tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15720342664335625552024-02-07T16:34:44.048+13:00Bond Street BridgeWords and music by Sam PrebbleBond Street Bridgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17005433471784566057noreply@blogger.comBlogger95125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1572034266433562555.post-89712899733595924942014-10-16T10:30:00.004+13:002014-10-16T10:30:49.731+13:00Down at the old Mussel Inn <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Just when I was getting used to sleeping at home again, it's time to leave town for a few days... About this time last year we played The Explorers Club: Antarctica show at the Mussel Inn for the Nelson Festival, and we liked playing there so much we said hey let's come back next time you guys have a free date, and they said yeah sure because I guess they liked having us there too and we didn't break anything. But the Mussel Inn is such a key part of everybody's circuit that they book bands about a year in advance, so the soonest we could go back there was this Saturday.</div>
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So that's what we're doing - I'm going to do some new Bond St songs all by my ownsome lonesome, and the the fun will start when me and Millicent Crow do our Mermaid and Mariner thing with rock'n'roll sea shanties, field holler lullabies, old-time fight songs and a new song about and actual mermaid and an actual mariner.</div>
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On the way south we're going to play at the Museum of Wellington City & Sea as part of <a href="http://www.museumswellington.org.nz/museum-of-wellington-city-and-sea/what-s-on/">this thing</a>, a bunch of songwriters sharing new songs in a beautiful environment, which should be a hoot and a holler - we played there this time last year as well, come to think of it, and they are lovely people at that museum. Time to go to the airport again....</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNlA0RYV3WVWtfLdzxuEpeMKladrI4VxTcDgyuIPTqcWmp1dlOqse39psUBSJa3KtO8JebvKiIhA7JEkGLYWGpYt5IRfqfxZWNf8jb6Re0NTLy9Hkr8JX3-WVQiu1KWCEG-J62guX4QJ7U/s1600/Mussell+Inn+Oct+2014++poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNlA0RYV3WVWtfLdzxuEpeMKladrI4VxTcDgyuIPTqcWmp1dlOqse39psUBSJa3KtO8JebvKiIhA7JEkGLYWGpYt5IRfqfxZWNf8jb6Re0NTLy9Hkr8JX3-WVQiu1KWCEG-J62guX4QJ7U/s1600/Mussell+Inn+Oct+2014++poster.jpg" height="400" width="282" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">I know that's not how you spell muscle.</span></div>
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Museum of Wellington City & Sea <a href="http://www.museumswellington.org.nz/museum-of-wellington-city-and-sea/what-s-on/">Songwriter Circle </a>- 7pm 16/10/2014 at the Museum, Jervois Quay, Wellington</div>
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Mussel Inn: 8pm 18/10/14 at the Mussel Inn, you know where it is.</div>
Bond Street Bridgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17005433471784566057noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1572034266433562555.post-83901841022638361762014-10-02T20:43:00.003+13:002014-10-02T20:43:57.480+13:00Fringing in the Lucky Country<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN">After a couple of weeks in China, wandering around in a haze of
incomprehension, awe, and dumplings, Sydney at least made sense on all the
superficial levels. I could read the
road signs, for instance. My phone
worked properly, so if I got lost I could at least go online and look at
pictures of people's cats. And because we were now back on the Explorers Club:
Antarctica touring roadshow, I was suddenly tour manager again so I had to know
what was going on and make decisions and stuff.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXkg3EtzXRXesKNJvbiWtp_jGl9yvPDPJnpv-Ow2j8JKnDuizpNOu07O1xWOSoGBL_mDD5daVp8ocpMCI_rvuxpv6m_07Slu6voDJCzk9J2FLk6xyc4X87WbieYDlCRxqiuZ5v3q3fxhud/s1600/10628564_10152798809354575_8029968078340912889_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXkg3EtzXRXesKNJvbiWtp_jGl9yvPDPJnpv-Ow2j8JKnDuizpNOu07O1xWOSoGBL_mDD5daVp8ocpMCI_rvuxpv6m_07Slu6voDJCzk9J2FLk6xyc4X87WbieYDlCRxqiuZ5v3q3fxhud/s1600/10628564_10152798809354575_8029968078340912889_n.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Thunder in Sydney</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN">In China I didn't have to make any decisions at all, not even about such
basic functions as feeding myself - I just ate everything that appeared in
front of me and grinned as broadly as circumstances permitted. We spent the
entire tour being picked up and dropped off in various locations in a
succession of late-model SUVs and sedans, being gently guided from hotels to
venues to restaurants to points of scenic interest to restaurants to markets to
restaurants to enormous statues of Chairman Mao and then, usually, to a
restaurant. About the only real input I
had into any aspect of my routine for two weeks was to insist that somewhere
along the way we find me coffee at least once a day, in order to prevent
unpleasentness. This kind of lifestyle is a lot of fun, but it's no good for a
person's hustle - it doesn't take long to get soft. Also, at some point I ate or drank or
otherwise ingested some aspect of China that made me really quite ill, so by
the time Sydney rolled around I was operating on a much reduced strategic
reserve and generally being a bit whiny.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN">Fortunately, Sydney turned out to be pretty straightforward, even
supportive. The accom was clean, the
taxis were cheap, the <a href="http://www.alisonavron.com/the-newsagency">venue </a>was great - another human-sized DIY joint run by
someone who loves putting on shows for her neighbours - and I discovered that
in Sydney, you can leave your camera on the train and it doesn't matter at all
because it will be waiting for you at the lost property office in the next
station that same afternoon. You can
also buy proper cold medication at the pharmacy if you show them your passport
and sign the right forms, so I was able to medicate myself into something close
to performance standard. This was lucky, since we were there to play three
shows in the <a href="https://www.sydneyfringe.com/whats_on/event/e2e0eb76-45f6-4be5-9f7e-65ea2c053234/">Sydney Fringe</a>, and after we picked up a <a href="http://www.sydneyartsguide.com.au/bond-street-bridge-at-newsagency-marrickville/">nice review </a>on the second
night, we had a full house for our final show and all was right in the
world. Like, apart from my digestive
system, which was still trying to figure out what I had done to it in China,
but that is not a story everyone will want to hear about.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDVUYbWOAQP-iZYusWAHF1Rfd9tnfQ119Q4XEWCtv7onjWQWvCqPIFSShRB2dVxvnqa18C4A0NGWmG_e3azK4Dzu8eeIjA_jGqer6KRshgr3NldJLfS1hqop104L0wTR9YpLonU023Ppt3/s1600/1520824_10152801051709575_4204850107549232109_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDVUYbWOAQP-iZYusWAHF1Rfd9tnfQ119Q4XEWCtv7onjWQWvCqPIFSShRB2dVxvnqa18C4A0NGWmG_e3azK4Dzu8eeIjA_jGqer6KRshgr3NldJLfS1hqop104L0wTR9YpLonU023Ppt3/s1600/1520824_10152801051709575_4204850107549232109_n.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Full house at The Newsagency on the last night of the Sydney Fringe </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN">So now it's a week of show in the <a href="http://www.melbournefringe.com.au/fringe-festival/show/the-explorers-club-antarctica/">Melbourne Fringe</a>, and so far that has
meant good turnouts and dead-silent theatre audiences, which is always a good
time. Staying in one place for a week is a new thing for The Explorers Club, so
we are filling our days with punting in the Botanic Gardens, looking at art
in the NGV, and trying to find the exact spot where Paul Kelly wrote 'Leaps and Bounds,' because that is how we rock and roll. Then it's back to the old country for some Mermaid & Mariner shows - Golden Dawn on the 15th, Museum of Wellington City And Sea on the 16th and <a href="http://www.musselinn.co.nz/">Mussel Inn</a> on the 18th of Oct. Shanties ahoy!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwmtT0NvRWve1G34KuUdz1-evjIl4N8nY8ZQ3PYI-wuIRgqNPP-L9tENwEGgDTA_t2r8HmrEBdlPNTWkLIn016KPylYWnYssd4uuUlHdQaQxM8ak6xOJ4vbXrHc4YuVYEHRQRFX4q-LOVf/s1600/10408974_10152807420869575_8093197543306043153_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwmtT0NvRWve1G34KuUdz1-evjIl4N8nY8ZQ3PYI-wuIRgqNPP-L9tENwEGgDTA_t2r8HmrEBdlPNTWkLIn016KPylYWnYssd4uuUlHdQaQxM8ak6xOJ4vbXrHc4YuVYEHRQRFX4q-LOVf/s1600/10408974_10152807420869575_8093197543306043153_n.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">High on the hill, looking over the bridge to the MCG... Tim Guy reckons it was actually a bit further up the river.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRawMaWeUXMSRNDGo6c6Jo7eLyiciUdTtXsFEIjOJtd6hm42oDgMdiKdmiLynXnUyNYpBU-WUZ0HzVZjtLjKYQRYIn6gmQNR0k5vIHdDScNiEkiPfuUoYkyHD10DEQoYVCioH9XSfbVbpc/s1600/10156105_10152809996884575_7284704026700600530_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRawMaWeUXMSRNDGo6c6Jo7eLyiciUdTtXsFEIjOJtd6hm42oDgMdiKdmiLynXnUyNYpBU-WUZ0HzVZjtLjKYQRYIn6gmQNR0k5vIHdDScNiEkiPfuUoYkyHD10DEQoYVCioH9XSfbVbpc/s1600/10156105_10152809996884575_7284704026700600530_n.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">So much art, so little wall space</span></div>
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Bond Street Bridgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17005433471784566057noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1572034266433562555.post-80510373377854367772014-09-21T21:48:00.001+12:002014-09-21T21:52:37.250+12:00Rolling deep in Huizhou City<div style="text-align: justify;">
We were riding in a late model Lexus on an eight-lane Huizhou arterial at 3am, barreling across bridges with A Tribe Called Quest on the stereo and the AC cranked to cold because it's hot in HuiZhou City in September, even at 3am. The air is heavy and smells like it's got four million humans and a bunch of ducks living in it, and the sun doesn't shine bright but it heats the smog and the smog spreads a mouldy old blanket all over and wraps you up in that sleepy greenhouse fug, until your skin starts to melt and you get to thinking that maybe skinny jeans and a blazer with steel-toed boots and a shirt with a collar add up to bad packing choices for ten days of rocking and rolling in the land of the dragon. And every time we stopped at the lights, the two Chinese b-boys in the front would wind down the rear windows so we could lean out of the backseat and call 'one two three bye-bye' to the next car over, right when the signal went red to green and the driver pulled some heavy Gs to get us back up to our customary cruising speed, which was this: quite fast.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9G2h46x3S2FCDx-vy9MYApeDItlbXoiKfyrg33JUZda_6DQx789OGyhc1Ra_GjoR94zQ_wfJ7kCxlNpdJmHjTAT1Ad9Mg9MRKTHffSSBHb12WxIX-sa9GAIMX4AFEO3Mi7lQ2z8JIzP8y/s1600/IMG_0640.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9G2h46x3S2FCDx-vy9MYApeDItlbXoiKfyrg33JUZda_6DQx789OGyhc1Ra_GjoR94zQ_wfJ7kCxlNpdJmHjTAT1Ad9Mg9MRKTHffSSBHb12WxIX-sa9GAIMX4AFEO3Mi7lQ2z8JIzP8y/s1600/IMG_0640.JPG" height="298" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">The view from the hotel. Not to be used for navigation.</span></div>
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All the time, because I'm a nerd like that, I was wondering what the cops are like in China, and thinking that if they're as enthusiastic as I had been led to believe then driving around the place in a late-model Lexus with a memorable number plate may not be the best strategy going forward. Right then it was working for me though, for the primary reason that there was no earthly other plan I could think of to get us back to the hotel, becasue not only did I not know where the hotel was, I didn't even know what it was called, and even if I knew the address I had no idea what part of the city it was in or how I would get there from the side of a Huizhou arterial at 3am, so I just sang along and let the ride happen.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEdgdxH2osg3oadO8jB2ep1hKBc2lDn16TEvdfy6_ww93WRUYxc5fllDJxbvJ6QAP7QgRuDFbbtJwN1OUMkMBniD_BMxB6dlBgPmxL9z4szia84PF1hLhf4Vrcgeb_ddrWfE_kVcJk74jm/s1600/IMG_0747.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEdgdxH2osg3oadO8jB2ep1hKBc2lDn16TEvdfy6_ww93WRUYxc5fllDJxbvJ6QAP7QgRuDFbbtJwN1OUMkMBniD_BMxB6dlBgPmxL9z4szia84PF1hLhf4Vrcgeb_ddrWfE_kVcJk74jm/s1600/IMG_0747.JPG" height="400" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">I have no idea how much a set of personalised plates will set you back in China but ours said LSD420 and I bet that plus the heat it may draw doesn't come cheap. </span></div>
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We'd been at a pool party by the river, and I would tell you what the river in Huizhou is called and other such details if any of my maps worked in China. But of course they do not, because the government they have here has done a serious job of breaking the Internet and making sure things like maps and pictures of other peoples children and pets are really hard to get to. The upshot of this is that a big chunk of the band's time here has been spent trying to figure out who has access to what social networks, and how and when, and it's pretty much all in the service of trying to check how many likes this one photo Dale put on Facebook of him eating meat on a stick has got. If you think that's some kind of indictment of technology or our inability to be present in the moment and stuff like that then you get a prize because congratulations, you're probably right, but I will submit that being on tour in China is sufficiently packed with moments and sensory overload of all kinds that sometimes you just want to zone out and scroll through your news feed for a while, breathing through your mouth and sighing.<br />
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The pool party by the river was hosted by a couple who are easily, hands down, the coolest people I've met this year. When I've toured around in New Zealand, or in Europe or Australia, a lot of the places I've played at have been these human-sized grassroots sorts of venues run by people who have a passion for a particular kind of music and for building a community around it in their town, and not necessarily for making a huge amount of money - or if they do make money it comes second to doing their main project, which is putting on great shows for their neighbours. Places like the Mussell Inn in Takaka, The Dharma Bum's Club in Wairau Valley, The Wine Cellar in Auckland, Cafe Kairo in Berne, Galao in Stuttgart, the Open Studio in Melbourne - they're everywhere but I had no idea whether we could hope to find them in China, and up until last week I hadn't really thought about it all that much.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">The Percussion Club - there is a lot to explain in this picture. Next time.</span></div>
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But I can now reveal to you that yes - there are venues like that in China. And one of them - the Lotus Percussion Club in HuiZhou City, population 4 million, is run by SayChen and Sabrina, a musician couple who have taken upon themselves a Holy Mission: to bring Hip Hop culture to China. It turns out that this is about as difficult a task as you probably think it is, but it does mean that they have put together a sweet crew of Chinese rappers, DJs, b-boys and beatboxers, which makes for quite a banging pool party next to a river on a night off on a very improbable tour in China.<br />
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Our show at their club the night before had been packed out, standing room only on a concrete floor down the river a ways, as far as I could tell. Sabrina's band opened with a sort of funk-jazz hybrid which had made me extremely curious to ask her what music she had been listening to that led to that particular sound. At the party we talked about how she loves James Brown and The Clash and Public Enemy and Michael Jackson, and how her and SayChen are Hakka and Hakka don't have such a great time in China so they have a fairly strong identification with narratives of racial oppression and so on, although of course this conversation was held in a combination of English, fake Mandarin, Charades, and a lot of hollering of song lyrics and the tops of our lungs next to a smoky barbeque by a pool somewhere near a river in Huizhou, so it took some time and quite a lot of beers before we reached true understanding. When we reached it though it was solid, and the understanding we reached was that no matter where you are and what you're trying to do, if you don't have the hustle you ain't got a hope.<br />
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SayChen and Sabrina have the hustle in spades, and a couple of months back they put on a hip hop festival in Huizhou that pulled 1500 payers, so they are clearly taking care of business in a lot of good ways. Pool parties in Huizhou city with visiting musicians from far parts of the world are one way they get things done, and it felt good to give them a list of bands from our part of the planet who would fit right in at the Percussion Club if they get the chance to chase the rock'n'roll to China any time soon. Rolling back to the hotel in the Lexus across a dirty river with LEDs and neon reflecting in the clouds and on the soupy water, Buggin Out rattling the speakers and a beer buzz running, I felt like I had landed in just the right place by so many quirks and turns it isn't even worth thinking about how it happened, but by Thor I am getting some good stuff out here.<br />
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Bond Street Bridgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17005433471784566057noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1572034266433562555.post-19311804077058225052014-08-29T11:57:00.001+12:002014-08-29T11:57:37.884+12:00The Sydney Morning Herald picked The Explorers Club: Antarctica as one to see this Sydney Fringe!What a nice way to start the morning... the august Sydney Morning Herald picked The Explorers Club: Antarctica in their <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/fringe-benefits-sydney-fringe-festival-puts-the-spotlight-on-the-small-stage-20140825-1078sc.html">roundup of shows to see at this year's Sydney Fringe</a>. 'A multimedia extravaganza of folk song, spoken word, storytelling and haunting imagery...' crikey! I'd see that.<br />
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We're really excited about the next couple of months, we've got some great shows coming up in China, NZ, and Australia including the Melbourne and Sydney Fringe Festivals. Tickets for Sydney are <a href="https://www.sydneyfringe.com/whats_on/event/e2e0eb76-45f6-4be5-9f7e-65ea2c053234/">here</a>, and Melbourne are <a href="http://www.melbournefringe.com.au/fringe-festival/show/the-explorers-club-antarctica/">here</a>.<br />
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See you at the shows!Bond Street Bridgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17005433471784566057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1572034266433562555.post-40960436572229834402014-08-08T11:58:00.001+12:002014-08-08T12:01:47.034+12:00The Explorers Club: Antarctica at Melbourne Fringe!<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And hard on the heels of our Sydney Fringe dates (Sydney gets the Straya premiere, because they are the pushy older brother in this story) we are delighted to announce that The Explorers Club: Antarctica has been selected for the </span><a href="http://www.melbournefringe.com.au/fringe-festival/show/the-explorers-club-antarctica/"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Melbourne Fringe Festival Hub</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">So we are doing seven nights at Fringe Hub venue Upstairs at Errol's Cafe in North Melbourne, and we are super excited to be sharing our songs of Antarctic tragedy and Edwardian pluck with the great state of Victoria, I can tell you. Here are the dates: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Melbourne Fringe Hub, Upstairs @ Errol's, North Melbourne Sat 27 Sept 8Pm </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Melbourne Fringe Hub, Upstairs @ Errol's, North Melbourne Sun 28 Sept 7PM </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Melbourne Fringe Hub, Upstairs @ Errol's, North Melbourne Tues 30 Sept 8PM </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Melbourne Fringe Hub, Upstairs @ Errol's, North Melbourne Wed 1 Oct 8PM </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Melbourne Fringe Hub, Upstairs @ Errol's, North Melbourne Thurs 2 Oct 8PM </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Melbourne Fringe Hub, Upstairs @ Errol's, North Melbourne Fri 3 Oct 8PM </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Melbourne Fringe Hub, Upstairs @ Errol's, North Melbourne Sat 4 Oct 8PM</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tickets for all shows are available </span><a href="http://www.melbournefringe.com.au/fringe-festival/show/the-explorers-club-antarctica/"><span style="font-family: inherit;">here</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;"> from our friend at the Melbourne Fringe - get them while they are still gettable!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">And don't forget we are at the </span><a href="https://www.sydneyfringe.com/whats_on/event/e2e0eb76-45f6-4be5-9f7e-65ea2c053234/"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Sydney Fringe</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;"> too:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Newsagency, Marrickville NSW Wed 24 Sept 7:30</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Newsagency, Marrickville NSW Thurs 25 Sept 8:30</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Newsagency, Marrickville NSW Fri 26 Sept 7:30</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Tickets for Sydney show are </span><a href="https://www.sydneyfringe.com/whats_on/event/e2e0eb76-45f6-4be5-9f7e-65ea2c053234/"><span style="font-family: inherit;">here</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">, thanks to our friends at the Sydney Fringe.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">If you've never heard about our show before and you've just clicked through from somewhere, hello.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.bondstreetbridge.blogspot.co.nz/p/explorers-club-antarctica.html"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Our show</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;"> <span id="goog_96197578"></span>is about Captain Scott, Ernest Shackleton and the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. We tell stories, we sing songs, we project illustrations and photographs, we make people cry a little and laugh a little and celebrate the indomitable spirit of that titanic age. We get </span><a href="http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/culture/fringe-festival-2013/8316934/Review-Bond-Street-Bridge-Presents-Explorers-Club-Antarctica"><span style="font-family: inherit;">very nice reviews</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;"> for it and people tell us they like it a lot, we enjoy doing it and we're looking forward to bringing it to Australia.</span></div>
Bond Street Bridgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17005433471784566057noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1572034266433562555.post-54370399466525243802014-08-02T16:39:00.002+12:002014-08-02T16:39:44.352+12:00The Explorers Club: Antarctica at the Sydney Fringe!Oh my, this is getting exciting!<br />
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The programme for the<a href="https://www.sydneyfringe.com/"> Sydney Fringe Festival </a>has just come out and we're performing three nights of our critically acclaimed award-winning thing-o The Explorers Club: Antarctica, so tell your Sydney buddies to come on down if they like any of the following:<br />
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1) Antarctica<br />
2) The heroic age of exploration on that frozen continent<br />
3) Captain Scott<br />
4) Songs about history<br />
5) Sir Ernest Shackleton<br />
6) A lanky guy telling stories<br />
7) vocal harmonies<br />
8) Douglas Mawson - he may get a look in at these Australian shows...<br />
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We'll be performing at The Newsagency in Marrickville on the 24th, 25th and 26th of September, and tickets may be purchased from the Sydney Fringe website <a href="https://www.sydneyfringe.com/whats_on/event/e2e0eb76-45f6-4be5-9f7e-65ea2c053234/session/8cd48505-761c-4868-ae88-037de9d40697/">here</a>, so do that by all means and we'll see you at the shows!<br />
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<br />Bond Street Bridgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17005433471784566057noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1572034266433562555.post-31926665871973737412014-06-23T11:23:00.002+12:002014-06-23T11:25:05.977+12:00Explorers Club: Antarctica at IllumefestWe'll be taking the Explorers Club: Antarctic on a wee jaunt over the the Coromandel in a couple of weeks for thier inaugural '<a href="http://www.illumefest.co.nz/">Illumefest</a>' - they're lighting up Coromandel Town for midwinter and we're going to be projecting our multimedia show as a part of their Saturday Night midwinter celebrations.<br />
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We haven't played Coromandel Town before, it'll be good to share some stories of Antarctic struggle and survival on an outdoor stage in midwinter....<br />
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More details <a href="http://www.illumefest.co.nz/">here</a>, we're playing the evening of Saturday 5 July at about 8pm on the main street.<br />
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<br />Bond Street Bridgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17005433471784566057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1572034266433562555.post-4122700598438639722014-04-13T10:20:00.000+12:002014-04-13T10:41:02.685+12:00Shackleton's Whisky: A Tale Of Shame And Redemption Part 2<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>This is the second part of a <a href="http://www.bondstreetbridge.blogspot.co.nz/2013/07/shackletons-whisky-tale-of-shame-and.html">story that I posted in the middle of last year</a>, about how I failed to appreciate Shackleton's whisky, behaved boorishly, etc. I said I was going to post the rest of it 'next week,' which turned out to be a lie. Here it is, eight months late but moving fast, and I hope nobody has been to inconvenienced by the delay. You may wish to read the first part to get up to speed.</i></div>
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As I said, the story of Shackleton's whisky has legs in the<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-12202880"> popular press,</a> and over the ensuing months I was unable to escape it. I sought it out, in fact - partly to determine the enormity of my transgression, and also partly in my usual capacity as Antarctic History Nerd. All I knew after that night at the Darkroom was that some whisky had been found under Shackleton's hut, there was a bottle of some derivation of the same whisky on the top shelf at the Darkroom, and I had failed, publicly and disgracefully, to show an appreciation for that set of circumstances. I was pretty sure that it couldn't be the actual same whisky (could it?) but I felt a geeky sort of shame that I didn't know what it really was.</div>
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The full story, it turns out, is absolutely fantastic, and it's told best by Mr Neville Peat of Broad Bay, Dunedin, in his recent book <a href="http://www.nevillepeatsnewzealand.com/shackleton-s_whisky1.html">Shackleton's Whisky</a>. It seems that in 2007, a team from the <a href="http://www.nzaht.org/AHT/HistoryRoyds/">NZ Antarctic Heritage Trust</a> were fossicking about under the hut that Shackleton's crew built in 1908 during the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nimrod_Expedition">Nimrod expedition</a>. This is the expedition, you will recall, that earned Shackleton his knighthood - he and two others reached a new Furthest South, within 100 miles of the Pole, and Douglas Mawson, that brash Antipodean, led a team to as near the South Magnetic Pole as really makes no odds, so they claimed that for the Empire. A team from the expedition made a first ascent of Erebus, and they pioneered the use of motor vehicles and ponies in the Antarctic, with mixed results. They also, it would appear, drank a lot of whisky - and it was a case of this whisky that the team from the Antarctic Heritage Trust dug up in 2007.</div>
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There followed a <a href="http://whiskythaw.canterburymuseum.com/">remarkable series of events</a> involving the Canterbury Museum, the descendants of the distillers who made the original whisky at the end of the nineteenth century, a whisky-taster whose nose is insured for some astronomical sum, and an international courier flying to Scotland with a priceless bottle handcuffed to his wrist. It transpired that not only had this whisky survived its hundred-year freeze undamaged, it was actually really rather delicious - so White and McKay, who now own the company that made the whisky in the first place, set about replicating it and in 2010 they released a limited edition of the result. Here was my answer - it was a dram of this replica that I had so rudely swilled at the Darkroom that shameful night. In a strange way, learning the history of this drop made me feel a bit better - maybe I hadn't really tasted it, but at least now I knew what I'd missed.</div>
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The actual person who was under the hut doing the fossicking was young James Blake, who as far as I can tell is as thoroughly decent a bloke as you could hope to meet. He's got the kind of honest, open grin that could sell oil to a Texan, if that's what he wanted to do, and this grin appears in a photograph in Mr Peat's book, shining out from under Sir Ernest's hut next to a case of the famous whisky. As soon as I saw that photograph I hoped to meet the owner of this grin, because he looked like he could tell a yarn. Since we both live in New Zealand, of course, that meeting soon happened in the normal course of events, without my really having to do anything.</div>
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On tour last summer, we played a show as part of the festival commemorating the centenary of the return of Captain Scott's ship (minus, of course, Captain Scott) to the civilised world, which occurred in the port of Oamaru in February 1913. After the show, the grin appeared, closely followed by Mr Blake, who soon proved to be just as able a yarnsmith as I had hoped - he was at the festival to talk about <a href="http://www.odt.co.nz/regions/north-otago/242864/james-blake-attend-scott-event">what he'd been up to in Antarctica</a>. He's the kind of utterly impressive individual who does things like row a boat across the Tasman Sea and climb up high mountains - bold, romantic endeavours of the sort that divide any given sample of dinner guest into two mutually irreconcilable camps, rallying under banners inscribed, respectively, 'why?' and 'why the hell not?' I have enormous sympathy for such people because folk music is a bit like that too, only less dangerous.</div>
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As though rowing a boat across the Tasman Sea wasn't challenging enough, James revealed that he had raised the degree of difficulty considerably for himself by listening to <a href="https://bondstreetbridge.bandcamp.com/track/the-old-place-2">this song</a> on his ipod 'the whole way.' He said it kept him sane, and my heart went out to him because it just seemed so wildly unlikely that anything I wrote could impact positively on anybody's mental health - you poor thing, I thought. Then he said some kind things about our show and how it captured the mood and the tone of the huts he'd been working on preserving down there on the ice, which was a lovely thing to say, and I felt sufficiently comfortable to share with him the tale of my disgraceful behavior with the whisky. I can't remember what he said, but his tone was generally soothing and he was very nice about it. </div>
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The encounter unsettled me - this was the chap who spent freezing weeks groveling around in the ice under the hut and actually found the whisky, got it out into the world for the rest of us to have and to hold. By disrespecting the whisky, I felt like I'd let him down, and he just seemed like a really nice guy. And a guy who apparently had listened to one of my songs more times than any other human, including probably me - I felt like amends needed to be made. The only way to come back from this whisky incident, I decided, was to sit down properly with a glass of the stuff, with a clear head and bright eye, among friends and with time to kill, in pleasant surroundings. In full knowledge of what I had before me, where it came from and what it meant, I could really do the thing justice. I would hold it up to the light to admire the amber glow. Swill it around in the glass to see it move. Sniff it. Pass it around. Warm it slightly in the palm. Pause, breathe, raise the glass, offer a toast to sweethearts and wives, and <i>taste the hell out of it</i>. Really <i>savour </i>that fucker. I felt like I owed some people.</div>
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<i>There is actually some more to the story, in which I get right with the whisky, but I feel like posting significantly more that 1000 words on a Sunday would be churlish, so the rest will come later. When? Later.</i></div>
Bond Street Bridgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17005433471784566057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1572034266433562555.post-86411341758326263912014-03-12T18:07:00.001+13:002014-03-12T21:39:28.351+13:00Bitter Years, good time songs<div style="text-align: justify;">
No excuses, Internet land - here at team Bond Street Bridge, we do not excuse ourselves. We stumble out midsentence, knocking over glasses and upsetting the furniture and while that is an impediment to our social advancement, certainly, we think it makes us charming. However: People - probably you - have brought it to our attention that there has been very little blogging lately, and apparently (bless them!) they miss it. So - an update, without any excuses for lateness or the longish time between bulletins.</div>
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The Summer Throwdown tour came hard on the heels of the Explorers Club: Antarctica tour, without really much of a chance to collect thoughts or take a breath and look at the scenery. That led to interesting mental health outcomes, but generally as well to a thumping good time. The great disappointment of the summer so far has been failing to get a photograph of the odometer in the old Honda Odyssey as it ticked over 350,000 kilometers - fortunately other disappointments have been few, however, so we remain breezy and chipper. </div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">The old bus looking at the scenery as it thinks about the next hill and the one after that.</span></div>
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This tour has stood out from some others (not that they all blur into each other or anything - I may not remember people well but I do remember the order that the shows came in, and sometimes I count them instead of sheep when the last coffee came too soon before bedtime) because we had a new band along with us for the duration. Band or cult, call it what you will, and I have been meaning to write a little thing about it for as long as it has been in existence, which is coming up to two and a half months now - coincidentally about as long as this blog silence has lasted. The band is called<a href="https://www.facebook.com/thebitteryears?ref=hl"> The Bitter Years, </a>and I will explain how it works.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">We look a lot cooler than we actually are, but we are still pretty cool.</span></div>
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The Bitter Years is Brendan Jehosophat Turner, who now holds the distinction of playing more Bond Street Bridge shows than any sane human should, Emily Millicent Cater, who has been Bond Street artist in residence since day one and now plays the banjo and a mean tenor uke, Alison O'Flagellant Millar stomping a mesmerising beat, and myself, doing the things I do but mostly hollering. We play unplugged, we play outdoors, we play in bar-rooms and halls, we play loud, we stomp and holler, we play love songs and fight songs and old-as-the-hills country songs and we've been raising up a dust storm from here to Milford Sound and back over the past two months. It's not a Bond Street thing, it's its own thing and for every old gospel song we sing about Jesus we sing one old gospel song about Whiskey&Mayhem to balance the books. So now you know.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Stomping, hollering etc.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">The house we all live in. We sleep in a big pile on the floor. I took this photo </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">and </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">I think it could definitely be in a calendar and get sold at gift shops.</span></div>
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It's kind of an old-timey family band, and the middle part of the tour when we were traipsing around the South Island picked up a bit of that raggle-taggle family feel. We planned to meet up with old co-conspirators The Broken Heartbreakers to play some shows, and of course that meant bringing along four-month old baby Jean Heartbreaker, who took the whole thing well. Once I had a fair idea about who was coming - a couple of weeks before the shows as it turned out - I rang up our man at the Blue Duck out in Milford to let him know that we might have a few more people along than I had first suggested.</div>
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"I thought we said three?"</div>
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"Well, yeah I know, the email did say three but the Heartbreakers are bringing their drummer now of course."</div>
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"Ok, so that makes what, six? Two of them, three of you and a drummer?"</div>
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"Pretty much, yeah. But there's actually four of us now, cos we've started this new band that's actually a cult."</div>
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"So seven then? That's no problem. We'll find space."</div>
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"Yeah they're bringing a baby too, but I think that she has a box to sleep in or something so don't worry about her."</div>
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"A baby? Grand! No problem."</div>
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"Oh and also the baby's grandma? Rachel's mum is coming to look after the baby when they're, you know, playing and stuff."</div>
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"Makes sense. I'm sure there's room. Bring 'em out!"</div>
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So we did, and that's why I love playing at the Blue Duck. The next day we saw a shark, and in the evening we played at a house with a horse in the actual living room, and after that things just got weird. I'll tell you about it sometime, but for now the message is:</div>
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<b>The Bitter Years are a thing. You can see us play at the following locations:</b></div>
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16 March: Matakana Markets, 10am-2pm, then Coatesville Markets from around 4 or so.</div>
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22 March: Rogue Fest Rotorua, Kerosene Creek, sometime in the evening. This will be pretty sweet.</div>
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28 March: Ponsonby Baptist Hall, Jervois Rd, with Great North! This will also be pretty sweet because they are a proper band and they know what they're doing.</div>
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30 March: Matakana Markets again - they've kind of adopted us.</div>
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4 April: The Gunslingers Ball presents DYLAN at the wine cellar. This will be hilarious and also very fine.</div>
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<b>But! Bond Street Bridge is also a thing. You can see us play at the following locations:</b></div>
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22 March: Rogue Fest Rotorua, Kerosene Creek, sometime in the evening. As I said, this will be pretty sweet.</div>
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23 March: Wellington Opera House supporting Mr Billy Bragg</div>
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25 March: Auckland Power Station supporting Mr Billy Bragg</div>
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And after that we might just take a small break and actually stay at home for at least two consecutive weeks, and I will put some more stories on the Internets. Gosh!</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia647ASRYdWSgKWhIGVJRZKD8tZkkcpBZAj4Lzv5_zBmlaCkj9IDEwki1Uyn63heeO0VVZxePqjHjLjulGifZX1rfsWcK0QwvPHucCNt9GePUO_M1mRxFOyYdxm1lsI2HSJWGKyPr0hDCa/s1600/P1050363.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia647ASRYdWSgKWhIGVJRZKD8tZkkcpBZAj4Lzv5_zBmlaCkj9IDEwki1Uyn63heeO0VVZxePqjHjLjulGifZX1rfsWcK0QwvPHucCNt9GePUO_M1mRxFOyYdxm1lsI2HSJWGKyPr0hDCa/s1600/P1050363.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">This is where the shark was. </span></div>
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<br />Bond Street Bridgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17005433471784566057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1572034266433562555.post-23441858533667332162013-12-30T07:43:00.001+13:002013-12-30T11:38:58.731+13:00Bond Street Bridge Summer Throwdown Tour<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRQlLM9c0hKfK0ZmnQr90CxlmPeiSqfjY1FJG7xWCUZ9AS_mn5Un_9glnorakaGSu3xxQBg5b8AeHBvk5aNTJsF1JByvykKKBTlvUQMokowd02ANTOVeVxE4zKP2BG0h9guhxLUcz2UGQW/s1600/DSC_0329.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRQlLM9c0hKfK0ZmnQr90CxlmPeiSqfjY1FJG7xWCUZ9AS_mn5Un_9glnorakaGSu3xxQBg5b8AeHBvk5aNTJsF1JByvykKKBTlvUQMokowd02ANTOVeVxE4zKP2BG0h9guhxLUcz2UGQW/s320/DSC_0329.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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Hard on the heels of an epic 2013 of sold-out shows, rave reviews, and thousands of winding miles, Bond Street Bridge are hitting the road again to visit old friends, meet new ones, and raise the roof from Invercargill to Baylys Beach.</div>
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The past year has seen Bond Street perform over 100 shows on the road, playing at fancy places like arts festivals, museums, art galleries, opera houses and theatres all over the country. They have performed their unique show ‘The Explorers Club: Antarctica’ to packed houses and critical acclaim across the length and breadth of New Zealand, circling the country twice and winning the award for ‘Best Music’ at the 2013 New Zealand Fringe Festival awards. The show was a ‘perfect evening of music’ according to the Dominion Post, a ‘tour de force’ said the Nelson Mail, the new album spent a month in the charts and won the praises of the toughest critics in the land, but with all of these high-culture venues and hushed, seated audiences - not to mention hotel-grade accommodation and the better sort of whiskey - Bond Street Bridge are worried about going soft.</div>
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So to kick off 2014, Bond Street Bridge take it back to the bar-rooms and Community Halls in a Summer Throwdown Tour, setting aside their high-concept Antarctica show and upper middle-brow cultural aspirations for a month or so to bring out a raft of new material and demonstrate that they can sling a guitar in a bar full of good-time yahoos just as well as they can hold a room full of history buffs in thrall with tales of icy disaster.</div>
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Bond Street have been writing new material and plundering folk-song archives to breathe new life into old singalongs and shanties, unearthing hair-raising stories and rousing choruses. Expect the Devil, expect jealous gods and queens of the underworld, maimed seadogs and lost loves, the darkness at the edge of town and the light of a spiteful moon, vocal harmonies, stomping feet and jangling guitars as Bond Street Bridge reveal the work they have been writing on the road over the course of their 2013 travels.</div>
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Along the way the band are meeting up with old friends around the country - The Broken Heartbreakers for selected South Island shows, Rosy Tin Teacaddy for their annual St Peters Hall shindig in Paekakariki, Hannah Curwood, back from London for the Summer appearing at the Golden Dawn, and of course the enigmatic Brendan Turner will be opening the shows along the way with his trademark dark delta blues. Later on in March, the band have been invited to open for Billy Bragg at the Opera House in Wellington and the Powerstation in Auckland, a state of affairs that has them reeling in happy disbelief.</div>
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Join Bond Street Bridge as they blaze a track through the summer of 2014, hearts on sleeves and boots on the floor at a bar in your town.</div>
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Friday 3 January: Baylys Beach , Funky Fish</div>
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Saturday 4 January: Whangarei, Old Stone Butter Factory (Explorers Club: Antarctica show)</div>
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Friday 24 January: Auckland, Golden Dawn with Hannah In The Wars</div>
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Saturday 1 February: Christchurch, Brewery</div>
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Monday 3 Februrary: Blue Duck, Milford with The Broken Heartbreakers </div>
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Tuesday 4 February: Invercargill, Brad and Chrissie’s place</div>
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Wednesday 5 February: Oamaru, Grain Store Gallery with The Broken Heartbreakers</div>
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Thursday 6 February: Waitati, Mandy Mayhem’s</div>
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Friday 7 Februrary: Blackball Hilton</div>
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Saturday 8 February: Nelson, Playhouse Café</div>
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Saturday 22 February: Paekakariki, St Peter’s Hall with Rosy Tin Teacaddy</div>
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Sunday 23 March: Wellington Opera House opening for Billy Bragg (Explorers Club: Antarctica show)</div>
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Tuesday 25 March: Auckland, Powerstation opening for Billy Bragg (Explorers Club: Antarctica show)</div>
Bond Street Bridgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17005433471784566057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1572034266433562555.post-19094414389307006082013-12-17T16:49:00.002+13:002013-12-17T16:49:22.229+13:00Bond Street Bridge supporting Billy Bragg on NZ tourWe're opening for Billy Bragg on his March 2014 NZ tour. As you can imagine, we are happy as clams. He is one of my total heroes. Plus we get to play at the Opera House in Wellington, which is a beautiful room.<br />
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Here's the press release:<br />
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Following an epic year of sold-out shows and rave reviews, Auckland alt-folksters Bond Street Bridge are taking their award-winning show ‘The Explorers Club: Antarctica’ to the Wellington Opera House and The Powerstation, Auckland, opening for their hero and yours, the Bard Of Barking: Mr Billy Bragg.<br />
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In The Explorers Club: Antarctica, Bond Street Bridge use a combination of spoken word storytelling and original folk songs to bring to life the incredible tales of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. Captain Scott’s tragic death on the Great Ice Barrier and the extraordinary survival of the crew of Shackleton’s Endurance are presented as stirring ballads and foot-stomping sea shanties. Since its premier in the 2013 New Zealand Fringe Festival, the show and accompanying album have garnered critical acclaim and played to sold-out houses at Arts Festivals, theatres, museums and bar-rooms around the country.<br />
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Bond Street Bridge tour and play constantly, with over 100 shows on the road in 2013, with their extraordinary live show earning them recognition for ‘best music’ at the 2013 NZ Fringe Festival Awards. Described as a ‘perfect evening of music’ by the Dominion Post and a ‘Tour de Force’ by the Nelson Mail, ‘The Explorers Club: Antarctica showcases a unique band at the height of its powers.<br />
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This one-of-a-kind show and album are the product of Bond Street Bridge frontman Sam Prebble’s obsession with the stories and heroes of a dramatic period of history a century ago. Reading diaries, letters, and published accounts of the early Antarctic expeditions, Prebble used the words of the explorers themselves to create songs which pay tribute to their legacy and celebrate the indomitable spirit of this lost age.<br />
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‘We think of these as folk stories in the same sense as folk songs’ says Prebble. ‘One of the reasons we drive all over the place sharing these stories is that they are tales that belong to everyone, and tales need to be kept alive by being told. We’re honoured to be playing with Billy Bragg because he is someone who works tirelessly to keep folk stories alive.’<br />
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The band’s live reputation saw them invited to showcase the production at a string of sold-out gala events at galleries, museums and arts festivals around the country on their recent album release tour, including appearances at the Museum of Wellington City & Sea, the Voyager NZ Maritime Museum in Auckland, the Sarjeant Gallery in Whanganui, the MTG Hawkes Bay and the Nelson Arts Festival.<br />
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Along the way, the band played special daytime shows to share the stories and songs with school students, performing over 25 shows in five weeks.
Now the band are excited to be invited to share a stage with Billy Bragg, one of the true legends of folk music, and to be given the opportunity to tell these stories in two of New Zealand’s iconic live music venues.<br />
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A night of adventure, heartbreak, stories and great songs with Billy Bragg and special guests Bond Street Bridge performing ‘The Explorers Club: Antarctica’.<br />
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WELLINGTON • Sunday 23 March • The Opera House (All Seated)
TIX: <a href="http://www.ticketek.co.nz/">www.ticketek.co.nz</a> / 04 384 3840 or 0800 TICKETEK<br />
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AUCKLAND • Tuesday 25 March • The Powerstation
TIX: <a href="http://www.ticketmaster.co.nz/">www.ticketmaster.co.nz</a> / 09 970 9700 or 0800 111 999Bond Street Bridgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17005433471784566057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1572034266433562555.post-42266011525120011062013-11-28T12:02:00.003+13:002013-11-28T12:10:06.634+13:00Wine Cellar Strings Against Oil<p>My word, 25 shows in five weeks and Bond Street Bridge is firing on all cylinders. We've had a beautiful run around the country on The Explorers Club: Antarctica album release tour with sold-out shows and rave reviews, old friends and new ones, a lot of good mountains an time spent with other people's dogs, often in the same bed. Now we're back in Auckland and the Wine Cellar Strings are getting back in the saddle to raise some money for Oil Free Auckland - press release follows:</p>
<p>As the protest flotilla gathers off the West Coast and Anadarko’s minions prepare to deploy their sinister machines deep below the waves, a great muttering anger can be heard from the dives and wine-sinks of Auckland’s K Rd. The Wine Cellar Strings are not happy with the way the National Government are encouraging dangerous deep-water oil exploration just off our coastlines, and we plan to do something about it, on Friday 29 November, at the Wine Cellar.</p> <p>The last couple of times The Wine Cellar Strings have got together, we’ve pulled in a full house, played up a storm, brought down the roof, and if we’re honest made a fair bit of money which by and large we have frittered away on things like rent and whiskey. So this time around we thought we’d do the same thing, only instead of drinking the money or using it for boring things like housing, we would give it to Oil Free Auckland to help them do something about these Anadarko goons before their noxious trolls bore too deep and open up a hellmouth off the coast of Raglan. </p><p>This will obviously work best if we get a lot of people to come along to the Wine Cellar for the show we have planned, so of course we have pulled out stops to put on the kind of lineup that would make a Texas oil baron blanch: Steve Abel, that high-seas hellraiser, one of our finest songwriters and storytellers, Reb Fountain, fresh from tearing up stages with The Eastern and with new songs loaded, The Tattletale Saints whose heartbreaking harmonies pack houses all over the country, Bond Street Bridge, appearing on the back of an epic year of sold-out shows and rave reviews, and Wellington’s true troubadour Miles Calder. </p><p>Steve Abel, Reb Fountain and The Tattletale Saints will be backed, of course, by the Wine Cellar Strings – that rag-tag, swaggering, bow-slinging, motley band of double bassists, fiddlers, and cellists culled from the cream of Auckland’s bumper crop of high-class alt-folk, country and rock outfits. The members of the Wine Cellar Strings have played with Don McGlashan, Tim Finn, An Emerald City, Paul Ubana Jones, Delaney Davidson, The Grifters, The Broken Heartbreakers, The Bads, the list goes on, who remembers? They know how to do what they do and they do it well, and on the 29th of November they will be appearing with some of Auckland’s most exciting songwriters in a unique collaboration. </p><p>Oil Free Auckland will be there to tell us what is going on out there beyond the horizon, and we confidently expect that the room will be full of the kind of people who have the good taste to both appreciate this extraordinary lineup and feel very uneasy about the kind of cowboy wildcatting that is being allowed to go ahead just off our coasts. These drill ships might be out of sight, but the Wine Cellar Strings aim to keep that trouble very much in mind. We want to fill the room, play some mind-melting music, and raise some funds to support Oil Free Auckland in their noble quest. </p><p>The Wine Cellar Strings feat. Steve Abel, Reb Fountain, The Tattletale Saints, Bond Street Bridge and Miles Calder The Wine Cellar, K Rd Friday 29 November, 8pm Tickets $20 from <a href="http://www.undertheradar.co.nz/ticket/3258/Strings-Against-Oil.utr">undertheradar.co.nz</a>, proceeds to Oil Free AucklandBond Street Bridgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17005433471784566057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1572034266433562555.post-71845793928486624492013-10-29T14:06:00.002+13:002013-10-29T14:07:44.164+13:00Explorers Club: Antarctica reviewsIt's been a whirlwind couple of weeks in the South Island, with shows from Nelson down to Milford, all in beautiful venues and with lovely crowds, with old friends and new ones. The Explorers Club: Antarctica is picking up some nice reviews this week - the Nelson Mail called the show a 'tour de force,' and a 'masterful performance' <a href="http://www.stuff.co.nz/nelson-mail/entertainment/performance/9299859/Epic-trek-in-story-and-song">here</a>, and the album got four and a half stars in the <a href="http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=11146223">NZ Herald </a>('these spare, quiet and pointed songs cut to the quick'), four stars in the <a href="http://www.odt.co.nz/entertainment/music/278618/cd-reviews-bond-st-bridge">ODT </a>('delicate warmth and assured touch'), and Sweetman went kind of nuts about it on his <a href="http://www.offthetracks.co.nz/bond-street-bridge-the-explorers-club-antarctica/">blog</a>, calling it a 'work of rare genuis,' among other nice things.
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We were also whooping it up a bit in the van on the way back to Auckland yesterday when we saw that the Explorers Club: Antarctica album made it to number 13 this week on the NZ album charts. 13 seems like a suitably doomed and cursed number for the material, but it was nice to see it in there nevertheless. If you like the look of it in there, feel free to buy more copies over on our <a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.bondstreetbridge.bandcamp.com">bandcamp </a>site, or from <a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.amplifier.co.nz">www.amplifier.co.nz </a>if you'd like a physical copy.
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The tour grinds on this week with our Auckland show at the Voyager NZ Maritime Museum on Thursday, then we're in Wellington next week at the Museum of Wellington City & Sea with Veronika Meduna on the 8th of Nov, the Sarjeant Gallery on the 9th, Oamaru Opera House on the 15th, MTG Hawkes Bay in Napier on the 22nd and the Rogue Stage in Rotorua on the 23rd. See you at the shows!Bond Street Bridgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17005433471784566057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1572034266433562555.post-53447427585614265272013-10-11T12:49:00.003+13:002014-03-18T11:31:00.862+13:00The Explorers Club: Antarctica AlbumHere it is! We've spent quite a while on this one - we played the songs from Bayly's Beach to Milford Sound, we drew pictures and we told stories and we went into the studio and we banged it out live in two and a half days, Emily made amazing cover art and our friends at Banished From The Universe are releasing it for us today.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN8uRoZy7LxB8db9OwHb1yg44fG7_sIVstMNxjQ2_rqZ-KzDzDVNIXWjueZaAvcZ8FjUSGR6opOE-CtLNZ7Alr4zTzwgltwVroicaf5FVNIm8lK5yVhuY9Gt6WBbQ2s_JQzuAxCZw7rlZj/s1600/a3286012839_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN8uRoZy7LxB8db9OwHb1yg44fG7_sIVstMNxjQ2_rqZ-KzDzDVNIXWjueZaAvcZ8FjUSGR6opOE-CtLNZ7Alr4zTzwgltwVroicaf5FVNIm8lK5yVhuY9Gt6WBbQ2s_JQzuAxCZw7rlZj/s1600/a3286012839_2.jpg" height="400" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Album cover by Emily Cater</span></div>
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The Explorers Club: Antarctica - nine songs telling the stories of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. It's out in the world today and you can download it from our <a href="https://bondstreetbridge.bandcamp.com/" target="_blank">bandcamp </a>page, you can buy it from community record stores, or you can come and see us somewhere round the country over the next five and a half weeks and we'll gladly sell it to you in person.<br />
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<iframe seamless="" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=1664005290/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=0687f5/transparent=true/" style="border: 0; height: 758px; width: 350px;"><a href="http://bondstreetbridge.bandcamp.com/album/the-explorers-club-antarctica">The Explorers Club: Antarctica by Bond Street Bridge</a></iframe>
And here is a new video for you as well - the images from the show, taken by Scott and Ponting on the ice over a hundred years ago, along with the song 'Great God! This Is An Awful Place.'<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/t-eyUFhleVo?rel=0" width="420"></iframe><br />
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<b style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 16px;">Explorers Club: Antarctica Album Launch Tour Oct/Nov 2013</b></div>
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<b style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 16px;"><br /></b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Thurs Oct 17: NELSON: Nelson Arts Festival - The Playhouse Cafe and Theatre Restaurant Mapua Show at 8 pm</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Tickets from <a href="http://www.nelsonartsfestival.co.nz/" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration: none;">www.nelsonartsfestival.co.nz</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Fri Oct 18: TAKAKA: Nelson Arts Festival - The Mussell Inn, with Bat Country, show at 8:30 pm</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Tickets from Mussel Inn, 03 525 9241 or haveabeer@musselinn.co.nz</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Sat Oct 19: HOKITIKA: Hokitika Museum, 7pm</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Tickets from Hokitika Museum 03 755 6898</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Sun Oct 20: OKARITO -Donovans Store, with Bat Country, 7:30pm</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Tickets at the door</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Mon Oct 21: WANAKA: Cinema Paradiso with Bat Country, 8:30pm</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Tickets 03 443 1505, abccinema@xtra.co.nz</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Tues Oct 22: MILFORD SOUND Throwdown in the Sound at Blue Duck Cafe And Bar, with Bat Country</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Free if you're in Milford Sound</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Thurs Oct 24: OAMARU: The Oamaru Opera Housewith <a href="http://www.forteastern.com/" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">THE EASTERN </a>and Barry Saunders</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Tickets <a href="http://www.ticketdirect.co.nz/" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration: none;">www.ticketdirect.co.nz</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Fri Oct 25: DUNEDIN, Platos with The Eastern and Barry Saunders</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">tickets from <a href="http://www.undertheradar.co.nz/" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration: none;">www.undertheradar.co.nz</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Sat Oct 26: CHRISTCHURCH: 241Chambers Gallery, </span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 16px;"> </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 16px;">7pm, with Jed & Hera - Tickets from <a href="http://www.undertheradar.co.nz/" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration: none;">www.undertheradar.co.nz</a> or at the door</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 16px;"> </span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Thurs Oct 31: AUCKLAND: <a href="http://www.maritimemuseum.co.nz/wawcs0142328/bond-st-bridge.html" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Voyager New Zealand Maritime Museum</a> with Great North, 7pm</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Tickets 09 373 0800 info@maritimemuseum.co.nz</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Fri Nov 8: WELLINGTON: <a href="http://www.museumswellington.org.nz/museum-of-wellington-city-and-sea/l-ve-events/" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Museum of Wellington City & Sea</a> with Veronika Meduna, 7pm</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Tickets 04 4728 904 museumtours@wmt.org.nz</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Sat Nov 9: WHANGANUI <a href="http://www.sarjeant.org.nz/site/" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Sarjeant Gallery Te Whare O Rehua Whanganui</a>, doors as 6:45 show at 7pm</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Tickets 06 349 0506</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Fri Nov 15: OAMARU: Oamaru Victorian Heritage Celebrations at Oamaru Opera House Festival Explorers Club</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Fri Nov 22: NAPIER: <a href="http://www.mtghawkesbay.com/" style="color: #2288bb; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">MTG Hawke's Bay,</a> 7pm</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="line-height: 16px;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="color: #333333; display: inline; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Sat Nov 23: ROTORUA: The Rogue Stage</span></span></div>
Bond Street Bridgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17005433471784566057noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1572034266433562555.post-22774570007474275802013-10-06T13:15:00.001+13:002013-10-06T13:18:47.025+13:00Radio with pictures<div style="text-align: justify;">
If you happen to be listening to <a href="http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/artsonsunday" target="_blank">Radio New Zealand Arts on Sunday</a> today, you may hear me wittering on about the crew of the <i>Endurance</i>, and the hi-jinks they got up to in order to pass the time while their ship was stuck in Antarctic ice. Here is a photograph of their midwinter celebrations - midwinter is of course the most important night of the Antarctic social calendar, and the crew celebrated in high Edwardian style with cross-dressing, blackface and banjos.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9bCkFTjuuBmPH8NCMQdS1_LS3mdcyJH3mwMhS91xu7Gf_1dhqW1AzT0qLLrTNleN5in5ovHSGRNicQVVdtGWs4LP_QuX6YGEJ3h49JTYItkRM_FsbUaEM2UBQcywwYvv4GSJe96mehfhyphenhyphen/s1600/Endurance+Midwinter060.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="326" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9bCkFTjuuBmPH8NCMQdS1_LS3mdcyJH3mwMhS91xu7Gf_1dhqW1AzT0qLLrTNleN5in5ovHSGRNicQVVdtGWs4LP_QuX6YGEJ3h49JTYItkRM_FsbUaEM2UBQcywwYvv4GSJe96mehfhyphenhyphen/s400/Endurance+Midwinter060.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Photograph by Frank Hurley, from <i>Endurance </i>by Alfred Lansing.</span></div>
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It was the full Vaudeville routine, which was pretty much the funniest form of entertainment that had been invented by that stage (since then we have developed funnier things like videos of animals falling off things; we have come a long way) - Alfred Lansing tells us 'Shackleton, who was chairman, introduced the participants, Orde-Lees was dressed as a Methodist minister, the 'Rev. Bubbling-Love,' and he exhorted his listeners against the wages of sin. James, as 'Herr Professor von Shopenbaum,' delivered a lengthy lecture on the 'Calorie'...McIlroy dressed up as a Spanish girls and a very wicked looking one at that, with very low evening dress...Marston sang, Hudson was a half-caste girl, Greenstreet was a red-nosed drunk, and Rickinson was a London streetwalker.'* Gosh!</div>
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One hundred years later it's easy to poke fun at people for poking fun at the mentally ill, people from other countries or races, sex workers and so on, but at the time this was really quite progressive. A few years earlier the crew of the <i>Beligica</i> had become similarly trapped in Antarctic ice all winter, and lacking such team spirit and so forth they sank into paranoia and depression. Shackleton, though, knew the value of entertainment as a method of maintaining morale and sanity. After the <i>Endurance </i>was crushed and her crew embarked on their trek across the ice, hauling the boats on sledges, Sir Ernest ordered that personal possessions be limited to two pounds per man, and he set the example himself by throwing a handful of gold sovereigns down on the ice and tearing out the good bits (about ice) from the bible that Queen Alexandra had given him and tossing the rest into an open lead. However, he ordered Hussey (pictured above in blackface) to bring along his banjo - despite the fact it weighed seventeen pounds - because of it's value as an 'invaluable mental tonic' for the men. When a banjo is the answer, you know you're in trouble.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">*Lansing<i>, </i>Alfred<i> </i>1959.<i> Endurance: The Greatest Adventure Story Ever Told, </i>London: Hodder&Stoughton </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqIo-lCQI65BSrTNlBHBaFs3JbPYvTlUpTe_uyHGjUP_QzOLE2D0wEmqDpvCw9wFB-8GTSrSmE-CPa1f6BpcHUeCUjrQ9FjJDZwFrC-RoFOM8X0MkWIMkymCe3gy3ILyqupEgzuijPZqed/s1600/ECA+all+dates.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqIo-lCQI65BSrTNlBHBaFs3JbPYvTlUpTe_uyHGjUP_QzOLE2D0wEmqDpvCw9wFB-8GTSrSmE-CPa1f6BpcHUeCUjrQ9FjJDZwFrC-RoFOM8X0MkWIMkymCe3gy3ILyqupEgzuijPZqed/s400/ECA+all+dates.jpg" width="282" /></a></div>
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<b style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 16px;">Explorers Club: Antarctica Album Launch Tour Oct/Nov 2013</b></div>
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<b style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 16px;"><br /></b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Thurs Oct 17: NELSON: Nelson Arts Festival - The Playhouse Cafe and Theatre Restaurant Mapua Show at 8 pm</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Tickets from <a href="http://www.nelsonartsfestival.co.nz/">www.nelsonartsfestival.co.nz</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Fri Oct 18: TAKAKA: Nelson Arts Festival - The Mussell Inn, with Bat Country, show at 8:30 pm</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Tickets from Mussel Inn, 03 525 9241 or haveabeer@musselinn.co.nz</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Sat Oct 19: HOKITIKA: Hokitika Museum, 7pm</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Tickets from Hokitika Museum 03 755 6898</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Sun Oct 20: OKARITO -Donovans Store, with Bat Country, 7:30pm</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Tickets at the door</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Mon Oct 21: WANAKA: Cinema Paradiso with Bat Country, 8:30pm</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Tickets 03 443 1505, abccinema@xtra.co.nz</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Tues Oct 22: MILFORD SOUND Throwdown in the Sound at Blue Duck Cafe And Bar, with Bat Country</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Free if you're in Milford Sound</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Thurs Oct 24: OAMARU: The Oamaru Opera Housewith <a href="http://www.forteastern.com/" target="_blank">THE EASTERN </a>and Barry Saunders</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Tickets <a href="http://www.ticketdirect.co.nz/">www.ticketdirect.co.nz</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Fri Oct 25: DUNEDIN, Platos with The Eastern and Barry Saunders</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">tickets from <a href="http://www.undertheradar.co.nz/">www.undertheradar.co.nz</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Sat Oct 26: CHRISTCHURCH: 241Chambers Gallery, </span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 16px;"> </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 16px;">7pm, with Jed & Hera - Tickets from <a href="http://www.undertheradar.co.nz/">www.undertheradar.co.nz</a> or at the door</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 16px;"> </span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Thurs Oct 31: AUCKLAND: <a href="http://www.maritimemuseum.co.nz/wawcs0142328/bond-st-bridge.html" target="_blank">Voyager New Zealand Maritime Museum</a> with Great North, 7pm</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Tickets 09 373 0800 info@maritimemuseum.co.nz</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Fri Nov 8: WELLINGTON: <a href="http://www.museumswellington.org.nz/museum-of-wellington-city-and-sea/l-ve-events/" target="_blank">Museum of Wellington City & Sea</a> with Veronika Meduna, 7pm</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Tickets 04 4728 904 museumtours@wmt.org.nz</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Sat Nov 9: WHANGANUI <a href="http://www.sarjeant.org.nz/site/" target="_blank">Sarjeant Gallery Te Whare O Rehua Whanganui</a>, doors as 6:45 show at 7pm</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Tickets 06 349 0506</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Fri Nov 15: OAMARU: Oamaru Victorian Heritage Celebrations at Oamaru Opera House Festival Explorers Club</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Fri Nov 22: NAPIER: <a href="http://www.mtghawkesbay.com/" target="_blank">MTG Hawke's Bay,</a> 7pm</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="line-height: 16px;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Sat Nov 23: ROTORUA: The Rogue Stage</span></span></div>
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Bond Street Bridgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17005433471784566057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1572034266433562555.post-39661539682589055192013-10-04T12:30:00.001+13:002013-10-05T15:02:35.368+13:00The Game's Afoot<div style="text-align: justify;">
Well my word, it seems we have much to discuss. The album, which I suppose we have worked so hard to bring to you (although honestly, it didn't feel like <i>real work</i>, not like hauling a sledge to the South Pole or anything) yes, the album is nearly ready to be sent out into the world, so the first thing our friends at <a href="http://banishedfromtheuniverse.com/" target="_blank">Banished From The Universe records</a> would like me to tell you is that you can preorder that album <i>today</i> from the <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/nz/album/explorers-club-antarctica/id714682235?uo=4" target="_blank">iTunes store.</a> So do that, by all means, and listen to the teasing one minute and 29 seconds of each song you're allowed to hear until it is actually 'released' on the 11th of October. That is thing one.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">The band, apparently waiting for something or other. The dog is Lily; she likes to be involoved.</span></div>
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Thing two is that there is a free download you can have! For free! See, our song 'It's All In The Game, Play On!' is swaggering around on the bnet stations in New Zealand at the moment and we're giving it away from our <a href="http://bondstreetbridge.bandcamp.com/" target="_blank">bandcamp </a>site, for free, for no good economic reason other than that we want to and we're grown-ups so we can do what we like, within the bounds of reason and the law. You can too - so go and download it if you want. Or not! It's up to you and I am sincerely sorry to burden you with decision-making on a Friday.</div>
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<iframe seamless="" src="http://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/track=2310172995/size=small/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=0687f5/transparent=true/" style="border: 0; height: 42px; width: 100%;"><a href="http://bondstreetbridge.bandcamp.com/track/its-all-in-the-game-play-on">It's All In The Game, Play On! by Bond Street Bridge</a></iframe><br />
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Here is a video on the youtube, which features that song and the illustrations that<a href="http://www.millicentcrow.blogspot.co.nz/" target="_blank"> Emily Cater</a> did to accompany the song. When we perform our show, which we do pretty much all the time (I think we will have performed it around one hundred times by the end of 2013, no joke) these illustrations are projected behind us as we play and it's very atmospheric; I tell a story about poor old Reverend Arnold Spencer-Smith who died on the Great Ice Barrier laying depots for Shackleton who rudely lost his ship on the far side of the continent and never even saw them, grown men cry, everybody wins. That is thing 2a.</div>
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Thing three is <a href="http://tvnz.co.nz/good-morning/extra-bond-street-bridge-video-5593430" target="_blank">another video,</a> (not embeddable I'm afraid) this time of us appearing on state television here in the Dominion of New Zealand performing the song 'Water Sky,' which is about the crew of the <i>Endurance</i> camping for five months on the pack ice of the Weddell Sea, waiting for the current to carry them north so they could launch their boats and sail home - watching for the 'water sky' that appears over the open ocean. In such times a young man's thoughts turn to love, and I have it on good authority that this song, despite its icy provenance, has been the proximate cause of at least one case of romantic attachment in its short life. I wish I could tell you more, but it is not my place to do so. Buy me a drink sometime and I will furnish the details.</div>
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Thing four is the tour and so on, which you already know about, and which is growing like a weed - as well as all these public shows around the place, we're now doing a bunch of 'community' shows along the way at primary schools and - get this - retirement villages, because why do one show a day when you could do two shows a day? Plus it turns out that these shows are heaps of fun, and what's the matter, don't you like fun? I know I do; especially when 'fun' means waking at desk job o'clock, driving several hundred kilometers blasting Steeleye Span at an inconsiderate volume, loading the gear into a school, setting up, playing a show, packing down, driving some more playing Led Zeppelin at a frankly antisocial volume, loading all the gear into a theatre, setting up, playing a show, packing down, socialising heavily, sleeping briefly then repeating, and repeating some more. Fun! Why are we like this, I wonder?</div>
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Anyway, here are the dates, in case you forgot. I encourage you to buy tickets ahead of time because things have been selling out a bit lately and we wouldn't want anybody to miss out on their dose of Antarctic tragedy.</div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><b>The Explorers Club: Antarctica Album Launch Tour</b></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Thurs Oct 17: NELSON: Nelson Arts Festival - The Playhouse Cafe and Theatre Restaurant Mapua Show at 8 pm</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Tickets from <a href="http://www.nelsonartsfestival.co.nz/">www.nelsonartsfestival.co.nz</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Fri Oct 18: TAKAKA: Nelson Arts Festival - The Mussell Inn, with Bat Country, show at 8:30 pm</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Tickets from Mussel Inn, 03 525 9241 or haveabeer@musselinn.co.nz</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Sat Oct 19: HOKITIKA: Hokitika Museum, 7pm</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Tickets from Hokitika Museum 03 755 6898</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Sun Oct 20: OKARITO -Donovans Store, with Bat Country, 7:30pm</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Tickets at the door</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Mon Oct 21: WANAKA: Cinema Paradiso with Bat Country, 8:30pm</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Tickets 03 443 1505, abccinema@xtra.co.nz</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Tues Oct 22: MILFORD SOUND Throwdown in the Sound at Blue Duck Cafe And Bar, with Bat Country</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Free if you're in Milford Sound</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Thurs Oct 24: OAMARU: The Oamaru Opera Housewith <a href="http://www.forteastern.com/" target="_blank">THE EASTERN </a>and Barry Saunders</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Tickets <a href="http://www.ticketdirect.co.nz/">www.ticketdirect.co.nz</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Fri Oct 25: DUNEDIN, Platos with The Eastern and Barry Saunders</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">tickets from <a href="http://www.undertheradar.co.nz/">www.undertheradar.co.nz</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Sat Oct 26: CHRISTCHURCH: 241Chambers Gallery, 7pm, with Jed & Hera - Tickets at the door</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Thurs Oct 31: AUCKLAND: <a href="http://www.maritimemuseum.co.nz/wawcs0142328/bond-st-bridge.html" target="_blank">Voyager New Zealand Maritime Museum</a> with Great North, 7pm</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Tickets 09 373 0800 info@maritimemuseum.co.nz</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Fri Nov 8: WELLINGTON: <a href="http://www.museumswellington.org.nz/museum-of-wellington-city-and-sea/l-ve-events/" target="_blank">Museum of Wellington City & Sea</a> with Veronika Meduna, 7pm</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Tickets 04 4728 904 museumtours@wmt.org.nz</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Sat Nov 9: WHANGANUI <a href="http://www.sarjeant.org.nz/site/" target="_blank">Sarjeant Gallery Te Whare O Rehua Whanganui</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Tickets 06 349 0506</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Fri Nov 15: OAMARU: Oamaru Victorian Heritage Celebrations at Oamaru Opera House Festival Explorers Club</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Fri Nov 22: NAPIER: <a href="http://www.mtghawkesbay.com/" target="_blank">MTG Hawke's Bay,</a> 7pm</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="line-height: 16px;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Sat Nov 23: ROTORUA: The Rogue Stage</span></span></div>
Bond Street Bridgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17005433471784566057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1572034266433562555.post-905585436522161592013-09-23T12:20:00.005+12:002013-10-01T07:41:44.831+13:00Explorers Club: Antarctica Album Launch Tour<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 16px;">It's happening! Here's the scheme for The Explorers Club: Antarctica Album Launch Tour...</span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Building on the success of their award-winning show ‘The Explorers Club: Antarctica,’ Auckland alt-folksters Bond Street Bridge are proud to announce the release this October of an album of songs recording the incredible stories of Captain Scott, Sir Ernest Shackleton and the Heroic Age of Antarctic exploration. The album is out October 11 on Banished From The Universe records, and the band is celebrating with a national tour starting with the Nelson Arts Festival, taking in special performances at some of New Zealand's premier museums and galleries, and including appearances with folk heavyweights THE EASTERN, Barry Saunders and Great North.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Songwriter Sam Prebble has turned a fascination with Antarctic heritage into a multi-faceted and collaborative work of art. After several months lost in books and dusty library shelves, poring over old photographs and maps and devouring first-hand accounts of adventure and mishap on the ice, Prebble emerged with a collection of songs recalling the hardships and celebrating the extraordinary pluck of the explorers who first set foot on the frozen wastes. The songs combine material from the original journals of the explorers themselves, lines from the poets and writers who inspired their exploits, and a treasure trove of recent Antarctic scholarship, weaving tales of courage, endurance and humanity in the face of defeat and humility before extraordinary endeavour. The stories of Captain Oates walking to his death, Scott freezing in his tent, writing to the last, and Shackleton sailing hundreds of miles in an open boat to save his men are retold through heartbreaking ballads and foot-stomping sea shanties.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">The material on this album has already drawn accolades. Over the Summer, Bond Street Bridge presented the show to packed houses at Fringe Festivals around the country, securing them the award for ‘Best Music’ at the 2012 NZ Fringe Festival Awards and invitations to appear at Arts Festivals, museums and galleries around the country. The show played to sold-out sessions at the Queenstown Winter Festival, the Taranaki International Arts Festival, and the inaugural NZ IceFest in Christchurch, and was described by the Dominion Post as ‘a perfect evening of music.’</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">The songs are complemented by beautiful original illustrations from artist Emily Cater, who studied the photographs and drawings the explorers brought back from the ice and produced a series of evocative illustrations surrounding the music. These are projected around the band for the live show, and feature on the album artwork, online, and in a range of cards and posters.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">To mark the October 11 release of the Explorers Club: Antarctica album, the band is taking the show on the road again, with two appearances at the Nelson Arts Festival followed by shows at the NZ Maritime Museum in Auckland, The Museum of Wellington City and Sea, Chambers 241 gallery in Christchurch, the newly-refurbished Napier Museum, the Oamaru Opera House, and several other appearances at galleries, museums and theatres around the country through October and November.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><b>The Explorers Club: Antarctica Album Launch Tour</b></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Thurs Oct 17: NELSON: Nelson Arts Festival - The Playhouse Cafe and Theatre Restaurant Mapua Show at 8 pm</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Tickets from <a href="http://www.nelsonartsfestival.co.nz/">www.nelsonartsfestival.co.nz</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Fri Oct 18: TAKAKA: Nelson Arts Festival - The Mussell Inn, with Bat Country, show at 8:30 pm</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Tickets from Mussel Inn, 03 525 9241 or haveabeer@musselinn.co.nz</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Sat Oct 19: HOKITIKA: Hokitika Museum, 7pm</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Tickets from Hokitika Museum 03 755 6898</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Sun Oct 20: OKARITO -Donovans Store, with Bat Country, 7:30pm</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Tickets at the door</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Mon Oct 21: WANAKA: Cinema Paradiso with Bat Country, 8:30pm</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Tickets 03 443 1505, abccinema@xtra.co.nz</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Tues Oct 22: MILFORD SOUND Throwdown in the Sound at Blue Duck Cafe And Bar, with Bat Country</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Free if you're in Milford Sound</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Thurs Oct 24: OAMARU: The Oamaru Opera Housewith <a href="http://www.forteastern.com/" target="_blank">THE EASTERN </a>and Barry Saunders</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Tickets <a href="http://www.ticketdirect.co.nz/">www.ticketdirect.co.nz</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Fri Oct 25: DUNEDIN, Platos with The Eastern and Barry Saunders</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">tickets from <a href="http://www.undertheradar.co.nz/">www.undertheradar.co.nz</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Sat Oct 26: CHRISTCHURCH: 241Chambers Gallery, 7pm, with Jed & Hera - Tickets at the door</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Thurs Oct 31: AUCKLAND: <a href="http://www.maritimemuseum.co.nz/wawcs0142328/bond-st-bridge.html" target="_blank">Voyager New Zealand Maritime Museum</a> with Great North, 7pm</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Tickets 09 373 0800 info@maritimemuseum.co.nz</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Fri Nov 8: WELLINGTON: <a href="http://www.museumswellington.org.nz/museum-of-wellington-city-and-sea/l-ve-events/" target="_blank">Museum of Wellington City & Sea</a> with Veronika Meduna, 7pm</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Tickets 04 4728 904 museumtours@wmt.org.nz</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Sat Nov 9: WHANGANUI <a href="http://www.sarjeant.org.nz/site/" target="_blank">Sarjeant Gallery Te Whare O Rehua Whanganui</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Tickets 06 349 0506</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Fri Nov 15: OAMARU: Oamaru Victorian Heritage Celebrations at Oamaru Opera House Festival Explorers Club</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Fri Nov 22: NAPIER: <a href="http://www.mtghawkesbay.com/" target="_blank">MTG Hawke's Bay,</a> 7pm</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span style="line-height: 16px;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Sat Nov 23: ROTORUA: The Rogue Stage</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">See you on the road!</span></span></span>Bond Street Bridgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17005433471784566057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1572034266433562555.post-78799292511538889432013-08-25T18:53:00.001+12:002013-08-25T19:25:28.059+12:00Grand Theft Auto<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This morning (well, before noon, anyhow) we were woken up by the kind of pounding on the door and squawking of radios that only ever means police officers (Couriers have a different, more furtive, knock) and Emily tells me that that sound, to her, means bad news of the 'come quick, a loved one is in hospital' variety, which demonstrates that we are obviously very different people because for me the first thought is always along the lines of 'the game is up - burn the files and find out when the next plane leaves for Argentina.' But I honestly couldn't think of anything I'd done that would bring police officers to my actual house, so I found a pair of jeans and opened the door.<br />
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Even though it was early and they could no doubt see that I was not up to effective communication yet, they immediately started in on questions about, of all things, my car. Like for example when did I last see it? and how many sets of keys are there? Had I lent it to anybody really, you know, shifty? I was still kind of bleary eyed because it was, as I said, the morning and too early for polite visits, so naturally I began to babble. I revealed that you don't really need a key to open the door of our car because it's kind of special that way, you can actually open it with a spoon, come have a look and I'll show you, it's parked right here in the carport, and all the while my sluggish and guilty brain was trying to figure out what antisocial behaviours I might have perpetrated with the car lately that would bring two police to my door on a Sunday morning, and I was drawing nothing but a blank because honestly, my life is not that interesting.</div>
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And of course they looked at me pityingly - who is this disheveled buffoon babbling about spoons and with his jeans not properly on who clearly hasn't yet realised that his car is not where he left it? Because it wasn't, of course, otherwise they wouldn't have been there asking questions about it, and it began to dawn on me that my role here was not that of suspect run to ground by brave officers after a giddy spree of running orange lights and driving at 45ks in a school zone, but rather an honest taxpaying citizen who had just had some bugger thief off with his wheels.<br />
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So I did my best solid citizen impression and engaged the officers in conversation on the front lawn, because we have quite a lot of open homes around here on a Sunday morning and I know the government is worried about house prices at the moment so I like to do my bit by making sure the first thing prospective buyers see when they drive down the street is a skinny scraggly-haired lowlife blinking like a star-nosed mole and with his pants only half on bailed up on the front lawn by a couple of cops who are obviously here on a routine meth lab inspection, which I think should take a good five percent off the average offer for any house on our street this week.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">This is me anytime before mid-afternoon. Forget about the 10% deposit thing, I could take the heat out the housing market just by walking down the street if I could be persuaded to get out of bed before noon every Sunday. So far, that takes a minimum of two police officers or the promise of a ride in an aircraft of some kind.</span></div>
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They told me an unlikely-sounding story about an off-duty cop who had spotted a person 'of interest' (like, you know, a 'perp' I think they call them) driving our car this morning, and this alert officer had phoned in the plates (by this time I was using words like 'tags' to show that I was up to speed with the evolving situation) and they were here to see whether we were essentially harbouring a fugitive. Which I was pretty sure we weren't, but then I obviously had incomplete information about a lot of things since I thought we still had a car in the carport. Anyhow, they went away soon after that, and the real estate agents of Morningside (Kingsland Fringe) breathed a sigh of relief as I went back inside to do up my trousers.</div>
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So it would seem that our car has been stolen, which should come as a surprise to nobody really, except that it's actually very hard to even get it going it at the best of times because the starter motor is not what it was. It also needs five new tires and some panel work, and it is full of dog hair. We've actually been meaning to sell it for ages but we're worried about getting bad trademe feedback, so it's just been sitting out there in the carport waiting for someone to boost it - which would have been great if we'd gotten around to getting it insured. If you see it around, do let me know, won't you? It's a silver Mazda 323, license plate TT1040, with roof rails and a person of interest driving it. We don't have any good pictures of it really, because it's pretty ugly and we usually try not to get it in photographs, but here's one that was taken from the inside of the car in a rainstorm in Tauranga while we were feeding seagulls on the bonnet, in happier times. Answers on a postcard please.</div>
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</span></span>Bond Street Bridgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17005433471784566057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1572034266433562555.post-89899264653177983712013-08-23T13:20:00.004+12:002013-08-23T13:25:30.908+12:00Magicians, Savages, Gypsies<div style="text-align: justify;">
The material we're dealing with in this Explorers Club: Antarctica show that we've been doing is pretty much public property - great archetypal stories of triumph and adversity, the tales of people who went out in a great blaze of publicity and either came back years later covered in glory or lost their lives out in the frozen wastes in pursuit of some combination of Imperial honour, scientific discovery or precious new lines on the increasingly detailed map. That means that we're not alone here - a lot of other people are covering similar ground, and as a consequence we get all sorts of interesting emails and invitations from other artists who are doing awesome Antarctica-related work. </div>
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One such email came through the tubes a little while back, from <a href="http://www.suecooke.co.nz/" target="_blank">Sue Cooke</a>, who has put together a striking installation in Whanganui's <a href="http://www.sarjeant.org.nz/" target="_blank">Sarjeant Gallery</a> responding to her time on the Antarctic Peninsular. She'd heard about what we were doing, and she invited us to come and perform the show in Whanganui in association with her exhibit. Because of what we cheerfully refer to as our mental problems, we honestly and truthfully really enjoy driving for twelve to fourteen hours to play shows in small towns so we of course gave a resounding yes. </div>
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As we passed through Taumarunui, night had fallen and we were looking for a place to eat. All the windows in the long main street have electric fences behind them and a lot of the shops are empty so the place has the surreal feeling you get in a lot of small north island towns. As though the apocalypse is here, and it's happening very, very slowly. Still a little dazed from the road, we pulled open an old aluminum ranch slider and stepped into a greasy takeaway joint. We stared at the menu board for a long time, as the family who ran the place took our measure. </div>
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'Are you guys magicians?' said the daughter. </div>
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I said yeah, we are. </div>
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'Can you tell, like, fortunes?' </div>
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I said yeah, but it's rude to. We ended up getting the rice, and I tried not to get too much on the floor of the van as we wound through the southern King Country highways with Led Zep II playing at a good volume. </div>
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That got us to Whanganui with the gas light just starting to glow, and the next day we rolled down to the venue in fair time to set up for our morning show. I had heard tell of this place, some of our friends had played here before and the information I had told me that we were in for a slap in the cultural face. </div>
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The Savage Club hall is a very challenging environment to walk into. It seems that in 1857 or thereabouts, Pakeha colonists in New Zealand, responding to international trends in racial theory, made their own fun by imitating Maori iconography and costume and getting together periodically to sing songs at one another. This should come as a surprise to nobody; there exist several similar examples of such appropriation around the world. A <a href="http://www.spri.cam.ac.uk/library/pictures/catalogue/article/p66.19.81/" target="_blank">famous photograph </a>by Frank Hurley, for example, shows at least one member of the crew of the Endurance in blackface during their midwinter revels. It should also be unsurprising that the Pakeha colonists quickly organised their entertainment into a regular club - with a president, treasurer, minutes, and of course a hall in which to meet. It is decorated more or less as one might expect with the above in mind, and yes, I am told, the carvings around the proscenium arch were stolen from a <span style="text-align: center;">marae up the river. </span><br />
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The odd thing about the Savage Club is that it still actually exists as a club, not just as a historical curiosity. We were just playing in their hall - our show didn't have anything to do with the club itself so I know nothing of its history beyond hearsay. But I gather that they still meet regularly and sing songs at one another, and the photographs around the walls of the hall show generations of white people dressed in grass skirts holding guitars, giving an overall impression of what the hell is going on here? I asked a few people and the answers I got were mostly around 'well it's all just fun, isn't it?' and 'they're not hurting anybody, are they?' </div>
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As we stood on the stage and played our show, I kept thinking about other strange places I've got up and slung my guitar over the years, or gone to watch other people doing the same thing. There was this hall in Copenhagen tricked out it a Viking style one time, with probably not very many actual Vikings present. A lot of bars in places that weren't Ireland dressed up to look like how somebody might think an Irish pub might look if they liked the book Angela's Ashes. A series of shows that happened under various 'Gypsy' labels organised by people who I'm pretty sure weren't Romany. The tired old tradition of white people playing reggae. Or the blues. Those bars with all kinds of Oriental trappings that hark back to the good old days of the Opium Wars and the White Man's Burden. These things all seemed to me to have something in common and that is this: I don't really know what the hell to make of them. Kind of makes me glad that I'm not at University anymore so I don't have to write essays about it, plus you can't think about this kind of stuff too much when you're on stage because you forget where you're up to in the song and then the bass player rolls his eyes at you. </div>
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Anyway, the Whanganui Chronicle described the show as 'a performance to make the hairs stand up on the back of your neck, your teeth clench and your body shiver,' which coincidentally is exactly how I feel when I walk into a particularly glaringly fake Irish bar. There was no mention of us being magicians, but the performance was also described as 'mesmerising,' and 'stunning,' which are pretty close. The next time we play in Whanganui it will be beneath the echoing neo-classical dome of the Sarjeant Galley, on our album release tour in November (of which more later), so if you know people in Whanganui who like being mesemerised, stunned or chilled tell them to watch this space.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_E7Md6G0t9BwxdO3mejuGYjsZLoKAZl-eajcnlgh6PfP_F1PNKG0ZHO0b3DehRjZZkWBTwrPI_pDrEtiN9Oiq9K5Ql2xsBU9f-L244foqpEFFJi7KEfyHV3Ty5nBEssmopjDaUjlWFJrc/s1600/DSC_0127.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_E7Md6G0t9BwxdO3mejuGYjsZLoKAZl-eajcnlgh6PfP_F1PNKG0ZHO0b3DehRjZZkWBTwrPI_pDrEtiN9Oiq9K5Ql2xsBU9f-L244foqpEFFJi7KEfyHV3Ty5nBEssmopjDaUjlWFJrc/s400/DSC_0127.JPG" width="266" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Here's the review. Chilling.</span></div>
Bond Street Bridgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17005433471784566057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1572034266433562555.post-33258937346922442052013-07-29T17:45:00.000+12:002013-07-29T13:03:55.988+12:00Great God! This Is An Awful Place EP and free download<div style="text-align: justify;">
<iframe seamless="" src="http://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/track=3679779209/size=medium/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=0687f5/transparent=true/" style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; height: 120px; width: 100%;"><a href="http://bondstreetbridge.bandcamp.com/track/great-god-this-is-an-awful-place-free-download-2">Great God! This Is An Awful Place free download by Bond Street Bridge</a></iframe>It's been all hustle and bustle at Bond St HQ this year. There's been touring and shows a-plenty, ice and aeroplanes and lashings of whisky, and a couple of months ago the band disappeared into The Lab, below the Crystal Palace on the slopes of Mt Eden, to get some songs recorded.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinG9n-LH7cg8Jm3edJegKRA4ZBUN5uDtdUr1UrUGu6vUWD9hKjhOfzKA_wCFOoG56AKKtcPaT6LShq3xE95ccu-QlFIgJZ0WxAcqVUtyvSHx-iUi2LG80njSQcuvs__czQByivSd7i-HQQ/s1600/DSC_0130.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinG9n-LH7cg8Jm3edJegKRA4ZBUN5uDtdUr1UrUGu6vUWD9hKjhOfzKA_wCFOoG56AKKtcPaT6LShq3xE95ccu-QlFIgJZ0WxAcqVUtyvSHx-iUi2LG80njSQcuvs__czQByivSd7i-HQQ/s320/DSC_0130.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">The old Crystal Palace Theatre - now infested with a serious case of musicians.</span> </div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
It all happened pretty smoothly, as a result of having played these songs live as part of the Explorers Club show about fifty times since the middle of last year. We got the album made in three days, all live in the room without overdubs, and by God it sounds just how we'd hoped it would. It's coming out in October so watch out for that.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfC6-ypeQzq6keto7mUFuNB33RRG1xPKylDlbyt-V0Ndefx9XWapZ7ZFbayFHjIlCA4upPg2tsqmWVkDXwy4gPFgdGEGgqMwP3H0RcW-scpeJYquJDCPBagykhq5-Up-_oi5pfDlzpsALO/s1600/DSC_0145.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfC6-ypeQzq6keto7mUFuNB33RRG1xPKylDlbyt-V0Ndefx9XWapZ7ZFbayFHjIlCA4upPg2tsqmWVkDXwy4gPFgdGEGgqMwP3H0RcW-scpeJYquJDCPBagykhq5-Up-_oi5pfDlzpsALO/s320/DSC_0145.JPG" width="213" /></a></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">What the stairs look like when you are waiting on them for everyone else to get there and </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">sort of </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">wondering</span><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;">if you remembered to tell them what day the recording was but not texting anybody just yet.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In the meantime, we had a show down at the <a href="http://www.winterfestival.co.nz/" target="_blank">Queenstown Winter Festival</a> last week, (pictures <a href="http://www.winterfestival.co.nz/galleries/photo-gallery-2013/the-explorers-antarctica-show/">here</a>, by the way, of the cold but sold-out house) and we've got a <a href="http://www.taft.co.nz/artsfest/tsb-bank-lunchtime-bites/Bond-Street-Bridge.html">few other things</a> coming up like that, and people always seem to want to get a wee souvenir at these things, which is as it should be in my opinion. So we took a couple of songs from the album sessions, and a song we recorded later that week at the Lab for the good people over at Kiwi FM, and some live recordings from the Fringe Festival shows we did in Auckland earlier this year, and what do you know, we've got a little EP!</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQU0WKPtOMPQ-i4nL5oQvi7KNexCpigCH3DbvaPdihAQsO16kLupPHu8Lva5EhUdmkxmStTSsXf5ZQgs1jyskYpKmXL8yhNuc4LIREbXRiif-TwmSjfykbjXRYWQtPzTZAMQ9oq8GK-Tyc/s1600/front+cover+square-001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQU0WKPtOMPQ-i4nL5oQvi7KNexCpigCH3DbvaPdihAQsO16kLupPHu8Lva5EhUdmkxmStTSsXf5ZQgs1jyskYpKmXL8yhNuc4LIREbXRiif-TwmSjfykbjXRYWQtPzTZAMQ9oq8GK-Tyc/s320/front+cover+square-001.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Artwork, like all of our artwork, by <a href="http://www.millicentcrow.blogspot.co.nz/" target="_blank">Emily Cater</a></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
It's called '<a href="http://bondstreetbridge.bandcamp.com/album/great-god-this-is-an-awful-place" target="_blank">Great God! This Is An Awful Place!</a>,' and it's the story of Captain Scott arriving at the South Pole in 1912 and realising that Amundsen had already got there. As you know, he did his best to get home with his men, but all five of them died trying to return to Hut Point. The EP tells that story, too, so overall it's pretty grim. The live recordings from the Fringe Festival are of me telling the stories, because some people said that they'd like to hear that recorded as well.</div>
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<br /></div>
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So you can <a href="http://bondstreetbridge.bandcamp.com/album/great-god-this-is-an-awful-place">listen to it onlin</a>e of course, or you can download it - in fact you can have the <a href="http://bondstreetbridge.bandcamp.com/track/great-god-this-is-an-awful-place-free-download">title track for free</a>, if that's what you fancy - or you can get a physical copy at any of these gigs we have coming up, of which there are a few over the next little while. Here it is, look:</div>
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<br /></div>
<iframe seamless="" src="http://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=539604272/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=0687f5/transparent=true/" style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; height: 626px; width: 350px;"><a href="http://bondstreetbridge.bandcamp.com/album/great-god-this-is-an-awful-place-ep">Great God! This Is An Awful Place EP by Bond Street Bridge</a></iframe><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">And here's where we're playing in the next few weeks:</span><br />
<br />
Saturday 13th July - Auckland,<a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/139407142929761/" target="_blank"> Lucha Lounge with Great North and The Bads</a><br />
Friday 9th August - Savage Club, Whanganui<br />
Thursday 29th August - <a href="http://www.taft.co.nz/artsfest/tsb-bank-lunchtime-bites/Bond-Street-Bridge.html" target="_blank">Mayfair Festival Club, Taranaki International Arts Festival</a><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGq0ItQ5t5arAV8mbq-8I9NXAnSIvqUVFLFu_TeHaeJYabBM6vnuk4zm6lxJo88otaUKS8av5e9EAr_PbeXXHOu0SgQBpcdNt3Nw5-jfy1hzZ3WZEriFYezC6ewQB9b21FoSg8iZSeTsED/s1600/Expolorers-Club-Antarctica-Show-2013-06.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGq0ItQ5t5arAV8mbq-8I9NXAnSIvqUVFLFu_TeHaeJYabBM6vnuk4zm6lxJo88otaUKS8av5e9EAr_PbeXXHOu0SgQBpcdNt3Nw5-jfy1hzZ3WZEriFYezC6ewQB9b21FoSg8iZSeTsED/s400/Expolorers-Club-Antarctica-Show-2013-06.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Bond Street Bridge at Queenstown Winter Festival. It was, predictably, cold.</span></div>
<br />Bond Street Bridgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17005433471784566057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1572034266433562555.post-33942975505341479882013-07-26T15:52:00.002+12:002014-04-13T10:36:36.919+12:00Shackleton's Whisky: A tale of shame and redemption, part one<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN">It will come as little surprise to many when I reveal that I have been
somewhat interested lately in the storied history of the Heroic Age of
Antarctic exploration. This interest has
had all sorts of agreeable side-effects, many of which are a direct result of
tearing around the country over the past year or so telling some of these
stories in barns, bar-rooms and back-country halls from Invercargill to
Dargaville. It seems like the more you get up and tell stories, the more
stories people want to tell you right back, so I've been hearing all kinds of
tall tales from all kinds of people, which luckily is one of my favourite ways
to pass the time. One of the stories that's been cropping up a lot lately is
the one about<a href="http://www.theshackletonwhisky.com/default.aspx" target="_blank"> Shackleton's Whisky</a>, and it has become for me a tale, dear
reader, of shame and redemption.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN">You've probably heard the tale yourself, even if your main source of news
is, well, 'The News,' and not grizzled old taproom scholars in South Island
bars. It's a compelling story with a
high degree of cross-over interest, and it tests well in a range of
demographics, so it has had a good share of what media analysts call
'screen-time' over the past couple of years.
I heard about it in a bar.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN">It was near the end of a long tour in the winter, I recall, of 2012. We'd just driven the usual loop - a bunch of
nights in the North Island, an early morning ferry crossing playing old Neil
Young songs to hung-over travelers in the bar they call the Karori Rip,
followed by a dozen or so dates around the South Island, and when we do this, we
don't tend to give ourselves a break. It's a lot of late nights and weird
mornings; a typical day is an early start and a long drive followed by a
scramble to set up the PA, run a soundcheck, play a show, sling some merch,
pack down, load out, find the accom, bags the tops bunk then grab the
throwaround guitars and walk out to the
darkness at the edge of town to find a quiet spot to sit up for the rest of the
night trying to remember how to play old Neil Young songs. Many days of this in succession on the
standard pizza and whisky diet and there is a risk of becoming unhinged. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN">So I was perhaps a little unhinged as I sat at the bar of the <a href="http://www.darkroombar.co.nz/" target="_blank">Darkroom </a>in
Christchurch there, after the show, having a yarn with Jasper and T'Neale who
own the place and trying to summon the motivation to go to bed like a decent
human being. The Darkroom, you should understand, is a classy establishment
with a discerning clientele and an impressive commitment to quality when it
comes to the drinks list, and as my magpie eye strayed to the top shelf I
espied something I had not seen before:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYkwWlSyU26rQLitLY0m6rfsbEhXcvjKQ4B68ot-IcvwmvvdpIWOm5Njw9qIK7g5vcqBQyIc-9YXKMc952Oi3zLGVIvGMz239kqahM72yh549oeFnivSjcL_eoerAiEgBZ48DoaWTVCdNt/s1600/Mackinlay+Shackleton.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYkwWlSyU26rQLitLY0m6rfsbEhXcvjKQ4B68ot-IcvwmvvdpIWOm5Njw9qIK7g5vcqBQyIc-9YXKMc952Oi3zLGVIvGMz239kqahM72yh549oeFnivSjcL_eoerAiEgBZ48DoaWTVCdNt/s400/Mackinlay+Shackleton.JPG" height="400" width="298" /></a></div>
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<span lang="EN"><span style="font-size: x-small;">I mean, it didn't look exactly like this. It was on a shelf surrounded by other bottles, </span></span><span style="font-size: x-small; line-height: 115%;">but it did say 'British Antarctic Expedition 1907' on the side.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN">This piqued my curiosity, naturally, and I politely asked Jasper what was
going on here.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN">'Oh yeah, I was going to tell you about that actually. It's a pretty cool story. Apparently a few years ago they found this
whisky under Shackleton's hut in Antarctica.'<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN">'What, and that's it there?'<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN">He could see that explaining the full story to me would take ages and
require a certain amount of repetition, so he said something like 'Pretty much,
yeah. More or less.'<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN">'Can I have some?' <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN">Jasper explained that it wasn't really for sale - they have a thing for
regulars called the Adventurers Club (which of course led me to interrupt to
tell him that that's funny, because we've got this thing called the Explorers
Club, did I tell you about it? And he said yeah, I know, you just played in my
bar) and the thing is you have to try twenty different drinks - not in the same
night, obviously, for mental health and legal reasons, but gradually, over a
period of perhaps months - and once you've tried these twenty different drinks, and only then, you get a dram of the Shackleton Whisky.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN">'Cor. So... can I have some?' Remember I was a little unhinged. I think Jasper raised a single eyebrow to
indicate that I would need to do better than that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN">I marshaled a clever three-pronged argument - firstly, hadn't I just spent
the past hour or so on stage - his stage - telling stories about Shackleton?
Surely that put me in some sort of special interest category? Secondly, Poor Me - which is an important
prong for any argument, and the less specific the better I find, and thirdly
(which I think actually sealed the deal) I indicated that I was game for
earning the Shackleton Whisky by the conventional route, right then and there,
which we could all agree would be a ludicrous idea but that's how strongly I
felt about the matter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN">One or all of the prongs worked, anyhow, and Jasper solemnly took the box from the self and the bottle
from the box (how handsome it was!) and poured me a dram. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: justify;"><img src="http://scotchinfo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/highland1.jpg" /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN">Now you should know that I am not anything of a gourmet. Things like food
and whisky have only instrumental value to me - I carry a hipflask for
motivational purposes, as Shackleton himself did, to hand off to band members
in times of crisis to prevent mutiny. On tour, I
carry nuts and raisins in my pockets for the same reason, as fuel for myself and others, and results have so
far been mixed but events have fallen out broadly in my favour. I like good
food, but I will eat bad food if I have the hunger. I like good whisky, but I
will drink bad whisky if I have the thirst.
I am, however, a total nerd for history and funny little talismans, so I
was aware of the gravity of the moment.
But! I was a little unhinged.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN">I passed the glass around the band, and everyone took a sniff and sip with
appropriate reverence. Adam McGrath, who can smell whisky ten miles away in a
snowstorm, appeared as if by magic at my elbow (which is to say his belt was
approximately at the level of my elbow; he's a big boy) and of course he needed
a sip too, and by this time a small crowd had formed at the bar and there was a
certain amount of polite jostling, people getting in each other's breathing
space and so on, a bit of a 'what's going on here then' atmosphere and a level
of encroachment on elbow room of the sort I can find unnerving at the end of a
succession of late nights an weird mornings - a degree of anticipation building
and a hum in the ears, and with the eyes of the band upon me, before a bar full
of cultured palates, I felt a flush creep up my neck and a devil on my shoulder
and when the glass appeared in my unhinged hand dear reader I tossed it back,
disgracefully, like a cooking whisky.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN">There was a silence. You know the
kind. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;">Jasper, bless him, did not hit me with a bottle or throw me into the
street, but he did look Very Disappointed. I crawled into my sleeping bag that
night feeling like the kind of barbarian who goes about the place breaking
windows in churches to hear the smash, a loutish boor who appears at garden
parties in a dirty anorak and hovers around the buffet table eating caviar with
his mouth open and spilling Chianti on the corgis. What a dope! Upon finding
the Holy Grail, the hapless pilgrim knocks it to the floor with his elbow and
hides the pieces under a rug.</span><span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="line-height: 115%;">Obviously,
I could never go back to The Darkroom.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 10pt; text-align: justify;">
<i>That's the end of part one - The Shame - it got a little bit longer that I'd anticipated so I'll post the rest - The Redemption - next week. Or when I get around to writing it.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Update! <a href="http://bondstreetbridge.blogspot.co.nz/2014/04/shackletons-whisky-tale-of-shame-and.html">Here it is.</a></i></div>
Bond Street Bridgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17005433471784566057noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1572034266433562555.post-11076122582241584812013-06-13T22:55:00.003+12:002013-06-13T23:04:16.323+12:00South Island shows in the wintertime<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Winter, icy roads, cloudy with snow to 200 meters and gusty Nor'Westers from Bream Head to Cape Colville, geese in the park hiding from the hunters, so it must be time for Bond Street Bridge to fly South to face frostbit fingers and lungs full of woodsmoke on the Central Lakes-Otago-Canterbury circuit. Just a short hop this time around comrades, there's more to come in the Springtime when the record comes out but right now we've got some sweet shows to share with you so stand by...</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Wednesday 26 June we're in Invercargill, that's a house concert the the Tattletales told us was worth the drive and they're often the best kind of shows. It's at Brad and Chrissie's place and you can call them on 03 9310599 to get the address so do that if you don't know where it is, or you can get in touch with us on the facebook or something and we'll let you know.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Second up we're up at the <a href="http://premier.ticketek.co.nz/shows/Show.aspx?sh=ANTARCTI13">Queenstown Winter Festival</a>, and the good folks there are hosting us at Remarkables Park on the 27th. There's tickets from Ticketek and they tell me they're selling like shares in a power company so you might want to get in there quick before they all get bought up by an offshore hedge fund or something, I don't know.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Next day is going to be pretty special; we're over at Arrowtown School in the morning, frightening the children with tales of Antarctic adventure. This is a new thing for us and children as a group are pretty terrifying, but apparently the Explorers Club show is bang up to date with the curriculum or something and teachers keep telling us to do this so we're doing it. The band don't know yet that this is a morning show and I'm planning on not telling them till the day of so keep it under your hat if you can.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">If we get out of that in one piece we'll jump in the rental and boot it - carefully, with chains on most likely - down to Dunedin, where we've been lucky enough to persuade <a href="http://www.nevillepeatsnewzealand.com/">Mr Neville Peat</a>, author of the remarkable book 'Shackleton's Whisky,' to give a talk at our show in the beautiful surrounds of the <a href="http://www.orokonui.org.nz/productdetails.php?productID=101">Orokonui Ecosanctuary. </a>This will be nerd heaven for me, but it will no doubt bring back uncomfortable memories of the time I disgraced myself with a glass of that same whisky, late at night, of which more later no doubt. If you want to come along to that one you'd be advised to call ahead and secure a ticket from the venue - they are on the telephone at 03 4821755.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Then it's up the line, and we're on at the <a href="http://www.darkroombar.co.nz/">Darkroom </a>on Saturday night, where I know for a fact they have a bottle of Shackleton's Whisky on the top shelf, but I willl be very surprised if they give me any after what happened last time. We shall just have to see. Tommy Chang's the next night over in Lyttelton with Aldous Harding, who I will freely admit to being a little bit scared of, then on the Monday we've got a couple of shows at South New Brighton School. Which, again, wasn't my idea, but could just possibly be a real hoot.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">That'll do for a week of shows, and we'll head back up to Auckland after that where we'll be playing with The Bads and Great North (plus a mystery guest mandolin player if the rumors are true) at Lucha on the 13th pf July so if you don't live in the South Island perhaps we'll see you there, and I shall look forward to that.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Wednesday 26 June - Invercargill house concert at Brad and Chrissie's, call 03 9310599</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Thursday 27th June - Queenstown Winter Festival, Remarkables Park, tickets from Ticketek</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Friday 28th June - Dunedin, Orokonui Ecosanctuary with Neville Peat, tickets from the venue 03 4821755 or secretary@orokonui.org</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Saturday 29th June - Christchurch, Darkroom with Happiness Stan</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Sunday 30th June - Lyttelton, Tommy Chang's with Aldous Harding</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: lucida grande, tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">Saturday 13 July - Auckland, Lucha Lounge with Great North and The Bads</span></span></div>
Bond Street Bridgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17005433471784566057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1572034266433562555.post-12120726143239125702013-04-12T12:33:00.002+12:002013-04-13T09:57:36.414+12:00Great God! This Is An Awful Place<div style="text-align: justify;">
It's amazing what you can get for a bottle of whiskey. As we rolled out of Otaki at the end of the first leg of the Explorers Club:Antarctica tour, having just played 16 shows in the past 14 days, and driven the van four and a half thousand ks over that same period - a lot of winding and climbing, three times through the Lindis Pass, down the Buller Gorge, up the Haast, to Milford and back with the smell of clutch and brake hanging heavy in the air like brimstone, like napalm, like <i>victory - </i>well we'd been up late the night before finishing off the fizzy wine that they gave us in lieu of payment for the last show (the fee, oh promoters and future partners of Bond Street Bridge, has since increased), we had the music turned loud to promote wakeful driving, and we weren't sure at first whether we were hearing things when the van started making a noise like a an old yak coughing up his breakfast. We'd cashed our chips at the main gas station in town - I forget what we did, but we couldn't face going back there - but Thor* was on our side, and the <i>next</i> gas station had a mechanic on duty and this mechanic needed only a little persuasion to take a blowtorch to our undercarriage in exchange for what was left of a bottle of Jameson's.</div>
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Whatever he did to the van, it's holding good, and thus was inaugurated whiskey as the principle medium of exchange in the Bond St economy. (Again - promoters, festival bookers and the like: we actually prefer cash or bitcoins, this story is mainly just rock'n'roll posturing.) So when we got back to Auckland, we thought we'd try our luck with a stash of very fine 12-year-old single malt we'd picked up from the <a href="http://www.thenzwhisky.com/">New Zealand Whiskey Company</a> in Oamaru, who are as premium a parcel of moonshiners as you'd hope to meet in that still-studded corner of the country. We shopped round for tenders and by far the best deal we've been offered was from Hazel Gibson, who in a trice rustled up a film crew and with their new-fangled patent cinematograph-photolithography process, captured these bright crisp images of our performance at the Wine Cellar in the Auckland Fringe Festival:</div>
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I think you will agree that we came out on top in this particular deal, which I guess means that now we owe Hazel a favour. Which means <i>she </i>wins! Curses, foiled again etc, but I gather that she filmed the whole thing, so there ought to be more videos like this coming out over the next few months. The audio was all recorded live on the night as well, thanks to Rohan Evans' wizardry on the mixing console. He also got whiskey, and of course it goes without saying that we are also in his debt, as we have been for a number of years. If Rohan Evans called in all his debts at once, every musician in Auckland would have to put every piece of gear they own up on trademe.</div>
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For those of you who don't know the story, this song is about the arrival of Capt. Robert Falcon Scott and his men at the South Pole, just over one hundred and one years ago. They had hoped to get there first, of course, but they did know that Amundsen was also heading for the pole and that he had a head start. For most of the journey, however, they had been able to convince themselves that they must be in the lead, not having found any sign of the Norwegian team. It was only a matter of days before their arrival at the pole that the British team came across Amundsen's tracks, and at this point the tone of Scott's diary takes a decidedly dark turn. At the pole, he writes 'Great God! This is an awful place, and terrible enough for us to have laboured to it without the reward of priority... now for the run home, and a desperate struggle. I wonder if we can do it.' I almost always get a manly tear in my eye when I read this entry; it's simple and brutal and there is only one way out. The writing remains extraordinarily lyrical under the harshest conditions, and it was straightforward enough to turn this part of Scott's diary and some of his last letters into a song. I hope it does him and his party justice.</div>
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*God of all things van-related. Full disclosure: the van is a people-mover.Bond Street Bridgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17005433471784566057noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1572034266433562555.post-16875695946196474542013-04-03T23:21:00.002+13:002013-04-04T00:28:17.551+13:00What we do in April<div style="text-align: justify;">
April is upon us, and we're doing a couple of special shows as we continue to take the *ahem* <a href="http://www.bondstreetbridge.blogspot.co.nz/2013/03/bond-street-bridge-win-best-music-in.html"><i>award-winning show</i></a> 'The Explorers Club: Antarctica' around the country. The good folk at the Tauranga Art Gallery rang up six weeks or so ago, as we were tearing down the West Coast on the way to a party in Okarito where at least two people would turn out to be dressed up as ships, dogs would be dressed as other, more famous, dogs, there would be more than one Amelia Earhart and a resplendent Julius Von Haast, as well as open fires and the many many half-wild children that haunt the fringes of any gathering down there in Westland, running about underfoot in a baying, slavering pack and by god you don't want to turn your back on the whiskey or they'll be off with it faster than a weka with a set of car keys.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Explorers Club party, near Franz Josef. Note people dressed as ships, dogs dressed as other dogs, etc. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Do not try to party like this in the city, you will not be able to reach these levels.</span> </div>
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<span style="text-align: center;">Anyway we were making good time on the tight turns, listening to War of The Worlds at a reasonable volume, screaming in the scary bits and shaking our skinny fists at the mountains, those awful snowbound monstrosities that wouldn't stop their looming out there to the left of the car, and shaking our fists also at that mighty ocean roiling away out there to the right, generally passing the time the way we do when we're driving through scenes of surpassing natural beauty and feeling a little bit diminished by it all.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">For the love of God, move back the mountains. How they loom!</span></div>
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So it was reassuring, amidst all of this awful (in the sense of filling one with awe) and deeply savage (in the sense of there being a lot of trees around) sensory overload, to receive a phonecall from that most genteel and civilised of institutions, a public art gallery. I pulled to a halt at the side of the road and reduced Jeff Wayne to a polite murmur, and we did the deal then and there, using the magic of wireless telephony:</div>
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<b>Thurs 18 April: The Explorers Club: Antarctica at <a href="http://www.artgallery.org.nz/events/bond-st-bridge-presents-explorers-club-antarctica">Tauranga Art Gallery</a> 7:30 PM, tickets $25</b></div>
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So come to that, if you find yourself in the Bay of Plenty at the right time. The next night, we're appearing on Waiheke, in the wonderful Artworks Theatre. Last time we were there it was as the <a href="http://www.bondstreetbridge.blogspot.co.nz/2012/08/introducing-wine-cellar-strings.html">Wine Cellar Strings,</a> backing <a href="https://twitter.com/GrandOlHayride">Marlon, Delaney and Tami</a>, the sweetest country threesome you'll hear in New Zealand at the moment. And ladies it's true - I did kiss Marlon Williams all upon his stubbly cheek, and he will always have a piece of my heart.</div>
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<b>Fri 19th April: The Explorers Club: Antarctica at <a href="http://www.artworkstheatre.org.nz/">Artworks Theatre, Waiheke Island</a>, 7pm $15 presales, $20 at the door</b></div>
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It's only a short and very beautiful ferry ride from downtown Auckland, so let's just agree that we'll see you there on the night.</div>
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Righto.</div>
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<br />Bond Street Bridgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17005433471784566057noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1572034266433562555.post-79792376443273586362013-03-13T13:02:00.001+13:002013-03-20T09:47:37.363+13:00Bond Street Bridge win 'Best Music' in 2013 NZ Fringe AwardsGlorious news, comrades! In addition to <i>selling out</i> our Auckland and Wellington Fringe Festival shows, and getting <a href="http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/culture/fringe-festival-2013/8316934/Review-Bond-Street-Bridge-Presents-Explorers-Club-Antarctica">rave reviews</a> in the popular press, The Explorer's Club: Antarctica won 'Best Music' in the <a href="http://www.fringe.co.nz/store/doc/2013FringeAwardsResults.pdf">NZ Fringe Festival Awards </a>in Wellington on Sunday night. Tonight we will sleep on a big pile of money.<br />
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Then we will hit the road again, and take the show to the Dunedin Fringe, The famous Nor'Wester Cafe in Amberley, our good friends at the Dharma Bum's Club, Artworks Theatre on Waiheke, and the Tauranga Art Gallery. Ace!<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Here we are in Paekakariki a month or so ago. <a href="http://portfolio.syncretismassociates.com/">Michael Edge-Perkins</a> took this. He's a wizard.</span></div>
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Here's where we'll be next week, more details on the April shows to come.<br />
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Thurs 21 March: <a href="http://www.dunedinfringe.org.nz/artist-events/view/bond-street-bridge-estre">Dunedin Fringe Festival Club</a> (Queens Hotel, 1 Queens Gardens, Dunedin)<br />
Doors at 9, support from Estere, we'll be onstage round 10.<br />
$15/$10, tickets here: <a href="http://www.dashtickets.co.nz/tour/359">0800dashtickets</a><br />
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Fri 22 March: <a href="http://www.norwestercafe.co.nz/">Nor'Wester Cafe</a>, Amberley<br />
Show starts at 8:30, support from Luckless<br />
$20, call 03 3149411 to secure tickets. Restaurant open from 6 for pre-show dining.<br />
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Sat 23 March: <a href="http://dharmashed.wordpress.com/">Dharma Bums Club</a>, Wairau Valley<br />
8pm, support from Luckless and Brendan Turner<br />
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Really looking forward to these shows, plus we got some great footage of the Auckland shows so keep an eye out for that pretty soon on your internets.<br />
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<br />Bond Street Bridgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17005433471784566057noreply@blogger.com3