Album Review: The Naked and Famous – Passive Me, Aggressive You (2010)

***1/2

Not too many New Zealand bands managed to capture the spirit (or zeitgeist) of 2010 quite as readily or easily as the youthful Auckland-based five-piece The Naked and Famous, with the band’s debut album Passive Me, Aggressive You emulating the hit single ‘Young Blood’ by rocketing to the top of the local (NZ) charts.

Combining poppier elements of bands like MGMT and Empire of The Sun, The NaF are all about clever songs and catchy power-pop tunes, with distorted synths and a combination of boy-girl vocals. But it’s also fair to say that a portion of the band’s commercial appeal probably lies with its very polished too-cool-for-school hipster chic.

It would be no exaggeration to suggest that the bulk of those responsible for propelling The NaF to the top of the charts are – much like the band itself – barely out of school uniform. Or at the very least, under the age of 25, and certainly not yet cynical or world-weary enough to start wondering about long term prospects and use-by dates.

And while such pesky trivialities like sustainability and longevity might be worth thinking about when you start to consider just how derivative some of Passive Me, Aggressive You sounds after a couple of listens, for now the band is riding the crest of a very large wave, and I’m definitely not going to be the mean spirited adult who tells them “no you can’t do that” … because they already have, and will doubtlessly do so again whenever they please.

The Naked and Famous make it all seem so carefree and effortless on the glossy Passive Me, Aggressive You that it would be rather churlish not to acknowledge that the album is something close to the perfect embodiment of Alt-pop’s vibrant and increasingly global crossover appeal throughout the 2010 calendar year. This band nail it, and where it goes from here is a discussion best left for another day.

Highlights: ‘All Of This’, ‘Punching In A Dream’, ‘No Way’, ‘Young Blood’, and the closer, ‘Girls Like You’.

List: Five ‘Kiwi’ Desert Island Discs

Essential New Zealand albums of my lifetime:

Luxury Length – Blam Blam Blam (1981)

The backdrop to this 1981 album was provided by the nationwide unrest and sheer turmoil of the ill-advised Springbok tour. The presence of Riot Police on our streets was a new development for our hitherto innocent and untainted land, and bands like The Blams and tour-mates The Newmatics captured those bleak days perfectly with their own unique brand of post-punk angst. The chart-crashing and ironic single ‘No Depression in NZ’ may have been the release that propelled Blam Blam Blam to the forefront of public consciousness, but their Luxury Length album confirmed their status as the leading social commentators of the day. Few potential targets were spared, as Don McGlashan and co raged against everything from the SIS to big business. And how relevant today, in the wake of David Bain’s release, are the lyrics contained within ‘Got To Be Guilty’ (written about the AA Thomas case) … “he’s gotta be guilty, there’s no point in changing the subject, we didn’t get where we are today, by being soft on an obvious reject” …

Futureproof - Pitch Black (1999)

The aptly-titled debut release (under the Pitch Black moniker at least) for the thereafter prolific duo Paddy Free and Mike Hodgson. Futureproof is a quite startling collection of dubby, moody, and occasionally dark electronic tracks, and not only did this release raise the bar for all local pretenders within the genre, it also convinced this observer that advances in technology had to a large extent levelled the playing field for Kiwi artists seeking to compete with the more established international acts dominating the local dance scene. A landmark work for New Zealand electronic music, and it’s hard to believe this album is already more than a decade old.

Tiny Blue Biosphere – Rhian Sheehan (2004)

Tiny Blue Biosphere is the classically-trained Rhian Sheehan’s second album, a follow-up to the similarly gorgeous Paradigm Shift, and like its predecessor it deals with other-worldly, occasionally other-galaxy, conundrums such as … What does it all mean? Sheehan’s horizons are broad, and he doesn’t confine his search for an answer to the mere finiteness of planet earth. Featuring clever use of samples, washes of warm synth, and gentle flowing waves of acoustic guitar, it might be said that Sheehan puts the “way over” into the “out there”. This is head music, but parts of it will also make you want to dance - or at the very least have you dancing on the inside. Tiny Blue Biosphere is the perfect synthetic space and time soundtrack to one of those lazy do nothing days after a hard night out clubbing. Adopt the crash position and simply enjoy.

Anthology – The Clean (2003)

Short of buying every single, EP, or album released by this seminal Flying Nun band, you’ll never be able to fully appreciate the complete evolution of the Dunedin Sound or the prolific label behind it unless you hear Anthology from start to finish. From their early Eighties Lo-Fi four-track origins to the gloss and polish of their new millennium output, The Clean were consistently brilliant every step of the way. Containing witty and wry observations on all facets of bed-sit living in the deepest darkest south and so much more, Anthology captures all of this truly unique band’s most precious moments in one sitting. Priceless.

True Colours – Split Enz (1980)

This album provided the soundtrack to my final year at high school, and it was one that did much to convince aspiring musicians across the land that New Zealand artists could compete commercially on the international stage. With the arrival of Neil Finn and the release of Frenzy a year earlier, Split Enz had abandoned their formative prog-rock excesses to introduce a far more palatable pop element to their zany theatrics. Yet it took the new wave sensibilities of True Colours and its three epic singles to elevate the band to the next level. Kiwi pop hadn’t sounded this good before, and Split Enz would never sound this good again. True Colours was the first sign that in Neil Finn, we had a potential pop genius on our hands.

More to follow …

List: 10 Great Gigs

 

Ten exceptional gigs spanning three full decades from 1981 to 2010. I’ve restricted this list to specific concerts, deliberately omitting DJ gigs/sets and performances that were part of a summer festival weekend or any event featuring a multitude of bands. This was originally posted on:  http://croymusicmiscellany.com/

1 New Order – Town Hall, Wellington, New Zealand, 1987

Synthetic Goodness

By 1987 New Order were big news, and the band’s reach had extended well beyond its Manc roots all the way across several oceans to little old New Zealand. Most of that was due to a dancefloor stomper called Blue Monday having already taken its rightful place as the best selling 12-inch single of all-time, but more generally the band’s popularity had been cemented by the release of four exceptional albums over the course of the preceding six years. The band’s February ’87 gig was my first at the Wellington Town Hall, and it coincided with New Order enjoying the coveted status of my “latest fave band”. I arrived sufficiently early to get a prime standing spot centre-left and just two rows of bodies back. As I recall it, the sound was perfect – crisp, clear, and state of the art. More memorably, it was also the night I fell hopelessly in love with keyboardist Gillian Gilbert – albeit a temporary condition. Gillian isn’t a “beauty” in any conventional sense but that night on stage, almost within touching distance (easy there tiger!), she was the queen of gothic cool personified, teasing me with her relative detachment and her nonchalant control of the electronic rig of synthetic goodness that surrounded her. I can also recall being quite impressed with bassist Peter Hook on one of the rare occasions I dared look away from Gillian for more than a few seconds. Nearly a quarter of a century and dozens upon dozens of concerts later, I can’t for the life of me remember a single track the band played that night but I just know all of the classics (to that point) were covered, all of the boxes were ticked, and I left the venue convinced that I’d just witnessed New Order performing at the absolute peak of its powers – which, with the benefit of hindsight, was very much the case.

2 The Specials – Logan Campbell Centre, Auckland, New Zealand, 2009

Extra Special

There are some gigs you go to on a last minute whim, some you go to simply because of the current hype surrounding a particular artist or band, others you attend because friends convince you that it would be a good excuse for night out ... and then there are those you’ve waited your whole life for and you just know that you’ll never get another chance unless you make the commitment nice and early. The Specials gig in Auckland back in 2009 fell into the latter category for yours truly. A once in a lifetime opportunity to see a band that had never before performed in New Zealand, a band I’d admired from a (long) distance for the best part of 30 years, and one that will surely never cross my path ever again. Suffice to say I snapped up three tickets as soon as they went on sale, applied for a “long weekend away” clearance from “she who must be obeyed”, and invited two of my oldest and closest pals to join me on a (1200km return) roadtrip of ‘Fear and Loathing’ proportions. As it turned out, the masterplan was executed to perfection ... for the best part of 48 hours, three 40-something Rude Boys from way back indulged in the sort of wanton debauchery that would have had even Hunter S Thompson reaching for the industrial strength Nurofen. The band didn’t disappoint on the night; from the outset it became a journey into “greatest hits” territory and I’m fairly certain every single track from the acclaimed self-titled debut album got an airing, as well as several others from the More Specials follow-up. The perennially grumpy Terry Hall looked somewhat heavier and worse for wear but his voice remained as distinctive as ever. Co-vocalist Neville Staple was a ball of energy throughout, but the real key to a phenomenal Specials performance was that sublime rhythm section. The only downsides were the venue’s poor acoustics, and the fact that a certain Mr Jerry Dammers missed the tour. But this was the nostalgia circuit after all, and we’d learned a long time ago that we can’t always have everything.

3 BB King – Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow, Scotland, 1994

BB & Lucille

I remember getting into some trouble for not taking my soon-to-be-wife to this particular gig on account of the fact that I “didn’t think she’d be into it” ... or just plain “didn’t think” (you decide!). If memory serves, this was part of a wider Glasgow International Arts Festival taking place at the time, and I went with a work colleague from the hotel I worked at. I recall being in awe of the venue itself but that was offset by the fact that we were sitting down throughout. Suffice to say I was a little frustrated, but the sound quality was fantastic. BB King (85) toured NZ last month to mixed/poor reviews so I guess I was quite lucky to see the Blues Legend at the relatively young age of 68. I actually hadn’t anticipated this gig being quite so funky (James Brown-esque to the point of King’s on-stage entourage including a dedicated dancer – almost a JB-lookalike – improvising on all of the Godfather’s best shuffles) but such is King’s range and versatility I really shouldn’t have been surprised. It was a special night of classic Blues, Gospel, and pure unadulterated Soul at its very best. And oh man, what a guitarist!

4 Black Uhuru – Town Hall, Wellington, New Zealand, 2003

Pocket Dynamo Rose

Okay, so this wasn’t strictly Black Uhuru, but it was as close as it gets – original vocalist Michael Rose, along with the sensational ‘riddim twins’ Sly Dunbar (drums) and Robbie Shakespeare (bass) – and the set-list played like a “best of” Black Uhuru. Rose had been replaced as Black Uhuru’s vocalist by one Junior Reid in the mid-Eighties, but it is Rose’s superior voice that dominates the band’s best material. If you’ve never seen Sly ‘n’ Robbie live, close up and in the flesh, then I’d contend your musical education isn’t complete – this was exhibition stuff by two of the finest musicians ever to grace a stage in New Zealand. As for the pint-sized Michael Rose ... the pocket jack-in-the-box gave what must surely have been one of his best ever vocal performances – covering virtually all of Black Uhuru’s “hits” and a number of other key genre standards. Aside from the seriously sweet smells permeating the Town Hall that night, my abiding memory of this gig is an extended version of the classic Party in Session, which just seemed to go on and on ... and actually summed the night up perfectly.

5 David Bowie – Athletic Park, Wellington, New Zealand, 1983

Fashion & Infamy

David Bowie was a genuine hero for me by the time he came to NZ in late 1983 as part of his ‘Serious Moonlight’ World tour, but I now fully appreciate that I was about ten years too late in terms of seeing him in his prime. By ’83 of course he was at his commercial peak (Let’s Dance was a global smash) but a mere shadow of the artist that bestrode the Seventies like a colossus. This was bottle blonde Bowie in a flash white suit, churning out generic disco for the masses, looking – from a “creative” perspective at least – for all the world like yesterday’s man. He was cashing in, and very much on auto pilot, but I still enjoyed the sense of occasion, the outdoor event, that this gig presented. It was Bowie, and even if he only played Life on Mars (which he did) I was going to be there to witness it. Then again, “enjoy” and “witness” might be stretching it ... this gig also triggered my own personal ‘Christiane F’ moment. What else do you call collapsing in a heap after vomiting all over your 16-year-old punkette girlfriend’s carefully and lovingly prepared barnet just as Bowie kicked off? ... probably not the high point of our already tempestuous relationship. That said, I do recall the two support bands – NZ’s own Dance Exponents and Oz new wavers The Models – were nothing less than brilliant ... in addition to Life on Mars. Perhaps it was Bowie’s horrendous suit that made me do it? Maybe it was the vodka? Regardless, it was kind of fitting, and surely a boy is allowed one little mistake? – apparently so, we continued to fight for the next two years before push met shove. But none of that is important, this gig makes the list simply because it was my first truly big “concert”.

6 U2 – Celtic Park, Glasgow, Scotland, 1993

His Lordship

I’d been living in Glasgow (or Coatbridge) just a matter of weeks by the time the juggernaut that was U2’s Zoo TV tour rolled into town in the summer of 1993. I wasn’t a massive U2 fan by any stretch but for whatever reason I found myself attending both gigs U2 performed at the hallowed football stadium in Glasgow’s east end – on successive days, a Saturday and a Sunday. As such the gigs tend to blend into one, with support acts on either day including PJ Harvey, Utah Saints, and Stereo MCs – though quite who played when remains unclear in my befuddled head nearly two decades on. I’d never before seen anything quite like this – a massive stage with all sorts of structural/visual aids, giant television sets for live video link-ups etc (did Bono really call Sarajevo or somewhere mid-concert?). Again this rates more as an event for me rather than anything specific to the music, or the quality thereof. U2 was clearly at the height of its popularity – quite probably the biggest band on the planet at the time – and to some extent the big stage funk and all of the excitement surrounding it won me over sufficiently for me to start collecting the band’s back catalogue. Not that it gets much of an airing these days.

7 Laurie Anderson – Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington, New Zealand, 1986

Life Lessons with Laurie

If I thought U2 presented a state of the art concert in 1993 (and they did), I don’t quite know how to adequately describe Laurie Anderson’s gig at Wellington’s sedate Michael Fowler Centre in 1986. This was part of the Wellington Festival of the Arts – an annual (?) month long arts extravaganza sorely missed today. It wasn’t so much a music concert as a “life lessons” lecture involving a projector, slides (that’s a bit like MS Powerpoint, kids), electric violins, synthesisers, vocoders (see auto tune), and a whole swag of other electronic wizardry. And it was about as intimate a concert experience as I’ve ever had – Laurie was so open to discussing her life story I half expected “any questions from the floor?” at the conclusion of her set. I felt I got to know her, and it isn’t often you can say that about a so-called popular music artist after just a couple of hours in their company. But there was music aplenty as well, some classical, and some weird excuse for what might loosely be described as “pop”. What a shame most know her as either “that chick that did O Superman” or as “Lou Reed’s missus”. Rock on Laurie!

8 Paul Weller – The Powerstation, Auckland, New Zealand, 2010

Waking Up Auckland

Paul Weller the solo artist, Paul Weller the Legend. Unlike the Specials gig a year earlier, the Weller gig in Auckland was not part of the nostalgia circuit. This wasn’t about an artist coming to NZ for the first time simply to play his oldest and greatest hits. It was all about Paul Weller – living, vibrant, and contemporary – arriving to play his current material and perhaps also to delve deep into the past depending on how the mood took him. That’s the benefit of being active as a recording artist, of being relevant, and of having more than a couple of albums to draw from. However, like the Specials, Weller is another artist I’d waited forever to see live. In the end Weller mixed things up nicely – tracks from his 2010 album Wake Up The Nation dominating the set-list alongside several other key solo career gems, Jam classics like That’s Entertainment and A Town Called Malice, but surprisingly very little from his Style Council period. The Powerstation is probably the best live venue in New Zealand and its comfortable environs – despite being sold out – certainly added to my enjoyment of the night, as did the fact that my beloved and I were finally able to enjoy an overdue night out in the big smoke.

9 Split Enz – Sports Stadium, Palmerston North, New Zealand, 1981

Kiwi Legends

When they write the definitive tome on the history of popular music in New Zealand there will be an entire chapter (if not several) devoted to Split Enz and its wider influence through the Seventies and Eighties. And not just because the band spawned the monster that eventually became Neil Finn’s Crowded House, but because Split Enz was the first Kiwi band (of my lifetime) to produce wholly original material that sold by the truckload (locally). The band’s 1980 album, True Colours, also happened to provide the very fluorescent soundtrack to my final year of high school. When Split Enz came to my (old) home town of “palmy” in 1981 I was barely out of school uniform so this has to rate as my first serious gig. For the uninitiated it is difficult to describe quite what Split Enz sound like – they started out as quirky prog weirdos before morphing into mainstays of NZ’s new wave scene, finally running out of gas by the mid Eighties when the Finn brothers split and started to do their own projects. For me, Split Enz rate as NZ’s number one “pop” act of all-time, and I count myself very lucky to have witnessed the band performing at its peak. But wait, there’s more ... the support band at this gig was a certain Blam Blam Blam, a band whose flame flickered brightly but all too briefly, another with a strong personal connection to yours truly. I hope to rave about the “great lost Kiwi bands” in more detail sometime in the future on CMM, and Blam Blam Blam will just as likely provide the backbone to that piece. Put simply, the Blams were sensational on the night in question, and just quietly, may have even overshadowed the main act.

10 Swervedriver – King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut, Glasgow, Scotland, 1993

Duel Single

I’m now wondering how Swervedriver manage to scrape into my top 10 at the expense of luminaries like Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Massive Attack, Womack & Womack, and um, the Stray Cats, but sometimes a gig is more about the venue and the night itself; the sense of adventure rather than the artist up on stage. And to be fair, we’re talking about the low ebb 1986 version of Bob Dylan in this instance, and all of the others were irretrievably flawed gigs for reasons best not gone into here. So Swervedriver make the cut. When you’re a stranger in a “foreign” city you tend to gravitate to places you feel most comfortable and in terms of my own two years living in Glasgow there are two places that loom large in the memory bank – the aforementioned Celtic Park on match day, and the renowned King Tut’s venue which was practically – and most conveniently – a mere stone’s throw from my inner city dwelling. King Tut’s became a semi regular haunt in the months that followed but I’ll always recall with fondness my first visit there. Swervedriver were shoegaze survivors enjoying a period of relative success thanks to a monumental track called Duel riding high in the indie charts at the time; I wasn’t a huge fan but I absolutely loved Duel and I’ll never forget being part of the sweaty heaving throng on the compressed King Tut’s dancefloor when the opening bars of that track roared into life. It is just a small thing but recall of that moment remains crystal clear, and for a few weeks afterwards the Swervedriver gig was all I talked about. It was a short-lived love affair with that particular band, but King Tut’s had won me over for the duration. So much so, every subsequent visit to Glasgow has seen me buying the latest edition of a publication called ‘The List’ in the hope that I’ll find another excuse to return to King Tut’s.

Classic Album Review: Elastica – Elastica (1995)

***1/2

Back in 1993, before there was Brit-Pop, a number of UK radio DJs were hyping something called the “new wave of new wave”, and Elastica were right at the forefront of that supposed new scene. As someone who thoroughly appreciated the first wave of “new wave”, I recall the sense of excitement generated by a number of “vital” new bands around at that time, many of them adopting something of a back-to-the-future approach to their signature sounds.

When Elastica released ‘Stutter’ as a single that year it received ample airplay but the fact that it was (initially) of limited stock and quite hard to find, meant that hype about the band – and the “scene” – went into overdrive.

That vampish lead singer Justine Frischmann was also reportedly in a relationship with Damon Albarn (of then fledgling band Blur – whose ‘Chemical World’ single of the same year conveniently sat snugly within the confines of the NWONW sub-genre) didn’t harm Elastica in the short-term credibility/publicity stakes.

The romance would turn out to be as fleeting as the scene itself – and I guess in reality the whole NWONW thing was just a figment of some hype merchant’s imagination and just as quickly swamped by Brit-Pop when Oasis and Blur suddenly found themselves bigger than Benhur.

‘Stutter’ was certainly a great choice as a lead-off single, a brilliant two-and-a-bit minute slice of pure velocity – thumping percussion, hard-edged bass, buzzsaw guitar, and angsty lyrics. ‘Stutter’ was followed by the Wire-influenced ‘Line Up’, ‘Connection’, and what would turn out to be – in my opinion – the second best track on this album, ‘Waking Up’ (a ditty dedicated to the delights of unemployment).

If I recall correctly, the self-titled album was somewhat belatedly released, perhaps as a consequence of the band not having much material to work with initially. It could be said it rather missed the zeitgeist of the short-lived scene, rendering it more of a follow-up to Elastica’s initial impact rather than a concurrent supplementary release. I’m fairly certain all four singles (listed above) had run their course by the time the album hit the shops (but I could be wrong about that, it’s all a bit of a … erm, blur).

It is nonetheless a pretty decent album, if a little one dimensional at times, even listening to it some 15 years later. The aforementioned Wire influence is huge (and the source of a few accusations of plagiarism at the time), as is that of Gang of Four and several other prominent early 80s post-punkers. The singles represent the stand-outs but few of the 16 tracks compromise on quality and the only surprise is that this is as good as it got when it comes to Elastica.

The band followed this up with an EP that morphed into an album called The Menace (2000), but for all of the initial hype and promise, somewhere along the way Elastica lost crucial momentum, and the self-titled debut now stands as a document of a band that time forgot. They really could’ve (and should’ve) been a contender.  

Album Review: Franz Ferdinand – Blood (2009)

***

Six years on from the band’s celebrated debut album, I’m still not convinced about Franz Ferdinand. I enjoyed that album – in parts – and found a lot more to like about its almost immediate follow-up, but 2009’s Tonight left me feeling a tad disappointed and rather nonplussed about the direction Franz were headed. This release, Blood, a remix/Dub version of Tonight, merely reinforces those feelings of indifference, despite it containing the odd gem.

Where Pitchfork were happy to compare Blood to Primal Scream’s Echo Dek (the Dub version of the Scream’s Vanishing Point album – what is it about Scottish bands and Dub remixes?) it has to be said that producer Dan Carey (Blood) is certainly no Adrian Sherwood (Echo Dek).

While Carey does a decent enough job on some tracks, applying large portions of synthetic gloss, his work lacks the authenticity and hard edge of Sherwood, and Blood is clearly more geared toward floor-filling Electronica than genuine blissed-out bass heavy horizontal Dub (see Echo Dek).

In reality this is just another remix album with a few echo effects thrown in. No more, no less.

Recommended for Franz fans with a taste for experimental Electronica, but I can’t see this being particularly appealing to non-converts.

Highlights: ‘The Vaguest of Feeling’ (which is actually quite brilliant), ‘Katherine Hit Me’ (which I think in its original form was ‘No You Girls’ on Tonight?), and ‘Feeling Kind of Anxious’ (was ‘Ulysses’).

Album Review: Various Artists – Ghetto Arc Presents Serious Times (2006)

***1/2

Serious Times is one of the more mainstream post-millennium Reggae compilations on the market, and as such it represents an ideal sampler for anyone wishing to become more familiar with recent period flavours – be they of the Roots, One Drop, or Dancehall variety.

We get two CDs with essentially the same stuff on each – the first CD being an exclusive dubplate mix (by Federation Sound) with the second giving us the actual singles and split track versions.

Featuring the likes of Turbulence, Sizzla, Gyptian, Morgan Heritage, Richie Spice, Fantan Mojah, and Perfect, alongside others, it provides for a decent enough overview of what was happening within the genre (and an ever-increasing number of sub-genres) during 2006, and more generally over recent years. It all makes for a pretty good listen along the way, and for me the Roots-orientated numbers (like Rob Symeonn’s ‘Chosen One’ and Sizzla’s ‘Ain’t Gonna Fall’) provide the main highlights.

Other highlights include Gyptian’s title-track (so good we get three mixes), the two mixes of Turbulence’s ‘Notorious’, Morgan Heritage with ‘Wall Of Babylon’, Nitty Kutchie with ‘Ghetto’, and Nanko’s soulful and ultimately quite beautiful ‘Lucky You’.

Album Review: Fat Freddy’s Drop – Dr Boondigga And The Big BW (2009)

***1/2

It took four years to produce a follow-up to the successful 2005 breakthrough album Based On A True Story, but clearly Fat Freddy’s Drop wanted to ensure the quality control filter was set appropriately high, and despite the rather absurd album title, Dr Boondigga And The Big BW, for the most part, comes up trumps.

Combining elements of Dub, Funk, Blues, and old fashioned Soul, with an added jazzy hip-hoppy vibe on one or two tracks, this is most definitely a return to top form for Godzone’s leading purveyors of bass heavy eclectic funk. Again, as with BOATS, horns and brass feature prominently, there’s the usual quota of guitar, synth, and electronic loopy bits, but mostly Dr Boondigga is all about bass and percussion. Rhythm has always been the main course for FFD, and to some extent, everything else – including the vocals – feels a little bit like additional garnish.

If there is a criticism it is that the laidback nature of several tracks tends to emphasise their length (‘Shiverman’ for example, is just a little too long) and you’d want to be careful about setting your iPod on repeat lest you find yourself dozing off involuntarily.

Five (of nine in total) for downloading: ‘The Raft’, the singles ‘Pull The Catch’ and ‘The Camel’, plus ‘The Nod’ (which features rapper MC Slave), and ‘Wild Wind’ … basically the entire middle section of the album.

Gig Review: Paul Weller, Auckland, 2010

The Modfather

Concert Review: Paul Weller – Live at the Powerstation, Auckland, 30 October 2010

(a bit late getting this up, but the review was written a week or so after the gig) ...

With Paul Weller having never previously performed in New Zealand with either The Jam or The Style Council, or indeed while wearing his solo hat in more recent times, it was no great surprise that Weller was able to sell out three consecutive nights at Auckland’s Powerstation venue (capacity approx 1000) within hours of each gig being announced.

Despite many of my casual friends or work colleagues responding with a baffled “who?” when I informed them that I was attending the middle concert of the three, Weller remains a big draw in this part of the world, particularly when it comes to nostalgic middle-aged expat Brits looking to capture a glimpse of the man many consider to be a genuine legend back in his (and their) home country. Suffice to say that “Kiwi” accents were rather conspicuous by their scarcity on the night under review.

The Powerstation is certainly a great venue – large enough to accommodate a good sized crowd yet small enough to feel relatively intimate. Add to that decent acoustics, a genuine “club” feel with separate zones, home comforts such as plush sofas/chairs, not to mention easy access to multiple bars, air conditioning (!) and well … we were all set for a top night once a good spot on the mezzanine floor had been secured for our viewing pleasure. It was great to see the Powerstation almost full and buzzing, but by no means over-crowded, by the time the support act (The Conversations? - quirky Pop), started its thankfully-not-too-prolonged set.

Leading up to the gig there had been much speculation about which “version” of Weller we would see on the night. Would we get the beloved “Jam classics”? And what about those old faves from the Style Council years? Or would greater importance be placed on his most recent solo work?

The answer, of course, was a mixture of all three eras, but with emphasis weighted to the latter; a few older Jam tunes for the nostalgia nuts, a very memorable ‘Shout To The Top’ as the token nod to the Style Council, and a balanced journey through some of the very best material from his solo years, with his latest album, Wake Up The Nation (2010), taking pride of place.

The thing about Paul Weller, at age 52, is that he isn’t quite yet ready for the nostalgia circuit. He is a living breathing artist continually releasing new work at regular intervals. He is evolving all the time as a songwriter and performer. This was never going to be like, say, The Specials (to pluck a band from the Jam-era) visiting Auckland in 2009. I attended that gig on the basis that the band had reformed specifically for a series of concerts celebrating its illustrious past. There had been no new Specials material for something close to three decades, so I went to that gig knowing exactly what I was going to get (and loving the band all the more because of it). So those expecting Weller to populate his set-list with tracks from a bygone era were always going to be disappointed.

While I’m not a huge fan of Wake Up The Nation, songs from his latest album dominated the early part of the set and hearing them in a live context enabled me to connect with them in ways I hadn’t been able to when listening to the album. ‘As Tears Go By’, ‘Pieces Of A Dream’, ‘Fast Car/Slow Traffic’, and the title track itself all provided highlights on the night and Weller seemed especially keen to challenge those in the crowd who hadn’t made the effort to buy the album (or its predecessor, 22 Dreams) … in fact he seemed a little obsessed with poor recent album sales in this part of the world as he mentioned this on more than one occasion.

We also got other solo career gems such as ‘The Changingman’ and ‘Broken Stones’ (off Stanley Road), and while I was a bit personally disappointed that tracks from his ‘Wild Wood’ album were overlooked, I couldn’t have any complaint about his choice of material from the Jam era – ‘That’s Entertainment’ being given an riotous airing early on, while versions of ‘Pretty Green’ and ‘Start’ counted among the night’s best. And although there would doubtlessly have been a few grumbles that ‘Going Underground’ didn’t get an outing, there can be few better encore finales (the second of two) than ‘A Town Called Malice’, which concluded a thoroughly professional and enjoyable gig.

Weller look relaxed and in control throughout – dominating the stage like the veteran he undeniably is, smoking, chatting, regularly switching guitars – depending on what song came next – and spending a portion of the night behind one of several keyboards at his disposal. It was notable that longtime sidekick Steve Craddock and other members of the band got a warm introduction and an acknowledgement from the crowd near the end, with Weller happy to allow his youthful drummer the indulgence of a short drum solo in response to the crowd’s hearty “happy birthday” chorus as he celebrated his special day.

More generally it was a special night for all in attendance. I read a review of the first night suggesting that the crowd at that particular gig was more akin to a football crowd than your usual Rock audience and it is actually difficult to disagree with that assessment (a house load of Brits? – what can you do?), albeit a very polite and less hooligan-like mob, but most left the venue with large smiles and surely the sense that they’d backed the winning team after witnessing a classic match. Cup Finals don’t come along very often, after all.

Album Review: The Radio Dept – Clinging To A Scheme (2010)

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I’m not sure what special additive is being applied to the drinking water in Scandinavia – or specifically Sweden in this instance – but I’m finding myself increasingly attracted to much of the exceptional “new” music being produced out of that part of the world. Following on from recent love-ins with the likes of Air France and The Knife, The Radio Dept is proving to be yet another irresistible proposition presently enjoying high rotation in my house.

Clinging To A Scheme is the latest album by The Radio Dept. Basically it is a pleasant Indie-Pop album full of carefully crafted guitar-based gems, rather reminiscent of Oxford-based Nineties Shoegaze exponents Ride. Or at least, it’s Ride without the associated wall of feedback. Simple short sharp jangly bursts of Swedish sunshine in a box – if I have a minor complaint, it’s merely that at some 35 minutes in length the ten track album feels a little too short. Then again, maybe that also adds to its charm and digestibility in the sense that it doesn’t ever become too overwhelming.

Highlights: ‘Domestic Scene’, ‘Heaven’s On Fire’, ‘This Time Around’, ‘Never Follow Suit’, and ‘David’.

List: 10 Important Reggae Albums

Local music blog ‘Blog on the Tracks’ (on www.stuff.co.nz) recently featured a post on the “ten most important” Reggae albums. It was part of a series where blogger Simon Sweetman selects a genre and then proceeds to list the most important albums of said genre. Or the “most important” as they relate to Simon’s journey and life as a music consumer. Not the ten best-sellers or the ten most acclaimed but the ten that have touched on a personal level.

I personally listen to a lot of Reggae (and/or Dub and a multitude of sub genres) so I thought I’d follow the blog’s lead and create my own list of ten for the genre. As with most lists of this nature, I suspect the contents would vary from one day to the next, depending on my whim, but the only prerequisite I’d insist upon for inclusion is that I own a copy of the album in some form or another – be it LP vinyl, CD, or a digital version … or in the case of one of the below (Signing Off), all three variations.

Here’s the list I submitted in response to the blog:

1. Third World – 96 Degrees in the Shade – combines Jamaican rhythms with funk to produce the perfect soundtrack for those long balmy summer nights.

2. Bob Marley & The Wailers – Kaya – won’t be the one for Bob purists but means so much to me on a personal level for reasons perhaps best not gone into here. Contains no filler.

3. Lee Scratch Perry & Dub Syndicate – Time Boom x De Devil Dead – Perry’s second coming masterfully produced by Adrian Sherwood. An important album in the evolution of Dub.

4. Peter Tosh – Equal Rights – Tosh’s most consistent solo effort just shading Legalise It. The title track is one of contemporary music’s all-time greatest protest songs.

5. Bob Marley & The Wailers – Exodus – prime period Bob. An important statement at a troublesome time for him personally.

6. Burning Spear – Marcus Garvey – Look no further for the true definition of ‘Roots’ in black plastic form.

7. Max Romeo – War Ina Babylon – Perry-produced set that raised the bar for all pretenders.

8. Jimmy Cliff/OST – The Harder They Come – not so much a Cliff solo set as a who’s who of Reggae as it morphed from its Ska and Rocksteady origins. My extended review of this soundtrack made the front page of the popular ‘Rate Your Music’ site … just sayin’.

9. UB40 – Signing Off – before they turned to mush, this Brummie collective had a lot to say. The opening quartet of tracks on this album ensured they said it with plenty of style and substance. The rest ain’t bad either.

10. Various – 15 Years in an Open Boat – showcases Adrian Sherwood’s On-U Sound label with 15 years worth of gems from a whole range of sources. A one-stop-shop/intro to an important label … but look out too for any one of the half dozen or so Pay It All Back compilations on On-U.

( … but ten is obviously all too finite as a number and there really is a batch of other albums that on any other given day I’d probably rate just as highly as some of the above. I’ll doubtlessly be looking to create a more definitive personal list at some point in the future …)