Misanthropy pt. 1

1. Exclusive to The Mill Liquorsave - the "Beer Ball": 800 ml of fresh beer in a convenient ball-shaped bottle.

Uh, since when the fuck was a ball-shaped bottle convenient?

2. Arobake. (In case you can't read it, the text on the bottom of the sign reads "Nearly all cultures believe that a Ladybird is lucky!")

And I imagine that most of those cultures also believe that putting wack faux-mysterious gobbledegook on your shop's signage is stoopid and tasteless.

If you only spent more time learning how to make bagels properly; now, that would be lucky - for everyone.

(click the images to enlarge)

Guitar bling

Oh dear. I felt a disturbance in the force as soon as I laid eyes on it. So, I'll wager, did my bank manager. Mojo Sound is a brand new store in Cuba Street, purporting to deal in custom guitars, amplifiers and accessories. I couldn't bring myself to actually venture within, but it's time will come, you mark my words. (click picture to enlarge)

It's all about tone, apparently.

House bling

Despite my natural stinginess, about once a year - around this time - I get all home-nest-feathery or some shit, and go and buy some kind of homewares. Last year it was a second-hand microwave. After both of my beautiful 50-yr-old vintage chrome toasters broke down irrepairably, this year it was a new toaster (see pic). Ain't it purty, Cleetus. It was on sale... at Briscos, of course. (Ooohhh now I've gone and revealed my class-roots. Bad move.)

As if to celebrate this wonderful addition to the house, my oldest and most dearly-loved trichocereus decided to bloom. Ain't it purty, Cleetus. You can click on the pictures to see enlarged versions of them. And no, in case you were wondering, this one's not a "San Pedro" - rather, it's Trichocereus scopulicola. The flowering is also usually a once-a-year event (conditions in Wellington, NZ not being the most ideal for the poor bugger), and normally the flower only lasts one day - especially if its FUCKING RAINING LIKE IT SEEMS TO BE INSISTENT ON DOING TODAY.

Sorry.

I love it when plants and animals do stuff and suddenly get themselves all tricked-out and pimped-up - it's a kinda nice to imagine that I live in a world that is much more wild than this mundane one I seem to spend most of my days in.

For an Xmas present to myself, I bought myself a new strap for my bass. I got it from the maker, on TradeMe, and it was an incredible bargain. The strap arrived yesterday, and it's really beautiful. Click on the picture to link through to the TradeMe auction - and witness the motherfucken fitness. If you're after a new strap for your instrument, I couldn't recommend this guy highly enough - let me know and I'll put you in touch.

Finally, my summer-project - of completely cleaning and reorganising my flat - is nearing completion, and I am now looking for a housemate. Wish me luck in finding not-a-psycho (well, not-as-much-of-a-psycho-as-I-am, anyway). Thanks.

Caring is creepy

Looks like Rose beat me to the punch on the fantasy-blockbuster-showdown post. Oh well. Some points I'd like to add, though. Narnia was weirdly unfamiliar to me. Despite reading the entire set of books when I was young, my only lingering memories of them are (a) that they got more and more stupid with each volume, (b) turkish delight and snow, and (c) Vivian out of the Young Ones. We were heavily stoned when we saw it, and I kept getting hung up on technicalities like "all the animals are like people, so what did they eat?", and how terribly CGI the lion looked. Oh, and I decided part way through the battle scene that I never ever in my entire life want to watch another movie in which there is a huge battle between an army of 'good' and one of 'evil', where optionally the good is heavily outnumbered, but prevails anyway.

Thanks mostly to the trailer that screened before Narnia, we decided the next night to get heavily stoned and go see King Kong. I enjoyed this a little more, but I still kept getting hung up on details. I mean, exactly how, with most of his crew dead, and especially (presumably) towing a colossal monkey (how the fuck else are they meant to have transported it), did the ship's captain manage to get the ship back out through the treacherous rocks surrounding the island, and back to civilisation. And that diplodocus-stampede. Yeah right. They were all toast. Every single one of them. No question. I was thoroughly exhausted by about half-way through, and could happily have stopped the film, had a nap, and resumed watching later on.

In summary: don't go to see Narnia unless you are 10 years old, or wasted. And, don't go and see Kong unless you are wasted.

Thank you.

In other news, a really, really great little film I saw recently was called Ivan's xtc. Based on Tolstoy's novella "The Death of Ivan Ilyich", but set in contemporary Hollywood, it's a candid treatise on the sordid underside of the film business, supposedly with references to real-life events. It's shot in digital - but with nary a computer-animated monster in sight - and although it's about five years old now, it's only just shown up at Aro Street. It was unexpectedly moving, and fully I recommend it. (another review here).

Best. review. ever.

"New Zealand Stephen Clover proposes on this album of the floating, at the same time stationary beaches and moving, as extracted from continuums without beginning nor end. The music, made up of electronic loops, tablecloths and held sounds, car-discusses, is maintained on its own energy. No the trace of human voice, strictly linear musical structures which progress in not-Cartesian plans. Seht avoids the speeches for the benefit of an enveloping sound with which the listener can start, in one moment of loneliness resonant and alleviating, a dumb relation. Application antarctica download form is an album which naturally finds its place in a current very developed at the occidentalized end of the world; the New Zealand labels Corpus Hermeticum, Siltbreeze and Celebrate Psi Phenomenon publish artists who strip the diagrams of the rock'n'roll to keep only the bones of them, a phantom music whose desolation reveals some questions and feelings that the entertainment in general occults."

- Jean-Grégoire Muller, la Médiathèque

This was translated from the original French to English via babelfish.altavista.org - if anyone reading this would like to chance their arm at a more accurate translation, be my guest.

Second hand news

[seht] i'm also now a fleetwood mac fan
[xxxxxxxx] oh dear god no
[seht] yep
[seht] it all made sense
[xxxxxxxx] i think we need to stage an intervention
[seht] sun, drugs, and heartache
[seht] the only thing that was missing was the late 70's
[seht] and that is always there in our hearts, so there you go
[seht] possibly it's more to do with having sex in a tent at 2am on New Year's morning
[seht] while the van on the neighbour's site blasted "You make loving fun" at about 700 dB
[xxxxxxxx] sounds idyllic ;)
[seht] actually I was always into tusk, but I hated rumours with a fiery passion
[seht] but that was more to do with the awful, awful memories it brought up
[seht] awful, awful people and awful, awful times...
[seht] like, just hearing the opening bars of "Second hand news" would send me into a cold sweat
[seht] and a mild panic
[xxxxxxxx] ?
[seht] heh
[seht] so it would seem that amazing stoned sex and extreme volume have combined
[seht] to break down the bad connotations and the pavlovian reactions
[xxxxxxxx] destroy all false prophets
[seht] and now all i am left with is bliss, and stevie nicks
[seht] exactly

This is cute

In 1991 when the yanks were explaining to Israel why the Patriot missiles they'd promised would shoot down all of Saddam's SCUD missiles instead kept missing, and the SCUDs were slamming into residential Tel Aviv, they should've put together a nice little powerpoint presentation with this graphic, and I'm sure everything would have been much sunnier.

Future estate divergence

Hi. How was your Xmas? I celebrated alone this year, and it was great, thanks. Thanks for asking. I invented two drinks on Xmas day. The first one is called a 'Champagne investment' - serve about a pint or so of cheap, dry, white sparkling wine (the cheaper, and the dryer, the better) in a stainless steel cocktail tumbler with ice, and depth-charge about 60 ml of Stone's Green Ginger Wine into it. The other one is called 'Champagne revolution', and it's for when you run out of Green Ginger Wine; use the same amount of tequila instead.

I've been having an awesome holiday. Xmas completely brings out my misanthropic side, so I've been avoiding ppl as much as possible. Instead of socialising, I've been working on my inner person - taking incredibly strong drugs and crashing early; rising with the birds; going to the gym a lot; drinking shitloads (white spirits, low-cal mixers) ; 'spring'-cleaning the entire flat (I even got the gardener in); trying to flog off my records and DVDs on internet auction sites to raise money for something; all that sort of grown-up crap. Four more weeks of this to go. Here's a picture of me looking fat and being suitably misanthropic.

A few people have privately commented that they think it's weird for me to be planning to get a tattoo that was designed by my ex-gf. To this I must respond simply that I don't. Actually, the main person whose opinion on whether or not this is weird I value is my future life-partner; since this is currently an abstract concept to me, the sum total of people whose opinion interests me equals two. More on this later. Maybe.

Things is looking up though.

I've also had two new mini-albums released in the last week; one (Syddo paragone) on the Belgian record label Audiobot, and the other (Nova bonalbo) on the Australian label Music Your Mind Will Love You. I can't be biffed ranting about them here, so just click on the cover images if you want to know more. I can't completely stop myself, though: here's an excerpt from the PR-sheet for the Audiobot disc:
"Imagine King Tubby at the controls of a New Zealand spaceship, throbbing and shifting into a bottomless pit of reverb upon meeting the Wordsound rockers in a malaria infected basement. Classify under : throbbing NZ claustrophobic dub sponge."

Oh, I'm gonna need a housemate soon. Keep your ear to the ground, would ya?

Tattoo me

Can I show off for a moment? Just wanted to share my awesome tattoo which I'm gonna get this summer. It was designed for me by The Jarman about 18 months ago, and I've fluffed around and procrastinated for far too long already. The second, lower image is an artist's (i.e. my) (extremely crude) representation of where and how it'll sit on my shoulder.

Since the weight of opinion in the responses to my pop-survey was for Roger's, and I had independently been advised the same, I shall be turning up there forthwith to get the ball rolling. The complete bugger of it all is, though, that there's something like a 4-week waitlist at the moment. You know that thing how when you make a decision about something and then you totally just have to do it right then and there. No? Maybe it's just ol' impetuous me. Well anyway, I hadn't counted on having to wait.

Yesterday was the staff Xmas party. About 200 of us convened at Newtown Workingmen's Bowling Club about lunchtime, and proceeded to get extremely pished in the extremely hot sun. There's hangovers aplenty in the office this morning, lemme tell you. What better time, I am thinking, to share with you my brand-new and seemingly surefire hangover prevention remedy. 'Tis the season and all that.

It's quite simple. Before you go out on a bender, put a litre of McCoy's cranberry juice in the fridge. When you get home, drink it. It's not all smoke and mirrors and magic potions.. apparently cranberry juice is a powerful diuretic, as well as being loaded with vitamins. Makes sense to me, anyway. It even works well on the morning after. Oh and for some reason, the stuff in the big glass bottles - Ocean Spray - doesn't work as well. It's much more acidic, to my gut anyway.

Gerry Rafferty's stem cells

One of the reasons I love shopping for booze at Rumbles, downtown in Waring Taylor Street, is that it affords me the opportunity to visit my favourite bit of the city, Maginnity Street (right). Without fail, every time I turn the corner from Ballance Street, I'm suddenly overwhelmed with delightfully faux sense of history, grandeur, depth and scale. Only here, utterly surrounded with 10+ floor buildings at close range, do I find myself forgetting for just a moment that we're basically a piss-ant little city built around a trinity of longish streets laid out in the shape of a Mercedes Benz logo. Only here do I get the hopeful feeling that - just possibly - there may suddenly have sprung up thirty city blocks in every direction.

It's not the architecture per se; the sequence on the right side of the street - the Wellesley Club, then the State (?) building, then the somewhat grandly named Petherick Tower - is nice, I guess, if a little disjointed*. It's more just the disorientation I experience when I suddenly cannot see any hills around me by which to navigate. It's a feeling I also experienced very strongly in Sydney, and have suddenly been overcome by at other odd moments like when walking down the main street of Onehunga, in Auckland.

So much deep thought, yesterday afternoon, as I wandered about in the bizarrely warm afternoon and dreamt of g'n'ts, and pondered on exactly how long it's been since I wrote anything of any worth on this blog. Busy-ness is only a partial excuse; I shall try harder, dear readers, do not be afeared.

If you're looking for promises, that's about as good as you're gonna get.

In other news, it appears that I'm not the only person who absolutely cannot stomach oaked Chardonnay. Oaked anything, actually, including Merlot, which I'm not absolutely sure is oaked, but if it is it will explain why I can't really drink it. I don't get headaches, apart from the understandable ones (1.5 bottles of any wine will do that to ya, innit), it just makes me retch, pretty much. I've started telling people I'm allergic to it; entertainingly enough, most take me at my word.

Shout outs to the other Welly-bloggers who turned out last Friday night for the hooley. It was good to meet y'all, although I almost feel bad that I was so tired after a big week that no typical Drinks-After-Work-type behaviours were indulged in. That's my excuse, anyway. I'm not sure what The Sifter's excuse for the state he got himself into later in the evening is, though.

*As I'm no expert I'll leave it up to someone like Tom to verify the identify of the middle building; he might also like to comment on the respective architecture of the three buildings. About the best I can do is suggest the approximate era of each - 1900s, 30s, and 50s.

Tattoo you

Any concensus on where's the best tattoo parlour in Wgtn, NZ?

Stumps T's are go!

I'm in the process of making a whole stack of Stumps t-shirts which are going to to be available in a wide variety of different shapes and sizes and very affordable. The shirts will essentially be one-offs - no two will be alike.

I've started uploading images of the shirts here; have a look and email me if there's one you want. Ultimately I'll have a much sexier web-interface set up for browsing and ordering the shirts; for now this'll have to do.

Shirts will be only approx NZ$15-20, with a shipping charge on top of that.

What you need to know:
- The colour and size of each shirt is given on the image. The measurements are approximate only - to the nearest 1cm/0.5in or so; the actual colour of the shirt may also be slightly different to that shown, due to the shitty light I'm photographing them in.
- Because no two shirt manufacturer's sizes are the same, I've measured each one in SPAN and DROP dimensions. See [0] demo.jpg for an example of how this works.
- The SPAN is the horizontal measurement across the shirt, basically the "bust" measurement from armpit-to-armpit.
- The DROP is the vertical measurement from the front of the neck to the bottom of the front of the shirt. In the case of 'V'-neck shirts, this is from the lowest point of the 'V'.
- All measurements are made initially in glorious metric; conversions to imperial (inches) are done here and at the mercy of javascript floating point math inaccuracies and the like.

And one for The Stumps....

MySpace.com page for The Stumps here.

Somewhat alarmingly, the url www.myspace.com/stumps AND www.myspace.com/thestumps were both already taken.

These MySpace pages are kinda neat; you can even include a wee blog-type thing where you can post info like a newsletter-type thing.

Sorry if I'm not making much sense. Hardly slept last night and I'm tired as a motherfucker.

I wish I could...

remember who I lent my DVD of the Twin Peaks pilot movie to. It's doing my head in... goddamn memory fails me every day lately, it would seem.

On a more positive note, I've set up a profile for Seht at myspace.com, including some tracks you can listen to while you're browsing.

More fun soon.. when I gotta time 'aiight.

Round-up my ass

Ok, where to begin.



The Yellow Swans gig was pretty great, even if Tom didn't really like them. Possibly I should've called them "punk-noise-rock" or something; I had a lot of fun, anyway, though possibly I would've had less so if I hadn't solidly primed myself with liquor. One of the features of the 'Swans was that they performed with Campbell Kneale/BCM in one of his retarded schlock-metal guises which involved him, amongst other things, seriously messing up his usually-cherubic features by diving continually face-first into the stage. I was actually a fan of the the "rock-god antics" which Tom comments as having found "a bit forced" - there's too much serious in serious music, and not enough KISS-like pyrotechnics and stage theatrics.

My own set was mostly disasterous; however, for an unrehearsed and improvised thing, it went across really well and everyone seemed to think I was awesome. Probably this was due to the degree to which everyone else had primed themselves with liquor, as well.

After the gig I went out and got (more) drunk; later on I drank myself sober; later still, about 7am, I went home.

Thanks to Ryan, who pointed out that "Riley's You're No Good was reissued in 2001, but it was originally recorded wayyyyy back in 1967. Which makes it all the more impressive a work, given the relatively primitive sampling and sound manipulation technology of that era". Word.

Now, between then and now a lot of crazy shit has happened, but due to time constraints, I'm gonna have to catch you up on it later on. I did want to mention, though, my band The Stumps is supporting the Grey Daturas - an awesome noise-rock band from Melbourne (this time the empahsis is on the rock, not the noise) - tomorrow (Weds) night at Katipo Cafe, in Willis Street. Apparently this time it's an early show; also playing is (NZ's only semi-serious doom-metal band, just back from triumphant tour of Europe and the UK) Black Boned Angel.

D Yellow Swans

It would seem that the [D] Yellow Swans (also here, and here) are playing tomorrow night at Happy, in Wellington, NZ. There will be support in the form of locals Birchville Cat Motel (also here), 1/3 Octave Band (here, and here), and seht (moi). The show will be a late one i.e. it will be starting somewhat after midnight.

The [D] (the D is optional) Yellow Swans are an American art-noise-rock group who are quite well regarded in such circles as regard for being an art-noise-rock group is afforded.

For this show I will be premiering my new work "Steve Reich is no goddamn good, either", composed in homage to (my) minimalist hero Terry Riley (also here, and I think here) (specifically his 2001 work You're No Good), and which is affectionately described as a "work for laptop, 70s soft-rock loops and free VST plugins." It is unrehearsed.

Lord Jesus, what a link-fest.

Mystery bar for y'all

Umm new version of old bar. Big. etc.

PS. Horses are great.

Plenty more fish in the sea

WTF is this shit about. (Just photographed on a bollard in Featherston Street). Is this for real? If it is then I want some.

Dear god, it would seem that it is for real.

Plenty More Fish in the CBD is a 'Straight Eye for the Straight Guy' handbook on how to find, get and keep one of those desirable women swimming around out there; who are just waiting to fall hook, line and sinker for the right angler... If you're a wise fisherman you don't want to waste your bait on women in the following categories (1) Crazy Freak Mental, (2) Slapper Ho Dog, (3) Super High Maintenance. No, you want to be using your tackle to hook a number (4) an Outlier, ie The Perfect Woman.

Need I go on?

Unfortunately I/we missed the launch.

Oh god, after all that, I need a drink. I've already done the prerequisite purchasing (above-left). Far be it from me (not, actually) to coin a phrase but today I'm not clock-watching, I'm bottle-watching.

Stephen's 1947 Martini

Since The_Sifter is away on tour in Europe for three weeks, I figured "what better time to work on my new martini recipe". Did so. Have done. Here 'tis for y'all:

Stephen's 1947 Martini (aka the 'Scuse Fingers)

This one is based very much on the (in)famous 1951 Martini, but takes it into other dimensions with the striking juxtaposition of the astringent, almost medicinal brine of the olives and the syrupy orange notes of the mini-orange (and of the triple sec), dancing all over the top of the botanical-palette of the gin. The garnish is also kinda unusual (see photo in previous post here).

90 ml (3 oz) London dry gin (preferably Tanqueray)
30 ml (1 oz) French vermouth, dry (Noilly Prat if at all poss)
5 ml (1 tsp) triple sec (Cointreau, or at a pinch Grand Marnier)
2 anchovie-stuffed Spanish olives, preserved in brine
1 mini-orange (from jar of Israeli Agam Hagalil brand 'Mini Oranges in syrup', or similar)
5 ml (1 tsp) syrup (from same)
1 toothpick, wooden
fresh orange peel

Chill a martini glass. Chill it properly - we're talking ice + water in the glass, sitting for 15 minutes. Place to one side.

In a martini mixing glass (or cocktail shaker), add the vermouth over a couple of handfuls of ice (cracked + cubes makes a good combo) and stir with a long-handled mixing spoon. Discard the vermouth. Over the ice add the gin, and again thoroughly stir with the spoon.

Discard the ice and water from the chilled martini glass. Rinse the glass with the triple sec, and and then discard. Strain the gin into the glass.

Make the garnish by skewering the mini orange with the toothpick and add an olive either side; dump it in the glass. Drizzle a teaspoon of the orange 'syrup' into the gin. Dip your finger into the olive brine and liberally annoint the rim of the glass (hence the 'Scuse Fingers). Finally, squeeze the orange peel over the glass, spraying everything with orange oil.

Have one to wind down after work, while the little woman makes your tea. Oh, go on, have one at the table, as well. You might as well have one after tea, too, and one for a nightcap.

Notes:
1. All liquid measures based on the rough equivalency that 1 single measure = 30 ml = 1 (liquid) oz.
2. You may substitute Brokers or even Plymouth for the Tanqueray (anything with a full body and plenty of botanicals; not that insipid Bombay Sapphire muck). Brokers is a bloody good, tasty gin and new (at least in this country) - you can (currently) (to the best of my knowledge) only get it at Rumbles, downtown in Waring-Taylor Street.
3. If you are so disposed, you can get a jar of the mini-oranges from On Trays in Fitzherbert Street, Petone (the "South African" shop). If you are not, subsitute an orange-stuffed olive from the Mediterranean Warehouse in Newtown and lay the triple sec on a bit thick - i.e. don't discard the rinse. If even this is a stretch, forget everything and just make a 1951.
4. The name? If you can work out what it refers to, you're as smart as I hoped you were.

Thirsty? you will be..

Recipe to follow shortly ;)

Cassette Jam '05

mmmmm early... can't sleep... found cassettes....

read all about it here (make sure you try some of the links at the bottom of the page, too).

Renderers II

So yeah, I never got around to posting my Renderers post on Sunday. The gig was great. I tried to record some of it so I could post it, but the recordings didn't come out too well.

Anyway, like I say, singer and guitarist Mary-Rose Crook is holding a solo show of her exquisite paintings at Mary Newton Gallery ; the show opens tonight (25th October). See you there.

Turtle family (lazy post)

If you like turtles and/or generally cute shit, read on. Bad Aunt has posted a lovely set of photos of a family of turtles that lives in a river near her place in Amagasaki, described as a rusting industrial town just outside Osaka.

Also, while she's an ex-pat Kiwi, living in Japan for so long must have gotten to her because her writing, in this post in particular, has taken on a stereotypical but very charming Zen-like observational simplicity.

Renderers

[For some reason, I drafted this post on Sunday and never got around to posting it. An mp3 will be added shortly.]

The Renderers are in town - they're playing tonight - and I'm excited. I've been a bit of a fan for quite a few years now and it's been quite a few years since I saw them play.

If Alt.country is a genre-tag you can dig, the Renderers have been doing it for long before it was fashionable; their albums, particularly
That Dog's Head in the Gutter Gives Off Vibrations, and Surface of Jupiter, should be in every fan's collection.

Oddly enough, these albums don't fare very well critically on Allmusic.com; but as is often the case with slightly more obscure music, especially that from New Zealand, Allmusic.com is fulla shit. Here's a neat Renderers page instead.

It should also be noted that while they haven't been on the cover of NME, they have a large (cult) following overseas; indeed their albums, save for the first, have been released by top American indie labels such as Siltbreeze and Ajax (both now a lot more quiet than they were in the 80s and 90s though - no jokes please). Also, on a family-related note, James Kirk - drummer in my band The Stumps - is the photographer responsible for the creepy cover-image on the Surface of Jupiter CD.

While they are up here singer and guitarist Mary-Rose Crook is taking the opportunity to show a solo exhibition of her paintings at Mary Newton Gallery (I could have sworn that MNG had updated their website but if they have, I can't find it anywhere). Anyway, the show opens on Tuesday night (25th October).

Bye bye Callie

I had to kick Callie out of my drinking buddies; she has been dead for awhile.

WANTED: (More) drinking buddies. Apply within.

Freaky friday

The machines are taking over, man. And they're not just taking over, but they're taking over and taking the piss, too.

T.V. on the Radio - Robots (right-click and Save As to download)

This track is taken from Brooklyn, NY's art-post-punk group T.V. on the Radio's early "unreleased" album OK Calculator; surely one of the funniest album titles ever. (if you don't get it, think Radiohead).


Meanwhile, from the "Get It While It Lasts" file: TradeMe Fan Art (make sure you click on the image, anywhere) (of limited interest to non-NZ readers) (if you have email at work you've probably already seen this).

MoreDrinkingWellingtonontheCheap pt. 1

..in which we further embellish Jo Hubris' 'Drinking Wellington on the cheap' (on the Wellingtonista blog).

1. Tuesday night.
Fairly slim pickings, if my comrade-in-booze is to be believed. However, Jo didn't mention exhibition openings. Tuesday night seems to have become the opening night of choice for at least a half-dozen galleries I can think of, and if you're talented you can visit all of them in the two or so hours from 5:30, downing a couple of glasses of wine at each. It was for this very "talent" that I was moved to coin a phrase and bestow upon the members of a certain group of women the term gallery-hag.

I'm going to refrain from mentioning any of the galleries by name; I value my life too much to just throw it away like that. Anway, I harbour ambition to become represented by one or two of them in the future and I'm sure I'd be instantly banished if they discovered that 'pon my heedings a large bunch of people turned up at 5:45, drank all the wine and bought not a single work. I'll leave it up to you, you enterprising bunch of prospective g'hags, to work it out.

After consuming a considerable quantity of cheap booze in such a short amount of time, it's usually quite good to (a) eat some kind of cheapish Asian food, and then head to Indigo where, if I'm not mistaken, Tuesday night is still The Rock Cradle - meaning free entry, loud, rockin' bands, and $3 Mac's Gold handles and $3 tequilas; or (b) take the low road and check out the cheap movies Jo mentions.

Many a slow-starting week for Drinks-After-Work has been kicked into life on the Tuesday night gallery-circuit; reciprocally, many a Wednesday has been made virtually unliveable due to cheap wine hangover.

2. Wednesday night.
I can't believe Jo didn't list Tupelo, where from some reasonable hour - let's say 7pm - they offer two cocktails for the price of one. "Bloody hell," I hear you say, "Tupelo? Cocktails? 2-fer-1? There with bells on" but wait: that's only the theory - where this admirable venture falls down is in the execution.

There are two main drawbacks and, love Tupelo as I do, it pains me to draw your attention to them; were I to omit their mention, however, I would stand derelict in my duty. (1.) The usually staid and relaxed surrounds become a seething mass of young- and student-types (just saying, y'dig, not judging - they're not anything even remotely approaching the wretched and debauched young patrons of Blend), and (2.) the associated increased demand has prompted some interesting improvisations in the drink-making department; namely the apparent strategy to pluck random individuals from the street, stick an apron on them, thrust them behind the bar and entrust to them the grave and complex duty of manufacturing cocktails. The resultant quality is astonishingly variable, almost tempting me more than once to enquire whether or not they were taking the piss, guv'nor.

However, it IS Tupelo, and on every Wednesday night, from some reasonable hour - let's say 7pm - they offer two cocktails for the price of one. "Bloody hell," I hear you say, "Tupelo? Cocktails? 2-fer-1? There with bells on." And I couldn't agree more.

Now. Recycling the format I pioneered in my review of Blend, I'm going to attempt a review of the new-ish Morocco, Tom's mystery bar #7.

MOROCCO / Cuba Mall
Friday 14th October 8.30 - 9.30 pm.



Name: Pleasantly un-funky.
Drinks: Neither astonishing nor disappointing. No tap beer; reasonable selection of bottled, some even not brewed in Auckland. One barman was wearing a branded 42 Below shirt, at the sight of which my heart sank. There's possibly some connection with the now-defunct Apartment, as the cocktail list appeared to be very similar. More investigation required.
Food: No idea. Other ppl appeared to be ordering, or to be more accurate, to be being served it. We didn't, and weren't.
Service: Fine. Bar-service only.
Clientele: Young, attractive. A bit.. anonymous.
Decor: (see it here) Nice retro furniture everywhere - someone, as The_Sifter remarked, spent a pretty penny at Gawjus Fings decking this place out. Brown, tan and beige, with the requisite orange-y highlights/lighting. The lights were down, too - too dark for my brain to triangulate sufficiently well in order to play a remotely competent game of pool. Venetian blinds everywhere. No windows. No detectable air-conditioning.
Ambience: The music was a bit.. anonymous.. as well. Not loud. CDs in a disk-changer - or mp3s - on shuffle. Possibly - and only possibly - a very carefully selected mix of what someone thought was hip, but, tragically, picked what was hip 3-4 years ago.
Familiar faces: 1
Solicitations for group sex: 0
Estimated possibility of becoming intoxicated and getting lost in the bowels of the Workingmen's Club: 100%
Estimated possibility of overhearing in the Gent's toilets (large, and shared with the Workingmen's Club) a conversation that verges on being frightening: 100%
Estimated possibility of overhearing in the Gent's toilets (still large, and still shared with the Workingmen's Club) the evacuation of another patron's bowels in a manner that verges on being frightening: 75%
Website: Apparently not.
Franchise: NAFAIK.
Cost (approximate): Normal, as in average 'classy' prices: from memory, $6 bottled beer and $12-14 cocktails.
Comments: Nice, but not startling. Definitely worth a visit. The Gent's toilets (still large, still shared with the Workingmen's Club, and still verging on being frightening) could be looked on as a bonus or a drawback, depending on your viewpoint on such things. Will no doubt pick up soon. However, the prospect of visiting this place in the height of the approaching summer, when the sun has been shining solidly on the (closed) windows for a good 5 hours (at the very least) in the arvo/evening is a little off-putting.


Oh, Be Warned: After actually visiting the bar in question, I discovered that Tom is playing VERY hard-to-get with his mystery-bar clues. In fact, I'd almost be prepared to go so far as to say that he's verging on the duplicitous. I won't go into the details, but just be warned - if you're gonna play, be prepared to play dirty.

Apologies: I may be forced to wait 'til a later date to decorate this post with snapshots, if and when I can get them off my phone. Sorry.
UPDATE: The ones I did take seem to be quite crappy. and I haven't got da patience today to photoshop they asses. Sorry. Again.

Twenty things

1. you can talk during this.
2. there's something wrong with my robot.
3. and we've nothing better to do with the money now - it's good to be able to live well - that's the main thing isn't it?
4. fuck i hope this shit's good.
5. this building is getting louder / its clicks and hums and whirrrs are becoming more intrusive and at night, lying awake in my bed, i can feel its weight oppressive above me; crushing, petulant.
6. i know i'll never remember / your terminal eyes / & benign smile in a coming dawn.
7. am keen on a phone thing, am not so good at talking to myself when i know other people are listening.
8. you look very nice in your uniform.
9. ...hello son...this is your mother...over...
10. the tape on the end of my brush will paint the sounds i hear in my head. my soundtrack to your film is almost done. soon i will learn to fly.
11. but would we ever want to do this?
12. love stench rep (anagram).
13. tell this machine i'm not a machine.
14. i'm sniffing at my hand {...rank odour of service-station pie...} and when I inspect them my fingers are marked too with blood.
15. why do you do it son? eh? eh? do you enjoy making your mother cry?
16. that's the trouble with potted ferns. leave for a week, two, w/out water+light, they die. grey through green turns slowly brown and fades softly. wilt.
17. i've got a full moon in my pocket.
18. a lap dance is better when the stripper's crying.
19. i lost my place on your answerphone. look where it led me. there's a light streaming through my bedroom curtain and i've nowhere left to hide.
20. you don't know me but i know you.

Kate <<< tag >>> Tom, David, Rose, Dan, Rane

Me and Syddo pt. 1

So yeah, about a month ago I was in Sydney. Here's a picture (credit Alasdair Nichol) of me playing at the Impermanent Audio event at The Frequency Lab aka Knot Gallery, #107 level 1 Hibernian House, 342 Elizabeth Street, Surrey Hills, Sydney NSW Australia. It's near Central Station, at the base of Surrey Hills. It's a huge building on the corner of Elizabeth Street and Kippax Street, the two forming an acute angle. You can see it quite easily using Google Earth, if you search for "sydney, australia" and scroll to 33deg 53'04.92" S 151deg 12'29.14" E.

You can also see quite clearly the large bottle which has nearly been emptied of its super-size-me serving of Dirty Bitch Bloody Mary. Hence my calm expression. Doctor's orders, y'see. It was for me nerves. After I'd finished that off I got stuck into the free wine.

It's a lovely space to play in; lots of nice lighting and comfy cushions and old wooden furniture and a very good PA. Unfortunately not much of the space is visible in this shot.

That night was particularly boozy; after the gig was over, about 2am, we all upped and went and spent the proceeds on a banquet at a Chinese restaurant. I'm not denying that I was in an appropriate condition to feel so, but I'm sure it was the best Chinese food I've eaten in my life.

Pictured are our charming hosts Caleb K. and Mark, looking for all the world as if the excesses of the evening have already caught up with them. That is an accurate representation of the interior of the restaurant, too; the walls were this peculiar luminous orange/green tone which truly seemed to vibrate. (Actually it could have just been my head).

Earlier in the day a bunch of us hung out in Hyde Park (coords 33deg 52'34.60" S 151deg 12'36.70" E) for a bit, checking out the incredibly, prehistorically ugly ibis birds (Threskiornis molucca). I constructed a makeshift hide from debris I discovered nearby and set about luring one of the birds with appetizing tidbits of days-old fried rice. When one finally came near enough I took 'is picture.

The bird life in Sydney was immediately and spectacularly new to me. As well as these fascinating ornithological throwbacks, I was also enchanted by the large black birds, not-quite identifiable (some said crow, others claimed raven) which cruised about overhead emitting a call that I can only compare to that of a baby dying a slow, disgusting, horribly-painful death. And the tree full of cockatoos in the suburbs (Alt Street, Ashfield: 33deg 53'04.90" S 151deg 07'25.10" E) which, as I approached on an apartment balcony only inches away, all briefly stopped gorging themselves on the huge sweet nuts they were holding with one foot to regard me curiously, and then carried right on gorging.

The best were easily the revolting, scrap-scavenging ibises though; I propose that Australia adopt them immediately as their national emblem.

I was worse than a stranger, I was well known

Bill Calahan's Smog project (sometimes represented as (Smog), also) (Allmusic.com entry here) (not, either, to be confused with Golden Smog) played in town tonight; I didn't go - due partly to being broke, and partly to being sick - so I thought tonight's post could be one of my favourite Smog tracks. Apparently some people are less-than-familiar with the man's work, so it's partly a public service-type post as well; though if I were you, I wouldn't go getting used to this style or degree of altruism.

Smog - I was a stranger (right-click and Save As to download)

The track is from his 1997 LP - and my favourite - Red Apple Falls; however his 2000 album Dongs of Sevotion would be the one regarded as his breakthough effort, so that may be the one to investigate first, if one were to be going to make such an undertaking.

FWIW I've always found him to be a neat intersection between Leonard Cohen's melancholic introspection and gutter-humour, and the dead-pan baritone and gently-but-out rock arrangements of The Silver Jews' David Berman and Stephen Malkmus (formerly also of Pavement).

On a kinda-thematically-related note, on Friday night The_Sifter and I, err, sifted on down to Morocco to meet up with a bunch of other bloggers from Wellington; somewhat disappointingly, it would seem that we missed all the action. I'm ok about it now, but at the time it felt like being stood up for a blind date feels; a confusing and adrenaline-charged mix of hurt and sociopathic anger. I was all for hunting the fuckers down then and there and throwing sugary mixed-drinks all over them; Ol' Siftey, ever the calm head amidst the chaos, advised a more long term strategy. Reason - and the age-old thrill of impending war - prevailed.

I feel unable to divulge any more details at this point.

word of the day: tarantism

tar-an-tism (ta(r'?n-ti(z'?m): of or relating to the phenomenon of feeling an inexplicable disdain for the movies of Quentin Tarantino (except for Jackie Brown).

Space cadets

Most people don't believe me when I tell them that (a) Barbra Streisand covered David Bowie's Life on Mars?; and especially not when I tell them that (b) she did it on an album from 1974 called Butterfly, with the utterly enchanting cover-image of a fly sitting on a block of butter.

Barbra Streisand - Life on Mars (right-click and Save As to download)

Trust me. It's worth it just to hear her 'emote' the nonsense^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H lines "it's on America's tortured brow / that Mickey Mouse has grown up a cow". Also the BIIIIIG modulation down to a minor 7th, and the subsequent HUUUUUGE Broadway ending, is quite good too.

Some goddamn bar reviews, already

Ok, first a couple of things I have to get off my chest. Bar Bodega is a stinkhole, and so never let me grace its boards with my presence; at least not for some time. That'll show them for cancelling The Puddle at the last moment, after the band had arrived in Wellington. Oh, and its proprietor Fraser MacInnes has shown (once again) (as if it was really necessary) that he is hands-down the biggest cock in the NZ band/bar scene.

The other thing, although with a degree of vitriol many magnitudes less than the previous paragraph, is that I am somewhat aggrieved that Tom didn't let me win his Mystery Bar #7. The new Morrocco bar is in the location of the old Workingmen's Club lounge-room; where they used to have band gigs and so on. I guess my crime was not being specific enough. Pedantic bastard.

Right.

Bar reviews (An occasional feature, partially in response to Jo Hubris' 'Drinking Wellington on the cheap', on Wellingtonista).

BLEND / Wakefield Street
Thursday 13th October 8.30 - 9pm.
Name: Could be worse. Brings to mind cocktails, which is a good thing, except at a bar (such as this) where I wouldn't trust the bar-staff to mix me a glass of water.
Drinks: Ok I guess - I didn't try anything challenging. They had Kronenberg 1664 on tap, which is a mark in their favour.
UPDATE: Ok, ok, so it was Oranjeboum, not 1664 - I was getting confused with Boulot**. So that's not a mark in their favour anymore (especially not since it'll be bound to have been brewed in Auckland) but it's not exactly a mark agin' them, either. The top-shelf didn't appear to be particularly stunning, though.
Service: In addition to being barely old enough to legally drink, the bar-staff appeared to be on pills. Not that that in itself is a bad thing; just that this time it was.
Clientele: Drunk undergraduates and drunk backpackers; sleazy guys who (tonight) (god only knows what they'll be feeling in the morning) can't believe their luck.
Decor: (see it here) Weird mixture of exposed brick, stained wood and uber-modern visuals. Big marks off for the (unfortunately increasingly-common) video screen. Nice high benches and big puffy push-around seats, but marks off again for the odd semi-VIP area. Lighting was reminiscent of that irritating colour-drained filter-effect you get in contemporary noir and vampire movies.
Ambience: Well.. they show music videos on a giant plasma screen behind the bar. The bar-staff take it in turns to select tracks on a computer, 'mixing' with all the skill of people fighting over the stereo at an 18-yr-old's party. The accompanying sound is a serious disincentive to thinking, let alone talking*. Overall the experience is a bit like getting trapped at the back of a bus with a large group of school-kids.
Slurry, slutty greetings: 2
Familiar faces: 1
Solicitations for group sex: 1
Estimated possibility of being drugged and date-raped: 75%
Website: Apparently not.
Franchise: NAFAIK.
Cost (approximate): No idea; ask The_Sifter, he bought the round.
Comments: Don't even bother. It's attached to a backpacker hostel, fer fuck's sake. In addition, the state of the "ladies" in the room - after several hours of free "bubbles" - led me to wonder if the bar-staff crumble E's into the flutes before serving. I was going to post a picture, but instead I think I'll just link to CollegeWildParties.com (warning: NOT work-safe). I'd rather go drinking at The Lazy Shag, and that's now a car-park. Perhaps we were there at the wrong time, but I really don't understand how Kate can do it week in, week out.

*That reminds me... Black-Eyed Peas are really quite fucking awful, aren't they. I mean, they're actually just shit. It's not just me, is it?
** Sifter you bastard, before you go correcting me, this font demonstrably does not support extended ASCII characters, so I cannot reproduce correctly Boulot's name.

UPDATE: Added some more categories. I'm taking this seriously, you know. Also corrected the location to Wakefield Street; where did Tory Street come from, I wonders.

Now I've done all my thinking for the week...

Hardly the epitome of cool.. but.. The Puddle. At Rm. 101. Downstairs at Bar Bodega. Thursday night (13th of October, 2005). On "Thirsty Thursday", no less. Have an mp3.

The Puddle - Thursday (2.63 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

..it's Thursday, it's Thursday, my sweet little Thursday / I wouldn't swap you for the rest of the year..

- The Puddle, Thursday

So what do I say? George D. Henderson's original amazing Dunedin band. Insanely pretty, soaring melodies and rollicking, propulsive rhythm. Fantastic pop lyrics, sung in plaintive, cracking, gorgeous kiwi accents. Catchy songs like you've never known, which won't leave your head for days and days. Legends about drugs and pharmacy burgs and prison time done hard. Fantastic. Sounds like a theme song for "Thirsty Thursday", at the very least.

Thursday is the eponymous A side from the Puddle's finest (possiby only actual) single, 1993's Thursday/Too Hot To Be Cool on Flying Nun. I've just got back from Mr. Inland Scenic's place where we digitised both sides, just so I could post this. The B side is so goddamn great I'm probably going to have to put that up as well.

The cover-star is "Rita". She does backup vocals as well.

..we were trying to impress / god and the devil at the same time

- The Puddle, Too Hot To Be Cool

My Rival song

Here's the Alex Chilton song I alluded to in my earlier post.

Alex Chilton - My Rival (5.17 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

Chilton was a member of the 60s teenage supergroup The Box Tops, and then the enduring power-pop supergroup Big Star in the 70s. He went on to make one of the most drug-fucked solo albums in the history of music, 1979's Like Flies On Sherbert; My Rival is one of the highlights on the album. Sloppy and disorganised, and containing one of the most innappropriately twittering analogue-synthesiser solos in the history of rock; yet its insouchiant swagger redeems every flaw as it stumbles drunkenly out of the bar and into the carpark...

David Cleary at allmusic.com completely just doesn't get the whole album at all, and consequently produced one of the funniest album reviews I've ever seen. It's so great I'm going to reproduce it in full right here (Yes, I'm that desperate for content):

On the strength of his Big Star releases from the early 1970s and a host of live performances he gave during the latter half of the 1970s, Alex Chilton had rightly become a rock connoisseur's darling and an inspiration to independent-label bands throughout the United States. Despite all this favorable attention, he would not return to the studio until 1980. Sadly, this release is a dreadful disappointment. Production values are among the worst this reviewer has ever heard: sound quality is terrible, instrumental balances are careless and haphazard, and some selections even begin with recording start-up sound. Chilton's false-start vocal on "Boogie Shoes" is simply left in without correction. Many of the songs here stop dead or fall apart rather than ending properly. Instrumental playing is universally slipshod and boorish, and vocals are sloppy and lackluster. A cover of the Lonnie Mack hit "I've Had It" contains vocals that, without exaggeration, sound like a group of tavern inebriates trying to sing. An attempt to burlesque Elvis Presley's vocal excesses in "Girl after Girl" misfires badly. A few of Chilton's songs here, such as "My Rival" and "Hook or Crook," aren't bad in their own right and would have been listenable had they been performed and produced better. Regrettably, this album cannot be recomended under any circumstances.

Mate, that's just all the more grist for my mill.

WellUrban, innit

The hirsute and therefore aptly-monikered Tom Beard has already pretty much already outed himself and his WellUrban blog through his recent comments here, but I had previously promised (ages ago,in fact) to link to him/hype up his ass, and so I do.

His blog touts itself as "Personal reflections on urbanism, urban life and sustainable urban design in Wellington, New Zealand" and as pithy as that sounds, it's a really good read. Tom writes engagingly and in a clearly-informed manner on his nominated themes; having, as I do, only a passing awareness and/or interest in urban design and architecture, I can't really comment on these. I can, though, comprehend most of what he says and I am finding that's an increasingly uncommon trait amongst un-subbied writers.

He also writes cursively and expansively on local bars and drinking in general; I'm sure that I don't have to emphasise too heavily that these are topics far closer to my heart. His regular Mystery bar feature (No. 7, the most recent, is here) is well worth a look, at the very least.

Online portfolio

Good news is that I've been able to move my online portfolio site from stupid ol' sphosting.com (Goodbye, spyware. Goodbye, malware. Farewell, interminable pop-ups) to inlandscenic.com, where Mr. Inland Scenic has generously allowed me to park.

This is a good link to use for linking, if you were going to link to it.

I've also added some more content.