Music…..

Kerri Chandler and Monique Bingham….In the Morning (Bigga Sounds)..as if just to prove a point, to prove that deep house is alive and well despite most of the contradicting evidence, Kerri, who may well be the greatest house producer ever, simply by virtue of the fact that he is still doing it when others have fallen, and doing it properly, to turn a phrase releases this utterly disarming talk and response love song as only he can do. He likes to talk on records, and I never really tire of it. Cheesy but it works…

Trentemoller…The Last Resort..(Poker Flat)…there was once a rock’n’roll venue in Wellington called The Last Resort. It was a grotty, grubby place. In other words, just right and I liked it a lot. And that was my initial problem with this album…too clean, no edges. But repeated listens changed that perspective…the edges started to appear and I was happy, so now I play it an awful lot. I’ve liked Trentemoller’s stuff since I bought, about six years ago, that first single on Naked, which I still play, and as a bonus on this, his first full album, you get a second CD of some of the killer singles he’s released in the interim including the now classic Nam Nam and the entrancing vocal take of Always Something Better. There is a grandness about his work and he sounds like no-one else…. that works for me.

Justin Timberlake…My Love (DFA Remix)..Jive… I think of Justin as the aural equivalent of Johnny Depp. Both extracted themselves, driven by their own strength of will, from their career launching fluff and turned themselves into something of worth. Justin, in 2006, is the finest pop singer on the planet bar none, not that there is one hell of a lot of competition out there right now. The song is hardly obscure but what James Murphy & Tim Goldsworthy have done to the last three minutes or so is quite special. The bass led punk funk (I hate that phrase but it still works) workout is simply shimmering magic. A classic whether you hate him or not (and lets face it, its just peer pressure that forces you to hate the fella)

The Rapture…Whoo! Alright, yeah (Simian Mobile Disco Mix)…(Vertigo)..from what I’ve heard of the new Rapture album it’s a bit underwhelming, but I have to admit I quite like this, although to be honest in a month or two I’ll be wondering what it sounded like when I come across it. Electro, disco, pop that swirls around quite nicely and I bet sounds rather good on a muthafucka sound system. Disposable, but hey….

Depeche Mode…The Sinner in Me (Ricardo Villalobos mix) (Mute)…the word is that DM didn’t want this mix released but such was the furore over the past few months after some dodgy white labels slipped out, that they have relented and its on the forthcoming hits collection. Now it’s fashionable right now to say that Villalobos is largely overrated, but he was the name to drop twelve months back. Funny old world isn’t it. Personally I blame the NME and George Bush (actually I blame the NME but, fuck it, Bush deserves any flack he gets). Oh, the song? It’s so simple and so simply wonderful and it’s DM’s finest moment since Personal Jesus got the FK treatment.

John Lennon… The US vs John Lennon…(Capitol)…I had an online argument, you may call it a discussion, but I’d rather call it a good old fashioned trainspotter’s argument, about Lennon’s last proper album, Double Fantasy, with some latter day Johnny who said it was his solo masterpiece. Nonsense said I over and over again, it was largely of slab of MOR slush, controlled by others and it was, or it would have been if it wasn’t for the fact that he’d made Walking On Thin Ice the week he died, a shabby way to go out. I like solo Lennon a lot but I like it with balls, with snarl and the fuck you that DF misses (although if you need any evidence that those songs had something before Yoko employed Jack Douglas to smooth things out, check the demo of I’m Losing You with Cheap Trick on the Anthology box). This compilation, from the movie of the same name is an almost perfect collection of the post-Paul-fuck-you songs, even if it includes the The Ballad of John and Yoko which is a perfect fit.

Rob Mello vs Robert Owens…Energy…(Disco 45) ..more old fellas make good record shock, this post seems full of it. It must be the post Johnny Cash syndrome, or something like that. Robert Owens is, well, he is. There is not much more to say, except that if he’d never made another record beyond this, then he would still rate as one of the greatest vocalists of all time. But he did, and here we are twenty odd years later and this is another Robert Owens record that sounds like…another Robert Owens record, albeit with the nice gritty noises that Rob Mello always brings to any production. I like it a lot and will probably remember it somewhat longer than I do The Rapture tune above. The dub is especially good for those that like a little more space in their tech vox house…

Lee Perry & The Full Experience…Disco Devil (white)…I’ve been after this wonderfully mutated discoid dancefloor version of Max Romeo’s Chase The Devil for years, and now I have it on legally suspect 12”, which is better than being forced to pay some $80 for the Trojan box set that includes it.

Just my opinions…

People don’t take me seriously sometimes. For example, take the recent post relating to the substance abuse problems we are dealing with one of our young ones. Back in New Zealand last week I was accused of exaggerating the problem and “doctoring” the photographic evidence to gain our family a little notoriety; having a tabloid approach to the a serious issue. To this I say bahhh, and once again document the problem.

Here, in full colour, undoctored, is the before and after evidence of young Chippie, in the words of the great Curtis Jones, going back to La La Land. In the first you’ll see the young lass pursuing the innocent wee frog. In the second…well it speaks for itself doesn’t it.

We’ve enrolled her in the Bali Chapter of FA (Froggers Anonymous)..it seemed like the only thing a responsible parent could do

I know it’s puerile, I know it’s childish and I know it’s only a small part of a massive problem, but can I just once scream fuck yes……. now for the really big fish…for America it’s a long road back but its a start..

It’s a mighty thin line between being stuck in the past and enjoying ones history and personal moments. I’ve always had a theory that for many, many people, if not most, 26 is the cutoff point. Up until that magical age people tend to explore and enjoy the new, be it music, film, style or whatever. Then something happens, as you turn into the second half of your third decade, it all stops, it all grinds to a halt. And, overwhelmingly, after that, people tend to recycle the bits and pieces that worked for them up until that age. I’m guilty of it at times and it’s a vast generalisation, as I personally know literally hundreds of people past that age who still love to listen, grow and explore. But, and this might sound arrogant, I think that may be more to do with the circles I move in than anything else. And when I move outside those circles, as often as not I have to sit and grimace as people feel the need to play their Talking Heads reissue or show me their Scarface boxed remastered director’s cut. Which is all very good and well, but, fuck it all, there is often nothing else there, beyond that point. Well….maybe James Blunt….

And I love my reissues and re-masters as much as the next person, but don’t you, every now and then, get a tad hungry to hear those other two billion records released since U2’s Zooropa…(other than more U2 albums).I know I do, but then maybe that’s a disease that I’d be better, and wealthier without. Maybe life would work just as well if I didn’t need to hear that funny little German single I read about last week, or see some obscure, slightly worthy movie that got a mention in Uncut. Nah…what a stupid, worthless though….

Ok, having made some sort of vague attempt to defend myself, let me revel in a bit of nostalgia, once again. Let me get all excited about a re-issue. Not just any reissue but the collected seven inch singles of the greatest rock’n’roll band the world has ever seen.

Let me be clear….as of yesterday I love SonyBMG. Everything I’ve ever said or thought or insinuated about major record companies does not, in any way, shape or form, apply to SonyBMG or its New Zealand MD, Mike Bradshaw, who saw fit to hand me, gratis, complete with cute badges, a CD collection of said singles by Messers Strummer (pushing back a tear am I), Jones, Simenon and Headon…The Clash to you. Oh I love The Clash…so much so that I already own every original 7” included herein and the bonus tracks on each cute, lovingly repackaged and annotated replica. But that’s not the point…this is a need to have and a need to touch and a need to play again and again must own symptom of the worst symptoms of my disease. The Clash got it all right…they made nasty noisy records when it felt right; they staggered all across the USA and explained to them what rock’n’roll was all about; they made sprawling triple albums that I’m still trying to completely penetrate; unlike, say the sad old Stones, they didn’t last too long; and mostly, they never reformed. Thank you Sony BMG, thank you Michael, thank you Bernie Rhodes, and thank you Joe et al for ignoring the rules and giving me this twenty five years after the event.

oh, fuck its cool…..

And then in contrast, I scored (bought actually) two Split Enz re-masters. The NZ band that were most in need of a catalogue upgrade have had such visited on them this year by Warner Music, their new owners (and what in god’s name is this other Warners thing, a new Flying Nun Australia…wow they really don’t get it do they…they also own Stax, or part of it…maybe they could do Stax Otahuhu too), and that’s fine. I bought Mental Notes, which still remains the Enz’ landmark, and only really crucial album; and I got the Beginning of the Enz collection simply because I bought all those early singles way back (even though these are, I think, remixed) and I was there…it was a big time for me..I saw them god knows how many times in the years before they recorded Notes and was mildly obsessed. Those early singles and that odd band changed the direction my life took. So I bought both those reissues, inside unseen, as they were sealed, from a pleasant girl at Auckland Airport who told me she’d never been on a plane. She asked me what flying was like. I thought that was odd.

But to the point – it being: nicely remastered these my well be, but who in gods name decided to pass on the liner notes and the packaging; to cut corners (or was it just stupidity). There are so many beautiful remastered editions out, many of which come from Warner’s own imprints.

These, full priced I might add, reissues were a perfect chance to pull in the likes of my old friend Chris Bourke (or Jeremy Ansell put together the Enz radio series), both are very knowledgeable about all things Enz, or a number of other buffs and present the world with the definitive editions of these defining New Zealand (nay…Australasian) albums. But no, you get lyrics, shoddily printed…oh and a couple of photos, but that’s it. Mental Notes has a whole history, fascinating and convoluted, around it, not least of which is the story of the cover, but you’d never know it from this. And the early compilation is simply a bunch of uncredited tracks…these were important early singles mostly but there is not any evidence or record of that in the booklet. No release dates, sleeves or anything else. They could be anything. What a waste, what an unprofessional lazy fuckup, and what a missed opportunity to make a reissue look like something other than a little bit of greedy profit taking.

Oh and an aside…I have it on fairly reliable advice that you can expect the announcement of a New Zealand iTunes store within the next ten days..

That’ll do…..