A roadtrip is never complete without a soundtrack. With twelve hours of winter roads to drive alone -nary a hitchhiker in sight- before and after picking up the Reverend I decided to go heavy on the compilations and two relatively recent Aotearoan releases which served to provide the necessary reflective vibe for circumnavigating Te Kahui Tupu (the sacred peaks of the central plateau.
I'm not sure why but I almost always have an epiphany when listening to SJD albums. In this case two tunes from his rather excellent 2007, Songs from a dictaphone album: Black is a Beautiful Colour and Beautiful Haze sent me skyward, observing the mountains from above. www.myspace.com/sjd http://www.roundtripmars.com/
Back in the day, Auckland City seemed stacked with Victorian era pubs, with their glorious facades and grungy cigarette charred and spilled beer carpets, tiny stages and regular police busts emptying the places out as the main act stepped on. It was during those dirty early eighties that I remember the Clean's first Auckland gigs. The Velvets inspired Don't Point that Thing churning out from the Rhumba Bar above an empty Victoria Street (the streets were usually deserted by 10pm.) David Kilgour has come a long way since then and his choonage of Sam Hunts poetry collection Doubtless, retitled for record, "Falling Debris" is a perfect winter tonic. Especially "Everytime it rains like this," "Talking of the weather" and "They are clouds." http://www.samhunt.com/ http://www.myspace.com/davidkilgour
Roundtripmars' head honcho and aural adventurer, music writer and voice over artist, Stinky Jim provided "Musky Moments" and "Stinkbombs" two downright exotically dirty compilations. These eclectic excursions diverge into dubbedupdownbeats, dancehall, and spacerocking fruitloops and are guaranteed to make any journey a trip. Jims compilations are like his BFM radio shows, at first challenging and then engaging, full of cut up voxpops and Stinky stings by some of the worlds biggest underground and overstanding musicians. http://www.roundtripmars.com/ http://www.stinkinc.blogspot.com/
Norman Cook/Fatboy Slim's LateNightTales is 70 plus minutes of essential happy eclecticism from Mink De Ville's "Spanish Stroll," Hopetoun Lewis' version of "Express Yourself," "Trinity's Three Piece Suit" and Senor Soul's "Lay Your Funky Trip on Me." Makes the road between Te Kuiti and Tamauranui a much less lonely one to drive. www.normancook.co.uk
"Lifestyle" by Ninja Tunes/Solid Steeler's, Coldcut, is another three score and ten minutes of the overlooked and underplayed. Check the Chosen Few doing Isaac Hayes' "Do your Thing," Esther Phillips 1974 conscious soul classic "Disposable Society" and Betty Harris'"There's a Break in The Road." www.myspace.com/coldcut
Keeping it unreal is another Ninja, Mr Scruff whose Big Chill Classics comp provides the kind of soundscape that allows the mind freetime to wander both sides of the road. The ideal accompaniment to a hot bath at the Tokaanu thermal pools. It's a double album with too many quality dishes to serve on this post. www.myspace.com/mrscruffofficial
Hiphop collective NASA's "The Spirit of Apollo" kept the van on the bitumen and the party going when the eyes were getting weary especially over the Parapara ranges. Featuring a potpourri of musical magic including the likes of David Byrne, Tom Waits, KRS One, Sizzla, Spank Rock, MIA, Chuck D and George Clinton to speak of only a smidgeon of the coterie of onboard quality. www.myspace.com/nasa
Guerolito is the remix album of Becks' Guero and it picks up nicely where SJD leaves off, somewhere near Tangiwai, providing more twists and turns than the gravel road over Burma Hill. www.beck.com/
As far as singalongs go it was two Ska comp albums sourced from the cheapie bins at the big red whare that stole the show and blocked out the bumps and thumps on the dirt track ascending the remote Turakina Skifield and had us skidding safely across the ice on the road up to Turoa, despite the boy racers. In fact Dandy Livingstone's "A Message to you Rudy" was playing so loud as we made incursions into Defence Dept land on the Desert Road, that it alerted a patrol to our presence and two Bro's in an enormous cammo' truck came to give us a soft hard word "You fallahs are not supposed to be here,eh!" Chur chur. The Specials though stole the show and we digressed down memory lane as progressed along the rail lines skirting Rangataua with "You're Wondering Now" and "Ghost Town." www.2-tone.info/
The two track river road to Whangaehu Beach was swamped with primal New Orleans funk courtesy of a Soul Jazz comp. Doctor John is guaranteed to drive the Reverend to all sorts of extreme behavior and it was along this stretch of farm track that he decided to start making stills photos from the roof of the moving Base Jumper Van (courtesy of Roadcraft. Chur chur!) www.souljazzrecords.co.uk
Sweet.
Awesome post from El Presidente who as always is a hard act to follow so from The Reverend on the decks (how does he remember where we played these???)...................... Unknown Mali music CD: This CD was found abandoned and I can only presume it is a Mojo or somesuch giveaway. however the mellow tones and haunting melodies of the Mali blues musicians, provided a fantastic backdrop for the unfolding bush scenery and a fascinating counterpoint to the american blues tradition and the ethnographic migration of musical styles from one place to another and then back to the source to be re-interpreted again, much like our journey.
Combat Rock - The Clash: I am a new Clash fan and the Pres is an old Clash fan. I can still detect a slight bemusement at my recent appreciation of the British behemoth of the punk years. Perhaps it is my age or perhaps my long-held dislike for English yob-punk, but my favourite Clash albums are everyones least favourite, Combat Rock and Sandanista. Combat Rock being to me at least, perfection. An eclectic selection of timeless tunes that takes you around the world, from rock'n'roll to reggae, to funk, to the casbah and back home to blighty. The standout tune is of course 'Straight to Hell', as transcendant a piece of music as you could hear, full of obscure but evocative lyrics and the fantastic break, that recently made M.I.A's Paper Planes the killer tune it is. This album sounds as fresher and more relevant now than I think it would have on release. Know Your Rights!
Original Hip-Hop Greats: On this trip the party never stopped and I used the evening to attempt to convert El Pres to old school hip-hop - not his favourite brew at all. Still after classics from Sugarhill Gang, Eric B and Rakim, BDP, Public Enemy, Whodini and a whole crew of cats, I could tell he was defrosting like roadkill possum on a mountain road. "Electro is your Dancehall' he said referring to his love of dancehall and my slow presidential brainwashing that has resulted in me liking it 'dutty' myself from time to time! "Word!"
DVD - MC5 -Kick Out the Jams: Having a van with a DVD player in it was too good an opportunity to miss so on our last night we had a music viddy night. Beginning with this Sinclair produced montage of MC5 performances, home movies and trippy light show. The highlight of this being a lot of the live footage (although synced to other performances) showing the fives ballistic live performances including a free concert in an Ann Arbor park. Th energy is palpable as the five blast through their repertoire, with enough energy to power their very own 'Starship'.
The Doors - Collection: The best thing abou this DVD is actually a previously unreleased and possibly last TV appearance from 1969, entitled 'Soft Parade'. A bearded and bleary Morrison, post Miami, almost phones in a few performances from the Soft Parade, only letting rip on the title track (The best cut on the LP anyway). This is intercut with some great footage of them recording 'Wild Child' in the studio and an interview section from the TV show in which one particularly memorable moment occurrs. Whilst being asked about the future of music, Morrison shows his innate insight and vision. To paraphrase, 'I can see in the future, all the music being made electronically by machines and tapes, with just one musician operating them and making music by himself'.
Death Disco - Post Punk Compilation Somehow I kept forgetting this compilation, when atttempting to write up this post. however this was one of those fantastic comps that opens up a chink in music history, through which undiscovered lands can be found. This particular land is post-punk land, that fertile breeding ground after the punk years, when artists struggled to reconcile the punk ethos and approach with the changes in music such as electronic instruments, the birth of hip-hop and the last vestiges of the disco boom. Beginning righteously with Death Disco by P.I.L and the resurrected Johnny Lydon, the doom laden 'white-boy groove' snakes on courtesy of Jah Wobble while Lydon deadpans the vocals. The next track is a real oddity with some real pedigree. Featuring Jah Wobble, Keith Levene and Don Letts (Clash DJ and Film-maker) toasting over a lazy dub, Steel Leg vs. the Electric Dread's tune 'Haile Unlikely', has Don professing...'Me don Wanna go to a Kingston, me don wanna inna Africa, I live inna Brixton" , a highly ironic confession for a British rasta. Elsewhere on this compilation is the minimal electronic punk of the Normal and 'Warm Leatherette' (Covered by Grace Jones) alongside the electro-pop of Human League and 'Hard Times' and the alt-disco of the Buzzcocks 'I dont want to touch it'. One of the standout tracks is 'Jezebel Spirit' by Byrne and Eno, a timely reminder of how ahead of its time the 'My Life in the Bush of Ghosts' actually is, with its samples, allusions to world music and electronic treatments. Although some of the tracks here are slightly dubious, hearing Throbbing Gristles, United and the Higsons ("You ain't seen me alright!"), 'Put the Punk back in the Funk, reminds me what an unusual time it was as electronica, punk, disco, dub and funk, clashed together in the fertile musical grounds of New York and London to create a new sound, which would influence much of the following 2 decades more than punk ever did. (Death Disco at Allmusic.com) A great trip with the Presidente and as always with our joint adventures, an amazing soundtrack!
Although the Reverend Y El Presidente are in constant contact with each other, plotting and planning, discussing and discovering, conspiring and creating, geographic location keeps these 2 brave adventurers from working together. For those that know, everytime these cats get together, something happens, something wonderful - DIG.
Luckily the planets aligned and instead of keeping the 2 compadres apart, geography brought them together again on the sequel to the 'Sightline' Project, 'Waterline'.
Here are a few shots of the dynamic duo on art-safari through the Central Plateau.
"Are you sure about this?"
"I'm not supposed to hang off moving vehicles when I'm taking my meds!"
If this was duel, the fast-shooting El Presidente would win hands down.
Religion - Whether you are spiritual or not, you should know abou the worlds religions, their similarities and their differences (e.g. Islam, Christianity and Judeaism have around 34 prophets in common between all 3 religions - Mmm, so why do they fight so?). Religion has shaped our national boundaries, our social structures, our moral beliefs and our grasp of science. Despite this, I was told by the headmaster at my childrens school that the NZ Minsistry of Education had decided it was too hard to write a curriculum about the worlds religions, so they just teach bible studies on the sly instead! That will really help with religious tolerance and understanding in the future.
History - No-one seems to know anything about history anymore so we are reinventing the wheel and the world in the image of our own ignorance. To tie into the first point. Many people amazingly, do not know that the Christians started a holy war against the Moslems almost 1000 years ago. This war instigated and compounded by the christian powers has continued in one form or another until the present day and its history explains events such as the Gulf Wars, 9/1, the creation of Israel and justifies much of the passionate resentment amongst Moslems towards us 'the infidels'.
Economy - Our economic model is set up to 'boom and bust' so there should be no surprise when it does just that, that is the secret to making a lot of money in business, (one mans ruin is anothers profit) not the secret to maintaining a stable and consistent economy. Business are set up to make money for shareholders and employees. Not to make the world a better place, not to provide you with the best products and services they can out of the goodness of their hearts. BP is not making the world a greener place! Human beings have been around for 2 million years and the first unit of currency was not developed until approx 5000 years ago in what is now modern Iran/Turkey/Iraq. The first metal coins did not arrive until approx 650 BC in China and banknotes were not printed in Europe until the 17th century. How did we survive before that? Q: How come we are all beholden to an abstract principle which is only 2,600 years old? A: Because people have gained power from it. (Much like some religious beliefs).
Ultimately, these things all tie into History. History is not just the study of 'what happened' in the past, it is the study of 'why is it happening' in the present and the 'What will happen' for the future. Ignore it at your peril!
Quentin Tarantino came to my town for the first time in 1992. Of the many attractions Nottingham offers, the Broadway Cinema stands proud. Tucked away in Hockley it proffers what I believe are called Art House films: the preferred nomenclature delineating the idiosyncratic and mostly thought provoking brand of entertainment, from the mindless drivel, punted down at the multiplex.
In the summer of 1992, for only the second time, the Broadway held its Shots in the Dark Festival: a feast of crime cinema, my particular bagful, and featuring a wide eyed, ever gesticulating, American gentleman showing his much anticipated debut, Reservoir Dogs. I paid £2.50 student rate and the Artist threw in a Q and us session post- viewing: a remarkable event, a fantastic film and an engaging man.
Tarantino patronised subsequent festivals and brought his equally entertaining Pulp Fiction to Nottingham as the festival's secret feature in 1994. The gaff was, by that time, well and truly blown and even a sniff of a ticket impossible. Tarantinoesque quickly became a by- word for a new cinema and the man himself the personification of knowledge, style, provocative and insightful screen writing, notably Natural Born Killers. Tarantino’s work mined the obscure, the sub-genre, alongside the classical and canonised as he reinvented the oddball cinephile as film artist, convincing us all that we too could traverse the arc from video store to the Weinstein Empire.
Of course Quentin liked the attention, the unique fame bestowed by a stellar rise, the genius discovered, the notoriety of an enfant terrible: fame, I’m told, lets him loose, hard to swallow and QT’s subsequent moves were represented by the familiar parabola describing rise in notoriety, celebrity and commercial success against a plunge in quality, substance, innovation and eventual collapse into cliché and self parody.
The taught and urgent drama, the Mamet-like dialogue, the economy of expression, the violent shocks, the black humour, the stylised yet engaging pathos of his characters, discarded for ponderous indulgence. Witness his flaccid, plodding, tribute to Pam Grier, Jackie Brown, failing to engage with the substance of crime fiction or the style of Blacksploitation. Or the un-epic Shaw Bothers cum Sergio Leone saga of Kill Bill and the RTA that is Deathproof: I found the Dukes of Hazard more substantive and engaging. His work has become an ever more elaborate litany of pastiche and plagiarism, glued together by vague notions and symbols of his own half-baked sub-genre. He is lauded by audiences for whom an easily obtained reference marks an end in itself, the cultural equivalent of a PoMo patchwork comfort blanket.
And then there came the associated industry: forests of fawning prose; popular culture bookshelves stuffed with sub-academic analysis and rejected dissertation material; the cult of personality; the procession of involved discussions led by the man himself, as dull and navel gazing as a BFI Kubrick convention and featuring another bug eyed, ADHD performance, each sentence punctuated with a million okays, double, triple positives reinforcing the complex content of his project to capture the great car chase or the interminably fine details of Beat Takeshi’s oeuvre.
The media outlets are in full chorus anticipating his latest as QT takes on the World War 2 Movie and no doubt we can expect cartoonish, stylised, ultra-violence and faintly ambiguous morality nailing its colours firmly to Pekinpah’s iron cross.... Fame:bully for you, chilly for me.
On the western front of music, the Reverend will be active this Friday in the lower reaches of the southern hemisphere.
The second N**i Disco gig will be held at the Mutton Club, Whanganui on Friday 5th June 2009.
The 2 sonic pranksters will be 'blitzing' the audience with their unique aural assault of Tribalspacefunknoisegrimepop. The other bands are supposed to be really good too!
The group show 'Ivan Rebroff is my Security Blanket' featuring the 'Techniques for Self Sabotage' series by Neil Buddle, is on until Wed 10th june at the Federal Gallery, Whanganui, New Zealand.
this funky and ecelectic group show, features a cast of creative suspects, inhabiting the fringe of Whanganui. These include Erica Sklenars, Dylan Herkes, Bridget Tyson, Brandon Sayring, Mike Marsh, Deborah Halliday and more.
Rev at work, sketching and cutting the days quarry.
At Whangaehu lagoon, the rivers end before it hits the Tasman Sea.
Pete's house and BaseJumper @ Whangaehu Beach.
The Whanganui River road between Pipiriki and Raetihi is now mostly sealed.
Rev's caffeine fix at Tokaanu.
