ABOUT HAPPY

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Live Music every night Tuesday through Sunday. Local, National, and International. Comfy sofas, atmospheric lighting and delicious drinks. In the basement, 118 Tory St

Bikini Roulette, Killing Bear, Glass Eye and The Carnies

Friday 11/11/11 9 pm $5


An electrifying Rock and Roll coalition ascends from the underground on Friday November 11th: Three of the best - Bikini Roulette, Killing Bear, Glass Eye and The Carnies will take you, shake you, obliterate you! 

Balkin Brass Explosion

Saturday November 5th 9.30 pm $10


After watching the Wellington fireworks display, come down to Happy and be treated to aural explosions of the gypsy kind. Our ecstatic seven piece brass mayhem playing Balkan classics will further astound you and make you double happy.


Anthesiac EP Release w Mono Sonic, Shocking And Stunning

Friday November 4th 9 pm $5



http://www.facebook.com/anthesiac

The MELANCHOLY BABES with Eric Boeren(Amsterdam)

Sunday November 6th 8.30


The Melancholy Babes
Jeff Henderson – alto saxophone
Tom Callwood – bass
Anthony Donaldson – drums
with special guest
Eric Boeren - trumpet
 
Following up from their 2010 national tour the Melancholy Babes bring their unique blend of new jazz improvisation and composition back to New Zealand audiences, this time with renowned Dutch trumpet player Eric Boeren.

The tour begins in Auckland and travels throughout the South Island before opening the iiii Festival of Adventurous Music in Wellington.

Jeff Henderson, Tom Callwood and Anthony Donaldson, the Melancholy Babes, met the inventive trumpet player Eric Boeren in 2005 when he performed in Wellington with a quartet featuring some of the most renowned musicians in the Netherlands including drumming legend Han Bennink.
The group hit it off and enjoyed each others music so much that they kept in touch and played together at every opportunity including playing Amsterdam at the famous squat venue Zaal 100.

With the success of Europe under their belt, and carrying the FREDS award for musical bravery, The Melancholy Babes have invited Eric Boeren to New Zealand to augment their joyful sound. He brings new compositions from the Netherlands to add a touch of European sophistication to the rough and ready tones of the Babes.


Eric Boeren

Eric Boeren made his first steps in music with the brassband Ulicoten, a small village in the south of Holland, on the Belgian border. At eighteen, after attending his first concerts of improvised music, Eric switched to cornet, his first love. In 1983 saxophonist Michael Moore invited him to join Available Jelly for a tour in Germany and France. He has been professionally playing creative music ever since.
Eric Boeren is now well established as one of Holland’s most creative and prolific  trumpeters and bandleaders. He has performed in the Maarten Altena Ensemble, Sean Bergins MOB and with jazz legends John Carter, Roscoe Mitchell and Malachi Favors to name a few. this is Eric Boerens third visit to New Zealand and his first time performing in the South Island.


The MELANCHOLY BABES

Saxophonist Jeff Henderson is a prolific international performing and recording artist who has recently toured Europe with Winning Productions and  Japan with drummer Shoji Hano. He has performed with many leading jazz and experimental musicians such as Steve Lacy, Wilbert De Joode and Marilyn Crispell and has close associations with great New Zealandmusicians such as Mike Nock, Richard Nunns and Gerard Crewdson.

Drummer Anthony Donaldson is a legend in New Zealand music, from the seminal avantjazz collective the Primitive Art Group to The Six Volts to hismassive stage show productions with The Village of Idiots, Anthony Donaldson is one of the most influential and inspirational musicians and bandleaders in New Zealand today.

Bass player Tom Callwood is a member of popular bands Little Bushman and the Phoenix Foundation. Recently he toured Europe with the Phoenix Foundation and has performed extensively throughout New Zealand. His jazz credentials are exemplary, having performed with Mike Nock, Roger Sellars, Leila Adu and Marilyn Crispell to name but a few.

Vinyl Friday October 5 X 45 12 DJs

Friday October 28th. 5.30 pm Free Entry


That's right. 12 DJs will each play 5 of their favourite 45s on this cool little record player*



Everyone knows full well that 7 inch 45rpm singles rule. Marathon guitar solos, trance workouts and prog epics won't cut it on a record that needs a cup of tea and a lie down after 4 minutes. This month, Vinyl Friday salutes the 45 in the ONLY appropriate manner. Twelve different DJs get a shot at playing their FIVE best 7 inch singles. It's a WWF-style Smackdown frenzy of 3 minute pop, rock and soul junk. Expect anything.

Where should you be? ......




* May not actually be this record player.

November Music And Artists' Social Club

Wednesday November 2nd Doors at 8.30pm. $5 entry (cash only on the door)


A fantastic line-up. Book the date now. 


Eb & Sparrow
Saran Goldie
Robbie Ellis
Little Cow Little Calf
Karen Jaine


Invite your friends and keep an eye here for more details.

More on the confirmed acts...

***Eb & Sparrow***

***Saran Goldie***

***Robbie Ellis***
Composer, musician, performer, human, being, 2012 Mozart Fellow. About to move to Dunedin because he's _just that indie_. He will play Wellington-specific songs, political comedy songs, and maybe something created on request.
"...sure as hell better than an ironic rimshot." - Theatreview, October 2011

***Little Cow Little Calf***
Blues music duo

***Karen Jaine***

Jetsam Isles, Diving, Dial Square

Saturday 29 October doors at 9 pm $10


Returned from unknown waters, it’s time to welcome back the slick new-wave pop drone of Jetsam Isles. Jetsam Isles are a Wellington band whose unique dirt-noise sound contains just a hint of shoegaze. The trio have made a name for themselves at live performances with their one handed guitar strikes, dominating and seductive bass lines and fanatical beats. 

Jetsam Isles have been playing sets with the likes of The Golden Awesome, Pop Strangers and the Wilberforces along with Melbourne musicians including Steven Huf from Ouch My Face. Their latest EPs, Dirt Beats Noise Vols. 2 and 3, are soon to be available at http://jetsamisles.bandcamp.com/  

Playing alongside Jetsam Isles is Diving, a 2-piece from Wellington, formed in late 2010. Their mostly-instrumental music is atmospheric and immersive, and at the same time energetic and percussive. They utilise an ensemble of effects and loopers to wrap up their guitar-and-synth-based electronic sound, which is melded with driving - veering towards tribal - percussion.

Also joining the line-up is Dial Square, who having originally started out as a 2-piece have recently evolved into a full on 4-piece band. Their guitar driven, British invasion sound will guide you through an anything-but-suburban fantasy accompanied by a triumphal live performance.


Timothy Blackman album release with Dear Frontier

Wednesday October 26th 8 pm $5




Timothy Blackman is a singer from Wellington New Zealand.  Classically trained in violin from the age of five, in his formative years Blackman revolted against convention, turning to the inchoate angst of grunge music. In 2002 he moved to Dunedin and founded the minimalist punk rock band Jezebel Sundae, who preformed regularly in the local music scene.
Tired of thrashing chords and depleting his lungs, Tim changed direction, beginning to mould solitary pensive songs on an old four-track borrowed from a friend. The lo-fi bedroom recordings were eventually self-released as the EP, Giraffes, Wharves and Sinking Sand. Weaving together enigmatic and opaque lyrics and skeletal guitar picking, the recording had an intimacy that was unnervingly immediate.  Blackman’s sophomoric effort, Modern Sprawl EP, recorded in Auckland kept the gritty asceticism of his previous recording, while showcasing more melodious and nuanced textures. The Sunday Star Times designated Blackman as “a major talent… that affirms his aesthetic debt to local home recording pioneer, Chris Knox.”  The dislocated city of Berlin provided the perfect backdrop to Blackman’s debut full length album, I’ve Never Lived (2010). Permeated by themes of loss and displacement, the public and the private, Tim looked to the plight of the city to delve into his introspective world.
In addition to the records, Blackman has also spent time on the road in New Zealand since 2006.  However, more recently has toured to parts of Europe, the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia.
In 2010 Blackman returned to his hometown after an eight year hiatus recording his sophomore LP, Everybody Needs Something To Hold On To, over four days in an abandoned church on the outskirts of Wellington.  Everybody departs from Tim’s laconic lo-fi leanings, delivering richly evocative sweeps of instrumentation and polished vocals which nonetheless remain quintessentially solemn and sincere.  The album was produced by Timothy Armstrong and features a number of Blackmans friends from other Wellington bands/orchestras.
The new record is released in New Zealand on October 10th through Home Alone Music/Border Music and in support of the release Blackman is playing six dates this October in the north and south islands.




Nadia Reid, French for Rabbits

Thursday November 3rd  8 pm $5/$10

‘Letters I Wrote and Never Sent’ - EP Release and Tour

20 year old Christchurch-based singer/songwriter Nadia Reid has been forging a low-flying pathway in music and live performances with her unique brand of understated charm since she picked up a guitar 6 years ago. 

Her debut EP 'Letters I Wrote and Never Sent' is due for imminent liberation, produced by Ben Edwards (The Sitting Room) and recorded at Quicksand Studios in Christchurch through Gold Sounds. The EP features collaborations with musicians Tim Moore (Von Klap), Mike Fordham (Von Klap), and Simon Gregory (Devlish Mary & The Holy Rollers), the result of which provides lavish sound texture to Nadia’s songs. 

Nadia has appeared with a variety of Christchurch, Dunedin and Auckland- based artists of national and international renown including: The Bats, Tiny Vipers (US), The Eastern, Tono, Jaime Regan (UK), Matt Langley, and Von Klap. Opening for such diverse luminaries, her solo performances maintain integrity as an emerging musical voice.

Nadia will celebrate the release of her EP with a four-centre tour starting in Christchurch at The Archive on the 27th October. This will be followed with shows in Dunedin, Wellington, and Auckland. Christchurch musicians, Happiness Stan and Charlotte Ivey will join Nadia, along with a stellar band consisting of Ben Eldridge (Heavy Jones Trio, Reduction Agents, Dictaphone Blues), Joe McCallum (Julia Deans), and Rich Densem (Mustard) on the Southern shows. 

‘Letters I Wrote And Never Sent’ is out 27th October 2011 through Gold Sounds.

Reid’s demeanor betrayed no hint of anxiety and her delicate blend of folk and pop proved a winning combination. – Jack van Beynen, The Press.

Reid [was a] mesmeric vocalist – embracing numbers from Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht along with desolate struggle-street country and biting contemporary songs. [With] evocative covers of John Prine’s Angel from Montgomery, Mazzy Star’s Wasted and Jolie Holland’s Old Fashioned Morphine… - Francesca Horsley, The Listener.

'I Will Never Cut My Ties' first single up here https://nadiareid.bandcamp.com/ 


TOUR DATES:

THURSDAY 27TH OCTOBER // CHRISTCHURCH
DARKROOM (THE ARCHIVE) 336 ST ASAPH STREET 
special guests: HAPPINESS STAN + CHARLOTTE IVEY 
FREE 9PM 

SATURDAY 29TH OCTOBER // DUNEDIN
OTAGO WOMENS PIONEER BUILDING 362 MORAY PLACE (opp COUNTDOWN)
special guests: HAPPINESS STAN + CHARLOTTE IVEY 
$5/$10 7.30PM

THURSDAY 3RD NOVEMBER // WELLINGTON (Solo Show)
HAPPY 
special guests: FRENCH FOR RABBITS 
$5 9PM 

FRIDAY 4TH NOVEMBER // AUCKLAND (Solo Show)
THE WINE CELLAR 
ST KEVINS ARCADE
special guest: SIMON COMBER + TIM MOORE
$5 9PM

God Bows To Math, High Society, Lost Rockets, Captain Sergeant Major


Saturday October 15th Doors at 8pm first band on at 10. $10

Mr Sterile Assembly, Nervous System, Jabroniz, +DJ P-Pants

On October 14 Friday, the mr sterile Assembly invites you to Happy, on the corner of Vivian and Tory to celebrate with us ten years of racket.
Sharing the stage with us are friends Nervous System(two piece drums & electronic), Jabroniz, +DJ P-Pants(Jeff Henderson).
Entry $7 (unwaged/low-waged) $8 (better than minimum waged)
Kick off 9.30ish you know the drill
Come along, we are officially teenagers!