Friday farce: Skeptics double-play

Well, New Zealand music month is over again. And thank god. So long to state-sponsored sycophancy. Farewell to cynical marketing ploys and blinkered jingoism. Wave buh-bye to NZ Music Month. Buh-bye! Buh-bye...

Now. She's Lost: an underground New Zealand music recovery expedition is a free downloadable virtual compilation CD featuring "some of New Zealand's finest dark alternative/industrial/electro/experimental artists" recording cover versions of their favourite Kiwi songs. Or that's how it's being pitched, anyways.

Since it's no longer NZ Music Month, you probably can't download the whole thing anymore. (Which you may or may not be thankful for.) But you can read the story of the compilation here. And, like me, you may want to spend a moment blissfully reveling in the fact that the Skeptics (Wikipedia) are apparently now popular enough that their songs appear -- not once, but TWICE -- on the the compilation.

I love the Skeptics, me. In fact, the other night -- whilst sailing with a couple of sheets to the breeze -- I expressed a desire to quantifiably become the world's biggest Skeptics fan. (Ask me how, go'an.) So you'd think I'd be happy. And I would be, except that the covers are laughable. Utterly wretched.

I've lectured in the past at length about the various "rules" of cover-versions, and there are a good number. But surely the very first, the primary, the preeminent rule of recording a good cover is -- not to attempt to faithfully reproduce the original, adding nothing in the process.

So [1] Some noisy chumps called Hog Haul Valentine ignore that imperative and record a virtually indistinguishable version of La Motta, the brooding, chilling account of a boxer getting the shit beaten out of him:

Hog Haul Valentine - La Motta (4.77 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download)

It's not actually particularly bad, just... well... kinda boring. And the same. Their site is here, anyhow.

And [2] your listening pleasure, some horrible person called Greg "Danger" has fair ruined the spastic dance-floor classic AFFCO for all time:

Greg Danger - AFFCO (4.66 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download)

For god's sake, what was he thinking? I'm going to have to paraphrase the sample he uses on the intro to his track and direct it back at him:

I wanted to tell that you're an evil horrible person. You're an awful person, you represent horrible ideas, god hates you and he wants to kill your children. You should burn in hell. Bye.

Some of the other covers on She's Lost are quite good, though.

Links:
The Skeptics at Last.fm (where you can kinda listen to two different versions of Sheen of Gold)
She's Lost official site and Myspace page

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Don't forget to check out David Cauchi's address about Science Fiction and Art at the film archive tomorrow afternoon.

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NP: Inferi - Shores of Sorrow (Metal Observer review).

Golly

Stunned to discover (via Trademe) that the practice of making blackface minstrel dolls for children ("golliwogs") is still going strong in New Zealand. (Don't believe me? Check out this search.)

I'm sorry, but wha? Didn't these become passe -- if not completely unacceptable -- at least 30 years ago?

I'm surprised they don't come with tee-shirts which say things like "Lazy" and "Goodfernothing" and "Shiftless jigger" and "Lock up yer valuables" and so on.

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My friend David is giving an address at the Film Archive on Saturday afternoon. It's called something like Why Science-Fiction is the only legitimate artform of the 20th and 21st centuries. Read about it at the Wellingtonista.

It's going to be great.

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NP: Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions - We people that are darker than blue (listen).

Blonde at the Bar

Cracker beat me to it, but whatever.. The Herald has started a new "Sex and the City"-style blog thing called Blonde at the Bar. Yeah, exactly.

It's written by one of their reporters, Joanna Hunkin, and her frivolous, misguided, facile drivel is only just inconsequential enough to avoid spoiling your breakfast. Being published on a daily basis, though, it could almost be said to be good for getting your day off to an excellent start. You know, have yourself a nice hearty laff. And the (generally acerbic/of better quality than that to which they refer) reader comments are worth the price of admission alone.

*yuk yuk yuk*

Here's the RSS feed.


(Image out out-of-focus lady and floating, disembodied cocktail-waiter hand from Jupiter Images)

Safe by Rebecca Turbow

Rebecca Turbow is gorgeous, and she makes gorgeous clothes as well. (You might have noticed her Myspace page if you checked out the Pop Levi link from the other day.) Anyhoo, while they're really clearly mid-60s-Mod influenced, there's also something about them which just makes me say "Yeah!".

The designs are born out of Turbow's idea of creating elegant and durable hand-crafted clothing centered on the concepts of safety and protection. Are you thinking of some kinda weird pastel futuristic thing like Logan's Run or Zardoz? I am. Either way, my eyes are wishing there was more of this sorta thing around at the moment.

Rebecca's (admittedly rather Flash-heavy) official website is here.

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NP: Skeptics - pretty much everything they've ever released too, actually (Last.fm).

The hard word

Right on. It's time to take this blog in hand. I've been unbelievably busy on so many different thangs -- work, the new Foxy Digitalis, the new AudioFoundation project, writing for FD and the Wellingtonista, running Palindrone, working on new seht material, trying to get some new Stumps releases off the ground -- who really has time to post here? Well, I have managed 20 or 30 posts since the New Year which is not tooooooo bad, but it's the quality as much as the quantity, y'know.

So this here is where I put the stake in the ground and say "NO MORE!"... where I put my hand on my heart and faithfully promise to update much more frequently (dare I say daily???) and with much better content. Oh! The melodrama!

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Saturday night was Antony's birthday. Fifteen or so of us spent several hours on the cushions around the low tables at Cafe Istanbul, which was lovely and left me with the following thoughts:

• I'm never, ever going to do that again -- my back is still sore. Am I getting old?
• Are belly-dancers really supposed to be dangerously obese? And, even if so, are New Zealanders really ready for the challenge of upping and dancing with one in the middle of a restaurant? Or is it just cringingly, excruciatingly embarrassing.
  
• BYO whisky (in the hip-flask that Ms. Brown gave me) is a great idea and should be done more often -- it really adds a hitherto-unknown element of intrigue and danger into what is otherwise the fairly straightforward procedure of going out and eating food.
• I still really, really like Mediterranean food. Yes, sure -- it's all very low-brow and so on, but damn if it don't taste good.
  

Apparently after James and I left at about 11pm, somebody broke down in tears at the table, and the party moved downtown; Kiran didn't get home until 4am. Am uncertain at this point whether it was a good or a bad thing to have missed all this.

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NP: Circle of Ouroborus - pretty much everything they've ever released, actually (aQuarius).

Pop Levi

Liverpudlian nu-glam and ex-Ladytron bassist Pop Levi is bringing his hyperactive T. Rex-isms to the Bathhouse.

Here's the sweet-toothed truth about Pop -

It's not often you get to use the word "cat" about a fellow human, but then it's not every day you come across someone like Pop Levi. And Pop Levi is one strange cat.

Born in London, with musical roots in Liverpool, a stint playing with Ladytron and a home in Los Angeles, Pop Levi likes to describe what's good about pop music as "astral". His debut album, The Return To Form Black Magick Party, is, fittingly, worthy of the term. Although the most obvious precursor of his sound might be Mark Bolan, listen carefully and you'll hear touches of everyone from Jack White, Prince and Hendrix to Dylan, Lennon and Beefheart in there. But rather than being any kind of eyebrow-raised pastiche, this is what Pop describes as "channelling" - an album of such complete conviction, flair and energy (plus a lorryload of hooks) that it is utterly irresistible, a stack heel pushed right down on the accelerator.

So come along, dance around and get sugar in your eye. It's gonna be cosmic, and it's gonna be fun.

Listen to Sugar Assault Me (2.18 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download)

Two other things:
1. Over The Atlantic is supporting. Woot.
2. Jaegermeister is sponsoring. There will be presents on the door, and trinkets and drinks being given away. *Hic*

POP LEVI
SAN FRANCISCO BATHHOUSE
WEDNESDAY 6 JUNE
Presales are $35, and available from Slow Boat Records

NZ music month in Wgtn

In honour of NZ Music Month, at the Wellingtonista we have been talking about our favourite Wellington bands. I chipped in with a list of my personal favourites (Wellington music month 4: gettin' serious) which included:

The Avengers
Bailter Space
Birchville Cat Motel
The Elephantmen
The Garbage and the Flowers
The Labcoats
Little Bushman
The Phoenix Foundation
Primitive Art Group
Signer
Surface of the Earth
Andrew Thomas
Trinity Roots

Other contributions:
Wellington music month 1: guaranteed Emo-free
Wellington music month 2: favourite songs for the forlorn
Wellington music month 3: getting Noizy
Wellington music month 5: The dub strikes back

Getting serious at Happy and St. Andrews

Two freakin' amazing concerts at St. Andrews over the weekend, and one tonight at Happy, including the launch of the iiii Records label and store.

Read all about it at The Wellingtonista.

Blues Onna Sunday

Latest in series of Sunday blues-sessions, featuring Shuji Inaba, The Stumps, Tindersticks, and two from LSD March...

Let Me Lose My Mind Gratefully

Hold onto your hat and get ready for one of the most over-the-top rock n' roll bands of all time.

Hailing from Japan, the King Brothers (Myspace page here) make it their business to somehow mash-up the elements of every vital era of rock n' roll music and then utterly demolish it. They approximate the sound of the Germs backing Howlin' Wolf -- with his hand caught in a garbage disposal unit.

Promoter Brendan writes:

Few live acts make me drop my beer. When the King Brothers played Auckland a couple of years ago they did just that and left a trail of blind worshippers in their wake, setting rock'n'roll music and anything else in their path on fire.

This incredible live act make notorious leather-stovepipe nutjob rockers Guitar Wolf seem like Scots sadcore drips Belle and Sebastian. They take the blues into primal scream territory, and in the live setting they gleefully pound your face in the resultant flaming gloop.

In support are Wellington's own excellent looney speed-rockers Knife Fight.

For better or worse, you will soon be able to divide your life in half - a time before you heard The King Brothers, and after. Oh, it's gonna be explosive. Fucking explosive. You can count on it.

THE KING BROTHERS w/ KNIFE FIGHT
THURS 3RD MAY
SAN FRANCISCO BATHHOUSE
DOORS 8PM

TICKETS AVAILABLE AT REAL GROOVY

PC or not PC, that is the question

So is a movie clip called "White People Dancing" -- sorta Funniest Home Vids montage style, featuring a bunch of unattractive whiteys -- at weddings, socials, whatever.. some of them Irish, or maybe Polish, I'm guessing -- committing various acts of uncoordinated abominations all in the name of getting down -- just a bit of fun?

Or could it be said to be -- at best -- culturally insensitive, or even -- at worst -- contributing to the propagation of racist stereotypes?

The Third Annual Falconhawk All Cock, All Falcon, All Party Falconcock Cocktail Party and Craft Fair Extravaganza

This is my cricket team, Falconhawk:

On Saturday night we had a cocktail party and prize-giving. Here are some pictures of proceedings:

Steve makes making cocktails on a sort-of "feeding-the-5000" scale look fun and easy.

Ozz man, at this stage still in the happy place.

David has a number of sheets to the wind.

If n is the number of sheets to the wind that David has, the number of sheets to the wind that Phil at any one time has can be expressed as n*sqrt(3).

Our gracious host Tobin, and his lovely date -- whose name I have unfortunately forgotten.

Tobin and date.

Date sans Tobin. I gave up trying to take a pic which didn't involve one or both of them looking like retards.

Tobin (at stage-right) tells another "joke".

Wicketkeeper extraordinaire and Falconhawk Man Of The Year, Dan Cumming, likes to whistle when he's drunk.

Dan Cumming also likes the feel of cold hard metal on his *cough* cheeks. At this stage I gave up trying to take a pic of Dan which didn't involve him, also, looking like a retard.

David and Shauna.

Man of the Year. 'Nuff said, innit.

Some formica.

Yes indeed.

Mighty Mighty Mighty Mighty Mighty Mighty

Where you will find me on the weekend:


More here on the Wellingtonista.

Alt.country at the Bathhouse

American alt.country legends Richard Buckner and Edith Frost are playing together at the San Francisco Bathhouse on Wednesday night.

There are three kinds of American folk artist: those who sit, contented, on a back porch contemplating America's landscape and ways; those for whom its landscape and ways are something to stand against or move boldly through; and those whose America is a shadowy, impressionistic place that moves inside of them. This [latter] is the area that the sombre-voiced Richard Buckner has been exploring since 1984 --(Sylvie Simmons; The Guardian, 2004)

Richard Buckner is the true 'American Wanderer'. The American landscape is the backdrop he moves against (literally as well as figuratively; he's been traveling the North American continent for two decades now) and his relationship to it is shifting and ambiguous, a complicated state of existing within and without a country that is impossible to escape from unscathed. He's worked alongside and recorded with Calexico, Giant Sand, Neko Case among many others, and he's been described by Howe Gelb as having "one of the finest voices on the planet".

Edith Frost walks a fine line, musically speaking, between sanity and utter madness. Since the nineties she's been taking the conventions of introspected folk and alt.country and cramming it with such kitsch oddities and childlike arrangements as occur to her along the way. Her voice is the dusty, low pitched croon you might expect of an old-time country heartbreaker, but this is a woman who also digs on Blondie and has no qualms about forcing the glaring city lights of New Wave onto the quiet country and folk roads that underpin her music. Edith featured on the Drag City super session, alongside Bill Callahan, Brendan Murphy, Rian Murphy and Jim O'Rourke.

This is a show not to be missed.

RICHARD BUCKNER, EDITH FROST + GUESTS
WEDNESDAY 18th APRIL
SAN FRANCISCO BATHHOUSE

Tickets are $25 plus booking fee, available from Slow Boat Records in Cuba Street.

Links:
MySpace pages for Richard Buckner and Edith Frost.

I will miss Kurt Vonnegut

He's popped off to the planet Tralfamadore for the last time and I will miss him. Not that I ever knew him personally, dig, but I will feel an absence, a void in the fabric of the universe -- the space which he previously inhabited. Perhaps not so much actually on a personal level, for the resonance of his work lingers on and on and on and on and so on... but more the idea that if the human race could produce such a fine fellow -- as a humanist, the ultimate collision of sadness and magnanimity -- will it ever bother to do so again? Could it, even?

And I think the world will be a poorer place -- and we will probably struggle for some time to examine ourselves as effectively -- without his intelligent, forthright sagacity.

My favourite Kurt Vonnegut moment? Encountering his drawing of an anus while reading his novel Breakfast of Champions for the first time at about age 14. It looked something like this:

Some possible reading:

Custodians of Chaos: an excerpt from his memoirs A Man Without a Country

Kurt Vonnegut's Blues For America

Salon interview and profile from 1999

Wikipedia entry

Dead C postscript

Here's a montage-img of The Dead C playing at the City Gallery the other week:

You should click on the image for a much closer look.

Stumps vs. BBA Dukes and Postures

Post-rock is a done-to-death description but as a semaphore of intent it still serves a certain purpose. First coined by music-journo Simon Reynolds as a term to describe progressive music "using rock instrumentation for non-rock purposes, using guitars as facilitators of timbre and textures rather than riffs and power chords", it's use was rapidly spread during the 90s by breathless writers suddenly overwhelmed by seemingly-infinite possible music-futures. Reynolds further expounded:

perhaps the really provocative area for future development lies... in cyborg rock; not the wholehearted embrace of Techno's methodology, but some kind of interface between real time, hands-on playing and the use of digital effects and enhancement.

... which in itself has turned out to be suitably ambitious, as in general attempts at an amalgam of real-time instrumentation and digital frippery have turned out to be a big horrible mess (with notable exceptions, of course).

However some have managed to find a kinda cautious way-forward through this experimental minefield, and on Saturday night four progressive musical groups take four individual post-rockin' approaches to deconstructing sound within the codified meta-language of rock music:

...some of Wellington's greatest rock explorers...

The Postures will have you shakin' yer booty and shaking in your boots with their disco/doom rhythms combined with piercing tones and a punk delivery. The Stumps are quite possibly the Grateful Dead for the 21st century... noxious jazz-fusion is administered a good spanking to within an inch of the (current) law. Join The Dukes of Leisure on an idler's stroll through huge spaces of gentle melodies surrounded by walls of violent and engulfing noise. And Black Boned Angel is uber-ambient doom-metal created from massively overdriven instruments... the aural equivalent of a tequila and opiates-bender followed by a five-day crying jag.

SATURDAY APRIL 14th
SAN FRANCISCO BATH-HOUSE
10$

The last Black Boned Angel performance:

The Dead C are coming to town

... as noted on The Wellingtonista.

Drinking and eating and rocking and rolling

Over on the Wellingtonista, I wrote about Negroni cocktails, free gigs at the City Gallery, and Aro Community Fair.

Now. On also on this Friday night March 23th, The Stumps are playing at Happy with our friends Zombie Fuck! and Public Toilet Ltd.



There's plenty happening, yes there is...

Comets on Fire and Birchville Cat Motel

Last night, as mentioned, I went to see Comets on Fire. They ruled. They were really, really great.

Birchville Cat Motel opened, and was fantastic too. People danced, which is not normal. I mean, it's not not-normal to dance, but it is at a BCM show. Here's a bunch of pics. (Click on the images to view a much larger version which opens in another tab/window):



Also, here's a couple of shots of Comets on Fire, taken from behind the soundboard (the sound was much better there):



These are from the end, when Campbell Kneale (BCM) was jamming with them -- you can see him over on the far-left of the stage (our right).

No, you are correct -- there weren't very many people there. This surprised me a lot.