Wellington – Last Stop
January 14, 2010 | Category: by Thomas | Leave a Comment
Wellington is windy and it knows it. Wind sculptures of all kinds greet you as you make your way quickly into the heart of this small, blustery city. The place is alive and constantly in flux, its residents can’t linger very long in the gale so they must get on with it, they must act.
One of many plaques that form another public arts project captures the Wellington vibe nicely.
The players in Wellington?
There was our host Joe – trumpet player from Fat Freddy’s Drop and general legend-about-town.
There was his son Ben – dancer, performer, t-shirt illustrator, rock-star-in-training and general sage on most topics.
There was Fred – our producer, driver, photographer, sorter-of-shit, drinking companion and soon-to-be-great-friend. Note: Pretty much all the photos in this blog entry were taken by Fred – aka Fryderyk Leszek Kublikowski.
Before we had barely even arrived in Wellington, we were invited to a massive feast for Alicia’s birthday.
Ian, keyboard player for Fat Freddy’s, took care of the cooking.
Their friend Craig (half man, half seal) looked after the hunter-gathering.
Next day, Craig took us to do some of our own hunter-gathering in the freezing waters of the south Pacific.
Under his strict supervision we went free-diving with wetsuits and weight belts trying to catch Crayfish from holes in the reef with our bare hands. Needless to say, Tim and I neither hunted nor gathered. But there’s nothing like and hour and a half in the ice-cold water to get the blood flowing.
We concluded the evening listening to one of Joe’s other bands, ‘The Canapes’ play at Havana bar. Joe swapped effortlessly between Tuba, Trombone and Stylophone. We discovered our drink for the weekend, the delicious dark and stormy.
Friday involved more gigging. We saw a really chill Phoenix Foundation show at Slow Boat Records.
More junior rock stars in training.
Then we saw our favorite new band of the trip at a great bar called Mighty Mighty. The band is called Orchestra of Spheres and they’re fucking weird. They play the biscuit tin, theremin, axis, gamelan, electric carillon and skins. Say no more. Just look out for them.
The following day we went back to Mighty Mighty in the afternoon for some Dr. Sketchy life-drawing action. Drinks, dames and drawing. Nice way to spend a few hours.
On Sunday, Walter (a roadie from Fat Freddy’s) took us off-roading along the South coast out past Devil’s Gate. He had been driving since he was four so we felt pretty safe. He drove us up vertical inclines and we drank Epic Armageddon when we weren’t spilling it all over ourselves.
Band photos on cliffs ensued.
And more by windmills.
Thomas and Tim, 75 days into the trip of a lifetime and still talking to each other…
TIMC leg one – over and out.
Leave a Comment | PermalinkMelbourne
It’s summer time in Melbourne. They speak English here. And we’re staying in an apartment with our own bedrooms! This is all a little too normal coming from Japan and China and Beirut before that. We’re back in familiar territory, which is a little bit strange after so much strange…
Thankfully, we have a great, great host lined up in Melbourne. Beci Orpin is her name and she’s a graphic artist, graphic designer, clothing designer, sculptor, collector, mother of two and a true local Melbournian.
Beci’s house is full of colorful objects and artworks and inspirational things that she has collected over the years.
She seems to like beasts and so beasts abound. Most are fake.
But some are real.
In Melbourne, we kept encountering art, design, food and drink (often simultaneously). Creativity and debauchery: a winning combination. There were, for example, some delicious macaroons to be sampled at Di Chirico’s super stylized pop-up bakery.
And we visited a gallery where Beci had just had an exhibition.
Red dots everywhere.
I got some really nice custom Note to Self jeans made while in town. Yes the fit reference does say ‘36 stretch’…
We went to Grace Darling, a pub in Fitzroy. Nice wallpaper, a nice pint of Guinness and a great vintage clothing sale on upstairs.
We were also sent to the infamous Revolver nightclub by Beci and told that it really only gets going at 8 o’ clock in the morning. Of course we had to stay to investigate this claim. There were Banskys on the wall behind plates of protective glass. See…more art.
This appears to be the best photograph that was taken that morning…
Beci also introduced us to Brendan, an artist and lead singer of the local Melbourne band Eddy Current Suppression Ring. He was a lovely man and we saw him play a sold-out gig a little later in our travels at The Annandale Hotel in Sydney. Wicked.
Melbourne being in Australia, it was only a matter of time before we found ourselves barbecuing. Add a dozen kids to the mix and you get a Beci Orpin style barbecue: the perfect hangover cure.
Our lovely producer/friend/compatriot Amanda took us to her private beach box in Half Moon Bay to close out the weekend.
We ate fish n’ chips, drank beers, jumped in the sea and watched the sunset. It has to be said, life is damn good down under.
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