This one time at band camp, I gave Matt Staple half my beer. He was slaughtered. He's not the Keith Richards of the band. He also prefers to watch Rugby League.

TrinityRoots at Refuel, Otago University. Second semester 2002. The venue was packed out, but I managed to find a place right up the front to the left of the stage, next to the dj booth so I didn't get squashed. It was one of the gigs that they played with percussionist Chris O'Connor, and he was amazing, totally intuitive, improvising with all kinds of things - dropping chains on to the tom, rattling seashells.

From my spot I could see the entire front row was made up of lovestruck girls gazing longingly at the band. I remember being particularly enamoured of Riki but really I always had trouble choosing my favourite because they're all so beautiful when they perform! The vibe was like any TrinityRoots show - everyone open minded, blissed out, on another level - but it seemed like there was something extra special going on.

After the gig ended, I wandered dreamily home along the Leith. I stopped beside the river in front of the Registry, dangling my legs over the stone ledge, and I noticed a man walking along the other bank towards Castle St. He stopped beside a tree and stretched his face up to smell a flower just above head level.

It seemed so incongruous to the usual post-gig, night out in Dunedin scenario. It was beautiful.

Ok i really want an Ipod so i'm gonna lay down the law with some name dropping here...

My father was having some sort of party with Paul Ubana Jones in attendance (i think this was on a Nissan Mobile 500 weekend..I think Mathew Ridge came over as well...what relevance that has i do not know). To my alarm Paul was like 'Hey I'm gonna get Neil Finn up here, Crowded house are in town for a gig." I was but eleven years old and fairly star struck by the chance of that chorus pedal wielding songsmith being in my house and I think I acted a little crazy when he did indeed show up. I made him this desert i was perfecting at the time called a "Coconut Snow Witch". Neil was very nice about my crappy dish and he suggested that he would write a song of the same name. He hasn't yet. But anyway he gave dad a few tickets to their show and i got to go see my first ever gig; Crowed House supported by (i think if my memory serves me well) Dead Flowers and The Exponents at the Wellington Town Hall. Fairly eye opening moment and i think i hated the loud booming live sound, until they played some hits and sucked my young mind into the world of the pop hook.

I was tempted to tell Neil off about not writing that song(Coconut Snow Witch) when Phoenix got to support him and Tim on tour this year but was just too nice...and as a footnote Luke Buda was also at that gig back in 1990 or whenever it was. Needless to say getting to see Tim and Neil perform songs like Charlie and Suffer Never close up (getting the way of their stage crew) was remarkable.

When I was 15, in 1999, my father and I were travelling to some swimming competitions in Europe. It was the middle of winter and we were driving a camper-van from western Germany to northern Italy when, at 110 kilometers an hour on a German autobahn, the front right tyre of our van blew out. We were lucky not to roll the van onto its side. It was a Sunday afternoon and, to make things worse, it was a German public holiday. We were stranded on the side of the enormous highway until a young German couple pulled up and offered us a lift to the nearest town. They spoke next to no English, but we were desperate, so we got into their car. They had the stereo on and about five minutes after we started driving Crowded House's "Always Take The Weather With You" came on the radio. My dad and I stared at each other incredulously, but I think that was when we knew we'd get out of the awful situation alive!

Well I really don't expect an Ipod to be sent over to Blighty, but the car-trouble one above got me inspired. A story for a story’s sake, anyway.

J-po was now the proud owner of a white 1981 Ford Sierra Station Wagon. Plenty of rust, no driver’s licence, but behold- rego & warrant! Hark- legroom! And aghast- more room for band gear! A fixer-upper, but I was happy that my grey Nissan Sunny sedan would get a much needed break from double duty as acting Bedford CF. J-po's flattie and best friend were fixing up a classic Alfa together, and offered their technical help get the Sierra purring, as it was running a bit rough.

Anyway, the recording had been months in the planning. We had decided to hire all the mics we needed and record the music in a vineyard in the Taranaki, stopping at Palmerston North & Wanganui on the way to collect some essential snot & widgets. Waiting for us in Taranaki was the engineer, his PC & mobile recording equipment. With all that extra room in the back, the Sierra was looking like the perfect packhorse.

Everything was booked, the annual leave was approved & the big weekend was upon us. The day before, we took the Sierra for a spin to make sure it would work & to collect some gear from across town, which was about the point where I learned that first gear didn't work.

And on the way back, it stalled about half a dozen times. We had to call Jpo's flattie to jumpstart us, as the starter motor wouldn't even turn- the battery seemed to hold no charge whatsoever.

I was not looking forward to Brooklyn Hill.

By now we'd worked out that the Sierra gave up the ghost whenever I attempted to change gear, or when the revs dropped below 2500, so I screamed up Brooklyn in second gear hoping for dear life that we'd at least make it to the summit. Just as we got to the crest of Ohiro Road, she died.

We held our breaths as we coasted silently down through a set of unbelievably rare green lights at Brooklyn Junction, and drifted on until we came to a halt just outside of J-po's flat.

Well, that was lucky- but we needed this car to work- we didn't have any cars spare to get all three of us, all our gear and the extra recording gear up to Taranaki, and we had no budget to get a rental with. On advice from the pit crew, J-po bought a new battery for the Sierra, which was put on charge straight away so that we'd be ready to go the next morning.

At first, everything seemed OK. The next morning, engine revving, we waited for the lights to change at Willis Street, when we would make our charge into the motorway tunnel bound for a weekend of music making.

Just as she was on the approach to the tunnel, the Sierra died again. Bugger.

J-po called his wonderful girlfriend Mo, who whizzed down to meet us in her little Honda Integra, but even though we had become experts with a set of jumper cables, there was no restarting the Sierra this time, she’d breathed her last- we guessed there must’ve been some major electrical failure. We moved some of the amps into Mo’s car, then pushed the Sierra back up the tunnel approach and into a (again, unbelievably) free park on Vivian Street to the left. We had a long hard look at the gear inside the Sierra, and our hearts sank. There was no way we were getting the three of us and all that gear to Taranaki without the Sierra. It was already very tightly packed as it was. No way.

But we had a woman’s help now. Yes way.

Mo drove me to back to my place, where I picked up my trusty Nissan Sunny sedan. I grinned as it roared into life first-try. Then Mo followed me back to where the Sierra lay beached, and we emptied it of every single piece of gear, as passers-by looked on with a mix of curiosity and hilarity.

We went through our own luggage and removed any unnecessary belongings etc. then worked on the drums, taking the head off the bass drum and putting the smaller drums & some microphones inside it, with woollen blankets, sleeping bags & spare clothing for padding. Mic stands were completely disassembled, and stowed under the front seats. We left a couple of amps behind, and made do with just one for bass & one for guitar, filling the back of the guitar cabinet with carefully wrapped mics & cables. The boot and back seat began to fill with gear. Every spare orifice of the Sunny was found and exploited. The front seats were pushed right forward to allow more room in the back for the bass drum, an amp and the drum hardware, stacked to the ceiling. A tiny space on the back seat was reserved for one band member, sat hunched with their knees tucked up into their chest. This was going to be tight.

Approximately 45 minutes later, in disbelief, we were looking at an empty Sierra, and a full Sunny.

We surely would never have found all that room without Mo’s help.

That night, I pulled into the gravel driveway of the vineyard, and switched off the little motor that hadn’t missed a beat. The other two had even managed to get some sleep on the way, despite the lack of room. We were welcomed inside with ice-cold beer, hot food, and a damn good stretch…

I'm not in it for an i pod, but thought I put my one in all the same, it was a few years back when I was first looking at kiwi music and taking an interest .. Zed were one of the first kiwi bands I'd kinda heard of, so when i heard they were playing over here at the Water Rats, I thought I'd pop along and take a look, I turned up and the place was already quiet full, it was a kind of press / industry thing with a few more people making up the numbers, anyhow I'd got myself a drink and was looking for somewhere to sit, everything was full ... except a sofa in the corner, which I guessed was reserved for someone, so I kept my eye on it for a bit .. and no one sat on it ... !! so I thought I'd just pop over and see if anyone standing near it was going to take a seat, I went up to one bloke who had been standing by the sofa since I been eyeing it, and said look if you guys aren't going to sit down, then can I ?? he looked alittle startled, but said yeah go ahead, so I got my seat, and all around me people were standing and chatting away and I had the sofa to myself .. with the odd person glancing over, anyhow I got talking to the old guy next to me, and found out after abit he was Zeds manager .. ( Ray Columbus, I found out when he gave me his business card ) .. real nice guy, and I also found out I was sitting on Zeds sofa ... and the guy I'd asked for the seat was in the band .. think he was the blond one, I never have been too good recognizing bands ( which can be abit of a problem considering where I work ) and to be fair they didn't once ask for their sofa back ... they gave a great performance that nite, and impressed alot of people ....

Nato, you're the soppiest Alpha Male around. Hee hee. xo

heh, regardless of who wins - cheers for sharing the story Nato! must've been awesome. anyway..

I'd seen set lists online that said Pacifier were (after several years) playing a bunch of songs off not only Killjoy but also Churn on their 2003 Aussie tour. Needless to say, I was definitely looking forward to seeing them when they came back to New Zealand.

All geared up for the show I was gutted to learn that the gig was gonna be at the St. James and thanks to licensing laws - R18. This fucked me off to no end as I was 16 at the time and had been hanging out to see Pacifier play. In my bitterness I wrote a letter to the St. James expressing (sans expletives) my disappointment that the show was preventing people who simply wanted to appreciate and experience live music from doing so. I reckoned there shoulda been a drinking area like the year before at the Oracle. grr..I'm not a big fan of business to begin with but the 'more revenue for the venue via alcohol sales = underage fans miss out' thing really pissed me off and still does. Not everyone wants to go get wasted and have trouble remembering what was played.

I even asked a mate whose mate.. (sound hopelessly familiar?) knew a security guy if he could get me in as had been done for him earlier in the year. As expected, nothing fruitful came of this and I was back to square 'aww shit'.

Despite feeling a bit deflated I still considered turning up, trying to get a ticket and walking in. The thought in mind being that the night was gonna be either reaal fuckin' great or reaal fuckin' shit.. I ended up winning tickets off the radio and felt a bit guilty that they were potentially gonna go to waste. Nevertheless, I left school early and caught a bus into the city. I was a little late to get a 'with the band' t-shirt but still managed to say hi to Tom who was outside talking to people and signing stuff.

When a mate turned up (who himself has a wicked Shihad story) I asked if he wanted to try find a way into the soundcheck. He said "why don't we just ask Tom" who was heading back towards the building entrance. We caught him up and awesomely he let us watch and listen from sidestage as they ran through parts of old songs that were going to be played that night. Some funny bastard yelled out "when did you guys get so commercial?" after they'd been hammering out Get Up and Derail. Julia Deans who'd turned up by this point echoed the joke with "pop n roll". It was pretty cool that everyone could laugh at this considering all the shit that'd been given for the name change and Pacifier album. After this my mate got his cd sleeves signed by Jon who was still around and then we went to wait.

The thoughts of how security was meant to be 'real tight' (which is why I couldn't be got in like the mate whose mate..) kinda got to me as I waited in line. This nervousness escalated a bit when I heard a guy yelling "tickets, ID, tickets, ID". I moved to the right (away from the guy) of my mate and his sister and walked in the door. I walked up to the next door, got my ticket ripped (by a guy who for some reason seemed familiar) and got my ass into the venue. I can still remember the mix of calmness, elation and excitement wafting over me. It was time for a piss..

Two Lane Black Top weren't too bad and Fur Patrol were sweet though it was clear who people had come to see..... SHIIIIIIHHHAAAAD..SHIIIHAAAAD...SHIIIIHAAAD. We chanted and chanted and chanted and eventally on they came. Interconnector!! Ghost from the Past!!! Gimme Gimme, The Call, Screwfuckingtop, Derail, Debs Night Out, MMS, TGE and finally Home Again. Watching Jon climb up and play on the stack was pretty amazing. I was waiting for him to jump but instead he carefully made his way around one of the upper levels, was lowered down in the middle and crowd surfed to the front; over the top of me, over the barricade and back onstage.

Afterwards we got drinks and went round the back so my mate could get Toms set list. Karl, Tom and Jon said hi, shook our hands and brought to end (well..we took the bus and went back to Kura after that.. but y'know what I mean) one of the best nights of my life.

hehe, the next day mates had to bang on my window to wake me up. They called the phone which they could hear from outside but I was gone.

Take a moral from this if ya want. I've enjoyed remembering the night, not letting stupid rules get in the way and will hopefully in part from this event be able to create similar memories for someone in the future. Whether that be by being the sweet cunt on the door who looks the other way, a stranger who walks up, hands you the set list and walks off (after Killing Heidi for me) or whoever.. Musics to be enjoyed and experiences like this are not to be forgotten much less prevented by anyones desire to accumulate money. Music comes first!!

cher

Dr Invisiablo (aka Wreched Skinny)
The 3 piece comprises of Rob B on drums, also singer/guitarist, Del Spence (of K Road Queens), and the very talented Steve King on Bass. Wellingtonians may remember this band as Wretched Skinny and these guys aren't pussys when it comes to their instruments.
They left NZ about 2000, to hit the general Melbourne public straight in the face with their form of brutally good, melodic, "no fucking around" ROCK. And when I say rock, I'm not using the term loosely- no no. Influenced by bands such as Shellac, Fugazi, and Jesus Lizard, they need to be seen, and heard in the flesh. Its amazing to see Del and Steve bounce off each other, especially with their vocals. And of course with an awesome drummer like Rob, it all holds together like super-glue. The amount of energy that flows freely off the stage during a Dr Invisiablo set, is or inspiring for anyone lucky enough to be present, and they are certainly beginning to pull decent crowds over here, of appreciative music lovers that can't get enough of the Dr's nz rock stylings. I only say this because the last gig I went to (pictured below)... they played for an hour and a half simply because the sweaty mob of punters at Pony in Melbourne city, wouldn't let them leave the stage! And if they had tried they would have been ripped to pieces. Bloody fair enough too! Drill will keep you informed about the forth coming album, due out in November.

Tour news:
Salmonella Dub and Kora-
Kora.... a fantastic band!! My god! It seems they have started a buzz here, people are raving about them. I had my first incounter last week in St Kilda before the main act hit the stage. I could definatley hear their metal influences, which was good, but strange to hear from a Dubsters support band. They totally knew how to get their new found audience pumped and primed. Not only did they sound great, but they had a stage show! (well kinda) let me explain. To have a stop within a song can create more impact, yeah? Well they also froze simultaneously. Perfectly still on stage like statues, until Brad on drums brought them back in. We were all left suspended, holding our breath for what seemed like 2 minutes (but must have only been 30 seconds). During this time the huge audience were screaming for more!!!! MORE!!! And then after Kora.... Salmonella Dub... well, far out what can I say. Everytime I catch them they just get better. I love a bit of ChCh dub grooves and live percussion... and they did pull out a few oldies - but goodies during the set, which made my night. And it was obvious the massive crowd loved the whole performance also.

Jakob have just finished a string of shows around Melbourne. Its unfortunate for me to say I missed them (Dam!), but what I've heard about the gigs is all good! They were tight and kickin' arse!!!! Be proud of these boys, apparently they were in very good form over this side of the ditch. Safe to say they showed crowds they difinatley knew their shit, and will be welcomed back with open arms when they next visit these shores, by a larger group of music fans (including me!).

[ http://www.kroadqueens.com ]

My story will have to be about Shihad, Kora, Cog and Die Die Die, Dunedin, July 05

Before the gig, I had organised with Tom Larkin to have some fans come along to soundcheck. We rocked on up, and were greeted by the best bunch of blokes I've ever met. They were only too happy to stand around and chat, and do photos. To top it off, Tom had a Euro tour Killjoy t-shirt there waiting for me. Cheers!

Dust was spotted behind a camera, as Jon introduced most of the group on tape.

To top it off, that night was the best Shihad gig I have ever attended. The place absolutely went off! The next night in Christchurch was very similar, except for an incident with Peter Campbell (tour manager - got pulled off the stage, injured his back). Jon was in sensational form, running around with his guitar, playing "The General Electric" from the raised seating at the back of the venue, leaving Tom to finish off the singing.

Ahhhh, such fantastic memories.