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Music

Music, Synthesiser Patel
MCA: A memoriam in video
10.05.12 | Permalink | Comment?

I’d like to take a quick break from all the New Zealand Music Month posting to refect on the sad news this week that rapper Adam “MCA” Yauch of the Beastie Boys passed away aged just 47.

In a career spanning almost 30 years The Beastie Boys had one of the most distinctive, energetic and creative voices in popular music. They released 8 studio albums, all of which are available on our catalogue, along with several compilations and EPs. A good starting point is the excellent, two disc best of The sounds of science (complete with exhaustive and hilarious liner notes) and last year’s Hot sauce committee. part two.

Although the albums are all great, the best (in my opinion) document of their work are the music videos, often directed by MCA under the pseudonym Nathaniel Hornblower. So what better way to celebrate Yauch’s life than a video retrospective …

Shadrach (1989)

So What Cha Want (1992)

Intergalactic (1998)

Don’t play no game that I can’t win (2011)

Great artist, huge loss.
General Monty, Music, NZ Music Month
New Zealand Music We Like: Monty again!
10.05.12 | Permalink | Comment?

Great news for the modern man: live at the Auckland Town Hall by Eru Dangerspiel.

Eru Dangerspiel is Trinity Roots band member Ricky Gooch’s side project, though it’s seriously major in concept.

22 piece group (plus choir!) including Whirimako Black, Anna Coddington, Nathan Haines and members of Fat Freddy’s, The Black Seeds, Fly My Pretties, Dimmer, The Phoenix Foundation – whew! It’s funky, it’s futuristic, it’s Great news for the modern man!

~ Monty
Music, NZ Music Month, Raewyn
New Zealand Music we like: Raewyn
07.05.12 | Permalink | Comment?

Little stranger, by Annah Mac

“We saw Annah in Taupo opening for The Little River Band and The Doobie Brothers. She and her band were great and really got people in the mood for the rest of the day. I particularly like ‘Girl in stilettos (Pohutukawa trees)’. This has a fun beat and when you see the guy live, playing it on the keyboard, he is really funny. They are all so young and he looks about 15!”

~ Raewyn

Annah Mac’s Facebook page is here.
Music, NZ Music Month, Simon
New Zealand Music I Like: The Wild
06.05.12 | Permalink | Comment?

The Wild are an Auckland alternative hip-hop group. They have not released an album yet! But they have released an incredibly awesome single, Revolution, which may be purchased on iTunes for like, $2 or something? Small change, whatever it is. It came out last year, believe it or not, but because I am old and out-of-touch I have only just discovered it. Anyway, I have embedded the video (for there is a video) below. In fact, their Youtube channel has a lot of decent content. So subscribe to it! Okay!
General Monty, Music, NZ Music Month
New Zealand Music We Like: Monty
03.05.12 | Permalink | 1 Comment

Seth Haapu by Seth Haapu

Seth didn’t get a lot of fanfare when his self-named title was released in 2011 and it’s kind of a shame because he’s very talented.

Natural voice, melody to spare, multi-instrumentalist – don’t take my word for it though – watch keyboard and vocal skills here:

~ Monty
Jack, Music, NZ Music Month
New Zealand Music We Like: Jack
01.05.12 | Permalink | Comment?

Happy New Zealand Music Month, you guys! All this month there’ll be posts on the New Zealand music that we like. Comment with some of your favourites if you want to!

There are a couple of Mint Chicks albums in the YA area (Crazy? Yes! Dumb? No! and Screens) and then some more in the adult area that you will have to pay $1 for, but it’s ok because they’re really good too (if I had to recommend just one it would be the EP Anti-Tiger). If you are unfamiliar with what the Mint Chicks sound like, then this will give you a good idea:

Energetic and punky.

Sadly they’ve moved on to other projects, but happily one of them is the excellent Unknown Mortal Orchestra (also in the adult colection, but so good)
Music, Synthesiser Patel
Grammy winning CDs
14.02.12 | Permalink | Comment?

The 54th annual Grammy awards were held last night in Los Angeles, amongst the 78 winners (78! There used to be more, last year it was 109) were a few that can be found on the YA CD shelves. Read on…

21 by Adele won six awards or something crazy like that, Album of the year is the most noteworthy. Confusingly, Rolling In The Deep won Record of the year and Song of the year, I couldn’t tell you the difference between those categories.

Wasting Light by The Foo Fighters was another big winner, with four. They won awards in both the “Rock” and the “Hard rock/Metal” categories, so they are to be commended for being “genre-spanning”.

Watch The Throne by Kanye West & Jay-Z features the song Otis which won an award for “Best rap performance”. Since it features an Otis Redding sample I suppose that kind of means he wins too. Well done, Otis!

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy by Kanye West won the other three rap categories. Well done to Kanye by keeping busy enough to release two albums this year, thus doubling his chances of winning Grammys. Shrewd move, Kanye, shrewd move indeed.

Own The Night by Lady Antebellum won Best country album. In our catalogue it is under “Pop”, but that is probably just because we do not have a “Country” category in the YA section.

Even though Taylor Swift’s Speak Now came out in 2010, the song Mean came out as a single in 2011, therefore it was eligible to win Best country song and Best solo country performance. Which it did. Grammy voters love Taylor Swift.

Did any of your favourites win?
Isn't that cool?, Music, Synthesiser Patel
YA Authors Rock Out
16.01.12 | Permalink | Comment?

Hey, did you guys know that Young Adult authors Libba Bray, Natalie Standiford, Dan Ehrenhaft and Barnabas Miller are all in a band called Tiger Beat together? I didn’t! Not until this morning when I saw this video of them performing “YA Song” in the New York Public Library.

You can play “spot the literary references” with the lyrics as well. They throw in some Hunger Games and some Catcher In The Rye, what else can you pick out?
Books, Grimm, Music, Top 10
Top 10: books and CDs from 1991
10.12.11 | Permalink | Comment?
It is the central library’s 20th birthday today. To celebrate, we thought a Top 10 list was in order, so here are five books and five CDs that first appeared in 1991. You might not have realised they were so vintage.
1. The Juniper Game, Sherryl Jordan (New Zealand) – “Juniper, a fifteen-year-old girl with telepathic powers, convinces her best friend Dylan to experiment with her powers.” (catalogue description)
2. Out Walked Mel, Paula Boock (New Zealand) – “Mel never knows when to keep her mouth shut and when she storms out of school she sees it as an escape – from a past and present too messy to deal with. But running to her self-centered father or her boyfriend aren’t easy answers either.” (Syndetics summary)
3. The River (the sequel to Hatchet), Gary Paulsen – “Because of his success surviving alone in the wilderness for fifty-four days, fifteen-year-old Brian, profoundly changed by his time in the wild, is asked to undergo a similar experience to help scientists learn more about the psychology of survival.” (catalogue)
4. The Awakening (the first Vampire Diaries book), L J Smith – yes, way before Twilight there were the Vampire Diaries. The Awakening is the one in which Elena first meets Stefan, while the town of Fells Church is the repeated victim of vicious animal attacks.
5. Letters from the Inside, John Marsden – “Two teenage girls become penpals and over a period of time seem to get to know each other – but do they?” (catalogue)
6. Nevermind, Nirvana – ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ — ‘Come as You Are’ — ‘Lithium’ — ‘In Bloom’ etc etc etc. Pretty brilliant.
7. Gish, Smashing Pumpkins – this was the Pumpkins’ debut album.
8. Blue Lines, Massive Attack – possibly best known for ‘Unfinished Sympathy’ which was a rather large hit.
9. Metallica, Metallica – the tracks on Metallica average out to be about 5.1 minutes each, Metallica being fans of the long song.
10. Ten, Pearl Jam (adult CD – we ran out!) – Another dirty great long list of classic tracks. I like ‘Release’ the best.
Music, New, Synthesiser Patel
New CDs with poetic descriptions
14.11.11 | Permalink | Comment?

Coast To Coast – Cody Simpson
Talented swimmer
leaves pool behind for a shot
at “Bieber status”

Making Mirrors – Gotye
Ashton Kutcher and
Lily Allen cosigned this
via the twitters

The Fall – Gorillaz
Recorded on tour
with Damon’s iPad, what an
age we live in, huh?

The Essential – Korn
Misspelled cereal
grain’s discography shoehorned
onto two CDs

Neighbourhoods – Blink 182
Together again,
“indefinite hiatus”
over, pop-punk back.