Mick Harvey, founding member of legendary Australian punk act Birthday Party, takes to the stage at Chick's Hotel tonight.
One of the darkest and most unsettling post-punk groups to emerge in the 1980s, Birthday Party set violent dirge-scapes as the musical base for frontman Nick Cave's equally difficult and disturbing junkyard poetry of God and his creations.
After Birthday Party disbanded, the pair worked together again, with Harvey acting as a Bad Seed alongside Cave for decades. His work was vital to both these outfits, giving life to Cave's voice with his dramatic and brooding playing on guitar, piano and drums.
Harvey has been releasing a solid body of solo records since 1995, the year he also began working with alt-rock cornerstone PJ Harvey through a number of classic albums, making his CV one of the most heavily stacked in the book.
Tonight he's taking the stage as a frontman and songwriter in his own right, playing through his sixth solo offering, Four (Acts of Love), a deeply personal three-part song cycle centred on romantic love and the mountains and valleys therein.
P.H.F.
Lo-fi bedroom producer P.H.F. is venturing to Dunedin for the first time next week, playing a show at Chick's Hotel.
Formerly releasing under the moniker Perfect Hair Forever, P.H.F mastermind Joe Locke takes sugar-rushed pop-punk melodies and straight trashes them.
Sickening them up until they're tantrums of cartoonish or apocalyptic din and teenage angst, but still with that timeless and nostalgic songwriting splendour pixelated just below the surface, it's troublegum pop for the ''meme'' aesthetic generation.
Welcoming to some, the songs hold the divisive and idiosyncratic appeal of the likes of Darcy Clay or canon Chris Knox.
And with the band's heavily mediated internet presence, Locke has managed to create an insular little P.H.F. world, much like that of Knox.
In January, Locke released Grind State, the 12th P.H.F. release in the past three years.
A loose concept album, Grind State is the lightest album in the P.H.F. catalogue, sweet synths punctuating songs about driving, police states and video games.
OUSA BATTLE OF THE BANDS
The Otago University Students Association Battle of the Bands wraps up this evening with the final at Re:Fuel.
The annual New Zealand Music Month competition, presented by Radio One and NZ on Air, pits some of the best up-and-coming musical talent the university has to offer against each other over four heats and a talent-filled final.
Having been selected from more than 30 participants, tonight's finalists will compete for cash, custom band merchandise, and recording time on the university's million-dollar SSL console.
The Kafka Collective, Chandeliers, Kill Martha, Cymbaline, Miss, and Agent Ewok are among the bands competing in tonight's final.
Be there
• Mick Harvey and the Intoxicated Men with support from the Broken Heartbreakers, Chick's Hotel, Port Chalmers, tonight, 8.30 doors. Presales available from undertheradar.co.nz.
Chick's Magic Bus leaves Countdown Central at 8.30pm, University of Otago library at 8.35pm, returning to town after the show.
• P.H.F Grind State Tour with support from The Muscle and OPC, Chick's Hotel, Port Chalmers, Friday, May 29. $10 on the door from 8.30pm. Chick's Magic Bus leaves Countdown Central at 8.30pm, University of Otago library at 8.35pm, returning to town after the show.
• OUSA Battle of the Bands final, tonight at Re:Fuel, 9 o'clock. $2 entry.
