King Loser's brief reunion this year could have been a bit of a calamity: indeed, the first few minutes of their first show, at The Other's Way, weren't up to much. But the creature gathered itself, stood up and growled. They were great – and by the time they'd invaded the rest of the country and returned for a final show at the King's Arms, they were greater.
My friend Andrew Moore was there the whole time, shooting a documentary. And although he maintained his personal safety throughout, the Loser curse struck not long afterwards, when he slipped on a wet deck and broke his ankle. Happily, he has spent some of the consequent sitting-on-his-arse time knocking together a short preview:
I can't wait to see what happens next.
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It's been a strange week and I don't really want to think about politics for a day or two. So last night, listeneing to the songs of a randy Jewish poet who became a Buddhist monk was about as woke as I was gonna get.
Grant McDougall has sent me a tribute to Leonard Cohen and you can read it here.
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For the Songs of Auckland LATE at the Museum last year, we were able to get Jed Town's work-in-progress refresh of the 1980 video for The Features' 'City Scenes'. It's been a long time since, but the video is public now:
It's been released along with a new compilation on Flying Nun called X-Features.
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A few weeks back, I was a DJ at a friend's party and the gear let us down. It wasn't until deep in the night that we could hook up another PA and get down to getting down. And just so we all had a decent turn, the soulful Sandy Mill (from the SJD band and elsewhere) went one-for-one on the decks. And it turned out that Sandy and I had some deep funky chemistry!
So people talked and one thing led to another and Sandy and I will be DJing at Golden Dawn next Friday night, the 18th. We're on the late shift – from 11pm to 2am.
If you're friends with either of us, please do come on down and dance away your cares. We're strictly vinyl and the new DJ setup at Golden Dawn is mint. It will be funky.
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As noted a little while ago, The Verlaines have a new album, Dunedin Spleen, on the way. This is the first song from it:
And the band has announced two shows next month: Bodega in Wellington on the 9th and The Cook in Dunedin the following night. No word on Auckland ...
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Under the Radar got Roger Shepherd to choose five favourite songs recorded on Chris Knox's legendary TEAC four-track and tell the stories that go with them.
The Skeptics finally get a fully-fledged article on Audioculture.
Also on Audioculture, Gareth Shute has put together a Top 10 list of live sound engineer-musicians.
And on RNZ, Kiran Dass interviews Bill Direen and plays some of his songs.
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It's not actually a music documentary, but the BBC's Black is the New Black is a story about the black British experience and features Jazzie B, Dizzee Rascal and others. This week's first ep is already online:
There's also another one coming soon: see the story and preview of Jazzie B’s 1980s: From Dole to Soul.
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Tunes!
New Dimitri from Paris remix! Free download!
Another disco freebie! Click "buy" to download.
Yet another funky freebie! (Mildly irksome Artst Union palaver.)
And, finally, a word from Gil Scott Heron ...
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