postpunkpete

Exploit-Ed

2007-10-17T19:27:00.000+13:00

My 10-year old son Ed plays a mean guitar. So of course I've put him on YouTube. They're just taken with my mobile but you get the general idea...

In Rainbows arrives

2007-10-10T19:06:00.000+13:00

Well I've had my email open all afternoon waiting for the link to arrive for my download of Radiohead's In Rainbows and it finally hit my inbox at around 6.30pm NZ time. So now I've fed the kids (hey there are other priorities in life!) I'm giving it a whirl.

Sounds great so far - more later!

From the sublime to the ridiculous...

2007-10-03T12:16:00.000+13:00

Two very contrasting concert announcements have been made over the last 24 hours...

First up was the initial line-up for the 2008 Big Day Out. Arcade Fire! LCD Soundsystem! The Clean! I might have to seriously consider going - for the first time ever (although I HOPE that Arcade Fire will be doing a 'normal' gig somewhere as well).

And then this morning there was the rather more low-key revelation that the 'big' act at next year's Mission concert is... wait for it... John Mellencamp! Man, I feel sorry for the 9,000 suckers who had already bought tickets for that one!

Trivia note - John Mellencamp used to be managed by David Bowie's 'MainMan' Tony de Fries, who was also responsible for his former goddawful stage name 'John Cougar'.

Mr Bowie joins Arcade Fire on stage at 'Fashion Rocks' in September 2005.

Radiohead go crazy

2007-10-01T18:36:00.000+13:00

So you're one of the biggest bands in the world, you've just finished your new album, but you are currently 'between record companies'. Do you:

A) Start an Internet hoax that something is going to happen on 1 October but
then deny anything is going to happen on 1 October because you don't have a
record company.

B) Sneakily create a website offering a download of the new album to registered users from 10 October.

C) Allow your registered users to fill in the price they are willing to pay for said download, and yes, that includes $0.00.

D) All of the above.

The album's called In Rainbows and 'D' is the correct answer. Details here, now!

Back to work

2007-08-22T12:05:00.000+12:00

We came, we coded, we conquered

2007-08-22T11:55:00.000+12:00

Yes, we beat the Aussies and came home with the inaugural "Full Code Press" trophy.

We had a great team, a great client, and a great time! Full details on the FCP site and our Code Blacks blog.

Sydney calling

2007-08-17T18:29:00.000+12:00

Arrived in Sydney yesterday for the FullCodePress madness. Had a great morning and early afternoon wandering through the city, then did the tourist thang on the Manly ferry with Ali and Jeff. Here's how Manly was looking today - not bad huh?

And now we're setting up at the hotel for the event, and so far all systems are GO!
Go the Code Blacks!

A Pressing Engagement...

2007-07-26T21:14:00.000+12:00

OK so this blog was going to just be about music, but seeing as I haven't posted for ages and I'm only really listening to Wilco at the moment anyway, it's time for a change of tack.

One thing I'll be blogging about over the next few weeks is my involvement in FullCodePress, aka The Geek Olympics.

Bound to be worth a post or three...

Five words, that's all we've got...

2007-06-08T22:27:00.000+12:00

Couldn't find a video of this on YouTube for some reason, so here's the transcript of David Bowie's acceptance speech for his special achievement award at this year's Webby's:

"I only get five words?"

"Shit, that was five."

"Four more there."

"That's three,""

"Two,"

(Bowie exits the stage)

Legend.

Boss bassists

2007-06-07T21:29:00.000+12:00

Macca has a new album out this week, which is a good excuse to compile a list of my top five bass players. Here we go (2, 3, 4...)

Paul McCartney

Tina Weymouth

Jean-Jaques Brunel

Peter Hook

Adam Clayton

Honourable mentions go to the three Johns... Entwhistle, Jones and Wardle (AKA Jah Wobble).

Radio radio

2007-06-03T19:06:00.001+12:00

My idea of the ultimate radio station in the universe would be something like this - the lead singer of one of your favourite bands has a show every week, and this week he played "I know what I like (in your wardrobe)" followed by The Blue Nile's "Easter Parade"... and yeah, that's exactly what you get with the Guy Garvey show, Sunday nights on the BBC's peerless 6music station. Nice one.

Conchords take flight

2007-05-22T21:40:00.001+12:00

The pilot episode of Welli's very own folk-comedy duo's HBO show is now online, in full, here. Well done those boys - and well done HBO...

Well, I'm not sure if I am happy, actually!

2007-05-12T21:54:00.000+12:00

Right now, in the US of A, the retirees' lobby group AARP is using The Buzzcocks' 'Everybody's Happy Nowadays' in their latest TVC.

The Fall's 'Blindness' is the soundtrack for the new ad for Mitsubishi's Outlander.

And here in NZ, there's the guitar squall from The Only One's peerless 'Another Girl, Another Planet' propping up the current Vodafone ad.

Is this a good thing, or a bad thing?

100 word review: Favourite Worst Nightmare

2007-05-07T20:52:00.000+12:00

To be honest, this is one of those albums that is just a little bit underwhelming at first listen. But then after a few spins (hey CD players do spin y'know) it reveals its true qualities. So a big thumbs up for album number two from those cheeky scamps the Arctic Monkeys. Still not sure about the opening track (and first single) 'Brainstorm', but from 'Teddy Picker' to '505' this is a step up from Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I Am Not. More sophisticated musically, vocally, and lyrically. What more could you expect from a sophomore release?

Rage against RATM fans

2007-05-06T21:18:00.000+12:00

While the NZ media gleefully reported Neil Finn taking potshots at the NZ music scene and Aunty Helen this week, in reality our Neil was on the receiving end of some better-aimed, and possibly more painful, shots from fired up Rage Against the Machine fans at the Coachella festival. US music blogger 'large hearted boy' tells it like it was.

Needless to say, Crowded House fans in the audience were not amused and the Crowdies message boards have been full of vitriol against the RATM fans, and whoever thought of putting the two bands on the same bill, on the same stage, on the same day.

Fall in a hole?

2007-05-05T19:39:00.000+12:00

Today I picked up a CD copy of The Fall's "Room to Live" at Real Groovy. It was on special at $15, which co-incidentally is what I paid for a Rough Trade Italy import of the original vinyl version in 1982. But that wasn't why I bought it.

What made it an essential purchase for me, was that one of the bonus tracks on the CD is "Hard Life In Country" recorded live at Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand, on August 19 1982. Now there's a story...

At the time I was Programme Director of RadioActive and flatting with a girl who was on the student executive. Anyway, one night she got a call from the student president, which went something like this...

"I've just had a promoter on the phone who wants to bring some band called The Fall to the Union Hall. Have you heard of them?"

Well you can imagine my reaction, once my jaw came bouncing back off the floor.

"Totally Wired!" I yelled. "You know, they do that song that goes t-t-t-totally wired! They're one of the best bands around!"

He wasn't convinced, and wanted to know about their politics. "They're socialists of course!" I claimed, not altogether truthfully. "One of their songs is called The North will Rise Again, about the plight of the northern working man and his struggle against the southern meritocracy..." or somesuch blither. Somehow that did the trick and a couple of months later the Fall turned up at the Union Building.

Mark Cubey and I wandered up to the soundcheck and spotted Mark E Smith at the far end of the Union Hall, grumbling into his can of beer while his band powered through songs from the Slates E.P. "They're too bloody tight, sounding too much like real musicians," he told us, shaking our hands and spilling beer all over his shirt. Much more genial than we expected, he agreed to do an interview with us after the concert. Which RadioActive was also broadcasting live that night.

A few years ago, some sad bastard (no, not me!) transcribed the interview from an old copy of Salient which you can read here.

The concert itself has been available on bootleg for many years, and it was an absolute cracker. So it's great to see one track at least making it onto an offical Fall release, albeit almost 25 years later!

Oh, and "Hard Life in the Country" was one of the stand-out songs on the night, with possibly my favourite MES lyrics ever. Here's a snip:

It's good to live in the country
You can get down to real thinking
Walk around look at geometric tracery
Hedgehogs skirt around your leathered soles
Fall down drunk on the road
It's good to live in the country

The man's a poet I tell ya!

Icky thump, thump, thump!

2007-05-04T22:56:00.000+12:00

This blog starts with a BANG and that BANG is Meg White's bass drum on the four minutes of insane musical genius that is The White Stripe's new single "Icky Thump".

Icky Thump? I mean that's genius enough in itself, but the fact that the song sounds like The Sweet and Deep Purple gate-crashing a Led Zeppelin recording session makes it doubly so.

Jack White, you're cooler than Jack Black!