Drinks After Work

Bye bye baby, bye bye.. bye bye..

2008-11-11T16:25:00.004+13:00

Oh hey.. this blog is closed now. 4 point something years, 600 and something posts, more than 50,000 readers... I think that's enough. Anyway, I hardly ever have drinks after work any more, so...

The good news is that I have started a new one: Photos Of My Cat. While there will certainly be photos of my cat featured, the title may not be entirely ingenuous. I will also be keeping up the intrepid music journalism on the Foxy Digitalis blog.

Cheerio.

Food pr0n

2008-09-03T12:07:00.003+12:00

From Vulcan Cafe, in Vulcan Lane in downtown Auckland City, you might avail yourself of the following:

Be wary though, for it's possibly a traaaaaaaaaaaaap!

Cat pr0n

2008-09-03T12:01:00.004+12:00

This foxy beauty currently lives in the SPCA in Rotorua.

I shall have her, I tells ya... and I think I shall call her Sammael.

Madness

2008-08-22T18:15:00.000+12:00

When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies?

Perhaps to be too practical is madness
To surrender dreams – this may be madness.
To seek treasure where there is only trash.
Too much sanity may be madness.

And maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as is should be.

-- Miguel de Cervantes

Baaaaaaaa

2008-08-04T19:33:00.003+12:00

Oh yeah, I shaved all my hair off.

Here I am shorn and cold (note: nipple-tasticness!) / performing an impromptu-Marty Feldman (how the fuck can there be no pictures of him on the Wikipedia page???) impression / demonstrating how one side of my face is paralysed and I can no longer smile properly / or without scaring children.

In the background you can see The Golfer, one of my favourite-ever paintings of mine that I have done ever, even though I look at it now and all I can see are the things that are wrong with it.

I've got some drawings in a group drawing show at ROAR!. The opening is on Thursday night; there's more detail here. The drawings are 'excerpts' from this series which is known as Storyboard for the Movie of the Making of Heroic Cocks Nos. 1 - 3.

get ready for the future, it is murder

2008-08-04T19:19:00.005+12:00

The Stumps played the other night.

(photo by Robyn; there're more here.)

We played with The Aesthetics, who do and did rule hard. They are fronted by Matt Middleton (the also-amazing Crude); Matt recently posted a review of the show on his blog:

the Stumps performance was ideal for the headline act, and even more so - they were mind-blowing...a whirlwind. Loosely their sound is Heavy psyche - with that crazed amphetaminized guitar sheen,,with that unpredictable improv shock, like Eye they were vortex music but with a chunky post-rock approach. 'Twas evokation music. 'Don't mess with shit you don't understand man..' ..Visuals played a very strong part : behind them was the film 'God Damn Religion' by Sun City Girls' Sir Richard Bishop : a flick-thru/slide-gallery/fast-paced compendium of static full colour images gleaned from the dusty annals of ancient religion, both east and west - hells, devils, demons, hindu hells, tibetan hells, torment, christ's torment: a real bias t'wards the dark side methinks. All up a mad soiree.. I am now a Stumps fan.

We hardly ever get reviewed, so to get a review like this is fucking terrific.

Doan harass me for not behavin' correkkt when I only wantta slide mah arm roun' yr neck

2008-07-31T16:03:00.003+12:00

In other news, after spending months twatting on about mai new house, lo and behold I need a new house. I also need a new painting studio. These two things may be at the same property, or they could be at different but relatively adjacent locations. I'd like both to be in Newtown, but that's up for negotiation. If you're reading this and you've got a lead on a good studio, or a flat and/or a useful garage or a shed/sleep-out kinda thing PLEASE let me know. Ugh.. is any of this making sense? My heads in a bit of a spin...

Kode9 - Victims (feat. The Spaceape) (2.63 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

... from Kode9 and the Spaceape's amazing Memories of the Future album.

Five broken hearts can't be wrong

2008-07-31T13:08:00.002+12:00

Possible candidate for best Dinosaur Comics ever...

(Previous props...)

Try to take Dawn Raid away from me and I'll show you the G in me!

2008-07-29T16:27:00.002+12:00

Characteristic humourlessness from the anti-anti-terrorism raids lot:

You can distinguish this from the previously reported "non-tagger tagger" guy because that guy was funny.

Got your cue lines and a handful of ludes

2008-07-23T11:49:00.003+12:00

Now that the Asian Haven in Millward Street is going to be diversifying into haircutting...

I might pop in there for my next trim. I trust it'll cost a little less than their standard rates, too (30 Minutes : 100$, 1 Hour : 140$).

Stuff: Brothel may offer fringe benefits (ho ho ho)
Clients of a Newtown brothel could soon purchase extra services from its menu, with plans afoot for a hair salon to open in the bordello.....

I formed my own society to crush the bear of fecundity

2008-07-22T16:34:00.003+12:00

In news just to hand...

...three British Court of Appeal judges have ruled that manboobs (or "moobs") are not sexually alluring (story via Metrosexual).

The legal minds had to make the judgement after a man was convicted of voyeurism after filming another man's top half at a public swimming pool.

Ahhhh.. I think we know better, don't we dear readers.

And red mutant eyes gaze down on hunger city

2008-07-21T13:06:00.003+12:00

There's been a run on:

Taggers in pink while cleaning up their work
Forcing taggers to wear pink vests as punishment reduces tagging, says Eastern Suburbs Community Constable Theo Gommans. But councillor Iona Pannett said the scheme was akin to Nazi Germany's persecution of gay men during World War II and would reinforce prejudice against gay and lesbian people.

Pink Vests for Taggers Divisive
The Wellington community police constable who is making taggers wear pink vests as punishment has prompted alarm from the youth group OUT THERE.

“Wearing pink tagger vests draws on homophobic fears of wearing pink, and the whole concept of embarrassing young people rather than strengthening them is appalling.” said Nathan Brown, National Coordinator of OUT THERE, a youth development organisation for non-heterosexual and transgender youth.

UPDATE
Stuff: Anti-tagging crusader-cop Theo Gommans nominates himself for Intellect of the Year 2008: Gommans said the culprit did not fit the usual tagger's profile. "I put money on the idiot who has done this is not a tagger. Taggers do it for their own fame; this guy is just a clown who wanted to be a smartarse."

Y'think? Cos, like, "Vest Wanted" is an awesome tag, tru dat 4 realz.

The perverse irony is that the culprit is surely now more famous than any tagger would ever hope to become.

It’s good to be an alien

2008-07-04T18:20:00.004+12:00

Rudy Rucker has a blog!

Yep.. Rucker, mathematician and the greatest living Sci-Fi (science fiction/speculative fiction/cyber-punk) author (and 2nd greatest all-time behind Philip K Dick) has his own blog. It's a super-fun read.

Rucker is probably best-known for his -Ware tetralogy:

Cobb Anderson created the "boppers," sentient robots that overthrew their human overlords. But now Cobb is just an aging alcoholic waiting to die, and the big boppers are threatening to absorb all of the little boppers--and eventually every human--into a giant, melded consciousness. Some of the little boppers aren't too keen on the idea, and a full-scale robot revolt is underway on the moon (where the boppers live). Meanwhile, bopper Ralph Numbers wants to give Cobb immortality by letting a big bopper slice up his brain and tape his "software." It seems like a good idea to Cobb.

"Delightfully irreverant. . . This is science fiction as it should be." (reviews via Amazon.com)

Humans created the sentient robot "boppers," but now it's the boppers who have started creating humans. Clones and DNA-splicing have spawned the meatbop, a human body infused with the software (the mind and personality) of a bopper. The meatbops are interested in propagating down on Earth, but that might not be so good for humanity (the boppers have a nasty habit of enslaving humans, actually). When a couple of (reasonably) innocent humans get tangled up in the bopper's machinations on the moon, it's time to drag out the stored mind of bopper-creator Cobb Anderson and see if he can help.

"A genius. . .A cult hero among discriminating cyberpunkers" (reviews via Amazon.com)

In Wetware the chip mold virus destroyed the sentient robots called boppers. But the virus itself has spawned a new life form called moldies. The moldies are beings made out of a sort of malleable plastic called imoplex. Humans and moldies live in an almost-amicable truce, but radicals (and not-so-radicals) on each side wouldn't hesitate to use--or destroy--those on the other. When a moldie called Monique becomes ensnared in a grand plot that seems to be either the work of anti-moldie humans or anti-human moldies, everyone becomes involved in an effort to either save or destroy the Earth.

In hip, staccato language, the master of cyberpunk (e.g., The Hacker and the Ants, Avon, 1994) merges California surfer culture with a tale of 21st-century artificial plastic and mold lifeforms. The intertwined lives of Heritagist fanatic anti-Moldies, the Moldies' inventors, human "cheeseballs" who have sex with Moldies, and isolationist Moldies on the Moon enliven this fast-paced tale of kidnapping and alien takeover. (reviews via Amazon.com)

Philip K. Dick Award-winner Rucker concludes his satirical SF "Ware" tetralogy with Phil Gottner's discovery that his father has apparently been swallowed whole by a "wowo," a multidimensional holographic toy. This is the first event in a series that will change his life, and Earth, forever. Phil breaks up with his girlfriend to follow exotic Moon-born Yoke Star-Mydol to Tonga, where she meets a group of aliensDMetamartians from MetamarsDliving deep underwater in the Tonga Trench. It turns out that Yoke's mother, Darla, and a woman named Tempest Plenty were also swallowed by a multidimensional creature on the Moon several months ago. The Metamartians explain that the hungry entity is really their god, Om, who reaches into three-dimensional space to capture humans for study. The gift of an "alla" from Om and the aliens allows Yoke to create anything she can visualize using "realware," based on the advanced science of direct matter control. Soon enough, the secret of the alla spreads to others on Earth and predictable problems ensue. Meanwhile, Phil is captured by Om and reunited with his father, as well as with Darla and Tempest Plenty, somewhere in the fourth dimension. Rucker's cheerful ingenuity with biotech gadgetry and applied mathematics is in direct contrast to the book's [endearingly] simplistic plot and resolution. (reviews via Amazon.com)

I love these books so much; I'll recommend them to anyone.

Also: Rudy Rucker's home page.

Eyes without a face update

2008-07-03T16:15:00.003+12:00

Yesterday I posted about the face-less people:

Turns out it is a viral marketing campaign for a fucken car or something. Yawn. Like dlisted sez,

They're lucky that they haven't creeped up on the wrong crazy bitch who would take that faceless mask and shove it up their faceless ass.

Yerp.

Blues, hollers and hellos

2008-07-03T14:11:00.003+12:00

Update on the painting (stink photo again, goddammit). It's called Never had a name. (I know this because I found this scrawled on the back of it in pencil.) I started it in 2002. It'll be good to get it finished and out of the way.

o o o

This is a track from an album by a band called Tinariwen. They're Touareg minstrels from the desert in North Africa. I'm in the middle of reviewing their most recent album Aman Iman (Water is Life) for Foxy Digitalis.

Tinariwen - Tourmast (3.04 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

Steal a car and go to Las Vegas oh, the gigolo pool

2008-07-02T16:18:00.005+12:00

Oh, creepy. People with no faces.

From dlisted (thanks to Kathy). Possibly something to do with Anonymous (I'm apathetic); possibly something to do with hating on Scientologists (now you're talking).

Billy Idol - Eyes Without A Face (3.38 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

You know, I REALLY don't remember that middle eight -- crafty Mr. Broad, huh. Or perhaps I just remember the single/radio edit too well. It's pretty awful either way and I'm glad when it finishes and gets back to the main song bit.

Who cares. Great tune. God bless Billy Idol -- at least he managed to do one thing right, once.

I'm one of these monsters numb with grace

2008-07-01T12:43:00.014+12:00

Yeah, whoops.. sorry about that. I've not been paying much attention to the blog for a few days; been spending a lot of mental energy on getting working on a new series of paintings.

To that end I've begun to finish-off a painting (left) which is a gift for a friend. The photo is a but washed-out and blurry sorry -- that's down to the poor light*. Also, don't worry -- I haven't gone mental. All that scratchy-scrawly stuff around the cactus is just under-painting. More on this one soon, I feel.

So to get underway on the new series I gotta clear the decks a bit. In addition to finishing this painting, I gotta:

Find my bloody gun stapler. I'm stumped by the disappearance of this -- I have all the staples, just not the stapler.
Remember who I lent my DVD of My Best Fiend to and get it back off them and watch it again to remind myself of some of the visual themes I wanted to develop but never went anywhere with or even jotted down or sketched last time I watched it.

*Note: I support the environmentally-concious rationale behind stopping the sale of incandescent bulbs, but it's going to suck for painting at night. Really, really suck.

Philip Guston would possibly agree:

Philip Guston Studio, 1969 (via Arthistoryarchive.com)

Philip Guston Bad Habits, 1970 (via National Gallery of Australia)

Philip Guston Painting, Smoking, Eating, 1973 (via Arthistoryarchive.com)

Philip Guston Pantheon, 1973 (via Arthistoryarchive.com)

Philip Guston Head and Bottle, 1975 (via Arthistoryarchive.com)

Philip Guston Story, 1978 (via Artnet.com)

All images are sourced from other sites; please click on the links to further investigate these valuable online resources.

Fuck he's good, aye?

Here's my contribution fwiw:

Stephen Clover Are You Digital?, 2003

Every kayaker needs a compass

2008-06-26T18:10:00.006+12:00

Tonight there was quite definitely the sound of a cicada coming from the bush under the sign by the carpark outside the Newtown Sportsbar and liquor store.

I shit you not.

One solitary cicada, months out of season, rubbing his little noisemakers and exhibiting a longevity that would do a centennarian proud.

I really wanted to stop and say something to the plucky little blighter. "Look, what are you DOING? It's the middle of winter. GET BACK TO BED!"

Instead I played him some Glen Brown out of my headphones.

Glen Brown and King Tubby - Father For The Living Dubwise (1.86 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

Didn't shut him up, though.

Date Leg Amputees In Your Area

2008-06-24T17:31:00.003+12:00

Poking around on a friend's blog today, I kept getting targeted advertising for an amputee dating site.

Date Leg Amputees In Your Area

it said.

So after seeing the advert several times, I thought "fuck this, I'm signing up right now" and clicked the link.

AmputeeDate is a dating site for amputees, ex-wannabes, need-to-bes, devotees, wannabes, pretenders and admirers looking for true love, friendship or any kind of relationship with amputees.

Rightaway I was struck that I had been had by obviously-false advertising. Jane (pictured) has her two original legs, but a prosthetic-arm.

But between you and I, I'm not that upset about it. Who knew that I would find a dating site devoted to my fetish? I'm gonna register as a devotee, a pretender, an admirer, and a need-to-be -- and I'm expecting to find a love-match within days.

Woke up this morning, first thing I saw was the devil

2008-06-24T16:54:00.007+12:00

The other day I was listening to the Pressure Sounds website -- you can do that -- listen to the Pressure Sounds site, I mean -- when you go there it starts streaming a hand-picked selection of choice reggae and dub cuts right to your desktop -- and normally I hate that sort of thing, but the tracks coming off of the Pressure Sounds site are so damn good that you have to smile and love it -- and so anyway I was browsing around and the sun was streaming through the window and warming my back and and I'd actually finished surfing their site and I was lying on my bed in the sun like a torpid cat and the tunes were washing over me and then I heard something that quite literally made my jaw drop.

Keith Hudson -- aka the "Dark Prince of Reggae" -- has long, long, long time been one of my favourite reggae/dub music producers, and I've got -- or at least heard -- most of his recorded output.

However.

I ain't never heard this one:

Keith Hudson and the Soul Syndicate - Ire Ire (4.68 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

The track is from his album Nuh Skin Up Dub, from 1982. A huge, spacious production along with sparse snippets of Keith's brooding, darkside vocals and some fresh instrumental approaches give this music a unique aura. Like I said, my jaw dropped. This is an essential disc for lovers of the deep.

And good news: Pressure Sounds have reissued the album on vinyl and CD. They're selling it for an almost-ludicrously low price, too.

The Audio Foundation (again)

2008-06-23T20:06:00.004+12:00

Four years ago I posted about the fledgling Audio Foundation website.

Four years on and they're still going strong, true to their mission to "support, promote and preserve innovative audio culture in NZ". What's even better is that they've recently relaunched with a new a vastly superior website.

Check out the seht page; there's audio and everything. I am committed to regularly uploading new tunes and sketches on an ongoing basis. Sweet.

Music, Martinis And Misanthropy

2008-06-23T16:15:00.004+12:00

I was fairly chuffed to discover, via a search from Poland, that Drinks-After-Work is the third-ranked Google result for "music martinis misanthropy download blog".

My suspicion however is that the searcher was looking for a download for the 2001 album Music, Martinis And Misanthropy by American musician and possibly all-round dodgy-bastard Boyd Rice (right).

Oh well.

Gonna hunt you like an, uh, uh, animal

2008-06-19T12:07:00.002+12:00

It's pretty awesome that Def Leppard are still touring. Fuck, it's pretty awesome that they're still taking their shirts off, too.

Check out all the action at the contemporary Def Leppard concert photos blog.

So take off your hard hats boys, in a moment of silence

2008-06-19T11:36:00.002+12:00

The night after the fog, everything was back to normal. Five second exposures at f2.8, looking west:

... and north:

The green light looks great on these long burns.. of course it's not green to the naked eye, but you can only really successfully "white balance" for one kind of white light at a time, right? Unless you wanna go "automatic", which I didn't.

Iggy Pop - How Do Ya Fix A Broken Part (1.96 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

Another track off New Values, which I seem to keep on coming back to.

No more leaky holes in your brain, and no false starts

2008-06-17T18:01:00.004+12:00

At the bus station, they have powerful spotlights set into the ground and which point upwards, illuminating things with their powerful powerfulness. When it's late at night and you're waiting for a bus and you're very bored, you can play about with them; for example, you can block them partially with your feet and pull faces:

You can also photograph yourself doing this, to the loud amusement of the attendant deros.

o o o

Thom Yorke out of Radiohead put out an album a couple of years ago. It's called Eraser. I really really like it, although -- notoriously (want a better link? Try Google) -- not all Radiohead fans feel as I do. Atoms For Peace is one of my favourite tracks from the album.

Thom Yorke - Atoms For Peace (3.58 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

Excuse me, but I have VERY IMPORTANT BUSINESS

2008-06-17T14:49:00.002+12:00

I thought this was funny:

... but possibly only because it's fun to make your cat talk to you when they are waiting for you to open the door for them and they are very very very hungry.

"LEMME IN YOU BASTARD!!1!1@!one" etc.

How come the sun's too bright to live

2008-06-17T12:24:00.005+12:00

Last night I was walking home across Newtown about 1am and boy, it was foggy. Not exactly a pea-souper or anything -- I could quite easily see where I was going and whatnot -- but it was doing that weird and neat acoustical thing where the slightest sounds are amplified out of all proportion. Was having a lot of fun strolling down Lawrence Street while sounding like the BFG or something tromping along.

The cell-phone camera really didn't do the business, though -- it's really quite shit in the dark:

When I got home I set about taking some photos with my digital camera -- improvised tripod (stack of books on the window-ledge, anyone?) and all. This is looking west with a 5-second exposure at f2.8:

It's not a completely accurate representation of the scene, but it's as close as I could get. I tried to stop the shutter down but the field depth was too great and the resultant image not as effective.

One thing which alarmed me somewhat was that the flashing red lights on the cranes at the new hospital building site were completely invisible in the fog -- to the naked eye, anyway. "So," I thought, "let's try burning-in a loooooooong exposure to see if the camera can pick them up". This is a 30 second exposure looking north, using f2.8 again -- this time to get as much light as possible:

"Hells bells," thinks I -- "not a smidgeon of a trace of the warning lights. What happens if a plane comes flying down the valley and smacks right into the cranes, or worse still -- one of the hospital buildings!? It'd be like a re-enactment of the bloody Erebus disaster in my back yard!"

I zoomed in to 3x optical (Carl Zeiss lens, thanks for asking) and tried another 30 second exposure:

Wait a minute... did you see that?

Ho ho ho etc. Actually, of course the reason that the warning lights on the cranes were not visible is that construction of the super-structure of the new hospital is complete and the cranes were taken down some weeks ago.

Phew.

yacketayakking screaming vomiting whispering facts and memories and anecdotes and eyeball kicks and shocks of hospitals and jails and wars

2008-06-14T15:29:00.005+12:00

I'm getting kinda tired of the whole killer-guy-from-Twin Peaks-look schtick. It's been a number of months since my project reached fruition and I've done nothing about it and I'm now thinking of something new. In fact, after a comment from a friend a few weeks ago likening me to Allen Ginsberg (R.I.P.) and then seeing the brilliant fantasy scene featuring Ginsberg and Bob Dylan in I'm Not There, I think I will look in that direction.

Of course that's David Cross playing Ginsberg in the film, not the man himself. I probably can't manage that degree of hirsuteness; I may have to go for a more senior Ginsberg a la his 1985 self-portrait (right, via the Village Voice).

I feel I will also have to lose a bit of weight to get there.

o o o

It's Saturday today. Last night at a Mexican restaurant I realised that there is still a lot of very nice tequila about that I haven't yet had the pleasure of drinking. I immediately resolved to rectify this situation. Hopefully this pursuit does not turn out to be mutually exclusive with the Ginsberg project. More soon...

o o o

New album out recently from Wiley. It's called Grime Wave.

Wiley - Local Lad (1.84 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

The sound is STRONG, yo.

I understand that you now are surprised

2008-06-13T12:49:00.007+12:00

I quite like the idea of karaoke, but the reality never quiet matches up to the glory of the fantasy. One of the main problems I have is finding something that I actually would like to sing.

If it were up to me, I would have a karaoke room painted in the blackest black, with a rock-band lighting rig, and blacklights, and minimalist black vinyl and chrome accoutrements, and a karaoke machine stuffed full of my best and favourite music. Like Iggy's The Endless Sea, which I have been walking around singing at the top of my lungs for days now.

Iggy Pop - The Endless Sea (3.29 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

The Endless Sea is off New Values, which I wrote about the other day. What a song. Sometimes I even sing the backing vocals as well as Iggy's main part. And what is up with that keyboard part? Not the tweetily-synths (which are super-awesome in their own right), but the comping: it sounds like a Fender Rhodes run through a laptop running some sort of glitchtronica granulation software -- none of which AFAIK was available in 1979 (aside from the Rhodes). And who would ever have thought that baritone saxes doing an "oompah" part in the bridge would be so powerful.

I'll let you know if I ever get my karaoke room built, 'k?

o o o

I keep finding graffiti around Newtown that I myself must -- but without any recollection of doing so -- have executed.

That is the only feasible explanation, right? No two people can actually come up with the same ideas at the same time completely independently, can they?
Can they really?
Hmm....

Nope, didn't think so ;)

Logo WTF x 2

2008-06-12T17:14:00.005+12:00

This morning I got all testy on The Wellingtonista about a shitty logo and some awful copy which got up my nose. About 20 minutes earlier I had also noticed this:

Yup, that's the logo for the Royal New Zealand Foundation of the Blind. Cute, I guess, that it's in the shape of an eye and depicts impediments to seeing clearly; awful awful awful that the impediment looks like... a blind. WTF, RNZFB?

Awful, awful, awful. Hence today was Logo WTF x 2 day.

Above us is a dirty sky full of youths and liquors

2008-06-11T15:33:00.013+12:00

I spotted another pair of Love Field Deviations; these ones are notable because they appear to have been infected by an alien virus:

This raises the issue of whether or not the infected vexed local Love Field Deviations should've been administered with inoculations and vaccinations against said virus -- or an alien so viral... living spaceapes creatures covered smothered in writhing tentacles stimulate your audio nerve directly... no-one conflicts with me... hallucinating senses individually insiduously or in any combination rhythmically shifting gears focusing intensity... no-one conflicts with me... mind starts slipping from familiar tracks bending warping interfering with the facts sensory language leaves us with no habit for lying... we are hostile aliens immune from dying...

Kode9 - Victims (feat. The Spaceape) (2.63 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

Victims is another track from Kode9 and the Spaceape's amazing Memories of the Future album.

Happy birthday Prince (the purple one), for the other day

2008-06-10T14:43:00.003+12:00

Prince at 49 years of age:

Now 50, just as sweet as...

He loved him madly

2008-06-10T12:02:00.004+12:00

In Nelson, my favourite tree is the persimmon tree in the back yard:

It looks a lot less lovely when it is covered in big green leaves, and the air is not perfectly still, crisp and there's still a surprising amount of warmth in the sunlight even though there's snow on the mountains just over there. And the lure of the persimmon is so great that it turns the eighty-yr old woman next door into a kleptomaniac; under cover of darkness, their number is regularly diminished. The only trace of human activity is a set of mobility-scooter tracks leading up the neighbour's driveway.

Some luv for Dead Bees

2008-06-07T14:54:00.004+12:00

My new seht CD dead bees ((the((quiet)earth))suite) has been out for a couple of months, and I've finally scared up a review! Gayle Brogan, a Scot of note and who runs the Boa Melody Bar music shop/distribution, said:

It's a while since we've had anything from Stephen Clover and this new album delivers with an opening monolithic drone masterpiece. It begins with an ebbing and flowing synth drone with ominous undertow; as the piece progressed the undertow starts to win out and it feels like the dark waves are overwhelming you. The second track is not quite drone-based but is a utterly focussed repetition of some jerky cinema-organ notes until they are submerged in an icy hiss. No-one else does this quite like Seht.

Yeah, yeah I know, one review and a small one at that -- whoop-de-shit. But that's just the way that it goes sometimes. I always enjoy reading what Gayle thinks of my stuff, though. In time, this page is where you'll be able to read other stuff about the album. And, you can still hear a sample from the album here.

Want a copy, anyone? Drop me a line..

o o o

I'm out of town for a few days, and normal activity here may not resume until my return.

No I won't be bored I won't be there

2008-06-05T23:01:00.003+12:00

I've never made a secret of my abundant, absolute and all-consuming love for Iggy Pop. If you're gonna call The Idiot number one and then Lust For Life number two, then 1979's New Values is the third part of a divine trilogy of albums, which -- appropriately -- rivals Bowie's Berlin trilogy in seminality; it's not until the fifth track Don't Look Down, however, that anything* verging on the timeless greatness** of those first two records is approached.

Iggy Pop - Don't Look Down (3.3 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

[*] That's not to in any way diminish the excellence of Tell Me A Story, Girls, I'm Bored and the title track; it's just that they're in a different league.

[**] Is it weird that there's no word which means "the good quality of the song-writing" in the same way that 'lyricism' somehow means "the good quality of the words of the song"? Or is this just Vocabulary FAIL.

Expansionism FAIL

2008-06-05T10:24:00.005+12:00

Once you were there, but now you are gone:

Evidently the Strathmore 44 aren't aware of at least one of the two World's Worst FAILblunders -- never get involved in a turf war in South Wellington [citation required].

o o o

Notice the real estate sign on top of Leo's "Superb Seafood"? I wonder if that means the building is being sold/scheduled for demolition/otherwise gonna disappear? Hope so. That way I won't have to write a really nasty post about how fucken awful their fare is.

Something to go to in Wellington

2008-06-04T16:59:00.002+12:00

My friend John Lake is having an exhibition:

He's an ace photographer and it's going to be really really good, I reckon.

How could some sexy-ass bitches walk around ride-free

2008-06-04T16:32:00.004+12:00

This is a red Toyota Celica *snigger*:

In case you can't read the slogan on the licence plate, it says

SEXY BITCHES DRIVE RED CARS

Now, I've not seen anyone driving the pictured automobile, but rest assured that if I do catch a bitch in or in the vicinity of the red Toyota Celica, I will try to determine the voracity of their alleged sexiness. In the interests of science. And art.

Smog - I Was A Stranger (from Red Apple Falls) (3.89 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

Reportback is pending.

How could someone wicked walk around free

2008-06-04T15:53:00.003+12:00

If you read some of the comments on YouTube regarding the version of My Little Red Book posted yesterday, there's some conflicting opinions as to who did the best version:

A Burt Bacharach song recorded by Manfred Mann and later murdered by Love.

I'm a Love fanatic, but I do think this version (and the film version) captures the essence of Bacharach much better.

this is the definitve [sic] version. reminds me of my childhood growing up in swinging london.

etc.

Say what?

That was horrible.

GrigoriSom (1 month ago):

Manfred Mann never did the definitive version of anything... including The Mighty Quinn.

Thank you. Goodnight.

If my baby don't love me no more, I know her sister will

2008-06-03T17:48:00.004+12:00

I'm pretty disappointed that super-awesome guitarist Bo Diddley has died. This video is a fantastic tribute, though:

German freak-psych-rockers Guru Guru named a song after him on their second album, 1971's Hinten:

Guru Guru - Bo Diddley (6.85 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

There aint no girl in my little red book who could ever replace your charms

2008-06-03T17:19:00.005+12:00

Boy oh boy, I surely love this song:

That's Love performing Burt Bacharach and Hal David's My Little Red Book.

Over at MOG you can listen to Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach performing the song in a style more in keeping with the original intention, you might say -- as in, it's not all Nuggets '66 West Coast garage punk rock.

I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin'

2008-06-02T12:22:00.004+12:00

I'm becoming more and more convinced that I am in control of the weather.

I know that sounds mental, like I am having a psychotic episode or something, but the evidence is beginning to stack up. Have a look at the following timeline:

It was a lovely sunny Saturday (A) so I washed two loads of washing and hung them out. That evening a rainstorm arrived. The rainstorm persisted for a week (B), while I doggedly resisted the offers of a friend to dry my washing at her house -- preferring to run out of socks and underwear.

On a stormy Saturday morning (C) I relented, and carted my washing to her house and dried it. The weather cleared up that afternoon and a period of golden weather ensued (D), ending only on the Thursday (E) that I reckoned was a great day to wash my bedding. I hung the sheets and duvet cover out and a couple of hours later it began to piss down.

This time I was determined I was going to see it out, and get my bedding dry the natural way. It continued to piss down. After almost a week (F) I took everything to my long-suffering friend's house (G) and dried it in her machine.

Thence followed a delightful few days (H) of Indian-summer style weather. Yesterday (I), I reckoned that I should run another quick load through the machine and get it dry. It seemed only moments after I hung everything out that the downpour started.

And on and on it goes.

It's clear that in order to stop the weather turning bad, I must not wash my clothes, and/or hang them out on the line out the back of the house. It's not so clear what is required to turn the current bad weather (X marks today) to the good again. Must I always prevail upon the kindnesses of others? Purchase a dryer? Dry the clothes some other way -- hot-water cupboard, heater, clothes-rack? I'm sorry about this. Until I figure it out, you're going to keep being cold and getting your feet wet. I can only hope the effect is localised.

In the meantime, here's a couple of songs:

Bryan Ferry - A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall (3.66 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

This high-camp cover of Bob Dylan's Hard Rain... got to #10 in the UK singles charts in 1973 or so. British people are sometimes quite weird like that (cf Benny Hill, the Laughing Policemen, early David Bowie etc).

The Cure - Open (4.71 MB mp3: Save As or play)

Open umm.. opens The Cure's 1992 album Wish, which is much more maligned that it deserves to be. Sure it contains a couple of 'novelty' tracks such as Friday I'm In Love, but for the most part it stands alongside bands like Spiritualised and My Bloody Valentine and Bailter Space and so on as far as downer disassociative isolationist oppressive head-fuck multitracked melanges of guitars and noise goes.

I wanted to tag this post misanthropy, but I decided it wasn't really that hateful. I wonder if I should start (another) new tag: cautiously hopeful?

Mouse vs. Magma

2008-06-02T00:02:00.006+12:00

I just saw a mouse in my room. It looked a bit like this:

Actually to be more accurate, it was just leaving my room. And crawling under the door, not fiddling with a steering wheel boat-thing.

The funny thing is I had just put on a Magma album (1978's Attahk, since you asked) so I can only assume the mouse is not a fan of mental 70s French prog-opera. Did I drive it from my room? If so, to my mind that quite clearly makes it: mouse 0, Magma 1.

Magma - The Last Seven Minutes: 1970-77, Phase 1 [1970-71, Phase I] (5.16 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

I suppose it is beholden to me to try to exterminate this mouse. I am not particularly anti-mouse -- though I gotta wonder what the fucken cat has been doing -- but I am hoping that if I can kill the mouse, I will spontaneously cause the entire Disney empire past, present and future to vanish leaving no trace. Except for Vanessa Hudgens, she's a real keeper.

I will keep you posted.

I'm a bad man, you're a penis, and your whole crew stink like faeces

2008-06-01T23:12:00.006+12:00

You can often get a really accurate idea of if I'm having a little period of out-of-control moodswings by whether or not I post little rants here which are barely coherent and generally come across quite poorly. So, to try to answer all the comments and questions received by emails and so on:

[1] I like Newtown. There are crazy people who wander around and they often have amusing slogans on their clothes. So do I. So am I, for that matter. I'm right at home!
[2] I wish that a lot of them were being taken better care of than I suspect they are. I also wish I took better care of myself, as well.
[3] I Am A Soldier In Christ's Army is, well, a pretty full-on thing to be walking around proclaiming, especially to anyone who's read some of the more obscure, extreme passages in the bible.
[4] Some other interesting slogans to wear on one's shirt might be :

I Am A Soldier In Allah's (or Muhammed's) Army: this could potentially cause the wearer to be the target of everything from fear to disgust and even attract the attention of people like police and airport security.
I Wish I Was A Stormtrooper In Hitler's Elite Schutzstaffel Units: you see these guys around occasionally. Usually they look like the sort of knuckle-draggers that would've been gang-raped and then killed by the real SS. And why do they shave their heads? They should grow it out, dye it flaxen-blonde and style it into really sharp haircuts using brylcreem or something.
I Am A Veteran Of The New Zealand Army's Presence in Vietnam 1967-75: quite a topical one.
I Am A Slave In the Nike Army: you see this sort of thing a lot, though not so much the slogan, just the icon. Also, for Nike substitute any sweat-shop child-labour exploiting global clothing franchise.

And so on.

You should be more like Merlin and walk everywhere

2008-05-29T17:01:00.003+12:00

Many years ago now, when a friend moved to Newtown, she remarked that it "must be on the Mental Health Ley-Lines". This was because* of the high incidence of seemingly-crazy people who wandered the streets of our venerable suburb at all hours of the day and night. Presumably they follow the mysterious "crazy-" forces associated with points along the aforesaid Mental Health Ley-Lines, or something.

* (It is probably much more likely to have been something to do with the destructive health policies of the fucken National government 1990 - 1999, but that's beside the point.)

Years and years later, she's still there, and the crazies are still there too, picking up the force-fields with their built-in "crazy-o-meters" and wandering endlessly from point to point. Of course they are. Who ever wins votes by throwing money at improving community-based mental health care? Subsequently I find myself sharing a bus with this guy a lot more often than you'd expect to if you hadn't studied the statistics of chance.

If you can't read it, the writing on the back of his jumper says:

I AM A SOLDIER IN CHRIST'S ARMY

I didn't actually know Christ had an army. Depending on whether or not he's actually dead, I suppose they could be the "Army of the Dead" out of Army of Darkness, or The Lord Of The Rings. Or not. Perhaps he's just advertising the Salvation Army. I wonder if he's armed? At least he's not a soldier in Allah's army, I guess.

Anyhow, go him. He also wears a Placemakers beanie, and smells like a damp old couch that a large dog has slept on for about ten years.

o o o

If you're reading this and thinking to yourself "Fuck me, drinks-after-worker, that's a bit on the nose -- leave the old fullah alone" then fair enough, I take your point. But I've already pretty-much made mine; imagine the reinstatement of decent, comprehensive community-based mental health care. Wouldn't that be a bloody miracle, then?

Birthday cakes

2008-05-29T16:03:00.003+12:00

In the beginning, there was the birthday and the birthday was with cake and cake was the birthday. And the same was in the beginning with *cake:

* Actually, you can probably see that that is a pan of chocolate brownie, rather than cake, but this is a minor detail best left from the narrative for fear of obfuscating the essence of the passage.

This photograph was taken at the best possible moment -- festooned with 34 lit candles, seconds later the candles started to melt as one and a layer of hot, coloured wax was deposited on the cake. You may have thought that this would be an impediment to the consumption of the cake, but it was not; the cake was served hot and almost-cooked, with a large amount of fresh whipped cream. It was paired by our sommelier with a stunningly-good 2006 Johannesdorf gewürtztraminer.

Later on the cake was unfairly targeted by a vicious smear campaign, as one's tummy complained long and hard about the ingestion of this confused mixture of substances.

o o o

Some time later, it came to pass that a second cake was proposed, and the birthday promptly moved upon the kitchen bench and made it so. And the birthday saw that the cake was good:

You probably won't recognise the cake as the classic "Ghost" design, with a sheet of marzipan 'draped' over a conical sponge cake, but veritably that is what it is. It's also not the most moist number ever; it is due to be introduced to a bottle of marsala, or possibly tripel sec, in the very near future.

Severed Heads - We Have Come To Bless This House (5.38 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

You possibly should never expect the worst.

Shaolin from Africa, we apply the massacre

2008-05-27T12:39:00.008+12:00

More goodness from Awesome Tapes From Africa: the other day I ran across this. Straight outta Ghana, Black Monkz are celebrated for being West Africa's best and truest English-language hip-hop crew, and they may also possibly be the most ardent followers of the Wu Tang Clan in the entire continent.

These guys are seriously awesome. Supposedly, the Black Monkz have so much respect and admiration for Wu Tang they held a Ghanaian-style funeral for Ol' Dirty Bastard when he passed away. And in their recordings I can hear distinct echoes of the MC-styles of -- at the very least -- Method Man, Ghostface Killah, and GZA The Genius. Check Monk Funk Classic:

Black Monkz - Classic Instrumentals (2.64 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

I'd quite like to be able to soup up the audio on these tracks sometime; keep an eye out and I'll post if I upload any re-mastered mp3s.

Black Monkz are also well into some Deep Black [Ghanian] Consciousness, as demonstrated in this track and video:

The horse, the man, and his son?

2008-05-26T13:13:00.004+12:00

One of the cool things about the shops in Newtown is that as a general rule, they make a bit more of an effort with the ethnic diversity of their showroom dummies. I particularly enjoyed this little hybrid/multi-cultural family in a Riddiford St window:

Especially the accidental pseudo-religious effect produced by my phone camera when trying to deal with the blow-out from the from-above lighting. Sorry about the crappy photos.

Tilahun Gessesse with the Walias Band - Untitled wailing Ethio-funk classic (14.4 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

Awesome Tapes from Africa is not exactly my Favourite New Blog; more like a perennial favourite for a long time now. If I had time I'd possibly start one in kind: "Awesome Tapes from Newtown", or something.

The best cat in the world

2008-05-23T13:10:00.004+12:00

Surely this is the best cat in the world:

The cat was found in great pain trailing a gin trap clamped to its front left paw in the Christchurch suburb of Yaldhurst on Sunday.

Have you seen the size of that fucken thing? That he was dragging down the road?

The injured cat is recovering well and will be put up for adoption if it is not claimed by its owner by the middle of next week.

"He is a big, friendly cat and there is a good chance someone is missing him."

I know it's still months until Christmas, and even longer until my birthday again, but... can I please has?

Someone?

Sign o the times mess with your mind

2008-05-20T17:43:00.004+12:00

This -- a dread screwed dubstep version of Prince's classic single Sign '☮' The Times -- may very-well be the greatest cover-version ever:

Kode9 feat. The Spaceape - Sine of the Dub (3.63 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

In 2006, after a series of highly-regarded 12" singles, Kode9 and The Spaceape released Memories of the Future -- which is possibly my album of the decade.

Certainly, if you like (the hugely-hyped) Burial and you haven't heard this, you owe it to yourself to check it out. I don't particularly like Burial, and personally I think that Kode9 in general -- and Memories of the Future in particular -- are more deserving of all the acclaim instead.

More dubstep tuneage at Undomondo...

I stumble into town just like a sacred cow

2008-05-20T13:28:00.003+12:00

I've always loved how one of the Chinese takeaways in Riddiford street is called China Grill:

So much so that I thought we should have a little song:

Iggy Pop - China Girl (4.69 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

There's gotta be a name for this kind of thing -- like a greengrocer's apostrophe. It's analagous with the tradition (?) of suburban hairdressing salons bestowing such names as "Snipz" or "Cutz" or "Streaks Ahead" or "Hair Today Gone Tomorrow" or whatever upon themselves. Anyone reading this a linguist? An etymologist? A linguistic etymologist?

Guest blogging...

2008-05-20T13:19:00.002+12:00

I wrote a guest post on The Aucklandista about my trip to the Sylvia Park Mall:

At Sylvia Park Mall, you don’t get anything even remotely as much fun:

No bizarre floaty vortex-place for you, matey. No coffee mugs, even. (Probably.) Nope, at Sylvia Park Mall you got you your Bed and your Bath, and your and er.. Table. Woot.

Misandry FAIL

2008-05-16T10:10:00.000+12:00

Polite, though:

Marked by our memories of a future past

2008-05-15T21:33:00.007+12:00

Last night I was at a bar and I found myself trying to explain what it would be like to experience reality in four dimensions, instead of only three. At the time I felt utterly sober and lucid, but in retrospect I believe I may have been a little bit drunk. Either way, I had them eating out of my hands and marveling at the wonders of the universe.

I didn't actually mention Tralfamadore, but my explanation was cribbed heavily from Kurt Vonnegut's classic descriptions of four-dimensional reality in various novels of his (but in particular Slaughterhouse 5). To paraphrase (thanks wikipedia):

Tralfamadorians have the ability to experience reality in four dimensions; meaning, roughly, that they have total access to past, present, and future; they are able to perceive any point in time at will. Because they believe that when a being dies, it continues to live in other times and places, their response to death is, "So it goes."

Of course, there was never the remotest possibility that I would be able to do as good a job of it as Carl Sagan:

It's important to recognise that while Vonnegut's (and indeed the common) fourth dimension is identified with time -- for example, in Einsteinian relativity physics -- the dimension described by Sagan is a fourth spatial dimension. So in effect, he and I (and indeed Vonnegut) are describing two different things. And have described. And will describe. (Sorry, that was gratuitious.)

If that wasn't enough, Cliff Pickover asks us to consider how it would be to encounter four-dimensional beings in our three-dimensional spacetime. I gave it a shot. I think that is was for exactly this exercise that the phrase "my mind boggles" was coined.

And, The Commonsense Nihilist (whose blog has been going bloody great guns in general lately) recently posted on how to create four-dimensional paintings.

Gig on Saturday

2008-05-15T11:41:00.002+12:00

As Tom details here, The Stumps are playing on Saturday night at Happy with Elise&Jem (from Melbourne) and Black Boned Angel.

I don't know Jem, but Elise (originally from Palmerston North) is from such notable Melburnian acts as On, and BadCopBadCop.

Be like, "Warriors! Come out and playiyay!"

2008-05-15T11:22:00.006+12:00

I'm not exactly sure when this appeared, but it was very recently:

Evidence of expansionism by the Eastern Suburbs' Strathmore 44 gang?

Fake plastic sushi

2008-05-14T12:57:00.002+12:00

One of the best sushi spots* in town, a little place in Brandon Street, also has the best Fake Plastic Sushi:

* Unverified.

What did they do to chill the joy away?

2008-05-14T10:52:00.002+12:00

Apparently there is a "love field deviation" on the corner of Normanby and Riddiford Street, in Newtown:

Thank you to the person who posted this sticker and performed this valuable public service. I'll keep well away from this tree-protector cage thingummy, cos god knows I can do without a deviation in my love field.

I'm enchanted with the possibility that the sticker is is somehow a reference to the form of the tree-protector cage thingummy, which is more than a little reminiscent of classic diagrams of di-polar (electro)magnetic field-lines in (for example) geo-physics:

(click on the diagrams to read lots more)

But I expect that it is more likely a promotional tool for an exhibition of the same name by Wellington painter REMO (Roger Morris), held earlier this year.

I was happy in the haze of a drunken hour

2008-05-13T11:37:00.003+12:00

Down at the local, the arm-wrestling competition begins tonight:

I'm hoping to get along to have a bit of a perve.

Champagne and misery where are you?

2008-05-12T14:10:00.002+12:00

On and off, over the years, a good number of people have asked me why I don't have any work from my Spaceships Of The Mind series available in my online-portfolio.

Are ''Friends'' Electric?, 2002
Oil on canvas, 64x99 cm
(private collection)

So over the weekend I pulled finger, and uploaded some.

That's me in the background, losing my hearing

2008-05-01T20:57:00.003+12:00

Evidence of the first Stumps excursion into the northern lands (aka Auckland, NZ). People seemed to like the show. Girls danced. It was certainly the most intense 50 min of furious noise-rock carnage that we have yet exacted upon a paying audience. Later on, that monitor at front stage right started smoking and we had to stop. Gig: Saturday night.. hearing returned to normal: Tuesday arvo.

Picture by Robyn. There's a WHOLE bunch more here.

The sun never sets on this world I have found

2008-04-30T21:08:00.003+12:00

A song for Wednesday:

Pere Ubu - I Will Wait (2.47 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

... from Dub Housing (wikipedia).

edit
jeez, last night's effort was pretty lame huh. So, let's try again.

If you're interested in rock music; if you're interested in the fringes of rock music, where the madman hold court and the wild things are, then you really need look no further than Pere Ubu. Their late-70s "art-punk" albums capture the angst and chaos of their times -- and ours -- with both apocalyptic fervor and surprising humanity.

Some words about Pere Ubu: insular, fractured, volatile, bleak, whimsical, eerie, tense, anxious, paranoid, confrontational, harsh, gloomy, cerebral, detached, quirky, absurdist warble, rapturous, demented, self-destructing melodies, scattershot rhythms, industrial-strength dissonance, manic intensity, dark impenetrability

Stumps live

2008-04-18T15:29:00.003+12:00

Ok so it turns out that The Stumps are doing a late-notice show tomorrow afternoon. It's at Spacething, a cool little venue/store/library place in Newtown, Wellington. We're playing at 3pm.

Also, if you're in Auckland next weekend, we're playing at the Whammy Bar on Saturday night, 26 April. More details here.....

The Stumps and White Saucer
Saturday, 26 April 2008
at Whammy Bar, 183 Karangahape Road (St. Kevins Arcade), Newton

Dead bees

2008-04-17T16:28:00.004+12:00

I've (finally!) got a new seht CD out which is the follow-up to The Green Morning. It's out on the PseudoArcana label, and it's called dead bees ((the((quiet)earth))suite).

On the PseudoArcana site, the label-boss Antony wrote:

Campbell Kneale once explained that to describe Wellington's seht as drone music is much the same as describing Antarctica as white. Where as many of us utilise the drone as an ingredient, a point of departure, Stephen Clover's seht project distills drones to craft something very like a fine liquor.

One Moment, the 35-minute first track on dead bees is Clover's somnambulist ambient drone masterpiece, a famous insomniac's grand fantasy of sleep. Setting sail with the gentle sound of submerged bells one sinks deeper as lush rich tones gradually merge into a swell of dream-scape waves. Deeper still and one finds oneself glowing in a deep warm golden molasses that shimmers and sways until time somehow folds in upon itself and loses all meaning as ones consciousness shifts into angel gear for the lonnnng coast out.

But Clover is also agent provocateur -- a wry and acerbic wit. To say that there are surprises to follow is an understatement...

That was nice, wasn't it! In time, this page is where you'll be able to read other stuff about the album. And, you can hear a sample from the album here.

cat vs. frog? what the bluddy hell is that, then?

2008-04-16T22:39:00.001+12:00

Der Hund ist ein eifriger Anhänger von Yoga

2008-04-15T16:18:00.002+12:00

I took another picture of Der Hund:

I said "Now greet the sun" and he growled at me.

Der Hund liegt auf dem Beton

2008-04-11T13:30:00.003+12:00

Der Hund, lethargic though he may be, looks like he would take your arm off as soon as look at you.

It's some kind of husky/Samoyed dog, possibly a cross. Doesn't he have bewdiful eyes!?

Buckle up, we're wayward bound

2008-04-10T20:01:00.004+12:00

Breakfast in cemetery, boy tastin wild cherry.. touch girl, apple blossom, just a boy playin possum.

Beat Happening - Indian Summer (5.66 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

Luna - Indian Summer (Beat Happening cover) (5.29 MB mp3)

Sonic Boom (Pete Kember) - Indian Summer (Beat Happening cover) (5.05 MB mp3)

We'll come back for Indian Summer
We'll come back for Indian Summer
We'll come back for Indian Summer
And go our separate ways.....................

what the man said when his wife came home and he thought she was looking a bit sour and then the first thing she said to him was

2008-04-09T16:14:00.001+12:00

"so whose is that new motorcycle parked outside the house?"

The Black Wood reviewed

2008-04-07T13:10:00.003+12:00

A nice little review of the Stumps album from last year, The Black Wood, has turned up in the aQuarius Records catalogue:

In a dream, you've gotten yourself lost in an endless cavern... you've been curiously wandering in the darkness, down down into the earth, for a long long time. When you stop to rest, you realize that the silence that had surrounded you is different now. You think you can hear music... drifting from someplace deeper in the darkness. Drifting, droning, dark, dark, dark... that's this music, the reverberant, cavernous, quiet sounds of The Stumps. Sleepy and creepy at the same time. You move closer, and The Stumps get louder. Troglodytic thud and rumble begins to build. That's the beauty of this album, these tracks are part whale call mystery, part trashy crashy garage rock clangor. Ambient eeriness flows into plodding free rock chaos, with heavy distortion blanketing all. The twelve and a half minute untitled track number 5 (none have titles, as far as we can tell) is all about that drone-drift, whilst track 7, for instance, rouses itself to a spaced-out, slow-motion spasm of psychedelic guitar grind-gunk and percussive splatter-clatter.

The Stumps trio of drummer James Kirk (Sandoz Lab Technicians, Gate, With Throats As Fine As Needles), bassist Stephen Clover (Seht), and guitarist Antony Milton (Mrtyu, AM, Nether Dawn, etc.) is a New Zealand underground supergroup, by the way. No wonder they're so easily so shambolic, somnolent, and sinister sounding... Outside of their own cd-r littered island realm, we couldn't compare this to much else besides, maybe, Fushitsusha.

Welcome to the cavern, welcome to the dream.

i don't care how much i gotta spend, i gotta get back to my baby again

2008-04-04T12:59:00.004+13:00

When on a whim I picked up this 1969 single by The Arbors -- a little-known American pop-group from the 60s (wikipedia) -- singing The Letter, much more famously recorded by The Box Tops in 1967 -- who know knew what a colossally lysergic head-buzz-off stone classic it would turn out to be?

The Arbors - The Letter (5.26 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

OMFG... OMFG... OMFG... did you hear that?

Got some live Stumps if ya wannit

2008-04-01T14:08:00.005+13:00

The Stumps live at Happy, 2007:

From The Noise Machine.....

If it be your will

2008-03-29T19:20:00.006+13:00

Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man is a mediocre documentary about Leonard Cohen which I watched the other night. In amongst the dullness, though, was this:

Antony - If It Be Your Will (live) (4.12 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

That's Antony, out of Antony and the Johnsons, singing the Leonard Cohen classic from Various Positions. God he's good.

For K.

Mould

2008-03-26T15:52:00.004+13:00

Mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould mould.. and a little bit of dusty lichen.

Vangelis - Bladerunner theme (end titles) (3.26 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

Love for Kevin Coyne, recently deceased

2008-03-11T16:59:00.003+13:00

I'm partially blaming this on Martha:

Thought that was weird? Check this out!

Separated at birth #5

2008-03-03T17:48:00.002+13:00

Powers Booth and Doug Graham:

What say you, savages?

FAIL Out Boy

2008-02-29T18:47:00.004+13:00

Fuck Fall Out Boy. Srsly, fuck them. Fall Out Boy, when yr old(er) and fucken burnt out and fucked up and shit, I hope you google yourselves and somehow find this. Remember, get fucked. Get fucked, alot. And I don't mean "get laid". That would be a blessing, not a curse. I mean GO AND GET FUCKED YOU ASSHOLES.

...

What, you may ask, the hell are you on about, drinks-after-worker? Ok, let's do this in bullet-points:

I love David Bowie. A lot.
I hate your band.
I love David Bowie's album Station To Station.
In the opening, title track on Station To Station there's a lyric which goes It's not the side-effects of the cocaine / I'm thinking that it must be love.
Fall Out Boy -- your band, whom I hate (above) (I mean, they're so bad it's comical) released an album (or was it an EP? Who fucken cares) in 2004 called My Heart Will Always Be The B-Side To My Tongue. Stupid, stupid name. It gets worse (what, you hadn't guessed?)
On MHWABTBSTMY there is a song called It's Not A Side Effect Of The Cocaine. I Am Thinking It Must Be Love.

I don't really need to go on, do I?

Here is a "fan video" for the song, which is insipid crap (the song, not the video.) (Although the video is not shit hot either.)

This is much better. It's a (seemingly impromptu) a capella rendition of the section of Station To Station that is in question:

I've heard that if you so desire, you can download a copy of the Fall Out Boy release here: I appreciate comments left! DO NOT STEAL MY LINKS D: \

FAIL Out Boy, if you read this: Fuck You! Also don't forget to GO AND GET FUCKED YOU ASSHOLES.

Ta to Robyn for inspiration.

Tasmanian Devil sympathy

2008-02-29T12:59:00.000+13:00

Awwwwwwwwww......

Poor little bastards are under threat of extinction due to a rare and mysterious cancer disease -- Tasmanian Devil Facial Tumour Disease (DFTD). (story)

S.U.V. wheelcover & Tasmanian Devil misanthropy

2008-02-29T12:49:00.002+13:00

Ah well, it's gotta be better than the standard Tazzie Devil ones, right?

The first Roxy Music album

2008-02-27T09:54:00.008+13:00

Michael Bracewell has written a new book on Roxy Music. It's called Re-make/Re-model, published by Faber & Faber (London 2007) and Roxy's sensational, amazing first album gets the book (and book review) it deserves.

Unused album artwork for Roxy Music (1972)

I'd never seen or heard anything so clearly made for me and my art-school manqué world-view. The cover, with Kari-Ann Muller in classic 1940s' pin-up pastiche, all pink ribbons and silver platforms, was Big Biba Rainbow Room. The contents covered all the bases: the Warholian ones, the art history ones, the Ladbroke Grove, gay-friends-of-Hockney ones. Of course, Bryan Ferry looked fantastic and, despite all the unbearable cleverness, the music went like a train - plangent sax, driving drums - offsetting Brian Eno's synth weirdness. They played at the Royal College of Art that year and then at The Rainbow, a Low Deco kitschfest in itself. This really was Tomorrow Calling.

Check the essay; watch the videos; buy the book. Wowowowowowow

‘Do the Strand’ on The Old Grey Whistle Test

Glasses of happy

2008-02-26T13:28:00.006+13:00

You may think that it sux0x being stuck in an office on such a lovely day as this; but let me tell you, you've no cause for disconsolance when you've a pair of Found Peach-Tinted Happy Glasses (TM):

There's no way anything can be wrong in the world with a pair of these wrapped around yer pies. Although I had to add the comedy LOLmouth cos I wasn't looking happy enough.

The Best 12 ANZAC War Stories EVER!

2008-02-22T16:18:00.004+13:00

I may just have found the very most awesome book in the history of ever. Ever.

"Take that, cobber!" "Achtung!" "BANZAI!" "Donner Und Blitzen!" "Ye Gods!"

Hoo boy.

40,000 reasons

2008-02-20T12:43:00.004+13:00

Cool. This morning at some point I've limped past 40,000 visits, so let's have a song to celebrate:

Orange Goblin - Hand of Doom (6.25 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

Yep, it's a cover of the Black Sabbath tune.

Warning: Spoiler

2008-02-19T14:50:00.004+13:00

Joy!

My 18-month-long self-renovation art-project -- making myself over in the image of the killer from Twin Peaks -- has almost reached fruition.

Mai new house, you should see mai new house

2008-02-06T19:10:00.000+13:00

Ok, I moved house. And now I find myself in Newtown. Which is weird, because I quite literally have not lived more than a spit away from the heart of Wellington City for more than 15 years.

So this is my local:

I gotta be honest and say that I am not 100% sure what is going on with his right eye. Is he winking conspiratorially? (Hey, fellah, come inside and umm we can drink sum beer eh?) Is it a black eye? Has he been rucked in the face?

The Fall - My New House (4.84 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

But anyway that's a mighty fine looking tankard of beer he is brandishing. Makes me thirsty just looking at it.

New Brutalism

2008-01-30T11:11:00.000+13:00

It's been an interesting month here at Drinks-After-Work. There hasn't been much blogging goin' on, that's fer sure. I've been on holiday for about a month and there's been no damn time, you know? There's been a hell of a lot going on which I'll cover off in another post, shortly, if I can find a dignified way of doing so. But suffice it to say that I've spent most of that time getting drunk, and the rest of the time sleeping.

Otherwise I've spent a lot of time looking at pictures of Brutalist architecture, inspired in part by Robyn (also see pic here).

...

I thought we'd better have a song, so here's one* from Chris Whitley:

Chris Whitley - New Machine (3.80 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

It's off Din of Ecstasy from 1995, and his most-hated album/least well-regarded on Allmusic.com out of about a dozen efforts. For example, here's the Allmusic review:

On his second album, Whitley abandons the atmospheric acoustic blues-rock of his debut for a hard-hitting, grungy guitar attack. Appropriately, the songs are all about losers and hard times -- it's a dark, bleak album, twisting through its songs with a grim determination. The problem is, it doesn't always work. Whitley's lyrics are still rooted in the folk-blues storytelling tradition, while his music follows the rules of contemporary hard rock, complete with start-stop dynamics and thick layers of distortion. However, he can't write riffs that equal the best of Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden, nor does he have melodies to rival theirs. His music works best a lyrical level and the musical approach on Din of Ecstasy obscures his lyrics, making the record a muddled affair.

See, aside from the first two sentences which are correct, that's complete and utter bullshit. It's a sensationally, exceedingly-cool record, and at some point I'm going to write about it a bit more.

And why does Allmusic.com have such trouble with awesome albums about being/getting fucked up?

* Anyone get the connection?

...

There's also probably gonna be a few minor changes to DAW, too. In my 4th year, at well over 500 posts now, I'm approaching 40,000 reads and I decided to have a wee overhaul, both to the layout and to the content. Some of the changes are immediate -- for example the "tag-cloud" in the left side-bar (I can't have a real tag cloud because *cough* Blogger is a *cough* ass), and the broken archives navigation (sorry about that) -- and others will be coming as I find time to get them sorted out.

Separated at birth #4

2008-01-24T20:40:00.000+13:00

River Phoenix and Heath Ledger:

What say you, savages?

New Stumps cassette album "Exigence" released

2008-01-16T00:48:00.000+13:00

The Stumps Exigence C60 (Lady Garden, via Scumbag Relations, 2008).

Co-Stump Antony Milton wrote:

So the new Stumps album is out. It has amazing cover artwork by Yunico Uchiyma. This is some of my favourite Stumps stuff yet. Its basically a collection of the best of the stuff that we haven't been able to use on record or CD due to excessive digital distortion or whatever. On cassette this just doesn't seem to matter so much.. But yeah- I fully recommend this one- its the perfect blend of our more ambient studio stuff and the pull out the jams rock excess of the live shows...

Label-guy Eric once wrote:

cassettes of mind melting calibre with artwork by always crazy psychedelic artists
...
this stuff ripped my mind apart.

epic and heavy heavy heavy. listening for the second time right now...seems a little more peaceful than the first listen which blasted me waaaay out !!

I love the change at the 13 minute mark on the A side. Reminds me a lot of Landfall at first before everything gets incinerated... Harsh as I've ever heard you guys!

puh

fully engulfed!

We should have copies soon but otherwise you can get it from Scumbag Tapes.

In the meantime you can listen to a couple of the tracks here.

Bea Arthur Porn Party

2008-01-15T20:39:00.000+13:00

I wonder if Bea Arthur (TV's The Golden Girls, etc.) ever indulges in vanity googling (as well as every fucking one else).

I wonder if she's come across this, yet:

Intestinal Disgorge - Bea Arthur Porn Party (1.06 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

Intestinal Disgorge is a porn/gore-grind band from Texas, USA. This track is from their album A Cock Work Whore Binge. (Get it?)

I found them here.

You might be tempted to dismiss them as a bunch of fucking sick monkeys, but I'm quite enchanted with the fresh viewpoint they bring to the increasingly commercial and transactionalised area of inter-gender power relationships.

"Women Lie Alot"

You have to give them a few props, though, cos the cute* baldy in the front row is wearing a t-shirt for Judas Iscariot, probably the best-ever non-Scandinavian black metal outfit.

*serial-killer cute

....

I did another one of those radio shows. Here's the playlist:

David Bowie -- Black Country Rock from The Man Who Sold The World
Can -- Thief from Delay '68
Ghost -- Escaped and Lost Down in Medina from Hypnotic Underworld
Black Sabbath -- Under the Sun from Volume 4
Roxy Music -- Beauty Queen from For Your Pleasure
Polyphonic Spree -- Section B (It's the Sun) from The Beginning Stages Of...
Labradford -- Midrange from Labradford
Signer -- Building Memories Without You from Low Light Dreams
Velvet Cacoon -- Genevieve pt. 1 from Genevieve
Snapper -- Buddy from Snapper EP
Sting -- Russians from Dream of the Blue Turtles
Chris Bell -- Speed of Sound from I Am The Cosmos
Sneaky Feelings -- Waiting for Touchdown from Send You
The Terminals -- Uncoffined from Uncoffined
Bailterspace -- New Man from Nelsh EP
Stranglers -- Get a Grip from Rattus Norvegicus
Clean -- Billy Two from Compilation
Captain Beefheart -- I'm Gonna Booglarise You Baby from The Spotlight Kid
Big Star -- Thank You Friends from Third/Sister Lovers
Johnny Thunders -- Born To Lose from some compilation/reissue
Darkthrone -- Slottet I Det Fierne from Transilvanian Hunger
Jean-Paul Satre Experience -- Flex from J.P.S.E. EP
Only Ones -- Another Girl, Another Planet from The Only Ones
Thom Yorke -- Analyse from The Eraser
Radiohead -- Bodysnatchers from In Rainbows
Robert Forster -- Danger in the Past from Danger in the Past
Phil Davison -- Memorial from Songs for the Dead of Gandamek

Dance, dance, dance, dance, to the radio

2008-01-07T12:47:00.000+13:00

Just a wee heads up: I'll be presenting the very first Wellingtonista Radio Show on The VBC tonight. The VBC is the student owned and operated/community LPFM radio station broadcasting on 88.3FM, based at the Kelburn Campus of Victoria University of Wellington, in New Zealand.

I've had little luck picking up their signal on my radio -- which is odd given that I live quite close to the transmitter (I think I'm in the shadow of a hill) -- but the streaming feed (http://202.50.176.139:8000/listen.pls) works just fine. The show will go from 7 - 9 pm, NZDT (GMT+13). The studio line is +64 4 463 9994 if you feel like ringing up and abusing/encouraging me.

Things is in they infancy, but expect the show to grow and grow and take on a life and form of its own over the early weeks of the year, with contributions from many of the Wellingtonista's writers.

Chrimbo hiatus

2007-12-26T06:22:00.000+13:00

Xmas day was the culmination of about five days of solid drinking; details to follow.

However there'll be short hiatus while Drinks After Work goes here; hopefully they'll have booze.

Friday Farce: Leave me alone

2007-12-21T15:39:00.000+13:00

Thie weeks Friday Farce is a real farce. Not one of these nice-fests we've been having lately. And don't get me wrong, I really rate Joe Pernice and The Pernice Brothers and and and and so on... Joe (and band) plays sweetly darkened melancholy bliss-pop like no other:

Pernice Brothers - Crestfallen (5.34 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

Chappaquiddick Skyline is Joe's solo project. The name is something to do with the mysterious death in 1969 of Sen. Edward Kennedy. Unfortunately, Joe chose to cover a New Order song. (We love New Order, remember?):

Chappaquiddick Skyline - Leave me alone (3.03 MB mp3)

Here's the original, the closing track from Power, Corruption and Lies:

New Order - Leave me alone (4.29 MB mp3)

Oh Joe, Joe, what were you thinking?

Lemme hear ya say Fa-arce....

Why? He could have done so much better. I hoped for more, but its just.... meh.

What is and what should never be

2007-12-21T12:15:00.000+13:00

The other night I dreamt that I was doing Led Zeppelin songs at a karaoke bar.

Not just easy ones, either. I was in some kind of competition, and I won it by getting somewhat intoxicated and utterly nailing What is and what should never be, from Led Zeppelin II. Drunken master indeed.

Led Zeppelin - What is and what should never be (3.46 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

Not that this scenario would be in the least bit plausible IRL, because I can't sing to save myself. I do love that song, though.

I was a huge Led Zeppelin fan when I was a teenager, then I went completely off them. Recently I started pulling out all their albums, though, and was stunned by just how bloody marvellous most of their recorded output is. When I awoke it took me quite a while to find out what exactly the song was that I had been singing -- had no idea, y'dig -- and eventually I found it tucked away on the first side of II, between the twin towers of horror that are Whole Lotta Love and The Lemon Song. Which just goes to show... something...

Stumps, Khomet, Psychic Sidekick and so on

2007-12-21T11:35:00.000+13:00

The Stumps are playing tonight with a couple of bands from Dunedin -- Khomet and Psychic Sidekick -- as well as the Mr. Sterile Assembly.

This is a lo-fi-ish compression of a song from The Stumps' recent Palindrone LP, Split Fleet Dodge (page):

The Stumps - That with the greatest mass (Will be indicated) (7.90 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

There is, however, no guarantee whatsoever that we will sound anything like that tonight.

Flex yourself and muscle me in like we're in this together

2007-12-20T20:33:00.000+13:00

I really like this song.

The JPS Experience - Flex (5.64 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

I found it on KiwiTapes.

More Pink Metal

2007-12-19T15:33:00.000+13:00

Hmmmmmmmmmmm.... how best to feature another track from CJA's Pink Metal.........

hmmmmmmmmmmm....

Like this, I reckon.

CJA - Hexperam (5.64 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

Yep.

Art(-less)(i)ness

2007-12-18T14:46:00.000+13:00

Art cards support emerging NZ artists

Art cards are top quality greeting cards featuring the art of young, emerging New Zealand artists. For every card you buy, $1 is given to the artist to help support their careers and enable them to continue to develop their art practice.

Art cards are professionally designed and photographed, printed in New Zealand, fully recyclable and have no unnecessary packaging.

...more...

Finding art in all the wrong places..........

Pink Metal

2007-12-18T10:36:00.000+13:00

Pink Metal is the name of a recent album by CJA, aka my friend Clayton Noone. It's really good.

As sometimes happens, the site I write for asks me to review albums which are put out by friends -- this is never easy. Luckily, to date, they've never asked me to review anything by anyone that I know that absolutely sucked. But regardless, it always makes me a bit nervous and I procrastinated for a while -- 'til eventually one day recently I was washed away in a flash-flood of enthusiasm and got the damn thing written. I'm worried that it's a bit too hyperbolic, but what they hey -- I really, really like this album and I'm so proud for CJA.

Here's the review.. it'll be going up on Foxy Digitalis this week sometime anyway, but I thought I'd post it here as well:

CJA
PINK METAL
PSEUDOARCANA 2xCDR

Pink Metal is a massive double CD-R wrapped in a super goofy garish hand drawn heavy metal style handmade sleeve-booklet. Sound-wise you're looking at 80, 90 minutes of fuzzed-out smashed solo(-ish; the occasional drummer guests) guitar noise slurp-rock jams, synth blurts and acoustic strum-a-ludes, all facing the wall, mumbling into the mic and avoiding your gaze kinda detached/sociopathy.

It's packaged in an oversized thick paper, black, white and purple multi page booklet, adorned with awesome high school-binder heavy metal / Dungeons & Dragons imagery, huge muscled demon warriors, swords and maces, and slain foes laying heaps on the ground, strange fiery aliens, Silver Surfer like creatures firing lasers from their fingertips, spike headed beasts, samurai warriors, cloaked demons, dragons, and growling wolf beasts, ultra violence, and decapitations, skeletons, zombies, ninjas and more (drawn by CJA's brother Richard Noone). All black and white, but with all the text in a garish bright purple, blood dripping metal font. (-- Aquarius)

It doesn't get much more nonchalant than this. Nary much of a consideration is made to the listener; be there or not. Pay attention or don’t. This is CJA's monochromatic, meditative, self-medicated imperturbable strum and blur at its most expansive; at the same time its eclectic compilative sprawl of around 25 tracks is more focused than you'd expect, and probably the closest you'll ever be allowed to get inside the CJA truck.

Pink Metal is the most complete statement of outsider free-form grunge-skuck monochord folkisms and downer distorto-noise conglummery I can think of in the ten or more years since Gate's The Dew Line. It's like lowering a bucket of molasses fug over your head and eyes. It's probably the end of rock. 9/10

Maybe you should listen to this while you (try to) read my review:

CJA - My Dog's Blue Collar (5.64 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

Yep.

EDIT
There's another track here.

Totally non-wack Xmas compilation

2007-12-17T16:30:00.000+13:00

In order to offset my seasonal-misanthropy, and to ensure a totally non-wack Xmas day, I've decided to compile a Totally Non-Wack Xmas Music Compilation.

Yeah, I thought it was a good idea too.

Then my mind went totally blank.

The criteria is somewhat complicated. For a start, the tune cannot be wack in any shape or form. Things that could make a tune be wack include:

it's on every other goddam Christmas compilation (no Snoopy's Christmas, y'dig)
it's overtly, inertly or otherwise-didactically Christian or theological in some way
.. and some other rather tenuous and difficult to describe aspects

So far I've got:
James Brown -- Signs of Christmas
James Brown -- Let's make Christmas mean something this year
Stevie Wonder -- The day that love began
Stevie Wonder -- Someday at Christmas
Stevie Wonder -- Silver bells
Stevie Wonder -- Twinkle, twinkle, little me
Stevie Wonder -- What Christmas means to me
Stevie Wonder -- The miracles of Christmas
Stevie Wonder -- Everyone's a kid at Christmas time
and uh.. Big Star -- Jesus Christ

The James Browns are pretty much the only ones from this which don't suck ass. I mean are non-wack. The Stevie Wonders are from this, and there's bound to be much less of them in the final mix as soon as I can replace them with some other tracks.

There doesn't need to be a particular emphasis on funky-ass; just some soul and a little bit of melody will do. I'm anticipating there's probably some furious, stonkin' gospel shit out there which would go off... hopefully. I had high hopes for this compilation which I found on the blogosphere, but most of it is kinda lame -- with some stunning exceptions.

So can you help?

...

Come along to this, on Wednesday night, if you can (and are in Wellington, NZ):

This is a free event. It'll be grand.

Mystery Monday: e t y n *s *****e

2007-12-17T13:03:00.000+13:00

I've been thoroughly rebuked for posting a picture of the "back side" of the Xmas tree which doesn't show the good bits. So:

Oh, the majesty.

...

I'm having a not-very-into-Christmas kinda day. And then I was picking through some photos and found this picture of the "Nativity" tableau (is that a tableau? a diorama? a "scene"?) outside the church near the "top" of Queen Street -- where it intersects with Karangahape Road -- from about this time last year.

If I were to remove my "hat of cultural sensitivity", I would be moved to make one or more observations:
1. Those are some very Palestinian-lookin' wise men.
2. That is a particularly Jewish-lookin' Mary (in the modern sense, i.e. grew up in Queens or Yonkers and moved to Israel in their thirties, after 'reconnecting' with their faith).
3. What the hell are those there wise men presenting to Mary and The Child? An IED? A mortar round? A small tactical nuclear weapon?

This congregation is not afraid to wear their political leanings on their sleeve, as it were, are they. Can we take it for read that they're not supporters of the Zionist movement? I'm dying to find out if they've got some equally fantastic display outside their church this Christmas.

...

As usual, prizes will be awarded if you can tell me what/who this track is...

And if you are a maker of musical mysteries and would like to contribute to this feature, contact me offline to organise stuff.