New Zealand Music Month is in its second week and, true to form, the Dunedin music scene is busier than ever - yay!
On the bill this evening are a host of musicians including Delgirl, Geva Downey (from Haunted Love) and Marcus Tuwairua, and speakers including Louise Nicholas and Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei.
New bands are always great to hear. I had the privilege of hearing Cult Disney twice last week, and they are well worth a listen.
A few old pals have clubbed together to form Death By Silo: Stephen Stedman plays guitar and sings, Karen McLean plays bass and former Headless Chicken Chris Mathews plays drums.
Mathews and I swapped mail over Facebook, which was instrumental to how Death By Silo formed, as he explains.
"Stephen and Karen knew each other from a few years back from different bands they were in.
Karen was moonlighting with Bob Scott and The Moreporks and Stephen was playing with Alpha State and I think they did a tour together a couple of years ago or at least played a few gigs together back then.
"Karen lives just round the corner from me and we got talking and then started jamming last year on some of my Robot Monkey Orchestra songs and she told me she was playing with Stephen, and then I saw Stephen asking someone on Facebook if they wanted to come and play some drums and I immediately wrote to him and said, `Hey, I'll play drums with you guys'.
"And that was it, really. We started rehearsing a week later. The power of social networking in action."
See them: Death By Silo, Idiot Prayer and Squirm play at Refuel this Thursday.
Join the party: Rape Crisis Dunedin's 30th-anniversary gig takes place in the Crown Roller Mills building in Dunedin tonight
