Welcome to Nowhere! (dot com!)
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Hello friends and friendly strangers!
It is good to write to you again. I have a big pot of green tea in a brown betty pot, writing to you on an overcast, late Summer Sunday evening, listening to classic Yo La Tengo, and I am feeling gooooood. This email might get more harried as each successive cup of tea kicks in, so I'll knock out some admin now.
I have a Fringe show coming up on the March 9th,10th, and 11th! You can check it out, and buy tickets, here, if that's your thing! And if it's not, but you think it may be the thing of someone you know, please let them know!
I am earnestly self-promoting for reasons I'll get into later in the email. I have found that I can be so casual and mum about comedy events that it comes off as hermit-like. Folks will ask what I got up to over the weekend and I'll say, "I did a comedy show" and they'll say "I had no idea! Why did you not tell me?" and I'll think I'm saying something witty and vague, but really I'm just stuttering, and then we'll both fill up our coffee cups and walk away. I treat my shows like they're a mud and thatch hut on the lake that I retreat to on weekends— and I am realizing that may not be the most effective approach!
BUT! I promised I'd get into it later, so let's move on! I wanna talk MUSIC!
I performed at the Welcome to Nowhere festival this last weekend and it was a g.d. blast. It was mud-soaked and friend-filled, with incredible bands and poetry and a variety show in the middle. And now, I want to share my FAVE ACTS from that weekend.
Welcome to Nowhere: RECAP!
F.A.I.R.Y.
This might've been my favourite set of the weekend, and they were the first one I saw. This is a testament to how good and fun they were, cos I kept seeing incredible bands and saying "hot damn, that was great! But you know what...I still think F.A.I.R.Y is my fave of the fest!" (I never said this out loud, cos that would be annnoooyying)
F.A.I.R.Y is a scrappy, ramshackle bop pop group from Newtown. They felt like a garage rock version of Oingo Boingo, with manic stabbing synth, plain lyrics shouted in repeat, and a small but powerful horn section. To be honest, not to be too obscure, but the band they most reminded me of was Ouncy Bouncy, the parody of Oingo Boingo from the Sarah Silverman Program, season 02 episode 8 ("Mongolian Beef"). This may seem like needlessly obscure, faux praise, but I love that Ouncy Bouncy song. So much so that, even though the only version you can find now is this blown-out audio upload on youtube, it's still a song I blast on repeat.
I could tell F.A.I.R.Y are real good, technically, but their excitement to be on stage together overwhelmed their technical chops and turned the band into something scrappy, unpredictable, and raw, which is personally my fave kinda music. It was so good!
Greco Romank
Greco-Romank were so cool. A three piece from Auckland (I think?) that play a... I am realizing as I type this that I may not know how to describe music correctly! It was two vocalists and a person on synths and all three were intensely cool. The male vocalist wore a vest and wrap-around shades and looked kinda like a mortal kombat character as he shouted in this commanding monotone. The female vocalist wore cool, blue boxer shorts and sang in this beautifully gliding voice that approached operatic and wailing both and when she wasn't singing she was playing this tiny synth saxophone called a pipe. The synth wizard wore this thick bomber vest, hulking over his huge table of gear and bounced back and forth as he played with such rhythmic intensity that his floppy curls stayed forever up in this kinetic, sweaty mohawk.
They had such a good, dangerous vibe that made me feel like I was in the evil villains' club scene in some late night action movie, the music that soundtracks a shoot out between multiple dudes in suits and sunglasses. I felt like I was in the opening scene of Blade, but with better music. But, of course, I was not in a vampire club that sprayed blood from sprinklers... I was in the Manawatu bush on a muggy Saturday night, crickets playing in the distance against a drizzle of rain, in a homemade gazebo surrounded by tents, with mud soaked partygoers wearing unlit headlamps bouncing all around me. It was great!
Grains
Grains are friends of mine, that I met at the weekly Art~Hack. When I first heard them, they were a duo that played ambient modular synth and it was great! At Welcome to Nowhere they expanded to a full band—adding drums, a guitar, and a throat singer—and it was such a beautiful tumult of transcendent noise. The band is weird, I could not tell if the guitarist was making his strings sound like birds, or if there were found bird sounds being played alongside his notes, or if there was some harmonic overtones created in the mix of modular synth that could sound simultaneously like twinkling guitar and morning tūī. It didn't matter. Everything shifted and writhed together addictively, propelled by this euphoric rhythm that made the crowd go mad. All of them looked like rock stars, playing some future solarpunk WOMAD, and I loved it.
Destroy with Science
Also a friend! I feel v. happy to say this. A close friend! We camped together! And he rocks! Destroy with Science, from the Hutt like Grains, can take many forms. He plays a mix of modular synths and samplers and other electronics that he's coded by hand, a setup I've seen expand and retract and shift over the years. What's the coolest thing to experience with Destroy with Science, though, is that it's improvised and location-based. There's such an excitement to his sets, as you see him feel out the crowd, the night, the air, the moment and it adds to the feedback loop of his music to create something completely different from what you've seen him play before. I've seen him play at 3am in the middle of the forest with this homemade dayglo tower of synths and it felt like an arrival event, a gentle lullaby beckoning the UFO's home. And I've seen him in bars on Cuba Street playing these majestic, major-chord triumphs that felt like the opening ceremony music for some fantasy sports event. But here at Welcome to Nowhere, for the first night midnight set, what the people wanted was hardcore techno bangers and that is exactly what Matt gave us. An absolute monster set.
DAFM
DAFM were such infectious fun, a delightful Newtown house party of a band. They had madcap drums, they had loud bright guitars, they had a sing-shout singer who continually jumped into the crowd and handing the mic to excited fans like a punk rock Phil Donahue, they had a keytar. I watched them in an early evening sun-baked lull and they pepped me up immediately like a short black from People's. For their last song, they brought on F.A.I.R.Y. and they all played a chaotic cover of B-52's Rock Lobster and it was perfect.
Dale Kerrigan
Dale Kerrigan, an emo noise band from Dunedin, are so gloriously loud and I am so grateful to them for it. I always hit a point in festivals where I cannot be social anymore. I don't want to talk to anyone, don't want to coordinate meet up points or check out the schedule for the night... I just want to be punched over and over by sound. I want overwhelming squalls of distortion to pummel me into the ground like a tent stake.
I also always hit a point in festivals where I reaaaally wanna take a shower.
The Dale Kerrigan set, at dusk in a downpour, gave me both. They played the sonic equivalent of the Temple Grandin hug machine, and I was so happy in the crowd, rain beating down on me, rocking back and forth like a slowcore drinking bird. It was fantaaastic.
Wurld Series
When Wurld Series' set started, I was in the tent having a heat nap while Angelica and Matt chatted outside. Their slacker drawl over languid guitar played out over the camp grounds and caused me to sit up suddenly, stumble out of the tent, mutter to Matt and Angelica "this music GOOD!" and walk toward the camp stage like a zombie. A weird, but well-intentioned endorsement!
Wurld Series are a classic indie rock band from Christchurch who sentimentally reminded me of LVL Up and the 2015 baritone Silent Barn sound. Their music is like a type of catnip for me, and I want to hear more!
BIRDPARTY
Bandcamp Link (Ludus) + Bandcamp Link (Heresiarch)
BIRDPARTY is a new band made up of two Whanganui musicians, the electronic artist Ludus and live drummer William Barrett (from Heresiarch)! They were the last band I watched, having fully exhausted myself by that point. Angelica and I sat beneath the marquee to wait for them, and get out of the rain, and both fell asleep leaning against each other. Their set had an otherworldy, midnight people quality to it... like when you're sick and take cough medicine before bed, then wake up in the night and everything is an unlit dream world. BIRDPARTY felt like the darkwave ambient analog to Dale Kerrigan, this emotive, overwhelming wave break of sound, the tide coming in on a drum beat. Wonderful!
But Zach, how was your set?!
It was fun and went well! It featured my friend Sameena Zahra as the host, Burlesuque artist Viola Nightshade doing a weed-based act, a character comic named Dan the Comedy Man, the caramel-voiced blues singer Mike Dr Blue who played incredible harmonica, and me! My main concerns were tripping on the way to stage, tripping while on the stage, or accidentally puking, peeing, pooping, or farting during my set. None of this happened! Not only that, the crowd were warm as and loved my stuff!
After the show, I was talking to Sameena and some other comedians and Sameena asked if I was playing another upcoming festival. I told her I applied, but was not accepted. She seemed surprised, and asked about my social media presence. "I don't have one," I said.
"Ah, that's a problem. They really want you to have strong showing there." The other comics agreed.
I tried to quickly explain that social media is what caused me to burn out from comedy in the first place, and it's taken me a while to get back into wanting to perform again. I say "tried to", not because they didn't understand (they do), but that I need to actively try to keep it chill when on this subject and not "go on a rant for a bit". They were all supportive and sweet and understanding, but I still feel like I'm being unnecessarily difficult and particular.
I feel I should be able to suck it up and get back onto the various sites and join the comedy groups and start up casual chats on fb messenger that casually turn to booked shows. At the same time, I went to a Fringe publicity workshop a couple weeks ago, and when the moderator kept talking about social media and said "the big thing now is video, we are all pivoting to video", I got a tension headache so bad that my vision blurred.
I loved Welcome to Nowhere. I loved having a reason to be there beyond just being a fan. I love performing. Every time I do comedy I feel correct, present and happy, and clear. I am ready to do it more again, but in a way that feels good and healthy for me.
"I do have a website, and email, and a newsletter," I told them.
"Oh, that's good" they said. I know I can grow my comedy shows in my own stubborn way, without using the sites that make me want to give up society. The path will be slow, but worth it. This weekend I retreated into the woods, and found a bunch of other people making the most beautiful noise and they asked me to take part in it. I am so excited for all that comes next, and thank you for finding and reading my newsletter.
your friend,
ZACH!