Maybe it just me, and maybe I’m being a little unreasonable, but why do so many good, potentially great, restaurants have such terrible, terrible music. I know it’s not universal, and there are places that get it very right, but, dammit, sometimes it feels that way. It’s a particular bugbear of mine, a hobby horse, but one that I sit quietly and suffer…well that’s not true…I groan and mumble to those sitting with me. They, as often as not, give me a look, shuffle their bums a little uncomfortably and then resume talking amongst themselves as I continue to critique each and every track.

I eat out a lot, probably more than I should, but as a defense, both Brigid and myself enjoy our food a lot (as I can tell when I look in the mirror most days…off to the gym again in the pagi), its not expensive once you get to Asia, and we travel a lot, and eating out is part of that.

I like a bit of music whilst I eat, for obvious reasons. To be honest I like a bit of music when I do most things but that’s rather beside the point. We have our favourite places, ones we return to over and over again, and we like to try new places that look interesting, as often as possible. So we are experienced and, I’m afraid, rather critical customers.

But clearly, the skills required to make a restaurant work, that work in a kitchen, that go into the aesthetic design of a restaurant and a menu don’t necessarily imply any great taste in music. My experience would indicate otherwise. Two cases in point here in Bali. The first is a new place run by a young, Dutch I think, guy on Sanur beach, a place that’s been screaming out for a decent place on the beach for god knows how long. And now it has one. The food was good, the vista, sitting on rather pleasant solid wooden bench seats at solid tables rather than the standard plastic beach fare, looking out over the gorgeous Sanur reef on the brand new Japanese built (it was war reparations I’m told) beach, was fantastic.

And all was fine until Norah Jones and Harry Connick were turned up…whilst I’m eating my food, I don’t want to hear shitty MOR over-wrought takes on My Funny Valentine or These Foolish Things. These people do not make sophisticated dining (or any other time) music despite the way they may be marketed. I want faux sophistication I’ll go to somewhere where I expect it…like say, Euro in Auckland, not a pretty little beach restaurant in paradise.

Talking of fake…then there was Ku de Ta yesterday, the fashionista centre for the (self proclaimed) beautiful people of Seminyak. Now, whilst I have problems with this rather shallow aspect of Bali, it’s a beautiful spot and the food has improved in recent months (the breakfasts are fantastic), albeit still rather overpriced, apart from said brekky. But surely I don’t need to hear Wham as I sip my strawberry juice and look down the beach. Wham Bam / I am a man just doesn’t sit well with the rhythm of the cascading surf…

Auckland and Sydney are no better, I’ve had to endure Jimmy Barnes quietly in the background in overpriced Bondi eateries in the past…..and if I hear the bloody Buddha Bar or fucking James fucking Blunt again, I will, I promise, get violent, or at least think violent thoughts.

Look, you spend a small fortune on interiors and a beautiful Bose system, and then you put on Duran Duran’s Greatest Hits (as was the case in Ponsonby recently). One restaurant in Auckland has played the same CD on the twenty or thirty times we’ve been there over the years. Honestly, nobody in your place wants to hear your favourite CD, or for that matter, any store bought CD, that’s not why they come there.

Not getting a professional or at least a talented amateur to design the audio aspect of what you are offering is inexcusable, unprofessional and lazy.

A least I got that off my chest.

On a completely different tack, as a kind of follow up to the post yesterday about the post Corby (she’s writing a book…apparently it’s all the Bali 9’s fault now) braindead great southern landers and the like, it is with some concern that I have to report our very own drug abuse problem.

More of an issue than a problem I should say, as its not featured on any fear and loathing in Sanur bulletins in the Australian press yet. In our garden, between the cobras, squirrels, geckos and other much larger lizards we have many assorted frogs and toads, big and small. .

In the evening its hard not trip over a hopping wee creature and they do, from time to time, create quite racket.

And Chippie, our dachshund has also noted the creatures. In fact she’s discovered rather than torturing the poor things to death as nature would generally have her do, she (and Star, the anging kampong) gets more pleasure out of keeping them alive, hoping and sweating….sweating all that lovely juice which when licked sends our little mutts off to another planet. Yes, our dogs are toad junkies…both, but in particular little Chippie who likes nothing better of an evening than to get nicely toaded, to froth at the mouth, stagger blissfully around the property until she collapses at the end of the bed. The next day is clearly a little rough for the girl who looks a little fragile, the head is not feeling as it should I imagine, but she’s often back into it again when the opportunity (or toad) presents itself…and so on and so on…

And whilst she doesn’t see the need to do a Michelle Leslie (whom I actually felt rather sorry for until she opened her mouth, what an unpleasant soul she turned out to be) and don a head to toe burka, as the photographic evidence to the left indicates (PhotoShopped for modesty), we are a loss, as responsible parents, to know what to do next….although perhaps the photo could be a handy reference for any parent trying to work out if their child is on drugs…

Tourism in Bali is down, not as much as it was, but its still down. It’s a fact and it’s a tragedy for those on the island who can least afford it as, without a proper social welfare system (beyond the village system, which is in reality probably more supportive than half the systems in the so called developed world (hello Singapore, hello USA)) those on the bottom rungs, who depend not only on the actual work but the obvious flow on, are clearly suffering.

Don’t get me wrong, there are still tourists by the thousand arriving daily on this island (to suffer the indignity of the rather poorly thought out visa-on-demand fee, which clearly is designed to benefit those with such access to so much ready US cash than Indonesia, but that’s another story) but the numbers are clearly down and the balance has changed rather dramatically. There has been a massive upswing in the numbers from many of the more sophisticated Asian nations; and Europe and even the fearful American tourists seem to be returning. In truth there was never really a substantive drop off in the young European visitor, attracted by the sun, surf, and the lights of Seminyak; and the pick up in American numbers is relative to the fact that our paranoid imperialist want-to-be-masters don’t like to travel and haven’t much for some years anyway, unless they go under the guise of the 82^nd Airborne or such.

But the obvious swing is the drop in the budget Australian tourist…Ma and Pa with three kids from the sprawling suburbs of Perth, Sydney or Brisbane, who have, as a habit, spent their annual three weeks off from the Holden factory in Bali. The fifty percent drop in their numbers has really hurt ocker central…the low end tourist market of Kuta and Tuban. The unwashed crowds who used to come en-mass to buy their cheap T shirts, knock off DVDs and pay far too much for “plaiting of hair”, let alone frequent the seedy bars of Jl Legian, are staying away in droves. The middle and high end seem to have tossed aside any concerns and are here in obvious numbers, as a drive down Jalan Laksama on a Saturday night will attest.

And, you may say, can you blame them…after all four years ago, in a couple of those very seedy and sleazy Kuta bars 202 poor souls lost their lives. It was and remains a tragedy. There is nothing that I can say to make it any better or to justify the horror of what was done then, or in Kuta Square & Jimabaran last year.

But, and I thought long and hard before I posted this…according to a recent poll, this understandable reasoning is NOT the primary reason most of these people are not coming here. No, some 76 percent of Australians, in a recent Australian poll of those who have made a decision to holiday elsewhere, stated that their primary reason for avoiding Bali was the fear of being fitted up for a drug conviction. I don’t have an link for this as it doesn’t appear in the online version of the Jakarta Post who reported it, so you’ll need to take my word for it.

Now I can also understand that many people would, and have, dismissed the bomb threat as minor (I’ve not seen any figures but I would imagine the chance of being hit by a Sydney bus would be about the same as being in another bomb here, and indeed, courtesy of Sheriff Howard’s rather pathetic desire the to be seen as a player, you may be as much at risk of a bomb right now in George Street or The Crown Casino as Bali…)…not non existent mind, but the chances of being in that particular place…well you know…I lived in London whilst the IRA were blowing up Harrods and the like, but you put it in perspective. Planes crash but I still fly; there are nasty snakes here but I still wander carefully through the countryside.

So I scratch my head and wonder, is this symptomatic of a recent failure in the Australian education system or have these people always been so bloody stupid. There is even some idiot (from Harvey World in Tasmania no less) who has conducted a campaign against traveling to Bali because of what was done to our Schapelle. Forget the fact that she’s probably guilty (and I’m not going to go into it again but look at the evidence…any court in the world would have convicted her, and I’ve yet to hear a convincing contrary argument, or for that matter, meet a Bali resident who thinks otherwise) and the fact that the drugs were allegedly planted in Australia by corrupt baggage handlers for gods sake, not by those terrible Indonesians. And forget the fact that the Bali 9 were handed over to the Indonesian police by the Australian Federal Police who were well aware that, when found guilty, as they most surely are, what the likely outcome would be.

See, I don’t agree with the sentences handed out, 20 years simply is wrong and the death penalty is always wrong wherever and why ever its applied, but, big but this, that is largely beside the point…if you consciously plan and undertake the crime, as I believe both the Corby crew and the Bali 9 obviously did, and then you work out your odds…and the odds in Indonesia for bulés with drug related crimes are not good. End of story. You do it, you are stupid, even if, as so many suspect, the Corby family may well have done so before successfully. We are not dealing with a bright family here, but the above polling suggests that they are more or less representative of many their compatriots in that.

The Australian hypocrisy stinks too…complaining on one hand about the death penalties for the Bali 9, and on the other clambering for the Bali bombers to meet their end. And then there is the Ba’shir nonsense. The man was convicted on hearsay, most of which would not have held up in an Australian court. In Australia it’s doubtful if he would’ve spent any time in a cell, but so eager were the Indonesian Authorities to be seen to be doing the right thing that perhaps the goalposts were shifted a little. The Indonesian justice system is a million miles from perfect but I would suggest that before the self righteously ignorant downunder rant that they look a little closer to home, at their justice system as it’s applied to their native peoples over the years, and the notoriously corrupt police and courts in NSW, Victoria and Queensland.

So that’s my little dua ribu’s worth…stay away if you are worried about your physical safely (but apply the same values to your next journey to London or NYC please), but anything else is crap.

Anyway, as seems to be the common wisdom here, the place has, aesthetically if nothing else, benefited substantially from the demographical swing…

Brigid says I’m turning into a grouchy old man if the recent posts are anything to go by, so let’s get POSITIVE….Lets talk about music. In particular I need to make some sort of attempt at adding to the album list I started a few months back, here, and here. So, without much more ado…here are more albums that would make any listing complied by me but somehow slip though the “authoritative” lists from real critics.

American Spring…(United Artists 1972)…the great lost Brian Wilson album (although to be fair he only co-produced this, but his fingerprints are obviously all over this and are the ones that matter). American Spring were called Spring in the US but there was a UK band called that (who had a good album on an obscure RCA label called Neon) but were originally called The Honeys...confused? Don’t be…it was essentially Brian’s then wife, Marilyn’s band (with her sister). Whilst the songs are sometimes familiar the approach is different from anything else Wilson did, or would do, and, this may sound ugly, but it makes more sense aurally than conceptually, imagine a blending of the Beach Boys with the Carpenters (not my favourite act but I do understand them). However it works rather well, with the purity of the vocals accentuating the depth, and complexity of the Wilson sound. Rather wonderfully actually. Hard as hell to find, but best tracked down on the early nineties CD reissue with the extra UA singles tagged on.

Art Pepper….Smack Up (Contemporary 1960)….shortly before, as the title suggests, the heroin dragged Art down (but not out, his later work is mightily magnificent too) for a spell, he released this work of genius. I knew nothing of Art when a guy in a little shop in Soho recommended this to me in the early eighties, so I bought it on a whim, based upon the fact that it sounded interesting. And found my self absorbed, not only by the record but by the man’s rather tragic quagmire of a life (his autobiography, Straight Life, is an essential, if somewhat depressing read). But to the record itself, a collection of tracks written by other players on his label…I love the fact that despite his personal problems, this record simply oozes raw soul, so beautifully executed, and with such melodic passion. Whether the heroin contributed to or detracted from the performance in these black grooves is an arguable point (and this is a vinyl record, the CD does it no justice), but he only did these sessions under duress from his wife. I hate the drug, and all it implies, more than I can express but it’s impossible to satisfactorily dispute the fact that so much of the music I love was created under its influence. Smack Up is no exception..

The Temptations….Sing Smokey (Gordy 1965)….the album that gave the world the My Girl and in a single swoop invented the whole sweet soul sound that so dominated the first half of the next decade. But that may be the weakest track on the finest album from, arguably, Motown’s finest band. The story was that Berry Gordy was desperate to get this band on the charts so he gave them to his finest songwriter, the mighty Bill Robinson, who, in early 1964 began crafting the series of songs that comprise this wonderful record. Many of the tracks herein are well known as Miracles originals but this is much much more than the standard Motown artist covering other Motown hits that was the company rule to fill out albums. Eddie Kendricks’ vocals, to my ears, dominates this record and the match between his voice and Smokey’s (for the want of a better phrase) smokey anthems, especially the take of What’s So Good About Goodbye, which sounds like it was recorded after a hard night of the pain espoused in the lyrics, is absolutely perfect. I’m a huge fan of the Norman Whitfield Temptations era too, but if I had to pick one album of theirs, this swooningly beautiful collection is it.

Lamont Dozier…Out Here On my Own (ABC 1974)…fresh from the intrigues of both Motown and his own (with the Holland brothers) HDH labels (Hot Wax and Invictus) Lamont resumed on his own solo career (he’d released a few singles prior to his years with Gordy) in the early seventies, with mixed results both commercially and artistically (more in the later years than the first part of it). But when he hit home he did so resoundingly and nowhere more so than on this wonderful album which brought together all the strands of his earlier work and placed them firmly in the black America of the early seventies. The album is vaguely politicised (the gorgeous soft funk of Fish Ain’t Biting), lush (the post Philly and romantically disarming Trying to Hold on to My Woman) and raw (The Meters-ish title track with its classic livin ain’t easy / when you’re black and greasy line) but never fails to deliver. I worked out today I’ve worn out three vinyl copies of this over the years….

Gregory Isaacs…Soon Forward (African Museum 1979)…recorded at Channel One, this was my personal soundtrack for the last half of 1979. I’m a massive fan of our Gregory, despite the fairly substantial amount of dross that peppers his huge catalogue. But it’s that voice, you see, that lazy way he seduces the listener before you know he’s even snuck up on you. I buy all sorts of Isaacs stuff, usually unheard, and as often as not I’m disappointed…there are actually only about eight albums that are absolutely essential, and this is one of them. I should say, actually this is THE one you really need. Even if it didn’t contain the career defining, Sly and Robbie produced title track (Gregory produced the rest), this album would stand up. Slave Market is beautifully tragic from the winsome opening line of “you’ll never get away” onwards; My Relationship is probably Gregory’s most romantic moment (and that’ saying a lot) and a pointer towards his crossover hit, Night Nurse, a couple of years later; and Universal Tribulation might not have the anthemic qualities that took Marley’s songs around the world but its every bit the conscious equal of anything Bob did, and melodically vastly superior. At the same time, both staunchly militant and beautifully wistful, Soon Forward is one of the crucial albums of its era. End of story..

Orange Juice…Texas Fever…(Polydor 1984)…a mini album, remember those? Produced by the peerless Dennis Bovell (check that discography and weep), Texas Fever was the “mature” record made by the fantastically quirky little pop band from Glasgow who were an about-to-make-it band for pretty much their whole career. By the time this came out, not that many were still waiting but I saw Edwyn Collins in the street once and told him this was my favourite OJ record…he said it was his too, whether that was something to say to a fan I don’t know or care, but it worked for me. The intro to A Place in My Heart is so beautifully evocative, and it’s a song I’ve, to steal a line from the lyric, always been mildly obsessive about. The Day I Went Down to Texas has glorious little time changes, but does beg the question…why are Scots musicians so obsessed with the state? A wonderful little record, now sadly, largely forgotten.

How I know I’m living in Indonesia:

Flying into Bali yesterday on Air Asia, I, as always, put on the iPod as soon as I sat down and pulled out my book. I don’t need to hear all the verbal warnings, advice and other garbage, and am firmly of the belief that the weather will be what it is at the other end regardless of what I’m told, and in Indonesia that’s always hot; I have no intention of making cellphone calls in flight or lighting up; and, in Indonesia the plane will never arrive on time. Oh, and if it goes down none of that shit they demonstrate will make the blindest bit of difference.

So on goes the iPod, and out comes the heavy and depressing historical tome that I always carry, and off it goes as the plane glides to a halt at the other end. On countless airlines, from the era of the walkman onwards, that’s been a philosophy without a problem. So, it was with some surprise when then lady in the bright red suit asked me to put away my iPod for landing. Apa? I asked, and she said I needed to put it away to land. Nonsense says I, I’ve never done so in the past and don’t see what difference it makes. Its Air Asia policy said she. It wasn’t when I flew with you before I said. It is now she said. Kenapa? said I…because she said…wait for it….if you have your iPod on you might not notice if the plane crashes.

What could I say…..how can you dispute logic like that.

Then, of course was this recent text message, received by Brigid from a supplier of artefacts for which we were waiting for payment for from an overseas customer. We had given the guy a deposit to hold the items when this SMS arrived:

Sorry Bos, we ar need money tuday because may famili is dead in hospital. Please give me two million before orready deposit two million

This, naturally, was a cause of some concern to us, especially since we were not in Indonesia at the time and there was little we could do. Fortunately another text arrived a short time later and the family had made a miraculous and speedy recovery and now they needed the cash for a feast. Thank heavens for that…..

General William Westmoreland, US Commander in Vietnam, when asked about Vietnamese civilian casualties:

Yes it’s a Problem but it does deprive the enemy of the population, doesn’t it?

I have to say something about this. I’m almost speechless and I’m not very good at this sort of thing but I have to have my say anyway.

The first thing, once the horror of what has been wrought has subsided a little is how in gods name did we get to this place.

I remember New Years Eve as the millennium turned. There was, and I think it was a global thing, such hope, a tangible feeling at that very moment, that a corner had perhaps been turned. That somehow we were going to be able to put the 20^th Century and all the spilt innocent blood, state sponsored as most of it was, it represented, behind us.

But, alas, we reckoned without 9/11, and, worse, we reckoned without George W Bush and his bunch of self serving, bloodthirsty comrades and camp followers. And yet, in retrospect, it was all rather obvious. That Iraq would fall victim, sooner or later to American imperial demands was inevitable, even under the Democrats, as Mrs Clinton’s wholesale continuing support for this bloodbath makes clear.

I want to scream lots of four letter words, a litany of fucks and cunts and shits and whatever else comes out mindlessly. Maybe it will help me feel better about the shitty place these pricks have taken us all, and particular the people of Iraq, to.

I listen to the news and I hear Bush dismissing this survey’s results and I want to say, you shitty sleazy prick all over again. What does it matter if its 50,000 or 500,000 dead as a result of your liable actions, how dare you try to lessen what you have done, to make excuses or dismiss these numbers so cruelly. You despicable fucking human being, once again defending the indefensible; writhing and worming your way around your liability. As I said, what does it matter if its 100,000 or 800,000, the blood of each and every one of those people is on your hands.

Then, predictably, there are those who say that most of these deaths are the result of Iraqi on Iraqi violence as if that too lessens the responsibility of the “coalition”, and in particular the USA. That these people would not have died if it had not been for the dishonesty and deceit of the elected government of the United States, with the collective responsibility that democracy and the much touted freedom brings, is without question, and to deny it only deepens the responsibility.

Responsibility is such a big part of this: a responsibility to accept what has been done in your name and accept the responsibility to both make an attempt at a resolution and make some sort of amends, whatever each takes. And that doesn’t involve, as so many Democrats want, washing your hands and walking away. A solution has to be found and if that involves many many billions more of American money so be it. My gut says that the world will never forgive the United States for this, regardless of its governing party, if they don’t. But, I have to be realistic and I don’t hold any out any hope that the US will do the right thing. The country that gave the world the Marshall Plan no longer exists. It’s dead and buried in Fallujah and a thousand other bloody places around the globe, in the hamlets of South Vietnam, and the villages of Guatemala.

So many of us have been accused, in recent years, of being Anti American. I know I have and I’ve strongly and repeatedly denied the accusation. I’d like now to withdraw that withdrawal and proudly state that I’m firmly Anti-American. Not Anti-Americans mind, but strongly and proudly, like it seems so many are now (the chorus of approval for Chavez in NY recently was tangible), Anti-American.

Quite frankly fuck America and all the pain it’s delivered to the planet in the past fifty years, from the death squads in Central America, to the pain of South East Asia to the current Imperial megalomania of the Middle East. How much death can one nation subject the planet to in the name of its damned alleged gift of freedom. Chavez might be a little bit tin pot but I applaud him standing up at the UN and stating what much of the planet is saying. And I also say a big fuck you to the Democrat Congressman from NYC who criticised him for saying what he did, stating that only Americans have the right to criticise Bush. Mr Rangel, your president is a liar, and a murderer of many many non-Americans so take your complicit whinge and stick it somewhere.

So where do we draw the line? When do we say enough and make people accountable. Fifty five years ago in a German city called Nuremburg good people, many of them American, made a bunch of evil people accountable for their actions. Now the American government, elected as they are by the people of the USA, are the bad guys who need to be made accountable for their actions, for their state sanctioned breaches of the boundaries that we try to govern our world by.

My friend Damien Christie warned me about linking the Nazis’ crimes and the Bush administration and I understand the fine point, but disagree. Pure evil is pure evil, especially when perpetrated under the guise of state policy, and Bush, and his lieutenants are as guilty as those Nazis who were strung up in Nuremburg, and indeed Saddam Hussein, currently on trial for heinous crimes in Baghdad of a great and punishable evil. They lied, they continue to lie, they had a reasonable understanding that their actions would bring us to this place, or if they didn’t they are guilty of criminal negligence, and yet they willingly took us, and in particular, the population now subject to their whims, to this place. We have to draw the line somewhere but Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Blair and company walk freely, sleep soundly, increase their net worths, smile as they face the press, and lie and twist without a momentary obvious concern for the hell they have wrought.

Scum.

And once the troops are home, America will analyse a lot, but mostly forget and in twenty years Bush will have a state funeral. He will be given a get out of jail free card, as Nixon was.

I don’t want to come on as too self righteously naive, but, fuck it all, I despise them for it

I can’t help feeling that my last post was unduly harsh. You get that when you try to post when terribly jetlagged. I’m not good for at least 24 hours after a long flight, as those close to me will attest.

Not unduly rough on Soto, it deserved every word I wrote, not that they care as they seemed to be printing money if our last visit was evidence.

But a little harsh on Metro Magazine, which has its moments, usually towards the back of the magazine. In particular I’ve always enjoyed Gary Steel’s music reviews. He’s one of that extraordinarily rare breed: a reviewer that looks past the accompanying press release and actually writes about the record. Rare indeed, in fact I can only think of a couple or three others in NZ of whom the same can be said, not least of whom is the affable but very very readable Grant Smithies (most great critics, from experience have a surly, often unpleasant demeanour, Grant runs against the grain, as indeed does Gary, and, another NZ writer of worth, John Russell). I suspect that living in an isolated place such as Nelson, as does Grant; or Whangarei, as does John, gives one a more reasonable, less pressured, perspective on a records style or impact.

Simon Reynolds, he of the essential Rip It Up and Fade Away post punk analysis, wrote quite an interesting piece on the death of the music critic a few months back. There is no direct link, but you can find it here if you dig a little.

I’m a little sad that the era of the great rock’n’roll critics, the likes of Lester Bangs and Nick Kent (whose Dark Stuff is also absolutely essential, even if it only had the Brian Wilson story) is past, but to be honest they were always thin on the ground and for every Charles Shaar Murray there were always a dozen churn em out hacks like Christigau or Marsh, or, for that matter, self absorbed scribblers of pointless verbiage like Paul Morley. The demise of the album (and I mean “the album” as in records deemed to be of great social and artistic import) has, of course, hastened the end. The sixties and seventies were dotted with important “albums” as such, records that still sit on store shelves and crossed all boundaries, defying any sub genre. Indeed sub genres and the sub sub genres are a relatively modern phenomena. The CD and the in the increasing niche-ification of popular music killed any possibility that a record could attain such mass acclaim or esteem. I’m having trouble thinking of the last genre crossing important record in those terms..Thriller maybe? The new Dylan album was hailed as such by a few crusty old souls but you have to have your head stuck in the sand to think that Modern Times has any real presence beyond an aging audience and a bunch of lost critics living twenty years ago. That’s not to say it’s a bad record, but in Blood on the Tracks terms, it ain’t important.

But still, we can all play the critic when we want. I’m no Nick Kent, I know that, but I like to toodle on about the odd record (and I recognise that my taste an be a little odder than most, not many people listen to German minimal techno, British bubblegum or NZ guitar noise within the breadth of three songs but that’s not an unusal mix for me I’m happy to say). So, a toodle we will go…this is what I’m liking a lot this week, both old and new:

Guido Schnieder….Focus On (Poker Flat)….I didn’t pay for this, it arrived in the mail a few weeks back unannounced and got put to one side as I travelled here and there (I’ve done Bali, Bangkok, Auckland and Jakarta this month and it takes it out of you so a little German minimal doesn’t get a look in), so it took a while, but good things etc etc. I love the dense (in a minimal way) dark throbbiness of this a lot. It slips and slides all over the place like the bastard lovechild of Holgar Czukay and Arthur Russell, in his nuttier moments. It’s all disco anyway….

I:Cube ….Acid Tablet…acid lives, still, in the heart of a few French veterans…playing this one over and over and over and over..is that sad?

Various…You Better Believe It Soul Vol2…(Warner)…I find it mind boggling just how many obscure, not just good, but phenomenal soul and disco records from the sixties, seventies, and eighties, exist in the vaults of the major labels. Warners UK have issued, in the past five years or so, some twenty compilations like this, under various titles with almost no crossover, and almost all are essential purchases. This, like the first in the series, is just a beautifully packaged and annotated collection of sweet soul classics that you’ve probably never heard before. That’s all.

Laurent Garnier…Retrospective…(F Comm)…I love just about everything Laurent has done, so its rather special to get a swag of it all tied together rather neatly on one double album, with a bunch of new recordings and unreleased stuff, although it would’ve been rather nice to have had the original recording of Acid Eiffel as well as the new live take, which is nice, but, yknow, its not quite the same..fussy bastard I am. Well wicked….

Giles Peterson and Patrick Forge….Sunday Afternoon at Dingwalls..(Ether)…CD 1 is the wonderfully crazy jazz and CD 2 is the soul….Sunday Afternoons in Bali more like….love the packaging too. Although I wasn’t a part of this scene, I feel an affinity as we were trying to do similar things on the other side of the world at the same time.

Everybody’s looking for the sun / people strain their eyes to see/ but I see you and you see me

I should listen to myself. I was well and truly suckered. As recently as last week I railed self-righteously against the overpriced, and sadly very prevalent, pretentious eateries that Auckland is full of. And yet, there I was last Friday night in Soto, just off the top of College Hill. And to make matters worse, I’d sworn two years ago never to visit this place again after a shabby experience which I’d grumbled about way back in the early days of this blog.

To be precise I said it would be a cold day in hell before I ventured there again. Well that day came, although, and I need to scream this from every rooftop, it was not my idea…again…it was not my idea….

Blame my dear friends; in particular Sandy Doll who suggested it then announced she couldn’t make it, leaving another eight of us to suffer grossly overpriced average Japanese food in unimaginative surroundings after a two and a half hour wait.

When the food arrived it was, and lets be generous here, less than average, small, slightly cold and greasy. There was none of the imagination, flair, humour and delicacy that fine Japanese dining demands (and I’m used to at even the cheapest places here in Indonesia). The sushi and sashimi tasted less than fresh, which is the worst thing you can ever say about a Japanese eatery.

The sign on the door announcing its 2005 Metro Restaurant award should’ve been enough of a warning. I long ago learnt never to trust anything in that shabby and pointless rag beyond the odd in-depth piece that accentuates the worthlessness of everything around it. As long as I can recall Metro’s positive food reviews are an indicator as to what is best avoided, with their celebrations of the shallow and plain shitty places of which Soto is a perfect example.

The only diversion in our ruined evening was the large, and offensively loud (they don’t teach manners at Med School obviously), table of drunken Auckland Hospital doctors, one of whom had dropped their phone under the floor. As we watched it rang and flashed blue repeatedly and we could only assume that its sozzled owner was wanted in urgent surgery. Given their state we though it best not to alert them to the call.

But within 48 hours we were sitting on the seafront in Singapore at the, always fantastic, Longbeach Seafood restaurant eating crunchy baby Squid, and it all seemed so far away, thank god. The food was incredible, the service impeccable, both unlike sad old Soto; and the Tiger Beer hit the spot in the 35 degree heat. It was lunch time and we couldn’t see more than twenty metres out to sea courtesy of the Sumatran smoke that hangs over large parts of Asia at this time of the year.

Singapore is a funny place, so absolutely obsessed with making money, technology and being number one. It’s building this brand new underground line at vast cost, both human and financial, to add to its already impressive and comprehensive system. And yet the common wisdom seems to be (and a look at the map confirms it) that they don’t actually need it; they just need to keep on building and proving that they are supreme. Their military is incredibility over the top both in size and in technology. Indeed its air force is so large they need to base bits of it in other countries, beyond normal training requirements. The death notices in the controlled state media (The Straits Times to you…) usually emphasis what a solid employee or a beloved boss the departed was. Even the death of a spouse comes attached to a corporate…”beloved wife of…, trusted employee of Han Yoo Wiring Corp….”.

It can be an unpleasantly Orwellian place despite all the shopping and food.

And yet this, largely soulless, nation, with all its money and technology is powerless to stop a few peasant farmers from covering its little island in great wafts of grey smoke for large slabs of the year. There seems to be some natural justice in that, although obviously the smoke is less than desirable for a variety of reasons.

But that said, the techno hunger in me, loves a place like Funan It, where I can look at all the things I can’t buy in Auckland or Bali. I’m a little sad, I get excited by DSL routers and uber grunty laptops that have more power than I could ever want..maybe…

And then, a few hours later home to Bali, to the land where nothing actually works as it should; where the roads have long ago fallen apart and no-one seems to really care; where we have to explain to a customs officer, with his hand out, that the old Pentium III we’ve bought up for Isabella’s room, is not a new “CPU” with associated “duty” required.

But you realise that there is perhaps something more than a new train line, and even the simplest warung has better service, ambiance and food than a thousand begotten Sotos can aspire to….