Hard News by Russell Brown

Heavy metal has a dread secret: the majority of people who play and enjoy the music are actually really nice. But please don't tell anyone. And especially don't publish any career-ending tweets like this one from John  Campbell.

Dear All, just to clarify, whilst @beastwarsband arguably make terrifying music, they're personally nicer than Julie Andrews. Yours, etc, JC

— John Campbell (@JohnJCampbell) April 25, 2013

You can imagine the headlines: "Beastwars 'just like Julie Andrews' says famous broadcaster."

I cannot begin to explain the reputational damage that could flow from this tweet. It is, of course, true. The hills are indeed alive with the sound of EFFING GREAT RIFFS. And Beastwars are lovely chaps.

As were all the chaps and chappesses who gathered at Vector Arena on Monday for Black Sabbath's second show. Granted, some of them were a little over-primed by showtime, but the risk was less of violence than that they might accidentally crash into someone. And when Sabbath did actually take the stage, the happiness on their hairy little faces was genuinely touching.

The deeper vaults of Black Sabbath were something of a mystery to me -- I know 'War Pigs' (which was brilliant on the night) and 'Paranoid' and not a lot else. I realised as the show unfolded that Sabbath's stock-in-trade is the dirge. They played one dirge after another, and with each, the happy, hairy faces glowed a bit more. The marijuana in the air presumably helped.

I'm not sure whether someone made a deliberate decision to stand down the Officious Vector Security Corps for the night, but the low-key security was entirely appropriate. Rock 'n' roll crowds generally look after themselves, and this one just needed to be left alone to testify.

I was there with my son, who declared it to be the best gig he's ever been to in his life, and Ozzy Osbourne to be "fucking awesome". This is him on the night:

---

I sometimes post re-edits here without explaining what a re-edit might be. What distinguishes a re-edit from a remix is that ideally you're working with the original sounds, perhaps looping a particular break from the track to make it more dancefloor friendly (nothing new about that -- it's pretty much the basis of hip hop), or even copping the backing track from a different version of the same tune, as New York DJ did here with an Aretha Franklin tune -- rather neatly using Aretha's sister Erma's version of the same song:

To be fair, he also uses sampled drum tracks released by Malcolm Catto, whose work can be found in anything from the Dap Kings to DJ Shadow. It's pretty cool, though -- and you can buy that and a couple of dozen other reworks by Honest Lee for a buck on his Bandcamp.

Now, as intriguing as some of these creations can be, they sometimes fall flat when you play to your non-geek friends at parties. With their long intros and re-arranged structures, they can just confuse people expecting the original. Not everyone likes your smartarse internet music. I think there's little danger of that with this one:

It has even been acknowledged on Sixto Rodriguez' official website.

---

Notable on The Audience ...

This sweet little tune from Mt Maunganui duo Joseph and Maia:

They have an EP currently climbing the local iTunes chart.

A moody, expansive electronic pop song from Death and the Maiden:

Click through on that for the download.

And this fab slab of happy shambling from Auckland:

---

Am I right in thinking that Princess Chelsea's cover of 'We're So Lost', currently lighting up the smarter airwaves, cannot yet be purchased in digital form? So, so want. For now here's the original:

Princess Chelsea has a new album on the way -- as does Pretty Lights. Here's the video for the lead single, featuring Talib Kweli:

And finally, it's Phoenix Foundation Fandango album release day! Here on iTunes, on vinyl in real life. I'll review it next week.

The Hard News Music Post is sponsored by:

As most of you will know, Maori Television's Anzac Day coverage has become one of its broadcast taonga -- and they're all lined up to do the job again tomorrow. Note that at 7am tomorrow, they'll be screening Cameron Bennett's moving documentary El Alamein: A Line in the Sand, in which Bennett follows a group of 22 Kiwi veterans from the North Africa Campaign as they return to Egypt.

Maori Television has kindly provided five DVD copies of El Alamein: Line in the Sand for me to give away to Public Address readers. To be in, click the email icon below and put ANZAC in the subject line.

---

But before that screens tomorrow, there's another documentary. Scheduled separately from  the Anzac Day selection, Kay Ellmers and Annie Goldson's He Toki Huna: New Zealand in Afghanistan looks at our 10-year war in a distant land, largely through the eyes of New Zealand journalist Jon Stephenson.

Commissioned by Maori Television, the film explores the reasons for New Zealand's participation in Afghanistan and the impact of our military presence there -- on both the local people and on the young men and women we sent.

This is a topic the news media have trod carefully around, and I think its commissioning speaks volumes for Maori Television's commitment to serious public interest programming. It screens tonight at 8.30pm.

I understand why London Mayor Boris Johnson pitched his city's near-billion-pound plan for cycle infrastructure as a bid to "de-Lycrafy cycling". The idea that cycling takes special clothing isn't particularly helpful in emphasising riding a bike as a normal, everyday activity. Locally, Frocks on Bikes aims to get women cycling by emphasising that they don't have to forsake fashion to do so ("No stress, no fuss, no need for lycra"). There are even popular cycle fashion shows and, for the chaps, Tweed Rides.

I get all that, I really do.

But in Auckland, with its hills and its humidity, it seems to me that cycling in street clothes, however normalising it might be in principle, often won't be such a good idea in practice.

I cycle to replace what would otherwise have been car journeys, but also for fun and exercise -- and I mostly do so in clothing made of various synthetic textiles, including Lycra (this might be a good point to note what Lycra is, and that it's the same thing as Spandex and, less fruitily, elastane).

For summer, I have a range of (mostly) cheap activewear shirts, some of them made from elastane blends, but most of them 100% polyester. I have a couple in hi-vis fabrics and a couple in neutral grey than I can wear to meetings without looking silly. They stretch and disperse moisture in a way that a cotton shirt does not.

In winter, I have several black longsleeve shirts in a nylon-elastane blend that Kathmandu calls Dri-Motion -- they tend to balance out body temperature, keeping me warm when I start without being too warm later. Also, a dayglo Nike windbreaker, and an Adidas windbreaker (red with reflective stripes) that is genuinely stylish, to the point that I wear it out on the town.

What I don't wear is cycling shirts. I hate them. They're cut for a bent-over road cycling posture that I don't use and they look a bit daft on me, frankly. And no way ever will I wear a mock team jersey. Competitive road cycling interests me about as much as competitive yachting does, and I see no point at all in pretending I'm something I'm not. Indeed, I am not above seeing weekend cyclists in all their mock team pomp and thinking unkind thoughts about them.

Every single item came from either Dress Smart outlets (the New Balance store is good) or from Kathmandu's sales.

On the bottom half, yes I wear cycling shorts. I spend most of my summer in Kathmandu Rouler shorts, which have a separate chammy inner that I like to refer to as a "cycle nappy". The shorts themselves (another elastane blend) are brilliant -- comfortable, stylish, lots of pockets -- while the inner isn't great, but meets my needs. For colder weather, I have two pairs of good-quality cycle tights, which are very comfortable to ride in. I wear a pair of basic nylon running shorts over them, because it just looks weird otherwise.

My hybrid bike has ordinary flat pedals and I wear either skate shoes (with short socks) or my Teva sandals.

All that said, I'm more than happy to pop down to the shops or over to a friend's place in jeans and a t-shirt or whatever. I guess it's possible I could even cycle in a suit. But the one item without which I do not get on my bike if I can at all help it is cycling gloves. I have one full pair I hardly use and three fingerless pairs. They improve grip and comfort on the bike and provide some protection if I happen to come off it. Also, they look quite cool.

So that's me. What does everyone else do? I'm genuinely interested, because I have to write a column about this in the next few days and I want to presume from a sample of greater than one. So please, share with the group ...

Tomorrow is Record Store Day and I need to make a confession. I don't go to record stores. Well, not much anyway, and more often to browse than to buy. Which is odd given that over the years I've not only spent a great deal of money in record shops, I've worked in them. Indeed, the year (1988) I spent working in the Virgin Store in Marble Arch, London, was the most outrageously fun year of my whole adult life.

And, as a lifelong music fan, I've never felt closer to the ground than when I was crowding the counters of mad little stores in Brixton and the West End as the latest platters were slapped on the turntables. That one, mate, I'll have that one playing now. You didn't need to know anything about the record but that you liked the sound of it.

(On the other hand, I'm pretty sure I was the first person in all of Brixton to buy 'Pirates' Anthem'. The Jamaican guys at the shop in the covered market had to break open the just-arrived courier box to sell it to me, a fact which both bemused and amused them.)

In part I'm disappearing from record stores because the good ones, the survivors, are specialising in a way that isn't much use to me. They're selling objects as much as they're selling music. And as lovely an object as a bang-up re-pressing on 180gm vinyl is, my life is oriented around music in digital formats.

But as Morgan Davie notes in an excellent post at The Ruminator, record stores are disappearing from all all our lives, and the music -- along with other content -- is disappearing from the High Street:

Because when I say content, what I really mean is stories. Music and essays and novels and more, all of them to me are stories, and stories matter. Stories are how we make sense of the world, how we dream beyond the edges, how we fit ourselves into a chaotic flow that will not slow down for us. Stories give us our humanity. And we are heading for a time when stories are hidden away from the physical world.

Shops are important. Encoded into our folded-up mental maps, their simple presence reminds us of what is possible and what is important. The shops in our retail zones, just like the institutions in our civic centres, are how a community tells itself what it values and what it wants to be.

Your online world is one you build around yourself, but the physical world is one we build together and share.

I would debate that last point. We do shape online spaces together, and share them. As a digital music shopper, the most fun I've had was at eMusic.com, a place that was great mostly because of the savvy, sharing community there. Unfortunately, eMusic was run by a bunch of stupid assholes and I eventually gave up my monthly subscription when management deployed probably the worst "update" I have ever seen on any website, anywhere.

So let's get to the point: record shops are disappearing from the real world and the online stores that replace them mostly suck. The problem isn't catalogue -- the iTunes Store has more on its digital shelves than any physical shop could dream of -- but character. I'm an Apple fanboy and I will go to some lengths to avoid buying things on iTunes. Sure, it's as easy as breathing, but there's something barren and over-managed about it. 

Of the others I use -- including Juno (bizarre and confusing interface, but dance music heaven), Amplifier and 7 Digital -- Bandcamp is easily the best. Choice of formats, ease of use, PayPal support ....  But I kind of want Bandcamp to be more of a record store and less of an unobtrusive retail services provider. The fact that it's so artist-focused means it's not a great source of back-catalogue goodness. The new emphasis on a social component seems promising.

But for now, my big fun online tends to be in music discovery places that aren't actually stores. Maybe one day soon, buying music will be as fun as discovering it on Soundcloud or Hype Machine ...

---

But tomorrow will, of course, absolutely be a good day. Real Groovy Records has a lineup that includes DJ turns from Simon Grigg, Jacinda Ardern and TV3's Tova O'Brien -- and also, of course performances from Waves, whose long-lost debut album gets a special vinyl release along with its previously unreleased follow-up -- and of course Beastwars, whose long-awaited second album, Blood Becomes Fire, will be released in a limited blood-red vinyl edition too. (It's actually avilable in digital form from Bandcamp today.) Me and my boys are pretty amped for that Beastwars instore, let me tell you.

Under the Radar has the rundown on what other New Zealand stores are doing.

---

And finally, because I'm running out of time and increasingly hangry -- congratulations to Sean James Donnelly for taking our this year's Taite Music Prize. Awesome.

The Hard News Music Post is sponsored by:

For the great majority of those celebrating last night's marriage equality vote -- those who can already wed their chosen, or who have no wish to do so -- the victory in the House was symbolic. And that is appropriate. For what is marriage, beyond any simple right to contract, but a symbolic act?

Yet the symbolism runs deeper than that. For some of us, the comfortable passage of Louisa Wall's bill completes an arc that began with the torrid, sometimes terrible days leading up to homosexual law reform in 1986. MPs said awful things in those debates -- and on the street, it sometimes had the feel of a war. There was actual violence.

Lesbians, of course, had no practical need of law reform: their relationships had never been unlawful. (By contrast, sexual relations between men were actually a capital offence in New Zealand from 1840 until 1867, when the Offences Against the Person Act reduced the penalty to mere life imprisonment.) But they stepped up for their gay brothers, and for the symbolism that resonated in their own lives.

The bid for civil unions was also torrid at times, but something had changed: the opponents of these rights had begun to look like the fringe, rather than the mainstream. Brian Tamaki might have been able to get a crowd on to the streets, but they didn't look like the nation. I happened to be standing with my mother, whose personal faith has been a comfort through hard times, watching the Enough Is Enough march in Wellington in 2005. "I don't like this," she said.

By comparison, marriage equality has been the delicious dessert at the end. This time, it was clear very early on that Wall's bill almost certainly had the numbers. Everyone could relax, a bit. In the House, Kevin Hague, Grant Robertson, Mojo Mathers and others summoned deeply personal accounts of themselves, their families, their souls. At each reading of the bill, those people moved me to tears.

Almost as importantly, the debate allowed us to see our MPs beyond the usual tribal template. Maurice Williamson, witty, boisterous, reminded us that economic liberals could also walk the walk as social liberals. Chris Auchinvole told us that god-fearing conservatives were capable of searching their own hearts and consciences. As importantly, he begged our patience for those who had not moved as far, as fast.

The opponents, by contrast, were defanged, mostly harmless. Winston Peters was just a handy figure to (metaphorically) throw things at. And Chester Borrows? Well, you had to laugh, didn't you?

But something else was different: we watched. Has there ever been a bigger audience for Parliament's televised proceedings than there was last night? And we watched in a peculiarly modern, multi-media way, sharing real-time hugs and jokes (so many jokes!) and the occasional sputter across the social platforms.

There's something tremendously healthy about this kind of collective engagement with the democratic process. But it would be naive to think it can always be this way. There are rarely such clear, simple, soulful choices in, say, economic debates. Reasonable people can share ends, but have sharply different beliefs about the means to them. The clarity of the idea at hand last night was a rare treasure. The treasure, you might say, at the end of the rainbow. (This is not to say that further battles for inclusion do not lie ahead. But it is a moment.)

And yet, it would be nice to think some of it can rub off. People in these debates spoke overwhelmingly in good faith. They co-operated across the borders of their parties. They respected each other. Many of them, doubtless, will be contemplating that fact today. It would be nice to think that we might see a little more of that and a little less of the daily business of snark and barb. A good-faith Parliament would, of course, require good-faith leadership. We can only hope.

But for now, know this: all over the world, right now, people are watching our Parliament mark the passage of this important, symbolic bill in a manner that was beautiful, moving, precious and thoroughly our own.