People at Concerts

Have you got no friends? Its tough when you ain't got nobody to hang out with. But there is a quick fix out there. Thats right, the concert. Why? Because even though no body knows you at a concert, you instantly become part of a group of people. Just like those social gatherings you wish you could fit in at.



A large crowd is the perfect way to release some of that built up desire for a tiny bit of human touch. And also the perfect opportunity to seem popular! Just prepare by putting on the indie-est of get ups (you can always get away with just your normal nerdy attire with the addition of a tartan scarf) then dance like you've got the spirit or fold your arms and stand right in the front row. Everyone will just assume all your other cool indie pals are out having a cigarette while you are busy digging the band.



When the band finishes, if you still haven't built up the courage to talk to that hot librarian chick with the thick black frames, then do the quick dash just before the lights are turned back on with a classic gasp "look at the time" as you view your chrome covered plastic watch with leather strap.

Hopefully at the next gig the librarian will remember you and she'll ask you out for a oolong tea the following Sunday.

Knowing me, Water Creatures, Knowing you, Lonely Guy, with the song To Own An Animal:

Water Creatures - To Own An Animal

Sub Pop Turns 20

Twenty years is a pretty fricken long time. Back in 1988 I was probably only learning how to go to the toilet properly instead of just using that good old fail safe, the nappy. Well it is Sub Pops twentieth anniversary, and to celebrate all that was and is the below pop I'm compiling a list of I like and I hate some of the Sub Pop bands.

Bands I Like

The Shins

Obviously you can't go past Sub Pop without the shins, and I'm blowing my load straight up by putting them under my 'Bands I Like' section. They've a few albums that aren't going to offend you in any way. Personal highlight being Chutes Too Narrow [1]. This is backed up by their commitment to coming to the distant shores of New Zealand. Not only once, but twice. And both times they came, they gave Christchurch a show that was not forgotten. Supposedly all the Auckland gigs were ruined by band sound. But not down in the south, Christchurch held its own. And of course was topped off both times by the brilliant track Kissing the Lipless.



The Jesus and Mary Chain

Although JAMC had all the big albums come out on Blanco y Negro they did some work with Sub Pop, and although they were playing gigs the day I was born, and although I haven't really heard their entire catelog apart from mostly the best of album 21 Singles, Psycho Candy, and a few live bootlegs, they are still on the 'I Like' list. The first time I heard the track Upside Down it felt as though I was a little teenage boy seeing a porno for the first time. It moved me in new ways, stimulated parts of my audio receptors i hadn't felt before and got me slightly aroused (musically of course). I felt embarrassed about it, I couldn't let others hear this, they might blindly flick one off the wrist saying it is just a bunch of druggies making a whole load of noise. It wasn't until I found out other musical snobs were into it that I felt it was OK to listen to. Try for yourself, just make sure no one else is in the room.

The Jesus and Mary Chain - Just Like Honey

Other Hot New Bands

There are a few new acts on the sub pop list that I also think are worth a mention.
The Ruby Suns: Hailing from New Zealand, and making strides into the USA.
Fleet Foxes: Had a fantastic EP release called Sun Giant, and have followed it up by a not as good self titled full album.
CSS: Up coming album is called Donkey, and it is pretty bad ass.

Bands I Do Not Like

The Postal Service

This is controversial, seeing I actually used to love The Postal Service. But there comes a time when an album is played too much, and all your mates start listening to it too much, and then the whole world listens to it too much that it turns on you. I happened to hear Give Up probably more times than I've heard nearly any other album. A lot to do with the fact it was one of the few I used to have on my computer to listen to. But I've moved on, grown my musical menu to a much larger repository and will hopefully never have to hear Such Great Heights ever again.

Flight of the Conchords

Another New Zealand band that has joined the Sub Pop band wagon over in the states. But instead of praising them, I give my harsh opinion to them. Sure the TV show was pretty funny and I enjoyed that. But before this was the live act. Some people say it is better than the TV show, to them I say you are wrong, mostly based on the fact the youtube videos of it remind me of other youtube videos, containing teenage boys playing guitars in front of their webcams mixed in with a bit of canned laughter. Anyway, the point is their Sub Pop albums, neither of which i've actually listened to. So although my opinion is unjustified in that regard, it isn't unjustified in the regard to the fact they sold the hell out. This makes me feel like Sub Pop has sold out. So good one FOTC, you've made me feel like Sub Pop is a bunch of sell outs.



So congratulations Sub Pop on the 20th anniversary, and hopefully the future will bring lots of other good bands and hopefully not a lot of terrible bands.

Sprouts: Vegetables or Weeds?

A beautiful transformation is happening in our garden. From out of the mud a sprout is being born. Soon enough our patch of mud will be covered in small sprouts, which will soon develop into full plants. The problem being is I am not sure if these sprouts are from the old grass and weeds that used to be here, or are the new vegetables planted a few weeks ago.

Hopefully stuff will start to grow soon. The coldest months of winter are at an end, so temperatures are generally rising. But things better start growing within a few weeks otherwise I won't be here to see. As I'm going on a radical adventure overseas. http://thecommunistrevolution.blogspot.com

But anyways, time for a track themed. This was written once when it was raining outside, so hopefully playing it will bring more rain for the vege garden.

Water Creatures - Raining

Artistic Shots

After playing way too much random defense. I decided to pull together all my artistic strands to make a rope of photos...

Amplifier Texture

Light Graffiti

Ghost Riding

Random Defense

My life has been consumed by a game...

http://www.funnylishus.com/index.php?games=Random_Stuff_Defence&safe_mode=on

Don't play it, you'll never stop...

The last five albums i've heard

The above photo was taken the other day while I was snowboarding, when I snowboard I throw on my mp3 player and pull 540's. I happened to have had some pretty new music in there. So here is a little post analysis of the last five albums I've come across recently.

1. The Dodos - Visiter - 9.0/10
http://youtube.com/watch?v=YhLRxui7vXU

Psychedelic Folk is the genre, and pretty much sums up the album in two words. Psychedelic often being attributed to drug trips resulting in swirling colours, time distortion, and out of body experiences. These can somewhat be used to describe this album in terms of folk. Think guitars, think all your favourite folk singers, then apply that layer of lsd and bingo.

Actually this album is brilliant. It may be a bit off the typical folk path, but as Dylan plugged his electric guitar in to the Newport folk festival the Dodos have taken folk to another level. Fast, moving tunes, deep meaningful lyrics, emotional arcs that take you to that place you want to go.

2. Destroyer - Trouble in Dreams - 5.5/10
http://youtube.com/watch?v=KKtoWhsM3XI

To be honest, as honest as singer songwriter Dan Bejar can be. This album is merely a piece of momentum carried on from previous works. I'd happily listen to this album more if I hadn't heard it all before. When I was first introduced to Destroyer, I appreciated how Dan did things different. That was what keep me interested for a long time, but how long can you be interested in a CD on repeat?

3. M83 - Saturdays = Youth - 8.75/10
http://youtube.com/watch?v=gY8iy8S0S4w

Recently during a movie marathon held in my honour, the movie The Breakfast Club was played. Being 2008 I still felt well in touch with the movie that defined the year I was born (1985). The same feelings were stirred upon playing Saturdays = Youth. I can hear the 80's, I hear the school yard where the quiet hot girl is isolated from the rest of the cool kids (insert Ally Sheedy), I'm moved by the speech in Graveyard Girl like I am moved by the speech from Emilio Estevez.

Maybe this album is 23 years late, but maybe it has been long enough for a revival. The earth moves in circles, and this circle lasted 23 years. But it is back, it is good, so embrace it, love it, and hold on to that memory for another 23 years.

4. Shearwater - Rook - 7.4/10
http://youtube.com/watch?v=d231BbE-3T0

The long awaited follow up to the master piece that was Palo Santo comes and goes. Like all good follow ups to absolutely brilliant albums, it is hard to make that second punch be felt as hard as the first. There is nothing wrong with this album, in fact I do quite enjoy it. An obvious maturing has occured, possibly to do with the fact Palo Santo had to be released twice to get it up to production standards accepted by a broader audience, this can be noticed towards the end of the album as the softer songs are brought out. I'm reminded of Bjorks albums, not in that they sounds similar, but in the way that the production quality got better as more were released, but at the same time, the earlier the songs are still much better. As with Rook, production quality is very high, but I'd recommend Palo Santo over it for today.

5. Air France - No Way Down EP 8.2/10
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMDBflm711M

The final album in this group, and the latest that I've had the pleasure of hearing. This album is again somewhat of a revival. This time it is the 90's to early 00's, in the region of Ibiza. While not a full rotation to raging techno beats, rather it is an extraction of the good bits that was rave music, add a little 2008 zest, and simmer it for an hour. It is a pleasant listen, leaving off the cheese of the techno days, but does have the flavours that made techno what it was. If you aren't a graduate of the school of techno, but rather stuck to the pure guitar rock at the start of the millennium then this album might not be for you. But if you want to get all nostalgic on that time you were pumped full of herbal highs and sweating your tits off at a wild outdoor rave, then put this in your mp3 player, lick some toads, and project some windows media player visualizations on the wall as you dance the whole 23 minutes away on this little treat.

Becoming One With The Land

This weekend has brought an unexpected change in the lives of many. Our flat joined the new wave of economically and environmentally friendly homes that grow some of their own vegetables.

Although not uncommon for people to have their own vege garden, it is uncommon for people in the age bracket of 20-30 to have a vege garden. This age bracket is the product of an upbringing as to where all self sufficient tasks are taken care of by the mall, the supermarket or the slaves the capitalist pigs have taken advantage of to make our coffee[1], shoes and rugs. All for the purpose of giving our lives more free time, free time we use to watch television [2], or even worse, go shopping for goods that bring only false purpose into our lives. Enough.

I want my food, the fuel that keeps me alive, to be beneficial to the world. Not to have it trucked thousands of kilometers to my plate [3], not to have it sprayed and pumped with pesticides and preservatives, and definitely not at the cost of native forests.

Being from the useless generation of people who have had everything done for them, and have only learnt anything valuable but absolutely inaccurate from watching home renovation tv, we have started small with great ambitions so that we get it right.

Today I focus on step 1. The hardest of steps, overcoming the sitting around on my butt and doing some real man labour. So far, so good. A patch in our old overgrowing weed garden has been cleared. Some old recycled wooden crate has been pulled apart to provide a basic container to the patch, and the soil turned over, and mixed with some new composting soil. The seeds are now ready to be planted!

Over the coming weeks/months I will document the growth of the vege patch. While providing new music that is played to the vegetables to stimulate growth through love.

Here is the first song played to the garden. Its called Gas, as it is inspired by the fact that our petrol prices in New Zealand have risen at an alarming rate in the past few months. Be it a bad thing for the economy, but hopefully a good thing for the planet.

Water Creatures - Gas