Helpless

Haven't had much time to post lately. I'm still trying to get over the irony of Mark Blumsky supposedly being beaten up out of sight of the inner-city security cameras he was so instrumental in having installed - somewhat controversially, at the time - when he was mayor.

New drinking buddy for July

Exciting! I got me a new drinking buddy there on the right ->
Martha aka Wanda Harland is from Petone, Wellington, New Zealand, and her favourite music includes a band called happy mondays etc. Umm, which is pretty cool because she's the only blogger in the entire known universe who's heard of them (I suspect this is because it's her own band).

Wanda wants to know who the celebrity drug fiends aren't. And quite frankly, so do I. I betcha anything you like at least one of them isn't who I thought it was. Not that you can tell anymore, for in fear of being dragged ass-backward through the civil courts in a libel case, I removed the names. (Not that it did me any good, for Google has helpfully cached the post).

Name suppression doesn't always serve the interests of the many - in this case, all the ex-NZ-sports-stars-turned-tv-celebrities who aren't currently being hounded by Interpol agents through Asia Minor.

Now it's time for me to say goodnight, and leave you with a picture I done made.

More grist for the mill

Of the last 100 referrals to Drinks-After-Work, something like 97 of them have been Google searches about the celebrity drugs scandal. And most of the googlers have little or no doubt about who they think is involved; two names in particular keep on coming up over and over again.

Foot-In-Mouth pointed me in the direction of Hard News which pointed me in the direction of David Farrar's miserable excuse for a blog which pointed me in the direction of the NZ Herald story about which notes that Aaron Bhatnagar had to shut down comments on his blog post on the topic after people kept posting guesses about the identities of the two celebs; what they omitted but the same story on STUFF did mention is that the poor wee duckie apparently got "back from several hours of meetings" and found "all sorts of unsavoury comments made" and so was moved to shut down comments on the thread in question.

But did he stop there? Did he fuck. As he writes "anyone posting names will have their IP addresses recorded by me in the event that someone important wants to know who they are." Which was as effective a way as any of nominating himself as Cock of the Week. Apparently he's also a member of the National Party.

Anyway I guess someone ought to tell these guys at What-the-Funk - surely as unlikely a hotbed of libel as anywhere.

It was actually a real pity that Aaron Bhatnagar disabled comments on his posting, because I almost expired in a paroxysm of hilarity (o how I do love literary cliches... sometimes) when I read the note from peterquixote, who said (and in the saying so provides the same Mr. Bhatnagar with some real Cock of the Week competition):

Can anyone give a clue, [sic] why would [sic] celebrity on good income ruin his/her life this way? Or are they cheats and low life [sic] from the start?

Peter, Peter, Peter. O my god, where to start. You say so little and yet you say so much.

I dunno. Is this shit even interesting any more?

At least Damien Christie in his Cracker blog had the sense to keep stumm and not post any of his trademark irrelevant incomprehensible bullshit; it would surely have only annoyed me even more.

Everybody's talking, yeah.. *sings*

Now concerning today's earlier post, in today's litigious society one has to be awfully careful how one treads. From Dictionary.com: libel -

1. A false publication, as in writing, print, signs, or pictures, that damages a person's reputation.

2. The act of presenting such material to the public.

So, in the interest of posterity, I should point out that:

1. The investment advice was received by me in an unsolicited fashion and posted sincerely and without any intended relation to any case currently under investigation or before the courts; for goodness sake take no inference as such, and

2. The linked image is a sophisticated visual pun on the colloquial term for cocaine, and/or any drugs that are ingested nasally, which I thought was so clever I was compelled to share it with everyone who hadn't already received it in their email inbox. Any perceived reference to any business, corporation, incorporated society, or charitable trust is unintentional, and frankly, purely bad luck.

Yeah. Those who know me know that I'm an utter sucker for cheap humour - just keep those emails coming - and that I'm always up for a hot tip, be it on the dogs or the sharemarket.

And in other news: happily, this is the fifth post in a row on this blog that doesn't have a reference to I in the title (after a similarly lengthy run of 'I' posts).

On the run

Sometimes it's too easy to be a blogger. Today on STUFF:

Ex-sports star coy on coming home: One of two former sports stars caught up in a major drug bust says he has no immediate plans to return to New Zealand and talk to the police. [...] The second celebrity [is] also believed to be out of the country.

I'm really feeling for our boys* on the lam, here. Who would come on in to that sort of welcoming committee? I just hope that wherever they are, they know that they're always in our thoughts, prayers, and non-work-related emails, and that they never forget that there are plenty of very reasonable nations in the world - of quite acceptable quality - who don't have extradition treaties with New Zealand.

Note: Term 'boys' used here not with any calumnious intention but in an honourarily-fraternal sense and for the sake of brevity and clarity; our 'second' recalcitrant comrade could of course be of either sex.

Advice for young investors

Start adjusting your share portfolio right now... sell: Charlies; buy: Woman's Weekly.

(from an email fwded to me yesterday)

I also found this, which was forwarded to me this morning, quite funny.

If I wasn't so busy and ultimately so concerned with not sounding like a twat, I'd probably write something profound about drug prohibition.

Ooh goody, I smell a scandal

Ex-sports stars' link to drug ring: Two former sports stars have been implicated in a drug ring smashed by Auckland police for allegedly supplying methamphetamine, cocaine and ecstasy.

Since this morning's Dominion Post actually ran the headline TV stars link to drug ring, I'm guessing that the "two male celebrities", wanted for "supplying cocaine and cannabis" and "receiving ecstasy", are *cough* and *hurrumph* - though it would be carelessly slanderous of me to actually come right out and allege it.

"Announcing the arrests, police said the case was one showing that stimulant drugs were widely available and used by educated professionals on good incomes, not just by criminals."

If I didn't suspect that it's more to do with the media rubbing its hands in glee at bringing down these irreverant Johnny-come-latelys, I'd congratulate them and the Police for this statement. Makes a welcome relief from their typical scare-Wadestown-housewives-at-the-prospect-of-smelly-poor-people-on-methamphetamine-fuelled-home-invasion-rampages fare.

EDIT *Names removed in the interests of legal ass-covering.

Billy Corgan's musical yoof

If you're like me and you really can't stomach The Smashing Pumpkins (and let's be honest here, colloquial evidence would have it that there's a lot of us about) and you paid no attention whatever to his post-Pumpkins project Zwan (despite the presence of Slint/Tortoise/The For Carnation/Papa M-guy Dave Pajo, and recent Will Oldham collaborator and touring guitarist Matt Sweeney) (and continuing to be honest, any evidence that you'd like to inspect would have it that again, there's a lot of us about) (...); if you're like me you're going to be surprised at how good his new new-wave-esque solo album TheFutureEmbrace is.

Ok. The downside is that it's still Billy Corgan singing, and the songs still sound like Pumpkins songs. The difference here is the production - it's all beautiful synth washes and arpeggios and basslines and ethereal guitars and vocal effects and so on and so on and it's all like it's 1985 again and I really was quite skeptical, believing as I do that nostalgia for it's own sake is no good and a no-good sole reason for liking something - but this effort transcends any of those concerns. It's all quite gorgeous and the thing is that instead of coming across all wry and flippant and apathetic modern yoof and so on (standard stoopid Corgan), the fragility of the words and the sounds somehow offer you up a charmingly-real personal angle by which you can quite easily find yourself being seduced. Dave Simpson in a review in the Guardian Unlimited points to Bowie's Berlin work (Low, Heroes, Lodger) and for my money he's spot on - which really means that's it's actually all like it's 1977 not '85 but that's getting pedantic.

I only have room for one track, so here's track #2, Mina Loy (M.O.H.), but there's any number of superb tracks on the album - not least the collaboration with The Cure's Robert Smith on an astonishing cover of the BeeGees To Love Somebody.

Billy Corgan - Mina Loy (M.O.H.) (right-click and Save As to download)

I love my leather jacket

The Chills are unique in the history of rock music. I realised this tonight, driving home and listening to Radio Hauraki when I Love My Leather Jacket came on. There are a million bands who could have written a song called I Love My Leather Jacket and for 999,999 of them it would have been taking the piss out of bogans. There's only one band in the world that is twee enough to write a song about the leather jacket which belonged to your best friend who was taken suddenly in his prime by leukaemia and which you now wear in sentimental rememberance of him and what's more you don't even pretend it's taking the piss out of bogans but instead you tell everyone what the song is about with your down-home fresh-faced kiwi-boy sincerity, because you really miss your friend, even now years later if you think about him too much you feel tears welling in your eyes and you wonder why it had to be him that was taken and what you did any differently to be saved, and you want to share this loss with us all because you feel it so greatly, and because face it, you're a naif amongst the swell of hardened cynics and fleeting fashionistas in the music scene.

And that is why The Chills are unique in the history of rock music; so without any more ado, I give you:

The Chills - I Love My Leather Jacket

I should be happy

I've been looking at that previous post for the best part of a week now, and I've come to the conclusion that my claim to having "thrown out" my girlfriend was a little harsh; to be fair, we reached the mutual conclusion that her continued presence in our home was untenable.

Since last Tuesday's melt-down I've been in this weird, numb, no-fly zone just waiting for something to happen. I worked three 12-14 hour days in the last four. I went out on Friday night and got drunk. I've spent the entire weekend sleeping, and when not sleeping all I seem to be able to do is read Phillip Roth, download Norwegian black-metal and wander around the house, looking at all the dirty dishes and wondering who left them since it surely wasn't me.

Last night I dreamt that I started a nuclear war by launching a missile attack on Russia, who obligingly retaliated and bombed Lower Hutt (despite its strategic value surely being less than zero). Through an open window from my office 20km away in Wellington I watched the detonation - obediently shielding my eyes from the glare - and the mushroom cloud bloom. I waited as the blast wave roared towards me and as it enveloped me, I watched my body breaking up into streams of pixels, as if photographed using really bad grainy film. I felt at one with the universe, as if I had suddenly, through a series of reductive transformations, found my place in the proton-stream emanating from the centre, the birth of the universe and the Big Bang.

I've just finished watching I Love Your Work, a neat little art-film which appears to be some sort of a discourse on the nature of self and fame and obsession and the entertainment industry. It's one of actor Adam Goldberg's first directorial efforts and it's quite a stylish little piece, very poetic and meditative; nice, unusual, clever but classy use of cuts and shots, very innovative application and integration with the beautiful soundtrack (Goldberg again, with Steven Drozd of the Flaming Lips); thoughtful. It even pulls some neat multi-layered tricks crossing the fourth dimension - the barriers between subject and actor and audience and so on - and ends with a bizarro Rodgers and Hammerstein flourish. It certainly doesn't hurt that the film features the very watchable Giovanni Ribisi, Franka Potente, Christina Ricci, and, weirdly, Elvis Costello. Unfortunately I didn't enjoy it because I just can't concentrate on anything at the moment. This makes watching films very difficult and leaves me in no doubt that I am going to be an utter flake for this year's film-festival.

I should be happy; I've got the reviews I've been waiting for for several months. Aquarius records has, in their New Arrivals #217 list (possibly here, in a week or so) reviewed my recent Application antarctica download form and Communion longplayer CDs. And given them bloody good write-ups. And streaming samples, for anyone who wants to listen. As much worth as a review ever is, these ones are probably worth quite a lot, just because of the clout that is apparently afforded to these guys' opinions.

Help me I am in hell, or something

Well. Tonight's big news is that I just threw out my girlfriend, The Jarman. Call it irreconcilable differences, or something. More later at some stage, I would imagine.

My show last night went really bloody well, in fact almost too well. I was drinking whiskey and beer and I got quite drunk; ended up doing an on-air giveaway that I shouldn't have.

I went to an opening tonight at Idiom gallery. There was some nice work by Gordon Crook (also here and here) but I didn't stay long; couldn't be fucked being in close proximity to so many people. In honour of Dave's post on J. P. Satre, I think I may begin to develop some sort of a philosophy or credo or manifesto or something based on my ongoing experiments with social phobia and paranoia.

indie-show 4-July-2005

Tonight I'm off once again to do the indie-show on Radio Active 89 FM. The show goes from 9pm 'til 11pm (that'd be 0900 to 1100 GMT I think, if you wanted to listen to the stream). For a change I'm looking forward to it - perhaps it has something to do with being a lot more prepared today than I am customarily.

Instead of doing it 1/2 an hour before the show, I already burnt the 2 CDR volumes (as is my recent habit to use, rather than 30-40 LPs), and I've been listening to them all day. It's going to be a rockin' show...

a.r.e. weapons - saigon
aframes - modula [A Frames 2LP,2003]
allen ginsberg - transcription of organ music [Howl and other poems,1993]
amt - do you know where the secondhand record shop is [swr,2005]
charalambides - magnolia [After the medicine show,2003]
flaming lips - The Spiderbite Song (Early mix) [the soft bulletin companion,2000]
heka - Cachet [last spiritual gas station before the end of civilisation,2005]
heka / Temple of ruin [last spiritual gas station before the end of civilisation,2005]
robyn hitchcock - full moon in my soul [Spooked,2004]
robyn hitchcock - welcome to earth [Spooked,2004]
mars - 3e [the Complete Studio recordings]
maximo park - the coast is always changing [LAMACQ Live showcase,2004]
pere ubu - humor me [terminal tower,1978]
pharaoh overlord - mangrove [#1,2001]
plugz - El Clavo y la Cruz [Complete Collection]
Red Krayola - Micro-Chips & Fish [7"]
Red Krayola - The Principles Of Party Organisation [Kangaroo]

scorn - black box [Gyral]
Secret Machines - you are chains [Now here is nowhere,2004]
Shellac - Song Against Itself [1000 hurts]
six organs of admittance - for octavio paz #05 [for octavio paz,2003]
soft machine - memories [Jetpropelledphotographs,1997]
sunn_o))) - hell-o)))-ween [White2,2004]
swell maps - full moon [Train Out of it, 1987]
swell maps - read about seymour [Whatever happens next,1981]
techno animal - needle [radio hades]
the mars volta - the widow [frances the mute,2005]
the raincoats - fairytale in the supermarket [the Raincoats,1980]
the rolling stones - you got the silver [let it bleed,2002]
tortoise - alcohall [Rhythms, Resolutions, Clusters remix EP]
TV on the radio - the wrong way [New Health Rock CDS]
vangelis - blade runner (end titles) [blade runner soundtrack]
white stripes - forever for her (is over for me) [Get behind me satan,2005]

I might come back later and add some notes about some of this stuff.

Rumour has it I sold some work, though.

The opening of the Final Product show was the other night (good god it was last thursday night a week ago already) and it was a pretty good night. The worst thing was the trio of midget David Gray impersonators I caught the clap off of in the parking lot. (well i don't mind the gonorrhea so much that can be put paid to with a short course of antibiotics it's more that the music is so abominably dire eh) (oh alright i'm lying jus' tryin' to make it sound more inneresting than it was it was just another gallery opening orright) (Rumour has it I sold some work, though.)

CJA's Ironclad

CJA (Clayton No-one, of Armpit, The Futurians, The Ideal Gus and so on) has released an utterly wonderful CD, gorgeous, possibly his finest and most realised solo work to date - Ironclad - on US label Digitalis.

I'm not going to try to better the great liner notes, written by Campbell Kneale; I'm going to let them say it all for me by reproducing them here, without permission.

"A blather of fuzz and strum, tapedeck meltdown, edits seemingly performed by snapping the tape in his teeth... I defy you to find anybody that gives less of a flying fuck than CJA. Or more for that matter. These sounds don't demand attention so much as they demand to be lived through. This is real. I'm talking REAL in all its mundane, apoplectic, divinity. The pain, the love, the wonder, the near-religious might. Sometimes wrathful, sometimes somnambulent, sometimes talkative, other times saturated in a well of its own disinterest.

These songs have a life of their own and they plead to be allowed to live it. These little magnetic mountains and polycarbonate stylus-files retain their totemic status round here and, over the years, have contaminated the cassettes next to it [sic] in my drawer with a spreading bile that seems to lessen anything placed in its presence. They are CJA's black-eyed offspring: hungry, runny-nosed, and whining for attention. Just love them."

CJA - 2:50 (right-click and Save As to download)

Available all over the place, including Surefire Distribution.

Final product show

There's a new exhibition opening in Upper Hutt at Expressions (the main public art gallery there). It's called Final Product: Drawing as the final product and it's got work (drawings) from a bunch of groovy cats ("Aus" denotes the exhibitor is from Australia):

John Abbate (Aus), Katie Breckon (Aus), Dan Campion, Matt Couper, Jenny Gilliam, Richard Lewer (Aus), Pat Macan, Angela Meyer, Karin van Roosmalen, Vin Ryan (Aus), Stewart Shephard

.. and me. My contribution features work executed on a Hewlett-Packard iPAQ pocket "palm" computer and printed using a high-quality laser-printing process onto heavy water-colour stock.

The show opens on Thursday night, the 23rd of June, at 6.30 pm, and runs until the 7th of August.

It's an easy (and scenic) train ride from Wellington to Upper Hutt. The Gallery is very close to Upper Hutt train station. - Ross P. Kettle

Here's a sample of my drawings - this one's called fleet.

Reviews

Ahhh... reviews. The pathetic agony of scouring the known universe for reviews of one's work (read: googling the various titles of your albums), time and time again. It's all rather sad, really.

Found some today, though. Foxy digitalis has some great reviews of Application antarctica download form and the V/A The tone of the universe.. compilation, as well as one of an older 3" CD called Communion, that I released a couple of years ago on PseudoArcana. And a Polish e-zine called Gaz-eta has one of The Voice of the Taniwha.

Stone the crowes, thass bin e mrud-ah

So speaking, as we were, about murder (well, we weren't really, I'm far too 'fraid of being made to jump off the pier wearing a pair of concrete slippers to write about the reasons behind Murder Shed being known as it is), here's the theme song from the Scottish television series Taggart (and here).

Mike Moran (feat. Maggie Bell) -- No Mean City (Taggart theme) (right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

Mike Moran -- No Mean City instrumental (Taggart theme)

There's two versions - the incidental instrumental version, and the title music with lyric sung by Maggie Bell, formerly of rock band Stone the Crows. The theme is called No Mean City and was composed by Mike Moran.

'Mrud-ah' is how the Glaswegian Taggart pronounces "murder". My Scots roots are also in the fair city o' Glasgow, and he reminds me of my grandmother.

UPDATE

Leave a note if you find this; there's so many people coming here for the Taggart theme music tracks it's becoming legendary, and it'd be cool to know who y'all are.

Out now: At Murder Shed

The new The Stumps vs. Ohm CDR At Murder Shed is now out, released on the French label Paha Porvari. If you want a copy, try emailing them, or check at your local folk / noise / electronics / psyche / free / minimalism / concrete / drone / improv record emporium. You might be able to get one from PseudoArcana, or even from me.

I've never been able to figure out the link between Paha Porvari and Naninani, but there is one; either way, however, their website seems a little on the side of underdone.

Back

Yeah, the site went down for a few days there. Sorry about that.

did 'e 'eck[a]

Here's another Heka track. Damn this is a good album...

Heka - Cachet (5.04 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download)

Meanwhile, fans of either can head on over to KittenWar.com to check out the progress of and latest stats on The Sneak (an old friend) and Charlie Brown. WARNING: it's addictive!