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)
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.
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...
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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:
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)
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):
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.
She says "You don't read women authors do ya?" / at least that's what I think I hear her say / Well I say "How would you know, and what would it matter anyway" / Well she says "Ya just don't seem like ya do", I said "You're way wrong" / She says "Which ones have you read then?", I say "I've read Erica Jong" / She goes away for a minute, and I slide out, out of my chair / I step outside back to the busy street, but nobody's goin' anywhere
-- Bob Dylan, Highlands
Reading Eric Jong (Fear of Flying) is turning out to be quite the experience. Frankly it's upsetting, and unsettling, and I haven't even finished it. It's the (in)famous one, the one about trying to reconcile passion with feminism, the one about the "zipless fuck" -- in which the narrator Isadora Wing details her fantasy of elated anonymous sex -- sex without strings, preambles, or consequences; sex with a stranger on a train, an itinerant Romeo who comes, sees, conquers, and disappears into the mists of the station.
What was it about [committed relationships] anyway? Even if you loved your [partner], there came that inevitable year when fucking him turned as bland as Velveeta cheese: filling, fattening even, but no thrill to the taste buds, no bittersweet edge, no danger. And you longed for an overripe Camembert, a rare goat cheese: luscious, creamy, cloven-hoofed.
I was not against [committed relationships]. I believed in [them], in fact. It was necessary to have one best friend in a hostile world, one person you'd be loyal to no matter what, one person who'd always be loyal to you. But what about all those other longings which after a while the [relationship] did nothing to appease? The restlessness, the hunger, the thump in the gut, the thump in the cunt, the longing to be filled up, to be fucked thorough every hole, the yearning for dry champagne and wet kisses........*
The zipless fuck, the (comparatively; relatively) meaningless encounter, dalliance, "affair" or just the one-nighter -- that's the ideal. The irony: Fear of Flying demonstrates the unavailability of the zipless fuck. Far from being an inspirational story (as it is routinely billed) of a woman's escape from a dead marriage and discovery of erotic pleasure and independence, it's the tale of a woman who ditches her husband only to find in the arms of a lover first impotence and frustration, then heartbreak and abandonment. Hardly the embodiment of female liberation -- or 35 years later, the evolution of the committed relationship and the shedding of it's (co-)dependence on monogamy; hardly what I was hoping for.
How disappointing.
Then with timing that's so good it's almost suspicious, you meet the person who throws your world into a spin; the person who throws a dart through the fug of your complacency; who causes you a sharp intake of breath and the racing of pulse and the blah-de-blah. That person who through no act nor blame of their own makes you wonder and ponder long-and-hard at their seeming-suitedness to you; now you're left doubting your commitment and wondering, simply, "am I with the right person?".
And am I able to ever trust your impulses, reasons, rationales, insights (or not) again.
This post was inspired in part by Harvey Pekar; ordinary life IS pretty complex stuff, indeed.
Mayo Thompson - Dear Betty Baby (2.62 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)
We don't have much in the way of natural disasters here in little ol' New Zealand. Nothing much ever goes wrong* -- on a grand scale, that is. Which was why it was a sudden blow to the senses, as it were to receive this email, this morning, after I sent in my latest review to the website I write for:
to:stephen from:brad thank god you emailed me. i didn't know your email address and have a favor to ask. tulsa got nailed w/ the worst ice storm in oklahoma history (!!!) sunday night, and we are stranded at my parents house b/c we have no electricity (hence no update yesterday since my computer is in cold storage aka my apt. fuckers). anyway, i also don't have ftp access on my parents shitty computer, so can you change the 'word from the editor' on the FD mainpage to say that we will hopefully be back next week with an update, but can't promise anything due to the power outages (1/3 of oklahoma was without power as of yesterday) and that i'll update the situation as it changes. anyway, just something to that effect and i'll love you forever (and harry too. oh wait, i already love harry forever). thx my dear
A winter storm moved across Oklahoma on Sunday, leaving a thin layer of ice on the ground and creating power outages for thousands as a prelude to even worse conditions expected to develop overnight.
Tired of this game? Still wanna play? Cool.. go and get this, then. Or this. Either will do -- and either way it's one of the greatest albums ever released in this country. (New Zealand, I mean.)
It's the Sneaky Feelings' debut album Send You, the one which is oft-ignored and underrated and so on, and scarce as all buggery as well. Apparently it was reissued on CD at some point, but.. well.. nearly 20 years of scouring the New Zealand section and the used bins and ain't never seen it.
To be honest I'm not a particular fan of the Sneaky Feelings -- they did well enough, but they were always more Byrds than Bailterspace. They impressed alright, but never excited like a Verlaines or a Gordons or a Doublehappies would excite. "Poise over Noise" (-- M. Bannister.) But be that as it may, this album is special. I don't think it's unreasonable to say that, in 1983, this was some way ahead of it's time. And I don't know if it's a commonly-held opinion, or even one of those things which everyone knows but which must Never. Be. Said. Aloud... or not... but it seems to predict awfully the sound of the much more highly-vaunted Straitjacket Fits -- especially their incarnation about 10 years later, around the time of the Fits' Melt. I'm blowing smoke out my ass? Well, let's see... the guitar sound, the guitar playing, the guitar figures and motifs, the vocal delivery, the harmony vocals, the compositions -- the key changes, modulations, middle-eights -- (and I could go on) are all heavily reminiscent of the Fits in their prime.
Ah.. well.. but so what. That's not important, and only serves to distract. Nothing should take away from the fact that in terms of progressive power-pop perfection, in this country -- or in any country, frankly -- Send You has rarely been bested.
Here you have the loveliness of the sprucelet, nestled there on the breakfast bar, all green and non-pine-smelling. You can clearly see the Xmas baby sock-monkey angel, in situ this time, and the smattering of gifts. You can see one of the somewhat-oversized fake wooden (and befeathered) doves, in which Harry shows only vague interest -- mainly in scenting them, he hasn't yet tried to eat one. I may also have forgotten to mention the silver decoration that more-than-slightly resembles razor-wire.
Here's Harry, reclining in his bed under the tree and showing only vague interest in the fake wooden doves:
Before getting up on stage at a club in Oslo, 50 Cent gave an interview. In it he denied taking coke on live TV in Zagreb and then dropped a file-sharing bombshell: "What is important for the music industry to understand is that this really doesn't hurt the artists!" Wow. No-one cares about the coke now.
Howard Stelzer is not just my friend and collaborateur in this particular musical endeavour, he runs the label that put it out on (a very nicely put-together, if I may say so myself) CD last year. So when he writes, as he did in the comments on the blog...
Hi, I'm Howard Stelzer. You must take this down. I am trying to sell the CD! It's very much in print and available for $10 to $12 from Forced Exposure, Mimaroglu Music Sales, RRRecords, Revolver, Aquarius, Metamkine... PLEASE support independant music and independant record labels by BUYING the CDs! I put so much money and time and years of effort into each of my releases, it kills me (and my little label) to have them available on blogs for free. Honestly... $12 is not a lot of money. You can do it.
That said, I appreciate the kind review. This particular album took Seht and I a long time to finish. Mike Shiflet designed the sleeve, which looks beautiful and compliments the music nicely. The photos were taken by Seht. You can see them when you hold the booklet in your actual hands, and open its pages.
... you get to see the argument from the exact opposite point-of-view.
The waters get even murkier when you consider that for every album that is helpfully uploaded "for preview purposes only" (read: free download), some dodgy Russian mp3 harvester and on-seller is going to grab it and offer it for sale. For actual money. Not that -- for example, in this case -- I nor the label that released the album are going to see any of it.
These sites are everywhere now. There's no point trying to contact them with any kind of "cease and desist" request/order. I wouldn't expect to hear back from them unless the possibility of their not being able to sell your tracks would cause a serious bump in their income streams. No one here is selling on that kind of scale, so.... welcome to the future. And if I take my label-owner hat off for a minute I say just encourage the pirates (the mp3 blogs, the file-sharers, the fans, and so on) and kill the mercenaries (the goddam Russians).
Anyway, anyone buying this is pretty stupid since they could get it from here for nothing. Although $0.45 is pretty good for an entire album.
If you followed my advice, you'll probably be wanting to have a good close look at this as well. It's more awesomeness from early-80s Wellington electro-pop group The Body Electric. (We talked about The Body Electric here, too.) And pretty rare, as well.
It's from their 1983 'double-A side' 12" with the almost-as-good Interior Exile as the "AA" side. If Pulsing was the novelty hit in their catalogue, Dreaming In A Life is much more serious. No less catchy, though.
And hurry up, would you -- you've only got until tomorrow.
So pleased I was, on the weekend, to be availing myself of the presented opportunity to purchase a near-mint copy of New Order's very great -- and arguably best -- 1985 album Low-life at a stall at Aro Street Market for a single dollar. So pleased. Verging on self-congratulatory, actually.
So displeased was I when playing the LP yesterday to be discovering that despite ALL appearances (the jacket, the inner sleeve, the record labels, the run-off groove etchings) being that said LP was the very great (arguably best) 1985 New Order album Low-life, it was in fact a shitty live Roy Harper record. (Probably this one.) (Not hating on Roy Harper, y'dig, I am oh-so-much the Roy Harper fan; well maybe not that much of a fan, ok.. I like a couple of his early albums, 1971's Stormcock, and umm Lifemask. But he's a great guitarist and a good lyricist and a uniquely-styled singer and an interesting guy -- and it's not everyone who can claim to have a song written about them by Led Zeppelin, or appear as a guest vocalist on a Pink Floyd album.) (And thank god I recognised the vocals and the guitar playing and so on, or not knowing what the hell this bloody record was I'd have even less to rant about.)
But it really is quite a shitty live album. You can even hear the crowd giving some less-than-good natured heckle. The sound is shitty. He sounds a bit bored. You wonder why anyone bothered, really. And you especially wonder why they bothered disguising it as a near-mint copy of Low-life on sale in a bin of drek from the 80s at a stall at the Aro Street Market.
Bastards.
Especially since I flicked to Allmusic.com today and what is staring me in the face, dead centre of the screen?
Yup, today Low-life is Allmusic's Album of the Day.
...
There's a lot of love for New Order, and Low-life in particular, on the blogosphere, but none say it quite like this guy:
The third album of New Order shone with a new confidence recien adquirida. Tras the unequal Movement and the incomplete Power, Corruption and lies, Low life unified techno pop, dark gotico rock and the first recording of country and techno.Low life established with firmness to New Order like one of the great British bands, entering top 10 and also representing its debut in the classic lists estadounidenses.Aunque was a quite loose year with respect to albumes, was not bad for the musica of Manchester.
Ok fine, I admit it, that was obviously via Babelfish, but you get the idea.
...
I wanted to play you a track from Low-life, but it was REALLY hard to choose just one. However, I think the closing track Face Up mostly closely fits my mood today, so................
New Order - Face Up (3.61 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)
This morning I saw a man standing in the street, curls of smoke unfurling themselves from the tip of his durrie into a cloud of dreamy fractals. There was "nary a breath of wind" (as they say) because after I had disembarked the bus and started my wander to work, I looked at every tree in sight for the slightest hint of movement; I could not detect even one puff.
This unusual, possibly uncanny stillness is partially to blame for the most disgustingly treacle-like weather of the day before, when it was too humid to move. Definitely not the right day to pick to be tossing and groaning in bed with a shitty little hangover.
Maybe that's what that guy meant when he sang "I wish I was in Wellington". Maybe.
...
This is the angel I got for our Xmas tree at home. It's a baby sock monkey from Wanda Harland. That's not how it looks on the tree 'cos it's not (umm) in situ, y'know? That's just a rather hastily assembled crop and cut-out and background paint Photoshop-job.
Also, that's a tail, not a third leg. Or a "third-leg", even.
Wasn't too keen to have an Xmas tree this year. "Oh no" I groaned when K one day enthused about getting one, thinking of a big ol' nasty, sticky, smelly, sheddy pine tree. "It'll be too big, and it'll drip sap, and the bark with scratch and scrape everything it comes into contact with, and it'll stink, and shed dead needles everywhere, and what'll we do with it when it's dead?". (Of course it would already be technically dead, so what I meant, I guess, was when the visible signs of dead-ness became much more obvious.)
Not sure I had made my position entirely clear, we retreated and collected our wits and gathered our arguments for a future round two -- or so I thought. A couple of days later she shows up with the most delightful little spruce tree in a bucket -- a living tree, a "sprucelet" if you will. It doesn't smell, it's not too big -- it's possibly even on the small side -- and it's not going to die.
Well, not for a while yet.
...
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.
Yesterday we learnt all about The Body Electric, the early-80s electro-new-wave-synth group from New Zealand, including one or more members who were in (post-)punk groups The Amps and Steroids. I mean kinda -- all I really did was up a track, and much hilarity followed. In the defence of The Body Electric, it's a little unsure whether or not Pulsing was a novelty hit or a serious song -- the rest of their (heh) body of work* is much more moody, serious, and edgy.
According to my sources, Magic Electronic was the A-side of a 7" released in 1984, but no one can be sure that the band that released it was not in fact from Sweden(!). Sounds like it could be the Wellington, New Zealand group, but the release doesn't show in their discography on The Big City (then again, things often don't, so.....). Google isn't much help. So what is the truth, punters?
Last night I was soo tired, had had such shit day at work (got home at 9pm) and was generally fed up, it was all I could do to get loaded on gin and bennies, surf a bit, and go to bed.
This morning I discover that at some point, in response to this, I wrote:
At the risk of sounding like a codger, but your supposition that back in 19-dickety-2 or whenever the “the album is a totally arbitrary concept” is based on, disregards the more modern idea of “the album as a work”. Not necessarily something as annoying and fatuous as a “concept album”, but nevertheless something which transcends its status as a time-based compilation of singles and b-sides.
Having said that, though, even my own albums which are ostensibly concept albums (just don’t actually call them that… more a meta-song, an ephemeral grouping of tracks in a particular order designed to impart some meaning or moment or fleeting feeling or other to the listener) there’re still the “single tracks” too which can be pulled out and listened in fragante delicto*.
* ?
So um, I find myself at the commencement of a third paragraph, my previously ingested brace of martinis have sent my point scurrying off into the hinterland. Oh wait, were they just talking about hip hop albums, which surely everyone agrees are heavily infiltrated with unlistenable filler, and that’s not including those fucken ubiquitous skits.
[break for air and martini]
I’ve experimented on this. Play “Word on a Wing” from Bowie’s Station To Station; it’s not the same without being preceded by Golden Years and the bizarely theatrical title track. Not at all. So in conclusion, don’t lump our precious albums in with your “mediums to transmit the next pop chart-bound single and a couple of remixes”. Right pass the Werthers Originals.
Wellington pentecostal church Lifepoint says the lineup of bands - including former bat-biter Ozzy Osbourne, Kiss and Finnish Eurovision-winning panto-metal kings Lordi (pictured) - are "not appropriate" and will have "negative influences" on the city during the two-day Rock2Wgtn festival on March 22 and 23.
They plan to lobby other church groups and will look at taking their concerns to Wellington City Council.
"It's not appropriate from our angle of things," said pastor Karen Crawshaw.
"I don't think we can force our views on others but at the same time we think it's a very negative influence on our city.
"It'll put a damper on the things the church traditionally focuses on at the Easter season."
I dunno, what do you say? How can so may people be sooooo fucking stupid.
Personally I am hoping that Lordi and Ozzy collaborate to put on a right-old pantomime which culminates in the enacted ritual slaughter of a life-size Jesus dummy on a cross -- preferably upside-down -- surrounded by a huge number of partially dressed heavy metal sluts writhing around having a good ol' orgy in a pit of fake blood.
Apparenty Tom wasn't joking when he suggested it was a prototype for a new kind of seat:
Myself, I can't see how it would work unless there is a structural element -- the name of which I don't know -- going deep into the ground under the left-hand side, as viewed in this picture. And I trust they have tested its safety by loading up the "seat" part with at least half a tonne of weight. Because umm... yeah.
...
As usual, prizes will be awarded if you can tell me what/who this track is...
And if you are a maker of mysteries and would like to contribute to this feature, contact me offline to organise stuff.
Setting heavy metal's evolutionary clock back to the stone-age days of Saint Vitus with their debut Volume One was seemingly not enough for San Jose's Sleep, who decided to time travel all the way back to the pre-historic days of earliest Black Sabbath with their second album, Sleep's Holy Mountain. Indeed, while Kyuss' Blues for the Red Sun and Monster Magnet's Spine of God are more frequently cited as the most influential and important albums in launching the American stoner/doom metal scene, not even these landmark releases compare to Holy Mountain for sheer devotion to unadulterated doom and copious weed consumption. In fact, as monolithic opener Dragonaut descends into a bass solo at its conclusion, one would be forgiven for expecting the band to segue straight into N.I.B. -- such is their similarity to classic Sabbath. Instead, they grind into The Druid, which despite a quick nod to the Sabs' Electric Funeral, actually begins to establish Sleep's personality, as riff upon massive riff in the form of songs like Evil Gypsy/Solomon's Theme and the groove-heavy Aquarian flow from the speakers like molten lava. In an age of machine-gun double-bass drums, Sleep's most startling quality had to be their seemingly endless patience. As they slowly embark upon the mammoth power chords of the title track and From Beyond, they also prolong the buildup of tension before delivering a final release of cathartic proportions. Besides greatly inspiring next generation doomsters like Electric Wizard, such unwavering dedication to weed would also set the stage for their controversial and unfortunate swan song Jerusalem -- featuring a single, mind-bending 52-minute track.
After the demise of Sleep, Matt Pike (guitar) went on to form the hugely successful High on Fire; the remaining two members Al Cisneros (bass, vocals) and Chris Hakius (drums) are now in the hypnotic psych-rock Om.
Sleep - Dragonaut (1992) (4.02 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)
It definitely takes some time to get into Om, but don’t let impatience hinder you from experiencing the epic combination of peace and chaos that Al Cisneros and Chris Haikus convey through their music.
--by Rajkishen Narayanan
Om - Pilgrimage (2007) (6.13 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)
Oh, you're so observant! Yes of course that's not the cover of A Saucerful of Secrets: it's Ummagumma (1969). And the version of Set the Controls... is from the live part of that same album. It's a better version.
Yesterday was a luverly day, and so it was decreed by Ms. K and a number of friends that we would barbie the q. Hence I raced home from work, out again for charcoal and kindling and balsamic and wine, back home once more.. and proceeded to build a miniature raging inferno in the back yard (see left).
We used my choice little portable barbie which I picked up two summers ago for about $20 at the Big Red Shed. When it's folded up and packed away it's basically a big metal handbag.
I cooked 12 sausages, 2 half-chickens and some chicken breast fillets on it. The only thing I might have done differently would have been to wait a few more minutes before whipping the meat out, because the sausages charred a little too much. But I tell you what, when you've got people snapping at your heels, hurrying you to get the food cooked -- people who just don't understand the fine art of cooking with fire -- people who think barbequing on gas is the bee's proverbial.... well it's hard to stand around casually poking things with a stick saying "You gotta wait.. you gotta wait".
Harry was no help at all, sifting around, trying to get at the chicken and sausages; he was also very funny though, because he found that if he got too close, the invisible (!) heat from the coals made his eyeballs start to melt and he spent a lot of time sneaking around on his belly, blinking in bewilderment. You can see him there on the left, taking stock of the situation and licking at his harbalz. (Harry! Company! Stop it!)
Some BBQ music:
Herbie Hancock - Chameleon (7.21 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)
However, it all may not be as simple as all that. First of all, a bunch of drugs were involved. I mean, no shit (read the story). You'll also notice that the judge who bailed her forbade her to return within 100m of Latimer Square, and said:
"If you work, I would prefer you work in the more open area of Manchester Street, rather than (Latimer) square."
Latimer Square, which has a reputation as being used by young people hooking for trade. Work as in hooking. Manchester Street as in the "red-light" district.
So what we're really talking about is a party with drugs and hookers in the middle of the afternoon, which spilled out of the hotel room/apartment it was being held in and onto the balcony.
Umm: 1. Isn't 17 a bit young for a girl to be working as a prostitute? I'd have to check the law, but surely the legal age is at least 18? 2. Either way, I trust that young Lorna is in no way being exploited, abused, coerced or otherwise forced against her will into any "group sex on balconies in the middle of the afternoon". 3. Who the hell does Christchurch think it is? Las Vegas?
POSTSCRIPT Lorna was picked up in Latimer Square again on Friday, and held in custody over the weekend (Poor wee mite! All that noise! All that piss and vomit!). This time the judge has given her a 7pm to 7am curfew. Not that that's gonna get in the way of any more group sex on balconies in the middle of the afternoon.
Which is just as well, and for that one really has to say, Praise the Lord. If there's one thing I think we can all agree on, it's that there should be more group sex on balconies in the middle of the afternoon. In fact, in answer to the ubiquitous question "What Does Wellington Need", I really only have one answer: "group sex on balconies in the middle of the afternoon".
Awesome.
I wonder if council community-project funding could be arranged.
If there's one thing I can't stand, it's panic attacks in the morning. Absolutely not. Won't have a bar of it. Makes it so hard to get out the door and off to work, I tell ya. And as for keeping my hand in with this *cough* tedious *cough* minutiae of berlogging? Forgeddabouddit.
In 1976, The Stooges had been gone for two years, and Iggy Pop had developed a notorious reputation as one of rock & roll's most spectacular waste cases. After a self-imposed stay in a mental hospital, a significantly more functional Iggy was desperate to prove he could hold down a career in music, and he was given another chance by his longtime ally, David Bowie. Bowie co-wrote a batch of new songs with Iggy, put together a band, and produced The Idiot, which took Iggy in a new direction decidedly different from the guitar-fueled proto-punk of The Stooges. Musically, The Idiot is of a piece with the impressionistic music of Bowie's "Berlin Period" (such as Heroes and Low), with it's fragmented guitar figures, ominous basslines, and discordant, high-relief keyboard parts. Iggy's new music was cerebral and inward-looking, where his early work had been a glorious call to the id, and Iggy was in more subdued form than with The Stooges, with his voice sinking into a world-weary baritone that was a decided contrast to the harsh, defiant cry heard on Search and Destroy. Iggy was exploring new territory as a lyricist, and his songs on The Idiot are self-referential and poetic in a way that his work had rarely been in the past; for the most part the results are impressive, especially Dum Dum Boys, a paean to the glory days of his former band, and Nightclubbing, a call to the joys of decadence. The Idiot introduced the world to a very different Iggy Pop, and if the results surprised anyone expecting a replay of the assault of Raw Power, it also made it clear that Iggy was older, wiser, and still had plenty to say; it's a flawed but powerful and emotionally absorbing work.
Fuck me, it's Wednesday already. Wow. Y'see what happened is that on Friday morning I was horsing around with Ms. K -- we do that a bit, horsing around... you know, all-in wrestling, slap wars, that kinda thing -- and in doing so I managed to cause myself grievous bodily harm in the lower back department.
So commenced a heady and delicious 48 hours or so of a combination of extreme pain and opioid-induced delirium. That's right, I doped myself up on Norflex, Codeine and Ibuprofen and I went back to bed. And that was it until midday Sunday. I did get up and play cricket on Saturday, still extremely high -- and honestly it wasn't much fun. It was important to try and keep moving just a little, though.
Importantly, I had just the right record to play during those long and contented hours warm under the duvet, and I'll be touching on that shortly. But for now, let me present Tron Guy:
This is the angel I got for our Xmas tree at home. It's a baby sock monkey from 
Yesterday was a luverly day, and so it was decreed by Ms. K and a number of friends that we would barbie the q. Hence I raced home from work, out again for charcoal and kindling and balsamic and wine, back home once more.. and proceeded to build a miniature raging inferno in the back yard (see left).
Over on the Wellingtonista 
