There is a song by the, would-have-been-forgotten-like-The-Simple-Image-if-it-wasn’t-for-Nature, NZ pop act from the sixties, The Formyula, called Home. Everyone has the odd killer song that lurks forever in your head, personal songs, and this is one of mine. I like it so much I put it on the Give it a Whirl Soundtrack. Recorded at Abbey Road in the late sixties whilst this lot were stuck in the greasy spoon hell that London can be on no budget, it was on the B side of Nature, which my sister bought. I borrowed it permanently for the flip after she moved on to her next pre-teen 45 and I still have it. The Formyula were also notable for having one of the best lyrics in NZ pop history:

People Turn on in Otaki / I wish you were here

Which of course is absolute nonsense, especially in the late sixties. Anyone who has ever been to Otaki knows that nothing of the sort happens there, although I suspect this refers to a long past music festival of the sort that used to spring up in surprised backwaters back then at a moments notice followed closely by the police and concerned TV crews and National Party politicians. Good lyric though and not a bad song.

The Formyula also had this annoying habit of running out of lyrics half way through a tune and finishing it with loads of la la las….

But, back on track, Home is a more confusing concept than ever for me right now. Ten days in Auckland in October made me feel like a tourist there, and yet, returning to Indonesia, where I am an alien, I felt at home. I was consumed by pangs of homesickness for this stricken paradise from the moment I hit Auckland. The expat scene here is scary…superficial, shallow, ugly and I want no part of it really. But what I am loving is an alternative quirky little scene I’ve discovered where Indonesia and the west meet as equals, where the cynicism I need to survive thrives and sparks. And I’ve got the systems in place to ease me through. Thanks to the good people at Globalxtreme I’m off dial up and on to broadband again…how the hell did the planet exist before fast internet. I have access to music and information and have a wireless network that allows me to sit in a bale by the pool and write this. Thank god….

And those wonderful surprise parcels have started arriving now and again. I opened the mailbox last week to a couple of things I’d not really expected.

The DVD collection of Elvis Costello’s videos is a mixed bag. I remember quite a few of these but not all and they veer between the sublime (Annabel Jankel’s animated Accidents Will Happen which uses the late Barney Bubbles’s graphics and was so profoundly influential; the strangely perverse Good Year for the Roses; I Wanna Be Loved, four minutes of people kissing EC’s head, which, I think, predates Godley & Crème’s Cry; and the simply lovely Veronica) and the plain ugly (Don Letts’ appalling Everyday I write The Book…such a great song, such a terrible video; and the Darryl Hall duet The Only Flame which is neither a great song or a great video). The rest often show their age but I admit to having a soft spot for the white background studio vids from the late seventies of the sort that TVNZ were still making until about 85.

The problem is that Elvis was never a great video performer and often looks forced, uncomfortable and clumsy (check him forced to dress as Satan..doncha love A&R men..) unlike the stage where he comes in to his own. Which is where this disc really works for me. The bonus stuff is a series of live TV performances of which my favourite has to be the slowed down No Dancing, from Tony Wilson’s So It Goes in 1977, where a young Costello plays it as a grinding country funk closer to his demos than the officially released take.

As the Indonesians say, baik.

The New Order singles collection, called, with their usual wit, Singles, is pretty firm evidence that they are and remain the second greatest British singles band ever. Unlike the earlier double, Substance, which may or may not still be available but is essential for that untouchable run of 12 inch singles from 1981 to 1987 (although some on here are not the original 12s), these are the tight 7” mixes and it is way better, and more up to date than the half baked compilations that London put out in the mid nineties when they did their reissues of the Factory material.

I guess New Order have a simple Formyula (sp..sorry puerile but I couldn’t help it) but it works, and works and works and I’d forgotten just how good some of those mid nineties singles were.

I also scammed a copy of the Paul Weller album, As is Now, whilst in New Zealand and I quite like it which is a pleasant surprise as I’ve not really got much from Paul, who used to be a bit of a hero, since Stanley Road and even then it was only a track or two. His best work was pre 86 and its been diminishing returns ever since, with the last few albums being increasingly dull and humourless rockist songs, which kinda saddened me, as it does when a hero falters. The Style Council and The Jam worked when they did when he matched a wry quirkiness, and an unashamed understanding of his place in the British pop masterplan, to counter the increasing self importance. Oh, and a more than a few killer tunes.

As Is Now is not perfect but it’s the closest thing our Paul has done to a consistently great album since Our Favourite Shop back in the early eighties and it’s a fine thing to have him back. Come On Lets Go sounds like an outtake from This is The Modern World, a much derided album at the time but one that has aged gracefully, and From the Floorboards Up likewise could’ve been one of those singles that followed that album. And Pan is simply lovely adult pop, as is The Pebble and the Boy…I like a good epic I do….

I live for new music but its warming to have the odd happy revisit from old buddies like this.

I love Delia Gonzalez & Gavin Russom’s Days Of Mars (on DFA who really are having a hell of a year with The Juan Maclean and LCD’s albums easily sitting in my most played albums), and I played repeatedly Rise off the DFA Comp #2..a big late night car record. That track opens this album which is fine as ten months on it still doesn’t drag. That said, I suspect this longplayer will sell about a dozen copies worldwide as it’s hardly accessible. Reviewers are and have been utterly confused by these guys which is as much as an indication as to why one should always treat any review with scepticism. Why review something you don’t understand. The words Vangelis and Jarre keep on jumping up as reference points but neither are appropriate. It you need a reference point look at either the first Fripp and Eno album No Pussyfooting, still a masterpiece, or the Eno associated No Wave movement of the early eighties in NYC. This record is more Arthur Russell than Jean Michel. Beautiful punk electronica, almost indefinably sensual.

Which brings me to Lindstrom and Prins Thomas, whose self titled album might take this from a different slant but the overall drift is the same, elegant electronic landscapes, often performed with more traditional instrumentation than DG & GR, by these two Norwegians but both albums are essentially from the same place and owe so much to the work of the aforementioned Eno, but also the hugely influential Western European pioneers of electronica, re-stating it in a contemporary fashion, which makes it sound dull, but its anything but. I guess if house / electronica or whatever tag you feel the need to apply, is going to go anywhere in 2006 then both albums are hopefully a signpost.

If anyone wants any indication of what went wrong with dance, look at the new DJ Magazine Top 100.

Oh dear.

Yep, and then there is Carl Craig’s remake / remodel of the no-longer-beatless Darkness originally on the wonderful Just Another Day EP i…real Paperclip people stuff, albeit without the disco loops. I quite liked the Radio Slave boot of the same track although it came from a different place and upset the bloody purists (which can’t be bad).

Today I had my hair cut by a guy who had a picture of Osama Bin Laden on his wall. He offered to razor me as well…I politely declined. I guess that’s living in Indonesia.

I’ve been more than a little slack in blogging and have been admonished by several people for this so…sorry. Excuses? Yep I’ve got a few, not least being the gift of a brand new PSP for my birthday a few days back, from my friends, Wayhu & Krisanti. Sitting up half the night chasing aliens tends to slow the mind a little. But what a machine. I love toys and this one is the most exciting toy I’ve had the chance to play with for quite a spell….

So much for pleasure, now to the pain. The bombs…. I‘ve just got back from a spin around Kuta. I guess it’s vaguely unpleasant of me but since I was out I drove the extra few kilometres from the café we were at in Sanur to see what had happened. There was little to see and I didn’t really want to venture down the blocked streets close to Kuta Square.

It seems pretty much business as usual along Jalan Legian, but of course it’s not at all. The shops are busy, although the Bintang t-shirt wearing Ockers, who were the fairly obvious targets of this horror, are glaringly absent from the streets and there is a gloom and despondency upon the faces of many of the Balinese. I was in Bali a couple of weeks after the 2002 bomb and again in January and February 2003 and I know what this is going to do to this beautiful, peaceful and undeserving island in the years to come.

John Howard was on television telling the world that this was mindless terrorism. Terrorism it was but mindless it was not. These people knew exactly what they were doing and I’m afraid, Mr Howard, that much of the blood of these victims is on your hands. How you, Blair and Bush, can stand in public and express such outrage is beyond me. Have you no shame….

As awful as this is too, such bloodletting occurs daily in Iraq, Palestine and Dafour with little comment from these self righteous people.

I guess like most people I have trouble understanding how a human being can so callously do what was done here. There is no conceivable justification. I can understand what the perceived injustice is and agree with the much of what brings these people to the place where their anger overwhelms them but cannot justify this.

I feel more than a little drained and despondent. I was in a restaurant in Jalan Danau Tamblingan last night when the text from a friend arrived asking if I was ok. We watched a bit of CNN who had fairly pitiful coverage…back to their old tricks…then the BBC which was much more incisive and at least made an attempt to analyse what had happened.

We then tried to sleep but that wasn’t too successful. We woke this morning to the local news channel and very graphic images on the screen, which the cable channels avoid…..they have no qualms about such here…and one of the local boys came around to tell me, in Bahasa, that the terrorists had blown up the airport. I had to assure him the airport was fine, but the level of local stress is evident. These people have suffered bombs, SARS, 9/11, and blatant Corby related media racism in the past four years (the normally excellent ABC Asia-Pacific were insensitive enough to show Schapelle’s god-awful white-trash mother on the morning bulletin as a celebrity commentator).

King hit after king hit and it really isn’t fair. It’s not fair at all and there is little I can do apart from hanging tight and staying here which I intend to do.

My friend Don who was scheduled to arrive tomorrow morning just rang to say he was still coming regardless which really cheered me up but………..

So on a more positive note, I’m going to have to admit that I seriously like about 80% of the new Paul McCartney album Chaos and Creation in the Backyard. Actually about 60%, but, fuck me, if I was able put together a record this good at age 63 I’d be a very happy man. There are a couple of seriously not good moments and maybe Nigel Goodrich, who produced this has a bit to do with it but keep in mind he is also responsible for some of the more pretentious drivel produced in recent years (and I used to so rate Tom Yorke). This really is a very good record and the good songs are so good that it may be the best thing the often slightly unpleasant fab (who has been a hidden pleasure of mine for years, and he was a fab so all is forgiven…I was a teen in the late sixties so the glasses are well rose tinted) has done since Ram or McCartney.

Then again maybe I’m just old……