Mohawk Media @ Mint & Intersect05 VJ Festival
We were back at Starzz on Saturday night as Mohawk Media, for the first in a monthly Mint series at this wicked new venue. The man behind Mint is Sample G who has been based in Sydney for the past three years. He's been involved in the dance scene since the late 80s, and has done everything from DJ, present a music show, and run a record store. Sample G was also a label manager at Universal Records until 2003 and produced the immensely popular Lagered CD releases. He's a thoroughly lovely chap to work with, as are the crew at Starzz nightclub.

We pitched up to the club at lunchtime on Saturday to set up the projector and back projection screen. We were doing a cut down VJ show so the set up was really cruisy and laid back. You can easily end up working 15 hour shifts over a gig, what with set up, take down and returning hire equipment the next day. As Chelfyn says as a VJ the hours are terrible, but the most of the minutes are great. Which is much better than a 9 - 5 job you hate.

I chatted with Sample G while he was up a step ladder about the early days of The Brain which started back in 1991. The Brain was the first club night many of our Kiwis friends ever went to, and is legendary in New Zealand. The Brain will be celebrating its 15th birthday next year with a gig in April. Sample G has been back in the country since the start of this year and said he had a fantastic time in Australia but he missed the whanau, and is really happy to be back in Auckland.

Mohawk Media will be back at Starzz with a full live 8 hour VJ show at Oxygen on the 26th November. With DJ's Phynn (Holland), SampleGee, Nick Collings, Kurt Erickson, Bennor, JayKay, General Lee, Jason Ng, Tim Richards, Andy Clayton, and Karn Hall.

If you're based in Auckland and are curious about this VJing lark, then head on down to the Moving Image Centre this Saturday for Intersect 05. The morning session runs from 11.00 to 13.00 and is an Introduction Workshop hosted by Simon and James from Lotech. The afternoon kicks off at 14.00 with a session on Analogue v Digital VJ Techniques followed by an Axis of Weevils talk about content creation. The final session is on Visuals and Stage design from Dnation. It's followed by an Intersect Afterparty at Galatos with visuals from all the crews.

For more info check out: http://www.mic.org.nz/intersect05.html