Generic Music Rant

Josh writes:

I don't know music, but I know what I like. I just don't know why a lot of the time.

I mean, apart from the usual trouble I have formulating a reply when people say "What sort of music do you listen to?"* -- "I dunno, a bit of everything... um" -- I'm not even sure what it is about individual songs in some cases.

The collected works of Timbaland for example -- there are very few numbers he's had a hand in that I haven't hated instantly, then grown to really like after repeated airplay. While my sense of grammar recoils at "The Way I Are", and its lyrics are at best questionable ("Don't have a motor boat but I can float your boat" -- that's just bad) I can't get the fucker out of my head, and I find myself not minding at all. See also Regina Spektor's "Fidelity" (the "it breaks my hea-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-art" one) -- bugged me at first, but it ended up on the playlist at my Civil Union, right alongside Timbaland-produced "My Love".

And then there are the ones that go the opposite way: like it on first hearing, get sick of it right quick after a few more. I actually liked "Hey There Delilah" for a while -- the lyrics were abysmal, but the melody had a nice old school Simon and Garfunkel feel. It didn't take me long to lose interest though -- maybe the lyrics just got the better of me. Current offender is "Konichiwa Bitches" -- I liked its moxie to begin with, but somewhere around the fourth time I heard it on C4/Juice in a single Saturday morning familiarity started to breed some serious contempt. And there should be a comma in the title.

Fergie's "Big Girls Don't Cry" though, is utter shit and always will be. Always.


* And seriously, who really does have a succinct reply to that question? How many people would really classify their musical tastes as purely "hip hop/R&B" or "Future Industrial EmoPopWave" or "FUCKEN METAL \m/ \m/"?

The Day Today - 16th July 2007

Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling writes:

Today's picture, the cat again.

First up, the brilliant John Clarke and Bryan Dawe on sending the army into Aboriginal communities.

Hewligan's got into gender differences, with real comments too!, instead of web crawlers telling him to get a bigger penis. I'm not too sure about some of the claims, especially number 6 "Beautiful people have more daughters". I think that depends more on intelligence. And seriously I am on the side of Josh and HORansome about the nature of the article and the claims it makes. But in any event, here is a good hard biological sex difference.

The researchers found that male reproduction genes evolve much faster than any other type of gene, including female reproductive genes.

Why?

"You can see there is very strong competition for sperm to fertilize the egg, and eggs don't compete to find sperm,"

And broadly on the same theme some pieces by Roger Scruton and Cathy Young on feminism.

Scruton...

When women forge their own "gender identity," in the way the feminists recommend, they become unattractive to men—or attractive only as sex objects, not as individual persons. And when men cease to be gentlemen, they become unattractive to women. Sexual companionship then goes from the world. All that it needs to save young people from this predicament is for old-fashioned moralists to steal unobserved past their feminist guardians and whisper the truth into eager and astonished ears—the truth that gender is indeed a construct, but one that involves both sexes, acting in mutual support, if it is to be built successfully. In my experience, young people hear with great sighs of relief that the sexual revolution may have been a mistake, that women are allowed to be modest, and that men can make a shot at being gentlemen.

And Young...

However, framing the issues in terms of a male "war against women" had some unfortunate consequences -- notably, a much-deplored tendency to depict women as perpetual victims and men as villains. Women's ill-treatment of men is either obliterated or excused, resulting in a quasi-Victorian sentimental insistence on female virtue and innocence.

Often, the same people who bristle at the notion that women may be less sexual or less aggressive than men insist that unwelcome sexuality in the workplace is always a male imposition on women and indignantly reject any suggestion that women may sometimes be the aggressors in domestic combat.

Also, one of the most pointless movies I have ever seen - Human Traffic - was on last night courtesy of C4. The Guardian has an intersting take on the pointlessness of the culture surorunding it.

The most important cultural development in music of the last two decades, meanwhile, has been the rise of another seminal form of middleman, the disc jockey. Once just a canny selector of records and twiddler of the volume fader, the DJ is now a godlike presence in the club, even if, like Pete Tong or Judge Jules, he never composes a second's worth of music himself.

The reason for this is exactly the same as the reason for the rise of the conductor, even though the material conditions of performance could hardly be more different - it is the physical absence of the originating artist. The electronic composer works in his bedroom with a tower of computers and synthesisers; his music is mass-produced and distributed on vinyl. So when the music gets to be heard on the dance floor, there are waves of appreciative joy swilling round the place with nowhere to go. The guy who made it happen isn't there. The audience wants to praise him like they should, but it's impossible. The DJ is there, however, waving crazily from behind his decks, and so the adulation flows to him, for want of any more deserving receptacle.

I'm Talking to Women Here

Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling writes:

Here is a situation I recently found myself in. We (my sister, her boyfriend, and I) are looking to buy a house, and inevitably when we see something that we might be intereted in conversation drifts along to who gets what room. So have a look at the floor plan below...



What you seeing is a floor plan of a house. It's a double house joined together by a big wall down the middle, so you're not missing anything interesting off to the right.

There are two bedrooms, a large one up the top / front of the house with a large wardrobe, down from which we have the living room, leading into a large bathroom on the right. The other bedroom is at the other end of the house through the kitchen. It has a much smaller wardrobe, and a small ensuite with a toilet, shower, and baisen.

So, I went through the house first, looked through all the rooms, and came to the not (at least so I thought) unreasonable conclusion that I would get the room at the back with the small ensuite and wardrobe, and my sister and her boyfriend would get the large room up the front, with the large wardrobe and pretty much direct exclusive access to a much larger bathroom - with bath I should add! And the access is exclusive. Even if you were living with strangers they would be at the other end of the house, past the kitchen, with their own bathrrom.

Later on, my sister and her boyfriend went through. Just before we were about to go I turned and asked her

"What room would you have then?"

She gave me the sort of look you would give if someone called you up to find out your phone number or something and said

"The one at the back of course:"

And that's my question. A quick straw poll for the ladies. Is having an ensuite, no matter how small, a prize of such incomparbale indescribable value as my sister seems to suggest? Or are there women out there who can see that my assumptions had at least a it of merit.

Oh and, for New Zealand Music Month, here's the B52's

More Musical Musings

That Morthos Stare writes:

Boomkat are/were a brother-sister duo whose chief claim to fame is that 'The Wreckoning' was the theme song to the short-lived 'Birds of Prey' TV series. I have to say that I like their album; it's one of those guilty pleasures I could never defend in a court of law. Still, 'What U Do 2 Me' deserves accolades because:

a) It's a duet between siblings where one sings to the other:

I aint to proud to beg
Come on lets bump and grind
All the way straight into bed
Your place or mine?

b) It contains the line:

I just can't keep my eyes of you baby

which, due to Karyn's accent, sounds like:

I just can't keep my eyes off your baby

Which, seeing that they are related, must have been a vertitable sight worth beholding.

Unfortunately the director of the music video must have realised that incest doesn't sell so the video is nowhere near as interesting as it could have been.



Morale to the story: It might seem innocent when you first wrote it but think again.

Little River Band

That Morthos Stare writes:

I came to music late. The first album I bought was Elastica's self-titled CD in 1995 and the first album I hunted down was Artificial Joy Club's 'Melt' in 1996.

The key moment in the want to purchase these albums was the TV (let us now shed a tear for the long-gone, fondly-remembered JuiceTV, killed by capitalism and TVNZ (the most unlikely combination)). Now that the Internet is capable of doing everything I decided to go back in time and rewatch these music videos; the trip has been most informative.

One: Artificial Joy Club's 'Sick & Beautiful'



She can't dance. I can't believe I had sexual fantasies about this woman. She.

Just.

Can't.

Dance.

Two: Elastica's 'Connection'



Why the long faces, girls? I know one of you is having trouble with the band but another of you is having sex with Damon Albarn. You're the darlings of the British Press and whilst it takes you forever to produce a sub-standard follow-up to your debut album at the moment you are gods. Give us a smile. Just one.

Also, the guy appears to be on drugs.

Moral to the story: Never use time machines.

Maneater

That Morthos Stare writes:

10) Maneater - Nelly Furtado
Though, in terms of Misogyny, Furtado has Spankrock beat. I was a bit slow on this one, but it eventually clicked and took over my life for those handful of days which any great pop-record always does. All drums and a dirty synth riff which sounds like it’s just squeezed itself into something skin-tight, Furtado manages to both take the role and mock the role with equal… well, sense of distance. There’s something dead deep inside the song – when describing the riff, the initial metaphor which came to mind was a zombie’s lurch. Nightclub of the Living Dead. No-one gets out here with what makes them human alive.
[Youtube]

Kieron Gillen isn't a name you probably know, although you bloody should. He's a games journalist and writer of sequential art (his new series, Phonogram (at Image) is a tribute to 90s Britpop reimaged as some perverse superhero mythology; it's glorious and beautiful and, well, stuff). Anyway, his top 40 for 2006 finally forced me to confront my love for Nelly Furtado's 'Maneater.'

I was never particularly interest in Furtado when she first appeared on the scene. 'Insipid' was the word I used, I believe. Frankly, I was waiting for the world to realise that her music wasn't all that, and when her latest album was released I sighed a gentle sigh and returned to the textbooks.

My first encounter of 'Maneater' was the music video. I was entranced, mostly by just how bad the song was (and a bit by the imagery). Subsequent viewings did little to improve my mood and as I don't listen to the radio my only other exposure to it was as musak in shops, which is hardly what I would call positive reinforcement.

A little under a week ago, in the 'Number One Shoe Warehouse' I found that not only did I like 'Maneater' as it played in the background but that I really liked it. And that it works as musak (which is kind of disturbing when you think about it).

Why? Because it's actually a clever little bit of pop, and incredibly well-crafted in things sonic.

It reminds me a little of Rachel Steven's 'Sweet Dreams (My LA Ex)' in that 'Maneater' is not just two songs merged but also two musical genres battling it out by verse and chorus. 'Sweet Dreams...' has a moment of Big Band Dance Hall to it (about two thirds of the way through) and it just works. 'Maneater' is two kinds of pop, neither of which I would usually nod my head to, but, well, as Gillen puts forward, its deep, its undead and it changes you.

Ya, verily, 'Maneater' snizzles my nizzle. Also, me mizzen mast.

Admitting to past mistakes is a virtue (although public confession of such things is often vice as the Pope keeps pointing out) and so I wish to apologise to all those who had to suffer under my sighing and gnashing of teeth in re 'Maneater.' I was wrong. I may well got to Hell for this, but I now place 'Maneater' into its rightful place in last year's pop pantheon.

Although, and I dare you to disagree, the best thing about last year's Music was my discovery of the 'They Might Be Giants' podcasts. There is something delightful about the Dust Brothers remixing TMBG tracks.

Better than sex. Well, at least that's what the Vicar told me, and he'd know moreso than I.

The Third Job I Should be Doing: Musician

Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling writes:

Takapuna, being a hole, is not a locale I make much of an effort to visit. If you're wondering why I don't like it, it's because there is nothing there save an average mall where Shore kids go to hang out and preen. But anyways, I was taken back to Takapuna in late January to get some jandals and hated every second of it, but there was a time when I went there every week - willingly even.

Like most children, I spent my time joining various activities and giving them up some time later after I had expended a good amount of my parent's resources on them. Speech and Drama lessons, gymnastics, and during my late single-digit years the piano accordion. You can all shut the fuck up, because I wanted to start on the guitar but was too small to reach around the fretboard and the piano accordion is fairly good substitute since it trains one to use both hands like a guitar does. I gave up the piano accordian after my parents spent several hundred dollars purchasing one for me, and my extra-curricular activities lay bare until the end of high school, when I wondered again about taking up the guitar.

I went to Takapuna from Devonport, and coming from the south the first guitar store I encountered was "Mainly Guitars". It was on the first floor of (I think) the first non-residential establishment on one's right - just opposite a car yard. The owner was a nice bloke called Dave, and seing as he offered lessons as well as guitars I signed up for lessons and bought the most inappropriate guitar for a beginner just because I thought it looked cool. It was a Yamaha with sharp edges and a floating bridge. Witha 20 watt amp to go with it.

The problem was the floating bridge. When you string and tune a guitar, you thread the strings through the bridge, up the fretboard, and through the machine heads which you turn to tune each string. As Wikipedia explains..."On both electric and acoustic guitars, the bridge holds the strings in place. From there, the variations are astounding. There may be some mechanism for raising or lowering the bridge to adjust the distance between the strings and the fretboard (action), and/or fine-tuning the intonation of the instrument. Some are springloaded and feature a "whammy bar", a removable arm which allows the player to modulate the pitch moving the bridge up and down." To help, here's a picture of a guitar with a floating bridge and "whammy bar".



The important part, is that a floating bridge is impossible to tune. Any tightening or loosening you make to one string affects all the other strings. You tune one string, and the bridge is lifted up a bit as the string is tightened and tuned. Then you tune a second string, and the bridge as raised a little bit more as the second string is tightened - putting the first string slightly out of tune, and so on for each string. With six strings, reaching a point where everything is as it should be is a pain in the arse.

What strikes me now, looking back at the three or so years I learnt there, was how that little shop concentrated a disproportionate amount of musical talent. My first guitar teacher was Nigel. He was very proficient, a metal fan which suited me down to the ground. We went over the usual beginners chords and put them together in the form of "Polly" by Nirvana - good slow simple song for your first day. The first proper song was "The God That Failed" by Metallica. He didn't think much of the Smashing Pumpkins, so we just worked our way through Tool's catalogue. Nigel eventually left to go across the road to the Rock Shop. He was also in a band - Subtract - who were must-see's in the late 90's.

With Nigel gone, my next teacher was young Andy. His musical tastes were kindred to my own, more grunge than metal - Faith No More, Soundgarden, Stone Temple Pilots etc. He came from a very musical family, and his ability to listen to something on the CD and work out how to play it was uncanny. Interestingly enough he quite liked the chord changes and such of "Hurt" by Nine Inch Nails, said that it was the sort of thing he might write. He did get to do a bit of composing of his own in the band he joined "Zed".

There was one other guy there, who I never had lessons with - maybe one or two if Nigel or Andy were away - but is worth a mention. Evan. I remember Evan talking about the band he was starting up, to be called "Day One", and how their first album was to be a collection of songs about suicide. Day One weren't too shabby, but his next project - Concord Dawn - has really taken off.

I don't say all this in a name-dropping sense, more as an example that one comes across from time to time of a small area or establishment having within it more talent than you would expect. The place is gone now. And that's the third job I could be doing, musician.

Motörhead!...Motörhead!!

Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling writes:

Yes, I went to Motörhead last night and it was great, thanks for asking, although I probably can't hear you because I am deaf.

Of the warm-up acts I can tell you little since I missed them, arriving, as I did, straight after work at 21:00. They were apparently good, although they played very short sets.

Motörhead say they are the loudest band in the world, they did have a lot of amps and they made a lot of noise, and it was mostly good. That said, I can be fairly sure the sound engineers would have received an absolute roasting.

There were feedback issues every time Lemmy tried to engage in inter-song banter with the crowd which really pissed him off. And one instance of feedback in a song - their trademark song "Ace of Spades" no less - which would probably be the worst thing that could have happened.

This isn't the first time that I've noticed this at the St James. To be fair I've only been there twice, the time before was Nick Cave back in May, but during that show they suffered sound issues as well though not of feedback, just everything blending together and sounding duller (most probably because there were almost a dozen different people playing/singing at once, a thankless task to try and mix properly).

I am unsure as to whether the St James is a venue for loud bands. There just isn't enough space for the sound to dissipate, it just bounces straight back. It's an excellent venue, built for sound amplification, and with two mezzanines you can never be disappointingly far from the stage. But that's the problem, the sound goes out at 100db for only 50 metres before it hits a wall to be reflected back again. Whereas somewhere larger like the Supertop or somewhere outdoors lets the sound go away, never to re-enter the microphones. Speaking of microphones the stage layout didn't help either with microphones in front of two huge stacks of guitar amps, the bleeding of drum and guitar into vocals was unfortunate. I don't know how Motörhead would go doing a TOOL with the vocalist behind or alongside the drums and amps, but no matter.

A rating then? 7/10. The sound has to take a few points off, but they are a kick-arse band and bloody nice chaps, hanging off the stage to shake hands and pass out the usual goodies to fans at the end.

Get Ready For Love

Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling writes:

If you are like me and spent half an hour farting around Tickitek trying to buy Nick Cave tickets, the are availible here .

$71.00 per seat. The best night out since the last TOOL concert and until the next TOOL concert. It's on the same night as my sister's birthday but one must prioritise.