Farmer In The City

Song of the day

2012-01-23T07:09:00.000+11:00

"Moondance", by Blondes. Nothing whatsoever to do with Van Morrison. You would think I would be totally sick of that arpeggiated blissed-out space disco shit by now. Apparently not. (Admission: I sat on this for too long. I had lumped them in, unheard, with any number of Brooklyn lo-fi indie bands with interchangeable names. My bad.)

Song of the day

2012-01-21T15:32:00.000+11:00

"Leave It", by Mike McGear. Listen to this song without context. Without knowing who Mike McGear is. (YouTube spoiler alert.) You hear echoes of the vocal stylings of both Ferry and Eno, mixed with a pinch of UK Squeeze, and filtered through a Beatles prism. You detect more of 1982 than of 1974. Then check out the story of Mike McGear. And be amazed.

Wot no album of the year?

2012-01-06T16:44:00.000+11:00

2011: it's been and gone. I haven't kept a list of albums that might be considered "of the year", because the passage of time frequently proves my snap judgments to be wrong, and because I am not good at keeping lists. (I am good at starting them.) Most of the records that have caught my ear have been mentioned in these pages. Those I don't think I have acknowledged, but which deserve a nod (and

Song of the day

2012-01-06T16:10:00.000+11:00

"Walking in the Rain", by Grace Jones. A wise man once said that you learn something new every day. I was drawn back to this song by its appearance in the rather glamorous Peugeot ad that is currently appearing during the cricket. What caught my ear in the ad was the voice that comes in at the end: not Grace Jones, but someone who sounded suspiciously like whichever of Harry Vanda and George

A few words about "Bad As Me", by Tom Waits

2012-01-05T12:03:00.000+11:00

There are four stories of The Smiths. The first is that of the improbably iconic rock band, fanatically embraced by a legion of hyper-loyal followers. Rarely could even an English football team have been supported in such a partisan, proprietary manner. Hordes of teenage and post-teenage males (in a kind of gender-reversed Beatlemania) lost their bearings over either the

YouTube of the day

2011-06-14T21:18:00.002+10:00

I seriously don't know what to make of this.

Song of the day

2011-06-11T13:05:00.000+10:00

"Robot High School", by My Robot Friend. Just for fun. There is a little bit of Devo in there somewhere, I suspect. I find the video a bit disturbing, but you can always listen with your eyes closed.

Song of the day

2011-06-08T20:53:00.000+10:00

"Message To Pretty", by David Kilgour and Martin Phillipps. One of my favourite Dunedin records (I have a lot of favourite Dunedin records) is the self-titled five-song CD by a one-off sixties covers project called Pop Art Toasters, spearheaded by David Kilgour and Martin Phillipps. Thus I was surprised, nay, delighted, to discover recently the existence of another sixties cover (the original is

The other Martin

2011-06-07T20:19:00.000+10:00

Martin Rushent died last week. If you are 47 years old, and maybe even if you aren't, his name will appear on more of your favourite records than you would expect. "Dare" is the obvious one, and enough of a feather in the cap for any one person on its own. But if you add to that crucial records by The Stranglers, The Buzzcocks, XTC and Altered Images, plus reputedly coming up with the concept

Song of the day

2011-06-06T07:19:00.000+10:00

"Tijuana Taxi", by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. Hours, well at least minutes, of mirth at our house yesterday morning, thanks to the "random" (boys' word) saxophone honk that appears intermittently throughout this song. Now it's your turn. Honk.

Music sub-genre of the day

2011-06-02T07:31:00.000+10:00

Denis and I spent some productive time yesterday trying to come up with names of bands that released songs that had the same name as the band itself. We didn't get very far. I know there are quite a few out there. The story so far: "Laughing Clowns" by Laughing Clowns. "Talk Talk" by Talk Talk. "Radio Heart" by Radio Heart. (Technically by "Radio Heart featuring Gary Numan" but what the heck.)

YouTube of the day

2011-05-31T07:24:00.000+10:00

"The Bottle", by Gil Scott-Heron. A sad end to a sad life. I read a New Yorker profile of the man last year. He still had dreams and ambitions, but he also couldn't move too far from his crack pipe. I can't recall any other New Yorker profile where the subject had a crack pipe in his living room. Drugs might screw you up, but if it is the music industry that hooks you on those drugs, what (or

Song of the day

2011-05-29T19:02:00.000+10:00

"Evergreen", by John Foxx And The Maths. In which John Foxx, who has been quietly making records for much of the time since he disappeared from the scene in the mid-80s, teams up with a guy calling himself Benge (not to be confused with the similarly named Benga, dubstep artist; nor, presumably, with Mrs Robert Wyatt), who seems to have accumulated an arsenal of what would appear to be called

Bob Dylan: scaring the children since 1961

2011-05-27T07:10:00.001+10:00

As well as being the year of Bob's seventieth birthday, this year marks the fiftieth anniversary, give or take, of his emergence onto, uh, "the scene". But kids' music? And yet here he is, doing "This Old Man" (right click etc to download; normal click to listen), taken from a Disney compilation released to raise money for children with AIDS. A worthy cause, indeed, but I'm not entirely sure

Happy seventieth birthday, Bob

2011-05-24T07:02:00.000+10:00

"Dylan's music is not inspired. His melodies and arrangements are derivative, and his one technical accomplishment, a vivacious, evocative harmonica, does not approach the virtuosity of a Sonny Terry. His strength as a musician is his formidable eclecticism combined with a talent for choosing the right music to go with a given lyric. The result is a unity of sound and word that eludes most of his

Hammond be thy name

2011-05-21T15:41:00.000+10:00

Jimmy Smith. Mission Impossible. QED.

Song of the day

2011-05-20T07:22:00.000+10:00

"Satellite (The Bug Remix)", by The Kills. I don't know squiddly-did about The Kills, but I have a hunch the original sounds very little like this. The Bug, aka Kevin Martin, has been pushing the boundaries of sound, often in several directions at once, for as long as I can remember. Here, he sends the concept of dub out somewhere towards the stratosphere. Bass is the place. Hands up anyone

Record cover of the day

2011-05-19T07:10:00.000+10:00

It's not just a record cover ... ... it's a philosophy.

YouTube of the day

2011-05-15T17:55:00.000+10:00

"Look Back In Anger", by David Bowie. I can't recall ever having seen this video before. The thing that makes this song transcendent, aside from the very sprightly drumming, is the guitar riff that comes in just before the half way mark. Sublime.

2011 is not 1961 - or is it?

2011-05-15T15:18:00.000+10:00

The first thing that strikes you about this advertisement is how it could have been written in 2011. (It, and the following two ads, actually appeared in the New Yorker magazine in May, 1961.) The second thing that strikes you is how nice the graphic design is. (This was the era of "Mad Men".) (Click on the pictures for bigger versions.) When you have finished providing clean drinking water

Neil Young song of the day (6)

2011-05-14T16:55:00.000+10:00

Whether by intent or necessity (it was later revealed that at this time Neil Young was coming to terms with being the parent of a seriously disabled child; and we have some knowledge of how draining, physically and mentally, that can be) "Hawks & Doves" bears the devil's mark of "contractual obligation". Not without some justification: it was to be his final album for Reprise before jumping ship

Song of the day

2011-05-14T16:11:00.000+10:00

"Undeadman, ReMMix by Mordant Music", by Shackleton. Cabaret Voltaire for the 21st century. Specifically, the Cabaret Voltaire of "2x45". Mind you, Cabaret Voltaire were so far ahead of their time that they themselves might as well have been called "Cabaret Voltaire for the 21st Century". In which case, what would you call this? Yesterday's tomorrow's music today? My brain hurts.

Is it "irony"? Or is it just sad?

2011-05-12T08:18:00.000+10:00

From Harper's Weekly Review: "Two imams en route to a North Carolina conference on anti-Muslim prejudice were removed from a commercial flight because their manner of dress was making the pilot uncomfortable".

Song of the day

2011-05-11T07:15:00.000+10:00

"Blue Star", by Seapony. Those roads from today's music that don't lead back to Look Blue Go Purple seem to lead back to somewhere not far away from The Cat's Miaow. Which, obviously, can only be a good thing. It's just kind of funny.

Song of the day

2011-05-10T18:31:00.000+10:00

"Mubu", by Alberto Baldan Bembo. You are sitting in a discreet corner of a dimly lit piano bar. You are with your new friend. His name is James Bond. He is drinking a martini. His martini is shaken, not stirred. You, too, are drinking a martini. Your martini, too, is shaken but not stirred, because you are drinking with James Bond. This might well be the music playing in the background.

Song of the day

2011-05-09T07:09:00.000+10:00

"Le Coeur au bout des Doigts", by Jacqueline Taieb. A fine little song to get you moving on a Monday morning, and perhaps to start you thinking about the excitement machine that is Eurovision 2011, coming to a telly near you this weekend.

Neil Young song of the day (5)

2011-04-27T21:18:00.001+10:00

It was as if, after spending the entire ten years since "Rust Never Sleeps" wandering along diverse musical paths by turn moribund and bizarre, embracing everything from electronic music to rockabilly and all (disap)points in between, as if by a miracle all of Neil Young's stars fell into perfect alignment, because in 1989 he delivered "Freedom", a record that surprised everybody by being a Very

There goes another veteran of the punk wars

2011-04-27T07:29:00.002+10:00

RIP Poly Styrene.

Neil Young song of the day (4)

2011-04-25T18:51:00.000+10:00

On the other hand, some Neil Young songs are just good wholesome fun. This is as close to punk rock as Neil ever got, I think: even "Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black)", which famously name-checks Johnny Rotten, is more black sludge than punk (but in a good way). And so what if it was "only" 15 years after the event; and anyway it's not as if he wasn't listening). "Piece Of Crap".

Neil Young song of the day (3)

2011-04-24T13:01:00.000+10:00

Neil's 2005 album, "Prairie Wind", harks back to acoustic country-folk outings like "Comes A Time". But you would probably be happier going back to "Comes A Time" itself, given that this time around the acoustic-guitar-driven ballads, though of a uniformly high quality, are interspersed with, uh, other types of songs. One comes across as some kind of a paranoid-conspiracy song. One is, let's not

Neil Young song of the day (2)

2011-04-23T20:34:00.000+10:00

It would be wrong to call "Trans" Neil Young's most divisive album, because pretty much everybody agreed that it was awful. Including his record company. I hadn't listened to it until last week. I would like to be the one to tell you that it has improved with age, that it is not as bad as people have made out. But I really can't. What was he thinking? We can only guess. Young seems quick to

Neil Young song of the day

2011-04-22T16:58:00.000+10:00

Astute readers will remember that a couple of years ago I almost got lost in a spiral vortex of Neil Young obsession, specifically 1970s Neil. Conventional wisdom (which is sometimes correct, just as cliches had some meaning before they became cliches) has it that "Live Rust" was the end of an era, and that from that point on Young lost his way, if not entirely then for the most part. (One listen

Song of the day

2011-04-21T15:25:00.000+10:00

"Blitzkrieg Bop", by The Ramones. Punk rock barrage? Not a bit of it. This is pure pop. Happy Easter. May all your bunnies be made of Haigh's chocolate.

Department of Nobody Tells Me Anything

2011-04-14T07:12:00.000+10:00

What? Charles Shaar Murray has discovered the internet and I didn't know about it? (I wonder how long he will keep it up.) Along with Paul Morley and Ian Penman, CSM's writings for the NME in the early eighties turned me into the hairy brute I am today. I'm optimistically adding a link over there on the right.

Song of the day (3)

2011-04-09T16:45:00.000+10:00

"All I Want", by LCD Soundsystem. Last weekend I was lucky enough to catch, by chance, the last three songs of the last LCD Soundsystem concert, which was streamed, in a somewhat professional manner suggesting DVD release in the near future, on Pitchfork. This song, fittingly, was one of those last three songs. LCD had a fascinating career arc, going from total non-"band" in the early '00s to

Song of the day (2)

2011-04-09T16:16:00.000+10:00

"Saga Of The Ageing Orphan", by Thin Lizzy. (NOT "Saga Of Ageing Orphans", as the YouTube says. Also, this is a different version from what appears on the album, but I think I quite like it.) This one is dedicated, well, I could just as easily dedicate it to myself, I suppose, but this time it is dedicated to my cousin Gay, whose mother, my Auntie Margaret, died last week. I wrote at some

Song of the day (1)

2011-04-09T16:01:00.001+10:00

"Deeper Understanding", by Kate Bush. It's not every day that you get to say "Here's a new Kate Bush song." And I suppose you can't quite say it here, as what this really is is New Kate Bush For Old. Her forthcoming album is a reworking of old material, but what is particularly exciting for this listener is that the two albums that she is revisiting, "The Sensual World" and "The Red Shoes",

Laughing Clowns times two

2011-04-06T20:21:00.001+10:00

Found a link to these high-quality live Clowns tunes on the Prince Melon website. This is living. "Everything That Flies": "Come One, Come All":

YouTube of the day

2011-04-05T08:15:00.000+10:00

"Safety Net", by The Shop Assistants. This song is as strong a blast of fresh air today as it was 25 years ago. I actually saw someone wearing one of those Boy George caps the other day. I guess everything comes back.

Song of the day

2011-03-29T07:29:00.000+11:00

"Smoking Her Wings", by The Bats. Let's take a trip back to 1988, a time when Dunedin bands were capable of unfeasible greatness. (And haven't New Zealand done well in the cricket World Cup? Cue the immortal words of Mike Williamson, in a different sporting context: "I tipped this!") I fell in love with this song the first time I heard it, to the extent that if I ever get back to the list of

The hot new thing that's got the whole world talking

2011-03-26T08:49:00.000+11:00

The only thing better than listening to The Beatles is listening to The Beatles In Mono. (Hint: click on the cover pictures for more of what you fancy.) Ever since I bought my first complete set of Beatles albums on vinyl, in the early eighties, I have been vaguely troubled by the fake stereo separation evident on, particularly, the early albums. You kind of knew that Ringo wasn't really sitting

This goes with that (antipodean edition)

2011-03-20T15:56:00.000+11:00

The second album by Grinderman is, to my ears, far more satisfying than the first. The perceived intention behind the first album was to locate the precise nature of the change in direction forced upon the Bad Seeds by the departure of Mick Harvey. The brilliance of that plan was borne out by the success of "Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!!", the resultant Seeds record. Thus, in a sense, Grinderman's

Three songs

2011-03-16T21:19:00.000+11:00

One: "Calamity Song", by The Decemberists. This is perhaps the least representative song on their new album, and it doesn't include what, for me, is the record's main drawcard, viz., the backing vocals of Gillian Welch. What it does have is Peter Buck on guitar, and, for all of the band's protestations that they weren't going for an REM sound as much as a "Peter Buck" sound, this song carries

Song of the day

2011-03-13T13:41:00.001+11:00

"The Great X-1", by The Informatics. (Click to play. Right click to download.) (Somebody please let me know if this works. I am experimenting with something.) With synth wave, cold wave, minimal wave or whatever wave being one of the flavours of 2010/11, it is worth remembering that Australia had a very strong synth-band contingent back around the start of the 80s. Imagine: the small bar at an

Song of the day

2011-03-12T15:45:00.000+11:00

"Sticky Music", by Sandii & The Sunsetz. Some things just stick in your mind. Surprisingly, this was something of a hit in Australia. Surprisingly not because it isn't a very catchy song (it is), but because Japanese acts (I think it's fair to say; no research undertaken) tend not to do well here. Which is our loss, considering that they are at least the equals of anyone else in the world in

YouTubes of the day

2011-03-09T20:29:00.002+11:00

Comic Relief edition. In which Noel Fielding channels his inner Kate Bush: and Adrian Edmondson portrays the dying swan (with some help from another familiar face):

Commercial Zone

2011-03-07T07:22:00.000+11:00

Get these while they're hot. Always check the asterisk. Found in the New Yorker, early 1961. Click to enlarge.

Ain't no sunshine when she's gone

2011-03-05T07:26:00.001+11:00

Yesterday we said goodbye to Ella, the little black St Kilda street cat who has been with us almost forever. She has been an integral part of our family for all of the boys' lives, and well before that, and we will miss her. We were lucky to have her around for so long, I suppose, but just now that's not how we are feeling.

YouTube of the day

2011-03-04T07:18:00.000+11:00

"United Provinces of India", by Cornershop. You may have thought that Cornershop released "Brimful of Asha" back in 1996 and then stopped. You would be wrong. They have released two albums and several singles since then, all of them excellent. They might have raised a middle finger to the music industry, but that's not the same thing. This clip would appear to be a track from their forthcoming

Deleted Scenes

2011-02-26T15:19:00.000+11:00

Longstanding readers will be aware that I have, from time to time, replayed on the pages of this blog mundane and uneventful episodes from what might at a stretch be called my life and times. The following unconnected snippets represent the scenes that presently lie on the cutting-room floor, perhaps one day to be retrieved and turned into their own little short film,

This goes with that (sleight return)

2011-02-25T11:07:00.000+11:00

"Hark, The Herald Angels Sing", a Peel Session recording by The Fall, and "Pretend We're Dead", by L7. Strange bedfellows indeed, but there it is.