The Life Of Brian

MMMMMM 42 Below Vodka

2006-02-08T12:18:00.000+13:00

NZUSA conference was fun, I made some noise, pissed some people off (I know being a commie is quite 'radical' but you only realise it at something like an NZUSA conference!)

A friend was going to Aussie recently and I asked her if she was buying her allowance of alcohol. She said no and I now have a litre of manuka honey 42 Below... Tastes good with E2 Apple flavour (a bit fluro green for my liking)

Volunteer wise, we're having a meeting tomorrow at the 'kumes (big kumara, how I dislike that place!) dishing out jobs to people who are keen. 7:30 if you're interested.

Email me at joel (dot) cosgrove (at) vuwsa (dot) org (dot) nz!

We're On The Exit To The City

2006-01-30T11:40:00.000+13:00

So i've just got over last weeks NZUSA conference today. How did I do that? By sleeping for 17 hours from yesterday afternoon till this morning. For those out there who have no idea of what NZUSA is, well it's the national grouping of New Zealand University Students Association. We had our chinwag conference. I'll get back about this now, but it's 4pm and I started this in the morning. Maybe i'll have time to write this tomorrow?

BANG. HEAD. AGAINST. WALL

2006-01-25T18:19:00.000+13:00

Why the fuck does everyone have to keep bickering? Christ am I the only one who hasn't taken a personal grudge against anyone else? And people bitching about us with incorrect information, fuck, I mean just cause you're on the exec a few years ago doesn't make you omnipresent on all things VUWSA. Surprisingly due to our "ideological nature" we've actually been working with the uni even thought on some issues we are still trying to reach agreement!
Is growing up learning that maturity wise, few people develop beyond their teenage years?

Please Excuse Me. As I Didn't Sleep Much Over The Weekend.

2006-01-16T10:57:00.000+13:00

Two complaints about girls

1: They use all the toilet paper. Now I know why they do, and why they HAVE to, but shit still annoying, specially in an all guy flat, where that stuff hangs around for ages and NEVER runs out...

2: They always get cold. I'm running around in my lavalava and t-shirt last night and she's all like "i'm cold!" while wearing my leather jacket! Sheesh

Having said all that there are some positives which outway those minor issues. Some we are all aware of and need no discussion.

Big Day Out in a few days, I leave on Wednesday morning, hopefully in orkland mid-afternoon... Hopefully I actually manage to hang out with non-Wellingtonians. I mean it's great hanging out, but you don't travel up to Auckland to socialise with the people you see down at Bodega every weekend... Did I say Bodega? Must have been wrong, I mean who goes there anymore?
Every man/woman and their dog seem to be heading up north, hope the traffic jams aren't too bad...

So I Won A BDO Ticket...

2006-01-13T13:49:00.000+13:00

Thought I may as well put up my story I won my ticket with...

I showed up to see Electric Six at Indigo Bar in Wellington recently. Mainly to see them play 'Gay Bar' and 'Danger High Voltage' as well as a few other songs I knew. The Offbeats were just starting as I arrived. They were fun, had a good portion of the crowd dancing, you know, the good solid support act. Odessa were on next and continued what The Offbeats had started, nothing too flash, but again solid.
By the time the members of Electric Six came on stage the place was packed, more than I've seen at Indigo for a long time. The term 'sardines in a tin can' describes the situation pretty well. Shit hit the fan when the band started. It was jump or be jumped on! All I could do was jump up and down and be carried about by the crowd. I had no control over anything at all. It was crazy!
After a few songs I just thought "fuck it" as the mosh was not really the best place to enjoy the band from, my hands being pined tightly to my sides, I couldn't move them at all and the accidental groping was getting embarrassing! So I did the only thing one could in that position. I motioned to the people next to me to lift me up! Now not everyone enjoys or has the courage to crowd surf, but in my experience pretty much anyone will lift you up. And help me they did! Up I went and was quickly cruising about, being passed back by the crowd. The huge sound desk was looking alarmingly close so I motioned for the people passing me along to move me to the left, closely averting an expensive crash…
It was then I figured out that I could potentially be up there for a while. No one seemed to be getting tired of pushing me along, so I did figure eights, circles, left/right and then back again all over the place! I climbed along some metal pipes hanging off the roof, fell down, crowd surfed to the back and joined in the crowd, where there was a little bit more space than the cramped confines of the mosh pit up front. Surprisingly this story hasn't even been exaggerated after a few retellings. I'd be lying if I didn't say I had a fucking great time!

James Guthrie
to me
More options
4 Jan
Joel,you're a winner! Where do I send the ticket?

Hold Me Now...

2006-01-11T10:21:00.000+13:00

I found some blackberries and ate one, it was black but it was very acidic and now my tummy hurts a little...

The Hills Are Alive With The Sound Of HLAH

2006-01-10T13:01:00.000+13:00

I'm off to the Big Day Out! I won one of the tickets at the noizyland competition. Good all round fun, although I couldn't sort out a press pass for the BDO through Salient, as they've already tried "apparently". So ohh well, my place is with the great unwashed, should be fun though, as this is my first, my proverbial cherry is being popped and I don't have many cherries left to pop :(. I hope I can still get up there!

We've just been getting flatmates through, we just used trade-me and on the saturday just past we had around eight people in. What an ordeal! It's was mostly people coming through who just didn't think, shit some people should learn proper flat ettiquette! One woman told us she'd ring us, sadly we decided not to even bother with her, a tough but fair decision. In the end it came down to the hot chick from Swaziland or the man I dubbed "Metallica Man". Now Metallica Man (named for the Metallica t-shirt he was wearing) is more ameaneable to the flat, he likes the chickens and is impressed by what we're trying to do. Hot Swaziland chick (HSC) seemed a bit catty and Sam just said no, I fought on her behalf, her hotness helping a fair bit, but it was a losing battle, with Andrew and Sam both going for Metallica Man. Fun Fun Fun alround! Excepting the waiting around our flat all day, by 5 we caught cabin fever and dispersed around Wellington.

2005-12-28T16:15:00.000+13:00

Here We go! I expect to see you all here!

New Year/Christmas Festivities!

2005-12-28T15:12:00.000+13:00

Aparently there'll be the invitation appearing along with this to my New Years what ever the fuck it will be. 176 Aro St. I'm suspicious of technology...
Christmas was fun, having two Christmas lunches has it's benefits i.e. more food than one! My Dad's one was boring, the presents uninspired (mine included) and the atmosphere awkward. Sounds like christmas? The night before Sam and I started a fire in our backyard and let it go for around 5 hours. Drinking beer and burning stuff as we brought in Christmas day was a blast, Nick and Scotty passed through at different times, fires seem to be a very boy thing though, I just got rolled eye and concerned questions when mentioning it to any girls around, was I just asking the wrong ones? My Mum's was a different affair entirely. Much more food (I actually left her place full as a bull, rather than the peckishness of my Dad's) and a more happier enviroment in all. She got me the updated edition of 'Stranded In Paradise', which really floated my boat, along with six pairs of socks, which perfectly complemented the book as something to enjoy with the socks being a much more practical present i.e. I needed them!
I've been sleeping in a fair bit more recently, for quite a while I couldn't sleep in past 8 or 9 o clock. It was fucking annoying! But my hectic Christmas of two parties most nights has at least meant i've been tired and slept for a decent time. Heres hoping.
I'll see you all on New Years Eve (probably *insert threatening raised fist*) or sometime around then.

P.S. is anyone else thinking of going down to Blenheim to see The Datsuns? That would be one of the funniest gigs in a while, no one from Blenheim will go they're all boyracing in Nelson, so it'll be whom ever is going through there that night...

Dx3 I saw them again...

2005-12-28T14:56:00.000+13:00

My little toe on my right foot got stamped or smashed or somethign recently. I didn't think much of it until it went black. I lived with it, being a little socially uneasy when my naked foot was on show, but apart from that it just sat there blackening. I'll post pictures up soon when I come into possesion of a digital camera, the reason I want to is because my nail is slowly coming off. At first it was just wiggly, then it started to wiggle more and more and now the blackened stump I used to address as the little nail is only held on by a little peice still clinging to me. To give you a good indication it can now form a 90 degree angle when pushed upwards. All this doesn't hurt, just looks cool, and the reason it's black? Dried blood...
On a less disgusting (well not much less actually) note, I went along to Die! Die! Die! last night with Nick. I've been taking him to to gigs recently, Cortina being the most recent. It works well as he gets a much better indication fo where the Wellington music scene actually is, rather than vague assumptions previously held. We got to Goodluck in good time, early in fact. I hardly go there (last time was actually the first Dx3 gig) except when there's a gig on or i'm being wined and dined for free, both of which don't happen often... Now anyway we got there and the eliteist fucking scenesters hanging out by the doorway gave us ample warning of the type of crowd who'd be there.We went down and hung out in a corner as a parade of kids in their too-cool-for-you outfits paraded by. People talking about how many times they'd seen Dx3 etc. etc. Fighting The Shakes played first and they sucked, for many of the same reasons I dislike the emo scene. Namely the music is a total knock off of the leading bands of the genre. These local bands aren't as good live, mainly because they're new and not as gig-hardened. But they also just follow the current hip formula, totally uninteresting yet not technically awful, their problem is often the leading band is doing something new/slightly different i.e. Korn, Tool and everyone in their wake just follows along. There was nothing in their performance that made them stand out from anything else I've heard recently, the spark just wasn't there for me. I wasn't surprised that no one was dancing for them. I was surprised at some of the arrogant comments coming from some scenesters I recognised about the crowd being a bunch of newbies who didn't know good music and bemoaning this "un-wellington" crowd. We might dance more freely than some city crowds just look at the 650 people jammed into Indigo to watch Electric Six recently but as Nick pointed out the music just didn't lend itself to dancing either, this wasn't a crowd who wanted to just run around kicking and hitting each other like the crowd at a couple of Auckland hardcore shows I saw recently at fucking Papa Jacks (God bless it's closure!).
Kill Surf City from Auckland were good in the indie guitar vein, similar but not too close to Dx3. The singer was interesting, gave me a couple of ideas for my foetus of a band. The band was a decent improvement on Fighting The Shakes and it showed with the crowd getting more into it, the Trashe girls pulling out some moves (were they wearing body painted swimsuits underneath their jackets or was it really tight swimsuits?) with the crowd starting to dance.
There were two bouncers up front stopping people from getting too close to the bands or their gear, they were big and threatening and so the atmosphere was weirdly subdued. Andrew from Dx3 saw to that, doing the Obi-Wan wave of the arms thing halfway through their set. The band were good, not as good as i've seen them before but solid, if a little slower than usual. Once the bouncers were give their orders, things sorted themselves out. The one thing from the Goodluck gig was the sweat, it was horrible. My fault for wearing a polo turtleneak but shit! I was soaked, literally soaked. I usually wait till the morning to have a shower but not that night, I chucked my wet clothes in the wash and had a warm shower.

It's Summertime...

2005-12-14T14:15:00.000+13:00

When couples are PDAing on the little knoll right next to the student union you know it's summer. When you start that beastly process known as sweating and young ladies start inviting you out for coffee *wink wink* you know it's summer.
Personally I much prefer winter, but lacking the neccesary powers to make a difference at all (bar burning refridgerators) i'll just soldier on and try not to get a tan, as we all know of the double dangers involved in dealings with the sun in NZ nowdays *Joel raises fist at the ozone hole*.
Can I just get all like introspective [on a second reading i'm actually not] and like OMG! Jon Toogood came and hung out at my house for just over two hours yesterday. I was interviewing him for my zine i'm putting out (it's called "Bricolage" people!) and it was great, needless to say during my teenage years (which although only recently past, are definately packed neatly away in my parents attic) Shihad and old Jonny himself were nothing lessthan my idols. So we were able to knatter on for ages.
Sadly for those who've been waiting for something, no Arcade Fire, no Trans Am and no Dead C, we do get Elemeno P though!

Blah Blah Blah

2005-11-21T18:26:00.000+13:00

Joanna is now on my back. Nice to have her watching with pursed eyes... What do I do when folk like Jeremy are waging a private little war against me? Well first off I scoff at his claims of my muppetship, as he did absolutely nothing this year. We still have Ngai Tauria to deal next year (we need to nut out how much money VUWSA gives them) and the ONE protest we took part in wasn't nearly as succesfull as it could have been (touch wood for next year).
Where does all this bitchiness come from? Is it my fault? I think part of the problem is I just haven't got on with Jeremy and so unlike Nick who enjoys seeing me arrive every day, Jeremy just gets pissed off seeing me pop my head into the office. I'm getting on well with quite a few of the new exec, although I split Caroline's lip, we're still very good friends, while Delia is coming around for dinner.
Did I mention I made a dream of a pie this afternoon? Apple strudel filling with a custard top. Once again it's a dream! So tasty! Pasta with homemade tomato sauce with cashews to boot, I love being able to survive on not very much...
It was funny walking to the sunday market (obviously on sunday), because as I went through Aro park I pretty much saw a cross-section of the Aro. Namely a couple of student types sun bathing, some bogans drinking cheap beer on the hill, yuppies jogging by and a homeless guy listening to his radio on one of the park benches. Makes me appreciate life, those moments, they're almost my New Zealand 'Parklife'.

Why can't I see comments?

2005-11-11T11:02:00.000+13:00

I've had about 6 comments and they're not showing up on my blogger page! Can anyone offer some advice?

It Must Be About Time To Go Emo?

2005-11-07T16:56:00.000+13:00

Break ups always suck, I haven't been through very many, ok I've been through two. But that's not the point, as my most recent one was the ending of my almost three year relationship with Heather. I don't remember if I already wrote about it in depth, but really I don’t care and I can go over things twice or thrice if I want to!
We broke up because we were drifting different ways and she was feeling a bit suffocated by my overbearing personality. We broke up when I left for Auckland, pretty much giving her 30 minutes notice that I was going away for the week. The next day in the van I knew it was pretty much over.
Dealing with it getting back has been weird, we did the whole “we’re single we can sleep with whom ever we want including each other” line, but that stopped awhile ago and now we’re trying to figure out how to deal with each other. Because the fact of the matter is we still get on and we’re still good friends, so much so that we did some midnight poster runs for bitchcraft last night without any shenanigans. I still really dig here but some times you just gotta go on with life and deal with things. This all leads to my next major problem. I’m so out of touch with the whole romance thing it’s not FUNNY. It's been weird, as now there's a big gap where Heather used to be...

I spent my college years as first a tiny picked on 3rd/4th former at an all boys school, I progressed to the gawky and ungainly 5th/6th form bully stage and finally got sick of the whole thing by 7th. As I was at an all boys school and had little contact with the ladies from my primary school haunt, I was very socially inept. Drunken parties didn’t help and neither did the usually awkward shyness hidden by false brashness. I had a 3 month relationship and then it was onto Heather. Curious note: I have never gone out with anyone who was not a Heather, how’s that for a niche aye?!
So anyway I’m in bachelor land at the mo and I’m trying to figure out how to go, do I spend an age waiting for the Ms. Right (sorry but I just don’t rate the chances of a Mr. Right, you can place your bets, but just like betting on the first 2006 VUWSA execer to buckle, in both cases I put myself as a longshot) or just go about my merry wild way until I wake up and figure out we’ve been going out for an awful long time making it a proper relationship.
So now with my pretty crap socialising/spading skills already pretty under strength as it was ala the French army pre WWII. Three years of little usage has rendered what little I had rusty, leaving me in a similar situation as the French army after their surrender in 1940…

Enough navel gazing. I’ve got work to do! The planning stages of a Vic Radio Station, which I so want to do just as a told-you-so to all the people, who just think it can’t be done e.g. “do Active actually own their frequency?” “Of course they do!” “ummmm I can’t find anything that says they do and the way Active describe their ownership of the frequency leads me to think it’s still ours, they just don’t want us to know we own it…” “It still can’t be done”.
If anyone out there wants to have some input, excluding the fact most of the people who read this are mid-20’s looking for love a good job and something else quite intangible in no particular order. Buzz me a line at joel (dot) cosgrove (at) vuwsa (dot) org (dot) nz

Muppet Muppet Muppet

2005-11-07T14:38:00.000+13:00

FUCK I HATE WHEN YOU HAVE SPENT FUCKING HALF AN HOUR WRITING SOMETHING ON THIS PEICE OF SHIT AND THEN YOU WIPE IT BY MISTAKE! AND YES I AM SHOUTING!
WHEN I HAVE CLAMED DOWN LATER I WILL WRITE OTHER STUFF...

And We Bake

2005-11-01T13:47:00.000+13:00

Well exams have finished. Bluffing my way through, I think I did alright. English was stupid, as I just lost interest, yes the books are interesting, but I just got sick of trying to figure out what the author meant, constantly trying to figure out every nunance of what they could have meant. It's just plain boring, whereas i've been quite diggin media studies, actually arguing my own opinions obviously based on evidence. So I might be a whore and switch to POLS next year, cause I hear POLS 351 (I think) is a good course, atleast the topics covered look fun.

Orientation organising goes along well, I should stop telling select people who we're lining up, cause there could be an ace house party... And there's not much space there at all...

Anyone got a job? I'd like the idea of working...

Ho Hum, This Is Too Much Like Radio For My Own Liking

2005-10-27T15:53:00.000+13:00

AS mentioned above, I write this diatrade without expecting it to be read (I hear you can track that stuff...). Much like radio you just go on anyway. My last show was a bit of a mess, as I rang Chris Know but found out that MUNT had had a toll bar imposed on it. So there went that avenue.
Fuck lots of time wasted writing this go check it out

I'll fight on the beaches i'll fight in the VUWSA....

2005-10-22T15:56:00.000+13:00

Week in week out, joel works hard. I'm roadieing for Electric Six today, i'm volunteering but it has it's perks (fed and watered!). so that's taking up all today (early tomorrow morning methinks) and tomorrow I go to the Alabaster Theatre practice to take some photos of them. For some reason they think that having me take them will some how create amazing art...
In other news I am now the member of a fully formed unmaned party band. We practice on Tuesdays and I need to get drunk at them to get the creative juices flowin, we've got two songs at the mo, one about dancing and one about a pinky bar. It's good fun, i've been meaning to do something for a while and we were just like fuck it lets do it...
My other drama has been salient. I applied for music editor, cause I guess I think i'd do a bloody good job and all (you know pretty much the reason you do that underappreciated position). Anyway they tell me that I can't cause i'm also on VUWSA (their purse-strings) and it would be conflict of interest, ignoring the fact that arts editor isn't a political position to start with. So anyway I'll see what i'll do about it, if the editor says no, he says no, the whole editorial content free from outside influence thing means what he says goes, so sucksors. I was looking forward to it.
At the moment i'm doing the whole radio show game, we're just crusing myspace for songs it's surprising fun, with an equally surprising amount of nudity, can't beat that...

It's Been A Long Time Coming.

2005-10-15T16:29:00.000+13:00

Well i've finally figured out how to post shit on here (I've had a link that I went straight to for ages. I don't have the net, but slingshot should be coming through soon... Well here's hoping.

I've been elcted onto the VUWSA executive at vic uni. There are five positions up for grabs. I want activites, thats why I went up for the elections. I manage bands, promote gigs etc. etc. I know what goes on and I know how to do it. Yet one thing stands in my way. The woman (thats what they are now, not girls like at high school, feels weird, I'm getting all big and old now!) who came first get's her choice of the five positions. Obviously she's decided she wants activities, mainly cause she thinks it sounds like fun. Yes i'll admit there are soem great aspects to activities, yet it's definatley a hard job, full of lots of routine donkey work..
Hopefully this gets all sorted out and we can all live peacfully. Otherwise I guess i'll just end up pissed off for the rest of the year. Gotta get myself a sign saying "don't create excessive tension in this year's exec" so as not to enact a repeat of last year (thats assuming that there really was conflict and not plain uninteresting laziness on behalf of some members). Having got to know a few of them, while at the same time making damn sure to stay out of them (unlike some current members of the exec who have caught colds from those intimate relations and passed them on to the rest of the student politicians) I can safely say that I get on well with pretty much all of them.
Bunch of newbies that they are you gotta lay two things down

a) don't write letters to salient, you know how you laugh at the retards who write stupid eye-rolling letters? Well people consider you one of those munters as well, the less amoo you give them (letters are one form) the less they're opinions are confirmed.

b) don't try to fight salient atleast until the second half of the year. They enjoy fighting you as they have nothing else to do, as well as it being good training for their future job in journalism. Also remember that they have a forum for addressing student's. To get through to them you have to usually go through Salient...

Anyway now that i've finished this and found out how to post I can now reclaim my description of being a blog.

You Cunts Thought You'd Lost Me!

2005-09-07T15:46:00.000+12:00

I'm still alive and guess what! I'm running for the dirty old VUWSA (student association) exec, as activities officer in particular. If elected i'd get to organise Orientation and free gigs around town.
I have a marginally good chance of getting in, as there are only seven candidates running for five positions and one of them is running unopposed for treasurer. Nick Kelly (me and him are like socialist brothers, you know how me and my leech like knack for sucking onto power) was telling me about elections a few years ago with seventeen candidates, that only four people are campaigning and i'm the only one properly postering (I knew managing a band would come in handy) means I might well get in. In honour of that slight statistical probability i'm writing this at the VUWSA offices as we have no internet at my new flat.

Jumping to that topic, my new place is mint. $72.50 for wall to wall shelving, a room the same size as my other room, 5 minutes from uni, on the FLAT (big improvement over last dwellings) and not containing any obvious dickheads (once there are two of us thats when it's bad, i'm pretty harmless by myself). I could and would say i'm fucking stoked.

In other news, Alabaster Theatre are playing for FREE at upstairs Bodega this friday, yes mother fucking FREE! So all you lazy internet nerds (James, Jo, Lisa and that other guy who reads this page) better come down and support me, this stress filled campaign is really taking it out on me.

In short i'm not dead and am not offically a blogger (according to my media studies lecturer I need to post weekly or I don't count) OMG he didn't even know what LiveJournal was!)

It's Been A Long Time Baby.

2005-08-21T10:38:00.000+12:00

Fuck, what a week!
Ok we went up to Auckland on Sunday. I got picked up on Saturday, I'd been fighting with Heather and not told her of the exact timing, so I got up and pissed off, just as she was in bed wanting to talk. Go Joel! Fucking aye! So yeah bad moves there, but we've done the whole --Break up but still friends-- thing. But that didn't happen till I got back from Auckland. I didn't tell Heather where I was going, who I was staying with or give a number, not as a straight fuck-off but as a more "i'm only 19 this shit's getting a wee bit heavy", still bad move.

Having said all that, the trip up to Auckland was fun. We got up at 7, at Duncan's dad's place, finding out of David Lange's death. We piled into the car at maybe 8:30? and cruised off up the North Island. Making fun of town names and stupid slogans was theme of the trip "You're so excite-a-bull! Don't be so predict-a-bul!" so much fun! But the fun went up a level when we stopped in Taihape and brought up about 50 past-use-by-date beers, being imported Brazillian beer which had been kept in the chiller, meant it was some of the best beer i've had in yonks. So the rest of the trip is a bit of a blur, consisting of lots of pissing stops, suggestive shots on the tank at Waiurou and fuck-loads of bad jokes with accompanying raucous laughter.

Arriving in Auckland we relied upon the iffy memory of Bernie and Brad to find our way to our residence for the week. Having met Jed (MAINZ student, and old time Lester friend) we sorted out our temorary pad. Fitting four of us into one room was fun (Brad resided in the ill-named 'Porn room') and proved oderous after a while, possibly due to bad diet leading to BO? Who knows...

Anyway. The first day at the studio was really good. It took a while to set-up but that's to be expected, as you're not setting up drums everyday. The engineering students (Sam, Anthony, Ralph, Rachael, Jed and someone else I forget) started setting up the mics. They were good, the big sticking point being overdubs. Now for those out there who don't do the whole recording thing (why the hell would you?) i'll give a quick (edit. extra big and extended) low-down.

-The big debate centres around whether to record the band as a whole and or record them all seperately. Now if you recording as a band you save time, as recording the band playing a 5 minute song will take 25minutes individually (assuming they play it well and in time, which doesn't happen), which we will get to later on. The other big thing is that the band playing together has a spark which doesn't always get transferred when done individually. I've found that it sounds better when bass and drums atleast are recorded together. This of course relates to Rock n Roll and not orchestra recordings. Individually overdubbing tracks means you have more control. On the Alabaster Theatre tracks, the rest of the band is present on every track (The guitar can faintly be heard on the keys, drums everywhere etc.). Now if you're going to get a record of the band playing the song then that is fine, because a little bit of bass in the guitars is fine because it's the same bass recording. If your band isn't good\tight enough to get a good take, then it's much more important to individually record tracks, as re-doing the bass track over the drums can sound different if you have a majorly different bass track, so doing it seperately has its advantages.-

Anyway the engineers wanted to isolate the tracks. Which I saw as a bad idea as mentioned above:
a) Alabaster Theatre are good and tight enough to do the tracks together
b) It would take much longer
c) When you turn the amps up and chuck them in a corner, the ratio of wanted noise to leakage (other noise e.g. bass coming into the guitar mic) is so low, because you have the mic pointing at the amp and any extra sound must come through the amp to get in (Trust me, if done well it is neglible).

So anyway the previous EP was done by overdubbing and took months (not totally because of overdubbing, but it helped take ages) the result, didn't really sound good and was quite disapointing, as it didn't capture the really good songs that were recorded. So the band were totally against overdubbing to start with. Anyway we got the engineers to try recording the band and making sure the sources i.e. amps were as isolated as possible. How surprised were they when it sounded great AND there was little instrument bleed in other tracks. Hammering away at tracks for the rest of the day we got maybe 3-4 done which is pretty bloody good in the scheme of things (we were expecting maybe 1-2 songs per day). The basic songs (they weren't finished, needing bits an peices to make them 100%) sounded good and something that we could be happy with releasing to radio. Leaving at around 11:30am we were still pretty excited.

The next day we weren't in till 5pm (rather than normal 10:30-11am). So we walked around eating dunkin donuts (fucking aye! sooooo good!) and sushi, and not doing anything at all, rather just hanging out. Anyway getting back to recording, we jumped in and did another 3 tracks (thereby finishing our lowest expectations of 4 drum tracks and the higher one of 6 full songs). Which was amazing as in 1 1\2 days we did 6 tracks.

Debating what we were going to record was a big one. I was keen to get a particular song from the first EP recorded, but the band weren't keen. Apart from that I think everyone was very happy with the procedings, especially Brad and Bernie's finally sloting into the band musically.

Anyway blah de blah blah. We recorded heaps, from wednesday to thursday we did overdubs, adding extra nice bits to the songs among other things.

We had a gig at Edens Bar. Showing up at 7pm no one was there, so we waited up till one of the Chinese managers opened the place up. The first thing I noticed was that the mixing desk was behind the bands. BEHIND! I had no way to hear the mix coming out of the speakers (Not having a pair of headphones to use) and luckily we had another band (The Tuts) bring an amp and microphones, although the mics didn't show up till 9pm. So one song by each band and then Alabaster Theatre were on stage.
I think they did alright, they got an increasing loud support from the crowd. Keeping people there rather than going outside. I was told that it sounded alright, so yeah who knows... We got a bunch of people along who hadn't seen the band before.

The trip down wasn't anywhere near as eventful as the trip up. Lester and Bernie in particular were hungover and the cheap beer at Taihape was 2\3s of the way down the island. All in all we had some fun and got some tracks down which will be seen around these parts in the future!

Almost there

2005-08-09T16:29:00.000+12:00

I'm on the verge of getting a job at The Parlimentary Library. They already liked my CV, i've gone in and done their required tests and now i've been asked to come in and face an interveiw... I hope I get this job. Well what else can you do apart from go along and hope for the best?

Gee Whiz, I Just Ate A Couple A Kids

2005-08-05T21:32:00.000+12:00

Fuck! It's amazing how long it can be between posts. So a quick cap:

I was an Interpol roadie
-I ate roadie food, I drank roadie food and I looked disdainfully at those fucking students, arrogant pricks
-I got a free pass to the gig, I ended up going halves on a door sale with Heather (yes there were 30, pays to be a roadie sometimes so you can find that stuff out) as she wanted to see the Demi Whores.
-Interpol were good but they too-often decended into sameyness, I asked Heather about it and quite a few times we had to ask ourselves if we'd heard that song earlier... Having said that they played well, the leadsingers vocals rocked. I liked The Shins better.

I spent the week postering (somewhere between 700-1000) building up to Thursday at the Quad. The band were there from 8am (11:30 start) and were all set-up by about 10:30 (we weren't rushing ;). We had the PA turn up just after 11 and Cortina at 11:20. Netherless the band were on at 11:50 so as to disrupt the kids as little as poss.
Anyone familiar with the Quad will know its like a big plastic\concrete block. It has some bad echo to it, and for a band to sound passable is a nice complement, the band sounded passable. Cortina were very loose\out of time, but by the time they got to "2001 Ways To Love Me" they were on fire. The finished as a tutor came out with arms waving and ranting about the noise, he went first to the guy videoing the show (don't ask why I have no idea) then to the soundman (who didn't give a fuck and was not the man to talk to as he kept on telling the tutor) all the while passing me (the one to talk to) and having no idea. This on top of the 200 striking staff who came for 5 minutes and then fucked off (did they want some lunch?) was a real kick in the nuts. We were trying to raise awareness of their issues (low wages being a biggie) and they couldn't give us the respect of waiting 30 minutes (we would have been happy to let them speak while the bands were playing) instead they walked off to do their own thing. Thanks a lot, going along with thier previous displays of solidarity and good strategy I can safely say AUS , in Wellington atleast have shot themselves in the foot. Instead of getting us battling lazys on, they've managed to get a lot of the people who care (6 of the 10 people infact) rethinking their support.

I've found a flat. Containing atleast one member of The Anticapitalist Alliance, Stephen Hay (Who won 1200 votes in the mayoral elections, hows that for popularity, specially on a stance of nationalising EVERYTHING) It's a nice place, either $70 for the small room or $100 for the bigger one if Chris from Goldenaxe wants to come.

Heather and I have gone further down on our roller coaster of love and dispair. We haven't ahhhhh done "It" in a while (measured in many weeks going on months) I don't do it, theres just nothing there aparently. That does lots for the old self confidence, the only thing keeping it up is that in Christchurch (by the way did I say I went down for my nana's funeral?) on the bus to the airport. I'm looking all too cool for Christchurch (too easy, even I can pull it off) and this girl's all like staring at me, trying to not making it obvious, but being totally obvious (come on, we've all been guilty) and compounding it by taking a pxt photo of my indie posuerness to ohhhh and ahhhh over with her friends the next day. Either that or she wanted a picture of the metal rail slightly above my head. My ego allows only one of those options.
So anyway it's just getting into a nightmare, just really cold and miserable. Were we too young to get into this? Am I really as cuntish as she says I am? Was it only because I didn't have any money to do stuff with her? On that note I applied to the parlimentary library for a position and I went in today for a typing and shelving test, here's to a job this time next week!

2005-07-30T22:28:00.000+12:00

Anyway try this again, come to the gig fun!

2005-07-24T11:45:00.000+12:00

My nanna died in her sleep last night, funeral on wednesday.

2005-07-24T11:37:00.000+12:00

"Forget about moving into the next flat, i'm never living with you again."

It feels like a cricket live commentary you can read on the net, refreshed every couple of minutes.

Why does my clock on blogger say 4:37pm July 23rd? When it is 1139am July 24th?

2005-07-24T11:19:00.000+12:00

"You're just fucking lazy"
"You're just talking fucking bullshit"

Well i'm on the verge of going and living with my parents and then getting another flat (Chris\Goldenaxe is as well) as it's just getting too tense now. Heather just doesn't seem to be happy when i'm around, it's got to a point when yesterday I stayed away from the house as long as possible so as not to come back to fighting. So the dishes got left out, i'd half done them and had to go to the radio show, and i'm off to finish them now, but it's just, I still really do care, still love her to bits, but we're drifting away with little in common now. She doesn't like going to gigs and general crowd things, so recently i've stayed away from them as well, my recording she doesn't get, after making $75 for doing the Alabaster Theatre gig (a moderate success) she asked why I was buying mic cables, maybe cause I have 4 mics and only 2 cables? I wonder if she knows that I want to buy 10 10m lengths and 10 5m lengths.
On another tack, i'm recording my band Alabaster Theatre, it'll be some quick fire live takes maybe onto cassette release (how many cars out there still have tape decks? Heaps!) and probably CDR's as it's going into my computer\pro tools anyway. Post a comment if you want one. (small cost of $3, as i'm living on $150 a week).

2005-07-20T15:21:00.000+12:00

Come along to this gig, should be a blast, early 11pm finish...

Events Events! Time To Vent!

2005-07-20T15:16:00.000+12:00

My nana is in hospital at the mo, she has pneumonia. While draining out the fluid in her lungs, doctors ran some tests and they found cancerous thingymajigies in the fluid, meaning they've traveled from wherever they came from orginally and now inhabit most of her body. This means she will die, the cancer is inoperable, all the doctors can do is try get rid of this pneumonia as soon as possible, so she dies in as little pain as possible.

The weird thing is, i'm not that close with her. She's been the mean one compared with my nice granny (mean is my mums, nice is my dads). Ever since my parents broke up (when I was four) i've had little contact with my mum's side, as my dad had custody of us.
This meant that while we saw heaps of my dad's family we hardly saw my mum's side. This further seperated us, with few visits and those visits always being fucking tense, as both my nana and my dad hated the sight of each other.
So this situation is weird, i'm sad but not that sad, more because I know how hard my mum and uncles will be taking it. Thats what hits hardest. She has two months left, i'll fly down there in the near future to say hello and have a chance to say goodbye to my nana.

ANYWAY on to other things. The gig's on tomorrow night, starting at about 9:30 and going to 11:00. I'm doing live sound, which should be vaguley scary and yet i'm very excited about it. if you bring 5 people or more it'll be $2 per person...

Jessies party was fun, a few folk I know and a few I didn't, it was nice to meet Ms. Ratpony, although I knew too much about her for two people who'd just met for the first time in the real world.

Fun Fun Fun

2005-07-04T18:16:00.000+12:00

Well it's that time of the month again (no not getting drunk and bursting into tears in the shower as my girlfriend rinses the vomit out of my hair) it's university!
Now looking at blackboard (sort of like an online bulletin board for uni students) I saw that only two of my courses were listed up there, "Fuck!" I said to myself, so I went to uni extra early (three hours in fact, that shit always has delays) to sort it out. Turns out I shouldn't trust what blackboard says, as says one of the gnomes busy being worked off their feet with stupid questions, thrust at them by bums on seats like moi.

Speaking of bums on seats, my results are in. Rather than taking a bite from one grade pie, im trying a number of them including the A- pie, the B- pie and the C+ pie. Rahter than like just being boring and staying with one part of the grade pyramid, i'm like all promiscuous and shit, thats my contribution to upkeeping the hippie ideals of the 60's going, free love man! But in all seriousness, i'm more happy with the fact that I got an A- and a C+ than if I got three B's, as it says "hey if I can be bothered I can actually do half decently!" so as with British press puppet master Alister Chambell, I'm happier getting a C+ than I would have been getting a B, it shows that I have more capability to succed...

What else has been happening? Well i'm still trying to get this Alabaster Theatre gig (on the 21st of July at Bodega) up and running, the problem is the paucity of bands around. Cortina, Hot Swiss, The Raskolnikovs, Charlie Ash, So So Modern, The Dukes of Lesiure, are the band's i've approached and for various reasons they can't play that night. James says just do the empty thursday and deal with it, i'm thinking thats what will happen, only we'll push it hard so people atleast become aware of the name! I really like them, as they're a good band, who are getting better and better with every gig, one thing that helps is they really are into what they do and you can see it when Lester sings his heart out and the feeling coming from the vibe, I started with them thinking they were ok, I was more interested in Bernie being in the band. But they have a bloody good drummer (Brad) who although possessing a 23 peice kit, knows how to use it and is as comfortable on snare, kick and hi-hats, plus Bernie's pretty good on the keys with Lester and Duncan being not too shabby on guitar and bass respectively. Anyway enough of that rant, look out for them, as they're one of the few good bands in Wellington with some sort of potential.

If anyone knows a (good) band who would be keen to play at bodega on the 21st then get them to email me at everything_and_nothing_at_all (at) yahoo (dot) co (dot) nz

What To Do, When Words Are So Hard To Say

2005-06-20T22:08:00.000+12:00

Fuck it's been a busy time for me at the mo. I'm trying to get together this tour thing down south with Cortina, Disasteradio and Goodbye Galaxy. Cortina still need to be fully convinced, but I think i'm getting through with them. Their recording is going along smashingly, it's looking more and more a finished product, with some fucking great songs on there (Slopes of love is my fav at the mo, amazing song). I've had some input, mainly with the sound of the recording, coming up with ideas and shit with Dickos, recording wise. All I can say really is it is sounding amazing, it sounds really well done, not just the playing but the sound (A biggie for me).

Heather has been away now for a week, everytime i've called (I don't think she's rung but I could be wrong) we've ended up in a fight, first off about a mix up with heather's mum's records, I thought Heather wanted a record (Patti Smith - Horses) recorded onto computer and that she'd cleared it with her mum, I grabbed I think it was rumours by Fleetwood Mac and some shitty Rolling Stones album. Anyway Heather's mum found me at this and was like WTF!? and so I was just wanting to get out of it and told her not to tell Heather, I can't remember why but I did. Anyway I ring Heather when she's in Blenheim and she just goes at me over that (I couldn't even remember it properly on the spot to start with) fully, unrelenting, really digging at me over it and i'm just absolutley shell-shocked, it was so direct and interogatory over such a small matter. I couldn't say shit after that. Just today, I rang her, having not spoken for a couple of days I was really keen, I went through my weekend, from seeing the murder investigation down at Princess Bay (Bodybags and all) at the Cortina recordings, to going through to Joanna's with a crate of beer and finding her fucked by some nasty mossie bites (she mentioned grangrene and absesses...). We started talking about this tour, now I'm keen to play Blenheim and Queen Charlotte College in Picton (My mum's old hunting ground). But heather was saying stuff about us having to do postering and not getting anyone and losing money etc. So I said we should get the local trust who would be providing the venue to do 100 posters for us, she started saying how they were doing us a favour, and as we'd charge gold coin, bring our own PA with me on sound at no cost. With no demands or anything. And she started saying we arn't rockstars. WTF! It hurt, she made me feel like I was being an outrageous tour promoter, maybe I was and needed it to be told. But again she really hammered into me, really hell and fury, leaving me feeling numb and shell-shocked again. Hurt. I enjoy talking with Heather about shit, she's so sharp and inciteful on stuff, from posters to putting on gigs, to proofreading my writing. Just this was too much, and left me feeling unable to say anything, I think something has to be said...

It's 1am and I'm not tired, I work best at night (anyone else feel the same) and Heather can't sleep without me round, so invariably I get to bed round 10pm or 9. I've been feeling recently that some space would be great, not breaking up, but just having some space. I've been writing shit for a while now, poems and shit, getting more comfortable with my voice, and sometimes Heather can just be real cutting, i'm a dreamer and she's more real than me. I know everyone else has this shit, but WTF, this is MY blog so all those people out there reading this (Jessie, Jo and Noizy so far as I know) can deal with it!

On more recording fronts, Hot Swiss need to do something NOW! Wanna know why? Cause Ben the drummer is going to France for 3 months. Dickos and I are going to keep an eye on it and get something respectable out, keep you posted on events as they unfold.

My radio show is coming along, Bernie and I are getting better together and should really get more folk on air. Look for Disasteradio sooner than later. Maybe Noizy will get back to me on podcasting the show... Crazier shit has happened

Bright Star, Flying Far, Far Away To A Larger Sky

2005-06-12T20:08:00.000+12:00

Cya Jessie, I don't write posts directed at people often (ignoring my livejournal that is). I met you last year, when I was desperately looking for a band to fill in a recording slot (Hot Swiss are such a link for you aren't they?) and you got em in. Spending more and more time I guess i'd call you a friend, I hope you share that opinion of me as well. Your one of the most interesting people I know, shit how many lawyers you know manage a band on the sly?
Barring that, you were one of the best people to hang around with. You're always a goodtime (To anyone else reading this there are NO sexual connotations at all) and I always enjoyed chatting with you at gigs or where ever. Fucking good luck where ever you end up, I look forward to seeing you here, or overseas if we bump into each other. There are a lot of people going to miss you here, remember that and give us the privilage of the occasional hello and meet up if you manage to come back.
Enjoy yourself, and I hope you make the same impact where ever you go, that you made here...

Lazy Lazy People Loitering Around, Often Called Students...

2005-05-26T14:40:00.000+12:00

If you're bored, ring up Munt FM on STUDIO PH: 8020299

Just make the DJ's life fun, they never hear human voices, they'd love to play some Slayer for you!

The Sargent Says He's Just Back Here So Come With Me, Somewhere Randalls Gaily Singning And Set Free...

2005-05-26T10:35:00.000+12:00

FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK

Just wiped like couple thousand words
The PAIN!, FRUSTRATION!, ARGHHHH!

How annoying

ok then quick sum up!

Chris Knox, best gig of my life
Missing amp, picked up by the owner, he didn't tell me and thought he'd mess with me, VUWSA forgot to pick it up
Cortina, I went around on the weekend, their album sounded great when I came, with some suggestions here and a big fuck off microphone, they were sounding even better

Tonight - Alabaster Theatre at Katipo Cafe on Willis St (Just next to Metro New World) Gold coin, starting at 8pm on the dot.

2005-05-26T10:32:00.000+12:00

Heres the original one, Glove Power... What a night that was!

2005-05-26T10:29:00.000+12:00

These are the two gig posters I've done so far...

FUCK

2005-05-23T09:52:00.000+12:00

Hi Nincomjoel*

If I haven't had my amp delivered back to Guitar Gallery by 5pm today,
I
am calling the Police.

Regards,


*Name changed for non-legal reasons

2005-05-18T20:17:00.000+12:00

Me and Chris Knox, we walked down Lampton Quay, looking all riff raffish, trying to find the other student raggamuffins. They'd gone down The Terrace...

In Which We Thank The Host And Call It The Greatest Event Since The Last One

2005-05-15T17:00:00.000+12:00

Orlando Bloom has just been wanking on about Kingdom of Heaven being the most important time of his life, fucking hell, every movie is now days. You don't have to gush about everything you partake in, it just starts ending up seeming false and plain rude. I beleived the shit around lord of the rings, as making a trilogy at once over like 7 years is pretty crazy and amazing. Enough with the immodesty.

//The main problem with the film is its star, Orlando Bloom. The baby-faced star of “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “The Lord of the Rings” has become one of the hot things in Hollywood, and all the girlies scream when they see him. I will give him credit – he tried very hard to be believable as Balian, a blacksmith who becomes a powerful leader and defender of Jerusalem – but he just doesn’t have the facial power or natural charisma to pull it off. Clive Owen would have been a great choice for this role, or even Russell Crowe, though that might have been too similar to his role in Scott’s “Gladiator.”//

A Long Time Apart Aye? Was It Fun?

2005-05-15T14:03:00.000+12:00

A great radio show yesterday with ol Bernie, It was a ball, DJ on radio is a weird beast as sometimes you can play some really good songs but not leave happy\satisfied with the set. Yesterday was great, had so much fun, it gelled. I really dug some of the more gritty country (well gritty to me at least) shit Johnny Cash had a fouler mouth than many of the rappers out there, there'll be more from that man in the future for sure. Be good to get the show podcast soon (hears hoping) as a record of it beyond the immediate playing would rock.
Last Saturday I went to Jo's place for a dinner, ON A TABLE! It might not seem like much but I can count the number of times in the last year and a half when i've eaten on a table, let alone the fact that the food she prepared was fucking ace! Great mashed potato, a gorgeous (was it spinach?) thick delisheous soup, a tasty meat stew (yeah that vegetarianism is standing up strong, be good to remember it next time...) and some wierd chocolate log thing with fejoa and orange on the side. The best meal i've had since I was at my grannies over new years.
I got a B+ for my speech to my tute and an A for an essay I did recently. So yes I can make it at uni at the mo, it just took me too long to adjust.
An article I wrote as an assignment peice at IAT was published in Lucid (after some heavy editing by the editor). I wasn't overly happy with it, it was badly written and just plain awkward, I feel that my writing is coming along better with each peice. Just trying to figure out how to improve it is fucking important for me at the mo, as this is the time when no one cares, that I can actually make my writing decent. It's something i'm thinking about when ever I read nowdays.
My article on IAT is coming along, I need it finished tomorrow to chuck up to the Ed. It's had a tourtured gestation, taking about 4 months to develop. Hopefully its not a peice of badly written shit, as there's any important message behind it. Labour just have to make it so hard to vote for them don't they? I mean they are the best option out of a lot of losers. I'd prefer them to National or who ever else would jump in at a shift to the right, which could well happen if the "left" supporters of Labour chuck their votes lefter. Ohhh well, thats how it goes.
On other matters, Phoenix Foundation's album came out on the 16th, i'm a poor fuck so i'm looking for my reveiw copy. This is probably the album i'm most looking forward to, Shihad's album is just disapointing, good moments but an average album. I guess on a personal level Hot Swiss Mistress are the top of my list at the moment, Cortina as well as Disasteradio & why is it that my favourite Pluto song is Moscow Snow? I was disapointed with their new album, just lacking those beautiful subtleties of their earlier work, i'm sure i'll change my mind but hey! This is NOW.

Down With The Patriarchy! Up With The Nincomarchy!

2005-05-03T16:51:00.000+12:00

Theorizing Patriarchy
Women's Studies - Essential Readings
Gender & The Politics Of History
Re-Orientating Western Feminism

It can only mean one thing! I need aome authority for my uni paper coming up! Having said that, I better actually do it!

The Day Goes On Whether You Want It To Or Not...

2005-05-02T16:27:00.000+12:00

Booked a gig at The Katipo Cafe for May 26th, we should get a big goth prescense as Alabaster Theatre are playing, and they move in the "Underground Bodega Goth Circle". Or so i'm told. I'd like to get HSM playing, so good luck to that!
Bumped into Mark Blumsky on the street, for those who don't know he is challenging Marian Hobbs for the Wellington Central electorate, my main issue is with a universal student allowance, when asked about it, he didn't really say much apart from that he supports taking away means testing (isn't that the USA with a different name?). So nothing too concrete.
The thing is, I like him more than Marian Hobbs. She's quite aloof, whereas Blumsky seems to be a much more people person, more gregarious. Should be an interesting battle.
At the mo due to lack of anything else, it'll be a vote for Labour and then Blumsky (Won't see me wearing that suit!). I'd like to get the two together and get a good debate going, see what their opinions are.
Meeting up at Vic to discuss fees and shit, sounds dangerous and i'm never far from danger!

Values Count For Nothing On A Desert Island

2005-04-29T20:51:00.000+12:00

I had my first Burger King burger today in maybe 3 years? It was shit, i'm not having another in a long time...
But I was so hungry, that was all the food I had for today and theres not much else available, barring pasta with stock flavouring on top. I brought a $25 record (Nelsh Bailter Space, for those who are interested) and had about $20 for food this week, Heather was going out with Lucy (newest flatmate) and an old friend of hers for dinner. I'd been feeling lonely and miserable (mainly at myself for fucking up the relationship between myself and Heather) so I tagged along, they jokingly mocked me for not being invited, which didn't help things much. Once we got there, we were all looking at the food, pizza's cost $13 and i'd already spent $8 on pens for school (I didn't have any) and Heather has been annoyed at me recently because of my lack of money I have partly stopped doing things with her, as almost anything costs money and I don't have any! So when ever the situation has arised I try and pay for stuff, as a sign that I am trying to do the right thing, but this has left me with like $7 for food this week... And I have to ask Heather for it as thats what she owes me.

I got denied for Straightjacket Fits. Fucking Lucid, they told me I was on the door, but I wasn't, I'd drunken the equivilent of 7-9 beers (my bushmans beer is no beer can its a 7-800 ml bottle thanyouverymuch!) so I was mildly drunken, happily tippysy, so not taking my frustration out on the door girl, I wandered off into the night cursing Lucid, here there and everywhere.

Enough bitching, I need a house to stay at for a week or so...
No offers?

MuntFM 88.5, Myself and Bernie are doing a probably regular 3-hour set on saturdays 2pm-5pm, it's broadcast on the web so have a listen if you want (should be a gas!) i'll pop up a playlist like I used to do on my LJ.

Don't The Hardliners Just Get So boring? They Climb On The Merry-Go-Round And Don't Get Off

2005-04-26T18:59:00.001+12:00

I actively dislike, no I hate the government making me borrow to live. I'm distracted enough as it is without 15 hours a week working. This sounds like a load of shit, but when I work I shut down, at least at the jobs I have available. I've had a great year thinking and pondering shit, after the mind numb that is fulltime New World employment, I'm getting a show on Munt FM soon (Bernie better fucking get back to me soon) could even be this weekend, things like that, I'm taking on the recording of Hot Swiss Mistress' (that's a hard one to grammarise!) album, and I'm helping out tech wise with Cortina, because they deserve all the help they can get those Kiwi Battlers! Add to this I'm getting a bigger role in Lucid magazine & all this really works alongside my studies.
I've been reading an excellent summery of the NZ National Front which while being an entertaining read, reiterated to me why people get so sick of politics, it's constantly going around in circles, there's hardly anything new that comes up. No one I think of actually supports the principle, it just always comes back to some beaureaucratic answer which befundles anyone trying to understand.

Note: Part time positions are for more than 20 hours a week. Yay! So even Metro New World don't want me, I just want to work 10 hours somewhere... I have no issues paying my fees for uni, it goes with the territory. I just keep thinking over in my head how on the dole I was earning $200ish instead of the crappy $150 a week in DEBT I am incurring at the moment. I know most people would say "what's the difference?" well at the moment

Rent + Power = 100 p\w. That leaves $50 for everything. Clothes, gigs, food, doctor (yeah right!), everything. An extra $50 like when I was on the dole would leave me comfortable, I could even SAVE money, how rad is that?

But this bent gets me feeling miserable, it's soul destroying, simple as that. The real world sucks sometimes. Breaking up with Heather is weird, we still sleep in the same bed, I still love her, but the cycle we've gone through of being really good and then steadily degrading into anger and non-communication, really sucks, I need to start looking around for flats. Heather has changed her mind, I don't think she wants to break up, but this is like the 3rd time in the last two months this has happened and I'm feeling better mentally having the certainty, relationships can turn into a crazy rollercoaster sometimes... It'd be better for both of us if I left...

Don't You Hate Being Flawed?

2005-04-25T17:49:00.000+12:00

It sucks.

Anyone need a flatmate?

Times Change And They Wander On

2005-04-23T18:43:00.000+12:00

Heather wants to find a seperate flat, it comes back to me in the end, every so often when faced with a difficult situation (especially with Heather) i'll tell a white lie to ease myself out of it with as little confrontation as possible, it's gotten so bad that i've recently had to mentally tell myself not to do it. Yet theres a dirty trail heading right back to when we first started going out.
Heather realised another one today (i've been trying hard and I think successfully to stop, it sucks!) and that was it. We're both looking for a new flat seperatly now. That means, Lucy, who just moved in is going to move out too.
It kind of sucked, this relationship seemed like it could go on forever, but recently we've just been drifting. We've both changed so much since we first started going out. So it's not a surprise. Sucks but you have to deal with it I guess.

A Long Time Away And Yet Nothing Has Changed

2005-04-19T15:51:00.000+12:00

Listening to Ashes to Ashes by David Bowie (Thats alot of capital letters ain't it?) and i'm pondering university. I want to be there, I enjoy the social aspect to it, I could enjoy being a lecturer\academic, which is something i've felt for a while now. The problem is my C marks i've gotten recently, in all 3 of my papers i've got C's. At college, I didn't give a fuck about it, as I wasn't enjoying it, there was no point to it and I knew I could slide on through.
Fast-forward to Uni now. I've got nothing stopping me, no one is forcing me to do anything, yet i'm still plauged by these poor marks. As mentioned before, I have in the past, taken comfort from my belief in my higher intelligence than those around me. I don't want to slide on through, i've set myself standards. Part of intelligence is the underlying ability to absorb ideas. I seem to do that rather well. But I think the problem here is that I haven't prepared myself at all, laziness. If I structure my assesment and give myself time to explain my thinking in these assesments then hopefully I can acheive at a higher level than before.

I think I might become a vegetarian for a while, try the other side. I know a fare few people in varying stages of vegetarianism (Isn't it cooky how you can be kinda vege, or mostly vege yet you ominvore is an omnivore, there isn't nearly as much scope for being different types of meat eater) and I thought i'd give it ago.
I don't like the way that modern meat is processed (The Skeptics video for AFFCO anyone?) it's impersonal and lifeless. I have no problems with killing animals, fuck it's nature, but say the cold efficiency of the meatworks is something that bugs me. Having spat out that garbled rant, most other parts of our modern lives also come back to this, i've just chosen to concentrate on this aspect.

Bernie's party coming up, should find out more about that one, he's in a fuckload more bands now, having going Alabaster Theatre, so the possibility of him starting a band with moi and Gina is looking vauger as the days go by. Jo has invited me to a formal dinner mathingy, sounds like a ball. Suits and all!

Today

2005-04-02T19:21:00.000+12:00

Heahter and I haven't talked for 5 days now, what do I do?

Today

2005-04-02T19:15:00.000+12:00

Heather hasn't talked to me for five days, we've slept in the same bed, she just brushes me off, she doesn't want to split but i'm feeling very stink

The Good Times Are Killing Me...

2005-04-01T15:25:00.000+12:00

I haven't talked with to Heather for two days, yet we live in the same room together.

2005-03-26T21:22:00.000+12:00

//"If the president of the United States really cared about the issue of the removal of feeding tubes, then why did he sign a bill as governor in Texas that allows hospitals to save money by removing feeding tubes over a family's objection?" asked Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) during the House debate.

White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said Monday that the Democrats had made "uninformed accusations" and that the president was consistent in signing both the Schiavo legislation and the 1999 legislation in Texas.

"The legislation that he signed into law actually provided new protections for patients…. Prior to the passage of the '99 legislation that he signed, there were no protections," McClellan said.//

[more at latimes.com]

Good god, can these men hear what they are saying! Sorry for this bluster but fuck! If ever there was a case for doublespeak, then here it is!
On another note, I pissed off my flatmates by roasting some chilli's for dinner, the fumes have permeated the lounge and kitchen, making everyone who walks through, cough and splutter, as the arid fumes are just too much for any normal man to endure...

Who Will I Be When I Am Me No More?

2005-03-26T18:17:00.000+12:00

After some heavy listening to some music of mine which I hold dear, plus reading the latest copy of Staple, featuring an article on Die! Die! Die!, i've come to some conclusions...
All through my life (well since I "found" Shihad) I always thought my musical expression would be heavily influenced by the band. They were like gods to me, as they are and have been to a whole generation of Kiwi musos and fans. Yet everything I have done that I deem worthwhile for others to hear (surprisingly little ;) of my total output) is heavily influenced by the bands that influenced Shihad. The Skeptics, Headless Chickens, Bailterspace\The Gordens with my other influences being The Birthday Party, The Clean, Straitjacket Fits, JPSE, Tall Dwarfs.
The Staple article talked about how D!D!D! wear the same influences (The Skeptics, Headless Chickens, Bailterspace\The Gordens in case you forgot) on their sleeves as Shihad, yet Andrew (lead singer) was very antagonistic towards Tom (Who is the major media mouthpeice for the band) and Shihad in general (opening for Shihad while in Carrige H, while the doors remained locked, with the crowd outside?). This went on until for various reasons they came to realize that they shared a lot of common influences. It's funny how Andrew came to Shihad from their influences and yet I come from the opposite direction, following up on Shihad's influences.
My idea for this band that i'm slowly forming is one of a big guitar based band with a swag of electronic backing tracks, early Headless Chickens is a biggie for this, nothing flashy, just a fucking solid backing, with guitars, keys and vox over the top. What's really getting to me is the big guitar parts of JPSE and Bailterspace, that is big solid chunky guitars. I know there is a similarity with The Fanatics. My main beef with them is their live performance, studio bands are fine, but the band DOES try to play live and the guitar and vox don't cut it. Disasteradio has a fuckload of songs up his arse which he can't play live, as he doesn't have the technology, but it's the creating of those sounds in all it's synth glory which is part of the fun of it. This is all my own opinion, but if Dave could actually re-create some of the song's live then I think there'd be more to thicken out the bands sound. Thats where the simple (doesn't always have to be) drum beat comes in, something to build on live, the beat. I hope that this band goes forth, because Bernie is quite a talented fellow, Gina i'm not so sure about, I know she has talent, she's pretty good at what ever she puts her mind at, she's just shy and modest when it comes to music. There are some interesting possibilities at work here.

ON another note entirely, Fiday the 1st (next week) is the first gig that I am putting on. Very long story (which will probably come out next week) but i'm going to sing a few songs for Glove Power probably Gates of Steel by Devo and Gaskrankinstation (yet to be confirmed). It should be a BALL!

p.s. I've uploaded the poster as well, ain't the ASCII porn beautiful?
p.s.s. read all the links, they're fucking interesting, not boring official website shite

Science: Lab-Made Fireball May Be a Black Hole

2005-03-25T21:14:00.000+12:00

Ok. So some boffins in the USA have created a fireball they think might be a "black hole", aparently...

//even if the ball of plasma is a black hole, it is not thought to pose a threat. At these energies and distances, gravity is not the dominant force in a black hole.//

Sorry but all the science fiction i've been subjected to, has left me with the distinct lack of trust with all thigns concerning black holes. In my desire to rark up my (irrational) fear of black holes, I looked them up on google. I found some results here:

//To see why this happens, imagine throwing a tennis ball into the air. The harder you throw the tennis ball, the faster it is travelling when it leaves your hand and the higher the ball will go before turning back. If you throw it hard enough it will never return, the gravitational attraction will not be able to pull it back down. The velocity the ball must have to escape is known as the escape velocity and for the earth is about 7 miles a second.

As a body is crushed into a smaller and smaller volume, the gravitational attraction increases, and hence the escape velocity gets bigger. Things have to be thrown harder and harder to escape. Eventually a point is reached when even light, which travels at 186 thousand miles a second, is not travelling fast enough to escape. At this point, nothing can get out as nothing can travel faster than light. This is a black hole.//

SHIT, this is reminicent of the bloody Terminator series! Now i'm scared...

So You Throw A Tanty And No One Notices

2005-03-21T09:09:00.000+12:00

Well what to say?

In Memorial
This plaque commemorates an Oak tree
That graced this site for forty years
It was felled by the bureaucracy in December 1990
To make space for one more car

A tiny plaque hidden away at the bottom car park at Vic, pretty sad really, describes how I feel already about the management at Vic...
One thing can interests and rarks me up at the same time, is the take up of religion among teenagers and 20somethings at them mo, there is an increase in numbers of people going back to church. Destiny and other more po-active churches seem to have brought people back to church, maybe because of a desire to have something to fill their lives?

Uni is boringly chugging along, so many people just mucking around, spending two hour lectures texting etc...
I've been thinking alot about my eliteist leanings, as deep down, I see myself as being better than the "common folk", the thing is I know i'm intelligent, but am I? I've never really pushed myself at all, so how do I judge myself? and if I do, how can I really think that, is it just that I want to feel individual? Is that why I do what I do?

Thoughts Thoughts Thoughts...

2005-03-09T08:58:00.000+13:00

//All these principles will take effect immediatly and at the time of this actual post. This war will go on until the preps are eradicated - We iz up against an enemy more evil than Hitler, Stalin, Saddam, George W. Bush and Skeletor combined. And can I Ask - "Is the Sales assistant at glassons, Sussan, Cue, Jay-Jays, Jaqui E, Just Jeans, Hannahs, and Shoe Connection who sells Provocative Premiscuios Clothing, Footware or Bracelets any better than a person who molests a young girl, Sells 'P' to an 8 year old schoolboy or napalms innocent Iraqis?" Absolutely not. and The Government - Why arent they putting a stop to this evil. NO DISTINCTION is made between those who are preps and Support and Harbour Preps. They are all Criminals. Here are some shocking examples of Evil - They have corrupted our children, fouled our morals and are criminals beyonf imagination.//

Ahhh the beauty of a borderline made up person, Lucifer Sam (or Chris to those who know him well) rants and raves about preps and other such evils

http://www.geocities.com/nzweedman/
for more!

Sometimes The Specter Of Death Shows Up Quite Unannounced At My doorstep

2005-03-07T15:00:00.000+13:00

I was planning to write a post here for a while, but you know how it is. When life isn't really worth documenting, there is nothing wrong or bad happening, it's just that there isn't anything worth wasting mine or anyone else's time by documenting the day to day rigmarole that is an impovished students life.
Jonah is a close friend of mine, I first met him when he was flatting in the granny flat of the "Echo House" next to my parents house in Newtown. He was\is a committed vegan, and quite possibly the best dumpster diver and general jack of all trades that I have ever met, constructing a whole manner of creations, ranging from a very sturdy bunk bed, so as to make use the small space of the granny flat more efficiently, to a trailer made out of a shopping trolley, for his bike. To put it simply he was a person I had had little contact with up till then, someone who wasn't relatively well off, who lived on the dole and didn't really fit in with the corporate life that I at the time was pretty keen in joining. He also had a mint record collection.
Without getting all soppy, I would say he along with my girlfriend Heather, is one of the most important people in my life so far. During my teenage years (well I'm not out of them yet, but I count my self in a different phase now) at college, he provided a very different lifestyle to the one pressed on us at school. I'm not much of a recycler at the mo, but compared to what I was, I'd say there is a big jump to where I am now. Due to his influence on me.
We'd talk about stuff, as you do, things that got him passionate, like his vegan diet, how he made his food and of course tips for dumpster diving. I really looked up to him, he has a lot in him which I admire. I'd credit Jonah with a no small part in my decision to pursue a degree in Media Studies and English Literature, rather than a BCA in Economics and Accounting.
Cause of the friendship I have with Jonah, as soon as I had recording gear organised, I invited him over to record. He brought a whole lot of gear he'd found, to complement the gear I'd scrounged, borrowed and brought on trademe. We actually have a sizeable amount of gear. Two , two track tape machines, about 6-8 mics and a small stack of weird EQ's and preamps.
We had the room set up, almost ready to record, when Jonah said he had to pop down to his house (5 mins away) on his bike to pick up some stuff. He never came back.
At the corner of Maarama Cres and Ohiro Rd. (a fucking horrible corner if there ever was one, and one I've been surprised at so far, due to the surprising lack of crashes there). His bike plowed into a car, apparently he crumpled the driver's door, that's how hard he smashed into it. From what I can make out there was a loud commotion, with ambulance and police car and lots of worried people. Jonah rang my parents from the Hospital, to tell them he was in a crash and that's why he never showed up back at my place.
I was told that he was only in for observation, I don't know if he was saying that to not worry anyone (he apologized for ruining the recording session! Like I cared about that! Bloody modest bastard) or if there was a kink in the Chinese whispers that is anything that comes down the line from my brother.
By yesterday night he was still not home and no one at his flat quite knew what was up, so I rang up the hospital and found out that he was still in one of the wards there.
I walked over to the Hospital at 8:30 this morning to see him, upon arriving I was told that Jonah was in the Neuroscience and the-something-other-serious-sounding-ward. Now I was mildly worried and scared for his health and well being, images of a brain-damaged vegetable sprang all to easily to my mind, these images were not allayed by the lack of information regard his condition, as he was in surgery, for what the receptionist could not tell me, with injuries I was not allowed to be privy to and could on guess at in extent.
I waited in the ward waiting room from 8:30ish till 2pm before I found him, as he came out of 5 hours (or is it 6?) of surgery. His collarbone was broken, his shoulder smashed, the doctors had put a plate on his broken ankle and his left arm was badly hurt.
It was only when I talked to him, that I found out the exact details of the crash and other details, unable to be conveyed for various reasons. I stayed with him for 15-20 minutes, as he was still "pretty fucked" (in his words) from the anesthetic and morphine. Leaving him I thought how close he came to dying and I cried my own personal tears, in a bleak stark corridor in a hospital full of people with their own problems and issues much more serious than mine. It's hard when you're confronted with the sight of a friend who you know for their energy and vitality, pacified and confused by drugs and what ever else happens along with the drugs, lying in bed, prone and stiff.
For me, it was a very rude shock, you never, especially at my tender age, think of people dying or getting seriously hurt. If you do it's of old people who have lived a long life, who's bodies slowly shut down in the way the body does at the end of it's cycle. I have been spared any heavy emotional episodes in my life so far. The grandfather I knew and loved died when I was 6, so I didn't really appreciate it. The grandfather I didn't know, died when i was 14 or 15, I had never had much contact with him and so it really didn't resonate with me. My mum has had seizures every so often, once spending a week in hospital, I can't even remember why now. But this is the closest I've come to the potential for life threatening accidents or even death and it scared me.
When I've told people that this has happened, the first question is usually "Is he Alive\Dead?".

I'm glad he's alive.

When Jon Finds Himself amongst The Skanks And Preps Oncemore...

2005-02-24T17:20:00.000+13:00

Ok, now to get you into the right mindspace I'll post some of the inane comments floating around amongst the munters at Vic.

"I'm doing cabbage subjects! (said very proudly of course)"
"Are there any sports bars at Vic? Cause I like sports and I like Bars!"
"It's sooo good! I start class at One and finish at Four, that means I can check out chicks!"

That is some of the academic excellence that I have chosen to mingle with, along with the gangsters at the back of my media studies class glaring down at the rest of us, rather threateningly I might add!
At my first class (media studies 103, a study of popular culture) I sat next to a guy with earphones in his ears and a glazed look in his eyes. Funnily this happened more often than I expected, I actually saw quite a few people asleep.
English Literature: Past Masters, is mostly populated by women, so my being there was weird enough, the fact that a late 30's early 40's guy with a handle bar and a crew cut, who I decided would be called Gus, showed up was FUCKING weird, but you take that shit in your stride. Blah Blah Blah is how I'd paraphrase my first two days, as the boring old issues were re-gurgitated one class after the other.
Luckily I'm enjoying my classes, pretty much it's as if I were in 7th form English, which funnily enough was my favourite subject, which is funnily enough why I choose these subjects, funny that! I must be seem so awkward at the mo, as more often than not I'm seated next to women, being in a long-term relationship I'm not in tooo much contact with em, but I'll tell you, going to each new class and talking to the new person next to you really builds up the small-talk I'm even at head-nodding stage with a few peeps!
AND lastly, for ENGL111 there are two doors to get into the lecture room, one is further along the corridor than the other, everyone entering and leaving goes through the nearest door. So by the time people can finally get through the closest door, I'm sweet and seated turning my nose up at the sheep spilling into the room.
Gotta love that elitist feeling!

2005-02-18T21:50:00.000+13:00

A nother fine shot of her bountiful bunch (not THAT bunch you dirty scoundrel!)

2005-02-18T21:46:00.000+13:00

Ok here, finally are pictures of the flowers i got Heather, ignoring my crude wraping, they don't look too bad now do they?

The Cusp, a belated recounting of my adventures in Nelsonland

2005-02-17T16:31:00.000+13:00

Ok, so where were we? Yeah that's right! So the day of the Cusp had turned up, Heather and I went into town for a bit to get some 'us' time. We went to Penguino's, which is an ICE-CREAM cafe, beat that! So we stopped by there, joined the long queue. On hot days I lose any desire for food and lust after drink upon drink upon drink so at Penguino's I was in a pretty happy place, and wow those ice creams were good :) leaving a long smile on our faces, that's for sure. Following that the next hour or two were spent wandering around Nelson until round 5pm, when we were expected at Trafalger Park (the great venue for the all the cusp's so far).
Now every year so far we (as in Heather, Betty, Roo, Eion, The Twins etc.) go to Trafalgar Park and it's fucking organised, drinks, buns, food in general, we kick anyone else's arses who attend cusp's in terms of preparation, much due to Betty's highly organised eye. She doesn't let anything slip, so it allows us to laugh at the sunburnt folk and the hungry folk. This year was no difference, making the afternoon-evening that much more contented and enjoyable.
The line-up was weak in comparison to previous years, with Shihad taking up most of the available cash allocated for the wooing of bands. Leaving little in way to entice any decent bands to play alongside Shihad. Below is a brief summary of the bands I saw.

Wicked Draw
They're Nelson-based reggae. That's it pretty much, mellow reggae nothing groundbreaking, but nothing amazing.

Neavus
From Christchurch they play boring contrived nu-metal "the future of rock" as they call themselves, well if this is the future fuck that! Fake and false, i couldn't find anything to like about them.

Master Pilot
Nelson hip hop, I've seen them a few times now, apparently they have toured with pretty much every big NZ hip hop group. Again good but nothing that grabbed me. The end of the Set, heralded a weird hip-hop David bowie jam, with some white musicians jamming away

16 Oz (16 Ounces)
Are from Mt Maunganui I thought they were Nelson Lads in that Daz (the organizer and of the best Nelson band possibly ever) joined them to play, rootsy, world music.

The Tuesdays
Boring, cliched rock 'n' roll, I can't see how they're going to make any headway in the competitive Auckland scene, derivative and dull. I think they have gotten worse in the two or three years since I last saw them, if you want to see a good girl fronted band go see Lady Luck.

4 Man Bob
White-boy ska, they finally drew a heavy-moshing crowd to the front of the stage. If you know 'The Reel Big Fish' or 'Less Than Jake', you'll know what 4 Man Bob sound like. Energetic and unoriginal but that's not what's about, in terms of personal opinion look at my review of Wicked Draw.

Falter
Christchurch band Falter were winners of the 2003 Cokesmokefreerockquest National Final. Overrated and underwhelming, winning a Rockquest over the likes of The Rabble (Do they still exist?) and The Checks (They certainly DO still exist!) Falter seemed to have a cherry future ahead of them, sadly every time I see them, they disappoint me with weak songwriting and weak performances, I know they could be big, but they never seem to play anywhere near where I suspect they could.

Paselode
Now Paselode rock, and it was at the Cusp that I realized that. Why? They groove, I usually looked for them to be real heavy and hard, yet that's not Paselode, they're a band more about beautiful little melodies and dittys with a ton of groove and a good vibe, the aim of the band. They have this Ballard 'Be Gone' and it blew me away. They were great and could have really finished it off with a strong finish, although stopped with three songs to go so Shihad could come on. Is it just me or is it Gerome that is the weakest link in Paselode? The rest of the band are now tight as fuck and together, play very strong, Gerome seems a little fake and some of his crowd banter almost makes me blush with embarrassment. Apart from that they kicked arse.

Shihad
Well I had been looking forward to Shihad the whole night, they were the band myself and over 10,000 other fans and curious passersby came for and they the worst I have ever seen them, possibly the worst performance I have ever seen. They sucked, simple as that, I don't mean physically, cause they were as solid as a band who've been together for 17 years can only be. But that's the point, they have been together for 17 years and they looked it plus some. The band looked like they were going through the motions, so as to grab their fee and piss off, this is shown best in his chant of "Hello Napier" (the night before...). They pulled out the usuals and I must admit, 'Home Again' to fireworks as new years counts down, does rock. But Shihad that night were a poor shadow of the Shihad I was hoping to see. For me, it was losing faith in my favourite band, I just felt jaded and old. Shihad were the band I went through my teenage years to...

Following the Cusp, we wound our way to The Trafalgar Centre to see what was now looking like being the savior of my night, beer and Degrees.K! The After Party (which is what it was) was great, I was down and Degrees.K were on fucking fire! I was up front going crazy, air guitaring with the guitarist Charlie J Underwood and Screaming along with Deano (the bassist) at appropriate points in DK songs. They played with a passion and a hunger I couldn't see that night in Shihad and it made me realize that while in my teens, Shihad were gods, now I've found through hanging out with them, that they're normal guys, guys who get old, change, just like anyone else. And damn! DK were good :) that really made my night...

Next up, the day after (replete with hang-overs and more) and beyond.

Boys with time on their hands are boys who get up to mischief!

2005-02-17T15:50:00.000+13:00

I rang up a George's school today, to talk about this band we're supposed to be starting. The receptionist wouldn't let me speak directly to George so I told the receptionist my name was Jonathan Junior (the fancy variant of my NZmusic.com log-on) and that I was a relation from England, who had just arrived in the country and that I'd lost my contact numbers for everyone I knew in New Zealand, so i needed George to ring me. I left my number with the Receptionist and told her to get George to call me ASAP.
BUT somehow George's MUM got involved and rang ME up! (I'd like to know how that came about...) So George's mum is a) Pissed off and B) Confused at who this person is (thats a bad mix in a parent) so she has rung me up and goes " is this John Junior" and I (being the slow-thinking fellow i am) said "yes", bad choice admitting I was the mysterious quasi stalker, so she starts up about demanding to know who I am and that George doesn't know who Ii am, she asked me what I thought about that!
Ii then paused. So did she. And then I hung up and unplugged the telephone line so George's mum couldn't ring back.
Now is that not a fine example of conflict resolution and maturity? I've decided that I need to go to Uni fast, before i really get in trouble!

Valentines day, not quite what i expected...

2005-02-14T20:55:00.000+13:00

Moped around most of the day, i met Heather at 10amish, I gave her the Roses and wasn't she impressed! The rest of the was spent playing computer games and playing guitar. Tomorrow I make a CV and distribute it!
Heather came home with her Valentines day present... The Shins new album 'Chutes Too Narrow', on vinyl even. It's so good! I fully recomend it! So do Pitchfork here! It rocks :D.

I love being a Romantic Commando

2005-02-14T11:29:00.000+13:00

Yes I admit it. I am a "Romantic Commando". My recent outing (last night in fact) has made me realise this, and i have to come out in the open about it. I don't care about Valentines Day, it's a corporate sham and also it's the WORST day to give a "love inspired" gift, as it's the day everyone is expected to. I took Heather out for a picnic last week, to the Botanic Gardens, it's beautiful there, sitting in the shade, we ended up chucking bread to the sparrows and watching them battle over a whole raspberry bun, it was the best fun we'd had in ages. That is what Valentines Day is about, cept it can happen on any day, and any day is better than Valentines day.
So ANYWAY, Heather does like gifts and what not, so i planned a while ahead to grab some roses from the Rose Gardens at the Botanic Gardens (which seems to be my favourite place in town, for good reason too). So I rang Bernie and organised to stay at his place, mission out under cover of darkness and grab some roses, 22 in fact as the 13th is our monthly anniversary and it had, the day before, occured 22 times. So at 10pmish I stalked through the Aro Valley, over the fucking annoying high hill. To the Rose Gardens. I was walking ever so quietly, when in the bushes to my left i heard someone walking around, i stopped and listened, they seemed to be trying to hide, from the sounds they were making. Sick of tracking this mysterious strangers movements, i walked on. The Rose Garden was empty bar the people cleaning up in the nearby cafe and the caretaker ending his work for the day. I scoped out the dell, figuring out where Bernie and I could enter unseen.
Rendevouing at Bernie's, we sorted out our gear, balaclava (it just made me look guilty of something), scissors etc. and off we went! Walking over the hill to the Herb Gardens, we sat, waited and watched the Rose Garden's for any sign of movement. A couple of people stolled by, quickly pilfering a rose for a loved one (maybe). Having made sure the coast was clear, we made our way down to the gardens. Bernie stayed on guard and i sloped off to the roses, finally ending in a prolonged bout of commando crawling so as not to be seen from the caretakers office. Heather hates the big bloomed roses, so i had to get the ones just preblossomed. In the dark this was harder than it seems, but in the end (30-45 mins later) i did it. A couple of times i saw a car come out and a man get out and walk around, i'd hide in side the rose bushes or press against a hedge so he didn't see me. Bernie says he was a sercurity guard and he (Bernie) distracted the security guard from where I happend to be at the time.
I stayed the night at Bernie's, so Heather wouldn't know what I had up my sleeve. Once I got back, i wrapped the roses up in two pretty coloured peices of paper (pink and green) and tyed them together with two pink peices of lace (there are pictures, cept i can't access them at the mo. they will be up soon). Heather loved them, more so because i commited a crime in my love for her.

Checks Tonight?

2005-02-11T10:37:00.000+13:00

How Could Anyone Possibly Know How I Feel?

2005-02-10T17:21:00.000+13:00

Ok I'm going to have a 'Morrissey'. I'm off to Uni this year, and so in the time honoured tradition of Uni students nationwide, I'm looking pushing my course related costs as far as they can go ($1000). i was looking at getting three sm57's and the respective cabling to complement my sole sm58 and my 8-track tape machine (when i get it). The problem is Heather is deadset against it. So much so, she took away my estimate, which i need in order to get the $1000. She thinks it's a waste of time and money, she doesn't like the fact I'll be borrowing money to get it, as she doesn't like any sort of borrowing and that includes student loans. She doesn't believe that i can make anything out of my recording, just like she doesn't think i can make anything out of the band I'm slowly getting together, she asks why I'm doing this when i can't do anything (i.e. play any instruments). It's getting more and more frustrating, as i don't see any encouragement from her. It's seems to me (and i could very well be wrong) that the only encouragement is for getting into journalism, as this is a "respectable" interest, one that will make money and a job. i know she cares about me and doesn't want me to get hurt, but it failed with my parents and really soured our (mine and my parents) relationship, I'm very stubborn when it gets down to it.
the problem is my passion first and foremost is music, whether recording it, reading it, listening or performing it (well I'm not sure about performing yet). She doesn't seem to believe i can make anything out of recording or performing music, her attitude towards me seems to resemble my step-mum Deb, treating me like a little boy, who doesn't know shit and needs to be protected from his own stupidity, and it hurts.

Fuck

2005-02-07T20:02:00.000+13:00

My arse is fucking chaffed! teach me for walking around in the sweltering sun, yesterday! fuck!

Q. What's that in the bush? A. It's Bush-Crazy Joel!

2005-02-07T08:51:00.000+13:00

Yesterday was 'One Love' a gig put on by Radioactive in memory of Bob Marley's birthday, at the velodrome, on a fucking hot day, yesterday. I'd organised to go with Gina and Bernie, meeting at Bernie's in Thorndon. Problem was, Gina was late. So Bernie and I walked down to the Cenotaph via Thorndon New World. Mmmmmm Danish! Gina had brought some friends with her, some nice, some tarty, I won't go anymore into that...
jumping on the bus the four people ahead of me got clipped on as students, so the bus driver assumed I was as well, whoop! $1 saved is $1 spent later on chips! We jumped off at the Hataitai shops and wandered off to the Velodrome. Once we had arrived, we were saddened to find any shade within easy reach was taken! So we spent an hour looking for somewhere to sit in relative comfort (it must have been at least 30 degree's it was scorching!). i had the stupid idea to walk through the bush and go sit on the cliff's overlooking the velodrome. Bad idea. We went up a moutain bike track i can swear wasn't overgrown with blackberry and gorse last year, to arrive at the mount vic road, where by, we released that you can to climb up from the Velodrome. We tramped down through the bush, i kicked a hidden stump with my left shin and my shin definitely came off worse. So we sat down in overgrown wild grass, feeling stupid for having come all that way and finding a shit spot...
i decided to go to my parents (a scant 15-20 minutes walk away) and grab a rug and umbrella from them. Getting there i talked with my dad about the current kerfufel surrounding the Split Enz documentary. There are a number of interesting discussions about it around the internet, mostly concerning the fact it will be closely guarded and only people in NEW ZEALAND can hear it. Anyway it is streamed on the Radio NZ website, as mentioned before to NZ IP addresses only. Now, as a rudimentary sound engineer i have programs which can easily record what's playing through my speakers. So that's that one solved.
anyway having taking possession of the umbrella and rug, i set off again, not before my parents gave me a mini-juicie, ohhh that frozen juice ice block was, lordly, amazing, just the benefit of having a little cold brick in my pocket rocked! Everyone else at the velodrome (while I'd left they had gone back to the actual Velodrome, not staying where we'd agreed they would) was soo soo jealous, it made me feel even better about the juicie than i had before (which in itself is quite a feat). So anyway now (at maybe 2pm by now) i picked my ears up to the music being played.
DJ Topknot was the opening "act" that day, I've seen him play sets around town and a strong Reggae vibe he lay down, which really suited the oppressive sunlit day, nothing less mellow could have worked.
The Scribes of Ra started up soon after i started paying attention, although hampered by a poor sound mix, the band got off to a good start, I'm told by those who know more that the band usually play a more up-tempo set usually, but what they played was fine, i enjoyed it. It's an all star collection of musicians who play some "Wellington scene", Reggae\dub music, ala Trinity Roots, Fat Freddies Drop and most other local big bands. so we (Louise had joined us by then) sat down (in the shade i might add) and soaked it all up.
once The Scribes of Ra had finished, there was a short wait till MC Rankin' Joe andThe Blood and Fire Soundsystem started up, not being very knowledgeable on Reggae or it's other sub-categories. But Rankin' Joe was great, he seemed to be just be letting out a stream of conscious flow of words "We're in Wellington!, nuclear-free by the sea" etc. i was swaying back and forth enjoying the flow, in between lying down for a nap half way through his set ;).
once that had finished, we waited about and watched all the stoners up front dance about until the sun finally covered the entire Velodrome (it had been slowly creeping closer and closer to the stage steadily through out the day). i needed to go do my stuff and deciding to go against the "don't wee in the bush" request by the Radioactive DJ's i went off into the bush, it wa soo much fun, running around the bush jumping through blackberry bushes and gorse "trees". i found a couch just above where we were seated and a washing machine, lots of fun, bar the cuts i got under one of my nails and on the join of one of my fingers and my hand. This all led to a suggestion of a trip out to the Orongarogna's (a mountain range to the east of Wellington). Good fun it sounds like.
i told Bernie about "Gay's Knob" a place on Mount Vic where "apparently" gay men in the early 80's, 90's and today, would stand and wait for other interested gay men to come along and have a gay ol time. Of course he wanted to know where it was so, there was MORE walking uphill. It was a bit of a disappointment really, it looks just like any other knoll around, barring the two short-short wearing male tramper-types who were walking down the hill when we came by... Having made our way down to Newtown without scratching ourselves anymore, we stopped by my old's place to grab a ride and meet Tess, she was playing up for the crowd like always, trying to draw (rather successfully) on both Aaron and a few of the chairs.
dad dropped Louise at her place, with Bernie, Gina and I getting off at Courtney Place for Gina to get on the bus. Bernie and I decided we were going to make up a small race-track out of my slot car set, so we walked off, Gina's buss didn't pass us until the CD & DVD store on Dixon St, which was a laugh as we were walking fucking slow.
Slot cars as always were fun, we made a short track and proceeded to race each other, with the honors being about 50\50. Bernie seemed to have a knack at knocking my car off the tracks at the few intersection points on the map...

Hurricane me!

2005-02-03T12:11:00.000+13:00

So Kathrine Rich is going to be dumped by Don Brash for not agreeing with his quasi-90's dole schemes? Again Don Brash has not talked fully with his spokeswomen about his (sarc) revolutionary ideas, and again he has stormed out (annually now, at the Orewa Rotary Club rooms first last year and now this year) of the National Party castle, swords drawn (all Anglo-Saxon style) preaching his far right views.
I really don't have too much to say about Brash's treatment of his MP's and his views on pretty much everything. Except to say, the 1990's were SO last century! Having seen my mum live on the dole for the last 10+ years and currently residing on it myself (atleast till Uni starts, when I'm going to have to start borrowing again) span (ner in the works) has some good things to say
it's cloudy and misty out here in "sunny" Wellington it's definitely not publicity weather, let me say that much!
I really should try get a job, a nice 10 hour part-timer would do well, something like that so I can live comfortably this year. Josh (old workmate at new world) leant me the books for one of my ENGL courses at Uni this year, good bastard he is! We did a swap and I gave him 5 CDs worth of flying nun song's he says he's keen for the chills, good taste he has!
and speaking of good bastards, the president of the Ukraine seems to have his head screwed on the right way, I don't care what part of the political sphere someone happens to inhibit. Just as long as they deliver the goods. And Mr. Yushchenko seems to be on the right track.

Party! PAAAARRRRTTTTTYYYYY!

2005-01-30T20:08:00.000+13:00

Just like the D4
the weeks at end, tonight's the night, well it's the weekend, so come on, alright!
party! party! party! party!
party! paaaarrrtttyyy! party! paaaarrrtttyyy!

well not really... I popped down by Joanna's place for some sort of party that she was involved in. Arriving over the hill from Aro to Newtown, I'd downed a few beers beforehand. When I arrived it was really weird, lots of people I normally wouldn't hang around with, I wormed my way through the crowd (most people seem happy to move out of the way of a scruffy bogan) until I found jess outside. She introduced me to Joanna and jimmy, who I had only conversed with over the net, funny enough we're all geeky members of NZmusic, so conversation often fell back to internet stuff and NZmusic stuff, sometimes even both...
I ended up pretty much keeping to those three, someone wanted a lighter so I brought over a candle, some guy in formal attire smacked into my hand spilling the hot wax all over my hand, burning it and causing me pain, he was pissed off I might of spilt it over him. I told him "what about my bloody hand?" which pretty much categorized the night ;). Saying that I had a great time, left at about 1:30 and popped by a party jess wanted to pop by, so me and jimmy hung around feeling awkward. The party was fancy dress and there was someone dressed up I THINK like 'Powdered Toast Man'. Something I can't explain pissed me off about him, I don't know why but as jimmy and I were leaving I felt the uncontrollable urge to hit him in the stomach. I ran off into the night, off home, hoping I didn't get a hangover.
as of now I haven't got one, go drinking enough to get tipsy but not enough to get fuck, so here's hoping for my good health...

Rock 'N' Roll!

Riding The Cusp Of Popularity

2005-01-29T05:22:00.000+13:00

Well I do seem to be in the 'in' crowd, I have already been linked to someone else's blog... I am STILL wondering how to do that, so a little advice here or there would be most welcome. It's funny because I haven't told anyone about this yet, I didn't care about anyone reading this when I created it. So...

a) make a racket and make people come and have a look
b) let word of mouth lure people to my blog

well one of those options is definitely dreaming!
Rock on!

The Homo-Erotic Tension That Is 'The Phoenix Foundation'

2005-01-27T22:17:00.000+13:00

First of all, it's amazing how many people will show up at 8pm to watch an indie band on a Thursday at the Botanical Gardens. I'm guessing they came in their thousands, I ended up agreeing with Jess that attendance was 'officially fuckloads'. The soundshell was packed, you can see it in the picture, except there were probably four time or six times that number, there were hundreds who couldn't even see the band, they were that far away, there were numerous picnickers and people just sitting around enjoying the sounds drifting past them.
The Phoenix Foundation were good, I enjoyed them immensely. The band played some new songs of theirs, which, to me, paled in comparison to their older material (especially goin' fishing). It was good, but not as good in my eyes, to songs off their debut album 'Horsepower'. Having had my whinge, the songs were still good, so musically deep and complex. The band had a way of quickly turning beautiful light mellow songs into big screeching noise filled extravaganzas. Such a joy to watch. Slowly, as the band went through their set, more and more people braved the huge crowd staring at their backs, got up, and danced away. By the end of the bands set, there must of been atleast a hundred people standing around, swaying and dancing about at various seemingly random speeds.
word on the street is their new album is out soon, with recording having been completed recently, needing only a few more touche-ups. It's interesting to note the involvement of Lee Prebble in all of this. His relationship with the band is similar to how he works with 'The Black Seeds'. Lee is involved a lot more than just recording their albums, he is almost a member of the band, it's these two bands which Lee tries out any interesting ideas he has recording wise, and he performs the job of soundman as often as possible (I think he does it all the time for The Black Seeds) . The whole dynamic changes when your sound engineer is involved to that degree with the band. The engineer understands much more closely what the band are trying to do, the relationship becomes a lot more personal and empathic. You can see this in the press the collaboration, The Black Seeds consider Lee their 7th member for the reasons I've mentioned before.
I'm slowly starting to feel this with Hot Swiss Mistress, there's a curious cycle, you work on songs in the studio and know them inside out, as in all the time changes, exactly where the vocals start, how they're meant to sound. Working live on the other hand isn't so much about the songs, it's about themes, ideas and the image the band are trying to convey. Usually there are a couple of people involved in that cycle, but when it comes down to one regular person, you can see how much more personal it gets. I'm not the soundman for Hot Swiss yet, but I'm a fan of the music and I enjoy seeing them play live. It's similar to the soundman's job but much less personal, not as involved, it's less of a collaboration, the crowd is giving less than the musicians.

here comes the sun... doo doo doo dah

2005-01-27T14:27:00.000+13:00

and lord knows how much i hate it (the sun). so hot, not clouds, possibly the worse weather for me. i don't want a tan, i gave up being a bronze Adonis in 6th form. it's "gorgeous" outside, so thats why i'm staying inside. i'm not a gorgeous person, i don't consider myself overly nice, more, selfish vain and the possesor of a rather large ego. at the moment i'm also surprisingly angry, student allowances, parents who i've never really emotionally conncected with, anger at the schooling system. the usual suspects.
current listening is carriage H and ghost plane. carriage H are a now defunct band who have turned into current underground darlings Die! Die! Die!. anyway very diffierent styles, with carrige H, more sonic noise, and ghostplane more, indie-country, beautiful little ditties with often complex arrangements...

Events events!

2005-01-25T20:22:00.000+13:00

Well yesterday was interesting...
I've been thinking about organizing a gig around my birthday. Probably April 1stish. I'll book happy and try get some bands. At the moment, we're looking at booking Diasteradio, Hot Swiss Mistress, Gruesome, K1500 Project, Goldenaxe and probably a few more.I'm reminded of 'Waynes World 2' (if you haven't seen it, see it) when the ghost of Jim Morrison says to Wayne: "if you book them, they will come". So I'm interested to see how that goes...
I've been thinking of starting a band for a while and yesterday it came to me. Gina, Bernie and I had talked jokingly about starting a rap-Godcore band. Ideas had floated around in my head and then I thought "fuck! Why not make this serious, keep it minimal, just the three of us, with a drum machine aka the Doublehappys. So I'm keen about it, our name might be 'Lazarus Got Mad' but we have to sort that out, it's a cool name...
along with this, I saw an ad for the Cuba St carnival asking for floats for the end of festival parade, so all I'll say about that is Sam and I am now a member of 'Dancing For Jesus (Cause He Can't Anymore)'.
I came to that point in my day, as I was walking back from the old Hoyts on Manners now 'Regent on Manners' with Heather having seen The Incredibles. Wow! It was sooo good, and definitely unexpected. It was not like any previous Pixar movies I've seen (Toy Story, Bugs Life etc.). The theme is that superheroes keep getting sued by the people they save (smashing buildings, stopping them committing suicide etc.) so all the superheroes are forced to remain hidden as their secret identities and not come out as superheroes. That is until a supervillan (well maybe not super but definitely a villain) comes and threatens the world. Now Mr Incredible and Elastigirl got married and had three kids. Two of the kids have powers (speed and invisibility + telepathic abilities) and the third is only a baby (who's doesn't seem to have any powers). Now the reason the movie works is that it's not cheesy kiddy pap, the Incredible family is disfunctional and real. The film is done SO well! I loved it and I really really recommend it to anyone! Just amazing

Today is the precursor for tomorrow

2005-01-18T19:16:00.000+13:00

i have decided to start guitar today, it's been bugging me for a while, tomorrow i start.

From Then It's Into The Sun...

2005-01-17T13:12:00.000+13:00

So we arrived at the ferry terminal on the 27th of December, courtesy of me dad (he fills a lot of our moving requirements, bless him) and hoped on. It was packed on the ferry. We squeezed in next to a window and tried to play cards. I got some playing cards from my mum for Christmas. The stupid card manuel was unintelligible. the packaging is all fancy looking, but once you get down to it. it was almost impossible to play so we ended up playing good ol 'Snap', good ol fashinoned simple fun!
having disembarked from the ferry, we serveyed the chaos. anyone familiar with the Picton Terminal will know it is usually quite spacious. Not today! it was 5-people thick, so i had to use all my leather-jacketed brawn to wedge my way through to get the bags (i do it pretty well, i might say). trouble was i had no idea what half of them looked like (another thank you to my dad there, for sleeping bags and big macpac tramping bag), so i had to drag heather into the throng, get her to spot em, then wedge my way in once again and retreive them.
heathers dad (Keith) came by to pick us up, he had a new girlfriend (Jane) and drove us to heather's mum's (Val) place in blenheim. heather's brother stuart is like the anthesis of Heather. male, slow, brutish, possesor of a lengthening criminal record, a drug habit. all in a rather lengthy 17 years. now we've always joked about Stuart being rednecked. but when we arrived at Val's place, we were greeted by two inmobile cars on her lawn, all that was needed were bricks underneath the wheels and they'd be perfect redneck-fodder. he was also walking around in a ford singlet...
Val and Heather have a strained relationship, disagreeing over whether Stuart was a wanker or not. before we left her place last year she asked who she was going to accuse of stealing when we started flatting, Heather being possibly the BEST and most consientious flatmate ever. that didn't obviously seem to linger about, and we had a quick feed. heather quickly got down to some networking and found who of her friends were currently in blenheim.
we went and saw her friend Jenna that night, she and her best friend Stef had spent the last year with scholarships in canterbury. needless to say the year seemed to be an alcohol induced haze. no scholarship this year! Stef had even been denied re-entry to her high acheivers hall of residence. it'd be weird to see what heather would have done if i hadn't met her as she would have gone to christchurch most definatley.
that was pretty much all we could do in blenheim execpt try to remember to go to $6 tuesdays at the movies, which we forgot of course and go to Keith and Janes for an awkward lunch.
we'd decided to go to Betty\AKA 's (Nzmuso) on the 30th, as Keith was going there anyway. it was like hitch-hiking without the hassle of finding a ride!
getting into Betty's was like coming home, i find it as welcoming as going to my parent's house, probably more so actually on second thought. We'd included Aaron this year, as we thought it was the thing to do, plus of course Roo and Eion (Betty's kids and friends of ours), the twins (Melinda and Louise). we're like the regulars there now, this new years beign the third in a row we'd attended, funnily enough where me and heather first met.

next up THE CUSP!

2005-01-17T11:03:00.000+13:00

Just a Hint of Heather

How Soon Is Now?

2005-01-17T10:39:00.000+13:00

fucking slack motherfucker i am i will write of my adventures in maoriland beginning with the departure of Heather and I to martinbourgh on the 25th...
my dad came around in the morning with my brother Aaron and we packed away in their car to Upper Hutt, where we were to up pick Deb and Tess up from the station. they'd decided to take the train as it was free that day. the car now feeling a lot more squashed, we drove over the Rimutaka Ranges to the sunny Wairarapa (home, funny enough to most of Hot Swiss Mistress) to Deb's mum's house.
a nice big lunch later and we're off home again. and it was straight into getting ready to see my mum the next day. due to my having quit work i actually had the day free, which ended up with nothing happening at all!
i'd glazed a ham, brough some cheese and crackers plus some chocolate milk. Porirua is one of the most northerly points that Heather has traveled to, she also doesn't go on trains very often, this leads to ever ride being an adventure. Mum is unempolyed at the moment, has been for like 10 years so she lives out in the ghetto also known as Cannons Creek. She had a nice collection of food, really good potato salad, nuts and apricots and to cap it off, some rich chocolate mousse.
we handed over presents and i instantly felt bad, as she got me the Blerta record. i had seen it in real groovy a few months back, and knew it cost ONE HUNDRED SHEMOLEANS...
i felt real bad about it, as shes on the dole, and $100 is a lot of money to spend...
after we finished at mum's. Heather, Aaron and I decided to head home, one problem. The last bus to the station had left fifteen mintues earlier! fuck!
so we walked 45 minutes to Porirua Train Station, to find, luckily, that the trains actually left at 35 past the hour instead of the 8 past it is before 8pm...
and once at the Railway bus stop in Wellington we found to our luck there was a bus stopping like 5 mins from our flat! good luck for us...
once home it was a short sleep and then packing for our trip to the South Island!

To Be Continued.