Get your groove on – Christchurch music venues

The Eastern playing at the Addington Gap Filler Fair

Post EQ, the local live music scene first ground to a halt, then slowly staggered  and now seems to be full steam ahead, albeit in different locations.

My son plays in a covers band and they are booked for gigs every weekend, often Friday and Saturday, well into July, so there is no shortage of venues it seems.

Many of the suburbs are seeing a resurgence in bars and other music venues to let people just have a good night out in our weary city.

Addington has The Pedal Pusher, Cargo Bar and The Dux has also reopened in the neighbourhood and there are a couple of long established pubs as well. Riccarton’s  Trevinos and Fox and Ferret are popular haunts, as is the Fox and Ferret at The Palms.

Revival Bar on Victoria Street, Carlton Country Club on the site of the old Carlton Hotel, Darkroom on St Asaph Street and The Monday Room on Moorhouse Avenue are a few that are close to the CBD and offering anything from quiet duos to electro and trip hop dance music.

Hornby has The Venue – Music Bar and Temps along with good old Working Men’s Club, and Ferrrymead’s Speight’s Ale House always has weekend bands playing.

Lyttelton’s iconic Wunderbar is alive and kicking again and The Lyttelton Yacht Club has proved to be a wonderful location for Al Park’s talented finds, after his iconic bar bit the dust. Great Christchurch musicians such as The Eastern and Lindon Puffin  have been known to perform in the seaside town. The Eastern were one of several local bands who were keen to play anywhere post-quakes, from house parties to events such as the Gap Filler Fair in Addington.

The Brewery on Garlands Road, Woolston offers a rocking place for live weekend music. Over in New Brighton, The Pierside has live music, and The Sun Dance Cafe has live music including a Ukulele jam on Friday nights.

Find out more about Christchurch music and venues on our website.

So head to your local, or go to another suburb and check out the offerings. Have you got a favourite haunt?

Counting the sleeps till the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival 2012

I’m giddy with excitement, delirious with anticipation and snowed under a mahoosive stack of bookys. With just over one week to go Festival fever is kicking in and it seems to timely to share a few of my hoped for Festival highlights.

I’m having a chat with Charlotte Wood, a sublime writer from across the ditch. Discovering her novels has been the pre-festival find for me. Familiar, almost-ordinary characters but with achingly sad insights and poignant revelation. I’m taking a pathetically fangirl approach to meeting her and implore YOU dear blog readers to submit some sensible questions if only to stem the tide of my unfocused, fanatical enthusiasm!

Geoff Dyer. He “set a high standard of urbanity and wit” at the New Zealand International Festival in 2010 and by a long mile has written the louchest book of my pre-festival reading. My face takes on a rosy glow merely recalling several scenes in Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi. Novelist, essayist, travel-writer, editor and critic, his latest book  Zona is a meditation on Andrei Tarkovsky’s film Stalker. He is musing on life, art, culture and politics. Just the little things then Geoff.

Peter James has had several prolific careers as screenwriter, film producer, horror, thriller and crime writer. A long-time  resident of Brighton (and Hove, actually) he has achieved huge success with his DS Roy Grace series. Having spent many happy hours tootling around Brighton drinking lager and eating chips, I’m keen to find out more about Brighton’s dark underbelly and why it such a great location for murder.

Don’t be strangers, follow all the festival thrills and spills here at Christchurch City Libraries!