Birthdays, Beats and Barbecue, never a better mix of B’s has there been….

I’m on early, so one can enjoy the sun (fingers crossed) and get yelly at my shockingly bad selections and complete lack of mixing

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From the promoter:

Booka Shade will be performing live in concert on November 21, 2008 at Studio. Their live performance is simply unbelievable. They’re dubbed by many as the best live electronic act in the world!

Booka Shade will tour their 3rd album “The Sun & The Neon Light” which has seen them headline prestiged festivals around the planet. With immense showmanship, feeling, and energy, they’ve touched millions. Booka Shade’s music is undeniably loved, so expect a concert of genius and great roaring anthems to mark this extravagant night.

To support this gigantic event, we have Dick Johnson, Karn Hall, Tim Richards, Dan Aux, Daniel Farley, Mark Emerson, Matt Drake, Shaveer, James Giles, and Matt Berry. All three rooms will be open for this event to ensure we are able to handle the monstrous capacity and electric vibes expected.

Tickets available from here: http://www.deline.co.nz/bookashade/tickets.htm 

or DMC (High Street), Route 66 (Newmarket)

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Happy b’day Scooter!!

many happy returns!
Heres hoping ya spend it in ya `Happy Place’

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Following on from Websta’s & Benny’s posts about albums that made an impact, I would like to proudly induct Tricky’s debut, “Maxinquaye”, into the Stink-Finger hall of fame.

Tricky threw his darkly warped yet disturbingly sexy collection of songs into the world in 1995, one year after I had escaped high school and moved on to studying audio engineering in an institution filled with tutors who believed that The Beatles would re-form and release new music any day now. They instantly hated me after discovering that my love of “electronic house music”, and tried to convince me it was a passing fad and would never last since there were no real use for guitars in it.
In a young and foolish attempt to convince them I had no issues with guitars, I played them parts of Maxinquaye. Their disdain for me grew even deeper. 

The opening track, Overcome, provokes that exact feeling - stealing Tricky’s lines from his time with Massive Attack and placing them over plodding drums and eerie drawn out atmospheres.  From that point on, the rhythms slowly unravel and become more and more disjointed as each track passes, and while Martina Topley’s delivery of Tricky’s writings slightly soften the intense blow, the actual lyrical content is enough to mix an uncomfortable unease with a dark sub-conscious familiarity.

Tricky’s own dry raspy vocals finally take a front seat on Hell Is Round The Corner, and the appropriate chant of “my brain thinks bomb like” catapults you straight into his psyche. 

The album has been put together in such a way that drags you along, possibly against your own better judgement, and pulls you through dirty corridors of demons with unstable strobe-like sonic blasts of thoughts you know should be locked out, but will seep through whatever crevice necessary to get inside.  Tricky plants himself in your head, and provides a channeling voice to all the ideas you’ve tried to lock away for so long.

If you manage to survive through Abbaon Fat Track (”I’ll fuck you in the ass/just for a laugh/then with quick speed/I’ll make your nose bleed”), you get thrown into the whiplash of Brand New, You’re Retro before hitting a speedbump of cocked-guns and disorientating noises on Strugglin’ (”Label me insane/I’m more normal than most”).

13 years & several Tricky albums later, Maxinqaye remains one of the most unnerving and outstanding albums I own, with his side Nearly God side project being the only one that could possibly be labelled as darker than this.

Tricky: Hell Is Round The Corner

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Economists are always looking for the best economic indicators. Some look at the money-supply figures, others at measures of business confidence.

The price of shipping, measured by the Baltic Dry Index, has become a widely followed barometer for global trade. But here’s another we shouldn’t overlook: the film and music charts.

Over the past few weeks, the huge success of musicals such as High School Musical 3 and Mamma Mia!, the resurgence of horror flicks and the return of heavy rock with bands such as AC/DC and Guns N’ Roses are all potent symbols that hard economic times are here.

More importantly, it won’t be until the cultural zeitgeist changes that we’ll know the economy and markets are starting to turn the corner.

Certain types of entertainment flourish in tough times.

The 1930s were the heyday of musicals, with stars such as Fred Astaire dancing in top hats and tails and directors such as Busby Berkeley staging lavish spectacles that were about as far removed from the grinding realities of daily life during the Great Depression as it was possible to get.
 

Their parallels with today aren’t hard to see. High School Musical has a plot that Berkeley would be happy with. It might have started as a television film aimed at preteen girls, but High School Musical 3: Senior Year has transferred to the big screen and topped the US and Canadian film charts in October.

The franchise has generated more than US$200 million in operating profit for Walt Disney. And what did it beat? Mamma Mia! - the musical based on Abba songs that was filling cinemas through the summer. In Britain it is now the second-most-popular film in history, with box-office takings of £66.8 million, according to Nielsen EDI.

If films are not about singing, they are about scaring. The 1930s marked the emergence of stars such as Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. The depressed 1970s frightened viewers with movies such as The Exorcist and The Omen.

And now we have another grisly hit with Saw, into its fifth instalment.

Or how about music? The last turbulent economic decade was the 1970s, when heavy rock flourished.

Groups such as Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple riffed their way around the world. And now? The veteran Australian rockers AC/DC have just scored a US No 1 album, according to Wal-Mart Stores, with Black Ice beating the High School Musical soundtrack.

Guns N’ Roses, led by Axl Rose, are finally coming out with the follow-up to Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II, their last albums of original songs, from 1991. Even Zep might tour again - if they can find a new singer.

There is no mystery about any of it. Popular culture is good at tapping into the prevailing mood. That’s why it’s popular. The people defining it are experts at surfing the zeitgeist.

Musicals deliver the escapism that allows people to forget a recession. Likewise, heavy rock blasts away bad times with noise.

Horror films play on a sense of insecurity, and dwell on fears about the future. The guy with the blade represents the banker about to foreclose on our mortgage.

When the economy starts to recover, perhaps we’ll hear it first on the radio, and see it in movie trailers.

Bands with synthesisers and boys with lots of make-up will be back in the charts, as they were in the early 1980s, when groups such as Duran Duran and Culture Club ruled the airwaves.

Listen for songs as credit-friendly as Madonna’s Material Girl or the Pet Shop Boys’ Opportunities (Let’s Make Lots of Money) for an indication that the markets are moving again

When you read that someone is planning a remake of Tom Cruise’s early 1980s comedy Risky Business, which set the tone for the next bull market, then it is time to start buying equities again.

In the meantime, the message from the film and music charts is bleak. It looks as if the world economy is in for a long, deep recession similar to the one in the 1970s, if not the 1930s. As the cast of High School Musical would put it: At least we’re all in this together.

- BLOOMBERG

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Maybe we do.

The hoopla surrounding the sales of AC/DC’s “Black Ice” at Wal-Mart has superseded the scary underlying fact. That even including digital downloads, album sales last week were down 25% from the equivalent week in 2007. And 2007 SUCKED!

If the major labels didn’t have the power known as their catalogs, we’d have a different music business today. They’ve been using this asset, along with their publishing companies, to generate leverage and collect revenue, insisting time and again that they’re just about to turn the corner. I’d love a referendum, I’d love to vote Doug Morris out. Because he and his consigliere Zach Horowitz are holding back the future of the music business.

How about a competition between Doug Morris and Steve Jobs. Let the public vote. It’s winner take all. If Doug wins, he gets the iTunes Store. He can bundle tracks as albums, raise the price, he gets free reign. And if Steve is victorious, he gets to purvey Universal music however he sees fit. And as goes Universal, so goes the music business.

The labels don’t have Hilary Rosen to protect them anymore. She was paid beaucoup bucks to take the heat. But when she was finally gone, scooting off to punditland, she said the labels’ failure to license Napster was their downfall. And to this day the labels refuse to license P2P in the U.S.A. And Mitch Bainwol cannot protect the arrows of the public shooting straight for the heads of the labels.

To the degree the public still cares. Jimmy Iovine may no longer go on record, doing his best to fly under the radar, but Nine Inch Nails leaving Interscope is a bigger story than any band the label has “broken”. All the money’s in live because the labels won’t authorize sales in a form that the public desires. A lot for a little.

It’s like the labels are landlines holding out against cellular. Losing connections along the way. With the public desiring mobility, the labels are selling physical discs, trumpeting their superiority, which is akin to stating that sex can only be had in the bedroom. Whereas where you do it, sometimes even in the great outdoors and office buildings, is frequently the special sauce that makes coitus exciting.

In the seventies, to work at a label was the ultimate goal, and you sometimes got there through the farm team known as retail. And a job at a record store was only marginally easier to get than one at Warner Brothers. But today everybody under the age of thirty has been laid off at the label, or is working for bupkes with no upward mobility. And Tower Records has closed and the geek at Best Buy knows less about CDs than you do about LCDs, and you’re not even working there.

If America can elect a black President, we can have a nation where music files are easily acquired, sans copy protection, and easily transferred. Don’t say “No way”, instead cheer YES WE CAN!

The record business is mired in a quagmire as sticky and without future as Iraq. And its recipe for success is to double down, the equivalent of a surge. Suing more people.

But suing people didn’t work in the first place. The army wasn’t big enough. The insurgents would not let go.

This war against consumers is unwinnable. And it’s ruining the business’ economics. The only people who won’t admit this are those with the power, trying so desperately to hold on to it.

But holding on to the old ways, aligning with despised power, got the Republicans neutralized in Congress, going from the majority to the minority. And caused them to lose the Presidency.

John McCain tried to throw the long ball. He signed Sarah Palin. Just like the labels made a deal with MySpace. But just like Sarah was the wrong female, MySpace is the wrong social networking site. And Sarah may be a female, but she was not the woman the female electorate was clamoring for. Women wanted Hillary. They wanted intelligence and experience. Someone who’d fought her battles not by her looks, or through flirting, but hard work. To the degree MySpace is shiny, it’s definitely not what the public wants.

Nor is the music being purveyed. All those simpleton Top Forty hits? If not being tuned out in droves, all that’s selling is the track. Labels lamenting single track sales on iTunes is like the Republicans decrying early voting. The tide has turned. Change has come.

Power is being bled by the old powers at the labels as we speak. Bookers no longer focus on SoundScan, but ticket sales. They don’t care if there’s a record on the chart, just whether fannies will fill the seats. And the best way to get people to pay is to have a career act, that doesn’t focus on extravaganzas, scorched earth publicity campaigns, but their long term viability. People want to believe in acts, but the labels keep selling singles.

It will take a while for new behemoths to rise. Developing and selling music. But one thing’s for sure, the day of the major label dinosaur chairman is dead. Overpaid as his staff gets laid off. Selling what most people cannot relate to or don’t want ninety days after its peak. New executives will put their heads to the ground, listen to the audience and build a new coalition between acts and the public. That’s where the nexus is. Contrary to the majors labels’ belief that it’s between them and radio.

Radio is dying. Barack Obama’s campaign would not have been victorious without the Web. Obama used the Internet both to get his message out and raise funds. Knowing that a little from a lot is better than a lot from a little. Anybody who hopes to thrive in the recorded music sphere in the future needs to learn these lessons. YouTube is your friend. As are blogs and iTunes. You don’t battle the masses, spread into nooks and crannies, you entice them, you bring them in. Music should not be free, but a fair and equitable sales proposition must be proffered.

We need unity in the music world. We don’t have it today. And we must blame the old white men, wedded to antique business models which haven’t worked in the twenty first century. It’s a new dawn. Only when we all come together will our great national nightmare of declining revenues at record labels and traders’ lives being ruined by lawsuits end. We need leadership. Right now we’ve got none. But it’s coming. Because the public DEMANDS it!

–
Visit the archive: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/

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Inswing
Finishing the half Marathon!!
Cricket season started and I am ruling already!

The new Carl Craig/Moritz Von Oswald classical thingee, the C2 is gonna be my fave tune of the year!!

The Chainsaw song! (Roar – Patrice Baumel)

Santino Marella!

Outswing
Running a half marathon. 21km is a looooooooong way!
Smashed thumb and shin splints for the start of the cricket season.
Elections, sooo over it all.
Work. Why do I do this to myself??

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Last time he was in town he trucked through a few sound problems and a poorly promoted gig - but those that headed along, me included, left damn impressed as the ease in which he was jumping between house and techno without a hitch.

I would post up the flyer, but it looks like something a blind 3 year old would come up with (although likely have the sense to screw up before showing it to mum). So instead, heres a picture of robocop on a unicorn.

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O2

We got to the O2 arena about 11pm after polishing off a Pizza each at Canary Wharf. There was a full on cavity search at the entrance to the Arena!!!! Ok, maybe just bags and pockets, but still unexpected, because this wasn’t even Matter we were entering. The O2 Arena can best be described, to Aucklanders, as a cross between Botany Downs and an Airport terminal and a very weird place for a club! No atmosphere in a massively oversized enclosed space. Once we’d made our way to the other side of the Arena where Matter is, we hit the next queue, or three.

On the inside Matter has a nice layout but is fairly standard for what you would imagine a 2600 person venue to be like. Concrete, good sized dance floor, balcony over looking the main rooms dance floor, yadda, yadda, yadda.

After fretting a bit to not see James Murphy and Pat Mahoney actually on the set list, I was reassured they were in fact playing under the banner ‘Special Disco Version’. Should have read it on Fact before I went, huh?

Yacht, who have just recently signed to DFA, were on when we got in. As you would expect, they were quite good. Didn’t hear Summer Song, but saw the singer dramatically fall over backwards a few times. Not sure what songs they played, none that blew me away.

We needed a bit of a change so decided to go upstairs & check out the other room. From memory it was Gucci Soundsystem on first for us, up there. I was starting to wish that Still Going or Optimo had been put on earlier to get everyone hyped up!!

Planningtorock, a mix between just about any female singer of the past 10 years (think Cat Power crossed with Karen O and Alice Goldfrapp) was opening for Special Disco Version. She wore white overalls and again I was starting to wish someone good was opening….or atleast some fun disco!

Pat Mahoney

2.30am and yay! Finally….cue Donald Byrd & 125th St NYC “Love Has Come Around”. They played a bunch of stuff I wasn’t expecting, like DJ John Julius Knight Find A Friend!!! HA! plus a whole bunch of records I was expecting off their Fabric mix. Was (Not Was) “Tell Me That I’m Dreaming” will always make me happy! We danced our asses off. There were some very micro sounding house tracks played which also surprised me, but worked really well. Wouldn’t have the faintest as to what they were…

By the time 4.20am rolled around (yes, I missed everyone else good due to stupid fucking set times) the other two were ready to hit the hay. I was ready to go too because I was feeling more than drunk, even though that’s all I know I did..still I had fun till i somehow managed to forget my bag from the cloak room, when I picked up my jacket. I left the other two in the cab talking on my cell phone to a friend back in nz and after getting denied entry back in to the club by the c#nt of a doorman I couldn’t find their cab and assumed they had left, so sat down to wait but was escorted away by a bouncer, for what I’m still clueless.. Turns out they hadn’t left and spent the next hour manically looking for me, before running in to me going to get a tube when the doors to the station opened. To be young…

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All the Ak based BMP members were in attendance for Jazz/Funk legend Roy Ayers’ gig on saturday night.  I don’t know if the others have much to say about it. 

Instead of a review here is a hot or not as I am at work and don’t have time.

Hot:

Nearly beating the ninja at ‘burnout 3: takedown’ despite his supposed superiority.

Lengthy and mostly good set from Mr Ayers and band, hitting on his most well known songs early on (We live in Brooklyn, everybody loves the sunshine, running away) and continuing on with mostly fun excursions into funk land (including a version of the great Funkadelic track ‘knee deep’).  Some slow sections enabled the lazier members of the BMP opportunity to slip out to the deck for a more sedate drink.

Impressive one handed drum solo!

More girls at the party than the average gig the BMP attends.

Scott’s fine work in negotiating a tray of drinks through a crowd of dancing people.

Nat’s french toast and bacon with maple syrup.  Awesome.

Not:

Sound during Manuel Bundy’s set - rather booming and overbearing.  Sound was good during the band though so can’t complain too much.

Sale street venue closing the deck just when we’d found a nice place to sit where we could still enjoy the music.

Not being (redacted) for this gig.  It clearly would have improved things.

Still hilarious:

Websta’s expression on realising he would have to walk through a sizeable section of crowd with a fetching handbag on each arm.  He manned up and did it though.

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