Virtual Life

Bob has decided to take a break

A week off cause he's bored with blogging and the like.

He'll be back in about a week.

Until then imagine him clad in speedos at a virtual beach on a virtual planet surrounded by virtual beers behaving badly.

Toot toot

Coil - Tainted Love

Back in my early Student Radio days I used to do a annual show of cover versions... I lvoe covers, I love silly bootlegs... I am not so fond of mashups.

I've dozens if not scores of 12"s and albums brought for the single reason that they contain a cover of a song, that is either rockin or often simply amusing and sometimes crimes against music - Paul Youngs versionm of Love Will Tear Us Apart for example.

Sometimes you come across one that is as good if not better than the original.

Here is one of those:

Coil - Tainted Love





Learn about Coil, they are amazingly good IMO, though not to everyones tastes, especially if one is a homophob.

Righto, the weekend awaits... sake, techno, minimal and good company on the cards for this evening

whoop whoop!

I must admit

that after trying not to be exctied or have anything but low expectations for the Simpsons Movie, having read a couple of reviews online yesterday I am now looking forward (understatement) to seeing the thing.

A big hearty welcome home Scott & Rose from the USofA. Scott's blog of their musical and other adventures are depressing reading, cause you simply want to have been there.

What ya like then?

Which Springfield Resident Are You?
	You are Comic Book Guy. Who said there's anything wrong with being a nerd? Certainly not you! You may be obsessed with things no one else cares about, but your passionate about what you do, so who cares what anyone else thinks?
Find Your Character @ BrainFall.com

Kerri Chandler is HOUSE

There are hundreds of songs I never finished or put out, So I wanted to share them with you. Every once in a while, your gonna see me post this stuff on the SP board. These are Raw Demo versions of songs you may or may not know. Then you can see where I took the real versions. There just up for the fun of it, and because I love the way you all are with me. Thank you for Being my family, and all the many wonderful years of supporting what I do.

Love, Respect, Peace and Admiration.

Here is a description for the songs they run kind of like this.

"Cant Let go" - was for Basement Red light number 2 - Gate-ah Never finished it.

"Even Though" Remixes - Just Never Came out.

"In search of mr Ford" - they Used the other mix on downtown 161

"My My lover inst" - I did dubs and stuff but this never came out on 12"

"Get out my life" - is My first Idea of "Rain" before I scraped it, Needless to say I had a bad break up, with my ex Girlfriend.

here's the link

Who would win a fight?

Thomas or the dalek?

I am taking bets now..

Bob's model railway

At any given moment there is a Bob out there doing stuff... A sobering thought to those whom dream of a perfect or even slightly ideal world.

For those on a train kick here is Bob's Model Railways, not this Bob but a Bob.

I've decided it is time to live my life through other Bob's. I've also decided its a week for trains, unless something significant happens to divert my attention from this topical and rather exciting subject matter.

An ideal sunday outing

Toot toot

Trains & BJs... essential some days

Bob needs a new phone

The one I have now has been on its last legs for a couple of years now... I could probably do with a multi purpose phone too

Don't ask me why, but it seems the thing to have.

Perhaps this is the phone for me:



Yep thats the one...

Can shooting someone ever be justified?

Is the world as we know it really over?

No one could get it so wrong so often and still be given the slightest credence as the Bush administration and the Washington it exists in.

Are you my friend?

You message someone, then a message goes to your email saying you have a message so you log in and check the message and then respond to it, in turn sending a message to that person's email to check their messages.

Doesn't that take the absolute simplicity of the concept of email, and make it only slightly less arduous than writing your message down on paper, walking to the post office for a 45c stamp and posting it?

Facebook and social networking summed up by Damien Christie

Facebook fever has arrived in New Zealand... I dunno but social networking sites seem the ideal domain of those with too much time on their hands - ideal for students (as most are designed for) and corporate office drones whom also have plenty of time to muck about during their daily grind.

Don't worry I have a page (?)/ presence on facebook.... for I have time to kill outside of work... sad old bastard I am.

Like the other social networking sites I only go there if
a) I am bordering on being terminally bored
b) I get an email telling me something or someone has communicated with my page/presence

I must admit to a short spell of addication to one of the many third party plugins for facebook - the music quiz... which I did real badly at, doesn't help that my internet connection at home is pooh, thus picking a band from a sample was often me hearing nothing and having a guess anyways... I also must admit know little about the differences between My Chemical Rommance, Fallout Boy and the other bands that are similar whom all sound almost exactly the same and other similar artists. Still I made it to Music Genuis with a sad 59% score - what pray tell does this say about the quiz? Them whom won't give it away as common sense and logic dictate get rewarded?

For all these sites redundancies and time wasting antics, one must admit to a fascination with them and those whom use them. Tis a amazing insight on human behaviour and reflection on our increasingly insulated way of life.... not too mention a means to kill time sometimes.

Starting the Day with a Song

Coldcut - Walk a mile in my shoes

I so dig this song, prefer the Henrik Schawrz remix (its does nothing brilliantly).

Robert Owens is such a awesome singer!

This is not the official video - thats on you tube if ya wanna search for it. This is one submitted by someone else, not as arty... I like it, simple and effective.



Original 1970 version of the song by Joe South here (embedding is disabled). It was also covered by Elvis (video here).

So there ya go

Another Bob writes about Crowded House

They say the most beautiful song ever written is "Waterloo Sunset". I don't agree. I believe it's Split Enz's "Message To My Girl".

I love the story of Terry and Julie. But when Neil Finn sings that "there's nothing quite as real as a touch of your sweet hand" he encapsulates the secret desire of this lonely rock and roll fan. We listened to the records because we loved them, but what we wanted even more was someone sitting next to us, with their eyes closed, body touching ours, as the music swirled around in the dark. Rock fans are lonely. They go to the show to feel that they belong. Listening to "Message To My Girl" I feel that I belong.

"Message To My Girl" is one of the few good tracks on "Conflicting Emotions", Split Enz's last album.

They'd been on Chrysalis. But the band didn't break through until they signed with A&M, and released "True Colours". It was 1980, when KROQ was still free-form, before it became the "ROQ of the 80s". When if a band from New Zealand with little traction released an infectious record the station would play it, without checking with a consultant or doing callout research first.

I treasure all those days at the Whisky. Not only Elvis Costello and Joe Jackson, but Split Enz. If you'd heard "True Colours" you had to go. Because the album contained not only the classic opening track, "I Got You", but three consecutive songs on the second side that are the essence of rock and roll, because they embody all the alienation, all the loneliness of being a fan.

And they performed "Nobody Takes Me Seriously", "Missing Person" and "Poor Boy" that night. But that was when it was still Tim Finn's band. Neil was not an equal, but a junior partner. But it turned out that Neil had a knack for commerciality, for composing catchy radio tracks, and he soon came to dominate. Not that Split Enz ever got any bigger. They seemed to peak with the laser-etched "True Colours". But I didn't think twice before buying their records. I needed them.

And when the band broke up, Neil formed a new group, Crowded House. Which had a monster hit a while after the debut was released, with "Don't Dream It's Over". But there's a song on that album that takes the essence of the Split Enz experience and goes further, "Hole In The River". It's dark without letting its mood sink the song. It's for we lonely rockers, with more questions than answers. But then Crowded House's humor eclipsed its touching realism, and I lost interest, they weren't going in the right direction, I reverted to listening to my Split Enz records.

And I'm a dyed-in-the-wool fan. I went to see "Coca-Cola Kid" because Tim Finn was in it. But each subsequent Finn record... It had the feel, the essence, but not the magic.

Now the magic is back.

Neil has reformed the band. Crowded House that is. Sans the drummer who took his own life. They were the Live Earth headliner Down Under. Not that anybody but a fan would know in the U.S. Over here, they're a theatre act at best. But to see the band play to tens of thousands, enraptured, in a way only spectacle rivets people over here, raised my pulse. Yes, there's was the first video I dialed up on MSN. Watch the audience sing along with the band on "Take The Weather With You". You'll scratch your head, wondering about this alternative universe, where a band not based on looks, that doesn't dance, makes it purely on music that's not Top Forty pop, is a cultural institution.

But if you dial back a few numbers, you'll find the performance of a new song, "Silent House". Which captures the magic of Neil Finn every bit as much as his twenty five year old material.
Better yet, dial up the band's MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/crowdedhouse. Skip the first three numbers, go straight to the last, the one played the least, "Silent House".

What did we love about Led Zeppelin? THE ETHEREAL QUALITY! Like the music was made in another world, separate from ours, where we not only wanted to visit, but live. Where everybody got along, where you were accepted for who you were.

Who are you? The guy who dons the fancy duds and puts up a front and tries to swim in the morass of the corporation or the person with more questions than answers, who listens to music that gets him through?

I'm betting you're the latter. I'm betting if we were stranded in a hut far from civilization your airs would fall away, you'd stand there naked, warts and all, desirous of connecting.

We're all little children. We cover up so as not to be abused. It's such a big job keeping up appearances. But if we don't, will we be able to get ahead, will we be able to keep our heads above water?

We doubt it. That's why we have faith in artists. They're playing the game for us. The true game of life. Where you sacrifice artifice, are a raw nerve-ending, your true self, subject to degradation as well as adulation.

"Silent House" begins like a lone boat on a lake in the dark. Afloat, but unsure where it is going. And when Neil Finn comes in singing, he sounds like a lost soul, almost dead, yet still alive.

Eventually the drums roll in, there are further textures, the track bobs up and down in the waves. Then comes the power. The explosive guitars.

How did we get here? How can we be this old and still feel so clueless? Are we going to die without achieving our dreams? Are we even going to be able to keep our equilibrium as the losses mount? How are we going to cope?

I don't know.

But when I hear a record as good as "Silent House", I can get through another day.

Bob Lefsetz

I thought the new Crowded House boring, now I've read this I am going to give it another airing... I doubt my mind will change but when someone I enjoy reading writes something like the above, it would be foolish not to at least revisit the song if not album.

Bot not today, I have a stack of new mixes downloaded awaiting my attention... Luciano, some old Derrick Carter mixes, them Romanaian dudes (Rhadoo, Pedro & Raresh), a Nick The Record mix and a bits and bobs compilation from Wayde.

It's Sunday and bob is listening to dance music and reading about crowded house - confused... just a little

Matakanui Mens Choir - God Defend The All Blacks

*chortles*

One of them weeks

Thankfully its Friday...

Checklist:

music - check
hat - check
wine - check


sorted

*taps fingers for hours & whistles a little....

Bob enters the Simpsons world undercover

What would Bob look like in the Simpsons world, well thanks to the power of the internetweb one can find out, he might look something like this:

Evil and leather aprons

Play is delayed

You Tube

My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult - A Daisy Chain For Satan

Robot Dance

Are we compatable?

We come in peace....

It simply beggers belief that Tony Blair would become Middle East envoy for the US, EU, UN and Russia.

This is not a man of peace, not a man who has any credibility with Arabs. Not a man who can be trusted... yet he gets the job. Yet another sign that the west seems to really hate Arabs and probably the Muslim world...

Is it any wonder some might strike back via one of the few means at their disposal, terrorism?

No, unfortunately it is not.

How long before the weird arsed christians get their Armageddon?

Blair and his type should be facing war crimes tribunals, not getting jobs where they can continue to contribute to other peoples suffering....

we come in peace, shoot to kill, shoot to kill

Nudity Shall Soon Be A Real Option

Naked DSL should be available from September

Wahhooooo

Bout bloody time too

For those who have no idea what I am on about, Naked DSL is a broadband connection without the need for a fixed phone line - which equates to a automatic saving of almost $500 a year to those homes who don't need or want a fixed line phone but do want a broadband connection.

This is a great big step forward for internet users in NZ.

Shame it had to come from govt regulation and not from the service providers themselves - you know doing shit for their customers.

Oh the joys of a tiny market place.

Meanwhile in the real world I can't help but be a tiny bit skeptical over the latest bomb threat in the UK - why is it these things are uncovered at such politically expediant times... we have a new British PM who now conveniantly gets to remind his electorate of the War On Terror... we have a Aussie PM soon to face an election also getting a bomber found in his electorate - can't say I've heard much of the aboriginal stuff of late in the news... is that a huge sigh of relief over the ditch?

Naturally I am sure these planned bombings are/were real. Or am I?

Its hard to tell what is real anymore, to the point where one has to ask the question - have we lost our way to such a degree that we could even consider democratically elected govts in the west would fuck with us?

Isn't that gods job?

Or the terrorists?

Oh we lost the boat race too... nation about to go into mourning.

Morning!

Wellington roots

Could these men be New Zealand's first soul superstars?
Jon Lusk on Fat Freddys Drop

Thursday June 28, 2007
The Guardian

Those searching for something a little different at last weekend's Glastonbury festival may have stumbled across a strange but beguiling act from New Zealand. Alongside the sardonic wordplay of Arctic Monkeys, the bluster and bombast of Kaiser Chiefs and the crowdpleasing efficiency of the Chemical Brothers, the soulful, unhurried sound of Fat Freddys Drop came across as music from another time zone. Which it is, in more ways than one.

Long championed by taste-making DJs Gilles Peterson and Charlie Gillett, Wellington's self-proclaimed "seven-headed soul monster" is steadily reaching out beyond the expat fanbase that first discovered its uniquely Kiwi hybrid of dub/reggae, soul, funk, hip- hop and techno flavours, marinated in jazz and served with a distinctly Pacific swing. Fat Freddys Drop are nothing if not eclectic. But how did they get that name - no apostrophe and all?

"It's one of those silly names that just stuck," says founder member DJ Fitchie, aka Chris Faiumu (or simply "Mu"). A New Zealand-born Samoan, he's a softly spoken mountain of a man, with a mischievous sense of humour. But he is not Fat Freddy.

After jamming with silky-voiced singer Dallas Tamaira and trumpeter Toby Laing for several years on Wellington's fertile late-90s music scene, by 1999 Mu felt it was high time they made a record. The song Hope was the result. "We wrote and mixed and recorded it all in 48 hours with the assistance of a drug that at the time was called Fat Freddys - LSD," he says.

Mu had been DJing around Wellington since the early 1990s, and by the middle of the decade had picked up enough production skills to set up his own studio at the seaside house he was renting. No longer satisfied with simply playing other artists' instrumentals for others to freestyle over, he started programming his own rhythm tracks on an MPC sampler/sequencer.

"As soon as we made that step, it became obvious quite quickly that we needed other people to fill it out even more. They were added quite naturally - musicians who had a similar love for the improv side of it. We'd have them come down and jam over a real simple bassline and a beat, and see what they could make out of it. And, as we started putting out the odd 12-inch, I suppose we turned into a proper band."

By now fully formed with three horns, keyboards and guitar, Fat Freddys Drop released their long-awaited debut studio album, Based On a True Story, in May 2005. Despite the lack of a drummer or a bass player - their rhythm section is shared between Mu's MPC beats, Iain Gordon's synth-bass keyboards and Tehimana Kerr's choppy guitar work - the album was a multi-platinum sensation in New Zealand and a cult hit in Europe, with worldwide sales now approaching 150,000. Following a triumphant European tour last summer, the band's current series of UK shows finds them road- testing new, more soul-orientated material, where set lists are replaced by "structures". True to their improvisational roots, every gig is unique, and they record them all to capture ideas. If their long, rambling jams at times seem unfocused, as they collectively feel their way from one groove to another, the payoff comes in transcendental music-making when "the Freddies" are really "on".

The band's laidback, island-time ambience is unmistakeably a product of its environment, but that seems only to have enhanced their appeal to British listeners. Though Mu's beachfront home has just been sold, the new owners have agreed to let him to working there for the time being, and it is just the right setting for the band's calm, cool, maritime style. "The vibe of the beach totally feeds into the music," Laing says. "If you go to a studio in the middle of town and it's grimy and there's, like, pigeon s#1T everywhere, it creates one kind of music. We can just walk out the studio door and the sea is right there. That definitely has an effect".
------------

Gotta love the Freddys, they like Prince have control over their career and thus destiny.

Go the Drop... like all of our artists that travel abroad the odds are stacked against them. But one always hopes for the exception to the rule and in Fat Freddys we have a act that isn't a clone of artists already found in other countries.

Their appeal could be widespread and huge.

Prince... he's done it again

Music industry attacks Sunday newspaper's free Prince CD

Katie Allen, media business correspondent
Friday June 29, 2007
The Guardian

The eagerly awaited new album by Prince is being launched as a free CD with a national Sunday newspaper in a move that has drawn widespread criticism from music retailers.

The Mail on Sunday revealed yesterday that the 10-track Planet Earth CD will be available with an "imminent" edition, making it the first place in the world to get the album. Planet Earth will go on sale on July 24.

"It's all about giving music for the masses and he believes in spreading the music he produces to as many people as possible," said Mail on Sunday managing director Stephen Miron. "This is the biggest innovation in newspaper promotions in recent times."

The paper, which sells more than 2m copies a week, will be ramping up its print run in anticipation of a huge spike in circulation but would not reveal how much the deal with Prince would cost.

One music store executive described the plan as "madness" while others said it was a huge insult to an industry battling fierce competition from supermarkets and online stores. Prince's label has cut its ties with the album in the UK to try to appease music stores.

The Entertainment Retailers Association said the giveaway "beggars belief". "It would be an insult to all those record stores who have supported Prince throughout his career," ERA co-chairman Paul Quirk told a music conference. "It would be yet another example of the damaging covermount culture which is destroying any perception of value around recorded music.

"The Artist Formerly Known as Prince should know that with behaviour like this he will soon be the Artist Formerly Available in Record Stores. And I say that to all the other artists who may be tempted to dally with the Mail on Sunday."

High street music giant HMV was similarly scathing about the plans. Speaking before rumours of a giveaway were confirmed, HMV chief executive Simon Fox said: "I think it would be absolutely nuts. I can't believe the music industry would do it to itself. I simply can't believe it would happen; it would be absolute madness."

Prince, whose Purple Rain sold more than 11m copies, also plans to give away a free copy of his latest album with tickets for his forthcoming concerts in London. The singer had signed a global deal for the promotion and distribution of Planet Earth in partnership with Columbia Records, a division of music company Sony BMG. A spokesman for the group said last night that the UK arm of Sony BMG had withdrawn from Prince's global deal and would not distribute the album to UK stores.
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Retail, generally speaking, in the music world are the weakest link... they take or took so much and gave so little. Great at complaining though.


Once upon a time walking into a music store was like a religious experience, the staff were cool, the shelves had music you wanted to hear, wanted to buy and the stores themselves didn't resemble a badly set up two dollar shop as so many do today.


The fact is Prince doesn't need to sell his music, he needs to sell tickets to his shows, get radio adn video play, thats his reality, his means of making the filthy lucre, not by sales generated in the old manner of physical music sales.


In the past and no doubt future Prince has shown, he won't be tied to the old models and outmoded constraints.


All power to Prince, for he is in control of his own career.


As for retail, well its quite simple, make the purchase of music something special, something one will make the effort for and maybe, just maybe your world will not be doomed - which i believe it is for all but those many (but also few) great stores scattered around the globe, those stores that music fans talked about in awe!


Meanwhile if you're quick you can get the single here legally for free :)

Rabbits howling at the moon

It is some silly early hour in the morning.

I can't sleep due to the rabbits outside howling at the moon.

Shut up ya stupid rabbits