to sum up /recent gigs

above photo by roger grauwmeijer



Hello hello hello. ........ . . . The Aesthetics performed 2 blistering (yes. i know. an adjective perhaps over-used in rock journalism) sets the other week, there was a gig at Chicks and then the Cellars bar, shows with Crude, and the Anals.....we even had a chap who flew down to Dunedin specifically to see the show - a new and very encouraging phenomenon,,,he gleefully bought up merch and liberally plied me/us with booze,,,the year has ended on an up note,,,,the new line up is on fire...2010 is upon us....cant think of anything to write about...just that we/I/it/they hope to perform somewhere else next year...the furrowed brows of summer......the white sands of micronesia......the Ugly Ambition LP was voted 'number 47th' best NZ album for the last decade in Real Groove magazine.....things are looking up....other people....Iran 2010......Iran 2011........control....control...dirty old town......beer....beeer......beeeeer.......pull yourself together.....its only a bit of poo......dunedin....the other.....

None 9/10/09 - LIVE

aesthetics live 1980


None basement is one of the only remaining inner city venues in Dunedin right now that noisier bands can perform at. Actually I don't think None Basement is officialy a venue at all - its more a residential space that is used for gigs occasionaly. This show was a pleasing combination of modern art-musics and was an absolute blaassst - a heady and volumous crowd, rickety chairs, concrete and that unmistakeable oily odour of a basement. 'Twas the kinda show people let loose at...when it was appropriate. The evenings' introductory entertainment was a film screening - and for the life of me i cant recall what it was. Waltzing in half-way through it was a fairly useless venture to try and pick it up so I sought solace in the None lounge. For the brief moment i spied the feature it gave the impression that it was lo-budget and minimalist. The Forgotten Guests are Katrina Thompson on Harp(no not the mouth-organ) and Leyton Leyton (epsilon blue/rotor+) on electronics...theirs was a stunning set - so very soft, subtle and poised...a real tension created. In fact when i walked down the creaking stairs to see it just after they started my creaking seemed to merge into it. 'Twas that tense. Electro-acoustic sound par-excellence. I mean hey - shes's pluckin' a HARP. It's going to be delicate stuff. Leyton's electronics of choice were a very tasteful array of clicks, washes, pads, murky synths and lite patterns. I hope they perform at Lines 2010. Alex MacKinnons set was super-quick, Rory, the brilliant drummer from TFF as backing him up with this lightning-fast snare-roll madness. Noise guitar topping. Great fun. And then, we, Aesthetics 7.0. And it worked. And they danced a bit and clapped, and the general concensus was that this new line up works. Well. Like. And. It. Worked. And. Then. The man from America played - a curious concoction of sounds - very much collages, musique concrete, layer upon layer, found-sound, pre-set sounds, a stylish tourist and his machines. Guitar string/bell-like effects reminiscent of that classic Lee Renaldo effecto/erecto/detecto. Guitar sections. Ducktails, certainly no Lucky Dragons hippy-type, definately East coast in his attack, and attitude - but still - its that poppy pretty electronic effect loop tradition thats oh-so-much fun. And then people seemed to want to party it up in the None lounge. Hurrah. Byee!

Aesthetics : version 7 or 8 or something

Like Martin Phillips and the Chills. Or George Henderson and the Puddle. The Aesthetics has been a band that changes form over the years creating an exclusive club of ex-members. J-mz Robinson (notv/tmai). Russell Coveney (lo-liners/renderers). Graheme Fyfe (mindfuckers/oblivion, fuck off cunt face). Alex MacKinnon (dirtroom/house/alex mackinnon). Morgan Oliver (fuck chairs/ho'dogs). Shaun Jury(drugs vs children/bloody souls). Stefan Neville. (pumice/armpit. Chris Livingston(mountaineater). And now Jason Barrett(bastardwisher/fraudulents/tiger shark) - aesthetics bassist since 2003 joins the club. His playing is immortalized in the grooves of the Ugly Ambition LP. Why you ask? Well...like that great option you get on Facebook when they ask you for your relationship status - it's complicated. You may not like it. You may not care. You might wanna join. You might wanna know all about it. You might want to bail me up against a wall and punch me in the face to break that pretty little pointy-uppy nose. Or you might gleefully wait for who's gonna resume the role. Anyways, all shall be revealed at our next gig, which is i don't-know-when. So see you there!

lyttleton

a little review of the Aesthetics/Bastardwisher/Stevie McCabe gig is over at the Axemen blog HERE. A couple of mini-vids too!

phenomenonenon

the aesthetics - elsie is picking the winners again

..........New Zealand's largest city is about to get larger.
And so, to see it off, the Aesthetics make it up to AK, our AK, the K-road, Mt Albert Grey Lynn/Kingsland/Graftony part for a couple of doom-cast/grim outlook-type shows!

DAY 1 - sees the band leave Dunedin in a metal bird...It roared like a million lions. Arriving in Wellington upon this thing of light and fire the band parties in newtown, belting out jesus christ superstar word-for-word around a bonfire, as if to give the tour context...

DAY 2 - Saturday the 16th of May, I (crude) perform an 'improvised' piece on juno 60 keyboard, vocal and me silver-tinted battered saxophone at Spacething in the tempestuous Wellington afternoony. Stefan Neville (Pumice - also on a microtour of the nth island) joins me on the cans for a blazing free jazz blowhole/blowout - a format i wish to replicate in Dunedin soon (with lee noyes maybe?)...Bright Colours, one of those 'only-in-wellington' bands demonstrating a curious melodic angularity and complex rhythmic afrocentrism also perform, their frontman a true oddball presence with nervous talent in abundance. A spacething instore is part performance, part network-space, part swap-meet, part op-shop and part art-gallery and this one was all that and more. Thanks again to Beth for squeezing crude in in relatively short notice....
The main event, i.e the evenings'entertainment was hosted at a classic pub type venue, The Adelaide Bar. Two piece Newtown perform first, their set pointedly more ROCK than what we had witnessed back in '07. Warm, vicious (warm - and vicious?),straight(well-sorta)-ahead anthemic punk-rock songs from these riotous Netownians. Nice lil'turnout..perhaps not a behemoth of a turnout - but hell - we were in direct and pernicious competition with folkist PUMICE and locals mr sterile assembly - an anomalous and painfully polarizing phenomenon - Pumice has many powerful and loyal friends in the capital, and blood is thicker than water. But hey. Thats the biz. Cut-throat. Take no indie-kid prisoners. Zombie Fuck, a garish assortment of ex-dunedite blood'n'bone surrealize the night just that little bit more as they step up. Expertly programmed drum-buddy-machining. Nightmare question-answer-male-female-type vocals. A demonic-fuzz rifferama reminiscent of Amphetamine Reptile/Touch and Go/Trance Syndicate era sonic malefactors the Pain Teens.
A fine set from the Fucks, perhaps a lil' more dance floor grovel would've added to the general debaucho-degradation..Wellington a notorious wall-flower town (yes?no?is that AKL? christchurch?)...and then we play.
LONG AND LOUD AND DISGUSTING. All the hits. 'Drive On' sung with real despair and with that true small-town-south-island-i'm-shocked-and-shattered-by-all-this-big-city-sophistication ...but Wellington likes it. And I thank them fo' it!

DAY 3 - didn't take much for us to be royally ejected from the capital after our blashpemous din , indeed, the wind itself throws us out. And onto the cornucopian corporate zone that is AKL ! There is to be no show until day 6 - and so we plant ourselves in mission-sympathetic flats, line up a weeks worth of art filmography and shut ourselves away.

DAY 6 - Thursday the 21st of May sees the Aesthetics 1ST AKL performance at the super-busy whammy Bar, joined by The Spunks and the fabulous Cigarettes. The Spunks are Stefan Neville and Bob Brannigan - perhaps the two hardest working musicians in New Zealand, their line up that night sadly missing the intoxicating drone and smokey, dopey rock-muso party that is Roddy Pain. Brilliant songs and musicianship only thousands of hours of touring and frugal living could make manifest. Of course, for the sheer entertainment, the sheer god-damn madness of it all, the night belongs to Celia Mancini and her new out-fit, The Cigarettes. Celia fronts the band on organ, Liz Matthews drums and Sean-o'reilly, the silently reliable and prefered Mancini-musick cohort is on guitar. And regardless of near glacial shifts in time,,,since, oh i don't know, the last days of King Loser, it is clearly a kind of timelessness that defines her - the sound a heavy psychedelic swamp monstrosity relevant then, relevant now and relevant fukkin tomorrow. Clever, sinister, and yes, its fukkin funny too.
Really fukkin funny and really fukkin rare. ..and then we play.
LONG AND LOUD AND DISGUSTING. Al the hits. 'Bionica' played especially for the chap who listed it as is favorite NZ song on this big corporate poster campaign about town. But Auckland likes it. And I thank them fo' it!
There was a kind of party afterwards, a sort of crumbling, tragic, jaded, deranged, physically dangerous, madenning, stupid but triumphant gathering in an impeccably furnished (beige leather/neo bauhaus design?/walnut stereo system) apartment,,,,and lo-and-behold DAY 7 dawns and its all 'dawn, you've been gone, its been such a long time'

DAY 7

Um Day 7, thats the Ambassador gig. And you can read a succinct gig report on this one at the absolutely encyclopedic AXEMEN blog..
Ambassador is a totally wild bar, and was a joy to play a totally loose rediculously silly set (well my singing seems so on watching this:::




Axemen ruled, strangling, killing, eating and reconstituting Bryan Ferry songs like you'll never believe,, as did the Hairdos ((no they didnt strangle bryan ferry songs - oh you know wat i mean)..a brilliant AKL 3 piece, punchy keys'n'chunky gat,,girl 'n'guy question/answer vox,,,and that tee shirt - --u seen it????) ,, (oh and HOW COULD I FORGET - KIMMY SWANSON SINGS THIS AMAZING SONG WITH THEM HAIL STUD!!)and Piece war (classic punk - surprisingly melodic---), and yeah, the Axemen 'gig report' sums it all up so much better - its got pics and vids and yeah...


And so to sum it all up: THE MICRO TOUR WAS A GREAT SUCCESS !!! ...it was the Dunedin music consumers at the launch party who made it possible, those 20 or so Ugly Ambition sales literally propelling The Aesthetics up to Welly and Auckland and it is with a real sense of pride that i can say that. There is nothing more rewarding than funding ones own project out of ones own sales. I wanna thank everyone in Wellinton and Auckland who helped out, Liz Matthews, Zoe Drayton for the PA, Duncan Bruce for recording the Ambassador show, Naomi Hickin for general hospitality and helpin' with the Ambassador show,,,but especially Beth Dawson in Welly and super-especially Stefan Neville in Auckland - driving our broken-asses 'round town, helping set up gigs, setting up a live-to-air, putting us up, talkin' to folks on our b-half, lotsa little bits and pieces all helping to slicken up general rock-logistics...at this indie level - it's simple - you gotta maintain your networks with love. No bridge burning is allowed anymore, well, it wasn't back in the mid 90s when i was a particularly pyromaniacal brat either... Nurture them. Guard them. Back 'em up in a fight....Special thanks to the Axemen - was a rare joy to play saxophone for them - what was that Bryan Ferry song? I've earnt the super-exclusive right to pen blogs for their great Y2K blog now having performed with them (once)so.....yehaww! So, we hope to get up nth again soon. Sooner rather than later.

gig posters