Friday farce: Heart of glass

I actually like the Associates (allmusic)... I like them a lot. The Scots duo of Billy Mackenzie (vocals) and Alan Rankine (instruments) were critically adored but sadly their curious and compelling blend of white-boy soul balladeers a la Scott Walker, tense new-Romantic electro-pop and the overwrought anguish of late-70s Bowie - in style, content and vocal delivery - was never going to take them into the same leagues of popular success as your Human Leagues and your Ultravoxs.

None of that, however, excuses them this drippy, anaemic cover of Blondie's Heart of Glass - though to be fair, Alan Rankine pro'ly didn't have anything to do with it.

Associates - Heart of Glass (2.51 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download)

If you can get it, the 7" or 12" single is worth owning for the wonderful cover image of a Manhattan skyline overpainted in iccky pastels - but don't ever play it. Twice.

Billy MacKenzie tragically committed suicide at the age of 40, in 1997.

NP: Associates - Boys Keep Swinging (much better)

Sputnik II

Hi. This is my new EP which has been released by Melbourne, Australia label diagnosis...DON'T! reCoRdings (myspace page). It's called Sputnik II.

This is what they said on Aquarius Records' website:

"Of all the noisemakers from New Zealand and Australia, Seht, aka Stephen Clover, is by far the dreamiest and droniest and -least- noisy. Which might be why he holds such a special place in our hearts. And ears. Every Seht disc is a gloriously blissed out tranquil exploration of some deep dark ambient wonderland. There's nothing harsh or heavy, caustic or corrosive, instead, listening to Seht is like drifting through space, or floating a hundred feet below the surface of some clear blue sea. Everything shimmers and sparkles, flows and swirls, the sounds are soft and delicate, distant and dreamy, ethereal and indistinct. Soft focus and beautifully blurry. And this little three inch is no different. Gorgeous and serene. This disc definitely feels like a dark drift along the ocean floor, due to the haunting sonar-like pulse that permeates the whole track, it's not at all distracting though, just the contrary, very hypnotic and soothing, an organic, super minimal pulse, a barely there framework for the slow shifting liquid drones."

That was nice, wasn't it. This is my page for the Sputnik II EP.

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I've also been getting some great reviews for my recent CD The Green Morning from various people; you can read them here on my website. If you follow some of the links, you can find audio samples and so forth.

AND I got blogged by 20 Jazz Funk Greats!

x seht/.


NP: PPJ Mixtape #24 - Liza Minelli and Richard Nixon Having A Diarrhea Fight (Post-Punk Junk blog)

Friday Farce: The Light 3000

Sorry no posting - week from hell. And so today just something quick 'n' dirty, too.

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I ain't no The Smiths-fanatic, or S. P. Morrissey-apologist, but I like them well enough. They did some good songs, and they did some dire ones. And when all's said and done, most bands can hope for no better remembrance than that.

There Is A Light That Never Goes Out (review) - from 1986's The Queen is Dead (allmusic) - is "one of the most touching and romantic songs in the Smiths' discography". German electronica artist Schneider TM tries hard with this version, but end up committing the worst sin of all when it comes to cover-versions: the sin of being pointless. It's.. just.. dull. And pointless.

Schneider TM - The Light 3000 (2.4 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download)

And don't those robot-vocals render the plaintively-despairing sentiment of the original into something nasty. Possibly ironic/sarcastic - who can tell. I hate ironic sarcasm. Bloody jarmans.

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Ha ha ha. The URL for Morrissey ends in *wat. That's awesome.

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NP: Tirath Singh Nirmala - Bluster, Cragg & Awe (Digitalis, 2006)

Lights! Camera! Bullshit!

Wow. Nice going, WCC. Yep, lets bully hundreds of businesses to leave their lights on all night, two nights in a row, with no compensation.

Let's block off blocks and blocks of the CBD, two nights in a row, with no warning signage or detour routes.

Let's fuck up the late bus routes, two nights in a row, with no notification.

Let's send tow-trucks to shift parked cars down several blocks of Featherston Street, leaving the poor owners assuming they'd been nicked.

Let's have collossally loud black helicopters with search lights flailing all over the place terrorising apartment dwellers, and barrelling down Lambton Quay just above the bus-wires like they're reenacting the final scenes in fucking Star Wars; all we were missing, as we stood and watched in irritated, bewildered confusion - and wondered when the S.W.A.T. team was gonna arrive - was Darth Vader twisting his (steering-)knob and making weird backwards elephant sounds.

For what? A fucking car commercial.

Cunts.

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NP: The Stumps - Dry Eyed Twitch (Cycle) (on Diagnosis... Don't recordings)

Friday Farce: Highway to Hell

I love Nathan.

I mean, I really, really, really love Nathan.

I love Nathan with a love that's a bit like the love you have for a brother, but it's more than that - it's more along the lines of the love I imagine you have for the guys you go to war with; your "brothers in arms".

Brothers in beer. Brothers in rock. Brothers in ladies. Brothers in fucked-up families and semi-cult religious orders. I dunno, shit, none of that makes sense. I just know that I really, really love Nathan.

This one's for you, dude.

Hayseed Dixie - Highway to Hell [from A Hillbilly tribute to AC/DC] (1.50 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download)

And good christ, I also know that I can't actually bear to listen to this long enough to write anything more about it.

So enjoy. And remember, this hurts me more than it hurts you.

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NP: Tivol - Early Teeth (review; more reading about Tivol)

Hijinks

About 6pm on a Tuesday evening, down at the bus-terminus, it was all goin' on. Workmen were standing around the side of the road, drinking malt-liquor and lighting their farts.

Meanwhile, two bus-drivers parked up in the bus-corral, and loudly and with much gesticulation told "yo mama" jokes to each other.

Then the sun set.

(click on little ones to see big ones)

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Kate has linked to the hilarious Skinny Model Ban Shocks Fashion World story. I couldn't resist commenting.


NP: The Clear Spots - Electricity for All (Noiseweek blog-post)

Espresso 'Martini' showdown

When I was in Melbourne recently, I had a new drink experience. After a show, about 2 a.m., we were at a cute little bar Little Lonsdale St called Troika. I was fucked. We'd already done three late nights on the trot and I was coming down with the nasty cold/flu virus which everyone we'd been hanging out with to that point had either reported as having had, or being in the process of getting. Earlier in the evening I'd had a full-on fevered delirium-attack which had had to be beaten off with Scotch and Coldrex, and this only-ever-temporary of poultices was starting to wear off. Putting it simply, I was in the market for the sort of "pick-me-up" I'd hitherto only ever achieved with a brace of Red Bull and Jaegermeisters.

I approached the bar with the full intention of ordering exactly that (two Red Bull and Jaegermeisters). This was when I found the cocktail menu, and what I think they called a "Coffee Martini". (Tom settle down.) (You too, J.) Since it had a shot of espresso, and a more-than-decent amount of white spirits, I made a sudden executive decision and ordered one. It was wonderful - it was like an alcoholic iced coffee laced with speed; it peeled my eyes back, and cleared my head. It was just what the doctor ordered.

Since my return, I've been trying to recreate this drink, and this is what I have come up with.

Option 1 (from DrinksMixer.com) 1 oz cold espresso 1.5 oz Absolut vodka 1.5 oz Kahlua coffee liqueur 1 oz white creme de cacao

Option 2 (also from DrinksMixer.com) 3 oz espresso 1.5 oz vodka 1.5 oz Kahlua coffee liqueur 1 oz Bailey's Irish cream

(as usual, 1 oz is one measure, 30 ml).

Instructions (for both Option 1 and 2): Pour ingredients into shaker filled with ice, shake vigorously, and strain into chilled martini glass. It should be somewhat frothy.

A good comparison between the results can be seen in the top images (In both, Option 2 can be seen to the left, and Option 1 to the right).

My comments:
I far preferred Option 1, but I don't like Bailey's to begin with so Option 2 was doomed from the start. Option 2 is extremely powerful - I began to see aliens in my peripheral vision, and worry that my heart was going to wear out. It's also just kinda too sweet.

The "head" on Option 2 is much more full and pronounced than on Option 1; conversely Option 1 has a much nicer, dark appearance.

Other comments:
Miss K (after a mouthful of Option 2): "I'm palpitating!"
Housemate N: Option 1 is too astringent (possibly due to poor quality espresso, though probably due to poor quality white creme de cacao).

Both preferred Option 2. As an occasional alcohol drinker and an occsional coffee drinker, Housemate N was up all night.

(click images to see larger versions).

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NP: Comets on Fire - Avatar (MySpace page)

White creme de cacao: a slight return

Mr. X
Kings Liquors
Greenhithe, Auckland
New Zealand.

Dear Mr. X,

Recently I purchased a bottle of your white creme de cacao liqueur from an outlet in Wellington. I'm a bit worried that there may be something wrong with it, however, because while everything I've read and heard about white creme de cacao lead me to expect that it would taste of chocolate, your product does not. Taste of chocolate, that is. Well, possibly very faintly, but only that. In fact I would be much more prepared to suggest that it tastes like vanilla.

For your reference and mine, DrinksMixer.com states of white creme de cacao that it is "A colorless chocolate-flavored liqueur made from the cacao seed". While your product is cerainly almost colourless (a faint but acceptable yellow-ish tint is observable), there ain't no "chocolate-flavoured" to be spoken of.

So I would greatly appreciate it if you would please either (a) convince me that my expectations for its "chocolatey-ness" (is that even a word? I'm sure you know what I mean either way) are far too high; or (b) agree that there may be something wrong with the bottle of liqueur in my possession.

Yours in cocktails,

stephen clover.

NP: Lomov - Mounting Stags EP (Thinner netlabel)

Friday farce: Seventeen seconds

Poor old The Cure. For their sins, they've attracted far more than their fair share of "tribute" albums, rich-pickin' for cover-version atrocity hunters such as yours truly. They also took a good and well-deserved pasting a couple of weeks ago, and it seems in keeping with the cyclic nature of things that we now turn the spotlight onto a bunch of gothic twits *ahem* Cure fans, The Escape.

1980's Seventeen Seconds is one of the few truly great Cure albums; brooding and melancholic, with sparks of driving pop-motorik in the singles, and flashes of madness in-between times. The short titular track concludes the album perfectly with a repetitive piano (oops) bass motif and a reflective lyric. Its just a really nice tune.

I just really have one thing to say to "darkwave"-clowns The Escape, and it's to the vocalist leading this bunch of butchers: Who the fuck do you think you are.. Andrea Boccelli?

The Escape - Seventeen Seconds [from VA - Our Voices: A Tribute to the Cure] (3.38 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download)

Here's a review of the Our Voices compilation this track is part of; notable principally for being possibly the worst review I've ever read in my entire life.


NP: Chrome - Half Machine Lip Moves / Alien Soundtracks (allmusic)

Oh, I was just thinking about you

I'm looking forward to developments on this story:

Phone telepathy: You knew it was true (Reuters via CNN.com)

God knows it happens to me an awful lot. And 1000,000,000,000-to-one against is pretty formidible odds.

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Re. Germaine Greer's remarks about the recently demised Steve Irwin: You go, girl.

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UK "guerrilla artist" Bansky (Wikipedia entry here) in-situ culture-jam of 100s of Paris Hilton CDs:


Paris Hilton targeted in CD prank (from BBC News) (watch "making-of" video-clip on YouTube)

Every time I read the name Banksy, though, I think of this other guy...

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NP: DJ Name's Electric Caboose Aug 2006 mix (for some reason not listed yet; download from here)

Dewey

Gah! Dewey Redman, one of my favourite saxophonists, has passed away. Details are sketchy at this point, but apparently it was sudden, and related to liver-failure.

Redman was a life-long friend of Ornette Coleman, having attended school together, and in the 60s eventually followed him into the tempestuous world of post-bop and avante-garde jazz. Redman led his own band in recording some amazing and classic albums (Look for the Black Star, 1966; The Ear of the Behearer, 1973; The Struggle Continues, 1982; and Living on the Edge, 1989) as well as contributing to some of the greatest and most adventurous records cut by other musicians - among them Ornette Coleman's Crisis, Science Fiction, Skies of America, and Broken Shadows (all 1969-72); Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra (1969); and Keith Jarrett's The Survivor's Suite (1976). More recently he made a great album called Momentum Space (1998) with two other of jazz's giant figures, Elvin Jones (long-serving drummer for John Coltrane; Coltrane's Wikipedia entry here) and Cecil Taylor ("still the most adventurous musician in jazz after - at that point - 45 years" - allmusic.com).

I wanted to present a short track featuring Redman in order to somehow eulogise and pay tribute to him. It was virtually impossible to settle on just one that was suitable to use; having said that, though, here's the duet with Elvin Jones from Momentum Space.

Dewey Redman and Elvin Jones - Spoonin' [from Momentum Space] (4.61 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download)

And here is the closing track from the same album; a short Redman solo entitled Dew.

Dewey Redman - Dew [from Momentum Space] (0.7 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download)

A rather-useless, database-generated page is here at Impulse!, although it does have pretty album covers down the right side-bar. Somewhat more interesting is Phil Brodie's tribute page to Dewey Redman.

R.I.P.


NP: Dewey Redman, Cecil Taylor and Elvin Jones - Momentum Space (allmusic) of course

Tequila: the beginning of a journey

I think it was only about a year ago that I discovered that I liked tequila (Wiki) a lot. Well, ok, let's be honest. It wasn't just that; but that I like it much, much more than whisky, which was until this point my late-night like-to-pretend-I'm-a-classy-fucker drink. In fact, it's worse than even that. I think I'm in love.

I love the lush bouquet of tequila, and the complex, aromatic, almost botanical notes that drift across your tongue as you hold a mouthful. I like the lack of bite'n'burn as it hits your throat, and the lack of acidity as it traverses your gullet. I adore the absence of any of the cloying saccharin of whisky; instead the delightful promise of sweetness on the nose is delivered in a measured, flat, dry way just like the best Martini. I actually love that it is brewed from a specially grown, tended, and harvested cactus in the arid desert-heat of Mexico, instead of from mashed-up bird seed in some god-awful rainy bog in Scotland.

Up until this point, my conception of tequila was some shitty drink which you consumed with the direct aim of getting wasted. And that in order to be able to actually just accept the stuff in your mouth, you needed salt and lemon juice. And you gagged when you swallowed it. And sometimes you climbed up on the bar and let someone pour it down your throat. And you invariably drank far too much of it and did stupid things and got yourself into compromising situations (Tequila Suicide here). And let's not for a minute pretend that that is not still true of low-cost muck like Jose Cuervo*.

Occasionally you meet somebody who changes your life; sometimes you have sex with them, sometimes you don't, sometimes you spend years wishing you had, or hadn't, or whatever. Sometimes you just talk to them for an hour or two. Most recently it was the Turkish guy who kept laughing uproariously and saying "You New Zealanders, you're crazy! You invaded my country! What were you thinking?" over and over.

But I digress. It was Carlo the Mexican who set me on the righteous path of true tequila appreciation. One drunken night he suddenly turned to me and with a grin said something along the lines of "you New Zealanders, you don't know anything about tequila". He produced a bottle of Herradura (mythology), furnished me with a measure, and that was me. Done. Sold to the gentleman trying not to spill his Negroni, trying not to slide off The Sifter's chaise lounge.


We will continue my Tequila Odyssey soon.


* and the exact same could be said of a poor-quality blended Scotch like Clan MacGregor, or Grants.

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NP: Sleep - Dopesmoker (allmusic)

Crikey

Following the Crocodile Hunter's bizarre death at the, erm, barb (?) of a stingray, I sincerely hope that the management of Westfield Queensgate don't see fit to 'disestablish' their Steve Irwin ride out of some kind of misplaced sense of honour or taste.


Surely that would be somewhat out of character.

And it's really quite a lovely, and surely now iconic, little piece.

NP: Talking Heads - Remain in Light (allmusic)

CBGBs

Further tidbit of the day.

From Rockphiles.com, this just in: CBGBs moving to Las Vegas, lock, stock, and er.. urinals.

Wikipedia entry for CBGBs here.

NP: Swans - Children of God (allmusic)

Meat and two veg

Tidbit of the day.

From E Nagar, this just in: Red Bull contains Beef. Or, to be more accurate, Red Bull contains an ingredient predominately extracted from the bile ducts of bulls.

Friday farce: Death and the Maiden

Call me a romantic, call me an idealist, call me a goddamed fool; but as far as I am concened Graeme Downes (left) and The Verlaines' music is - and should remain - sacrosanct. Which makes it all the more bewildering when considering how we got to the point where skate-pop-punk-dorko meatheads Elemeno P (right) ended up recording a cover of The Verlaines' seminal 1983 single Death and the Maiden.

I'm possibly a little over-sensitive about this one - this song bears a lot of meaning to me personally - so I'll leave you to make up your own minds about it. (Not to mention that Downes must surely have given consent - and in doing so tacit approval - for the attempt).

Elemeno P - Death and the Maiden [from Trouble in Paradise] (1.93 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download)

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Click on the picture of Dr. Downes for a link to Too Much Beauty in One Fell Sweep: The Verlaines' tortured songwriting genius Graeme Downes, a feature by Dave Fisher which was originally published in Filler Magazine, July 1999.

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"God," writes a friend, "you really need a new blog post. It's really disturbing seeing that fucken guy's picture everytime I go to your blog."

Yeah, sorry for the lack of posting this week; I've been sick as a motherfucken dog. Hopefully you'll forgive me when you hear that coming up on Drinks-After-Work, we will be featuring (1.) insightful discusion of two recent movies; (2.) debate on the pros and cons of two particular coffee-based cocktails; and (3.) the first in an ongoing series of articles (hopefully) illuminating the world of tequila-drinkin'.