Podphreaking

In 1993 Billy Idol released his first post-motorcycle-crash album, Cyberpunk. It was critically lambasted and fared miserably in the charts; rightly so, it was an abominable mess of horrid, horrid yucky clueless genre/style (mis-)appropriation. Probably the most gut-wrenchingly awful bit of the album was the EBM cover of The Velvet Underground's Heroin, complete with wailing divas, innappropriate Patti Smith quotes, and drum breaks which even in 1993 were sounding real dated. It's just nasty. (Allmusic.com called it "one of the worst covers ever recorded").

It was also about this time that Idol began posting to the UseNET group alt.cyberpunk using the handle lyle libido (an anagram of "Billy Idol"), enthusiastically declaring his newly-acquired interest in new-tech, hacking, virtual reality, cyber-sex, AI, and that sort of thing (I'm not gonna link that shit up; google it if you must). Of course the hackers and philosophers and cyber-nerds and "industrial" music freaks on the group would have none of it, reacted very petulantly, and in doing so started one of the classic and most entertaining flame-wars in the early history of the internet. I ended-up feeling sorry for the guy - after all he just wanted to connect with the cyber-peeps.

Anyway, none of this is explaining - following on from yesterday's post on mp3-players and serendipitous random-play sequencing, or podflow - how an mp3 of Idol's cover version of Heroin found its way on to my new mp3-player.

I've never posessed an mp3 of Billy Idol's Heroin. I haven't even heard it for 13-14 years, and back then, there was no such thing as an mp3* - the cutting-edge of portable-music was the mini-disc. Hell, there was hardly even CDs, if I recall correctly. (Ok so that's a lie, but you catch my drift!). So you can imagine the sound my jaw made when it hit the ground when my mp3player started playing it on my way to work THIS morning.

WTF? Where the fuck did it come from? Did my player download it from a satellite? From someone else who I passed in the street? Did it.. argh, fuggit. Again, WTF?

So anyway I felt the need to coin another new term - podphreaking.

(from 'pod' n., An abbreviation of iPod, a generic term for high-capacity portable music-players, and 'phreaking' n. hacking telecommunications networks to obtain free phone calls.)

Amusingly, with 15 or so years worth of water under the bridge, Heroin just sounds like shitty commercial techno a la Gatecrasher, or something Sample Gee vomited up; something like that. But don't take my word for it...

Billy Idol - Heroin (right-click and Save As to download)

Here's Gareth Branwyn's (creator of Beyond Cyberpunk!) viewpoint on the whole Billy Idol/Cyberpunk business.

*well, there was music compression of a sort, but it wasn't exactly the consumer-electronics revolution that it is now.

Podflow

This is what my mp3-player threw up in shuffle-mode on my trip to work this morning:

Maurice - This is acid (from VA Can You Jack)
Talking Heads - Born under punches (the heat goes on) (from Remain in Light)
Chrome - Zero time (from Half Machine Lip Moves/Alien Soundtracks)
Talking Heads - Seen and not seen (from Remain in Light)
Chrome - Pygmies in zee dark (from Half Machine Lip Moves/Alien Soundtracks)
Moussa Dombia - Keleya (from VA World Psychedelic Classics 3: The Psychedelic Sounds Of West Africa)
Miles Davis & John Scofield - Perfect way (from Tutu)
Vertical Slit - Circles and squares (from Twisted Steel and the Tits of Angels)

It was a wonderful few minutes on a wonderful, still, foggy morning; a fantastic mix and a series of moments of incredulous serendipity of increasing intensity. To be quite honest, I couldn't have done better myself.

So I began wondering if there was a term in common usage which covered this kind of thing. A quick google/wiki/urbandict and I couldn't find anything.

So ladies and germs, I give you... podflow.

(from 'pod' n., An abbreviation of iPod, a generic term for high-capacity portable music-players, and 'flow' n. A DJ's ability to mix records sequentially in a skillful and pleasing manner.)

Eagle

Hi. Sorry about the lack of posts all last week. I was in a weird place, and I couldn't blog.

They had really odd decorative trinkets there, though, which partially made up for it.

Also, the Blogger website crashes Netscape on Solaris 10 (the operating system, not the fictional planet with the "baffling alien intelligence"), so that didn't help matters.

Genonymous got the Mystery Bar: it was indeed Ponderosa - specifically their amazing flocked wallpaper. Well done to her.

Website of the day: Genevieve Packer would like you to pray for her. She's after a number of thing, amongst them a laptop, some dentistry, a new pair of glasses, and an unquenchable passion for the Lord. I'm certainly going to be rooting for her in her quest for the latter - if the "Lord" is anything like the genies/djinnies that legend holds come out of things when you rub them, the "Lord" is given to literal interpretation and the thought of Genevieve being granted in perpituity a literally unquenchable passion for an abstract and unrealisable concept is too giggle-worthy to pass up.

Mystery bar

Mystery bar:

So. What the hell was up with town last night? At 10pm, closed were Concrete*, Dojo** and Beaujolais. A quick glance from the top of Woodward St suggested heading in the direction of Confidential, or even Liquidate, was a waste of time. So, a quick cab to the other end of town and the discovery that the slapper-barns (Maya, Red Square, Establishment, Jet, U-U et al) were virtually deserted. Were the girl-slappers and 'tards (boy-slappers) on strike in support of the junior doctors? Hmmm. Who can say.

On the upside, Ponderosa was nice, apart from being insanely warm (the upstairs area was like a sauna!); Mercury Lounge still show good films, but play bad music and can't make only average drinks (dry martini: 6.5); and Motel is for me streets ahead of the competition on all counts - two FLAWLESS 1951 Martinis.

Highlight of the night - apart from the aforementioned '51s - was the conversation with the barely-dressed 'hostess' outside Mermaids:
Me - "That's not a skirt"
her - "Yes it is"
Me, insistent - "That's so not a skirt"
her - "In there," pointing, "it's a GOWN".

Notes:
* So much for $8 cocktails on a Thursday night.
** So much for "open 11.30am til LATE" on a Thursday night.

(click images for larger versions)

Guys

Weird guy, and CASIO:

Then these two guys came along as well:

Cnr Palmer and Willis Streets. (click images for larger versions)

Tattoo

Oh yeah. At the risk of posting more in half-an-hour than Martha does in a whole afternoon...

I finally got around to getting my tattoo done.

Pizza redux

Now that my pizza rant of a few months past has been reanimated, I felt the need to establish a definite hierarchy.

1. Pizza Pomodoro (Leeds St). Unapproachably superior in every way.
2. Boulot (Blair St). Previously subject to some obbrobrium relating to the burnt-base incident, they have re-established themselves recently following several evening appraisal sessions involving large drinks and even larger hangovers.
3. Woodfired Pizzaria (Marine Pde, Day's Bay). Until recently indistinguishable from Mediterranean Food Warehouse - including in menu - but have advanced their cause significantly of late. Points off for being in Days Bay, but not enough to let through...
4. Mediterranean Food Warehouse (cnr Constable & Daniel Sts, Newtown). Decent.
5. Hell (all over). Still the best of the chains. A recent discovery has improved their stock somewhat.
6. Pizza Hut (all over). Actually appear to know how to make something resembling pizza. Not at all like...
7. Dominos (all over). A joke. Their toppings are weird at best, but mostly rubbish. They're coupon-nazis. They have limited payment options. Their "triple-cheese" base should be the subject of an enquiry by the World Health Organisation. The ONLY thing in their favour is thet they're often open at 2am in the morning.

Know your place

The winelist from the Newtown Sports Bar:

Now there's a slogan which can be read a number of ways.

More Nelson

Oh goodie, look what I found. More photos from Nelson, thought lost, but (re-)discovered filed in the wrong place.

First up, an advertisment from a bakery in Nelson, touting what has to be the most amazing pie EVER:

Secondly, a couple of shots from the 90's Retro Theme Party at Harry's Bar in Hardy St.

Though a poor second to a good 24 Hour Party People, it was good fun, despite a little too much reliance on cultural artifacts like glow-sticks, flashing jewellery, shirtless djs, head/sweat bands, yada yada, and, er, the "hostess with the mostest" (pictured). The Sifter would have had a huge one.

A word about Harry's. I may have been previously graceless enough to bemoan the lack of decent bars in Nelson. It's certainly a popular topic of conversation amongst the locals whenever I am there. Until recently the only viable options have been these barn-style beer halls (The Grumpy Mole, below left), or "hip" little bars like Fiction (below, middle and right) which try oh-so-hard to get it right, but get it oh-so-wrong - attractive and well-meaning but clueless midgets rather than competent barstaff; wretched djs and live acts at innappropriate volumes; Playboy-theme parties, anyone?

There's even dives like the Rock Bar, with its wall-to-wall RTDs, large screen music videos, on stage sex sandwiches at 3.05 am, and a cocktail list which can at best be described as humourous:

But of late things have started looking up. There's (the bizarrely and slightly unfortunately named) Bar Delicious in Trafalgar Street, where the staff actually appear know how to make drinks and serve them. And then there's the adforementioned Harry's, which serves delicacies such as the "Long Beach Iced Tea" - a Long Island Iced Tea made with 'premium' spirits (Grey Goose, Tanqueray 10, Club 151, Jose Cuervo 1800, and Cointreau) and something kinda different as the split (this is all from memory - forgive me if I'm slightly hazy on the details). They still don't seem to know how to make a good Martini though, which is why I have to resort to ordering straight spirits.

Note: If you follow the link to the Long Island Iced Tea recipe - don't even think about making one with cola; dry ginger ale is the only thing you should ever put between you and a conglomeration of loverly tipples like that.

(you know the drill, click for larger)

Graf

The street art around the place continues to impress.

I've tracked "neonate" from a phone booth in Aro Valley to a door on a derelict building in Thorndon, deep in the heart of the government precinct:

This showed up briefly on the Winslow Appts building in Aro Street last summer before being painted out; it may be my favourite ever:

I'm particularly fond of the very well-rendered teeth - highly reminiscent of the broken and battered stumps in a cattle skull that's been washed up on a beach - and the complex system on the left which makes me think of circuit diagrams and the illustrations in a maritime semaphore manual.

This guy has just started popping up lately:

Gut instinct tells me it could be by neonate too, but I'm happy to be wrong.

These slightly-less stylised images have been popping up too. I have a real soft spot for them, despite - or possibly even because - they look like stuff I have been drawing lately. Whether or not the "circle-P" graf forms the same supposed function as the ol' shoes over the power-line trick (Snopes; Urban Legends; Strait Dope) I am not sure.

I'm not 100% sure either what is going on here (on a pavement in Constable Street, Newtown):

It may be as innocuous as marking out a site for a proposed joint reticulation (cable, gas, power, phone, whatever) but it reminds me of the runes you see on album covers of Finnish black metal bands (not that I could find any on the 'web; a French band will have to do).

Finally - someone has gone to an awful lot of trouble to helpfully mark up the urinal at Lovelock's sports bar in large (and presumably waterproof) Letraset-style adhesive type:

I felt that some form of honouring of this effort was appropriate. So, here's to you, whomsoever you may be. Cheers.

(as usual, click the images for larger versions)

Purty

I guess it's a little like circuit-bending - and then again, you could argue that it's not really like that at all - but I'm really getting into playing around in the boundaries of the capabilities of the parameters of the camera on my phone.

So far this has mainly consisted of taking ECU - so ECU that the camera can no longer focus - pictures of jewellery (thanks Manju and Kate). But I have PLANS. And IDEAS. So be warned.

(as usual, click the images for larger versions)

Nelson

Was in Nelson over the weekend for my little brother's 30th birthday party (and my little sister's 23rd). My god they grow up fast, don't they. My god I sound like a twat, don't I, saying that.

I was able to check out a group show that Andy is participating in at The Suter gallery. It's called Undercurrent. The Suter Te Aratoi o Whakatu is pretty much Nelson's paramount art-space.

Andy exhibited a colossal light box that he pinched from a closed-down clothing store and which I had helped him wire up last time I was down. It's about 3 meters wide. I think the work also comes with a t-shirt.

Our mate Jim MacKay the well-awesome glass-artist ("Fingers of God" project here [PDF 253KB]) was showing a work called "I know what your [sic] thinking". Hopefully you can see that it's a giant rendition of a Newton's Cradle (charming but perfectly awful clunky Java applet representation here), using glass brains.

I don't actually know what your [sic] thinking, but I'm thinking myself that this piece would provide a pretty inappropriate demonstration of the principles of energy transference. But at the same time, it would be pretty and spectacular to try it out.

The whole show was actually pretty great. I'd heartily recommend that you check it out if you get the chance; only I won't, 'cos it finished on Saturday the 3rd of June just passed.

We also went shopping: I refrained from purchasing any Mole SKINS, even at that great price (left), but I was able to pick up one of each of these at the Nelson market.

The Le Champs De Miel Methode Traditionalle "New Zealand sparkling forest honey wine" is perfectly dry and deliciously flavoursome. The Nymph's Kiss Manuka Honey Liqueur is currently being evaluated for it's suitability in a Cosmopolitan as a substitute for, or companion to, the tripel sec (Cointreau or similar). So far it's faring really rather well.


(click the images for larger versions, generally)

9 Beet Stretch

O wowowowowowow.

'9 Beet Stretch' is a recording of Ludwig van Beethoven's ninth symphony stretched to 24 hours, without pitch distortion, presented as a continuous 24/7 audio webstream.

... just click and go...

6/6/06: The Day of the Beast

'Eavy sounds podcast for the Day of the Beast. Enjoy.

Tag

Tom posted the other day about tagging, making the very salient point that while he is not naturally a fan of this particular species of "street art", anything that irritates the hell out of Karl du Fresne is by logical extension ok with him.

I agreed.

Meanwhile, if is this is a graffito - and I believe it could be said to be so - can we expect to also start seeing tags which are visible from space?

Dust

(Old news but cool) Video clip of dust devils on Mars (click image for much larger view):