Friday Night Local: Shihad - Pacifier

Hey, and welcome to another May, another NZ Music Month. You know the drill. There's gonna be a viidjio.

And look, it's not a very imaginative pick this week. Another Shihad video, another one from The General Electric and another single. But dammit, it's a great one from one of our best bands who are getting a lot of airplay at the Monkeyhouse this week. I want to play this live one day.

Here's Shihad's Pacifier, recorded in 1999 and apparently written for Jon Toogood's friend Aaron Tokona of Weta/Cairo Knife Fight.  A bit of a family favourite, and even quite playable on a ukulele:

It's also a cool video, even if this one really needs to be in high definition. Yes, it's a Clockwork Orange pastiche, a bit like the Blur one, or the Rob Zombie one, but different because it's ours.

That's all I have, really. See you next Friday with another video!

 

In the Years of the Scavenger.

"I do get the feeling that by listening to the album we can kind of get closer to you than we have for many years, in terms of knowing who you are and where you are at?"

[Pause]

"You know, Jonathan, that'll never happen."

Bowie on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, 2002.

I first discovered David Bowie in the early Seventies as a young child, listening to The Laughing Gnome played on the Sunday morning children's show on an orange Aztec radio in my room. I can't remember what I thought of the song - I think I liked the sped-up voices.

I first discovered David Bowie in 1979, in television advertisements for the Australasian collection 'David Bowie! Chameleon'. Snatches of songs - 1984, Sorrow, over the top of weird and jarring images from his music videos lingering in my young mind. DJ featured heavily; Venetian blinds, mixing desks, a gas mask and boiler suit.

I first discovered David Bowie in 1979 on Star Trek, a compilation of Sci-Fi-themed music and songs. My brother and I had bought it for the Star Wars and War of the Worlds themes, probably, but this also featured sound-alike versions of Space Oddity, Life on Mars? and Starman alongside other knockoffs of Elton John, Boney M and The Carpenters. They were the definitive versions of the songs for me until...

I next discovered David Bowie on a three-album collection of Sixties British pop, the real Space Oddity featuring alongside the likes of The Honeydrippers, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Petula Clark and Cliff Richard. The box-set collage featured Bowie in an anachronistic Ziggy guise. I wasn't taken in.

I then discovered David Bowie as a creepy, unearthly figure, the singer of the irresistible Cat People (Putting Out Fire) which loomed large in my pre-adolescent subconscious, and of Ashes to Ashes, an even freakier video in which he tiptoed around a woozy landscape dressed like a scary clown (or, as I noted mere months later, Doctor Who in 'Watcher' form), or as a thrashing astronaut brought down to a suburban nightmare. Even I knew that Major Tom was a junkie by then. 

Then I discovered David Bowie with Let's Dance and China Girl; and, inspired by information gleaned from a courtesy cousin 'enthusiast', made my own compilation of Bowie songs, one side of a C60 cassette combining the various records we had and off-air radio recordings. "That's Bowie-", the excited announcer cries out at the end of Let's Dance; an addition I'm utterly unable to edit out, but which at least convinces me that once you're on top of the world you don't need two names. Like the rest of my class I was a fan. Briefly.

Then I forgot Bowie, and found him again, and set him aside once more for other things. He did duets with Tina Turner, movies like Labyrinth and Absolute Beginners, the Glass Spider Tour, floundering fare like Tonight and Never Let Me Down, and a classmate was such an ardent fan I avoided Bowie for years.  I was done. There were more interesting and less try-hard and pretentious artists out there. Like Sting!

I discovered Bowie in the smoky, incense-fogged bedroom of a bandmate on a loose Saturday night not gigging. He played Hunky Dory and pointed out, quite rightly, that it had a lot going on over the Flying Nun stuff I was immersed in. Even Andy Warhol.

Then Bowie turned fifty and had a big party with my university favourite acts, like Robert Smith, Frank Black, Billy Corgan and Foo Fighters. He released Earthling and Little Wonder, went all drum-n-bass and jungle, and in the middle of a brief but colourful UK glam revival in the Nineties, I was intrigued. Bowie pointedly didn't do the glam bits, but he didn't need to when the likes of Suede, Babylon Zoo, Spacehog, Placebo, Nicky Wire and Todd Haynes were happy to tip their hats to the master.

I rediscovered Bowie wearing headphones in a city dentist's chair in Wellington, listening to a supplied CD (Suffragette City), one of the most exciting songs I'd ever heard the man play. And being played by a Cuba Street busker (Ziggy Stardust). He was everywhere. I bought two compilations (The Best of David Bowie 1969-1973, The Best of David Bowie 1974-1979) and listened to it - selectively.

Then Bowie came to Wellington, and on a very rainy night I went to the concert. More on that later. Graham Reid produced three excellent overviews of the man's music for Radio NZ, interspersed with some earlier interviews. It was an education, uncovering more deep cuts to my growing knowledge - The Belway Brothers, Memories of a Free Festival, It's No Game. I think I still have the tapes somewhere...

Dad Rock ensues. Nothing to see here.

Then I rediscovered David Bowie through Jet Junior, who was, like many of his generation, an early adopter of the futuristic. Bowie songs grew and grew among our bedtime song collections. I finally discovered the simple genius of Absolute Beginners and its gorgeous C#m to Gdim drop through playing it on a ukulele of all things. But then, as Jet Jr would remind you, Bowie composed Lust for Life on a ukulele, so there. Kooks was my favourite to sing to him, and still is.

I'm still discovering David Bowie.

'European skies, European desires'

Manic Street Preachers - 'Futurology' (2014)


"I am the sturm und drang / I am the schadenfreude"

In unprecedented haste for a band of its age, the twelfth studio album from Manic Street Preachers was released around six months after its companion, Rewind the Film. Both albums complement one another, and yet are intended to be opposites, Rewind the introspective middle-aged Holy Bible, while Futurology, while not exactly future-looking, is an optimistic, outward-looking work. Its predecessor is no slouch, but fed on Krautrock, and presenting electronic soundscapes and a peculiarly Welsh view of modern European history, the Manics' latest album is one of their strongest and most complete.

"Working class skeletons / lie scattered in museums" 

Like Rewind the Film, Futurology was recorded at Hansa by the Wall, in Berlin. The British artist or group retreating to Berlin for reinvigouration and reinvention has past form, of course: Bowie (Low and "Heroes") and U2 (Achtung Baby) both did it, and while Manics eschewed Eno and parted with Visconti five albums previously, there is a sense of hat-doffing to the former. But this isn't pastiche as Achtung Baby pretended towards (and Zooropa achieved) but a logical transition. Doubled with Rewind the Film, its studio companion, the two albums converse and share ideas, sounds and influences.

Futurology is a confident album - still equipped with the doubts of Rewind, but seated in a continental context, and an historical one. Its Europe is a Europe of ghosts both living and dead: - 'The Next Jet to leave Moscow's' "old jaded Commie walking in Red Square", while bonus track 'The Last Time I Saw Paris' has its protagonist wander the French capital looking for 'the boxer' (Sartre) and 'the goalkeeper' (Camus), Grieg's 'In the Hall of the Mountain King' is sampled in 'Let's Go To War', Munch's painting in 'Between the Clock and the Bed', and more personally, the shimmering 'Divine Youth' sparks from Wire's catching an image of himself and Richey Edwards in their younger heyday on a bootleg t-shirt.

"To understand your country you must first understand yourself"

So while U2's European experience is largely as travellers and impressioned observers, Manics draw on European political history, Welsh history as European history ('Dreaming a City (Hugheskova)' and 'The View from Stowe Hill'), and their own politics to create part-essay, part travelogue. Far from the cut-up soundbite approach of the Richey era, there are easier entry points in thee songs, and what seems to be an attempt to demystify the lyrics, maybe Wire's past-affirmed "attempt at mass communication." And so alongside the possible survivor-guilt of 'Walk Me to the Bridge' and eflection of 'Between the Clock', there are songs about Wire's dwindling Socialist values ('Moscow') and a self-referencing of the band's more notorious history: "so you played in Cuba did you like it brother? / I bet you felt proud, you silly little f*cker."

My overriding impression of this album however is one of generosity. There are songs loosely about the band and its primary lyricist, but these seem small ingredients alongside the wealth of ideas, the inclusion of fellow Welsh vocalists Georgia Ruth and Green Gartside (duets being another element shared with Futurology), and the impressive soundscape from Bradfield and Moore - hinted at in the previous album's closer, but fully formed here. It echoes not only the Krautrock of Can, Neu and Kraftwerk ('Black Square', to my ears, and also 'Misguided Missile'), but more domestic influences - PiL, Simple Minds, a dash of The Skids. I don't think manics have ever not worn their influences on their sleeves, but here the influences seem broader and more accommodating. And I'm very happy to have it in my collection.

Cover story: It's allegedly a good sign because the band logo and lettering has the reversed letters back! fans would therefore expect a call-back to similarly-typed albums The Holy Bible, Send Away the Tigers and Journal for Plague Lovers, and, perhaps third album excepted, it's not a bad comparison. The photo: a blonde fraulein standing on a block of ice in brittle, beautiful midwinter sunlight. Gorgeous. And futurist Berlin architecture forms the backdrop to the band portraits inside. Job done.

'Success is an Ugly Word'

Manic Street Preachers 'Forever Delayed' (2002) / 'National Treasures' (2011)

By fluke of blogging FreakyTrigger recently covered Manics' The Masses Against The Classes on their Popular feed - mileage varies, but the fan support in the feedback is strong and not at all scary (they breed them polite and articulate over there.) So that's now fifteen years almost to the month since Manic Street Preachers' last number one single. The top selling singles are an interesting thing -  If You Tolerate This is Manics at their most stadium-friendly and gracefully earnest - probably the closest to Nicky Wire's later-voiced "attempt at mass communication";  Masses strikes me as an attempt to mollify departed fans - and they're just the number ones. The breakthrough could be Manics' NME benefit album cover of Suicide is Painless (Theme from M*A*S*H) - I'll come to cover versions in the next post, but it's an intriguing entry alongside Design for Life (being caught up in a New Lad misunderstanding earned it a Number Two position) and Everything Must Go the survivor anthem. From the unloved Lifeblood are two Number Two singles, while 'comeback' Send Away the Tigers yields a further couple, and the last top ten single the band has achieved since.

But Masses informs the title of this post and features on both of Manic Street Preachers' singles collections, both separated by roughly ten years and covering respectively ten and twenty years of the band's existence in the popular eye. A good band compilation can be met in different ways, the two most popular routes being the Best Of selection, and the more complete Singles Collection route. Alternatively, you might find yourself buying a collection edited and presented out of sequence for maximum playability (Queen’s Greatest Hits being an easy example), or something straight-down-the line, the chronological story. Manic Street Preachers, being somewhat a warts-and-all act, have had a bite of both, and the result is more or less a comprehensive history of the band in its early life and midlife.

Forever Delayed is their first Best Of – out of sequence ordering, fresh off the boat post-Know Your Enemy and the earlier Masses single. It’s a singles set with some exclusions, while the stand-alone tracks There By the Grace of God (a fitting taste of what was to come with the next album Lifeblood) and the dour Door to the River fill out the roster. Being the mid-era release it’s strong on the recent singles and an effective early history, but it only tells half the story. For some that may be enough.





 There are thirty-eight singles on National Treasures, twenty-four of which are UK top twenty hits. The collection is more generous to the early years than Forever Delayed (Slash and Burn is reinstated for one), and it seems to take an age to get through the first two albums alone. Of course Treasures continues where the previous collection left off, including tracks from Lifeblood through to Postcards From a Young Man. Also, unlike Forever Delayed, it's in chronological order, which adds to the storytelling aspect - I can see why some singles collections go out of release order, but prefer this approach. Also, as my friend David pints out, if you’re not a fan of a band’s earlier or later work, the track ordering enables easier entry and exit points!  Door to the River is dropped, but the stand-alone track, a cover of The The's This is the Day, is the feature, and I must admit to preferring it over the original for its urgency and build! A noteable omission is anything from Journal For Plague Lovers; the band never released a single from this, though there could have easily been two or three contenders, and I miss those songs for it.

In conclusion, both collections are worthwhile, and both did the business in sales, but it's hard to go past National Treasures simply because the story of the band continues and is still interesting. I've argued before that my following of Manics is a post-Richey Edwards thing, and that they are a band who I have aged with, so my appreciation is always going to be contextual. If you could argue that collections mark transition points in band histories, then I would agree that from the two albums which follow this latest Best Of a new direction has indeed been forged, and Manic Street Preachers are into another phase again - once again, to be covered in an upcoming and final post. With less of an eye toward the charts, and more of an eye towards creating an on-going narrative of self-reflection and maturity, I think this latest phase is their most rewarding yet.

"21 Years of Living..."

Over the past wekend marked two decades since the disappearance of Richey Edwards, an event that redefined the Manic Street Preachers, reshaping their lyrics, their sound, and their output through to the present.

Last December saw the Manics tour a live performance of their seminal album The Holy Bible, and album which to some epitomises the band, though its influence fades across the years. To some, The Holy Bible is their peak, and all else since can only disappoint; NZ's own online music reviewer and Chuck Klosterman-wannabe Simon Sweetman certainly seems to think so, and bases his review of Manics' latest album Futurology on whether it lives up to an album twenty years in its past.

I came late to Manics, well late to The Holy Bible, and you could say that it was reading about Richey Edwards' disappearance in a Pavement magazine in Dunedin's Metro cafe that got me interested in the band, and their story, in the first place. I am therefore a post-Richey Manics fan, and that era of the group - while impressive in places, is only a part of the overall story. And it goes on. Sorry, Simon.

The weekend's passing reminds me that I have roughly three more posts to go before I'm spent on Manics and their output - the Best Ofs, the B-Sides, and Futurology. I daresay Mr Sweetman's Off The Tracks review (the actual content to which his bait-and-switch Blog On theTracks often links to) will come up.

The countdown begins this week, then. With some non-music, non-movie posts in for good measure.

Friday Night Local: Minuit - 'Aotearoa' (2012)

Happy St Andrew's day, everyone!- whups, no, I'll do that tomorrow I think.

This is a quick post anyway, to get a few words in before the month expires and to allay the fears or at least one individual that I haven't fully slipped off the radar. I am in fact ankle-deep in plastic and tree bark, painting up my Mirkwood Elves, but more on that for another time, as they say. Let's do a belated Friday Night Local instead - and hopefully my worried reader won't think the song choice is something of a set-up...

Now, when Mrs Simian and I were new to Wellington we used to entertain our visiting guests from outside town by taking them to the national museum, Te Papa where they could feast their peepers on the tat and taonga of this young little country, the highlight usually being 'Golden Days', a sort of mini tableau history of New Zealand as a country set in a mock antiques shop cinema replete with animated curios choreographed with the action onscreen. We stopped taking friends to this some time ago, because the exhibit was never updated, and 'ends' in the now wide-eyed halcyon days of the late 1990s and, well, it's a bit tired and twee to the converted now.

"And if the past's a distant land
Maybe there is no rhyme or reason

And if we salvage what we can

You and me."

Minuit's video for Aotearoa, off their third album, the wonderfully-titled Find Me Before I Die a Lonely Death dot Com, could have repeated the mistakes of Te Papa's hoary old nostalgiafest, opening as it does with some familiar images to a local. There's a bit that's familiar in the song itself, I could add - the keyboard line in particular strongly recalls Kate Bush's Running Up That Hill, but the rumbling bass and the trip-hop drums carry it through well enough. The cleverness instead unfolds slowly.

Past a first full minute of largely black and white chronological images recalling the birth of a country and the usual suspects - Kate Sheppard, Earnest Rutherford, ANZACs on parade, Ed Hillary, Aunt Daisy, to a gradual splash of colour in tragedy and public outcry - the Wahine, Vietnam protests, Bastion Point and the land hikoi, the 1981 Springbok Tour, the Rainbow Warrior, the Tino Rangatiratanga flag and then Dame Whina Cooper weeping followed by... a child dressed as Batman?

"And yes it's true we're very young
And we have sticks and stones and bruises
Can we undo what has been done
Is this the way destiny chooses?"

Past the 1:30 mark history is quickly superceded and the present dominates the rest of the song, matching singer Ruth Carr's rallying call "It's you and I-I-I-I-I." Here's Aotearoa New Zealand as a fresh landscape, and its people represented by young, physical, happy, optimistic faces in a land of adventure and aroha. Minuit's fans submitted photos of themselves to create a montage of (allegedly) nearly a thousand faces, emblematic of a multicultural, self-aware country - stranded by geography, but one in which I am daily thankful I live. The stark contrast between the known and the famous of the past, and the suddenly anonymous present and future is a striking gesture, and though I swear it's not parochialism it gets me every time I watch this video. And I could swear that at 2:55 I can see Dr Morgue, though it's probably a doppelganger. Still, you know what they say about degrees of separation down here...

 Minuit performed their farewell gig and called it a day here in Wellington a mere few weeks ago, adding to the musical legacy of the little city of Nelson that already includes the likes of Sharon O'Neill and, er, Courtney Love. I've tried - a little - but I've not been a fan, but that's no criticism. Minuit were a nuggety little band who survived tours, illnesses and a fickle local industry to clock in a respectable number of albums, some overseas airplay and an enviable and frankly good-looking fanbase. So good on ya, Minuit, and all the best for future endeavours.

Friday Night Local: The Datsuns, Harmonic Generator (2002)

Richard O'Brien of Rocky Horror fame, Mastermind Jon Preddle of Doctor Who research fame, alleged comedian Jesse Mulligan of TVNZ fame... Hamilton, is there nothing you can't impress us with when it comes to the arts?

Certainly when it comes to 'New Garage', the city affectionately known as the Tron has it covered, for it is the birthplace of The Datsuns, and need I say more? No, I didn't think so.

Okay, so it's not Hamilton but Cambridge, but what's 24 kilometres down the Waikato River, eh?

The Datsuns' first album is a winner, and I know this because I own it, though I've never listened all the way through - a rainy day listen, maybe. It was a cheap purchase from the Oamaru Warehouse on a road trip down south. How do you make a lo-fi CD jacket even grungier and lower-fi? Why, lose the jacket and leave the CD in its case at quarter of the price - and so, a very cheap pleasure was made for me. But yes, three stonking singles and two of those have very cool videos to go with them. Now, MF from Hell really is my favourite, but for obvious reasons it doesn't get played in the Monkeyhouse very often, which is a shame as it would really rev up some winter workdays. However, if I can't have that song then the Wire-y Harmonic Generator is my next pick, so here it is.

Oh, one last piece of fact: this song gets namechecked in a Doctor Who Companion Chronicle (Eddie Robson's The Apocalypse Mirror) as a piece of TARDIS kit! I wonder if Jon knew that?