Funkytown on a shoestring

On a recent Friday night, my friend and I were standing outside a door on Karangahape Rd, waiting for a return text to give us a security code. It felt a bit mysterious.

- By Russell Brown

After the reply came, we went up the stairs, around several corners and eventually, after showing our tickets, into a lounge with a 4m stud and a stairway that plunged down through the middle of the room from a trapdoor in the ceiling. Like most of the old mercantile buildings in its block, this one harbours surprising spaces.

Most of the time, it is the home and studio extension of local record producer and soundman Bob Frisbee, a longtime tenant of unusual spaces in Auckland.

On this night it was The Apartment, the venue for the launch gigs for Joe Kaptein’s second album, Pool Sharks, released on his own label, Jandal Records.