Blog

Hello! yikes it’s been a long time all over again…

I’ve just come back from an amazing, eye opening, inspiring and wonderful trip away.. It was organized quite last minute for such a massive journey. 11 of us (musicians, artists, film makers and photographers – as part of the Fledge collective) traveled to Manila to make music, art, a documentary, and to play some very special shows…

We stayed and worked with mr Tony/Ynot Piggott – a NZ born, Manila based artist, He is a man who makes things happen and consistently surprises in wonderful ways.. *check out his art here* He connected us all and is the reason for the destination…

I think if I start listing all the amazing people we met, I will get lost in a web of wonderful and undoubtedly will forget to list everything/everyone, but we were all just so blown away… the people were so warm, loving, smiley, talented, creative and awesome, the food was ridiculously yummy, the weather was.. well it was hoootttt, and wet, so so humid – I loved it. The places we visited were something else… truly a trip none of us will ever forget.

Here I am, rambling on about how amazing it is: 

We also released a bunch of documentary-style snippets on the fledgefilms site.. this is part 2 – features an unreleased song called ”come say hello”   check out part1 – and part3 (more to come)

Here are some pictures…
This was at Earthdance Manila Festival – playing with mr Jed 

Playing with House Of Mountain - photo by Alan Bacchelli
I absolutely love pizza.. but I could have slept on this one! 

A group photo by Alan Bacchelli – check out more pics here
One more from Manila (for now) I just love the madness and happiness in this picture (+the best accessories ever) It was taken outside Kazbah – an awesome restaurant where we played and had amazing food. This is David – he joined the crew, literally last minute thanks to a wonderful stroke of serendipity…
See the poster above… no, really have a look at it – this is 8 days away and will be amazing. It’s a free event in the centre of Christchurch, part of the festival of transitional architecture (FESTA) – read more about the event here -

I’m in Taupo now, just played a show for a whole bunch of Icelanders who are working here, operating Týr – the geothermal drill.. Writing this at Taupo airport. I can see my guitar being loaded onto the plane now and I’m about to board..

xxHera

Gosh it has been such a long time since I last blogged/wrote anything here.. That seems to be the way I tend to start blogs. Right, new years resolution to stop mentioning how I mean to blog more..

Re-start:

Hello people! Do you like the new website? (you can comment here, I think… I’m still getting to know my way around this) Marc Fairbairn has once again done such a wonderful job! Thank you Marc…

It has been an absolutely crazy wonderful, surprising, baffling, inspiring and awesome few months! And I thought it was time to write about at least some of what has been happening..

I have fallen into a family… They are wonderful.. It started when I was working on ‘Rattle my bones’ with Toby.. He recommended this great team of musicians who became ‘House of Mountain’ the band.. who then also became my backing band somewhere along the way, and we’ve been touring all over the south island.. House of mountain also back the brilliant ‘Happiness Stan’ and together, we’ve been working with a number of amazing people, on some awesome stuff..

(I don’t know if it’s a bad thing but I’m fast running out of descriptive words that say ‘this is wonderful’)

Anyway… As you might have seen on the Facebook page, and even here in the gallery section, I’ve just come back from the Fledge music Festival in Wanaka..

*this part is a very hard thing to describe but basically I went to a beautiful place for 8 days with amazing people to do awesome stuff… (Again, repeating myself..)

Mostly, we were recording and making music… along the way I also got the opportunity to PLAY GUITAR IN A BUBBLE ON A LAKE! How rad is that! We got some great photos during the trip of the many adventures that took place, attaching a few here.

 There will be some sneaky snippets out soon to see and hear, but Fledge is sort-of the company, that embraces the family…  More about fledge in the next blog…

Amanda Palmer came back to New Zealand! You might know if you’ve read earlier blogs or been on the mailing list, that I joined her on tour in NZ in 2010,  and she was meant to play in Christchurch last year with Jason Webley – but that turned out to be the day of the earthquake and the show never happened… but this time she was here with Brian Viglione on a Dresden Dolls tour! And we opened here at the Aurora Centre in Christchurch.. There are a whole lot of photos from the show here, and here… and on the day before the show, there was a Ninja gig at ‘Occupy’ in hagley park! Lots of photos from there online too.. I’m posting a few here below.. (sorry if they are your photos and I’m not putting the right credit on them, tell me off and I will fix it.. *promise)

 

These pics from the Ninja gig are by the lovely Karel Robbins 

I ended up playing ‘Sing’ with them, then learning ‘Creep’ by Radiohead on the spot…

 We have a fun show coming up this Saturday too.. Feb 18^th at Riccarton House – as part of the Belgian Beer and Mussel Festival!

I also can’t recommend this show enough, it’s ‘’the complete history of Christchurch – abridged’’ by the Outwits… it’s so funny and awesome it made me cry! You have one week left to see it…

It’s on every night at 7pm in Hagley park (best to get there a little earlier to score a good place to park your picnic blanket – it’s an outdoor show) and there are 2pm and 7pm shows on Saturday and on Sunday..

I think that’s it for now.. there are just too many things to say… xoHera

Kiwi’s rejoice!  The Dresden Dolls reunion will be making another stop on the New Zealand leg of the tour.  The cabaret punk duo will be visiting the Aurora Center in Christchurch on January 25th.  This was the site of a devastating earthquake in February 2011 which thwarted an Amanda Palmer solo performance.  Proceeds from the show will be donated to the Christchurch Earthquake Appeal. We’re also pleased to announce opening acts for all three New Zealand shows.  Joining The Dolls onstage in Auckland and Wellington will be Princess Chelsea, while Hera with House of Mountain will be the opening act in Christchurch.