kind of gothic Lounge band, so it was pleasant enough to listen to.

The DJ was back after they finished; he seemed to only be playing female artists, so there was stuff like Missy Elliot, and other such riot girls. I watched as a lady in a trenchcoat and ridiculous stiletto heels set up some equipment on the stage [it was Gina].

And then after a while, it was time. Gina and Annika came out in matching trenchcoats, and they were both in really fucking big heels. Annika was holding a bottle of wine, which she was skulling from. They introduced themselves, with their really lovely accents. Their music was really fantastic: cut-up samples and beats combined with crazy 60s organ. They were playing a CD through a little mixer, and then singing over the top. The crowd was going really wild. They started pouring wine all over each other, and then throwing rice and ice into the crowd. The girls down the front were very excited, and so also was some strange long-haired guy, who seemed to be trying to grope them.

They were dancing around crazily in their heels on a now very wet and slippery stage, but somehow they managed to stay stable. They even jumped into the crowd, which really just got them groped by the girls and the boys. Personally I wouldn't have jumped into such a drunk crowd. It was madness, but it was really going off. At one point Annika kind of collapsed and rolled off the stage and under it, right in front of me and k5k. She lay there for a while, having a rest.

Finally, at the end of the show, they said "We have just one more song. Carl Crack is no longer with us anymore. He is dead", and I got kinda excited, because I figured they were gonna play an Atari Teenage Riot song as a tribute, but then they couldn't find the disc. A bit of an anti-climax.

They disappeared through the crowd. Me and k5k wanted to give them some CDs, seeing we are the local Digital Hardcore scene, and we figured that we would give it to them when they came back to clear up their equipment, but then someone else packed it up, and so we took off outside to see if we could find them.

They were not out on Queen Street, but I did take the opportunity to buy myself a cookie and eat it too. Then we headed back inside, and straight away bumped into Annika. We loaded her up with CDs, which she said her and Gina would listen to back at the hotel room. Gina was standing at the bar: I think that the long-haired gropey guy from down the front was buying her a drink. But she disappeared before we could talk to her.

Peaches was just starting up. She looked much more gothic than the promotional material had led us to believe (the bar's website said she only wore hot pink), dressed in black PVC and a dog collar and teased hair. We watched her for a few songs. Her voice was alright, and the music was Techno-ish. But for us, we had seen what we came to see, and so we went home.