Interrupting my line of thought / altitutude and attitude

Before I move on I feel the need to make a comment about the scenario I have just been unfortunate enough to witness on ABC Asia Pacific. I mean the mutual masturbation session from the two least attractive leaders the gratuitously named “free world” (its free as long as you play the game as Chavez has found) has to offer, Bush and Howard, two men with more blood on their grubby little hands since, well since, Saddam, a man with whom they have more than a little in common (all have, amongst other things, knowingly taken life, innocent life, to perpetuate and enhance a power elite of which they are members).

I felt a little nauseous watching Howard proclaim Bush a good and decent man, and felt it was rather like watching Himmler proclaim Hitler as a good friend to the Jewish people.

And then there is this…the latest move in the NZ Government’s unfortunate drive to bring people home. It makes one rather embarrassed to be a New Zealander and certainly removes any inclination one might have to move. I know I give Australia and Australians a bit of a slap sometimes but this makes me grimace.

But I wasn’t going to write about things like that today. So…moving on…Tom Moulton. I think I said sometime ago how much I was dying to get my hands on the Soul Jazz Moulton collection and get my hands on it I did, but it had to sit on a shelf in Bali for three weeks whilst I was in Auckland. Thirty years after he started doing mind boggling things with twelve inch vinyl, a double CD was never going to do him justice, and this doesn’t but, damn, it comes close. The term genius is bandied around, over-used to the point of pointlessness and generally devalued in popular music but nothing else really suffices here. The greatest (and it’s another word I don’t want to use as its so completely misunderstood) disco records are flights of imagination, swirling, climbing, soaring and taking the listener (or dancer) off in a direction before dragging he or she back to the central point again.

Phil Spector used to talk about “little symphonies for the kids”, and his productions were just that, but the founding fathers of disco (the black urban variety), Norman Whitfield and Gamble & Huff took the concept to places that Phil, in even his wackiest moments couldn’t even visualise. Tom Moulton, and others, took that vision and ran with it and its fitting that one of the key tracks on this impeccable (and impeccably mastered) album is an incredible (previously unreleased!!) 11 minute remix of Eddie Kendricks’ masterpiece, Keep on Running, a song usually regarded as the first disco record, from the former Temptations’ vocalist on all those Whitfield epics. Understated in its subtle attack, it slips and slides in and out of its key refrains and dwarfs the better known original (which is itself eight minutes long). The Gamble and Huff track herein is the take of MFSB’s TSOP on the Moulton remixed, and essential, Philadelphia International Classics collection from1979 with the extended electric piano break from Leon Huff at the end. Myself I would’ve picked The Intruders’ I’ll Always Love My Mama from the same album because a) it’s the killer track on the album and b) the Moulton remix of MFSB didn’t come into its own until Danny Krivit re-edited it about 1981.

I finally discovered, via this album, Andrea True Connection’s infectious and rubbery More More More. I resisted this song for years. When I was working in record shop years ago it sat on the shelf opposite the counter and the cover annoyed the fuck out of me. I never gave it a chance and I was wrong, but it illustrates the impact a shitty sleeve can have on a worthy record. Assembled at Studio One, it perfectly illustrates the debt that disco owes to dub (and indeed listen to Patti Jo’s seminal Make Me Believe In You (also here) to hear how much Jamaica owes to disco in return).

The 12” promo only take of Grace Jones’ cover of La Vien En Rose has appeared here and there over the years but it’s the definitive version of what my be her finest moment until Larry Levan, and then, Trevor Horn took her in hand (I’ve never really been a fan of much of her flabby Compass Point material), with its lovely sidewalk acoustic guitars and rich, almost cartoon-ish piano that have never sounded as sensual as they do on this compilation.

Moonboots by Orlando Riva Sound first appeared on Moulton’s own label, and feels like the point where disco, funk and house meet. It’s the grinding past, present and future all at once.

Clara Lewis’ Needing You, one of my favourite seventies soul tracks, (and like the Patti Jo track, originally from the Moulton mixed Disco Gold album from 75) if it wasn’t for the post Philly strings, sounds like all those lovely old non-hits that the best British Motown collections are full of, albeit stretched a little.

Unlike the likes of Walter Gibbons (who used a more shock’n’awe approach to the remix) Moulton was (and is) more subtle in his approach, teasing and stretching, emphasising parts of a song that would otherwise be missed.

So..Genius? Fuck it…yes…

I’ve been listening to lots of electro-poppy things like the quaintly named Fuckpony, and their intriguingly infectious Ride The Pony, and the new Trentmoller, Nam Nam (which got my daughter doing Peter Sellers impressions…think about it), but then, last week I re-discovered the granddaddy of it all, Wire’s effortlessly timeless 159, one of my favourite records of around the turn of the decade (and I mean from 1979 to 1980), and of all time truth be known I guess.

Listen to A Touching Display and try and convince me that it wouldn’t sit comfortably on Kompact…..

My vinyl copy walked years ago and I’ve had a burn from a friend rather than pay the silly prices demanded of original copies online but it wasn’t good and there were a couple of tracks that were un-listenably bad dubs (from vinyl), so I’m more than a little please to see the remastered edition out via EMI in the UK, beautifully packaged and annotated, but, for some odd reason missing the original four track EP that came with it (not that it’s a loss to me as that wasn’t “borrowed” and I still have it, and its less than earth shattering, being four, seemingly throwaway, solo pieces).

But, damn, doesn’t it sound as fresh and as forward looking as it did all those years back, revolutionary in fact. Map Ref. 41ºn 93ºw is that great lost UK pop song with a title that ensured it would never make the radio; 40 Versions is a beautifully intriguing paean to self doubt and The Other Window is perhaps the greatest train song ever (ok, second greatest after Trans Europe Express).

I’m a happy aging post punker today….

Ok that’ll do…..

Pass The Kool Aid and Mind Yer Business*

*apologies to Cool James

As we landed at Brisbane my iPod kicked into Stan Getz’s gloriously sleazy Mahana de Carnival and the wheels hit the runway as it exploded (the song, not the plane or the runway) at about 33 seconds. I timed it well actually as it faded as the plane stopped beside the terminal.

And so to Brisbane airport. I know I was less than complimentary about Auckland’s airborne hub but it’s positively futuristic when compared to the horror show that is Brisbane’s entry point. I’ve been through this Airport about twenty times in the past decade and it gets no better: unfriendly to the point of aggressive; racist (watch the way brown people are treated going into transit); bad food and generally a shithole. I’ve seen and been through countless airports over the years but nothing compares to the experience of “take yer shoes off” or a gruff “empty yer bag…hurry up” after a long flight. The words please or thank you do not seem to be in the vocabulary of the Sunshine state.

But this is in a state which recently named a road after a man whose major claim was to have shot more aboriginals than anyone else a few decades back.

We left Brisbane and went up to Noosa to hang out with some good and missed friends. I’d not been to the town before and found it, like a lot of Australia, to be very pretty but ultimately, because of the human element, soulless. That breed, the Toorak / Double Bay refugee, the women with the overdyed hair and too much make up and sun were there en mass with their partners, the tanned hairy beerguts hanging over the too small Speedos. Fantastic food though and wonderful, hilarious, company…

So…to keep the eleven year old happy (yep that’s it, it was for the kid) we trekked down the Bruce Highway (lets face it, there has to be one) on the Thursday to Australia Zoo, the home of Mr Crikey himself, Steve Irwin and his wife Terri, not to mention the kids (one of whom reached a level of global notoriety by having Dad hold him / her above a Croc’s open mouth…crikey).

Firstly I should mention a bias. I hate his program, he does my head in and his wife makes my skin crawl. That said, I was open to a fine day. I like a well kept Zoo as much as the next eleven year old and this has a reputation as one of the best (no I’m not going to get into a discussion about the merits of zoos or otherwise). Doncha love reputations...I was even willing to cheer along as he did the biz with the big salties.

Things started to go wrong as we arrived. We were somewhat taken aback by the big clump of mud on our Stevo’s face on the sign outside…someone wasn’t happy. We then, having parked we faced the $43 per head entry fee. Brigid conned the non too bright but very pleasant young ockette on the till into believing that we four adults and a child were actually one big family and we mooned in for a $139 instead of the statutory $201, but still mumbled “this had better be good” as we pushed past the guy trying to sell us the map for a couple of bucks (we had one we’d found elsewhere). And thank god we had one as the route to the stadium was throbbing with eager folks and masses of wild animals to peruse and wonder over. Actually that’s not quite true; it was really only a couple of hundred metres and the only thing to wonder was “where are all the animals?”….the answer to that was clear to us: with Steve and Terri in the stadium for the promised big show.

Seated, we realised we’d missed the snakes and tigers…bummer….I like a tiger when it’s a long way away and behind a tall fence. But we made it for the birds and honestly they were pretty and pretty damn impressive, it’s just that there weren’t that many of them. But, hey, never mind, here comes Steve with the mighty crocs. I’ve seen it on telly and Steve is surrounded by a bunch of the northern-coast-English-back-packer-gobbling things wanting more and writhing. The anticipation…

So it starts with the MC doing a big welcome to all the nationalities eagerly watching for the finale. He asks: “who is from England?”…big roar…”who’s here from Canada”…similar noise and so on...finally finishing with “who’s here from AUSTRALIA” with the predictable results. And Brigid turned to me and said...”they’ve only mentioned predominantly white-ish countries”. Looking back I wondered what the Indians behind me and the Chinese and the Koreans in the crowd were thinking. I guess in Steve’s world they were non persons, just $43. Which explains why the two confused Japanese girls down below almost wandered into the croc area…it was a figment...they didn’t exist.

But here comes Steve…oh, wait, Steve is just on the big screen in a slightly warm and fuzzy little spiel about, um, Steve and Terri. And there is only one croc, it’s a big one but, however the “show”, with lots and lots of references to Steve and Terri lasts about fifteen minutes and that’s it. And truly, that’s just about it. We wandered off after that to find the Zoo, with the aid of our trusty map but could only find 3 crocs, 2 alligators, a few birds, a bunch of kangaroos, a turtle, three wombats, a couple or so Elephants in an enclosure that isn’t a patch on the Auckland Zoo’s pachyderm area, and a dozen or snakes. That plus three tigers which were in a fairly attractive large glassed area, and seemed rather comfortable with the three keepers who were having their lunch on the lawn oblivious to the man-eaters strolling around next to them. I don’t know about anyone else but I like my tigers fierce.

With some bemusement I noted that the enclosure, complete with the signs warning about being good to the planet and our environment was paid for by the Coca Cola company. I kept thinking of all those plastic Coke bottles that float around the waterways of Indonesia.

We caught a train around the perimeter and the guy talking on the p.a. told us some jokes about Steve and Terri and some stories about Steve and buying all the land and the roads around to make more “Zoo”. And then I heard a couple saying “Steve would be happy livin’ in a humbie if it wasn’t for the kids” and it hit me…this was a temple, and Steve and Terri were the Jim Jones of the Zoolology Set.

I looked around and there was more of “Australia Zoo” dedicated to the couple than to the animals themselves and every reference to the beasts was worded in such a way that it somehow referred back to the royal pair and their exalted offspring (TV show coming I believe). There were souvenir shops everywhere you looked with “Steve and Terri and the kids” everything, from T Shirts to surfboards (with “Crikey” on them) to quite bizarre keychain figurines of Steve wrestling with out of proportion man-eating crocs, And to top it all off there was a “boutique” with Steve and Terri fashion creations, including the most, lets be polite, “unusual” attempts at fashion I’ve seen in a while in Terri’s evening range.

And the masses were lapping it up in a way that must make Steve and Terri’s private bankers so very very happy. You can worship the Irwins for only $43 a head. He’s an icon and a national hero and I found it, and the dumbing down of zoology rather ugly and offensive. To quote Lydon: “Do You Ever get the feeling you’ve just been conned”.

On the way out we saw the clump of mud on his face again and understood.

It is a Great Country..really, it is, honestly, truly....

I found myself in deep shtuk (is that how you spell it, is it even a word, I think it is) over the last post but one. Writing a piece with a title like that (it, like the headings on many of my posts is a lyric…from the once mighty No Tag) on the eve of three weeks in the home country was a foolish thing to do it seems. Whilst there was no abuse as such, last week in Ponsonby Road outside Santos, a person I don’t know from Adam made a point of crossing the road to sneer at me “if you don’t like it, stay away”, and I half expected Kim Hill to lash out at me on my interview. That she didn’t, on National Radio, was a source of much relief. I can deal with the questions about the punk-nazi thing (it was thirty years ago for gods sake and I think that we are still getting a bite out of it from Kim speaks for itself, it worked) and the righteously, almost naïve, questions about Indonesian timber which were put in a manner that could only have come from a warm comfy studio in Wellington, but having to defend my patriotism was not something I wanted to do. There were emails too…..nothing too nasty but somewhat bemused and flicked with a sense of betrayal.

I really can’t get my head around the idea that its somehow treachery to live elsewhere. When did this precious little concept gain popular currency? There was a thread full of it on Biggie recently which did my head in. Certainly as a lad New Zealanders were encouraged to leave and it was happily accepted that some returned and some didn’t. Both gave the nation a depth that it otherwise lacked. They still do. William Pickering and David Low are as much about what New Zealand was, is and will be as any All Black. Both were my heroes as a youngster, someone to look up to and aspire to be, as much, no more, than any muscle bound redneck running up and down a paddock with a ball was.

So let’s get things straight. I love my home country. OK? It’s my nest and my heritage; where my whanau and most of the people I hold most dear live. There is nothing more breathtaking than turning into the top of Hakanoa Street in autumn. I love it. I love the warm soft well fed look everywhere, the homeboys in Queen Street who are so wannabe staunch and have no idea how funny they are; I love hearing drum’n’bass, almost a forgotten genre elsewhere, coming out of cars and shops; I love George FM, an independent station that programmes people rather than music (which gives it an edge over bFm, which, incidentally, I also love); I love the fact that so many people try so hard to do something special and so many succeed and even those that don’t at least try and then try again without knowing the meaning of give-up. There is a strong, almost inbreed resistance amongst many to the mediocrity that the Canwests, the TVNZs, the NZ Heralds, the multinationals and their ilk try to foist on the populace as a norm, which gives the nation its spirit and its colour.

And I’ve done my bit so I’m allowed to look around….I don’t feel like a New Zealander within the fences that often implies and never have, so, without apology I’ll live where I wish. Oh..and don’t ever call me a bloody kiwi….

This last visit, for three weeks, I felt more alien than ever before though. Driving was odd, interaction was odd, systems I’ve known all my life I was clumsy with and almost scared of and I got rather sick of having to justify a life in Indonesia to those who were incredulous at me putting myself and my family at such risk…..ummm….fuck off….

One final note…what on earth is wrong with Auckland Airport. The staff (with the exception of the rather pleasant guys x-raying bags at immigration) would do well to hop on an aircraft and fly to Singapore and look. That odd thing on people’s faces is a smile. A special brickbat goes to the seven kilo hand baggage fascists …”that’s 7.2 kilos..you’ll have to check it in now”…..taking a book out and holding it under my arm satisfied them…that’s logic. Petty backward bureaucrats that make Auckland look silly….

George FM Yesterday 10am-12 noon

Ten City-Suspicious (Joe Claussells High Life Dub)-Ibadan 1996 Arthur Russell-Lets Go Swimming (Walter Gibbons Coastal Dub Mix)-Rough Trade 1986 Strafe-Set It Off (Walter Gibbon vox)-Jus Born 1984 One Way-Lets Talk-MCA 1985 Alexander O’Neal-A Broken Heart Can Mend-Tabu 1985 Main Source-Just Hangin’ Out (Your Hood mix)-Wild Pitch 1991 The Chi-lites-My First Mistake-Mercury 1977 NYC Peech Boys-Life Is Something Special (Larry Levan Special Edition)-Garage 1982 Lillo Thomas-I Love It (for Richard)-Capitol 1983 Lil Louis & The World-Nyce & Slow (The Heavenly mix)-FFRR 1990 Tackhead-The Game-4^th & Broadway 1987 Marc Romboy & Robert Owens-In My Mind -Systematic 2006 Capracara-Flashback 86-Souljazz 2006 Oxia-Domino-Kompact Extra 2006 Caucasian Boy-Northern Lights (Prime Cutz mix)-Strictly Rhythm 1993 Herve-What You Need The Most-Dubsided 2006 Sly & Robbie-Ticket to Ride-4^th & Broadway 1984 Malcolm McLaren-World’s Famous-Charisma 1984 S-Xpress-Supafly Guy-Rhythm King 1988 Fast Eddie-Yo Yo Get Funky-DJ International 1988

What a Great Country This Is / like fuck it is

I note, with some bemusement, the story in the Herald about the failure of the website designed to lure expatriate New Zealanders (of whom I am one), back to the mother country.

It’s not really a surprise is it.

What a silly idea, dreamed up in some boardroom full of overpaid shirts trying to extract a fat fee from the government, and I’m sure it did. The only surprise is that someone was gullible enough to buy it, to think it might work. To think that those who have left might be prodded to return by this, is just silly. Even if one was to read it and take it seriously it fails. It simply tries too hard to convince the reader that something is happening and repeatedly tries to imply that New Zealand has made the jump from mediocrity to exciting. Witness the music and entertainment pages…so try hard…so “look, its all happening here”. And its all so unnecessary and thoroughly insulting to those of us who know that exciting things have always happened in New Zealand, that the only real difference now is the momentary interest the mainstream are now taking in the undercurrent. Musically, I’m still not sure if the recognition is a good thing, if the voluntary quotas achieve much more than a blanding of the centre. Certainly the “New Zealandness” of the music being foisted onto the airwaves, as the record companies direct all their efforts towards commercial radio play, seems to be lost, especially in pop. R’n’b and New Zealand’s hip hop are another matter. Try as it might, many of the urban sounds coming out of NZ do not sound like the massively polished sounds coming out of the US or the UK. It retains a naïve clumsiness about it and more power to that, it’s an individuality that gives it spark. And then there is Fat Freddy’s. I don’t like the music particularly but I love them for the people power it indicates, and the voice it gives to my belief that the tryhard aspect of the failing website is unnecessary. Things are happening in NZ, and they always have been and the lack of this is not the reason many have left.

One of the things that has driven many, myself included, away is intolerance. I was terrified by the failure to criticise and the acceptance by the media of inherent racism in the National Party’s election campaign last year, and the way in which so many of my countrymen rallied to the bigotry. I had hoped we developed beyond that. Any I find myself uncomfortable with the creeping mediocrity and aspiration to mediocrity that I see, and the media celebrates.

I hate the rules, the lists of bylaws that greet you as you arrive at the beach, the fascism of the road rules and the way they are enforced. I know these exist for a reason but it is the layering of these on top each other over and over again, with the myriad of other regulations and rules that neuter the soul. There are things like the mess that New Zealand’s Employment law is, administered by the overpaid, out of touch with reality, buffoons that call themselves the Employment Relations Authority who encourage a whole new industry of parasitic ambulance chasers.

Those are some of the things that drive us away.

And then there is the case of Phillip Sturm. I really should say, before I go on, I know Phillip. Not well, at all, more in passing, and I’ve never had a conversation with him beyond small talk. I should also say that I have not seen the court records and my understanding of this case comes from what I’ve read in the media and, more importantly, from people I know who are privy to the details, some of whom were witness to some of the events surrounding the alleged offending.

To say this stinks is a massive understatement. Nothing I have heard or read indicates that is anything more than good old fashioned gay bashing. Over one hundred years since the British establishment drove Oscar Wilde to an early death, on the other side of the world, in the old Empire we continue the grand tradition. Yes Sturm is guilty, but only of being a promiscuous gay male, and not a particularly pleasant, as those who know him will attest, human being. Neither crime should put him in jail for nine years. But it has in clean green NZ.

The evidence that Sturm drugged and assaulted several men is ludicrous. None of the drugs alleged to have been used by him are capable, as hundreds of thousands of highly respectable New Zealanders know, in the quantities alleged, of the stupefaction required to substantiate the charges, and the original judge was correct to toss that out. That a second trial and the appeal court overruled this indicates that the whole notion of justice is a farce in New Zealand when applied to those who don’t sit in the centre of society, who don’t play the game. I reside in a country now which the world derides for its corruption but this case went down a country which is trying to sell itself as one of the great places to live, a sophisticated, haven of lifestyle.

The whole case is an evil nonsense, and confirms the notion, that the earlier witch trial of Peter Ellis made many of us believe, that New Zealand is not necessarily a place we want to live.

And no one says a word….