We did a little interview..

The loverly Charlotte Ryan interviewed Fluro when we were up in AK...
You can listen to it HERE
Technology rules!

Gavin Hurley

Gavin is an artist renowned for portraits which employ the technique ( or at least the aesthetic) of traditional collage. Rather than seek to represent the likeness of a person, he focuses more on their character and uses the age old craft of collage and highly disciplined oil on canvas to do this.

His latest show" A - Z" will open next Wednesday and he recently took a few moments to chat with me...

What has inspired your latest show ? This current exhibition is based on the past ten years of art practice (post -art school). I decided to make a publication to accompany the show called "A-Z".The subjects almost organised themselves into this format of a slightly more grown up version of a school exercise book.

What is the recurring theme in your work?
Looking at what I would call my favourite subjects from the past ten years, its obvious there are recurring themes of boyhood fantasies of exploration, detectives and sea captains. I'm not a historian although many characters are derived from tales of colonists and there are a few homages to artists who have been inspirational such as Christian Boltanski, Sam Mitchell and Rita Angus.

What's keeping you stimulated at the moment? I'm stimulated 'right now' by seeing work being made , planning the next show and getting some time to get to the second-hand bookstores.The Internet is great but so is a dusty old book sometimes.

And how do you find being an artist in New Zealand? Being an Artist in New Zealand has been pretty good so far, I've never once considered doing anything else, washing dishes was ruining my hands.

"A - Z" will open June 10th at Anna Bibby Gallery.

NEONSLEEP

A wee interview with the brains behind NEONSLEEP! Welfe Bowyer has in many ways been responsible for creating a new kind culture. It's one that dares to stay up all night, isn't scared to let loose, lives for adventure and is increasingly global in scope! As Welfe explains NS is much more than a home for 'party photo', it's an original and innovative NEW kind of space. A hub for high fashion, street culture, jewellery and much much more...

You've changed the format of NeonSleep drastically, what's the concept behind the new site?
The new site is designed to act like a cultural hub, allowing fans to easily navigate all the aspects of NS. All sections are equal, whether your into the photos or street fashion or art.

How do you see the site evolving?
Treating each section as equal, allows each to also grow and shrink as needed. The new fashion sections, Sidewalk and Look are starting to gain momentum, with various NZ labels seeing the potential and getting on board. It would be great to have Auckland street fashion on there too. So any budding fashion photographers out there!?

What is about NZ culture that inspires you? What would you like to see more of?
NZ'ers are so do 'DIY'. Its an old cliche, but the reality of it is that NZ gives you a very good chance to do what you want. And you might just find your one of the only people doing it! There's less competition, which gives you more attention. This is good and bad, as designers are often pushed further amongst competition. So I would like to see more competition for sure.

Less?
Less P would be nice. People should just chill out with a nice cup of Peppermint tea.
And where would you like to see NeonSleep five years on from now?
In 5 years, I would like to expand the brand to include photographers from other cities around the globe. That's been the idea from the start. We've been mixing in photos from Berlin for 2 years now, and would be great to see some other cities (on one site) too! But yeah, just generally focus more globally, which hopefully just strengthens NZs position next to work from around the world.

You can check out NEONSLEEP HERE ( and don't forget to navigate all the features!)
Cheers Welfe! x

I Heart Hiroshima in New Zealand!

Brisbane pop-rockers I Heart Hiroshima are hitting our shores this week for a Wellington show! We caught up with 'em for a quick trans-tasman chat...

I Heart Hiroshima w Little Pictures + Thought Creature
Friday 18th July at Bar Bodega, Wellington

So you guys don’t have a bassist. Why did you decide to be bass-less? How do you reckon it affects your sound? Are you mega sick of being asked about your bass-less-ness…

It was never a conscious decision to not have a bass player as such, it just sort of happened. We started playing around with two guitars and drums and decided that we were making music that we liked and didn’t need anything extra added to that lineup. I guess lots of people are interested to know about the “basslessness” but I feel like it’s not that unusual these days, right?

Wikipedia has you guys down as being influenced by Sleater Kinney, TV on the Radio, The Raveonettes and The Jesus and Mary Chain amongst others – these seem reasonably accurate. Did you write your wikipedia page yourselves? Out of ten how would you rate the accuracy of your wikipedia page? How do you rate wikipedia generally as an online tool for facts and information? Any references closer to home – maybe bands that you’ve played with etc?

No we didn’t it, I wonder who did? A solid 7.5 outta 10, seems reasonable. I can’t say that I have ever seen our page on Wikipedia which totally invalidates my last answer. So clearly I don’t really use Wikipedia as an information-gaining resource. I can’t believe we are inter-discussing Wikipedia and it’s pros and cons. We have played with lots of rad Brisbane bands: Sekiden, Scul Hazzards, Night Crash, Violent Soho amongst others. Brisbane goodness.

Brisbane’s kinda considered a black hole in terms of culture – tell us about the ever changing face of the city. Have you guys managed to carve a little niche community out over there?

First of all, WHAT?! A black hole? C’mon! the city’s face is always being blessed with wonderful things, such as big giant colourful useless buildings. Now, the other thing that I would like to point out is the city cat. It’s a CAT that likes WATER! It doubles as transport AND an attraction. Beautiful. Not such an infinite vacuum now is it?

Female and male vocalists; who writes the lyrics and how does this double vocal get down?

E’rrbody writes they own lyrics. The double vocal, in my opinion, gets down like superstar singer “James Brown”.

Your sound’s pretty minimalist. I guess this is a natural result of the bassless/three piece aesthetic…but have you guys actively sought this sound? I interviewed My Disco recently and they had really interesting opinions on the possibilities of high intensity, minimalist music…your thoughts?

Well, I don’t think there has been a time (especially in the EPs) where we put too much thought into it at all. The idea was to keep playing until it sounds good and then go no further, so if you want to call that ‘minimalist’ then I say “sweeeeeeeeet dude”.

The artwork on your EP’s is really rad and also really consistent stylistically. Who does it? You guys are obviously happy with the way they portray your sound artistically…

Yep, pretty happy at this stage. Maybe Cameron will try some collages in the future. Oh yeah he’s in the band too.

The video clip for ‘Punks’ is in a really awesome location, where was it and what was the filming of that like. Who shot it for you guys?

It was shot under an old cinema, by a boy called Adam. The long haired man is named Bo. Bo Stahlman. He’s a Swede.

..Actually I’ve just checked out the other video on your Myspace and that’s really rad too…tell me about that!

Two out of three of us were hung over and two out of three of us were drunk during the filming. Try and guess which ones!

Are you guys amped to play New Zealand? Have you played here before? What did you think/what have you heard about New Zealand crowds? NZ v. Aussie crowds? Wellington v. Auckland crowds?

Yes we have played in “The land of the long white cloud” before (see? Not nice having yo’ home picked on eh?!), we played with Ratatat maybe two months ago in Auckland and it was totally sweet-wick-rad-awes-party-fun-times. The crowd was delightful and sugar coated. Aussie crowds generally get too wasted, so it’s nice to see that you dudes have a lid on your alcohol consumption. Haven’t played in Wellington yet, we are looking forward to it though.