Hubris.co.nz

Much in the same way that every day is Earth Day, New Zealand music is still a great and happening thing even when it?s not New Zealand Music Month. Here in no particular order (but please do feel free to cry foul and argue with your friends) are the top moments in New Zealand Music that happened between now and the last music month:

1. Channel Z, a long time supporter of New Zealand music with its 30% self imposed quota breathed its last gasp (even if according to the ratings no one was listening). All was not lost for, like a flightless nocturnal phoenix, Kiwi FM rose from its ashes, playing all NZ, all the time. Yay.

2. Because the New Zealand music scene was all too much of a love in (Betchadupa’s comments about Dimmer being “Like Marvin Gaye without the Marvin” aside), Scribe’s posse decided to keep it real by giving a bFM exec Phil Armstrong the bash at an industry Christmas Party. Some NZ hip hop artists rap in American accents because it’s official: Grey Lynn is the new Compton.

3. The Straitjacket Fits announced a reformation tour. There’s no verdict yet as to whether or not Andrew Brough will be joining the lineup, or if Miranda Harcourt will be lingering at the side of the stage to hear ‘She Speeds’ which, rumour has it, is about her

4. NZ Idol was the top rated TV show of 2004, with 24% of everyone over the age of five tuning in. Karaoke has never been so popular.

5. John Psathas composed the music for the Olympic Opening ceremony, heard by millions ? if not billions ? around the world. Unfortunately athletes got a lot more attention, funding and Macdonald’s contracts, but his work is no less impressive.

6. Helen Clarke said that it would be inappropriate for Aussie mullet-crooner John Farnham to play at Anzac Cove commemorations. Luckily the situation wasn’t reversed because if John Howard had said no to our Dobbo we’d have to go to war. There’s a joke in here somewhere about Tall Poppy Syndrome, but Pulp will not be making it.

7. Pluto finally released their second album, Pipeline Under the Ocean, and it’s bloody excellent. While Pluto had to battle their old record label at least they managed to escape Second-Album-Syndrome whereby if a band manages to stay together long enough to put out a second album it is generally crap.

8. Wellington’s favourite sons became Shihad again. Forget that Pacifier crap, we’ve got our boys back again.

9. Steriogram got to work with Michel Gondry on the video for their song ‘Walkie Talkie Man’ and the result was nominated for a Grammy for ‘Best Video’. There are some great music videos being made right here in NZ, and on a fraction of the budget, but Gondry’s work is up there amongst the Greatest Videos Ever Made, so that’s very cool. Steriogram also were chosen for an iPod ad in the U.K, which is a well known pathway to success.

10. Lots of New Zealand artists did a lot of charity work. The Asian Tsunami was a popular cause, with a range of gig held to raise funds. Meanwhile The Breast Cancer Research Trust proved it has a sense of humour when choices for a fundraising CD included Stellar*’s ‘Part of Me’ and Bic Runga’s ‘Precious Things’. Pulp is quite glad they didn’t stoop to Strawpeople’s ‘Trick with a Knife’ or Dave Dobbyn’s ‘Slice of Heaven’.

11. A little known movie called Return of the King helped Fran Walsh win a Grammy for Best Song from a Motion Picture? because LOTR hadn’t really done very well in the prize stakes until then…

12. After having been floating around in the charts for over a year, Goldenhorse’s Riverhead finally reached the number one position, in a year positively bulging with NZ music chart successes.

13. The top selling single of 2004 was by Ben Lummis, while the top selling album was by Brooke Fraser.

14. Comedic Folk Duo Flight of the Concords (Black Seeds’ Bret McKenzie and Humourbeasts’ Jemaine Clement) were signed to NBC in the US to develop their own television show, which will still include their trademark musical numbers. Are they destined to be the next Seinfeld? And what would Figwit do?

15. Q: How many NZ hip hop artists does it take to change a lightbulb? A: Not many, if any. In part influenced by just how much that phrase has entered our lexicon, Scribe won the APRA Silver Scroll for songwriting. Hilarious sub editors everywhere are eternally grateful.

16. After being scorned for so long and yet still managing to put out a critically acclaimed first album, The Phoenix Foundation finally managed to get some funding from NZOA for their video ‘Damn The River’ and for their upcoming new album.

17. The Dawnraid Allstars demonstrated that it IS possible to make some money as a musician in New Zealand ? as long as you don?t mind selling something or ‘hooking up’.

18. New Zealand musicians started taking public transport. Remember the days when every video featured the band riding in a car? Now Britomart is the backdrop of choice.

19. Evermore made it big in Australia. Wouldn’t it be nice if artists didn’t have to make it somewhere else before they got attention here?

20. The bands played for free, NZ on Air gave a cool half million and while TVNZ won’t disclose how much it spent, 24 hours of airtime could not have come cheap. The National Anthem ? 24 hours of live New Zealand music, which ranged from the sublime to the asinine raised an underwhelming $148k for the Play It Strange Foundation. Meanwhile, TV2 canceled Squeeze.

Top Five Non Music Moments in NZ Idol
1. Wardrobe malfunctions: the surplus chains, pink ribbons, gold lame jacket on Big Dave, the bird poo, the granny curtains?
2. Ben and Sela announce their engagement. Are they NZ’s Kurt & Courtney?
3. Paul Ellis stuffs up big time when Michael Murphy?s first single is exposed via the Internet as being a cover.
4. The Filipo Family Scandal. Are they NZ’s Gottis?
5. ‘Preformance’ entered our lexicon, thanks to the Dominator’s constant mispronunciation.

NZ Music in the The 2004 Rianz Charts

Singles:
1. ‘They Can?t Take That Away’ ? Ben Lummis
4. ‘Fools Love’ ? Misfits of Science
6. ‘We Gon Ride’ ? Dei Hamo
12. ‘Stop The Music’ – P Money feat. Scribe
13. ‘So Damn Beautiful’ ? Michael Murphy
14. ‘Dreaming’ ? Scribe
17. ‘I Got’ ? Fast Crew
20. ‘Yesterday Was Just the Beginning’ ? NZ Idol The Final Ten

Albums:

1. What To Do With Daylight ? Brooke Fraiser
7. Pure – Hayley Westenra
8. Everyone is Here ? The Finn Brothers
9. Riverhead ? Goldenhorse
11. The Crusader ? Scribe
13. Into The West ? Yulia
19. Beautiful Collision ? Bic Runga.

Pulp 2005

Don’t worry, I’m not about to go all Heather on you, although I feel it is only fair to warn you that generally these days her proposed solution to all my problems is “want me to kick their ass for you?” No, instead I’m going to talk about that whole thing when you know what each other have been up to on the weekend, but you’re just like “hey”, and have usual conversations about kebabs and Nazis, with only a “well you’re already going to hell” as an allusion to the other stuff.

Well, that’s pretty much all I’m going to say about it. I’ve been trying to reign in my gossipy nature (haha! How likely do you think it is that I’ll actually succeed?), although that said, when I showed up at Curve on Saturday night, and Katy said really loudly in front of the passively pursued boy and his new girlfriend “Hey Jo, how was your PASH?” I pledged my eternal love to her. Because I am a small petty man. Or um, large petty girl.

You’ve already read about Friday, so you can probably imagine that after getting home at 6am when I woke up at 1pm on Saturday I was like “FUCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCK I’m supposed to be at the food show!” and then I rang up Karen and apologised profusely but explained that I was pretty sure that I was still drunk. Then I responded to Jessie‘s text, since she’d obviously been talking to Lisa while I was still unconscious. For the record, a shiny young boy pashed me on Friday night whilst off his head. That’s all. He’s just a hilarious associate who appeared to blush yesterday when I saw him again in passing. Part of me wanted to yell out “dude! it was a pash, and while it was lovely, and you’re cute, that’s it and is sweet as eh, so you have nothing to worry about. Pashing is just nice and I’m sure you know that I actually fancy your friend, even though I do accept the opposite of an asshat rejection speech he gave me” but given that he was surrounded by older women who were cooing over him like he was their son, I just kept my head down and tried not to feel like a child molester instead.

So back to Saturday, I spent the day feeling very very shakey. I ate pizza and drank too much coke and tried to nap but my heart rate decided to go insane and beat at like, a trillion beats per minute. I blame the caffiene, but it’s kept being a little off since then, so I wonder if being around people in small spaces who were smoking pot has made me have traces of anxiousness again. But that’s just gay, so I won’t accept that. Maybe I should just give up caffiene. HAH! Why don’t you tell me to give up drinking while you’re at it? I certainly didn’t give up drinking on Saturday night. Lisa came and picked me up and we went to her house and played records. I have decided that I need to get a record player and start collecting vinyl. I feel like i don’t value music enough these days as I get most of my CDs for free, and I just play it all in the background instead of taking the time to go through the ritual of listening to music. And if I buy vinyl, I can in theory show my appreciation for the bands I really like even if i got their CD for free (although sure, in practice I may end up buying second hand). I am all about the ritual.

Once we’d worked our way through her stack, we took a taxi up to Jimmy’s party in Brooklyn. Jimmy’s house was lovely, as is Jimmy, of course, but every time a Phoenix Foundation song came on, his flatmate would go and change it, so we decided that he was an ass hat (although I’m sure he’s actually quite lovely), and since he was wearing those slip-on Vans, I decided that they’re actually just PLIMSOLES and made fun of him for wearing them. Lisa was like “but you know who else wears them?” and I was like “that’s the point also”. And then there was a girl in unspeakably tight pants, so I made lots of Helen Keller jokes. Again, I’m a little surprised that they let someone who is as obviously 12 as me drive a car and live by herself.

Eventually we said farewell to Jimmy and shared a taxi back into town, and I went to Curve Bar where the KKK were spinning records. Well, Mike and Chrisana were anyway, under the moniker of ‘Guns’n Amo’, which is awesome, as was the music they were playing, but even though the vodkas were $5 each, I was still feeling shakey and not quite up to dancing, so I stood outside and talked to people instead cos I hadn’t seen most of them for ages and ages. Plus someone told me that there are starfish in Antartica that are forty feet across. I bet you didn’t know that. Of course, I can’t confirm it, but maybe you can google it. I had an odd moment at work today when one of the boys rang me up and started going on and on about how he couldn’t sleep the night before because he was up thinking, and I was like “omg, wtf does this have to do with me?”, and yes, I thought in abbreviations like that, honest, before he asked me if I knew what the origins of the phrase ‘Pardon my French’ were. I said I didn’t know exactly, but figured that it was because the French are all dirty and uncouth, and then googled it and found out I was right. Awesome. But back to Saturday night when I saw who the girlfriend mentioned in the second paragraph was, and went “oh! that makes sense!” and was really happy about it. Katy and I shared a cab home, and I babbled my head off to the driver the rest of the way.

On Sunday, it was time for the food show. I love the food show. I wish I could marry it. I especially love almost all of the winemakers on the very very long (60+ wines) Wairarapa stall, whom we got to at about the time that our initial wine-tastings hit us in our hilarious banter spot. I was so upset when I reached the stage that I didn’t think I even wanted to try any more wine, although all food was snapped up with much gusto. Mmmm food show. I bought two bottles of dessert wine, a Stonecutter Pinot Noir (who keeps the metric system down? I do!) and some half baked bread. I also tried whitebait for the first time ever, aaaaaaaaand ummm started to get into a fight with Karen luckily right when she had to get off the bus.

Then Lisa and I went to see the Phoenix Foundation at Chow. They were drunk, and I thought that made them all the more awesome. I like that every time I see them it’s in a different venue with a different vibe. I was sitting by a window, and would every so often see people outside in the complete freezing cold and would think “why the hell aren’t you in here seeing the awesomeness that is this?”

It was a fucking exhausting weekend. I was very very shakey on Monday, partly from the cold, no doubt. Coooooooold. Cold like now when I’m waiting up for Heather to stop having a life and come online. And there we have it, the circular come around thing. I am actually Stephen Colbert, if you hadn’t guessed by now. Or maybe I’m just high on fumes from cleaning the oven and doing the floors with large amounts of bleach. Flat inspection tomorrow. Boo.

So! Hehehe. Friday night I’m out with some boys and Lisa, and we’re getting pizza, and we’ve been drinking for a while, and having conversations along the lines of yes, I will show them my boobs if they will pash. And then the boys get ahold of some pills. I of course am crazy (like, LITERALLY!) so I can’t participate, but watching their pupils dilate is hilarious, and being the good sport that I am, I run my hands down the back of their heads, and their wrists and skin and all that sort of carry-on, which is awesome when you’re pilling. The boys start getting a bit handsy – I mean, C had already been giving me lap-dances, but now he was crawling across the floor pretending to be a cat, and pulling up my skirt (hurrah for jeans under) and kissing up my arm, and lap-dancing me some more. D meanwhile was sitting in the corner stroking Lisa’s hair going “your hair is purty – sorry, i know you don’t like being touched” and I’m laughing my head off at that, and then C started kissing my neck and I was like “aaaaaaaaargh” and he was trying to kiss me, and I think we all know that I’ve been keen on D for a long long time. But C is young, and shiny, and cute, so eventually I have to turn my head and WOAH, I’M PASHING! And then I look away, and giggle, and try to pretend that I’m not blushing.

And we stay there for a while, and there’s some more pashing and I am so conflicted cos a) it’s C I’m pashing, not D, and b) we’re in my favourite bar that we go to every week and we’re being tacky and c) I’m feeling stink on account of Lisa also, because dude, I’ve been the “oh my god, what the hell is my friend doing?” friend many many times before, and it’s not cool. So after I have a scorched orange martini I convince people that we really should leave, which at least takes care of problem b). And D declares “well since I’m going to hell anyway…” and reaches over and grabs my breast, and I’m like “awesome!” and I laugh and throw goats. Somehow we end up at Maya, and oh man, it is taaaaacky. So I suppose I deserve to be there. But the hands-i-ness continues when D and I are standing at the bar together because stroking people’s skin feels good even when you’re not high, but then he’s like “ooooooh man, we shouldn’t do this” and I’m like “well, why not?” and then it happens, the thing that I’ve been waiting a good six months or more for – he says “We shouldn’t because I don’t feel about you the way you feel about me” and I am like HOLY FUCKING SHIT, YOU ARE THE MOST AWESOME PERSON IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD, and he may have apologised, and I was like “seriously, you are the total opposite of an asshat right now”, because to be high and handsy and no doubt horny and to have it offered up and turn it down on the grounds of serious matters of respect is fucking amazing (and makes me heart him even more, but we’ll ignore that fact). So that was absolutely awesome to hear, and then plus it made me feel much better about pulling C off into more of a corner to make out with him some more. He was like “you’re one of the best kissers ever” and I was like “are you making fun of me?” cos my self esteem is radness. The other thing he said a bit was “but we’re still friends right?” and I laughed lots because dude, we’re drinking buddies, not colleagues anymore, it’s no big deal. Ahhhh young boys on E, so cute. I apologised to Lisa many many times, but didn’t stop doing what I was doing, which makes me a dick. But I was very much aware of how often this would happen again (like never) which helps with the cognitive dissonance. And so cute and shiny. Lisa eventually left, and I was left at the bar by myself for ages, so I had another glass of wine and went “what the fuck is going on?” before deciding to leave, which meant trying to find D to give him back his jacket whihc was lying at my feet. When I did find him, he was like “OMG, thank you so much for taking such good care of my jacket!” with seriousness, and I was a little overwhelmed. They decided that they wanted to dance, so I went to Sandwiches with them, but instead of dancing I think C and I pashed some more while D was buying us drinks, and I stroked his cock through his pants under the table. Ahhh feeling like you’re 21 again, it’s hilarious.

I don’t know how long we stayed at Sandwiches, but eventually we walked up the hill to D’s house to listen to Tool. He had the same bedspread as my parents, and a LOTR poster, so I was like “awesome, I’m glad you turned me down” in my head. They smoked pot, and I laid on the bed and giggled a lot. Over the course of the night when C had floated the idea of coming to my house i was thinking I would say “You can come home with me but I can’t gurantee that I’ll have sex with you” but eventually I think their pills wore off, and I was really tired, so I called a taxi although I ahd a hell of time trying to think about where the fuck I was, and i was carrying my shoes in my hands and the puddles were icey, and then I saw the clock in the taxi and it said it was 6am and I was like AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH.

And yeah, it was very very amusing to me and i hope it was to you too. The part that’s making me laugh the most right now is that C’s mother is the accountant at work and I will have to try and keep a straight face when I see her tomorrow. Hurrah! Also, I want C to digitise my Garland tape for me, I hope he won’t consider that to be stalking. I have more gossip to tell you but for now I am too tired and must go to bed. So later skater xojo

My daily dialogue – both aloud and in my head – is currently peppered with the phrase “suck a fuck, you ass hat”. It’s great. It makes everything seem better when you can call the people who wrong you (rightly or wrongly) an ass hat.

You’re sitting in my favourite seat on the bus? Suck a fuck, you ass hat.

Or:

Oh, so you decided to stop reply to text messages because you’re seeing someone now, and you thought hey, passive rejection of someone who’s been passive-aggressively pursuing you is awesome? Suck a fuck, you ass hat.

Or:

You’ve got a new job which means there’ll be even fewer people to hang out with here? Suck a fuck, you ass hat.

Or:

My new boots are going to take a couple of weeks to come into stock? Suck a fuck, you ass hat.

Or:

It’s been three weeks now and what, I don’t deserve it? I know you got my last email, I typed the address on it perfect. Suck a fuck, you ass hat.

Or:

You drank my gingerbeer? Suck a fuck, you ass hat.

In the last case, I should take it back, because I later found my gingerbeer further back in the fridge. And of course, the awesome almighty power of the phrase, much like that of the panda dance, should only be used for good, not evil, and it mustn’t be abused.

Discoveries of the past week have included that fact that gravy on fries is super super tasty after all, and that Tiffany was Canadian. Apparently. We played Headbands at Canadia, and I was like “Okay, so I’m Canadian, I’m not a musician, I’m not an actor, I’m not a politician, I’m not a sportsperson and I’m not really a comedian, what the hell am I famous for then?” and then I laughed and realised who I was and laughed heartily. We didn’t watch a movie because the store didn’t have Southpark. Instead we just ate pancakes that took me an hour and a half to make because it was a quadruple batch, and a quadruple batch of chocolate mousse, and poutine(ish). Mmm poutineish. I have to say though, that I am still constantly surprised and disappointed by people who don’t tell me that they’re not coming. I mean, it takes 30 seconds to send a text message, and it’s free, so I don’t get what their excuse could be. Unless it’s me sending back nasty replies, but I don’t do that. Much.

The Phoenix Foundation were awesome later that night, but my belly was so full of Canada still that I couldn’t dance to the Mysterious Tapeman, and then my feet were screaming in agony leftover from the pancake-making, and I just wanted the gig to end. Luke Buda at Caberet on Sunday night was lovely and sitting down though, along with a $45 banquet from Chow. I took Mummy and Daddy along, as well as Lisa of course, and they enjoyed themselves thoroughly, which is grand.

What are my other things that I’ve been up to this week? I cried and cried and cried watching Extreme Makeover: Home Edition because it was a really political episode (yeah I know, random huh?) so along with the usual chick crack thing, I was crying for soldiers who aren’t Jessica Lynch and who therefore don’t get all the attention and cash-in, and I was crying about social injustice and I was crying cos the kid was so very fat,and how the hell does a kid get to be that fat? I mean, I was overweight, but I ate nutritiously at least. It wasn’t until we moved to Japan that I really porked up, and that was me making my own choices (“hey, at least food will be my friend…”). That kid was like six. Oh well. I prefer my chick crack to be much simpler and less of the making me think variety please.

Haha, did I really just write a paragraph about Extreme Makeover: Home Edition that didn’t also include the sentence “I’m due for my period soon so…”? I guess I did. Who knows where my period has gone. I’m pretty sure I’ll be giving birth to the anti-Christ any day now. That might explain why I’ve spent so much time on Myspace recently, including starting a group for the Country Club which you should totally join.

Right now I am full of lunchtime yum char with workmates, which was surprisingly more yum than I had been expecting, and full of plans to move tonight’s drinks from Ponderosa to Red Square, using the excuse of the weather but primarily because I always have a bad night if I go to Ponderosa, so frankly it can suck a fuck. And that brings us around in a nice circle, so I might sign off from this entry.

I came home about 10.30pm last night, and the kitchen was absolutely spotless, so I immediately asked Bart to marry me. He said yes so I walked back out to my parents’ car and they gave me a cheque for three grand, and I showed it to him and he said “well, I guess we’d better get a wriggle on then”. But then I decided to pay off my credit card with the cheque instead, since he hadn’t actually caught the mouse that we apparently have in the kitchen which was the reason for his cleaning. And yes, that’s right, I’ve had a credit card for under a month and I already have over three grand on it. But I also have tickets to America figuratively in my hot little hands, so that’s okay.

And I was home that late at night because Anji and I had gone to Capitol for a bottle of wine (I <3 Capitol, the service is outstanding, and the toilets smell so good, and the bruschetta is yum), and then we'd joined up with the rest'o the family at Hazel, where much more jolly awesome wine was drunk, and mountains of tasty tasty food eaten. I am currently craving more squid rings from there, and I don't even like squid. Perhaps I am pregnant. With the second coming.

If you're wondering why I am so much more chipper in this post than I was in Tuesday's, well it appears that the one/two emotional gut punch of watching 'The Body' and 'The Gift' together paid off. Well, that and large doses of the Arcade Fire, St John's, exercise, listening to 'Kim' on repeat (geez, why are you so angry, Marshall?) and all twelve episodes of the unbelieveable hip hopera Trapped in the Closet, which is just so fucking wow that it deserves another round of Holy Fucking Crap!.

Other things of note that I have been up to lately? Hosting the work quiz last Friday. After much debate about the amount of wine we were to have, we did end up running out. My arms ached from carrying eight bottles one block, so in a way maybe it’s better we didn’t have more. The quiz went well, even though I was having initial “no one likes me!” thoughts at the number of attenders, although we ended up filling the room very well. On Saturday I went to see the Dukes of Leisure play at the Carter Observatory, and I was drinking straight vodka from a small bottle, and it was all misty with lamp posts on the way there like Narnia, and we had pillows and got to lie down, and I got to have snuggles with first Anji and then Karen and we all know that I’m a Romanian orphan starved for physical affection so that was nice, and I fell in love with the man who gave us a star tour, because I love story-tellers, and they made us popcorn in the middle, and the music was good too and oh, it was just great and I was crazy giggly, and that amused me muchly. On Sunday I went to a private screening of The Imposters which was hilarious, and found out various bits of gossip that I might reprint here if I could be bothered footnoting it but I can’t, and I just felt choice.

Tomorrow is Canadia, as I’ve mentioned before, and then The Phoenix Foundation at Indigo, and then on Sunday Luke Buda at Caberet. And now it is nearly 5.30 so I must put on lip gloss and harrass the boys downstairs until they come out for a drink with me. My feet hurt from being an escort to a group of people who came to look at the clever things that we do at work. And then one of the directors referred to me as a handmaiden. That’s a lawsuit waiting to happen…