It was the best of times…

Dang, its been busier than a child labourer in sneaker season. My clients seemed to have all gotten together and decided that now is the time to try and get as much word done as possible. "Send it all to print" they chorus!

Heres a bit of a boozy roundup of the year, which saw me move even more towards the finer Craft beers. I Got back into white wines after a bit of a spell on the red's, I also sampled many wonderful cocktails. Props to fouriiiis for the idea.

Best Craft BeerEmersons Pilsner

This wee gem of a beer has lovely malts perfectly balanced against some distinctive Saaz hops. NZ's first organic Pilsner too.

Most Disappointing Craft BeerHawkes Bay Independent Breweries Special Reserve

Supposedly honey sweetened and infused with cinnamon, this beer has a watery body, and is overly sweet. Rather unpleasant.

Best New/Seasonal

Macs Sundance

Monteiths had this corner of the market nailed for a long time, but Macs go one-better with this sublty spiced wee gem. I can see a great few of these being sampled over the holiday break.

Worst New/Seasonal

Steinlager Pure

Steiny had it right - their recipe could use some improving on. Unfortunately this isn't it. Flavourless, and dull. I guess I shouldn't have expected different from a 2nd rate Heineken knock off, but the marketing was so good.

Best of the Supermarket Six-ersMacs Hop Rocker

Packed with flavour this outstanding brew has been a staple of 2007. Hopsy, great body, and a touch bitter this is a fantastic beer.

Worst of the Supermarket Six-ers
Pirate Beer

Although not strictly a 6-er (Comes as singles or in a 4 pack) Pirate beer is easily the worst beer around. At 8%abv You expect something robust and with character. Instead you get a watery slop that makes Ranfurly draft seem good.

Best Wine

Cable Bay 2005 Savignon Blanc

Newly opened on Waiheke, but grown in Marlborough, this distinctive Sav offers the best of NZ's whites. Fruity but with a reasonable body.

Worst Wine

So I don't hate any wine enough not to drink it, but Mcguigan Estate N/V Semilion is particularly nasty. Cooking Wine Only. Someone's booze-hag mum is probably thinking its the business, but she's a goddam booze hag who thinks nothing of drinking the cooking sherry when the Country Dry White cask runs out.

Best Cocktail

Old Fashioned

Recently usurping the title from an extra dry Vodka martini, straight up with a twist. Classy, Strong, Manly and damn fine. Props to Mea Culpa on Ponsonby for making a shit-hot Chocatini. Only place I'll drink one.

Worst Cocktail

Aussie Mozzie

Once again, I'll pretty much drink it if its got alcohol in it, but this is just nasty. 1 Part Creme De Menthe, 4 Parts OJ. Tastes like a cup of Raro after you've brushed your teeth.

I'm pretty interested in cocktails at the moment so if you've got any you'd like to share...

On The Bandwagon

Nearly time for the big ol' wind-down that is the summer break. Since all the cool bloggers post end of year lists, I figured I'd keep with tradition and post my own. Musically, as far as 2007 went I think it was more important on a personal level, than overall. This year I discovered a swag of artists that I've come to love, heard some interesting new sounds, lauded some and loathed others. I've cringed as I watched the ongoing exploitation of the music industry and the manufacture of stars. I realised that I love americana and bluegrass, and loving something new is always exciting.

So... 10 albums that made this year a winner, in no particular order

Levon Helm - Dirt Farmer
Solo work from the former singer from The Band. You can FEEL this music.

The Phoenix Foundation - Happy Ending
Sam Flynn Scott and Luke Buda and co come back for their 3rd winning album. Possibly their best.

Jason Isbell - Sirens of the Ditch
Former Drive By Trucker's solo album is part rock, part country, part awesome.

J Dilla and Busta Rhymes - Dillagence
I love J Dilla, I never really got into Busta. This changed my mind, its a winner.

Pharaohe Monch - Desire
Hailed by Critics, ignored by a lot of fans. YOU WASTED YOUR MONEY ON CLIPSE FOOL'S

Talib Kweli and Madlib - Liberation
I nearly shit myself with excitement when this dropped in January. Talib AND Madlib on a release. Oh HELL yeah.

Radiohead - In Rainbows
Not quite the return to form it was hailed to be, this album is the evolution of Radioheads experimentation rejoining with their song writing sensibilities. It is awesome.

Mad Caddies - Keep It Going
Ska's finest, still making top notch albums.

Iron and Wine - The Shepard's Dog
Coming to NZ in March, I can't wait!

Eddie Vedder - Into the Wild
So underrated, Eddie's Solo effort, and the soundtrack to Sean Penn's movie is memorable, haunting, striking and just fantastic.

Overall I felt that this year lacked for decent hip hop releases, but other than that wasn't too bad.
Any that I've missed?

Why do they talk?

Pondering, as I do, I occasionally am struck with the absurdities of modern life. The way things are done. The way things are said. Common phrases amaze me, why do we put certain words together? Why are we ever simplifying our vocabulary, using broader meanings for fewer words? Why do we tolerate media that feeds us this blanched mockery of our language?

Probably because its easy, but thats no excuse.

Why would we assure someone that our relationship was purely platonic? Do those words belong together or are we just used to the statement being phrased that way that we emulate it happily like lexicon-sheep? Why am I asking so many questions? Hopefully to encourage you to think for yourselves.

Advertising is even worse. Often not even written to be read, just to meet marketing approval or validate some plebs right to a corner office by making sure the BRANDNAME® is written enough times. Cast the language of advertising aside. No more "NOW WITH…" or "MAY DIFFER" or "NEW AND IMPROVED". How the fuck can something be both NEW and IMPROVED???

Impersonal printed material attempting to "speak to me" just annoys me. No, you don't know me. Don't presume you do. Those products are NOT my favourite, how the fuck would you know.

They're clever though. They create the impression that they connect with me. That I should identify with their demographic. That I should use their brand image to define myself. All part of their enslaving of humanity. Corporations are evil. DO NOT FORGET. DO NOT TRUST.

DBT Frenzy

So lately I've been getting into Drive By Truckers a whole bunch. I got their 2nd album "Pizza Deliverance" off a mate a while back and quite liked it. Nice toonz, a little country but very rocking. Then I stumbled across a little bootleg of theirs called "Dirt Underneath Iowa" which is an acoustic set and also mucho goodness. Thats when I started to find out more.

DBT are considered cow-punk for some reason. To me they're more like 70's southern rock. They're more than decent songwriters led by Patterson Hood. They have a pretty hard rocking sound courtesy of 3 guitars (The 3 Ave Attack, as its called in the trade) and I'd guess a fair amount of time listening to Skynard, Neil Young, AC/DC and other rocking music from the late 70's and early 80's. They're rather stomping. They started out pretty garage, had a bit of a line up change, recruited a young upstart called Jason Isbell and recorded some kick ass albums. They're most well known for an ambitious double concept album called "Southern Rock Opera" which is basically a tribute to growing up in the southern states in the 70's and 80's.

After tracking down Jason Isbells awesome album "Sirens of the Ditch" and loving every minute of it I was hooked. (Yeah, we all know I'm a music addict, but its always great to come across something that gives a new kick) I hit amazon and got "Dirty South" and Pattersoon Hood's solo joint "Killers and Stars". Now "Killers and Stars" isn't amazing, its acoustic, very personal - dealing with his break up and low times following - but its a worthy effort. Its touching, if not rocking. "Dirty South" on the other hand is fucking amazing. Go get it, right now. Its that good.

If you don't like rocking country, you're entitled to your opinion, however wrong that opinion is. I'm not gonna call you an idiot, because you're clearly smart enough to read this blog. I am gonna suggest you give it a bash. You MIGHT like it.

Anyhoo, heres a killer little track from "Dirty South".

Stupid Learning

Well, clearly I've been absent. I know I stated that I would be updating most days, then straight away I disappear. I know this ain't cool. Deal with it.

I went on a course which served to educate me on 2 things. Photoshop and Human stupidity. I'm going to assume that by reading this you don't fall into the broad and growing category of "Human Stupidity". Maybe you're familiar with Photoshop, but thats not important right now.

Some woman deemed it fit to pose a question to the speaker. Thats great, usually with questions you get more info than in a goodly chunk of the speakers speal. Fine.

"How do I make that black and white?"

Um WHAT?

Oh fuck no. You didn't just ask that. Besides the fact that the lecturer was talking about something entirely different, if you don't know that you need to make all your objects black and white, make sure your text is in the black channel and export it to a pdf on one plate, you shouldn't be here. You're in the wrong fucking seminar retard.

Maybe she should have just pushed the black and white button? Fuck. If you want something to be black and white when it goes to print YOU GOTTA MAKE IT BLACK AND WHITE FROM THE START.

A GROUNDBREAKING Remix

Some of you might know of my pet peeve about GeorgeFM up here in Aucks. For those who don't GeorgeFM is a radio station specialising in dance music. Great, I can enjoy a bit of electronica and I ever really dig some stuff, Dub especially. George even some some fantastic shows- mostly on the weekend. Hell, my mate Tone hosts (and co-hosts) a great little show on Sunday mornings (7.30 - 10.00 if your interested). My problem lies with the day-to-day DJ's.

I'll completely leave Peter Urlich out of this, since my issues with his show run oh-so deep, and focus solely on the regular daytime programming.

Its a bit of a mixed bag really, but the focus seems to be on selecting the most annoying or repetitive or commercial tracks and playing them to death. The seem to prefer electro, which we all know is a musical style which involved sticking a microphone in the engine bay of a badly tuned car. Revving seems to be optional.

On top of this they hire semi retarded, yet excitable DJ's to ramble between tracks. Today I heard a statement which made me want to punch myself in the face. The DJ proudly announced "This is a GROUNDGREAKING Remix".

Yeah, some re-hash of someone else's song, groundbreaking, sure. ITS THE SAME FUCKING SONG YOU ASSHOLE! Its just a different version. Fucking retard.

I'm not hating remixes, they can be excellent, sometimes even better than the original, but groundbreaking, go fuck yourself you retard. The first remix was groundbreaking. That one. Thats it.

If George mirrored the quality of their weekend line up during the week it would be a brilliant station. This would require them shifting their target audience from Pretty Blond Shore girls and boys to real people. This might prove a problem for them since their advertisers are keen to take advantage of that demographic. Yep, Young, Rich and Stupid. Ideal target market. I don't see things changing any time soon.

Intelligent People Shouldn't Tolerate…

I was walking through Parnell today tripping over the absurd amount of sidewalk advertising and listening to the fantastic Summerteeth album by Wilco. As I stumbled over a sign advertising the latest issue of Womans Weekly I happened to glance down and see a headline: Surprise Baby! It occurred to me that one would have to be at least slightly retarded (or absurdly obese, and there might not be a difference there) for a baby to be a surprise. What… do you shag someone, wake up 9 months later, look down at your enlarged belly and think "HOLY FUCK HOW DID THAT HAPPEN???". OK, so maybe thats a plausible scenario, you somehow ended up in a coma, for those people this rant doesn't apply. Anyone else has no excuse. I began to think that the whole concept of "womens magazines" is pretty fucked up. Weekly tomes dedicated to which star or starlet was seen where doing what or whom. Were they on drugs? Did they have make-up on? Are they struggling under the burden of stardom? Why the fuck do we even care? Intelligent People Shouldn't Tolerate Womens Weekly.

Alternative - Save the trees, they're worth more than any New Idea will ever be.

Stupid as the Sun

Don't fuck with a bluegrass fan.

Simple advice you would think, considering stereotypes of hill-billy's with shotgun's all hopped up on Uncle Jed's moonshine. Even putting those aside, theres something dark and threatening to be found behind the Upright Bass and the Banjo. So WHY would anyone think that confronting a banjo player in the middle of the night would be a good idea? It smacks of horror movie storyline. Its not that a banjo is a scary instrument, but close your eyes and imagine a quiet night in rural New South Wales. Perhaps evoking the movie Ned Kelly will help. A dark lonely silence pierced by the mournful twang of a banjo from your neighbours.

You have choices.

Ignore it and hope it goes away.
Call the local authorities.
Approach the tattooed, shotgun wielding perpetrator and confront the motherfucker yourself.

Yep, easy decision to make I reckon.

As you can tell there doesn't seem to be much going on in NZ at the moment. We're also obsessed with the Aussie Elections, and Sally leaving Home and Away.

Wu Banga 101

As an update to yesterday's post about the Wu-Tang Clan, I just got the 8 Diagrams mixtape from Loud.com.

This joint is BANGIN'! The production is lush, lots of horns and 70's soul sounds, and the raps sound better than ever. Raekwon raps slow on "My Corner" and he's never sounded better. Wu Banga 101 Remix is brilliant, Ghostface's verse is a standout, Meth's Intro track is decent.

If this is what 8 Diagrams is going to be like I'm buying that as soon as it hit the stores.

Beats the crap out of the shitty Twista CD I won off Base FM last week. I couldn't even listen to that thing from start to finish.

An Open Letter to Aucklands Pedestrians

To Whom It May Concern,

You will have no doubt noticed that petrol prices have risen again. A lot. I commend you on your choice to walk to your destinations. You are the smart ones. A number of you are even walking to and from public transport, this is also rather wise. Exercise and saving money, while being kind to the environment. Everyone wins. Yes, a clever bunch indeed.

Perhaps it is because of this wisdom that I see in you all that I am so disappointed. You see, our fair city of Auckland, when they aren't busy having logo's designed left right and center, deem it fit to place cycle lanes around the city. More smart moves. Now we cyclists may traverse our isthmus
in relatively safety away from the suicidal conditions on the roads. A good number of the inner city cycle lanes are shared pedestrian lanes, marked with little cycle images on the ground, and in some cases even signposts to suggest that both cyclists and pedestrians be aware and exercise caution.

This would seem to be a brilliant idea. Extra wide pavements separated by painted or tiled lines, marked for your ease and convenience. Alas no. You pedestrians seem to forget that there will be bicycles sharing this space with you. You step out, oblivious to us until we swing past you and give you a fright. Honestly we don't mean to do this, but when you have no idea that we're here and you move into our path without warning we do what we must to avoid hitting you. We're not speeding down these shared pavements. Just sedately and cautiously making our way to our destinations.

To be honest, I'm terrified I will crash into you one day.

You'll be strolling along, txting your friend, oblivious to the world around you. Without looking you suddenly turn right. I'll have seen you from 50 meters back. I've watched the direction you're taking and choose my path to avoid you. I keep my eye on you but as you turn its too late. I clamp down on the brakes but you're just too close. No Warning. BAM.

I weigh 88kg, and my bike weighs a further 7. I'm traveling at a leisurely 20kmph. Heres a little bit of physics.

F = m Dv/Dt

Thats: Force = mass x velocity / time of deceleration.

95x20/5 (seconds, the time it takes between when we connect and when we stop) x0.475 = 800

Yep. 800kg of me and my bike crashing into you.

You don't want that and I don't want that. Please, pretty please, if you're walking in a cycle lane (which I have no problem with) BE AWARE.

Clan in da Front

Which Wu?

The impending release of Wu Tangs new album has encouraged me to go back through some Wu favourites, and there are HEAPS of them. Like "Enter the Wu-Tang 36 Chambers" with each member of the clan spitting rhymes like their life depended on it. RZA's beats coming through sparse and almost scary, like a dark alley in the Wu's home - Stanten Island. This was the breakthrough.

Then the solo albums came, and these were outstanding too. GZA's "Liquid Swords", with deft rhymes, full of imagery from martial arts movies (and several excellent samples too) but reflecting street life; Raekwon's "Only Built 4 Cuban Linx" with soul samples, huge contributions from Ghostface and leading a new sub-genre of "Mafioso Rap". Both of these showcased RZA's production and increasingly, his diversity. RZA himself joined up in a seemingly unlikely collaboration with Prince Paul (best known for producing De La Souls "3 Feet High and Rising") and formed Gravediggaz. Their debut "6 Feet Deep" is a hidden gem in Wu's enormous back catalogue to this day. These were underground hits though mostly considered classics today.

Then... well then it went to pack.

Wu-Tang Forever was sprawling, sure it had some singles and the production was better than ever, but 2 disks is almost universally long for a hip hop album. Even a Wu-Tang joint. There are those who disagree, but 2 disks and over 2 hours later it gets tired. The solo albums became notoriously hit and miss, with the exception of Ghostface. Most notably though, RZA produced the score for the film Ghost Dog.

Fastforward to '07. Ghostface and RZA seem to be the only ones who've grown and developed. RZA went from strength to strength, Bobby Digital, Kill Bill Soundtrack, The World According to RZA all the while experimenting with his production style, never getting pinned into a corner. Ghostface built up from his average Ironman to the brilliant Fishscale.

So Wu, what will your 8 Diagrams bring?



R.I.P. Big Baby Jesus

Answers To Your Questions

What is with the news lately? Front page on the NZ Herald site is an article about Peter Davis commenting publicly on the Electoral Finance Bill. Who cares? The Electoral Finance Bill shouldn't have been made news in the first place, at least not to the extent it has been. No, its not an attack on Democracy as published last week. No, it isn't the government exerting control over the public. This bill is about trying to prevent private supports from buying elections. Of course the National Party don't like this, we all know what happened last election with the Exclusive Breathren. But really, if the PM's Husband wants to get up and say that the Herald have it all wrong, he can right? No? And wait, lets have a little poll to see if our readers think so to. Of course. You conservative twats. If Mr Davis wishes to make political commentary its his right.

Of course not.

Our esteemed newspaper has been on a continuing downward spiral for many years now. They're more concerned with profits that facts. How many stories seem to come straight off Reuters? A good many. Even local stories can take hours, sometimes days to turn up, after being on Stuff or The SMH or The Melbourne Age. I'm aware that we're not exactly spoilt for choice here in NZ, and we pretty much have to take whatever the media conglomerates give us, but surely we won't buy into every little piece of crap they serve up.

A beacon of hope remains. And luckily, theres no shortage of astute commentary to help up wade through the sludge. Thanks Hard News, you keep me sane.

That was fun, but you know whats not fun?

My bro sent me this. Its funny.

Kicking Televisions

I really dig Wilco. They're not my favourite but they're pretty damn cool. I didn't get into them until a couple of years ago when a friend lent me a 4 CD, 2 DVD bootleg of them in concert. I was initially impressed with the catchy songs, and Jeff Tweedy's laid back demeanour while maintaining a strong stage presence. I wanted more.

I'd never been a fan of Ryan Adams, but after researching Wilco, seeing their roots lay in Alt. Country heroes Uncle Tupelo, I started tracking other artists down - The Handsome Family, The Silver Jews, Drive By Truckers, anything that was remotely non-mainstream country. Americana. Whatever. Its not exactly a "genre" in the strict sense of the word. The point is that Wilco started something big with me. I always enjoy discovering new things in music, turning over new stones to see whats underneath. Wilco was like discovering a whole new type of goodness.

Sure, there are similarities with other awesome bands. They're a little similar to Dinosaur Jr. Noisy guitars, weird solos, hints of country influence. They're songs are pretty non-linear and they work the loud/quiet dynamic well, so in that way they're similar to Pixies and like I said, the songs are catchy as fuck.

Their albums are a challenge to get into from the outset. Complex melodies, lots of feedback and non-standard solo's don't help, but get past that and you discover music which evokes a bleak North America, from the prairies to the bustling but lonely cities. They're from Chicago but Tweedy (and previous members of Uncle Tupelo) were based in St Louis.

Tweedy himself is almost a contradiction. In a lot of ways he fits the stereotype of anguished Rock and Roller, maybe not quite as well as Ryan Adams, but I digress... Known for being a tad temperamental, somewhat controlling and a fraction tortured, he would seem on first glance to be your typical front man. Look deeper and you find a shy and unassuming frontman who treats his profession as a craft. Something rare in todays music industry filled with disposable pop heroes and disposable songs.

So check them out - if you enjoy the likes of Pavement, Pixies and Sonic Youth; head straight for Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, otherwise start off with the excellent Kicking Television live in Chicago. Heres a vid.

Drunk By Noon

I finally did it. I'd been pondering for quite some time: the usual apprehensions, first time jitters, would I have enough to go the distance? How would I compare to the others?

Only one way to find out, so here we go. Here you will find an array of my rantings, on whatever topics interest me at the time. Its a strange day to start doing this, but then, which day isn't at least a little strange? So... WELCOME.