Thru the Eye of Obscure

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Rewind

Rewind...An epic Basstech adventure through the sound of kiwiana, Rewind managed to feature a bombastic array of NZ artists... Somehow, sneakily gaining access to all three levels of the Phoenix. Confronting the punters on the main floor was a very macho Quinn rig, with rows upon rows of front loaded stacks, which, once the 400Hz was removed, sounded great... while on the remaining two levels smaller, but pretty punchy rigs filled the rooms... production wise throughout, things were pretty crisp and tight... Amused me intensely to hear somone spinning the Cari Lekebusch mix of Never Too Late when I walked in... didn't think I'd ever hear many people in NZ rocking that track... Guess Cari wouldn't either.

More flashing lightsSpeaking of Rocking, earlier in the night, I checked out some bands at Thistle Hall... Funny to see the same crowd that used to inhabit that space years ago with cheap bands and even cheaper drinks. Now they're styleed up, with an attitude and mid priced drinks. Even Thistle Hall has had a makeover - nice polished floors and even some lighting...

Caught Police Lucifer who rocked wickedly, along the lines of Helmet I guess, though I'd say they'd disagree. Regardless, they have the true Wellignton rock style, full on and in your face, tight and loud. although a PA with some sub would have been nice. When are bands going to get wise and get somone with keys to to the sub? Vee was throwing some cool scratches over the top, although pretty hard to hear what he was doing... it's been wicked to see some of the singers from these bands coming up and MCing drum and bass, and the crossover happening between the styles...

The ever increasingly grumpy looking Clinton SmileyEarly on at Rewind, upstairs I caught Jet Jaguar playing live off his sampler and not much else. I think the limits of Jet's gear are starting to show, and he should upgrade to some beefier signal processing, but as always his composition shone through, and the last track, a junglised thing with lots of reverser snares sounded great... actually, me and Aspen both thought it was a record... maybe it should be...

Unfortunately, I missed Short Fuse, like a madman he was playing off a 202 of all things, saw him packing it up, then we rushed downstairs to catch buddy and all round cool 80's kid 50Hz. Goddam he's been working hard, a clear progression from his album, he gave us a fucking floor shaking, snare shredding futuristic workout. Of all the people making tracks in New Zealand, I believe he's the one to watch.

Rachel and the HomiesPitch Black came out in full force, dubbing the floor right back to kik, bass and zero cover... holding them there for an eternity before dropping in the rest of the mix... and riding on this great live mix for an hour or so, keeeping it nicely pumping along... Paddy Free for some reason reminds me of John Lydon... maybe he should start gobbing on the crowd or grab a mic and hurl obscenities thru a reverb just to add a bit of spice and controversy to their show.

While pitch black (well, Paddy...) packed up their Ensoniq (why so many ensoniqs at this party?) The ever increasingly grumpy looking Clint Smiley took the reins, speed garaged the floor to death then dropped in Spastik. I'm going to shoot the next dj who abuses that track... One of the Gathering performers, the Gash grinder donned her body armour and ground it to shreds with a buzzsaw... sparks flying and shit... looks wicked.

Lemon in the mixAround this time the intrepid Rachel took off with the video camera, interviewing, being a pain in the ass, videoing homies beating each other up (tragic, welcome to Wellington)... the last bit on the tape shows her going up the lift to the 4th floor of some building... asking people lying in bed why they didn't come to the party... don't know what happened to her after that.. she gone!

Wound down in what I guess was the bar... Lemon mixing some pretty sweet house and Glynn doing his thing, y'know, selling Red Bull and picking up empty red bull cans... time to go home...