The Opinionated Diner

If this is Paradise.........

I usually don’t do the random thought type of thing, not for any reason apart from the fact that once I start on something it seems to have a life of its own and brutally pushes anything else I’m going to muse about out of the way, but this morning, its a glorious late summer day in central Auckland and the city, sitting on my balcony overlooking Victoria Park and the viaduct, looks and feels like the wonderful urban pacific small metropolis its become in the last decade….I love Auckland and it’s the only place I could really live in Australasia…but the thoughts are racing through, so:

• I’m pissed off I missed DJ Krush last night. I used to be a big fan, especially around 95-96, and I used to hunt out his music. I’m missing too many people I’d love to see and I’m going to make more of any effort. I drifted out the downbeat thing in the late nineties, and really dislike the whole dub and bad reggae thing that’s appeared in Wellington in recent years. Too feral and unwashed and I hear too many echoes of UB40 dub albums…I’m not sure if its politically correct in NZ to say that I just don’t get Trinity Roots or Black Seeds or Salmonella Dub or most of Fat Freddies’ Drop (apart from the US remix of “Hope” which I loved)..I guess it may have something to do with the fact that I don’t like ‘erb….it bores me senseless and all feels a bit soulless…and on the soul tip, I wish like hell I’d been in town to see Keb Darge at one of Cian & Manuel’s amazing Turnarounds…
• What I do like is the new Pluto album…not gaga as the media seems to be here, but it’s a great pop record (with a lousy cover..surely we can do better than that) and should do well. I also really like the Tomorrowpeople remix of “Dance Stamina” that the band have banned…..something to do with the “dance vs rock” and “dance isn’t real music” divide I guess, which is just ignorant. To quote a record producer (I just can’t remember which one but it dosen’t make it any less valid), there is more innovation in electronic music every fifteen minutes than there has been in rock in the last fifteen years. I love lots of noisy, and not so noisy rock records, but essentially its true…the last album I can think of which added anything to the genre was the first Gang of 4 album, and unless they’ve added concepts taken from electronic music, since then its just been restating….
• I never expected to piss so many people off with my thing about songs and the APRA 75^th selection…lots of emails including ones telling me I can’t say those things, sacred cows etc blah blah…I’m not sure exactly what it was but, damn…….sorry
• I got left at home by myself this morning which means I can play what I want (and I’m not going to list them) but I played the Screaming Meemees album for the first time in about a decade and came to the realisation its not bad, actually quite good....certainly better than any other NZ pop album of the early eighties (there weren’t many, believe me), something to do with the Ian Morris production I guess, as Whiskey soaked as it was. Its hard to look back now and understand just how big these guys were for a brief moment…four thousand singles sold in one week…..I must get around to re-issuing it properly; not a week goes by when I don’t get an email asking about it….one of these days
• I’m pretty pleased with the fact that I can type properly these days....and I’m still not biting my nails
• Really looking forward to the Nathan Haines Orchestral album……and the Greg Churchill album, although I think I might have most of it on CDR already
• And to Carl Craig, fuck……Carl Craig…..on March 18^th at The Studio…last time he was here was 2000, at Ellerslie and I stood behind him in the booth area while he djed, before he did the sprint across for a live set…a genius and a hero…I still have them, jaded as I am. So right now I’m playing the lovely old ravey BFC on Transmat…I never get sick of this stuff…never

• I love the way my ten year old daughter, Isabella, is so totally obsessed with the complete works of the Beatles, group and solo, and approaches it naively, without the preconceptions and ingrained ideas of who and what they are, what was worthy and what wasn’t, that we have. I feed her an album every couple of months…currently John’s “Walls & Bridges” (a truly truly wonderful album btw) and the “Past Masters Vol.2” albums are on high rotate…but she wants to go back to the Double White after those..it was huge about 18 months ago…”Happiness is a warm Gun” and “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” in particular. The kids at school give her a hard time about it but she knows her mind and stands her ground….
• Four coffees so far today, but a week without Coca Cola…..
• I’m gonna do a collection of favourite non dance tracks from about 1970 through to 1990..soul is fine and anything else goes, but no house or techno or garage..I guess I’ll put them on a disc and I’m not sure what then (its illegal to do copies for friends of course)….I’m enjoy doing compilations and I think I’m quite good at them…I was well chuffed to see that my Soul Food comp has been pretty much copied by Universal in the UK and I’ve heard the Room Service album in restaurants in Singapore and Bali…I’d love to do more but the market, and the labels here seem only to see compilations as chart hits collections. You have to wonder why they spent all that money aquiring catalogues if they have no desire to explore and exploit them
• I scored the glorious Allen Toussaint collection two days back. I bought the classic Southern Nights album in a sale for a fiver off Henry King, the now forgotten father of NZ record retailing, at his Pamure shop back in 1975 & it hasn’t left my turntable since…and its stuffed. Now I have it beautifully remastered, booklet, complete with his other two Warner albums (which I’ve also liked a lot over the years) and a few live tracks..
• Saw Dean Webb this week, for the first time in four years and that made my week.