Tasmanian Devil sympathy

Awwwwwwwwww......

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

S.U.V. wheelcover & Tasmanian Devil misanthropy

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

The first Roxy Music album

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

Unused album artwork for Roxy Music (1972)

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

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

‘Do the Strand’ on The Old Grey Whistle Test

Glasses of happy

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

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

The Best 12 ANZAC War Stories EVER!

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

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

Hoo boy.

40,000 reasons

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

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

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

Warning: Spoiler

Joy!

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

Mai new house, you should see mai new house

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

So this is my local:

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

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

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

New Brutalism

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

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

...

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

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

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

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

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

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


* Anyone get the connection?

...

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

Separated at birth #4

River Phoenix and Heath Ledger:

What say you, savages?

New Stumps cassette album "Exigence" released

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

Co-Stump Antony Milton wrote:

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

Label-guy Eric once wrote:

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

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

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

puh

fully engulfed!

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

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

Bea Arthur Porn Party

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

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

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

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

I found them here.



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

"Women Lie Alot"

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

*serial-killer cute

....

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

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

Dance, dance, dance, dance, to the radio

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

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

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

Chrimbo hiatus

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

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

Friday Farce: Leave me alone

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

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

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

Chappaquiddick Skyline - Leave me alone (3.03 MB mp3)

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

New Order - Leave me alone (4.29 MB mp3)

Oh Joe, Joe, what were you thinking?

Lemme hear ya say Fa-arce....

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

What is and what should never be

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

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

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

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

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

Stumps, Khomet, Psychic Sidekick and so on

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

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

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

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

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

I really like this song.

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

I found it on KiwiTapes.

More Pink Metal

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

hmmmmmmmmmmm....

Like this, I reckon.

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

Yep.

Art(-less)(i)ness

Art cards support emerging NZ artists

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

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

...more...



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

Pink Metal

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

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

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

CJA
PINK METAL
PSEUDOARCANA 2xCDR

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yep.

EDIT
There's another track here.

Totally non-wack Xmas compilation

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

Yeah, I thought it was a good idea too.

Then my mind went totally blank.

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

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

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

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

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

So can you help?

...

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

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

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

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

Oh, the majesty.

...

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

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

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

...

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

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

The ship is on the ocean, so to speak

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)

Christina Nehring on Erica Jong and the zipless fuck
Erica Jong on Bob Dylan

*excerpts from Christina Nehring and Erica Jong reproduced without permission.

Power out in 1/3 of Oklahoma

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

Sure enough: Half A Million Still Without Power

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.

* knocks loudly on wood.

SNEAKY FEELINGS Send You LP Flying Nun FEEL01

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.)

Sneaky Feelings - Waiting for Touchdown (2.60 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

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.

Mai xmas tree, let me show you it

On Monday I mentioned the majesty of the Xmas tree; since then there has been much interest and many requests to see same. So as teh kitteh sumtimez sez, let me show you it:

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:

Share nicely, kids

Via Jamie at Duck And Cover I found some interesting chat from 50 Cent (no, really!) about -- well, basically, about the future of music distribution:

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.

Particularly interesting, this is, in the light of the battle going on at Deleted Scenes, Forgotten Dreams about, among other things, one of mine own albums.

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.

This story is just kinda beginning......

...

Amon Duul II - Archangels Thunderbird (2.57 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

The Body Electric: Dreaming In A Life

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.

The Body Electric - Dreaming In A Life (2.69 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

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.

Bloody pride bloody coming before a bloody fall and all that

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)

Mystery Monday: Oh, the humidity

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.

Friday Farce of a sort: The Body Electric

This week's Farce (well it's not THAT much of a farce) is this:

The Body Electric - Magic Electronic (3.21 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

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?

BTW Mark Thingummy from Club Bizarre rates The Body Electric, too.

* See that, there, how I couldn't resist making a pun? I was going to write ouvre, but why be pretentious when you can make bad punnery instead?

The Body Electric: Pulsing

If you were me, you would be buying this. Because, like, it's an absolute stone classic of early electro. From Wellington. And pretty rare.

Why aren't I buying it? I don't really need four copies, ok?

The Body Electric - Pulsing (3.41 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

I'm feeling so magnanimous, you can have the "dub" version from the B side, for nothing.

The Body Electric - Pulsing (Dub) (3.06 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

Isn't it cute!!!!

A fetishist?

Imagined response to a number of good points made in an argument by a person with whom it's impossible to reason, recorded here for posterity

It's all too easy to hide behind this wall of intentional obfuscation. I'm all for stepping into the glare of the spotlight of critical appraisal.

You on the other hand

, you refute my position on a number of key points. And you're the leader of the pack. And, I am easily led.

Don't talk to me about Ingmar Bergman. Don't talk to me about My Bloody Valentine. Don't talk to me about anyone else who is dead.

...

This seems to be just the right track for the day after you get wrecked on valium and martinis and sleep for 11 solid hours.

It's the b-side of a 1996 Labradford 10" single, Scenic Recovery. (I found it here.)

Labradford - Underwood 5ive (4.71 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

Nice ae? Like I said one time the other day to this guy, no wonder Labradford were my favourite band for most of the nineties.

Umm sorry.

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.

So yeah.. sorry, Robyn.

Stoopid Xians

Oh Lordi ... Christians take on fiends of rock

A crusade is looming as church groups prepare to take on heavy metal heavyweights poised to play in Wellington over Easter.

(from Stuff.co.nz):

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.

O for awesome.

Mystery Monday: g* ***k ******f

Remember this guy?



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.