Tagged: Music

Dating Godot

I was alerted to a music show on National Radio last week featuring an interview with old friend and bandmate Andrew Spittle, now lost in the mists of the far north somewhere.

The half hour interview was great, and some long overdue coverage for the man who puts a new meaning to productivity. However the interviewer threw in a weird quote from an old Dead Weight article I wrote about Andrew, where I called him “one of life’s beautiful losers, a man screaming into deep space.”

If you read this Andy – you recovered well, man, after the first strangled choking noise you made. You’re right, the comment was made about your business acumen. The music stands. Or to quote from a certain movie “the dude abides.”

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Skeptics

Purely by chance, later in the evening following the Chavez screening I got to see a rare live video of the last ever performance of New Zealand music group The Skeptics.

I have long regarded this group as certainly the most interesting band to come out of New Zealand. Their music is strange, dark, magical – in the sense of conjuring up strange half-felt emotions and responses. Their final recordings and songs show a much greater command of melodic expressiveness which combines powerfully with their earlier more oppressive and sinister moods.

Skeptics music evokes a wide range of responses. It makes my sister actively uncomfortable – not that she doesn’t “like” the music, just that it gives her the heebie jeebies. Others like myself have an almost cultish interest in this most grandly unlikely band of musical adventurers. Singer David D’Ath died of leukaemia in 1990, while other members went on to become sound engineers and pop stars (sort of.) It was a rare privilege to see this video – and an interesting insight into how black super taper jeans were big back in 1990.

Thanks to those who dug this one up from the archive.

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Eye of Sauron versus Plan of Alpha

Yes, the rumours are true – the Alpha Plan have finally managed to crack the soundtrack game. New short NZ feature Bogans is a movie about three bogans (overseas readers – this is New Zealand vernacular for petrolheads/boy racers/young men with V8s) who decide to head to the Big Smoke (Wellington) to land work as extras in that most orc-tastic trilogy Lord of the Rings.

The Alpha Plan feature on the soundtrack with our song “Someone Else’s Air” (one of John’s numbers) from the dim dark nineties. Apparently Peter Jackson makes an appearance too . . .

Who know’s what will come next? A reformation? Invitation to play at the premiere of King Kong? Or perhaps just some more obscurity.

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Ice Land

A musical time lately in the Deep South.

We got to see the Verlaines play a few songs and spend what seemed like hours waiting around for the tv people to give them the nod at the ‘National Anthem’ down at Otago University on Saturday night. Still a great time had by all etc.

On Thursday night I got to get my own guitar out of the cupboard to join in the fun at Arc Cafe where Tristan Dingemans was having some kind of going away show before he leaves for Wellington.

Anyway, I got to join in a kind of free jazz/electronica session with a few people I’d never played with before. All very self-indulgent and great fun. The last time I’d played with Tristan was about ten years ago when we had a kind of hardcore band . . . maybe I’ll dig up one of those old tracks sometime and mp3ify it. TD went on to great things with HDU who are still rolling along by all accounts.

I didn’t get to see the Bats who were playing in the weekend, one of my very old favourites, as the movies called. The Day After Tomorrow – hamfisted, over the top, and probably just the right type of crude propaganda that could convert the wide-awake sleepers that elect the ‘Dubyas’ of the world to high office. But that’s another story.

King tides and howling winds in coastal Otago these days.

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New mp3 . . . plus some thoughts on the future of rock . . .

I’m considering how to release my record. After doing the sums, it’s going to be too hard to do a run of CD’s. I’ve decided to release it online, on my site, as mp3′s. Just do CD’s for those who ask. Maybe do a few Geraldine singles, if the pressing plant is still going.

Is this the end of music as we know it? Perhaps we’re just seeing the end of ‘pro’ musos and stars versus ‘the audience’, and seeing a new type of music structure made up of prosumers, with small audiences and day jobs, but the ability to put together music themselves . . .

Well, theory aside, most of this prosumers tracks are mixed now, I just got a batch from John Guy Howell in Auckland, and are going to finish the last couple of tunes in Dunedin with Stephen Stedman (who recorded the thing back in the dark ages.)

I’m having a bit of trouble placing the record in the scheme of things. I’ve been listening to rough mixes for so long I’m not sure what I make of it.

One of my favourite mixes is the track that I’m going to have as the opener ‘Coasting’ which is an instrumental. Download here, it’s under three megs.

It was a good recording, just me playing guitar and bass and Piers on the brushes. John’s done a great spacey mix and I’m feeling quite happy about it.

The track itself was inspired by thinking about when I was growing up, in the small village where I came from called Warrington, near to Dunedin. I wanted to capture the feel of the quiet, long beach here and the marram grass in the summer sun. We’re on the main railway line here, and I always associated this place with the trains going through, which is why I got Piers to do the ‘train rhythm’ on the brushes.

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