Incredible Hexadecibels vs Creassault, Gei, Sorry see Saw, Anti-Kati, Nigel Wright @ Wine Cellar, Fri, Nov 23

I cruised into the city on the bus, keen to see the Incredible Hexadecibels. The Wine Cellar is a cute little venue, with couches and stuff to sit on while you listen.

Gei was one-man-drone, using a guitar. A lot of people do this style of music, even just in this city. I cannot say it was any better or worse than any other I have seen.

DJ Nigel Wright played some music in between sets, including some DHR stuff if I recall correctly.

Sorry See Saw - in the lead up to this they were known as "unnamed super group (feat. 7 members from more than 30 bands)" - consisted of some random people, none of whom I really recognised, except for Erika, who is k5k's girlfriend. She did vocals and played a conch shell. They played some rock-based music.

Incredible Hexadecibels vs Creassault was great. Combining video and audio together is mesmerising, just like television. It helps that both the audio and video are top quality. I had to run out just before the end to catch the last bus, but it sure left me wanting to see it again...

DJ Olive, Anti-Kati, D-Form, Manaia Toa, Wilberforce, Bombadrop @ Galatos, Auckland; Friday 16 Feb

I managed to get to this right on time; Anti-Kati had told me they were starting at 10pm sharp. I mean, they didn't, but that was good. We chatted a bit and then they played. They'd managed to get one of those fancy Serato systems for the night. They played a pretty standard kind of set, with tracks off their latest 12", and stuff that hadn't been released at that point and so on..

After their set, Wilberforce and Bombadrop seemed to be racking up the tracks; they were playing kinda dubby and bassy stuff. I spent this time mainly hanging out downstairs/outside, having conversations.

Manaia Toa arrived, to my surprise that's Manaia Toa aka Splash aka Aotearoa Battle Soundz aka End Of Man. Well anyway, he's well into his dubstep, he played a lot of that, alternating with some jungle, and then he drops some jazz, Coltrane I think it was, and I turn to Anti-Kati and I say to them "If you ever wanted someone to play jazz at your event, why don't you just let me play?"

Quite a crowd had built up by this point, and DJ Olive started playing. None of us really had any idea what he was going to be like. I mean, googling him seemed to suggest he was "cool" and a "turntablist". In fact k5k told me he'd seen a little of him the night before at a little show down at the Wine Cellar. Anyway, tonight this guy was playing some kind of like tribal kinda house music. I swear he sounded exactly like DJ Food circa Jazz Brakes vol. 4 or something, which is good for house music, but it is 2007. God knows what New York must be like if this is the example.

It was really a pretty strange line-up, but the bar had filled up with people and some random square-as looking people in their 40s were down the front raving it up. Me and MC slypussy and his girl Rewa were sitting on these couches laughing hard. And then me and my MC made her dance up the front with them. I was still laughing hard, but it was hard to read how Rewa felt about it. Dancing real stupid and looking stupid, to my mind, beats (for example) the people I saw standing against a wall nursing a drink and kinda scowling.

DJ Olive must have played for at least an hour. And then D-Form arrived, and played some commercial hip-hop for a while. I just really used this time to catch up with my acquaintances, as I don't get out much these days.

All in all it was a pretty good night, and certainly one of the stranger Anti-Kati shows I have been to. But really, give DJ Olive a miss if he comes to your town.

Keith Fulerton Whitman @ St James, Auckland; Hrvatski @ Wine Cellar, Auckland; Elektrode:Nina RK @ Ibiza, Auckland; Saturday 29 April

So anyway, some random chick named Karina contacted me through discogs asking about the Auckland breakcore scene. And then on this same day Anti-Kati were contacting me saying that Hrvatski was playing and I should come. So as I was riding the bus into town to meet Anti-Kati I was texting this Karina and telling her about this show, but it turned out she worked at the venue and already knew.

I met Anti-Kati on Symonds Street, and they gave me some beer and we walked down to AUT and found somewhere quiet to smoke and drink and talk. Then we walked down to the venue. It was in a side room of the St James, and we arrived just in time for the Keith Fulerton Whitman set to be starting. We scored a spot down the front. This room was like carpeted, and people were sitting and lying on the floor.

We chilled out, let the noise wash over us. When you were lying on the floor you could feel the bass under you, while the high frequencies floated above you. It was quite magical.

After he had finished, he invited all interested audio geeks to come and check out his equipment and he talked to them for a while. We texted Karina, to meet up with her. Word was Keith was heading up to the Wine Cellar to play a show as Hrvatski. She was already on her way there, but came back to meet us. We walked up Queen St together.

I have a feeling she was also headed up there anyway to see Fandaby Dozi play, my memory is hazy but I'm pretty sure this was the night we met him. Anyway, Hrvatski played a short set off his laptop. Me and slypussy did some dancing. It was over too soon really.

Then slypussy tells me that Koil is running his goth-EBM-industrial-hardtekno night called Elektrode just up the road at Ibiza, and we should check it out, because there is a lot of black-light-glow-in-the-dark cybergoths there, and they play hardkore tekno there. It turns out that the real reason he wants to go there is to see the DJ, hot goth chick Nina RK.

We go into Ibiza, and they're playing like Vengaboys and stuff, and me and slypussy bump and grind for a bit. There's no sign of the Elektrode night. We go back to the Wine Cellar to look for k5k, but it's all over, so we go to K' Road Ballroom, and slypussy buys us some beer, and there's a jukebox that costs no money, so we queue up some music like Wham!, and then before we leave we queue up a bunch of Alanis Morisette and shit like that, for some other suckers to have to listen to.

We head back to Ibiza and work out that there's an upstairs, and we blag our way in without paying by saying we're just looking for our mate k5k, and there's only about 10 people there, and Nina RK is playing some hardcore tekno, CoretexLabs kinda stuff appearantly, and me and slypussy bump and grind some more with the about 3 other people on the dancefloor.

and eventually it's all over.

DEL, White Saucer, Dean Roberts @ kings arms, auckland; 4 march

I arrived at about 22:00, maybe a bit after, and Lasse Marhaug (star of DEL) himself was at the door, selling vast quantities of vinyl and CDs, which I didn't have money for. Although I did make sure I had the money to purchase the limited tour 8". I paid for my entry, got my stamp and then took my vinyl back to my car, and moved my car closer to the venue, because it turned out there was parking right outside it.

I went inside and managed to find a comfy chair to sit in, which was sweet, better than I was hoping for. Some DJ, or maybe a team were playing weird music. Eventually Dean Roberts took the stage. He had an electric guitar and some effects, and played some slow, droney music with it, and sang a little, I don't know what about, but it was basically terrible, it made me think that if people will buy that kinda shit I should try making some, because it didn't look hard.

I got some water, sat back down, the DJ(s) played some more weird music, I guess they were going for that kinda art-school-found-sound-faux-noise kinda vibe. Then White Saucer came on, a two-piece consisting of a drummer and a very hairy guitarist who kept his back to the audience and all his hair over his face mainly. White Saucer were noisy, it was pretty interesting. The guitarist made layers of noise, while the drummer played in a continuous roll kinda style, tribal, not your regular 4/4 rock beat. Towards the end the drummer stopped and the guitarist used effects and a keyboard or something to create a layer of noise, before the drummer kicked back in with a rock beat to great effect.

DEL took the stage about 00:30, a drummer and a guitarist, and a guy who sat on the floor and sometimes played guitar, and Lasse Marhaug who also had a guitar but wasn't playing it in a conventional style. They billed themselves as "possibly the best drone-noise-lofi-out-rock band from the north pole", and maybe that's a good description. They were droning, as they played their guitars with bows and so on, while the drummer went between rocking beats and mellow, almost jazzy rimshot combinations. I didn't stay to see their whole set, I was too hungry and tired, but they were exactly what I expected. Check them out if they come again.

MASS CONFUSION: Squee, Anti-Kati, Creassault, Flick, Audioslut, DJ Monkey Cunt, Males Kort @ Odeon Lounge, Auckland; 7 January

I was feeling really ill, I was nervous, I was sure there was going to be a big crowd, and I was going to have to play in front of them. When I got to the venue there were already like 20 people there, easily about four times as many as I've ever played to before.

I took the stage, and the equipment was pretty shit, only one turntable, and two discmans as the CD players, one of which had no readout whatsoever and had to be kept closed with masking-tape. And the desk they were on was completely the wrong height, so I spent the whole time stooping and kinda hurt my back. So underground and hardcore. I played for about 40 minutes, at a couple of points I looked at the crowd, and the place was full, like at least 50 people. I ended with "Macarena" which was great, I'm sure someone heckled me, and everyone was happy when I turned it off.

k5k wrangled me a free beer from the bar, and I sat at a table down the front with him and his girlfriend Honor and Squee and his sister Peta, and Flick aka Matt Brennan went onstage, for his weird beat-box and guitar metal songs, including a tribute to recently slain Pantera guitarist Dimebag Darrel. People got into it, he really is a top beat-boxer, you can see why he qualified for the nationals.

Next up was Audioslut, who plays that hardcore-ragga-jungle kinda stuff, and I spent most of his set outside talking to Squee and Honor. He dropped some hip-hop at some point, which I thought was kinda different to all the other times I've heard him.

Creassault spent a long time setting up, and then played a short set of old-school industrial/electro kinda stuff, really 80s and linear, not so imaginative. But I have every respect for them, I don't know how anyone can stand to be confined to 4/4 time-signatures like that.

Finally it was time for Squee, although it was almost midnight, and there were still two more acts to follow him and the bar closed at 01:00, and I was feeling tense about what k5k was going to do, seeing as he was the promoter, and other gigs he's organised people, i.e. me, have been bumped because time ran out. That's why I always play first now. The crowd was definitely starting to thin by this point.

Squee is re-inventing himself as hardcore-abstract conscious hip-hop, with some fantastic beats and melodies composed by MC slypussy. He rapped to his backing CD, about the government and conservation and stuff, and it was well-wicked. I got it all on video too, look out for bootlegs of that to surface sometime in 2005.

k5k set up for the Anti-Kati set, and spent maybe 20 minutes making noise, quite an interesting set compared to some I've seen him do, which he finished by dropping "Jem vs the Akuban", which has great samples from the Jem tape I once lent them.

Winding things up was DJ Monkeycunt, a last-minute addition to the line-up, direct from Brisbane, Australia. He played nasty fast distorted gabba beats over a variety of 80s pop music, and danced wildly to it, and waved his fists in the air and yelled "Yeah!" I've never seen anything like it, but to tell you the truth I could count the number of Australians I have met in my life on one hand. Well, it was a great ending for those who managed to stay to the end.

Quidam - Cirque de Solail, Auckland

I got some tickets to this circus for xmas, and wasn't disappointed. Easy parking, and a nice big circus tent made the atmosphere cruisy and fun. We got seated on uncomfortable little chairs (what else) that were not exactly in the best viewing position, and waited.

The clowns got things rolling, as people were still coming in, and then once the show started it was all French weirdness, like watching a cool French movie like City of Lost Children or something. The performers were very skilled and professional, the clowns genuinely funny, and the fact they use a live band was a nice touch.

The intermission was much needed, and we slunk out for an ice-cream, before coming back in for another, much briefer, dose of mad circus.

All in all, a great experience, although at about $100 a ticket, I wouldn't necessarily recommend it to anyone who hasn't got rich relatives/friends who want to shout them to it.

Revolver, Augustino, Nephew @ The Studio, K'Road, Auckland;Thursday 15 July

This was like the opening night of The Studio, and I won tickets off the Export Gold website. I don't know why I bothered entering, I guess I just like to win stuff. I kinda think they were just telling everyone who bothered to enter that they won though, so that the place would fill up and have a buzz going on for it's opening night. I mean, who would've been so stupid as to spend the $10 they were asking on the door to see these no-name fucking bands??!!

No one wanted to go with me, so I practically had to beg Dymo to come with me. The e-mail they'd sent telling me I'd won, and the lady who'd rang me to tell me I'd won were very very specific that the doors opened at 19:30 and the gig started at 20:00. I've heard bullshit like that before, but I figured it'd start by about 20:30 if they were so insistant it would start early, and got there around 20:15. Of course, it was utter bullshit. Not only that, they kept everyone out in this shitty little front bar, which slowly filled to the brim. It had fuck-all seating, and me and Dymo had to content ourselves with leaning against a wall until they finally let us into the main area at about 21:30.

Export Gold has a big controlling interest in this bar, and so when you walk into the main area it's in the revolting Export Gold colour scheme of brown and gold. The bar was down one wall, the big stage was at front, and there was absolutely no seating. The two upstairs levels which did have seating were off-limits, and I was pretty fucked off and thinking I really shouldn't have bothered coming, and I kept apologising profusely to Dymo for dragging him out to this.

Nephew came on about 22:00 - it was the singer from Goodshirt playing solo with a guitar and some kinda synthy-electronic kinda thing. He was shit, really, and he had to keep looking at his fret-board every time he changed chord. He finished off with a song off the new Goodshirt album, which was being released the next week, and the whole thing felt like some really unconvincing ad.

Next up were Revolver. People were dancing a little, and grooving and nodding their heads, and I thought "You're all fucking mental. This is so lame and tired". Revolver are yet another one of those rock bands, a five-piece with a keyboard player. What I didn't get, as they pranced around the stage with their bland fucking songs, is why they think that they, a no-name rock band that no one has even heard of, should have the right to walk around the stage striking classic stereotypical rock-god poses? Their songs didn't even have any hooks!

Needless to say, me and Dymo left before they'd even finished. It was late, and lame, and we had better places to be.