Round Trip Mars freebies!

The good folk at local label Round Trip Mars have a  special treat for you...

"Allow us to introduce Invaderism.... it’s shaping up to be the finest compilation on Round Trip Mars yet, and a well needed antidote to a predominantly slaverage music year all round. What’s more it’s free, digital and features all new, all exclusive tracks from the entire RTM fam.

"From December 5th you can download a free track from Invaderism every 2nd day right here. On the alternate days there will be a lesser known gem from each year of RTM’s history '99-'09. Each download will only be up for 2 days, and on December 25th the entire fundle bundle will drop on Soundcloud and Bandcamp.

"Call it a Xmas present or a thank you for the support over the years - its’ bigger than Santa’s creepy finger on Queen Street and the tracklist alone is going to fry some synapses, we take no responsibility for blown minds, head nod related RSI or floor related jaw drop dramas as a result of the musical magnificence about to be bestowed upon you… it’s really that good.

"Amongst the regal rabble on Invaderism is a somewhat new face to our space race, in the form of Scratch 22. Well known as a refreshingly un-formularised and preposterously popular DJ, and co-founder of the ARC crew, his own productions are a whole other fettle of kish. While his remixes of the Mint Chicks, 1995 and others were swiftly taken up by the b-Nets and whatnot, and his work with Tourettes has been justifiably acclaimed, Scratch 22’s debut album (due early 2011) goes wayyyy deeper.

Nightmares On Wax’s George Evelyn has already tapped him for his Wax On compilation series, his remix of Electric Wire Hustle’s ‘Again’ on BBE is stirring up the firmament on wax overseas and he’s just about to head off to Paris to represent New Zealand against the world in the Red Bull Thre3Style championships, having taken out the Auckland and New Zealand finals last week. It's positively breathless, plenty more to come on him and look out for his cut on Invaderism appearing here soon."

Shortland St loves Recloose?

Shortland St, our long-running soap, played a bit of Recloose, forgot who he was, and then they end up advocating piracy. Don't show this to RIANZ boss Campbell Smith, ok?

Ring The Alarm playlist, BaseFM, Sat Dec 4

Patato and Totico - Mas que nada
The Dynamites - Do the right thing
Sharon Jones and the Dapkings - Something's changed (Live in Auckland December 17, unmissable!)
Menahan st band - Esma
Mayer Hawthorne - The ills
New mastersounds - Nervous - Kenny Dope bonus beat
Quantic - I just fell in love again
Chico Mann - Anima
Andreya Triana - Lost where I belong
Born Jamericans - Boom shak-a-tak
Coldcut - Man in a garage - King Jammy vocal
General Echo - Arleen
Yamie Bolo - When a man is in love
Freestylers - Ruffneck
Oogun - Version for version War017
Hugh Masekela - Languta
Woima collective - Woima
Luiz Bonfa - Jacaranda
Onra - The anthem
Hot 8 brass band - Sexual healing
Colman bros - El nino - GRC remix
Funk machine  -Soul santa pt 1
Grand wizard Theodore and Fantastic Romantic Five  - Can I get a soul clapp
Gwen Guthrie - Seventh heaven
Cesaria Evora - Angola - Pepe Bradock get down dub
Oddisee - Chocolate city dreaming
Naomi Shelton and the gospel queens - Trouble in my way
Cookin on 3 burners - Cars
Kashmere stage band - Superstrut - Kenny Dope remix
Universal robot band - Dance and shake your tambourine

Ghost - Orion from musicbyghost on Vimeo.

Orion is the latest single from Ghost off his third album., Postcards from the edge (hear it at Bandcamp) He hit me up via Twitter with his new video, and it's a pretty nifty tune - starts out with some wonky bleeps and fried visuals, then the rhythm kicks in around a minute and a half in and it settles into a very cool electronic groove.

Ghost made his musical debut back in 2003, and has been steadily releasing tunes since then. His bio says that "Ghost was runner up in the Glastonbury Unsigned Talent contest in 2007 and had a track featured on the Glastonbury compilation CD for that year. Since 2007 Ghost has been touring and DJ’ing all over the UK and Europe (including stints at Glastonbury, Hip Hop Kemp, The Big Chill, Bestival and The Jazz Cafe). He’s also found time to work on a number of different projects including Lingua Franca and Invisible Inc (Synth/Electronic Hip Hop with Kashmere and Verb T)."

He moved to New Zealand in 2009, and is currently based in Christchurch, where he's Programme Director for Radio RDU, and does the Friday Drive show on that fine station.  For more of his music, check out his Bandcamp page.

He's also got a collection of his remixes for free download here, including mixes he's done of P-Money, The Heavy, Bonobo, Foreign Beggars and more.

CBGBs

Punking Out is a film by Maggi Carson and Ric Shore, saw these clips over at Dangerous Minds, who say "these clips of The Ramones and The Dead Boys at CBGB in 1977 capture the birth of punk in all of its raw glory.Punking Out is a terrific time capsule of a time and place and really should be more widely seen. You can order a DVD copy at the film’s website.  The site hasn’t been updated in a few years, but the ‘shopping cart’ appears to still be functioning. Dee Dee’s glue rant is hilarious."

Catch Lydia Lunch being interviewed at 3.54 into the Dead Boys clip - she's standing with James Chance. She's a charmer. The crowd shots in the first clip are a fascinating insight into what that scene must've  looked like. There are some very cool looking folk in there....

Spree Wilson

Photo credit: Greedmont Park

I first heard about producer/rapper/songwriter Spree Wilson in an article in a recent issue of Wax Poetics. Story goes, last June, he moved to New York city from Atlanta, where he'd been an intern at Dallas Austin's studio. He says he felt like he'd played every music venue in Atlanta twice, so he got up one morning, sold his car and bought a one-way train ticket to NYC.

He lived in the train station for a week when he got to New York, then moved in with a friend. From Wax Poetics: "A few weeks later he was on the phone with Q-Tip - the legendary rapper was a fan of Spree's music. Now the Tribe MC is exec producing Spree's debut album The Neverending Now," due out early 2011.

He's got a fascinating mix of musical influences from hiphop to classic rock to Beat Generation cats like Kerouac and Ginsberg.  Some tunes for you to check below, and his debut EP is over here. Where do we go tonight is off his new album and is produced by No ID, and the other tune is older.

Wilson has just signed to Jive Records  - watch the video of him signing his life away here.

Where Do We Go Tonight by spreewilson

1.Pick You Apart Ref 4 by spreewilson

Sweet latin soul

DJ Timber is an ex-Manchester fella, now based in Barcelona. Check out his Sweet Latin Soul III mixtape over here (download links). Listen below....

Sweet Latin Soul Iii by Timbertron on Mixcloud

Tracks / Canciones:

1: Joe Cuba - Baby You're Everything

2: Eddie Lebron - My Vows To You

3: Orquesta La Solución - Te Quiero (I Love You) Part II

4: Los Exagerados - Contigo Aprendí

5: Johnny Colon - Looking In Your Eyes

6: Landy Nova - Quiéreme Mujer

7: Candido Y Su Movimiento - Baby Doll

8: Cheo Rosario - Tu Querer

9: Eddie Hernandez - The Time Was Yesterday

10: New Generation - Como El Agua Del Río

11: Manuel Y Sus Estrellas Combo - Palabras Vacías

12: Lebron Brothers - Tus Recuerdos

13: Sonora Ponceña - La Puerta Esta Abierta

14: Joe Bataan - Ordinary Guy

Hecho con 100% vinilo - ediciones originales!

100% Vinyl - Strictly OG Pressings

45s galore

This thursday night, get along to Real Groovy Auckland for a bonanza of 45s...

"In Auckland we have several large collections of singles just in. The first batch of the best, most collectible discs - OVER 2000 - will go on sale at 7pm sharp, this Thursday, December 2nd. As usual it will be a Dutch auction starting at $20 each and includes 50s/60s/70s/80s Pop, Punk, Reggae, Soul, RnB, Rock'n'Roll - you name it!"

London calling

Some bright spark has persuaded members of the Clash that it's a good idea to make a bio-pic based on the making of the London Calling album. It sounds like a perfectly dreadful idea, but hey, who knows. That Ian Dury movie turned out alright. Must get a copy of that.

The BBC reports that "former Clash members Paul Simonon and Mick Jones will executive produce the film, named after the 1979 record. Playwright Jez Butterworth will pen the script, which will tell how producer Guy Stevens worked with the band to create their most celebrated disc. It will be produced by Alison Owen and Paul Trijbits of Ruby Film and Television.

"Fans of The Clash all over the world have been waiting a long time to see their extraordinary story played out properly and accurately on the big screen," said Owen. "We're happy that Mick and Paul have given the project their blessing and are on board to help steer the ship."

Bonus: Read Perfect Sound Forever on the making of the Clash song Train In Vain, a last minute addition to the London Calling album. Excerpted from the book Route 19 Revisited: the Clash and London Calling.

Hello, Holland!

U2 and Jay-Z blew through town last week, and jetted off to Oz - I went along and enjoyed the spectacle, my review is over here. Their U2 360 tour winds up next July.

By then, according to this NZ Herald story, they are expecting "it will have generated about $1 billion in revenue." This would be great news for cash-strapped Ireland, except U2 pay taxes in Holland. Bummer, Ireland.

Mark Thomson kindly sent me a link from the New York Times which backgrounds the shift to Holland as a tax haven.  It's titled The Netherlands, the new tax shelter hot spot. U2, the Rolling Stones, EMI, Elvis Presley's estate and David Beckham also use the Netherlands now.

U2 shifted their publishing to Holland last June, as Ireland's lucrative tax breaks were about to be removed. The NYT says U2's net worth is around $US908 million.

The NZ Herald's Adam Gifford went along to the U2 show as a guest of one of the technology companies involved in the show. Some facts and figures... "the Clair sound system is billed as the largest speaker assemblage in touring history...

...On previous tours U2 cancelled shows because of weather damage to video screens. The 500,000 LED pixels in the transforming screen are weather resistant, and they're made up into elongated hexagonal segments mounted in a way that allows them to spread apart with a scissor-like motion during parts of the concert..." There's 14 cameras providing live feeds for the video screen.

"The tour's architect, Mark Fisher, told CNET News that ... the technology behind U2 360° isn't new, the way it's being used is, from the large number of computers and electric motors that control the motion of the screen and the moving lights to the computers that map the video picture on to the transforming screen. "All of this automation and programming is possible because the computers available in 2009 (when the tour started) are more powerful and cheaper than they were when we created the Vertigo tour in 2005," Fisher said.

Gil Scott Heron gets XX'd

Gil Scott Herons' recent album I'm New Here is an outstanding piece of work. So it's pretty brave of Jamie Smith of The XX to undertake to remix the WHOLE album. The project is titled We’re New Here, and will be released as a CD and special vinyl box set on February 21 next year. It sounds like a radical departure from the original tracks based on the preview, which just might work. Listen to previews on the official site here.

Sounding off

A review of NZ On Air's music activities has recently been completed by music industry veteran Chris Caddick, and has been delivered to NZ On Air. I believe it will be released in the next week or so.

Caddick wrote a previous review for NZ On Air of their offshore funding activities (see Phase 5 PDF here), which boiled down to 'send more bands to Australia, forget the rest of the world'. This absurd attitude was what Flying Nun bands faced from our music industry in the late 1980s when they said they wanted to go to England. It's utter rubbish. To date this new funding push has produced no visible returns for our acts in Australia.

Rob Mayes of Failsafe Records has very definite opinions on what NZ On Air should be doing with its music programmes (and has expressed them fervently numerous times on the Public Address forums). He's written a discussion a paper on it, which collects a range of views on the subject, mostly disparaging. You can download the PDF of the paper here. He's also got a Facebook group, Sounds Like Us.

I posted a link to Rob's paper on Twitter and had some interesting feedback on it, mainly along the lines of some good points mixed with some personal jibes.

Mayes' FB group lends its name to an article written back in May during NZ Music Month by Vicki Anderson of Christchurch paper The Press. The article was critical of NZ On Air's role in our music scene. She published a full, unsubbed version of her article with Brendan Smyth in August (according to the date on Stuff.co.nz)  -the full version is here. Jane Wrightson, CEO of NZ On Air joins in on the comments also.

EXCERPT: "I ask Smyth why South Island musicians are under-represented in the funding allocation. This year, 83 grants have been awarded, only four of which went to South Island-based artists. We pay taxes too.
" Perhaps their songs just weren't good enough?'' Smyth says.
We stare at each other for a moment or two. For a fleeting second I can understand the urge someone else had to wrestle him to the ground...."

Not a very pleasant sentiment coming from any writer, really.....

Andrew Dubber sent me a link to an article he wrote for a UK audience on NZ On  Air - read it here (PDF). As Andrew notes, It's a few years old now but still relevant.

ADDED Vicki Anderson's original Sounds Like Us article is here. "At an industry gig late last year, one of the [NZOA] head honchos went to shake my hand as my name was being told to him by a third party. He pulled it away so fast he caused a breeze. "Oh, it's you, you wrote that story about us," he said, turning around rather deliberately, so I was left staring at his blue-suited back..."

ADDED Hugh Sundae posted a link to a story he did on TVOne's Closeup in 2005 on Phase 4 NZ On Air funding.  As Hugh says in the comments..."I remember receiving some very upset emails/calls the next day.. and I thought it was rather tame."

Lemmy is a SOB

There's a new documentary out early next year on DVD on Lemmy from the band Motorhead, and is currently doing the rounds of some film festivals. The documentary is called Lemmy: 49% Motherf*cker. 51% Son of a Bitch. The film comes to US theatres this January and DVD (with four hours of bonus features) is out February 15 (US) or Jan 24 (UK).

Watch the trailer below. Contains swearing. Lots of it.

Pants

Stonesthrow artist James Pants, sounds like he's channeling Bill Haley via Suicide on this tune - free mp3 below - listen and DL.

Zodiac digitised

About a month ago I heard some mighty exciting news, and it's finally seen the light of day. Amplifier/DRM announced late yesterday that they have signed the Zodiac label for digital distribution. They will be digging through the Stebbings vaults.

Now, if you take a look at Simon Grigg's discography of Zodiac's 45s (which is an incredible piece of work), you'll see there is some amazing Kiwi music in there. It's almost the audio equivalent of Chris Bourke's recent book, Blue Smoke: The lost dawn of New Zealand popular music 1918-1964.

There's names like The La De Das, The Keil Isles, Peter Posa, Claude Papesch, Daphne Walker, Ray Columbus and The Invaders, Sonny Day and The Sundowners, Tommy Adderley... I really hope they get the rights to Rim D. Paul And The Quin Tikis - Man River / Poi Poi Twist (from 1963) cos I love Poi Poi Twist. It's a great NZ rock n roll hybrid that deserves to be more widely heard. I've got a different version, by the Maori Hi-Five - but I need to hear this one!